Evelyn Norton
was born June 25, 1909, on a farm in Polk County, Nebraska. She moved
to Washington when her father, John Nathaniel Norton (1878-1960),
was elected to the House of Representatives in 1927.
Evelyn
received a bachelor's degree from George Washington University in
1930. While attending law school there, she met her future husband
Harold Lincoln. The couple moved to New York
but later returned to Washington.
They were both active members of the Democratic
Party.
In
1952 Evelyn Lincoln began working for Elijah Lewis Forrester (Georgia).
The following year she
became the personal secretary to John
F. Kennedy.
She
held the post for the next ten years.
Lincoln
later claimed that in November, 1963, Kennedy decided that because
of the emerging Bobby
Baker scandal
he was going to drop Lyndon
B. Johnson as
his running mate in the 1964 election. Kennedy told Lincoln that he
was going to replace Johnson with Terry
Sanford.
Lincoln
was in the motorcade in Dallas when John
F. Kennedy
was assassinated.
Every year on the anniversary of the assassination she would go to
the Arlington National
Cemetery and place
three long-stemmed red roses on Kennedy's grave.
She was also the author of two best-selling books, My
12 Years With John F. Kennedy and Kennedy
and Johnson.
Evelyn
Lincoln died
on 11th May, 1995, in Georgetown University Hospital of complications
after surgery for cancer.
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
Forum Debate on Evelyn Lincoln
Namebase: Evelyn Lincoln
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(1)
Evelyn Lincoln, My Twelve Years With John F. Kennedy (1965)
This
morning we arrived, as usual, slightly before eight o’clock and
I was at my desk a few minutes later. But this time it was in a different
office in a different building. The old familiar objects were there
- the President’s padded rocking chair, his leather desk chair,
the Presidential flag, the books and pictures - but they were shoved
against the wall or stuffed into cartons. I couldn’t stand seeing
the things he loved so much in a state of confusion, and I started
searching through boxes looking for pictures of Caroline sitting solemnly
in his Harvard chair. It had been taken on one of her evening visits
to his office and was one of his favorite pictures. I wanted to bring
it out to hide the ugly bareness of the room. I guess I wanted to
reassure myself that nothing had changed.
(2)
Evelyn Lincoln, Kennedy and Johnson (1968)
The first,
the Bobby Baker case, came to light in September 1963 when a vending
company filed a suit against Baker for not fulfilling a contract.
The news and the reports that were filtering in about Bobby and his
transactions were disturbing to the occupants of the White House for
two reasons. First, Bobby Baker had used his connections to help swing
doubtful business deals his way. Although he was no longer on Mr.
Johnson's staff, he had a way of beginning a business conversation
with, "Well, Lyndon told me the other day."
If you worked
for a United States Senator, Democratic or Republican you knew Bobby
Baker, Secretary to the Majority. His relationship with Mr. Johnson,
then Majority Leader, was extremely close, so close that during the
campaign in Dixie in 1960 Mr. Johnson asked him to take charge of
his "Corn Ball Express."
As they crisscrossed
the South they came into South Carolina, very close to Pickens, Baker's
hometown. At that stop they got off the train, piled into a helicopter
and flew to Pickens to do a little hand shakin' with home folks. With
his arm around Bobby, Mr. Johnson said to them, "Bobby is my
strong right arm. He is the last person I see at night and the first
person I see in the morning."
Mr. Kennedy's
high standards were now rubbing against the ragged surface of the
Bobby Baker case. There were bound to be sparks-and they would fly,
fairly or unfairly, at Mr. Johnson.
Senator John
Williams, a Republican from Deleware, became interested in the case
and started to do some investigating on his own. (Much, much later
came the report about "Johnson warning the Republicans via the
grapevine that if they press him too hard on Bobby Baker, some G.O.P.
tax returns will be audited.") At the same time, the Department
of Justice started an investigation. They both dug in more deeply.
Pressures were mounting: Bobby Baker was in trouble and, October 7,
1963, he resigned.
(3)
Evelyn Lincoln, Kennedy and Johnson (1968)
As Mr.
Kennedy sat in the rocker in my office, his head resting on its back
he placed his left leg across his right knee. He rocked slightly as
he talked. In a slow pensive voice he said to me, 'You know if I am
re-elected in sixty-four, I am going to spend more and more time toward
making government service an honorable career. I would like to tailor
the executive and legislative branches of government so that they
can keep up with the tremendous strides and progress being made in
other fields.' 'I am going to advocate changing some of the outmoded
rules and regulations in the Congress, such as the seniority rule.
To do this I will need as a running mate in sixty-four a man who believes
as I do.' Mrs. Lincoln went on to write "I was fascinated by
this conversation and wrote it down verbatim in my diary. Now I asked,
'Who is your choice as a running-mate?' 'He looked straight ahead,
and without hesitating he replied, 'at this time I am thinking about
Governor Terry Sanford of North Carolina. But it will not be Lyndon.'"
(4)
Evelyn Lincoln, letter to Richard Duncan, a teacher at Northside Middle
School in Roanoke (7th October, 1994)
As for
(sic) the assassination is concerned it is my belief that there was
a conspiracy because there were those that disliked him and felt the
only way to get rid of him was to assassinate him. These five conspirators,
in my opinion, were Lyndon B. Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, the Mafia,
the CIA, and the Cubans in Florida.
(5)
Mary Evertz, St Petersburg Times (11th November, 1999)
Evelyn
Norton Lincoln was born on a Nebraska farm in 1910. She moved to Washington
in the 1920s when her father John N. Norton was elected to Congress.
She received a bachelor's degree from George Washington University
in 1930. While attending law school there, she met her future husband
Harold "Abe" Lincoln (no relation to the presidential Lincoln
family).
The Lincolns lived in New
York for a couple of years when he taught at New York University.
They moved back to Washington when he was offered a government job.
Mrs. Lincoln got a job on the Hill working for U.S. Rep. B.L. Forrester,
D-Ga. In 1952, she recalled telling her husband that her next job
would be for the next president of the United States,
"Eisenhower?"
he asked.
"No, John F. Kennedy,"
she replied.
Mrs. Lincoln had never
met the young politician from Massachusetts, but after reading a few
of his press releases, she volunteered to work on his campaign for
the U.S. Senate. In 1953, Kennedy asked her to join his staff. She
started keeping a diary, which she worked on until Kennedy's death.
Kennedy depended on her
not only to schedule his appointments but also for countless other
tasks, including ordering his reading glasses and bringing them to
Newport, R.I., on his wedding day to finding his tux shirt and studs
when his brother Ted was getting married. She traveled with the Kennedy
delegation for his historic trips to Ireland, Germany and England.
She was in the Kennedy entourage when he visited Tampa on Nov. 18,
1963. She also traveled to Dallas.
It was to Mrs. Lincoln
that Parkland Hospital staff handed the late President's personal
effects, including his Cartier watch. It was also Mrs. Lincoln who,
ordered by President Lyndon B. Johnson, cleaned out the Oval Office
of all Kennedy's possessions. Mrs. Lincoln moved to the Executive
Office Building next door to the White House. The files and Kennedy's
personal possessions were moved to the National Archives Building
in August 1964, where she continued to maintain custody of the material
until it was transferred to the National Archives and Records Service
in late 1965.
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