Oddities of the Lincoln assassination

[RJNorton]

(11-25-2014 05:26 PM)Warren Wrote:  Oddity- that RTL was present or very near by three presidential assassinations.

In The Last Lincolns: The Rise and Fall of a Great American Family by Charles Lachman the author writes about the years following the McKinley assassination:

Lincoln thought he was cursed, and let it be known from then on he would no longer appear at any presidential function....Several years later Lincoln was invited to have lunch at the White House. He respectfully declined. In private correspondence he acknowledged his presence had spelled doom for three presidents. "If only they knew they wouldn't want me there," he said of the White House invitation. Still later, Lincoln, as a gray eminence of the Republican Party, was asked if he would attend an event at which the president would be present. "No, I am not going and they'd better not invite me," he said, "because there is a certain fatality about presidential functions when I am present." Robert vowed never to set foot in the White House again.