June 5, 2007
Presidential Longevity Posted by John Steele Gordon at 11:15 AM EST In my last post I noted that pipe-smoking Gerald Ford now holds the record as the longest-lived president, having lived to be 93 years, 4 months, and 12 days. That surpassed Ronald Reagan—who died at 93 years, 3 months, and 30 days—by less than two weeks. This brings up an interesting statistical anomaly among the Presidents, for the previous record holder in the presidential longevity sweepstakes was the second President, John Adams, who was 90 years, 9 months, and 4 days old when he famously died on July 4, 1826. He held the record for an astonishing 176 years. Presidents in recent decades have been doing pretty well in the longevity department. Since Lyndon Johnson left the White House nearly 40 years ago, every subsequent occupant has lived to see 80, and in two cases 90, or is still alive. Nixon lived to be 81, Ford 93, Carter is 82, Reagan was 93, and Bush senior is 82 (he’ll be 83 on June 12). Clinton and Bush junior are both 60 and, so far as I know, going strong. The miracles of modern medicine account for much of this, of course. Clinton would probably not have survived his recent heart troubles in earlier decades, and Ronald Reagan would certainly not have survived the assassination attempt in 1981 were it not for some very fancy doctoring. Better diet, better lifestyles, and a cleaner environment have also helped, I’m sure. But what accounts for the fact that four of the first six Presidents lived to be 80 or more? After the first six, things went downhill, and not a single one of the 23 Presidents between John Quincy Adams and Herbert Hoover lived to be 80. Andrew Jackson, who followed J. Q. Adams, was 78 at his death, and his successor, Martin Van Buren 79, but after that only James Buchanan lived to be 75 (he died at 77), until Herbert Hoover lived to be 90 and presidential longevity finally began to increase. With so small a sample, of course, it could be mere coincidence. But I suspect that late colonial and early republican America was simply a much healthier place than the country would be for the next century and more as industrialization and burgeoning population brought pollution and communicable diseases to much higher levels. Now if someone would only explain why four of the last six Presidents (Ford, Reagan, Bush senior, and Clinton) have been left-handed while only three of their 36 predecessors (Garfield, Hoover, and Truman) were.
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