When Has the Flag Been Lowered in Honor of Other Leaders?

This week, President Bush issued a proclamation ordering the United States flag to be flown at half-mast in honor of Pope John Paul II, whose death on April 2nd has drawn millions of pilgrims to Rome to pay their respects. While many would assert that the gesture is warranted, it has raised some controversy within the U.S., and caused people to wonder how often the U.S. has honored religious and foreign leaders in this way in years past. As a Denver Post article reports, President Clinton saw fit to order the flags lowered for the deaths of former Israeli Prime Minister and Noble Peace Prize winner Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein of Jordan. Reagan issued a similar proclamation that flags be flown low for President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. U.S. flags were also lowered to honor Sir Winston Churchill upon his death in 1965, and following the assassination of the American religious leader of the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. As for President Bush, the only times that he has ordered the flags to be flown at half-staff out of protocol have been following September 11th, the Columbia space shuttle accident, the tsunamis of earlier this year, and the death of American entertainer Bob Hope.