The final chapter of John Dean’s survey biography of Warren G. Harding carries the apt title, “Death and Disgrace,” because with a few months of his Aug. 2, 1923 death in the presidential suite of the Plaza Hotel in San Francisco, the Teapot Dome scandal engulfed his administration.

The cause of Harding’s death wasn’t well understood at the time, which fed speculation about his demise, including a theory that persists to this day that a jealous wife, who had discovered his infidelities, fed him poison in his meals.

The handsome, dapper Harding remained popular at the time of his death. His promise of a “return to normalcy” in 1920 had swept him into office as a virile, stabilizing alternative to the stroke-stricken Woodrow Wilson and the divisive treaty that ended World Word I.

But by 1923, Harding was suffering from his own health problems, including cardiac symptoms caused by an enlarged heart. The year had begun with the Jan. 2 resignation of Interior Secretary Albert Fall, the financially strapped cabinet member who accepted bribes from oil companies to explore Wyoming land named for its teapot-shaped rock formation and Elk Hills, California.

Early that year, Harding and his entire cabinet were struck with a virulent strain of the flu and undiagnosed heart attack that forced him into bed rest until he recovered.

On Feb. 28, Charles R. Forbes resigned as director of the Veterans Bureau, which was at the time not a cabinet post, for taking kickbacks for providing contracts. Attorney General Harry Daughter’s involvement in the scheme eventually led to his removal by Calvin Coolidge in 1924.