Dr. William Lukash; Treated 4 Presidents

Dr. William Lukash, who served as a White House physician for four presidents, has died at the age of 66.

Lukash, who most recently worked at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla,, died Tuesday of heart failure.

At 34, Lukash was believed to be the youngest doctor ever to receive a White House appointment when he was named assistant physician for President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966. Then a Navy captain, he rose to the rank of rear admiral before he left the White House with President Jimmy Carter in January 1981.

Lukash also served as assistant physician to President Richard Nixon, and in 1974 was named chief White House physician by President Gerald R. Ford.

He retired from the Navy in June 1981 and moved to Scripps as a gastroenterologist and chief of its new Preventive Medicine Center. A resident of Solana Beach, Lukash retired from Scripps in 1990.

A fitness buff who enjoyed tennis, running, swimming and golf, Lukash jogged and skied with Carter, golfed with Ford, traveled with Nixon and, before that, tried to rein in Johnson’s exuberance behind the wheel of a speedboat and a Lincoln Continental.

When Carter broke his collarbone skiing, Lukash was on the slopes to put his arm in a sling and call for helicopter evacuation. He got Carter to start running to ease the stress of his job. When First Lady Betty Ford had breast cancer, Lukash coordinated her treatment. He also worried about Johnson’s heart condition, Nixon’s phlebitis and Ford’s football knees.

After 14 years in the White House, Lukash decided to seek a new assignment in order to devote more time to his family.

“The president is perceived as the guardian of our national psyche. And if something threatened his life or well-being, you can’t imagine the response I would get. It creates quite a strain,” the doctor told The Times shortly after moving to Scripps.

Along with his presidential patients, Lukash had responsibility for the health of everyone in the White House and the Executive Office Building complex, a total of more than 1,500 people.

Lukash was born in Detroit and studied medicine at Michigan State University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree. He received his medical degree in 1956 from the University of Michigan and joined the Navy in 1957.

He served an internship at Wayne County General Hospital in Eloise, Mich., and a residency in internal medicine at the Naval Hospital in Great Lakes, Ill.

In addition to his wife, Loraine, he is survived by two daughters, Laura and Karaleen, of Solana Beach; and a brother, Robert, of Lincoln Park, Mich.