CHINESE TO ME
Having spent some time early in their marriage in China, where they were real-life heroes, the Hoovers used Chinese as a secret language to speak privately with each other in front of White House guests.
MONEY PROBLEMS
When Harry Truman wanted to build a porch on the White House he ran into an unexpected expense. The back of the $20 bill featured, and still does, an image of the White House. The Treasury Department had to have a new set of plates engraved at what was likely a greater cost than that of the porch.
TOGETHERNESS
For many reasons, running from diverse schedules to even more diverse bedmates, most presidents and First Ladies have slept separately. The exceptions to this recently were both the Trumans and the Fords, who always shared a White House bedroom.
AT LEAST THE RENT IS LOW
Presidential daughter Margaret Truman call the White House the “Great White Jail,” but made improvements on the building that extended its use. The two daughters of LBJ called the executive mansion a “Great White Mausoleum.”
ALMOST CONDEMNED
By 1948, it was apparent that the weary White House was either going to have to be virtually rebuilt or demolished. President Truman authorized a $5.7 million project that was to prove both massive and all-inclusive. Architectural Digest wrote, “Today there is scarcely a beam in the entire building that has not been bored or cut through dozens of times to accommodate water and sewer pipes, gas pipes, heating pipes, electric and telephone wires, automatic fire alarm and guard signal systems, elevators, a fire extinguishing system and other mechanical innovations. In the very structure of the building itself, generations of architects and builders have concealed the completed mechanical equipment of a modem office building, none of which was provided or even contemplated by the original builders.” Without these changes the White House would have had to be torn down and replaced.
PRESIDENTIAL THRONE
The following was in the May 1952 issue of the magazine The Plumbing News: “If they offered me any room in the house, I’d take Mr. Truman’s bathroom. In the first place, it’s big—a spacious grotto of cool, gleaming, green and white tile, where a guy could set up housekeeping if things get tough. Then there are the fixtures all white…and a tribute to twentieth century plumbing. Take the bathtub, for instance. None of those squat little bushel-basket-like jobs you see in some modem homes. Our President’s tub is a good seven feet long—the kind in which a man can stretch out in when he comes home from the office, all tired out from working over a hot Republican.” President Truman’s other new bathtub had this message carved in the glass on its back side: “In this tub bathes the man whose heart is always clean and serves his people truthfully.”
PLUMBERS
The White House plumbers of Watergate fame were not tradesmen but operatives hired by President Nixon to get secrets from the Democratic National Committee, whose office was in the Watergate Building. Since Nixon had a double-digit lead in the polls and won by a landslide, you have to wonder why he bothered.
A ROSE IS A WET ROSE
There had been marriages before held in the White House, but the first marriage held outside in the Rose Garden was that of Tricia Nixon. It rained.
SAFE HAVEN
When top entertainers appear at the White House, they are occasionally asked to stay there as well. Georgia-born Jimmy Carter was, not surprisingly, a big fan of Willie Nelson. (This was long before Willie’s tax problems.) Staying there late one night, Willie Nelson went alone to the roof of the White House. Washington’s streets form a pattern, so that many radiate like the spokes of a wheel out from the executive mansion. The view and light show from auto headlights are said to be striking. The view was made even more impressive for Willie when the entertainer, alone on the roof, lit himself what he later described as a “fat Austin Torpedo.” He also observed that, beyond the view, no one is going to be up there by mistake, and no drug agents could even get in past the president’s security without making a ruckus, so the top of the White House may be among the best and certainly, as he put it, “the safest place I can think of to smoke dope.”
DINNER PLANS?
Often employing up to five full-time chefs, the modern White House kitchen is able to serve a multicourse formal dinner for as many as one hundred forty guests or, more casually, hors d’oeuvres to more than one thousand.
JUST HOME
The White House contains 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, and 6 levels in the Residence. In its walls are 412 doors, 147 windows, 28 fireplaces, 8 staircases, and 3 elevators. Occasionally there was an indoor pool.
Appendix
RATING THE PRESIDENTS
The following statements are pure, unadulterated opinion presented here because such a list is impossible to resist making.
TOP SEVEN
George Washington
Hey, he defined the job, not to mention winning the Revolution.
Abraham Lincoln Thomas Jefferson
Strong leadership in the worst of times. Among the best and unquestionably the brightest.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Strong leadership through two nation-shaking crises, the Great Depression, and World War II. Many of FDR’s New Deal social policies pervade American society to this day.
Andrew Jackson
If for nothing else, and there was a lot, expansion and restoring the government to the common man.
Theodore Roosevelt
Set the nation onto a course that has led to greatness.
Harry Truman
Hard decisions and a common touch. Few remember he led during both the end of World War II and during Korea.
Ronald Reagan
We won! And leading a renewal of spirit and patriotism.
BOTTOM FIVE
Franklin Pierce
If Buchanan’s inaction helped to cause the Civil War, Pierce appears to have actively worked to create the problem. He favored slavery and was elected with Southern support. He pushed through the Fugitive Slave Act and used federal forces to return runaway slaves; this quickly made slavery even less tolerable to its opponents and kept it in their face. He was also almost permanently depressed and eventually fell into a bottle.
Andrew Johnson
When not being inept, he worked hard to take away and marginalize the rights of the newly freed slaves. Lincoln’s successor, but far from his heir. The first president to be impeached.
James Buchanan
His hesitation, lack of leadership, and unwillingness to deal with the divisive issue of slavery has to be considered a cause of the American Civil War.
Jimmy Carter
He ran as an outsider and remained one, totally ineffective. His lack of strong policy positions, starving of the military, and constant battles with Congress nearly lost America the Cold War. A story is told that one of his advisers appeared before a gathering of foreign policy experts. He began by stating that he was there to explain the Carter administration’s foreign policy. A short pause to consult his notes was a mistake.
First someone giggled at the mere concept that Jimmy Carter had an actual foreign policy, then the laughter spread until the place roared and this lasted some time. This may not be a true story, but kinda says it all. Until recently, when Carter began to meddle in active politics, some said that he had redeemed himself as one of the greatest ex-presidents ever, with charitable leadership and personal hard work.
Warren Harding
DISHONORABLE MENTION
Nixon for style, his own personal really bad style.
About the Author
BILL FAWCETT is the author and editor of more than a dozen books, including You Did What? and How to Lose a Battle. He is also the author and editor of three historical mystery series and two oral histories
of the U.S. Navy SEALs. He lives in Illinois.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Also by Bill Fawcett
Oval Office Oddities
Hunters & Shooters
You Said What?
How to Lose a Battle
You Did What?
It Seemed Like a Good Idea
The Teams
Credits
Illustrations by Charles D. Moissant
Copyright
OVAL OFFICE ODDITIES. Copyright © 2008 by Bill Fawcett & Associates. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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