by J. B. West
The offending item—even more pungent as it was brought into the air—was a well-chewed ham bone!
“Your mystery is solved,” I explained to Mary. “The rats dragged the ham off the counter and carried it away.”
“Rats!” the housekeeper screamed in horror. “Rats in the White House?”
“Well, we’re in the middle of downtown Washington,” I told her. “And don’t be alarmed. It’s not the first time we’ve had rats.”
Actually, rats were an old story for us. Once, during the Trumans, Reathel Odum called me out to the South Portico, where she and Mrs. Wallace were eating dinner. We watched, fascinated, while a large, brown rat walked up the steps, across the portico and down the steps on the other side, before I called the gardener to chase it away.
Later the unwelcome animals became more of a problem. We found that they came from underneath Lafayette Park across the street, where they’d built acres and acres of catacombs. At night, the police told us, Pennsylvania Avenue looked as if Napoleon’s army were crossing the street to the White House grounds.
We called in an exterminator, who came in every couple of weeks and worked on the grounds and in Lafayette Park until the worst of them were eliminated. But every now and then they came back, at least once during each administration. Fortunately, after the ham-bone incident, we sneaked the exterminators in and out very quickly.
“We’ll have to keep the dogs away from the rat poison,” Mary worried. The exterminator assured us that their poison only affected rats, so we were able to get rid of the vermin without having to inform the First Lady.
At one of our discussions about kitchen expenses and rivalries, Mrs. Johnson apologized for violating her own rule to stay out of day-to-day management of the mansion. “I realize,” she said, “that there are some things we have to discuss now and then.”
There were quite a few such discussions over the years, in which Mrs. Johnson had to arbitrate disputes or settle matters both large and small. Throughout all those discussions I never heard Lady Bird Johnson with a sharp word for anybody, with complaint or anger in her voice, with anything but a pleasant expression on her face.
Once, her press secretary and her curator became embroiled in an argument over the nature of the “White House history” exhibits in the ground-floor corridor. Liz had been offered an exhibit of campaign memorabilia; Jim felt strongly that the mansion belonged to all the people and should display only White House artifacts such as Mrs. Grover Cleveland’s sewing box.
Mrs. Johnson listened patiently to their presentations, which grew more and more heated. Then she interrupted.
“You’re acting like children,” she said firmly in her most schoolteacherly voice. “That will be quite enough argument. I will make the decision.” And she did. The exhibits were limited to First Ladies’ sewing boxes and the like.
She often showed the practical side to her nature, as when we were revamping the West Sitting Hall on the second floor. We reupholstered in the same fabrics, but added new curtains and a rug. Mrs. Brown from the McMillen Company in New York, who was helping out, suggested new lampshades as well. Mrs. Johnson called me up to inspect the decorator’s photographs.
“These lampshades cost a hundred dollars each,” she said. “Don’t you think that’s awfully expensive?”
“I do, but most of them around here cost a lot more than that,” I pointed out.
“Well, if this old house is used to that sort of thing, go ahead and order them,” she said, half-disapprovingly.
* When she finally left the White House, her salary had been raised to $9,000 a year.
4
THOUGH SHE HAD BECOME an avid student of art appreciation and art history, Mrs. Johnson, as First Lady, wanted her own project. Making the State rooms a museum was, after all, Jacqueline Kennedy’s idea, and no matter how many paintings or pieces of furniture she acquired, she knew the end product would be referred to as “adding to Mrs. Kennedy’s restoration.”
The White House politicians—including those stationed in the east wing—had discovered what a natural asset the President had in Lady Bird Johnson. She was a poised public speaker, an intrepid, articulate question-answerer, and she did her homework.
Mrs. Johnson became an ambassador of sorts to various projects and programs of her husband’s “Great Society,” taking well-publicized trips to Head Start classrooms, job training centers, homes of poor mountaineers. Her visits, always accompanied by Liz’s thoroughly briefed press corps, drew national attention wherever she went. At the White House, she initiated a monthly series of “Women Doers” luncheons for prominent women leaders, professionals and volunteers.
Shortly before Mrs. Johnson went out to campaign for her husband’s election in 1964, Liz Carpenter and staff began looking for a project for Mrs. Johnson, one that would be uniquely hers. Liz called me for ideas.
“You ought to be able to figure out something,” she said.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t.
Off they went on the Lady Bird Special, whistling through Dixie on a red-white-and-blue train, and when they came back, winning the election to the tune of 61 percent of the vote, they had discovered Beautification. It fit Mrs. Johnson to a T.
The beautification project helped Mrs. Johnson become a national figure in her own right. It took her out of her husband’s shadow, but not away from his side. If at first the project appeared to be “manufactured” for her as a quasi-political vehicle, she more than grew into the job, giving it unmatched energy and zeal, and gained respect from conservationists throughout the country.
Behind her, providing inspiration, speeches, information, and locale, was the entire Department of the Interior and its National Park Service. Liz Carpenter, though, was the brains of the operation, thinking up occasions, grinding out press releases, setting up conferences, all to obtain the maximum amount of publicity for the First Lady and her goals of preserving and reclaiming the scenic beauty of America. It caught on.
Her numerous speeches, raft trips down rivers, and ceremonial tree plantings became a forerunner of the ecology movement that began to sweep through the country in the late 1960s.
The White House seemed always to be full of beautification people. From the meetings there, they’d board special buses and go on an inspection tour of Washington, D. C. with Mrs. Johnson as tour guide. She pointed out little triangles of earth that could be transformed into beautiful flower gardens, and the Potomac River, which sadly was becoming almost a running sewer.
Her friend Mary Lasker largely underwrote the beautification program for the nation’s capital, donating millions and millions of bulbs for the Park Service gardeners to plant in nooks and corners and mini-parks in the city. As Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Lasker scouted the city for unplanted areas, I began to remember all the trees and bushes that Mrs. Mellon had absconded with when she scoured those same parks for President Kennedy’s lawn.
In the White House grounds, tourists were startled to hear the recorded Texas drawl of Lady Bird Johnson, speaking to them from loudspeakers in the bushes and trees. “This is a Grandiflora Magnolia, planted by President Warren G. Harding, two linden trees set out by President Franklin D. Roosevelt; you are now looking at a dogwood, one of my favorite….”
We had our own little nature walks in the White House.
I remember the night President Johnson wanted to bring Mrs. Johnson a present from the House of Representatives floor, the night of his “Salute to Congress” party at the White House. The gift would be House passage of the Highway Beautification Act, which would severely restrict billboards, and which was related to Mrs. Johnson’s pet project.
The only trouble was that the House Republicans generally didn’t have much to salute in 1964–65, and the bill’s opponents were in no hurry to let the measure come to a final vote. They were taking their time, employing the usual parliamentary delaying tactics, calling for innumerable quorums and attempting to pierce the bill with weakening amendments.
/> The Democrats felt they had earned a good party, and most of their wives were dressed and impatiently waiting to go to the White House, as the hours slipped away into evening and on past the starting time for the White House reception. The Democratic leadership was ready to call it quits for the night, but the White House Congressional liaison staff—acting on Presidential orders—said the President wanted them to stay there and finish the bill. The President stressed he wanted that bill for his Lady Bird. The party would just start later.
A further complication was that President Johnson was scheduled to go into Bethesda Naval Hospital after the party to have his gallbladder removed in an operation scheduled for seven o’clock the next morning.
It turned out to be some evening. The House finally passed the bill not too long before midnight. By the time a few dozen Congressmen straggled through the White House gates, the President was persuaded that he’d better leave for the hospital and get some rest before major surgery.
The movie stars, singers, and jazz musicians who’d lined up to salute Congress in the State Department Auditorium went on, despite the fact that most of the audience wasn’t there. But enough Democrats finally got to the White House to make quite a party. By 3:00 a.m., the scene in the East Room had a little of the spirit of the rollicking days of Andrew Jackson. Most of the Marine musicians, who had by then been playing for many, many hours, loosened or unbuttoned their tight tunics. Vice President Hubert Humphrey was the center of attraction, dancing with everyone in sight. By the time the party broke up, the President had long since gone to sleep at the hospital. And the law became known as the “Lady Bird Act.”
5
LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE IN the Johnson White House and life, it soon became apparent that the entertainment would be served up on a grand scale. From Shakespeare to musical comedy to ballet to American Indian dancers, Bess Abell began to put on a really big show after dinner. She needed more facilities to accommodate all the performers, however. There would be no more “jewel-box theater” in the East Room. The little red velvet stage Mrs. Kennedy had designed was too small for extravaganzas.
“Can’t we expand the stage?” Bess asked, and when I shook my head, explaining the technical unfeasibility, she countered:
“Can’t we build a bigger stage?” After I explained our budgetary situation, Bess announced “What we need is an angel!”
One flew in, in the form of Rebekah Harkness, who had created her own ballet company. She commissioned Jo Mielziner, the premier Broadway designer, to create “something that fits in with the East Room decor.”
“It has to be portable,” I cautioned. “Something that two or three men can put up and take down in a few hours’ time.”
Knowing the Johnson’s penchant for using the East Room and our time and manpower limitations, one could really get into a bind if there were three events scheduled for the room in one day and our crews were scheduled to put up a stage. Which is exactly what happened.
When the stage was completed, instead of taking three men eight hours, it took eight men three days, to put the thing together for a performance, and about the same time to take it down again. It took up a full third of the East Room and was fashioned with columns to match the room’s classical Greek detail. It was painted to match the room’s white paneling.
At first, the designer wanted a gold silk stage curtain to match those now hanging over the windows. I pointed out that the curtains cost $26,149, that the fabric design—taken from an old document—was extremely complex, and that the curtains had been woven by an old Frenchman who could only turn out six inches a day. The designer settled for an American-made silk curtain of a matching color.
When the new stage was finally in place, Mrs. Johnson stood back to take a look.
“Well, at last this room has a stage that fits in with it,” she said.
It was so large the East Room looks like part of the stage, I thought to myself.
But our work in the theatrical business was not yet done. When Hello, Dolly came to the White House, we had to build a runway in front of the stage for Carol Channing to do her famous “number,” which incidentally had been used as a 1964 Democratic campaign song, retitled “Hello, Lyndon.”
Bess was always looking for something different for a party, and her imagination was considerable. We’d have dances on the east terrace, barbecues on the west terrace, formal dinners with Japanese lanterns in the Rose Garden, carnivals with circus tents on the south grounds. But once was enough. It’s just a lot simpler to put on a do in the State Dining Room.
During State dinners, Bess and I would sit in the Private Dining Room, which was set up as a pantry, eating the same food, having the same service as the other guests, and joking with each other about being the “official tasters,” wondering who would get the poison first.
At one State luncheon, a very irritated President Johnson decided that he had gotten the poison first. The butler who served him (the President always is served first) came running in to Bess and me.
“The President says not to serve any more meat. He says it’s rotten!”
Bess and I jumped and ran to the door to hear Mr. Johnson say to his table: “Don’t anybody eat it. It’s spoiled!” And he called for Marvin Watson, his trusted first assistant.
Meanwhile, the President’s plate had been carried back to the kitchen. Bess, Mary Kaltman, Henry Haller and I all steeled ourselves and took a bite, hoping it wouldn’t be our last. It tasted exactly the way filet of beef with pâté de foie gras in the center is supposed to taste.
“It’s perfect,” said the dismayed chef Haller, who’d been so proud of his Tournedos Rossini.
Marvin relayed the word to the President. “It’s supposed to taste like that.”
At the end of the dinner the President had only one comment: “Don’t ever serve that stuff again in this house.”
Sometimes others joined Bess and me in the pantry and we’d have quite a party. Our dinner partners would be members of the President’s staff who’d been edged out of their seats by last-minute guests, or staff members who came to listen to the dinner toasts or entertainment.
One lovely evening we were joined by James Symington, the Chief of Protocol, and by Joe Califano, the President’s chief assistant on domestic issues. Joe and Jim were in the midst of a spirited conversation, which we all thoroughly enjoyed. That is, until Joe gave a sweeping gesture to make a point and knocked a full glass of red wine down the front of Jim Symington’s snowy white evening shirt.
Everyone jumped up, mopping and blotting, and Bess, who always knew what came next, said:
“Oh my God, Jimmy, you’ve got to escort President Saragat [of Italy]. What are we going to do?”
“You can have my shirt,” I said, and flew down the hall to my office to pick up a discarded one for me to wear.
Back in the Private Dining Room, the Chief of Protocol and I solemnly disrobed and exchanged shirts. It was all done in a flash, and just as we heard chairs scraping the floor in the State Dining Room, Mr. Symington popped in, starched and snowy breasted, to do his official duty.
He returned my shirt freshly laundered the next day, writing, “to J. B. West, who literally gave me the shirt off his back.”
Music was an integral part of Bess’s parties, from beginning to end! “If you didn’t see so many people sitting around with fiddles, you’d think they had Muzak around here all the time,” said one butler, hearing the strains of “Hello Dolly/Lyndon” for the umpteenth time.
The Marines sat in the lobby playing show tunes while the guests entered the White House; the Air Force Strolling Strings moved in and out among the round tables during dessert, somebody or other was always singing or playing on the East Room stage—Dave Brubeck or the New Christy Minstrels or Robert Merrill. And at the end, the Marine Orchestra and their rock combo turned up for the dancing.
The Johnsons were the dancingest First Family I’d known. Perhaps it was urged on by their daughters, perhaps
it fit in with their informal “get-to-know-everybody” entertaining. Or maybe Lyndon Johnson just liked to dance. Watching him dance at midnight after a Lyndon Johnson-style workday gave me one further glimpse into the superhuman energy of this President.
After every official dinner and reception, even in the afternoon, the white marble lobby and main hall were transformed into a dance floor.
“How funny that we should do more dancing after fifty than at any other time in our lives,” wrote Mrs. Johnson.
The President did his foxtrot smoothly, instructing the military aides to cut in on him after a few twirls around the floor with every lady. Everybody danced. Even I did a few turns now and then. The President sat out the wilder dances, however, when his daughters and a few from his own generation cut into the gyrations of the 1960s. And the Johnsons, contrary to White House tradition, (in which nobody goes home until the President goes upstairs) were the last to leave.
The liveliest party we ever had was a dinner dance in honor of England’s Princess Margaret and her husband, Lord Snowden. The east wing staff worked long and hard on the guest lists—it was known that this “madcap Princess” liked a good time—to bring together a group of important people who in those days could be called “swingers.” The swingers were drawn from the town’s Anglophiles, Lynda Bird’s friends in the movie community, the younger politicians, and, as always, the wealth of America.
Representing the latter category were auto manufacturer Henry Ford and his Italian-born wife, Cristina, who almost outshone the diminutive princess.
Mrs. Ford was endowed with all the personal magnetism of a Sophia Loren—even the President paid a great deal of attention to the lady—and considerable physical charm as well. There was a lot of open-mouthed gaping at her enthusiastic version of the frug, especially when some of her charm popped out of the top of her white gown.
Another time a guest came close to losing her jewels. Jane Engelhard, an old friend since the Kennedy days, a benefactress of the White House restoration and wife of the platinum magnate, wore a pair of dangly earrings that Bess Abell declared must have dropped off the White House chandeliers.
