Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents

by Cormac O'Brien

  Coolidge wasn’t exactly big on physical activity. His main form of exercise was riding an electric horse that he kept in the White House. Bucking and jouncing away the pounds became a daily routine for the president, and his Secret Service detail usually joined in the fun.

  OUT WITH A BANG

  The weather was wet and foul on Coolidge’s last day as president, and he decided to wear rubber galoshes to his successor’s inauguration. One of them, however, turned up missing. It took the efforts of eight Secret Service men to find it, very nearly delaying the transfer of power to Herbert Hoover.

  Famous First Ladies

  First ladies of the first order (and a few who were just weird):

  DOLLEY PAYNE TODD MADISON: Originally born of Quaker stock, this buxom, flirtatious socialite set the standard for White House hostesses. (She was the first to serve ice cream at presidential receptions.) Her sense of style was legendary (she even wore turbans), as was her frank and unpretentious demeanor. She was fond of Parisian finery, which cost her husband dearly, and of snuff, which stained her fingers. Unfortunately, she coddled her son from a previous marriage, John Payne Todd, whose debts nearly ruined her. Though she spent her final years in virtual bankruptcy, it was customary for all newly elected presidents to call on her and receive her blessing until her death in 1849.

  ELIZABETH KORTRIGHT MONROE: James Monroe’s wife broke with Dolley Madison’s popular custom of dutifully calling on Washington socialites, insisting instead that they call on her, and proceeded to alienate many who thought her unsociable and aloof. She seems to have suffered from some sort of debilitating sickness (perhaps epilepsy), which would account for much of her aversion to public appearances.

  JULIA GARDINER TYLER: This second wife of the tenth president was by all accounts a high-spirited beauty. Born and raised in East Hampton, Long Island, she was thirty years her husband’s junior and would go on to bear seven of his fifteen children. She was fond of being addressed as “Mrs. Presidentress” and held receptions at the White House in which she was seated on a dais surrounded by female friends and relatives, a wreath of flowers upon her head. Among her more noteworthy accomplishments was getting her fusty husband to loosen up and start dancing.

  JANE MEANS APLETON PIERCE: This wife of Franklin Pierce never liked politics or Washington and despised the notion of her husband becoming president. Shortly after Pierce’s victory in the election, their son Bennie was killed in a train accident—the third Pierce son to die prematurely. Jane sank into a mire of melancholy and despair. The new first lady spent her first year in the White House staring blankly at the wall of her room, which she almost never left. She never stopped dressing in mourning black and demanded that black bunting be strewn throughout the Executive Mansion, which soon resembled a tomb. Her nights were spent writing letters to Bennie, and she took to inviting mediums into the White House in a desperate attempt to reach the spirits of her dead sons.

  MARY TODD LINCOLN: When President Abraham Lincoln was reviewing Union troops at City Point, Virginia, beside him rode Mrs. Ord, the attractive wife of the unit commander. It was a trivial matter, but it was enough to send Mary Todd Lincoln into a screaming rage (and right in front of the troops, no less). It was merely the most sensational of Mary’s frequent jealous fits. Her other qualities were just as endearing. After she lost her son Edward in infancy and another son, Willie, while in the White House, Mary Todd’s screws only got looser, and her bouts of screaming grief became legendary. Her love of spending the government’s money on White House décor and an extravagant wardrobe (she once went $6,700 over budget, a sum Lincoln insisted on paying out of his own pocket to avoid scandal) was also well known. Though Lincoln himself was sympathetic to spiritualist beliefs, he drew the line at some of the fakes who sought to exploit his wife’s grief by holding seances in the White House. One of them, Lord Colchester, was found to have faked the rappings of Willie’s spirit by tapping with a rod that was attached to his arm. After Lincoln was shot, Mary went predictably berserk, ensconcing herself upstairs in the White House for weeks, making it difficult and awkward for new president Johnson to move in.

  JULIA BOGGS DENT GRANT: Ulysses S. Grant’s wife was a graceful, intelligent, and devoted White House hostess who loved her years as first lady. She was also severely cross-eyed, the unfortunate result of being accidentally whacked by an oar as a child. Her condition rendered her incapable of seeing any distance without tilting her head, and she usually required the support of someone’s arm when crossing a crowded room.

  LUCY WARE WEBB HAYES: This wife of Rutherford B. Hayes was a graduate of Wesleyan Women’s College and the first first lady to have a college education. Known as “Lemonade Lucy,” she was a temperance powerhouse. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union was so impressed by her that they commissioned a portrait, which hangs in the White House to this day.

  IDA SAXTON MCKINLEY: Doctors usually kept this epileptic wife of William McKinley medicated, making her look something like a smiling mannequin. She was terribly in love with—and totally dependent on—her husband, whose assassination made her want to join him in the beyond. Fate wouldn’t have it—she lived another six years, during which, it is rumored, her seizures all but vanished.

  HELEN “NELLIE” HERRON TAFT: William Howard Taft’s wife was more excited to get to the White House than her husband had been and viewed it as the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Not even a stroke, which she suffered only a month into Taft’s term, could ruin her experience as first lady. She was the first woman to be allowed a seat within the bar of the Supreme Court, the first first lady to have her memoirs published, and the first to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. But her greatest legacy remains the thousands of cherry trees that grace Washington, D.C.—they were her idea.

  LOU HENRY HOOVER: Herbert Hoover’s wife was an impressive public figure on her own terms before she became first lady. In addition to being an inveterate outdoorswoman, she had a degree in geology, spoke fluent Chinese, studied ancient Egyptian culture, and had translated an obscure Latin text. She was an avid spokeswoman for charity during the Great Depression and even found time to be a sponsor of the Girl Scouts.

  ANNA ELEANOR ROOSEVELT: Partly because of FDR’s inability to get around easily, his wife, Eleanor, became a spokeswoman for the administration. Through numerous public appearances, she overcame her innate shyness to evolve into one of the twentieth century’s most effective progressive activists. It is speculated by many that she shared a romantic relationship with Associated Press writer Lorena Hickock—in any event, her relationship with Franklin was sexless after the birth of their sixth child. She was the first first lady to hold her own press conferences and wrote regular newspaper columns about her active political life. She even carried a gun for protection, though it is reported that she was a terrible shot.

  MAMIE GENEVA DOUD EISENHOWER: Among the maladies that afflicted Dwight Eisenhower’s wife were asthma, heart flutters, and claustrophobia. She also had an inner-ear condition that threw her balance off and made many think she was an alcoholic. But perhaps her worst sickness was a weakness for the color pink—everything in the presidential bedroom was pink, from the wastebasket to the nightgown she wore to bed.

  JACQUELINE LEE BOUVIER KENNEDY: Probably the most glamorous first lady of all time, John Kennedy’s wife was born of stock as wealthy and privileged as her husband’s. She was keenly intelligent, well bred, beautiful, and frighteningly tolerant of her husband’s countless extramarital affairs. Jackie restored her country’s respect in its Executive Mansion by giving a nationally televised tour of the White House in 1962. It had been refurbished by the first lady with numerous antiques at a staggering cost. In fact, spending money was Jackie’s strong suit—she spent more than $121,000 on her wardrobe in 1962 alone.

  ELIZABETH BLOOMER WARREN FORD: Gerald Ford’s wife openly spoke about the radical mastectomy she underwent to remove a lump in her breast during her term as first lady, courageously promoting a
wareness of breast cancer and the need for its prevention. She was a huge supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment and the women’s liberation movement, and she liked to chat on CB radios. (Her handle was “First Mama.”) Her other loves included alcohol and painkillers, to which she became addicted long before entering the White House. She finally came to terms with her demons by entering a clinic after her husband’s presidential term. She went on to found the Betty Ford Center to help other addicts overcome their dependencies.

  ROSALYNN SMITH CARTER: When Jimmy Carter’s wife visited Latin America, she went as an official representative of the Carter administration—the first time a first lady went alone on an official diplomatic mission. She went on to become one of the most well-traveled of first ladies, visiting sixteen foreign countries in her first year alone.

  NANCY REAGAN: When she was first lady, Nancy Reagan’s pet project was getting America’s kids to avoid drugs. “Just say no” was the slogan she had plastered all over the media. But she really made history by saying yes to an offer from the writers of Diff’rent Strokes to make an appearance on their television sitcom, a show that—for reasons that continue to mystify—was wildly popular at the time. To everyone involved, it seemed a match made in heaven: Diff’rent Strokes (starring the diminutive Gary Coleman) was doing an antidrug episode, and the first lady was the nation’s antidrug spokesperson who’d once been an actor herself. She went to California to do her part, so to speak, and the episode aired on March 19, 1983. Ironically, only those viewers who were on drugs appreciated her performance.

  BARBARA PIERCE BUSH: George Bush’s wife became more popular than her husband for her delightfully frank, self-deprecating humor. “One of the myths is that I don’t dress well,” she once said in reference to her frumpy appearance. “I dress very well—I just don’t look so good.” Astute readers may have noticed a familiar ring to her maiden name—it’s courtesy of President Franklin Pierce, from whom she was descended.

  HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: No first lady ever played so prominent a role in her husband’s presidency as Bill Clinton’s wife did. As the two of them used to joke during his 1992 campaign, “Buy one, get one free.” Hillary was a cunning and driven lawyer whose ability to handle crises was matched only by her willingness to endure her husband’s sexual dalliances. Though her political career got off to a bad start when she presided over the attempted overhaul of America’s health-care system, she went on to become the first first lady to be a senator (from her adopted state of New York).

  31 HERBERT HOOVER

  August 10, 1874–October 20, 1964

  ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Leo

  TERM OF PRESIDENCY: 1929–1933

  PARTY: Republican

  AGE UPON TAKING OFFICE: 54

  VICE PRESIDENT: Charles Curtis

  RAN AGAINST: Al Smith

  HEIGHT: 5′11″

  NICKNAME: “The Great Engineer”

  SOUND BITE: “I outlived the bastards” (referring to the many people who blamed him for the Great Depression).

  “We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land,” said Herbert Hoover in his acceptance speech at the Republican national convention in 1928. “The poorhouse is vanishing from among us.” Just seven months after assuming the presidency, Hoover was forced to eat his words as the Great Depression started turning America into a nation of poorhouses.

  In fact, the country had every cause to be optimistic about a Hoover administration. Calvin Coolidge called him the “wundah boy,” and for good reason. Orphaned at the age of nine, Hoover became a rags-to-riches poster child. He graduated from Stanford with a degree in engineering and quickly set about building an international mining empire, becoming a millionaire by the age of forty. His business sense was matched by an equally impressive call to public service. In 1914, he organized relief for Belgian war refugees; President Wilson named him food administrator after America’s entry into World War I; and Hoover played a central role at the Versailles peace conference as Wilson’s economic advisor. Such credentials got him the post of commerce secretary during the Harding and Coolidge administrations, where he proved adept at fostering business and industry without creating a bloated bureaucracy.

  Little wonder, then, that he won the 1928 election. His Democratic opponent was Al Smith, America’s first Roman Catholic candidate, and Hoover won by a comfortable margin. The nation looked at its new president with a sense of awe: He was an administrative genius, a genuine humanitarian, a scholar who published works on politics and engineering, and a brilliant businessman. He could do no wrong.

  Until the stock market crash of October 29, 1929. Unlike every president before him who faced a stricken economy, Hoover confronted the calamity head-on. He worked long hours and even weekends to get a grasp of the situation, initiating tax cuts and public works programs and issuing proclamations to the press that recovery was just around the corner. But nothing he did worked, and soon his name became the embodiment of misery and hardship. “Hoovervilles”—shantytowns that sheltered the unemployed—carpeted the nation, and citizens took to using the word “Hoover” as a curse. Despite his tireless efforts, he always opposed direct government relief of the poor, and his fear of big government prevented him from spending the enormous amounts of money that were needed. The Great Depression continued unabated—by 1932, unemployment had reached 25 percent.

  White House servants and groundskeepers received strict orders to hide whenever President Hoover passed by. Those who failed to do so risked dismissal.

  The president took to feeling sorry for himself. His hair went white, he lost more than thirty-five pounds, and his mood—understandably—turned melancholy. He didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of beating Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, and he knew it. The election results proved him right. As the two rode side by side in the car that took FDR to his inauguration, Hoover barely said a word, remaining steeped in a cloud of gloom while his successor stammered out a series of awkward attempts at conversation. For Hoover, passing the cheering crowds—whose adulation, he knew, wasn’t meant for him—was like running the gauntlet.

  Herbert Hoover went on to write books and advise presidents, but he never could shake the stigma of being attached to the Great Depression. He lived to the ripe old age of ninety—more than enough time to see his reputation slammed by a whole slew of historians.

  ****************************************

  BY APPOINTMENT ONLY

  Hoover had never campaigned for any government post before the presidency. All of the jobs that made him a famous public figure were appointed to him by higher-ups. Before 1928, the last office to which he’d been elected was class treasurer at Stanford University.

  SECRET SERVICE

  The Hoovers had a bizarre relationship with the White House servants. First Lady Lou Hoover communicated with the staff through a sign language she developed for the sake of efficiency. (Touching her hair meant dinner was to be announced to guests, for example.) The president also avoided verbal communication and preferred not to see the servants at all. The mansion’s bell system was used to keep a distance between Hoover and the people who served him: Three rings announced his approach, requiring staff to hide in the nearest closet until he was out of sight. The same went for the groundskeepers, who found themselves jumping behind shrubs when the president was rumored to be nearby. Those staff members with an insufficient cloaking device faced the possibility of dismissal.

  DEPRESSION? WHAT DEPRESSION?

  Though Herbert Hoover routinely gave to charities while president, he always did so anonymously, and his public image remained stiff and officious. (The guy even wore a tie while fishing, for crying out loud.) The Hoovers’ lavish lifestyle only made things worse. While the rest of the nation wallowed in hunger, those in the White House carried on like aristocracy. Both lunch and dinner usually required formal attire, and virtually every meal was a seven-course feast. Hoover may have thought he was
maintaining an air of confidence, but it only backfired; after all, few soup kitchens at the time offered seven courses.

  32 FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT

  January 30, 1882–April 12, 1945

  ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aquarius

  TERM OF PRESIDENCY: 1933–1945

  PARTY: Democratic

  AGE UPON TAKING OFFICE: 51

  VICE PRESIDENT: John N. Garner (first and second terms); Henry A. Wallace (third term); Harry Truman (fourth term)

  RAN AGAINST: Herbert Hoover (first term); Alfred M. Landon (second term); Wendell Wilkie (third term); Thomas E. Dewey (fourth term)

  HEIGHT: 6′1″

  NICKNAMES: “FDR,” “The New Dealer,” “That Man in the White House”

  SOUND BITE: “Be sincere; be brief; be seated” (on the art of public speaking).

  To those Americans who came of age during the Roosevelt years, it seemed as if FDR had been president forever. He remains the only chief executive to serve more than two terms. (The 22nd Amendment, passed in 1951, put the limit at two terms for president.) While discussing the arrangements for his third inauguration, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes joked to Roosevelt, “Don’t you think this is getting just a little monotonous for both of us?”

  Between Franklin, Eleanor, Lucy, Missy, and Lorena, the Roosevelt White House saw more adultery than a 1970s key party.

  For a man who did so much for the common people, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was anything but common. He was born to New York aristocracy and bred for a life of yachting and cocktail parties. But, unlike so many of his class, FDR embraced the call to public service with an emphasis on bettering the lot of his fellow man. After serving in the New York State Senate and as Woodrow Wilson’s assistant secretary of the navy, he ran as the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1920 with James Cox. Though they lost to Warren Harding, FDR had arrived as an impressive figure in the Democratic party.