The White House Mess

by Christopher Buckley

  “Yeah,” he said languidly. “I heard.”

  “But I only sent it in an hour ago. It hasn’t even been accepted!”

  “I think it has, Herb.”

  “This is outrageous!”

  Feels urged me to calm down, then said, “Listen, I gotta get back to you. He’s just vetoed the B–IB [bomber] again and the place is going batshit.”

  I was still sputtering when the green button on my console lit up. I punched it without even putting Feeley on hold.

  “What?” I said without thinking.

  “Herb, old friend.”

  It was the President.

  “Why, hello. Sir.”

  “Great to hear your voice.”

  “Uh, great to hear yours, sir.”

  “How’ve you been?”

  “Fine, Mr. President.”

  “Great. Busy as hell, I’ll bet.”

  “Well, actually—”

  “I’ve been busy as hell, I can tell you.”

  “I can imagine—”

  “How come I never see you anymore?”

  “I—”

  “I miss you, Herb.”

  “I miss you too, sir.”

  “I’m really going to miss you.”

  “But—”

  “I understand, Herb. The pressure here is killing.”

  “Nothing I can’t handle, sir.”

  “ ’Course it’s not like you’re going back to Idaho.”

  The President cleared his throat. “You won’t be far, anyway. I want you to stay in touch. Keep me informed.”

  I said I would do my best.

  “And Herb?”

  “Sir?”

  “I can’t tell you what this means to Jessie. The world.”

  “Mr. President, I think we need to have a talk.”

  “Anytime. But right now I’ve got to go. You wouldn’t believe my afternoon.”

  “Yes I would. How about five o’clock? You’ve got a window between Miss Connecticut and Ambassador Kutyadikov.”

  “Details. I really don’t track the details, Herb. Check with whoever does my scheduling. You know, things have gone to hell since you left. How’s the commission going?”

  “The commission?”

  “Yeah. Listen, gotta go. Speak soon.”

  I must have been holding the silent receiver against my ear for a full minute when Barbara walked in. My head felt numb.

  She began puttering about with papers on my desk.

  “Barbara, have I been involved with a commission these last few months?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “Nothing? That AIDS thing? The citrus farmers?”

  “No, sir. Those were last year.”

  “Then bring me a cup of tea and get Mr. Lleland on the line.”

  Just after three Lleland returned my call.

  “Great news, Herb. The President is delighted.”

  I was in no mood to be patronized.

  “I’m in no mood to be patronized,” I said. “This is your handiwork.”

  “Nay, nay, old chum.”

  “Stop calling me ‘old chum.’ I didn’t go to Harvard.”

  He found this amusing.

  “Never mind that. Why have you done this thing? Apart from your normal treacherous inclinations, I mean.”

  “I wasn’t aware the position of chief of staff to the First Lady was to be sniffed at.”

  “I am not sniffing at it.”

  “I would have thought you’d be grateful for the opportunity to make a difference.”

  “Don’t quote campaign slogans at me!” I was growing heated.

  “Look at it this way,” he said. “We’ll be co-equals.”

  “You’re enjoying this, I take it.”

  “What I most enjoy about this job is the chance to serve the President.”

  “Borscht!” I exclaimed. You’d have thought he was taping the conversation. The thought gave me a mischievous inspiration.

  “You can turn off your taping device, Bamford,” I said. “I find that a highly distasteful practice of yours, by the way.”

  His voice was suddenly hard and emphatic. “What are you talking about? I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Your administrative habits are of no concern to me,” I continued. “But their potential for bringing disgrace on the office of the Presidency is reckless in the extreme.”

  With that I hung up, cradling the receiver gently for the first time that day.

  14

  FLOTUS BLOSSOM

  Working with the First Lady a pleasure, but seem to spend half my time resigning.

  —JOURNAL, SEPT. 9, 1991

  My change of positions was announced—officially—the next day. The press managed to treat me with reasonable humanity. The Washington Post ran a story about me on their “Style” page with only one vicious and untrue quote in it, fed to them, no doubt, by Phetlock or Withers:

  “ ‘The feeling around here was he’d be more intellectually at home over there in the East Wing,’ said one knowledgeable White House source.”

  That night at the bar on G Street I asked Feeley, “How much crow must a man eat?”

  He grunted. “It’s been added to the mess menu.”

  The thought of those fine Filipinos having to answer to that arrogant whelp Withers grieved me.

  “Well, I’ve had my last serving,” I said.

  “Thought you’d have developed a taste for it by now,” he said.

  I said I didn’t find that humorous.

  “Just kidding. Relax. ‘This place could turn us all into assholes.’ Remember?”

  “Vividly,” I muttered.

  It was apparent from my first conversation with the First Lady that she had been duped into thinking I wanted the job as her chief of staff. Not that it wasn’t an honor to work for Mrs. Tucker. I loved Mrs. Tucker—platonically, of course. But the thought of their having dragged her into their sordid office intrigues made me boil.

  “I was so glad when they told me you wanted the job,” she said. “You should have told me, Herb.”

  “Well—”

  “Tom hated the idea of giving you up. He just thinks the world of you.”

  So. The President was involved too. Such should have been beneath him.

  “Yes,” I said, “well, you know how I feel about him.”

  She curled a lock of her blond hair around a finger. “If his other people cared about him the same way you do, he wouldn’t be having the problems he is.” She laughed: “Giving away Arizona!”

  “And New Mexico. And Texas.”

  We found ourselves giggling like schoolgirls. I enjoyed the First Lady very much.

  But for the little blue shadows, she seemed not to have aged in the more than two and a half years since we had arrived in Washington. She was then just thirty-six, the second youngest First Lady in history, and in my opinion more beautiful even than Mrs. Kennedy. Even in her most chic evening gown there remained about her the aura of the country girl; of summer health. It was impossible to imagine her getting ill. Perhaps it was her dimples.

  Shortly after moving in, the President had begun calling her “Flotus Blossom.” FLOTUS is the acronym used by the White House advance office for First Lady of the United States. (The President is POTUS.) The name had caught on among the house staff. Naturally, I did not encourage it, but as nicknames are inevitable, it was a pleasant one. Much more agreeable than my own, “Auntie Herbert.”

  It was not long before I experienced my first crisis as her chief of staff.

  Mr. Jerome Weinberg, the Hollywood impresario and producer of Minnesota Hots, had for some time been trying to get her to do another film. I had experienced Mr. Weinberg on a number of occasions—he was a frequent guest at the White House. I was sure this was standard Hollywood chatter; you know, “Baby, we gotta make another picture.” Of course it was out of the question. But Mr. Weinberg was persistent, and would send a s
cript practically every week. The First Lady would sometimes tease the President by saying that she was tempted. It made the President very nervous.

  In late September, with only a month before the visit of the Princess of Wales, she told Maureen Dowd of The New York Times that she was “seriously thinking” of signing a contract with Mr. Weinberg to appear in a film entitled Beirut. My Lord, what a fuss it caused!

  I didn’t for a moment take it seriously, though everyone else did. She told me the morning of her interview with Miss Dowd that she and the President had quarreled the night before. I think her remark was just a way of making the point that he’d better not take her for granted. As a matter of fact, I think the President did sometimes take her for granted. I never admitted it at the time, but when I read the story that morning I thought, Well, good for her.

  In almost no time at all, blame for the resultant hullabaloo was laid at my feet. The snipping and slander began afresh. I took a phone call from Ann Devroy of the Gannett papers. “They’re saying in the West Wing you’re not even competent to handle the East Wing job,” she said. “Any comment?”

  “I should say not,” I said.

  Lleland called. “The President is very upset,” he said. “He wants this undone.”

  I told him the President should take the matter up directly with the First Lady. Her film career was her own business.

  Ten minutes later the President buzzed.

  “Herb,” he said, “I’ve got half the world on my ass as it is. I’ve got a cabinet full of hysterical dykes, an alcoholic Indian, a Vice President I have to keep sending to Micronesia. I don’t need this.”

  I heard the sound of a newspaper rustling in the background.

  “Beirut!” he roared. He was upset. He went on shouting for about a minute. “No more interviews,” he said. “Not with the women’s magazines. Not with Democrats Today. And call Weinberg and tell him to get someone else for his goddam movie. Tell him he’s had his last free meal at the White House if he doesn’t.”

  “You want me to threaten Mr. Weinberg?”

  “Idiot!” He was ranting. He had never used such language with me. “I want you to fix this!”

  Calmly, I told him we were treading on difficult terrain here. The First Lady was not likely to take it kindly if I told one of her friends he was no longer welcome in the White House.

  He sighed. “She’s been difficult lately.”

  I said: “She’s under a lot of strain. She had a very busy week last week.”

  “Herb, we all had a busy week last week. I don’t see what’s so fucking exhausting about having a couple of Congressmen’s wives in for tea and cucumber sandwiches.”

  This was intolerable. He could abuse me as much as he liked, but I would not allow him to speak this way about the First Lady. “Now just you wait,” I thundered. “For your information, in the last week she’s given three speeches in three different states, toured two medical centers—one of them an infectious-diseases ward. On top of which she had those unspeakable women in for tea so their unspeakable husbands will vote for your unspeakable programs. Cucumber sandwiches my foot!” Oh, I was hot.

  There was a pause. He said, “Are you out of your mind?”

  “No,” I said. “I have just given you a piece of it.”

  “I’m the President of the United States.” He sounded genuinely wounded.

  “And you have become, Mr. President, the asshole you feared you would.”

  “Wadlough,” he said, “you’re fired. Fired! Immediately! Got that?”

  The White House protocol is that one submits one’s resignation immediately upon being fired. (Only underlings are “fired.”) I did, but I couldn’t lie to Mrs. Tucker, so I told her I’d been fired.

  “The hell you have,” she said.

  I told her it was the right thing to do, that I had exceeded the bounds of propriety. I was, in fact, ashamed to have used such language.

  “It’s good for him,” she said. She was especially attractive when she was defiant. To my great horror, she picked up the phone and in a sweet tone of voice asked, “Would you get me Mr. Tucker, please?”

  When he came on, she said, “Yes, my chief of staff just told me he’s resigning.” She winked at me and smiled. I began to perspire. “He said it was because of ‘family considerations.’ Um-hum. I don’t believe him. I think this is your nasty doing. Un-hum. I haven’t finished. I’ve become very fond of Herb, he seems actually to care about me and your son. Your son, Thomas—you might remember him from before the election? So I’ve decided that unless you can convince Herb to stay on, I’m going on strike.”

  She was enjoying this. It was a Grace Kelly performance, very soft-spoken, bemused, totally in control of the situation.

  “I’ll tell you what that means,” she said after listening for a moment. “It means I am going to New York. This afternoon. I’ll have to cancel a few things.”

  Pause.

  “Darling, this isn’t long distance. I can hear you without shouting.”

  Pause.

  “Well, I don’t honestly care about the Nicaraguan Foreign Minister. I’ll ask Annie Reigeluth to fill in for me.”

  Pause.

  “I leave it all in your strong, capable hands. I’ll be at the Sherry Netherland. And take your time convincing Herb. Don’t hurry—I can’t get enough of New York. The Secret Service agents seem to like it too. Maybe I’ll ask Jerry to fly in, he’s very excited about the movie. He’s got Jackie Gleason to play Ariel Sharon. Bye, darling.”

  When I got back to my office, Mrs. Metz, my new secretary, told me Lleland was trying to reach me urgently. I know it was mean-spirited of me, but I couldn’t resist letting him wait a minute or two for my call.

  “The President is deeply, deeply upset,” Lleland said in a hospital-waiting-room tone of voice. “He wants to do what’s right.” And so he went on, detailing the “gravity” of the situation. I have to admit, I quite enjoyed it.

  “Bamford, old boy,” I said, knowing the familiar address would annoy him, “I completely agree. The situation between the President and the First Lady is not all it could be. And I think you should make it a top priority to have good relations with my successor. But I want you to know I appreciate your involving me in the President’s thinking.”

  Heavens but that felt good—Lleland was always flattering people by telling them he wanted to “involve” them “in the President’s thinking.” Suddenly, for the first time in months, I found myself in a very good mood. I buzzed Mrs. Metz, my secretary.

  “Take a resignation letter, Mrs. Metz,” I said, putting my feet up on the desk.

  “Mr. Wadlough,” she said with her faint trace of a Hamburg accent. She was an admirably efficient woman of the most correct demeanor. We understood each other.

  “Not to fear, not to fear,” I said. I was positively ebullient. It was quite unlike me, actually.

  I was puzzling over the wording of the second paragraph when the phone rang. She picked it up. “It’s him,” she said, impressed.

  “Ah. I’ll take it.”

  “Herb!” He was bursting with bonhomie. “What’s this about your resigning?”

  I told him I was only following protocol for those who have been fired.

  “I don’t know what gets into me,” he said with a forced laugh. “But you know me well enough by now not to take me seriously when I do something like that. Ha! I must have had you going there.”

  “Yes. Out the door.”

  “Ha!” He cleared his throat. “Herb, I need you here. Fact, I wish you hadn’t left the West Wing. You had a real … touch. But since Jessie wanted you over there with her, well—” he gave the kind of grunt men share between themselves to signify the futility of arguing with women—“even this office has its limitations. Ha!”

  “Um-hum.” It was the sound his wife would have made. It seemed to rattle him.

  “I beg your pardon?” he said.

  “Just a throat condition, Mr. Presi
dent.”

  “Oh,” he said uncertainly. “You want me to send Major Arnold over to have a look at it?” His concern for my health was overwhelming. He then went into one of his coughing fits. “Chest cold,” he said between hacks.

  “Yes,” I said. “You ought to cut down on those chest colds.”

  “Good old Herb! Can’t fool you, eh? Now about this resignation of yours. I’m just not going to accept it. You’re too valuable.” He started coughing again.

  “I’m not submitting it to you,” I said dryly. “I work for the First Lady.”

  “Damn lucky to have you.” Cough.

  “I’ve enjoyed working for her. She doesn’t surround herself with devious and supercilious people.”

  “I know. She’s great that way.” Cough.

  I was not getting through.

  “I am extremely fond of Mrs. Tucker,” I said formally. “She brings dignity and grace to the office.”

  “Boy, doesn’t she? She’s a classy lady.” Cough.

  If this was to be a duel of innuendo, I would match him nuance for nuance. “A wise woman,” I said. “She has a keen grasp of human nature.”

  He stopped coughing.

  “Herb, let’s cut through this bullshit, shall we?”

  Having gained the high moral ground, I was reluctant to quit it right away. But it was the voice of an old friend on the other end of the telephone, no matter how meanly I had been treated.

  We talked—for the first time in months. It was like old times. I did not hold back. I told him the Gadsden Giveaway business was “dunderheaded.”

  He was defensive. “The Mexicans love me,” he said defensively. “They think I’m the greatest President since Kennedy.”

  “Then why don’t you run for President of Mexico next time around? You’re bound to do better in Chihuahua than the Southwest.”

  “Hell with the Southwest,” he said. “Bunch of Republicans anyway.”

  But this wasn’t the canny young Governor I once knew. It was Lleland and his “Let them vote Republican” attitude. I could swear the President had even picked up a faint trace of Boston accent, that unpleasant, hair-lippy, nasal sound.

  So: Lleland’s control of the Presidency extended to ventriloquism. This was indeed pernicious. I hadn’t realized the full extent of the President’s captivity. It was for that reason and no other that I finally agreed to stay on. In a way, I knew it would disappoint the First Lady—I think she was rather set on the idea of going to New York. But this was serious business.