Margaret Truman (4 page)

XI

In 1961, John F. Kennedy, perhaps inspired by his wife's determination to overhaul the White House's interior, decided the Rose Garden needed a new look. The gardening staff had a few adventures in the course of their digging and planting. When they replaced the old sod with new dirt, they went down four inches and found themselves an archaeological treasure trove—pieces of pots from the old greenhouses, Civil War horseshoes, and uniform buttons.

In one corner of the plot, their sharp-edged shovels inadvertently cut the cable for the hot line the president used to put the armed forces on full alert. Within seconds, the gardeners were surrounded by White House police, ready to charge them with sabotaging the nation's security. The cable had originally been laid during World War II, and no one had bothered to note its exact location.

Ellen Wilson's East Wing garden remained pretty much intact until the Kennedy administration. Then JFK, prompted by the transformation of the Rose Garden, decided that its counterpart on the east side of the mansion needed some sprucing up as well. Plans were drawn up but the sad day in Dallas put an end to that dream, along with so many others. Fortunately, Lady Bird Johnson took charge of the garden and saw to its completion. This enchanted spot is often referred to as the First Ladies' Garden but it was officially dedicated by Lady Bird Johnson in honor of Jacqueline Kennedy—a fitting tribute to a first lady whose love for the White House will be remembered for a long time.

XII

The White House also has two very special gardens designed for the exclusive use of the first family and their guests. One is the Children's Garden, created by Lady Bird Johnson in a secluded section of the south lawn. This tiny treasure, which has a small pond in the center, and the names, footprints, and handprints of White House grandchildren set in bronze in the flagstones, was a Christmas present from the Johnsons to the White House.

The second garden, even more secluded than the Children's Garden, is outside the Oval Office, and is for the president's private use. It was created during the Reagan years and remains a closely guarded little preserve—a true secret garden. Presidents occasionally use it on a pleasant day for a lunch or an informal meeting with one of the many VIPs who visit the White House.

XIII

The gardens and grounds of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have become so popular, recent chief executives have been persuaded to open them for tours, drawing
oohs
and
aahs
of admiration from thousands. The tours are held in April and October and there is always a long line of people waiting to admire the carefully tended blossoms and critique the first family's taste in flowers. Maybe on garden tour days the president ought to have a sign on his desk that says: THE BUD STOPS HERE.

Questions for
Discussion

Why were fruits and vegetables planted in the early White House gardens?

What are the advantages of having so many trees in the President's Park?

What is the most famous White House garden and why is it so well known?

II

The most famous room in the White House is unquestionably the Lincoln Bedroom—although Abraham Lincoln never slept in it. He used the room as his office. It was here, on January 1, 1863, that Lincoln emancipated the slaves of the eleven seceded southern states.

During the first year of the Civil War, the president had been savagely attacked by the radical members of his own party, the Republicans, for refusing to turn the war into a crusade to free the slaves. Lincoln knew that most Americans were not ready for such a move. At the same time, he detested slavery. From his youth, he had vowed to strike a blow at the awful institution if he ever got the chance.

One day, the president saw a way to do it—by giving the seceded states one last chance to return to the Union. If they refused, emancipation could be called a “war measure,” a means to subdue the rebellion.

In the summer of 1862, Lincoln read to his cabinet a draft of a proclamation warning the Confederacy that if they did not make peace by the end of the year, all their slaves would be freed. Secretary of State William Seward urged the president not to release the statement until the Union army had won a victory. Otherwise the move would seem like “the last shriek” of the expiring federal government.

Lincoln agreed and the proclamation was put aside until the Union army repulsed Robert E. Lee's invasion of Maryland in the bloody battle of Antietam. On September 22, 1862, five days after this tremendous clash, Lincoln announced his intention to issue the proclamation.

The Confederacy remained defiant and on January 1, 1863, Lincoln, true to his word, issued the proclamation. Messengers rushed it to the State Department where calligraphers would inscribe it on official parchment. Meanwhile the White House staff prepared for the annual New Year's Day reception. Around eleven A.M., the president and Mrs. Lincoln descended to the Blue Room to greet the diplomats and generals who headed the visitors' line. After shaking hands for an hour, Lincoln felt blisters swelling on his hand and retreated to his office to wait for the proclamation's return from the State Department.

Secretary of State Seward and his son Frederick brought the document over around three P.M. and found Lincoln alone in his office. They spread the proclamation on a table before the fire. Picking up a pen, Lincoln gazed ruefully at his blistered hand. “I never in my life felt more certain I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper,” he said. “But . . . my arm is stiff and numb. This signature will be closely examined. If they find my hand trembled, they will say ‘he had some complications.' But anyway, it is going to be done.”

Lincoln signed in one unhesitating flourish and three million slaves were freed. It was all so low-key, even Lincoln found it hard to believe that he had just executed, as he later told a friend, “the central act of my administration and the great event of the nineteenth century.”

III

On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House. As soon as the news became public, thousands of people poured onto the White House grounds, accompanied by a band. Lincoln came to the north window and startled everyone by asking the band to play “Dixie.” He said it was one of his favorite songs.

The next night Lincoln spoke to another crowd. This time he read from a speech outlining his plans to reconstruct the devastated South. Standing among the listeners on the lawn was the actor John Wilkes Booth, who turned to a companion and snarled: “That's the last speech he'll ever make.”

Four days later, on Good Friday, Booth committed his terrible crime. The White House was plunged into unparalleled mourning by this first assassination of an American president. Mary Lincoln retreated to an upstairs bedroom and stayed there.

Meanwhile the mansion was draped in black. On Monday night the president's coffin was placed in the East Room and the next day thousands of mourners filed past it. The funeral service was held on Wednesday. Afterward, the coffin was carried in a solemn procession to the Capitol, while a throng of mourners lined Pennsylvania Avenue. A dazed, sobbing Mary Lincoln remained in the White House for another six weeks. The mansion remained draped in its mourning garments until she departed.

IV

In 1803, when the White House was barely three years old, Thomas Jefferson received some astounding news: Napoleon Bonaparte had agreed to sell the vast territory of Louisiana to the United States for about two cents an acre. By a happy coincidence, the news arrived the evening before the president's annual Independence Day reception, when the White House and the President's Park were open to all comers.

At daybreak on that unique July 4, vendors began putting up tents and booths to sell food and drink. At noon the crowds came swarming onto the grounds for what was essentially a country fair. The biggest excitement came not from all this hurly-burly but from the news of the Louisiana Purchase. The sale, which doubled the size of the country, was, without question, the biggest real estate deal in history.

Another historic event occurred on this same Fourth of July. Early that morning, Thomas Jefferson's twenty-seven-year-old secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, departed to rendezvous with a Kentucky soldier named William Clark and begin their exploration of the West. The news of the Louisiana Purchase so electrified Lewis that he left his wallet behind in the White House and had to rush back to retrieve it. This gave him a chance to exchange a second farewell with Jefferson, who was experiencing one of those rare presidential moments when everything seemed to be going right.

V

When Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived in the White House on March 4, 1933, the country was in serious trouble. For three years the Great Depression had gripped the American economy. A third of the workforce was unemployed and a staggering 9,106 banks had failed, destroying the life savings of millions.

Two days after his inauguration, FDR closed all the banks in the country to prevent frantic depositors from withdrawing their cash and triggering total economic collapse. On Sunday, March 12, the president announced that he would reopen the banks the next day. He would also give a radio address to the nation that evening to explain the legislation he had pushed through Congress to restore financial stability.

Broadcasting equipment was rushed into the Diplomatic Reception Room, the oval room facing the south grounds that Charles McKim had created out of a former furnace room. At ten P.M., a CBS radio announcer told some sixty million people listening to an estimated twenty million radios: “The president wants to come into your homes and sit at your firesides for a little fireside chat.”

That perfect name for FDR's talk was coined by the manager of the CBS Washington bureau. He got the idea from Roosevelt's press secretary, who told him that FDR liked to think of his audience as “a few people around his fireside.”

A moment later, FDR began: “I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking. . . .” For fifteen minutes, that marvelous voice coursed across the airwaves, telling the American people that the banking system had been fixed and there was no need to withdraw any more money. In fact, the president went on, it would be safer and smarter to put money into a sound bank rather than keep it under a mattress. “You must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses,” FDR said in closing. “Let us unite in banishing fear. . . . Together we cannot fail.”

The next day, the newspapers reported in near bewilderment that the banking crisis was over. Instead of runs on banks, people were actually depositing money. Speech experts attributed not a little of this magical transformation to FDR's rich, melodious voice. I also think that knowing the voice was coming from the White House, the symbol of presidential power, had not a little to do with the incredible effect of that dramatic speech.

VI

In 1962 another president found himself dealing with a serious crisis. This White House drama began on October 16 in President John F. Kennedy's second-floor bedroom. At 8:45 A.M., McGeorge Bundy, the special assistant for national security affairs, found the president sitting on the edge of his bed, still in his pajamas and bathrobe.

“Mr. President,” Bundy said, “there is now hard photographic evidence that the Russians have nuclear missiles in Cuba.”

So began the most harrowing two weeks in the White House's history. Seldom had a president and his administration been so badly surprised. Bundy and others had poohpoohed the possibility that the Soviet Union's alliance with Cuban premier Fidel Castro might lead to nuclear weapons on that controversial island only ninety miles off the coast of Florida. Now they were confronted with enough firepower to destroy every major American city except Seattle.

At 11:45 A.M., cabinet members and advisers poured into the West Wing for the first of many conferences on how to meet this Russian power play. The advisers quickly divided into two camps: those in favor of an immediate air strike to destroy the missile launchers, which could lead to a nuclear war, and those in favor of an embargo on all military shipments to Cuba until the missiles were removed.

As the debate raged, President Kennedy went about the business of the presidency. Occasionally he would slip into the Cabinet Room to see how things were going. Each time, he found the two groups irreconcilable.

On the third day of the crisis, President Kennedy left the White House to attend a luncheon. On the way, he suddenly told his driver to take him to St. Matthew's Cathedral. He hurried into the green-domed church and knelt in one of the pews. Jack Kennedy was not a very religious man. I think the staggering dimensions of the crisis he was facing lay behind this impromptu visit. He had discovered that there are moments when presidents talk to God because no one else can give them the kind of support they need. Lincoln testified to this experience, as did Gerald Ford.

At the end of this harrowing week, John F. Kennedy told his still quarreling advisers what he had decided. The United States would not make a surprise air strike on the Russian missile launchers. Instead, they would blockade Cuba and demand the swift withdrawal of the weapons of mass destruction—or the United States would remove them by force.

This astute combination of toughness and diplomacy proved to be the answer to the crisis. (If it had failed, I would not be writing this book and you would not be reading it.) Faced with a ring of American steel around blockaded Cuba and staggered by condemnations in the United Nations and almost every capital in the world, the Soviet Union backed down and withdrew its missiles.