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A
White House "restoration" was undertaken
by President Theodore Roosevelt. The 19th-century
conservatories were razed, and a new "temporary"
Executive Office Building, later called the West
Wing, was erected. President Theodore Roosevelt
worked in his new rectangular office for the first
time on November 5. The first cabinet meeting
was held in the new wing on November 6. |
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The West Wing was doubled in size and included the first
presidential Oval Office centered on the south facade.
William
Howard Taft became the first president to work in the
Oval Office.
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On
February 14, President Taft signed legislation
in an Oval Office ceremony authorizing statehood
for Arizona and New Mexico. He became the first
chief executive to preside over 48 states. |
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On January 25, President Woodrow Wilson, with assembled
guests in the Oval Office, listened in on the first transcontinental
call from New York to San Francisco.
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President Wilson signed the declaration of war against
the Axis powers on April 7. The Executive Office Building
immediately became a war center open around the clock
as 60 to 75 clerks and other personnel manned the telegraphs,
telephones, and the equivalent of a map room.
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Warren
Harding became the first president to die in office
since the construction of the executive offices.
His desk in the Oval Office was draped with black
crepe in memoriam. |
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Herbert Hoover was the first president to have a telephone
installed on his desk on March 27. A fire on Christmas
Eve 1929 gutted the Executive Office Building and a reconstruction
began immediately.
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt increased the office area
of a now permanent office wing from 15,000 to 40,000 square
feet. A "penthouse" story and an enlarged subterranean
office area with a lightwell were built. The Oval Office
was relocated to the West Wing’s southeast corner-its
present location-to overlook the Wilson Rose Garden.
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The Social Security Act was signed by President Franklin
D. Roosevelt in a bill-signing ceremony in the Cabinet
Room on August 14.
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Crowds of angry Americans surrounded the White House on
December 7 as news spread of the Japanese bombing of Pearl
Harbor. The Secret Service installed bulletproof glass
in the windows of the president’s Oval Office, sentries
patrolled the roof with machine guns, and builders constructed
a bomb shelter under a new East Wing (1942).
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On April 12, Harry S. Truman was sworn in as president
in the Cabinet Room. The ceremony, according to Truman’s
recollections, took one minute, 7:08-7:09 p.m. On August
14, 1945, President Truman held a press conference in
the Oval Office to announce Japan’s surrender and
the end of World War II.
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To avoid confusion the White House Executive Office Building
became known officially as the West Wing when the adjacent
Department of State Building (Eisenhower EOB) was converted
for use as executive offices.
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October
25 marked the first telecast of a cabinet meeting
in the West Wing. |
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President
John F. Kennedy had the Rose Garden redesigned
to serve presidential functions. |
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The
West Wing became the center of a world crisis
as the possibility of a nuclear conflict between
the United States and the Soviet Union loomed
over a confrontation about Soviet nuclear-capable
missiles placed in Cuba. |
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Civil Rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr.,
John Lewis, and A. Philip Randolph, conferred with President
Kennedy in the Oval Office prior to the Freedom March
on Washington on August 28.
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On June 13, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced to the
press in the Rose Garden the nomination of Thurgood Marshall,
the first African American to serve as a Justice of the
United States Supreme Court.
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President
Johnson announced on television on March 31 from
the Oval Office that he would not run for re-election.
His dramatic decision was made in the hopes that
the Vietnam War might be resolved if he removed
himself from the center of the conflict. |
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"Hello, Neil and Buzz. I’m talking to you by
telephone from the Oval Room at the White House, and this
certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever
made." President Richard Nixon spoke from the Oval
Office by radiotelephone to Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong
and Lunar module pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin on
July 20.
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Additional offices were built reducing the size of the
Reception Lobby. A press center was created within the
West Terrace, and a porte-cochere and circular drive were
added.
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Patricia
Nixon (daughter of President and Mrs. Richard
Nixon) married Edward Finch Cox in the Rose Garden
on June 12. |
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In
the summer of 1973, it was revealed that President
Nixon secretly taped private conversations that
he had in the Oval Office. One year later, the
tapes were given to Congress and they proved Nixon’s
involvement in the Watergate scandal. Rather than
face impeachment, Nixon resigned. He announced
his decision to leave office in a television address
on August 8. President
Gerald R. Ford announced his controversial decision
to pardon Richard Nixon from the White House press
room. |
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Islamic militants stormed the United States Embassy in
Tehran, Iran, and took Americans hostage. The West Wing
once again became a crisis center as President Jimmy Carter
and his staff planned a response.
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President
Ronald Reagan announced the appointment of Sandra
Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court in a Rose
Garden ceremony. O’Connor became the first
female to be sworn in as Supreme Court Justice
on September 25. |
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President Reagan and his staff watched a tape of the space
shuttle Challenger launch from the West Wing offices on
January 28 and with the nation mourned the horrific explosion.
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The Iran Contra scandal dominated national news and occupied
the agenda of White House staff. The secret sale of arms
to Iran to secure the release of hostages in Lebanon and
the diversion of those funds as military aid to Nicaraguan
contras was revealed.
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The
U.S.-led multinational force launched Operation
Desert Storm on January 16 to begin the Persian
Gulf War against Iraq. President George Bush transformed
the West Wing into a strategic center to plan
a build up and invasion that ended Iraqi occupation
of Kuwait and forced Iraq’s acceptance of
U.N. ceasefire terms that formally ended the war. |
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The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City
was bombed. Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White
House was closed to traffic.
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The U.S. House of Representatives approved two of four
proposed Articles of Impeachment against President Bill
Clinton. The president held a Rose Garden rally with supporters
and later was acquitted of the two articles by the Senate.
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Terrorists
attack the United States on September 11. Once
again the West Wing became a logistical center
for the nation at war. |
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The West Wing celebrated its 100th birthday on November
5.
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