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During
her early days as first lady, the press criticized
Nancy Reagan for wearing expensive designer dresses,
a custom practiced by other first ladies in the
past. Mrs. Reagan poked fun at herself and attended
a newspaper party dressed in clownish clothes. Even
her critics smiled when she stepped onstage.
Ronald Reagan Library |
- President
Gerald R. Ford said it was "the best public housing
I've ever seen."
- President
Harry S. Truman referred to the White House as a "glamorous
prison," the "great white sepulcher of ambitions,"
or the "taxpayers' house."
- Right after the Inauguration in 1989, Barbara Bush said
she wanted to use a smaller car rather than a big black
limo and to travel by train or commercial airline when
she had to go out of town. The Secret Service approved
the smaller car but nixed the commercial travel "since
the number of threats against the first lady is higher
than that for the vice president."
- Nancy Reagan said that about a month after moving in
to the White House, she was surprised when the usher sent
up a bill for their food. "Nobody had told us that
the president and his wife are charged for every meal,
as well as for such incidentals as dry cleaning, toothpaste
and other toiletries."
- The isolation of the President in the White House is
not so much self-imposed as it is imposed by others and
by the nature of the office itself. The ushers, military
aides, and key staff members all try to ensure that the
President's energy is reserved for the big decisions;
to spare him the petty details of life; to fulfill as
quickly as possible his requests, large and small. His
family is similarly isolated, and are oddly unaware of
most of the rumors that sweep through Washington,"
according to Julie Nixon Eisenhower in Pat Nixon, The
Untold Story.
- The Executive Mansion of the United States is far more
than a temporary home for the family who lives there for
four or eight years. It is now a museum containing priceless
works of art and furnishings, a national monument open
to 2 million tourists a year, a guest hotel for entertaining
visitors of state and, in recent years, an impregnable
fortress for protecting the life of the commander-in-chief."
- J.B. West, Upstairs at the White House.
- I think we sat down to eat together only once, and as
I looked around the table, Barbara and Jenna [George W.
Bush's twin daughters] were not anywhere to be seen. One
of the butlers spoke up and said that they had just telephoned
the kitchen and ordered sandwiches to be delivered to
the bowling alley. The bowling alley! We put an end to
that before it started, and they ate with us." -
Barbara Bush, A Memoir, on Inauguration Week, 1989,
when her entire extended family stayed at the White House.
- Jack took both pride and interest in the rose garden.
He wanted to know the varieties. He had ideas about the
juxtaposition of colors, and if there were yellow leaves
or other signs of distress he wanted to know what ought
to be done and who would take care of it. I must say I
was a bit surprised, for I had never heard nor seen him
demonstrate any interest in horticulture at home."-
Rose Kennedy, Times to Remember, about John Kennedy's
interest in the rose garden outside the Oval Office.
- Every evening, while I took a bath, one of the maids
would come by and remove my clothes for laundering or
dry cleaning. The bed would always be turned down. Five
minutes after Ronnie came home and hung up his suit, it
would disappear from the closet to be pressed, cleaned
or brushed. No wonder Ron used to call the White House
an eight-star hotel."- Nancy Reagan, My Turn.
- When the press on the outside wanted to know what she
was doing inside, even when Tricia was "at home,"
there was little privacy. The Secret Service was not with
us on the mansion's second and third floors, the family
quarters, but the minute we stepped onto the public floors
below our rooms, we were guarded." - Julie Nixon
Eisenhower, Pat Nixon, the Untold Story,
discussing her older sister, Tricia Nixon.
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