Living History by Unknown (best non fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

Jackie and I also discussed the Secret Service and the unusual security challenges that the children of Presidents presented. She confirmed my instincts that even though security was necessary, it was important to stress to Chelsea, as she had to her own children, that she owed respect to the agents sworn to protect her. I had seen children of Governors boss around and even defy the middle-aged state troopers assigned to guard them. Jackie told me about the time an older kid had taken John’s bicycle and he had asked his security detail to get it back for him. When Jackie found out, she told John he would have to stand up for himself. The successive teams of agents assigned to protect Chelsea understood that, as much as possible, she needed to live the life of a normal teenage girl.

The Service uses code names for its protectees, and each member of a family has a name beginning with the same letter. Bill became “Eagle,” I was “Evergreen” and Chelsea, appropriately, was called “Energy.” The code names sound whimsical, but they mask a harsh reality: Ongoing threats require the vigilance and intrusiveness of protective security.

Jackie spoke frankly about the peculiar and dangerous attractions evoked by charismatic politicians. She cautioned me that Bill, like President Kennedy, had a personal magnetism that inspired strong feelings in people. She never came out and said it, but she meant that he might also be a target. “He has to be very careful,” she told me. “Very careful.”

I was still having a hard time understanding how we could salvage any semblance of normality in our lives if we had to keep looking over our shoulders everywhere we went.

Jackie knew that, unlike previous presidential couples, we didn’t have our own house or vacation getaway to escape to. She urged me to use Camp David and to stay with friends who had homes in secluded places where we could avoid the curiosity seekers and paparazzi.

Not all our conversation was so serious. We gossiped about mutual friends and even fashion. Jackie was one of the twentieth century’s iconic trendsetters. My friends and some in the press had kibbitzed about my clothes, my hair and my makeup since the day Bill announced he would run. When I asked her if I should just turn myself over to a team of famous consultants as some in the media had recommended, she looked horrified.

“You have to be you,” she said. “You’ll end up wearing someone else’s idea of who you are and how you should look. Concentrate instead on what’s important to you.” Her words were a relief. With Jackie’s tacit permission, I determined to continue having fun while not taking any of it too seriously.

After lingering for two hours, it was finally time for me to leave. Jackie urged me to call or be in touch if I ever had questions or needed to chat. Until her untimely death from cancer sixteen months later, she remained a source of inspiration and advice for me.

I was reassured after my visit with Jackie, but the respite didn’t last long. I had agreed to grant my first newspaper interview as First Lady to Marian Burros of The New York Times, who typically covered the first big black-tie dinner of each new administration.

Her stories usually focused on the choice of food, flowers and entertainment for the evening.

I thought the interview offered me a chance to share my ideas about how I intended to make the White House a showcase for American food and culture.

Burros and I met in the Red Room, one of three sitting rooms on the State Floor of the Executive Mansion. We sat on a nineteenth-century American Empire sofa next to the fireplace. Gilbert Stuart’s famous 1804 portrait of Dolley Madison, President Madison’s wife and one of my feisty predecessors, hung on one wall. As Burros and I talked, I occasionally caught a glimpse of Dolley out of the corner of my eye. She was an extraordinary woman, well ahead of her time, famous for her sociability, trendsetting personal style (she favored turbans), political skills and great courage. During the War of 1812, as invading British troops advanced on Washington, she spent the day preparing what would be her last White House dinner party for President Madison and his military advisers, who were expected to return from the front. Although she finally realized that she had to evacuate, she refused to leave until the British were practically at the door. She fled with the clothes on her back, important state documents and a few treasured items from the Mansion. Her last act was to request that the full-length portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart be cut out from its frame, rolled up and removed to a safe house.

Shortly after her escape, Admiral Cockburn and his men sacked the White House, ate the meal she had prepared and burned the Mansion.

I wanted my first White House dinner party to be memorable, but not that memorable.

I told Burros that (wanted to put our personal stamp on the White House, as previous First Couples had done. I began by introducing American cuisine to the menu. Ever since the Kennedy Administration, the White House kitchen had been ruled by the French. I understood why Jackie had wanted to improve much about the White House, from decor to cuisine, but that was then. In the three decades since she had occupied the White House, American chefs had revolutionized cooking, starting with the incomparable duo Julia Child and Alice Waters. Child had written Bill and me at the end of 1992, urging us to showcase American culinary arts, and Waters wrote to encourage us to appoint an American chef. I agreed with them. The White House, after all, was one of our nation’s most visible symbols of American culture. I hired Walter Scheib, an experienced chef who specialized in American cuisine featuring lighter, fresher ingredients and introduced more food and wine supplied by American purveyors.

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