National Geographic: Inside the White House Page #3

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And the bell buzzed.

I went in, the Prime Minister

is walking up and down...

...with this scotch in his hand,

talking, quoting,

and saying different things and he says,

"We're trying to find out

from the Russians

what we can do for them.

But what can we do?

It's like an iron shade."

And then he stopped

and stomped his foot,

"Oh, make that an iron curtain."

And then he saw me

and my eyes saw the bottle was empty.

"My poker face didn't fool you."

He says, "Yes, my man,

I need some more to drink."

He says, "I have a war to fight.

And I need fortitude."

So I proceeded and got

a bottle of scotch and opened it

and poured the Prime Minister

a drink and then I said to him,

"Mr. Prime Minister,

will that be all for the night?"

And he says, "I don't know.

I can depend on you."

And I said, "Well, Mr. Prime Minister,

what is it?"

And he says, "Well, if ever

I'm accused of being a teetotaler,

I want you to come to my defense."

I says, "Mr. Prime Minister,

I'll defend you to the last drop."

It's hard to imagine today,

but back in the Madison Administration

during the War of 1812, the British Army

captured the city of Washington

and burned the White House.

The Madisons were trying to keep

a cheery face on it all

and they had a dinner party.

And some of the most amusing

in context

letters of the Madison paper

are regrets to

that particular dinner party

that night in August.

Lo and behold,

you could hear the gunfire.

Mrs. Madison finally fled herself,

left the house alone with Paul Jennings

a slave.

Jennings was to bank the fire,

ironically, to keep it

from burning down.

But the British came in

at eleven at night.

They saw the dinner.

The officers sat down

and had the dinner.

The furniture was piled up

in the rooms with lamp oil on it,

the windows broken out.

And about 1 a.m.,

the British stood with flaming javelins

in a circle around the house

and Lieutenant Pratt fired his pistol.

The javelins were thrown

in the house and it exploded.

Mrs. William Thornton a British citizen,

was there and said,

"It glowed like a great plum cake."

The White House is reduced to ashes

except for the stone walls

that General Washington

had cherished so.

Upstairs on the Truman Balcony

we have one block that's unpainted.

But whenever we have people up there,

I take them outside and I look at it,

and I say,

"You remember this house burned in 1814."

I look at it all the time,

every time we have any kind

of international incident.

When Captain O'Grady was rescued

out of Bosnia,

I went out on the Truman Balcony

and I looked at the burn marks.

But I'm very aware every day

I go to work about how this house

carries the whole story of America

and how we're still creating that story

and what our obligations are.

Throughout the day during a state visit

meetings between the official delegations

are held and the press moves

from room to room

for photo opportunities.

...care to respond to

the health care situation...

Those living here are surrounded

by constant reminders...

...that they are not living

a private life.

"I feel as though I have just turned

into a piece of public property,"

Jacqueline Kennedy said

after only two months in White House.

Grandpa lives in the big White House

in Washington.

And Grandma lives there too.

And there she is

with two of the grandchildren...

as the entire family

goes to the East Room

to pose for the News of the Day camera.

The South Lawn has always been

the quintessential American backyard...

...something between a playground

and a formal garden.

President Wilson kept

a flock of sheep here

and he also welcomed

the first autogiro.

Each morning during

the Hoover Administration

the Cabinet played an exercise game

with an eight-pound medicine ball.

When Ike installed

the first putting green,

the stage was set for confrontation

with the local constituents.

Squirrels have created a nutty problem

at the White House

with President Eisenhower complaining

that the four-legged vandals are

tearing up his private putting green.

The President, a very earnest golfer,

brought on a mighty political storm

with his decision

to banish the squirrels,

even though nobody has found out

whether the animals

are Republicans or Democrats.

Well, the South Lawn is well inhabited

by squirrels.

And up at Camp David,

I noticed that the oak trees

shed acorns to a great extent.

And the squirrels didn't do much

about them.

So when the day came to go back down

to the White House,

I'd fill my pockets with acorns.

And there,

up and down and in the Rose Garden,

there would be these squirrels

and I'd throw the acorns out to them

and you'd see them, wham, they'd

just go and grab for those acorns

One occasion, at Camp David,

I didn't get any acorns,

and when I came back,

well, I went into the Oval Office

and we were having a meeting there.

I looked and in every one

of those windows,

the squirrels were standing

on their hind legs

and looking through their front legs

inside.

And they're looking at me.

And they literally...

I could see were saying,

"Where are the acorns?"

At about 3 p.m.,

the pianist for tonight's entertainment

practices in the East Room.

One floor below,

in the White House kitchen,

chef Walter Scheib is gearing up

for dinner now only five hours away.

In addition to the normal pressure

to please, turn-of-the-century chefs

...had to routinely serve seven-course

family meals

and twenty-course state dinners.

The pleasures of these meals

were not lost on President Taft,

who tipped the scales

at more than 300 pounds.

Though a success in the kitchen,

the chef's handy work

was causing problems elsewhere.

White House bathtubs proved

too narrow for Taft;

to his consternation

the President was frequently

left stuck in the tub.

White House ushers were sent scurrying

to find a proper vessel.

When it finally arrived,

it was 41 inches wide,

could hold nearly 65 gallons of water,

and all the men who installed it.

Tonight's guests will be served

one of the legendary

White House desserts,

the creation of pastry

chef Roland Mesnier.

That goes back.

This is when I am even more nervous

than normal.

You have to remember, you know,

when you serve a state dinner,

who are your guests?

The dining room is filled with

extremely important people,

people who have been everywhere,

that have tasted all sorts of food,

and our job is to make sure that

the guests will leave the White House

feeling that the President

and Mrs. Clinton did an excellent job

receiving the guests,

not the pastry chef, no,

or anybody else, but that

the President and the First Lady.

That has to be very well understood.

I think if you can do that,

then I think you do your job very well.

Mesnier's almond baskets

will be the dinner's grand finale.

It's the type of culinary touch

that has always attracted

the attention of gourmets,

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