National Geographic: Inside the White House Page #4

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including Julia Child.

While history has recorded the names

of almost every White House chef,

the names and lives of the kitchen

assistants and the servants

who toiled on the staff

have gone largely unrecorded.

In 1909, Mrs. Taft considered

firing all of the white ushers

because they couldn't be treated

like servants in the same way as blacks.

She was persuaded not to.

Despite the discrimination,

black Americans who worked here then

created a vibrant world.

Their White House positions placed them

in the upper strata

of Washington's black society.

James Coats, Adolph Bird,

and Arlen Dixon,

I remember the first three butlers

I met during the Tafts Administration.

Lillian Rogers Parks,

a White House seamstress for 30 years,

was introduced to that society

by her mother, Maggie Rogers,

a maid to Mrs. Taft.

They had their homes

and they entertained

and then we had clubs.

That was very classy.

And that gave them the idea

to get together

and have a little a club

at the White House

called the Chandeliers.

Named for the cut glass fixtures

in the East Room, the Chandelier Club,

like many social clubs

in the early 1900s,

held a ball each year.

Though it was not staged there,

the White House imprimatur

made the Chandelier Ball exclusive.

The Marine Band played and

White House dignitaries always attended.

But outside the ball,

black workers were still treated

as second-class citizens.

In 1902, President Teddy Roosevelt

invited the noted educator,

Booker T. Washington,

to the White House for dinner.

Press reaction in the South

and the North was severe.

Roosevelt was chastened.

No black American received

another social invitation

to the White House for 28 years.

In the entrance hall,

the honor guard practices

for their ceremonial march

later this evening.

They are performing a kind of ritual

that helps define what has become

a national shrine.

For the occupants of the late 1800s,

the White House was too small

and not nearly grand enough

for the nation's aspirations.

There were frequent and elaborate plans

to expand or even abandon it.

I don't think the White House

would have survived the late 1860s,

had it not been where Lincoln had lived.

You think of Lincoln in his nightshirt

going down the hall at night

with the wind blowing

and his dreams that

his secretary sold him out,

and his wife's problems,

the child's death.

And it all happened in the White House.

And it's from the White House

he left in his carriage to go to

Ford's Theater

and it was to the White House

he was brought back dead.

It's not too excessive to say that

Lincoln sanctified the White House.

Now those...

this is what we call pull sugar,

which is simply water,

glucose and lemon juice...

With only hours to go

before the evening begins,

pastry chef Roland Mesnier is finishing

tonight's culinary grand finale.

Until you feel that you are...

that the ribbons is wide enough

because as you pull it thin,

it will get narrow on you.

That's...

just like a baby,

very, very careful,

you have to kind of have to tickle it

and massage it and be nice to it.

See, look at these.

Precision and timing is the key

to beautiful ribbons.

It makes you very nervous because of

the kind of material we're using.

Some as you can see shatters

just like this.

And, you know, one touch,

and that's it.

One wrong move,

in the corner of the dough.

So I think every state dinner

I age about two or three years.

Mesnier's creations represent

the sophistication

of the White House staff.

But it wasn't always this way.

At the end of the 19th century,

the President's house reflected

the manners of a frontier nation,

not the style of

an emerging imperial power.

It was a home comparable to many other

residences from its beginnings,

and then enormous demands came upon it

and we've had a rather imperial

community come to Washington.

General Grant, goodness,

he went out and got an old orderly

in the military that was

a friend of his to come be the chef.

And they had a state dinner and here,

apple pie came out

and big slabs of roast beef

with gravy dripping off of the plates

and Mrs. Grant was mortified.

These ambassadors didn't know

what to do with it -

get on the floor and chew it

or what.

By 1902, a brilliant young man

named George Cortelyou

had changed all of that.

At Roosevelt's request, he created

an almost regal White House style

that redefined the house

for the new century.

As part of the new look,

Teddy Roosevelt officially changed

the name of the mansion:

the new letterhead read simply:

"White House, Washington."

As part of Teddy Roosevelt's

re-invention of the White House,

he added a new wing.

It is in this Wing,

not in the house itself,

that the most famous room

in America stands: The Oval Office.

Frankly... and definitely

there is danger ahead.

Danger against which we must prepare.

We are now prepared to destroy,

more rapidly and completely,

every productive enterprise

the Japanese have in any city.

We shall destroy their docks,

their factories, and their communication.

It shall be the policy of this nation

to regard any nuclear missile

launched from Cuba... against

any nation in the Western Hemisphere

as an attack by the Soviet Union

on the United States.

Because of the history

that has been made here,

the White House is the most

potent symbol of power in the world.

Inside the symbol with only an hour

before the first guests arrive,

the White House staff is in a whirl

of final preparation.

No, no, no.

They greet these people here...

Each of the head people:

The tables have been set up very well.

I've personally checked them...

I hope there's nobody here.

It's those mundane chores

that have to be done.

That's part of what the evening's about

...is part of setting a mood

as well as entertaining guests.

We're trying to set a mood which is

a nice pleasant evening for everybody.

Since any of these plates

could be the President's,

each has to be perfect.

Though each guest eats the same meal,

everyone doesn't get to

dine with the President.

All of tonight's 151 guests will not

fit in the State Dining Room

so some of them will have to eat here

in the Ground Floor Map Room.

To the Russians

who have been relegated here,

someone may have to explain

the American concept of "the kids table"

You gotta know what you're doin'.

Not just anyone can serve the President

and his guests.

Besides careful training,

each of these waiters has undergone

an FBI background check.

The State Dining Room,

like the rest of the house, is ready,

but Gary Walters isn't

taking any chances.

If the Chief Usher had made a similar

inspection of the House 45 years ago,

he would have found

a few things out of place.

In 1948, the White House

was completely gutted.

The floors that Jackson, Lincoln,

and two Roosevelts had walked across

were gone.

After five years of demolition

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