History Buff's Guide to the Presidents (56 page)

The West Wing underwent a complete overhaul in 1934 under the direction of the Roosevelt administration.

Taft also placed the room in a central location, allowing for workers in the West Wing to have equal access to him and vice versa. When Franklin Roosevelt became president in 1933, the idea of the ellipse remained, but the locality bugged him because it offered almost no quiet or privacy. FDR resolved to have the whole floor plan changed, and while he was at it, he threw on a second floor for good measure.

Reconstruction expanded the basement, doubled the area of the main floor, and perched a subdued second floor atop most of the first.

This 1938 image captures the renovated West Wing, which received a new second story and a transfer of the Oval Office to the southeast corner (lower right).

The Oval Office was moved to the extreme southeast corner. With a taller ceiling, spacious windows, and a magnificent view of the south grounds, it provided a statelier locale than Taft’s confined den. It also allowed the president to slip out onto the south lawn or into the main residence without being seen or bothered by staffers or White House journalists.

In 1929, on Christmas Eve night, an electrical fire broke out in the original West Wing, requiring Herbert Hoover to replace the roof and refurbish the offices. This may have given FDR added reason to provide the Oval Office with several quick exits. Due to his challenged mobility, Roosevelt had an acute fear of house fires.

7
. EAST WING–BOMB SHELTER (1942)

White House security tightened considerably after Pearl Harbor. Soldiers patrolled the locked gates. Antiaircraft guns bristled from the rooftops and the lawns. No one entered the premises without a pass. All house tours stopped. FDR understood the need for added precautions, but he detested the tense atmosphere it created. When Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, in charge of the Secret Service, called for tanks to ring the perimeter, Roosevelt quickly overruled the measure as overkill. When Morgenthau insisted the president use the treasury vault as a bomb shelter, Roosevelt said he would be happy to, but only if he could play poker with the gold down there.
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Given that an air raid or naval bombardment against the White House was considered a real possibility, the secretary and others felt it necessary to build a bomb shelter on site. They chose an area just east of the main residence. When it was completed, FDR took one look at the confined subterranean tube and decided that he would rather take his chances above ground. All that work did not go to waste, however. To cover the structure, crews built a two-story East Wing with a large entrance foyer and ample office space for wartime staff.

The East Wing later became the headquarters of the White House Social Office and the main entrance for tour groups. In 1977, Rosalynn Carter was the first to officially establish the wing as the office of the first lady, a role it has retained ever since, except when Hillary Clinton opted for an office in the West Wing. Also located in the building is a narrow but comfortable movie theater for the first family (seating capacity: thirty).

The bomb shelter still exists. It is currently referred to as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC). Used during situations of high alert, it can hold a dozen people or more. It also has a private bathroom, a few sleeping cots, emergency rations, and can reportedly withstand an airburst from a nuclear warhead.

During 9/11, several members of the executive branch were ushered into the PEOC, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Bolton, and Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

8
. THE TRUMAN OVERHAUL (1948–52)

Bess Truman knew it was time to move out when her piano broke through the second floor of the main residence. The walls bulged. Cracks webbed the plaster ceilings. Plumbing and electricity were convoluted and substandard. After inspecting the structure, the city’s building commissioner commented that the floors were “staying up there purely from habit.” Age, inherent structural weaknesses, and the hefty new roof were conspiring to implode the whole place. The only ones not complaining about the conditions were the rats.
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By the 1940s, the support beams of the original structure were so weak that floorboards actually swayed beneath people as they walked through the rooms. So during the Truman restoration, the whole building was gutted and rebuilt.
Abbie Rowe, White House

In this view, the entire substructure of the North Portico undergoes an overhaul, including the installation of a two-lane bowling alley.
Abbie Rowe, White House

While the Trumans moved across the street to the Blair House, construction crews set about gutting the entire structure, except for the newer third floor. In went a new foundation, two subfloors, steel framing, a gym, a new pantry, uniform plumbing and wiring, plus an updated air conditioning system and a two-lane bowling area below the North Portico. For the first time, guest rooms had adjoining baths.

The project consumed nearly six million dollars and took almost all of Truman’s second term to complete. When it was finished in 1952, the president led the first-ever televised tour of the building, escorting Walter Cronkite and other members of the media on a room-to-room expedition. Some thirty million viewers tuned in to see the new digs.

To expedite the process of dismantling the mansion’s interior, engineers brought in a bulldozer. Truman refused to let them knock a hole in the wall large enough to drive it through, so workers dismantled the dozer piece by piece and reassembled it inside the house.

9
. THE KENNEDY RESTORATION (1961)

Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower were military through and through. Accustomed to formal dinners and proper etiquette, they were also hardwired to live on a budget. As a consequence, they kept a rather frugal house. For middle-class America, this was all well and good. For incoming First Lady Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy, the decor was hideously gauche. To her, it looked like “a wholesale furniture store during a January clearance.”
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Poring over books from the Library of Congress, Jackie researched every lost facet of the historic building. “Everything in the White House must have a reason for being there,” she insisted. “It would be sacrilege merely to ‘redecorate it’—a word I hate. It must be restored.” She quickly cofounded the White House Historical Association and established a committee of restoration and fine arts scholars to assist. She also had the house designated as a museum, making it eligible for donations of historic artifacts and original furniture, all of which were to remain permanently under the care of a full-time curator. The entire project, she vowed, would be paid for with private funds and the sales of an official White House guidebook.
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In the spirit of Truman, but with somewhat more panache, she conducted a televised tour of her own. It aired on Valentine’s Day, 1962, and attracted more than forty million viewers. In the following months, tourism to the mansion increased 67 percent.

Among the items restored was a desk carved from timbers of a British frigate. The piece was a gift to Rutherford B. Hayes from Queen Victoria in 1877. Jackie Kennedy found it in a storage area in the White House basement. The desk had been rescued once before, by First Lady Caroline Harrison in the early 1890s, who found it in the attic.

10
. THE SITUATION ROOM (1961)

With painfully slow reports, no central communications hub, and no way to see the big picture, Jack Kennedy viewed the Bay of Pigs operation as a blur of confusion, in addition to being a crushing disappointment. To prevent the dangerous mayhem from happening again, he ordered the construction of a “Situation Room,” from which he could monitor critical events as they unfolded.

Constructed in the southwest corner of the West Wing basement, the initial arrangement was Spartan, consisting of small offices with mahogany walls and low ceilings. The entire area had a dark, echoing gloom that Henry Kissinger described as “essentially oppressive.” A main conference area served as the meeting room for the N
ATIONAL
S
ECURITY
C
OUNCIL
. Communications consisted of a few telephones, televisions, and direct links to the CIA, the Pentagon, and the State Department. Two or three aides manned the adjacent and cramped “Watch Room,” collecting information from intelligence agencies and departments and sorting reports into file folders. The “real time” arrangement may have had an effect on Kennedy’s foreign policy. Rather than view international problems as long-term issues, he increasingly treated them as short-term “situations” to be addressed ad hoc. During the ensuing Vietnam escalation, Lyndon Johnson frequented the complex often, hovering over maps and micromanaging ground and air forces in Southeast Asia.

Later presidents rarely visited, except for the occasional NSC meeting and during actual crises. Most preferred instead to receive daily reports from the Watch Room staff.

In 2006, the Situation Room underwent a major overhaul, complete with brighter lights, sound-dampening walls, cell-phone detectors, and larger work areas. The Watch Room was provided with two ergonomic workstations with multiscreen visuals, allowing the five rotating crews to work in greater speed and comfort. In the main conference room, old TVs were replaced with six flat-screen LCD and plasma monitors with secure connections and a direct feed to
Air Force One
. The overall floor space expanded to five thousand square feet, or about the area of two ranch homes. Unlike the Presidential Emergency Operations Center beneath the E
AST
W
ING
, the Situation Room remains merely a subbasement and is not bombproof.
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