Comedians in the White House: Our Favorite Jokes by Presidents

“Thanks, folks. I’m here all this term.”

The president of the United State is supposed to represent the people of the country. And since we Americans have a sense of humor that is strong as it is broad, it’s not surprising that presidents can occasionally crack up their audiences.

Here are a few chuckles from our Chief Executives.

John Adams

on the legislature

“In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.”

Abraham Lincoln

of a political foe

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I ever met.”

Theodore Roosevelt

on corruption in Congress

“When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty.'”

Calvin Coolidge

to a woman sitting next to President Coolidge at a dinner party told him she’d bet a friend she could get at least three words of conversation out of him.

“You lose.”

Franklin Roosevelt

on being informed by an aide that Eleanor Roosevelt (who was conducting a fact-finding tour of a penitentiary) was “in prison.”

“I’m not surprised, but for what?”

John F. Kennedy

“I was almost late here today, but I had a very good taxi driver who brought me through the traffic jam. I was going to give him a very large tip and tell him to vote Democratic and then I remember some advice Senator Green had given me, so I gave him no tip at all and told him to vote Republican.”

Lyndon B. Johnson

addressing a Marine who said, “Mr. President, this is your helicopter over here.”

“They’re all mine, son.”

Jimmy Carter

on a late resurgence of his popularity

“My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me they use all their fingers.”

Ronald Reagan

on other politicians

“I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency — even if I’m in a Cabinet meeting.”

Bill Clinton

describing the White House

“Being president is like running a cemetery: you’ve got a lot of people under you and nobody’s listening.”

George W. Bush

“No matter how tough it gets, however, I have no intention of becoming a lame-duck president. Unless, of course, Cheney accidentally shoots me in the leg.”

Barack Obama

on his name

”Many of you know that I got my name, Barack, from my father. What you may not know is Barack is actually Swahili for ‘That One.’ And I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn’t think I’d ever run for president.”

Donald Trump

on wife Melania Trump’s Republican National Convention speech

“The media is even more biased this year than ever before — ever. You want the proof? Michelle Obama gives a speech and everyone loves it — it’s fantastic. They think she’s absolutely great. My wife, Melania, gives the exact same speech, and people get on her case.”

Featured image: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush in 2013 (Pete Souza, White House photo)

8 Weirdest Presidential Nicknames

“Tricky Dick,” “Big Steve,” and “Dude” aren’t the type of nicknames you’d expect to hear in the Oval Office, but these are just a few of the names that have been given to our heads of state. Here’s a list of eight weird presidential nicknames and the stories behind them.

1.    Abraham “The Grand Wrestler” Lincoln

Lincoln is known not only for his unmatched honesty but for his successful wrestling career as well — which earned him the nickname “The Grand Wrestler.” He was so successful, historians have found only one instance of Lincoln losing a wrestling match. He also helped create a move called the “choke slam” after he picked up his opponent by the throat and literally slammed him onto the ground.

Honest Abe was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1992.

2.    Chester “The Dude President” Arthur

In the late 1800s, the word dude was, in the words of linguist Arika Okrent, “a term of mockery for young men who were overly concerned with keeping up with the latest fashions.” Chester A. Arthur got his unusual nickname because of his lifestyle and love for fashion, sometimes at taxpayer expense. For example, after he became president following James Garfield’s assassination in 1881, he wasted no time spending over $30,000 ($2 million in today’s money) renovating the White House to better accommodate his parties.

Arthur was also no workaholic. He openly voiced his distaste for living in the place he worked and refused to work on Sundays and Mondays.

3.    Benjamin “The Human Iceberg” Harrison

Benjamin Harrison was the polar opposite of the socialite President Arthur, so much so that some derisively called him “The Human Iceberg.” He got his nickname because, although he could warmly engage with a crowd during speeches, he was said to be very cold and detached in person. He wasn’t often described as a mean or aggressive man, simply aloof, even among his staff.

4.    Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon

Richard Nixon earned the nickname “Tricky Dick” 22 years before Watergate in a 1950 Senate election. He was running against Helen Gahagan Douglas, a new age democrat who had been a Broadway star in the ’20s. At the height of the McCarthy era, Nixon centered his campaign not on Douglas’ platform, but on her affiliation with actors who had been accused of engaging in communist activities. This tactic was enough to win Nixon the seat and the nickname.

 

5.    Lyndon “Light Bulb” Johnson

Lyndon B. Johnson took being a president “for the people” to the extreme. He was known among White House officials for running around every night and shutting off every unnecessary lights so that he wasn’t “wasting the tax payers’ money.”

6.    Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson

Andrew Jackson had an impressive military career before he became president. His nickname comes from his time in the service and was given to him by his troops. After the War of 1812, Andrew was ordered to disband his regiments. Instead of stranding them where they were, Jackson committed his own finances and time to get his troops home. He and his fellow generals offered their horses to the sick and walked alongside their men for much of the journey. This dedication led to the nickname “Old Hickory” because hickory is one of the strongest and hardest woods native to the United States.

7.    Grover “Big Steve” Cleveland

Stephen Grover Cleveland ditched his first name in 1881 after his friends adopted the nickname “Big Steve.” The 250-pound Cleveland couldn’t escape the public’s fat-shaming for long, though: During his time as governor of New York, he acquired the name “Uncle Jumbo.” This avuncular epithet helped create an image that appealed to voters, family, and friends alike, and due to his ever-increasing weight, the name followed him throughout his life.

8.    Herbert “The Great Humanitarian” Hoover

Herbert Hoover is arguably one of the most disliked presidents in American history. He had the misfortune of being president during the Great Depression, and for the most part, it seemed he did little to help. Before his presidency, though, he was seen as a generous man who gave to the poor and helped feed the hungry. He did everything from risking his life to save a couple of Chinese children to helping finance feeding the entire country of Belgium after it was overrun by Germany.

However, Hoover also refused to fund large-scale relief programs during the Depression that could have alleviated hunger and suffering for hundreds of American citizens, so there is debate over how genuine his selflessness was.

8 Most Embarrassing Presidential Gaffes

Today, everything an American president says is dissected and analyzed. For anyone under such scrutiny, gaffes are inevitable, and every thoughtless, off-hand comment or tasteless remark is captured and broadcast even before the president realizes what he just said. But all such gaffes are not equally horrid.

Here is a list of the eight most regrettable utterances from the highest office.

 

1. No Crooks Here

Asked in an interview if there were any situation in which the president, in the best interest of America, could commit an illegal act, Richard Nixon replied, “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” In hindsight, he was a little off on that one.

 

2. What Cold War?

Debating Jimmy Carter in 1976, Gerald Ford declared, “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.” Asked if he truly meant that the nations held behind the USSR’s Iron Curtain weren’t dominated by Soviets, he repeated himself, asserting that Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia were free of Soviet interference. It destroyed all of Ford’s credibility in foreign affairs.

 

3. Unsound Check

Prior to a 1984 radio broadcast, Ronald Reagan was asked to speak into the microphone for a sound check. Joking, he said, “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” A recording of his statement was leaked, and Soviet forces were briefly put on alert.

 

4. Language Tango 

In 1998 testimony before a grand jury, Bill Clinton was questioned about his improper relationship with White House aide Monica Lewinsky. In defending as truthful his statement that “there’s nothing going on between us,” he responded, “It depends on what the meaning of the word is is. If the — if he — if is means ‘is and never has been,’ that is not — that is one thing. If it means ‘there is none,’ that was a completely true statement. … Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.” His attempt at hair-splitting did not prevent his later impeachment by the House of Representatives.

 

5. Whose Finger Is on the Button?

Harry Truman, who liked to express himself in terse, direct statements, was asked whether the U.S. would consider using atomic weapons against the Chinese in Korea. He replied, “The military commander in the field will have charge of the use of weapons, as he always has.” Unfortunately, the commander was the impulsive, headstrong General Douglas MacArthur. Many Americans feared the General would start the next world war through the use of atomic bombs. The administration quickly issued a correction, but it didn’t erase the worries.

 

6. Bad Lip Reading

At the 1988 Republican Convention, candidate George H.W. Bush pledged to resist Congressional pressure to raise taxes. “They’ll push, and I’ll say no, and they’ll push again, and I’ll say, to them, ‘Read my lips: no new taxes.’” Two years later, those lips had to eat those words as Bush raised taxes, helping to drop his approval rating from 79% to 56%.

 

7. You’re on Candid Camera

A reporter once asked Dwight Eisenhower what important decisions his vice president, Richard Nixon, had helped him make. Eisenhower, with uncharacteristic candor, replied, “If you give me a week I might think of one.” It was such a revealing remark that the Democrats replayed it in campaign ads against Nixon in 1960.

 

8. Gutter Ball

On The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Barack Obama was asked about a recent bowling event. “I bowled a 129,” he replied. Leno replied sarcastically, “That’s very good, Mr. President.” And the president added, “It’s like the Special Olympics or something.” Even before the taped show could be aired, the White House recognized the insult to participants in the Special Olympics, and campaign of apologies began.

Featured image: Rcihard Nixon (Photo by Ollie Atkins, National Archives)

Cover Gallery: Presidents

The Saturday Evening Post has featured many U.S. presidents on its cover in its nearly 200-year history. Here is a gallery of the men who have helped shape our nation.

 

Fifteen years after his death and 23 years after leaving office, Grant appeared on the cover of the Post, in one of a series of articles by Colonel A. K. McClure on “How We Make Presidents.” Grant oversaw the elimination of Confederate nationalism and slavery, protected African-American citizenship, and supported industrial expansion.

 

 

The election of 1876 was one of the most contentious in U. S. history. It was one of only five elections in which the person who won the most popular votes did not win the election. At one point, Tilden had 19 more electoral votes than Hayes. But a deal was brokered in which 20 disputed electoral votes were awarded to Hayes in exchange for withdrawal of federal troops from the South, putting Hayes in the White House by one vote.

 

 

As he was handing over the reins of the presidency to his successor, John Adams, Washington wrote, “I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.”

 

 

Grover Cleveland was only U. S. President to serve two non-consecutive terms in office. He appeared on seven Saturday Evening Post covers and wrote several articles for the magazine on hunting, fishing, and the plight of democracy (not necessarily in that order of importance). He is remembered for being the only president to marry while in the White House, and for his deathless statement, “What is the use of being elected or re-elected unless you stand for something?”

 

 

An article in this issue of the Post proclaimed Taft to be “the heaviest President, the most traveled President, the best-natured President and the first golf player to occupy the White House.” He was among the most amiable and least ambitious men to be elected to the office. He continued most of the policies of his predecessor and friend, Teddy Roosevelt, but the two became estranged and ran against each other in 1912.

All his life, Taft tried in vain to reduce his weight. He reached 355 pounds while he served unhappily as president. He was also the only president to also serve as a justice on the Supreme Court, where he was far happier.

 

 

The Post was fascinated and charmed by Theodore Roosevelt, an energetic, progressive, young president who interrupted the long line of serious old men in the White House. Post editorials applauded his campaigns against “malefactors of great wealth” and his enthusiasm for making the U.S. a global power. Coming to the presidency in 1901 after President McKinley was shot, he was elected to a full term in 1904. He stepped aside in 1908 to let his friend, William H. Taft, successfully run for office. But in 1912, when this boy carved his pumpkin with TR’s toothy grimace and pince nez glasses, he was trying unsuccessfully for another term.

 

 

In 1862, with the country at the end of a Civil War, Lincoln called on Americans to face the challenges ahead without looking backward. He also reminded members of Congress that they would all be remembered for what they did in those perilous times:

“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

“Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.”

 

 

This photograph of former President Truman was taken in front of his Independence, Missouri home. In an article that Truman wrote for the Post, the 80-year-old looked back over his controversial career and explained the principles that guided him in making the most difficult decisions of his Administration — including the “firing” of Douglas MacArthur.

 

 

The Post hadn’t featured a sitting president on its cover since Taft’s appearance in 1909. A popular president, Eisenhower authorized the establishment of NASA, invoked executive privilege to help end McCarthyism, expanded social security, launched the interstate highway system, and established the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency which led to the development of computer networking and graphical user interfaces.

 

 

Among his many better known accomplishments, Kennedy also won a Pulitzer Prize (for “Profiles in Courage”), was awarded a Purple Heart, and donated his salary to charity.  He represented the new generation of politicians: he was young, good-looking, smart, and funny, and drew international admiration. Kennedy spoke of idealism at a time when the country wanted to move on to new horizons, but his aggressive stance against communism brought the country close to one war and involved it in another, in Vietnam.

This Rockwell portrait appeared a second time when the Post ran its memorial issue after Kennedy’s assassination.

 

 

President Johnson was a politician’s politician, and he was a paradox. He was cynical and calculating enough to be a powerful force in Washington, but also a champion of the poor and the man who launched a “War on Poverty. Johnson signed several civil rights bills that banned racial discrimination in public facilities, interstate commerce, the workplace, and housing. He signed the Voting Rights Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act into law. When he came to the White House after Kennedy’s assassination, he enjoyed a long honeymoon period with the press. But he lost the support of the media, and many Americans, with his determination to continue sending American soldiers to Vietnam.

 

President Nixon is best remembered for the Watergate scandal and his subsequent resignation, but he also opened diplomatic relations with China, initiated détente with the Soviet Union, and established the Environmental Protection Agency. He ended U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and supported the Equal Rights Amendment, affirmative action, and the food stamp program. It was ironic that a man who rose in politics through his anti-communist stance made such significant progress with the communist governments of Russia and China.

Rockwell painted this portrait of candidate Nixon nine years before Nixon won the presidency.

 

 

In this feature in the Post, “astrologer to the stars” Carroll Righter analyzed President Ford’s astrological profile, terming him a Moonchild. Ford has the distinction of being the only person to have served as both Vice President and President of the United States without being elected to either office.  It has not been determined if the alignment of the stars or planets was a factor.

Entering the White House abruptly when President Nixon resigned, he drew broad support by pardoning the men who’d avoided serving in Vietnam by illegally dodging the draft. But much of his popularity melted away when he also pardoned Nixon, sparing the nation a long, rancorous, divisive spectacle of a trial.

 

 

Once a Democrat, Reagan switched to the Republican party as his views became more conservative. As president, he supported Afghan rebels opposing Russia’s invasion of their land and pushed for a space-based missile system to protect America from a nuclear attack. In the end, though, he was the president whose policies and tactful diplomacy with Russian leaders would end the Cold War.

 

 

George H. W. Bush appeared on the Post cover when he was still vice president, but was poised to win the presidential election, held a month later. He is the oldest living former president and vice president.

Bush continued many of Reagan’s policies, but he bridled when journalists compared him unfavorably to the charismatic Reagan. He was portrayed by some as being weak, sheltered, and a wimp. Yet it was Bush, not Reagan, who served in World War II and survived being shot down as a Navy pilot. His single term was noted for his authorization of the military overthrow of a corrupt dictator in Panama and the smashing of Iraq’s force in Kuwait though Operation Desert Storm.

Smartphone Deniers

Sometimes I dream I’ve lost my iPhone. I’m adrift in the universe, cut off from my Facebook, Google, Twitter, email, texting, YouTube, livestream, and camera apps. It’s a terrifying prospect.

Like millions of Americans, I’m unashamedly addicted to my silicon-stuffed little slab. In just 10 years’ time, smartphones have managed to both transform and torture our culture (and me). These days, rather few of us can get to the morning’s first cuppa without reflexively checking in with our iOS- or Android-powered phone. Pathetic, eh?

Yet there are perfectly decent people — maybe you’re among them? — who dismiss smartphones, or even ­resent them. They just want to be left the hell alone by the millions of buzzing, beeping, and vibrating apps that are the signature of these pricey devices. Why? Because they don’t see the point of having massive processing power — not to mention GPS tracking — in the palm of their hand.

For some consumers, of course, cost is a hang-up, especially as you can grab a sweet little flip phone or bar-style model for under 20 bucks. Ramon Llamas, a market research analyst at IDC, which focuses on mobile-phone trends, told me the choice of a basic phone over a do-everything smartphone “really just comes down to one thing: cost.” Except that does not really tell the entire story.

Nancy Wintner, a veteran PR consultant in Pittsburgh, represents another perspective. “I have no interest in carrying my computer around in my purse,” she said to me, emphatically. She uses a bar phone that has limited functionality. “It meets my needs. I don’t feel disconnected from the world. I can always just pick up the phone and make a call.”

People like Wintner are not necessarily tech-averse outliers. They merely “choose to avoid the constant bombardment of information,” Bob O’Donnell, chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research, told me.

Others, according to O’Donnell, avoid smartphones largely because they cling to an old-fashioned notion of independence. “They’ve chosen to walk away from the overwhelming connectedness of modern life. It’s a retro thing.” These are the same folks who are drawn to the resurgence of vinyl records. “They are making a philosophical statement,” O’Donnell said.

Not surprisingly, one finds a diminishing number of smartphone users in the upper age ranges — but not by much. Until about the age of 75, O’Donnell said, people are generally willing smartphone users. After that, less so.

Someone like Snow Philip, a part-time journalist in Key West, Florida, is, at 74, right on the cusp. Philip owns a smartphone — it was a gift — but she’s packed it away. “I think it would complicate my life, which is full and rich. I don’t want to be as obsessed as everybody else, Facebooking and Twittering all the time,” she said when I called her on her landline. “It’s very unattractive to me.”

And then we have the last of the BlackBerry hangers-on, those stubborn few. Their devices today incorporate some smartphone-style goodies but are sparer by far. Among the most high-profile proponents is Michelle Kosinski, White House correspondent for CNN. Maybe you’ve seen her tapping away on her little BlackBerry in the White House briefing room. “I really love its simplicity and the [physical] keyboard,” Kosinski told me. “Emotionally, when I touch it, I think through it. And iPhone apps just annoy me.”

Most others in the White House press corps “have conceded defeat,” Kosinski said of the once ubiquitous BlackBerrys, but she’s in until the bitter end. Just in case, she’s stashed a bunch of older models in a drawer at home. “It may be the longest relationship I’ve ever had,” she said to me with a guilty giggle.

To those of us who love our phones to excess, Kosinki’s sentiment, though intended to be cute, has the sad, unmistakable ring of truth.

Cable Neuhaus writes about popular culture and media.

Hissing Cousins

The president might have insisted that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” but he evidently forgot to check with his wife first. Eleanor was something of a nervous wreck on March 4, 1933, her first Inauguration Day as first lady. She stood, shivering and apprehensive, as Franklin leaned on their son James’ shoulder and walked deliberately from the East Portico of the Capitol out to the center of the inauguration platform, 146 daunting feet away. While his landmark “fear itself” speech took only 15 minutes, the ensuing parade stretched for six miles and several hours. “The crowds were so tremendous, and you felt that they would do anything — if only someone would tell them what to do,” Eleanor recalled. “It was very, very solemn, and a little terrifying.” The president wouldn’t budge until the last of the 40 marching bands had filed by, but she had to leave early to get back to the White House to greet the 1,000 guests invited for afternoon tea and sandwiches (though 3,000 actually showed up). Later that night, the woman who had dreaded dances and cotillions her entire life would leave Franklin behind again to attend the inaugural ball.

And that was the easy part of the day. A few hours earlier that same evening, she had endured the most fearsome event, when the extended Roosevelt family arrived to celebrate its latest White House triumph. There were 75 of them in all for a buffet dinner, and not a drop to drink. (Prohibition wasn’t repealed until December.) The invitation list was drawn up by Sara Delano Roosevelt, FDR’s mother, who sat near her Franklin in the small drawing room, swollen with pride and expensive jewelry, waiting to welcome the guests. Eleanor discarded the usual first-lady protocol and greeted the visitors herself at the door, among them cousins Teddy and Helen Robinson and Archie Roosevelt from her side; cousins Laura and Lyman Delano and Aunt Kassie Collier from his. And then came Cousin Alice.

At first, no one knew exactly how to react. After all, this was a party for a victory Alice had tried to snuff out like a kitchen fire. The indomitable Sara chatted with her amiably; Alice had the good sense to limit her conversation to praising the current President Roosevelt, as opposed to the previous one (aka Alice’s father). Then she walked over to Eleanor. Alice thought her cousin could use a few pointers. “You’ll be able to learn after a while how to handle affairs like this,” she told Eleanor, glancing around the roomful of their collective kin. “I’ll help you if you like.” Not everyone appreciated Alice’s condescending brand of goodwill. “Mother expressed her thanks, her nervousness mounting under her cousin’s patronage,” said Eleanor and Franklin’s son Elliott. “Almost two years of widowhood had done nothing to curb [Alice’s] style or her irresistible compulsion to lord it over Mother.”

Alice’s lifetime claim on the White House was as strong as ever in 1933. She didn’t only drop by on Franklin’s first day. She had also been there the day before to visit the previous residents — the Hoovers. Alice said she wanted to take Paulina, her 8-year-old daughter, over to say good-bye, but there was clearly a dose of morbid curiosity in her motivation. “They looked like figures from waxworks, they looked so unalive. Poor, stiff, bruised, wounded,” she said. “That was the third of March. The next night — dinner at Franklin’s! Dinner at the White House! Riots of pleasure! All of us there, all of us having a good time. It couldn’t have been a more incredible contrast.”

Alice must have been in a very small circle of people in history who were invited to visit the outgoing president on his last day in office and the man who defeated him on his first. The fact that she showed up to celebrate with the extended family wasn’t entirely shocking, though given her rabid support for the Republican ticket it was a little like a player from the losing Super Bowl team dropping by the winners’ locker room to guzzle champagne. In the years that followed, what surprised and puzzled onlookers was that Alice kept coming back. Faced with the grim reality of now being an “out-of-season” Roosevelt (a phrase coined by Alexander Woollcott), she had two options for dealing with the rise of her Hyde Park relatives: make peace with them (as her brother Kermit did), or take a vow of ice-cold hostility (her brother Ted’s route). Naturally she chose both options. She cursed nearly every one of Franklin’s policies and mercilessly mocked Eleanor, all the while accepting virtually every invitation to the White House. The more belligerent members of her immediate family were disgusted by her willingness to associate with the White House usurpers. “I could not help feeling that it was like behaving in like fashion to an enemy during a war,” said Alice’s devoted brother Ted, who rarely disagreed with her on anything. “More so, for enemies generally only fight for territory, trade, or some material possessions. These are fighting us for our form of government, our liberties, the future of our children.”

For her part, Eleanor had expected to follow the same below-the-radar path as the previous first ladies. “I knew what traditionally should lie before me,” she said. “I had watched Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt and had seen what it meant to be the wife of the president, and I cannot say I was pleased by the prospect.” Her enforced vow of monotony lasted exactly two days. On the Monday after the inauguration, Eleanor conducted a press conference in the Red Room. That was noteworthy on its own; no first lady had ever held her own White House press conference before. Eleanor also added a twist: she only allowed female reporters to attend. It was her form of affirmative action, a way to underscore the disadvantages women faced in most professions, including the media. The first conference attracted 35 female reporters, some of whom had to sit on the floor because there weren’t enough chairs. Eleanor arrived carrying a box of candied fruit and passed it around as if she were hosting a neighborhood bridge party. There was a decidedly clubby feeling at her conferences. She focused on topics she felt would interest women and pledged not to answer anything blatantly political, which she insisted was the president’s realm. When she seemed to stray too close to hot-button territory, it was the women reporters who would sometimes caution her by yelling out, “Oh, Mrs. Roosevelt, you’d better put that off the record!” The female press corps developed a strong (and some would say unprofessional) sense of loyalty, even devotion, to her.

It’s no wonder that Edward Bok, TR’s old friend and the editor of the Ladies Home Journal, commissioned Alice to write an article called “The Ideal Qualifications for a President’s Wife.” Journalistically, it was inspired casting. After all, who better to opine on Washington tradition — and how to break it — than Princess Alice. She took a poke or two at her cousin, but she wrote in a sort of invisible ink, focusing on Eleanor’s means — her noblesse oblige and obsession with saving the world — rather than her actual policy choices. If Eleanor was overstepping her boundaries as the president’s wife, Alice certainly wasn’t going to say so directly, even as she reminded readers that the first lady was still fair game. “There is always the possibility,” she warned, “that people will say, ‘We didn’t elect her. What is she horning in for?’”

Eleanor horned in because, like her uncle Ted, she knew the value of a bully pulpit. A meeting with the first lady, or just her brief presence at an event, could shine a light on an issue or problem she cared about. In addition to her own priorities, she continued her now-familiar role as her husband’s stand-in. In New York, as the wife of a governor in a wheelchair, she was obligated to travel from one corner of the state to the other; as the wife of a president in a wheelchair, she had to do it on a national scale. In her first year as first lady, she logged 38,000 miles (and even more the next). She was the first first lady to travel by airplane, though she was perfectly happy using less stylish modes of transportation. She frequently spent the night on a train, sometimes sleeping in her seat if a sleeper car wasn’t available.

In November 1933, she made the cover of Time magazine (more than six years after Alice earned that honor). The apt headline was “Eleanor Everywhere.” The Time cover had been published to coincide with the release of Eleanor’s book of essays called It’s Up to the Women, an odd mix of platitudes (“For every normal human being, fresh air is essential”) and impassioned arguments about the role of women in the country and the world. She wasn’t the only Roosevelt moonlighting as an author. The same week that Eleanor’s book was released, Alice published her long-awaited autobiography, Crowded Hours (a favorite phrase of her father’s). Derived in large part from a series of articles Alice had written for the Ladies’ Home Journal, Crowded Hours was a fairly bloodless political memoir. Still, the book sold well, in large part because Alice had said so little for the record over her 30-plus years of celebrity. Crowded Hours was at the top of the nonfiction best-seller lists for every city east of the Mississippi on November 13, 1933. That was the week Eleanor’s book hit the stands. It’s Up to the Women only made the list in Washington, where it beat out Crowded Hours for the top spot.

As it turned out, the cousins’ books were only an introduction to what became a long-running media sparring match. The next round, ironically, was touched off by Will Rogers, world-famous actor, writer, vaudevillian, and wit. Rogers was one of a handful of prominent people who was a friend equally to Alice and to Eleanor. In August 1935, the 55-year-old Rogers was touring Alaska with the famed aviator Wiley Post when their plane crashed on takeoff, killing them both. His column, Will Rogers Says, had been a fixture in American newspapers for 13 years, read daily by 40 million people. Suddenly the McNaught Syndicate needed another pithy, informed, well-known writer to fill Rogers’ space. McNaught’s founder, V.V. McNitt, thought Princess Alice was just the woman for the job. The trouble was, as much as Alice admired writers, she didn’t enjoy writing herself. The drudgery didn’t appeal to her, though she’d never say that in so many words. “I shall never write another book,” she’d later joke. “My vocabulary is too limited.” But McNitt pursued her for months, and he finally prevailed. Alice’s appeal was strong enough that more than 75 newspapers bought her column sight unseen.

What Alice Thinks debuted in January 1936, and just as McNaught had hoped, she zeroed in on all aspects of the New Deal. But while Will Rogers had been a master at bringing the high-and-mighty down to the level of the average Joe, Alice was such a deep Capitol Hill insider that she was practically entombed. In What Alice Thinks, she would launch into an attack on boondoggles at Passamaquoddy or the persecution of General Hagood, all with the assumption that her readers were as in the know as the guests at her A-list dinner parties. Less than two months into her run many readers were wondering just what was Alice thinking?

What Alice Thinks looked all the more ponderous next to a new column by another celebrated Washington woman: Eleanor. When word spread that a column from Alice was in the offing, the editors at the United Feature Syndicate were eager for a column by the first lady that could compete. But they weren’t sure that the multitasking and peripatetic first lady could pull it off. At the time of its launch, only 25 papers bought the column, which was called My Day.

The early columns were chatty slices of the first lady’s daily life, both in her official capacity as a White House hostess and as a mother and grandmother. But what made My Day stand out was the context. Many of her mundane stories might sound unexceptional in the social-media era, but no one had ever pulled the curtain back like that before on a world so close to the president. Discovering that the first lady of the United States had a lot in common with the average housewife was a revelation.

While Alice’s lens was tightly focused on Washington, politics, and the dance of legislation, Eleanor’s was a broader and softer report on the people and events that whirled through her active life. If Alice spent one day squawking about cabinet secretaries fighting for their share of WPA funds, on that same day Eleanor might recount her trip to the District of Columbia Training School for Delinquent Girls. Alice was the cynic to Eleanor’s idealist, the same roles they had played since they were teenagers. “I am trying terribly hard to be impartial and malevolent at the same time,” she told Newsweek when her column debuted, “but when I think of Frank and Eleanor in the White House I could grind my teeth to powder and blow them out my nose.”

Alice was perhaps the only woman on the planet who referred to the president as Frank. Naturally, she was more formal to his face. “I called him ‘Franklin,’” she said. “He used to wince, as if he’d prefer me to call him ‘Mr. President.’ That would annoy him, you see. But we had a very good time together.” Which is to say, she had a good time needling him, and he tolerated — and maybe even appreciated — her outrageous sense of humor.
Eleanor found herself caught in her cousin’s web, too, thanks to her cousin’s gift for mimicry. With her teeth thrust out, her jaw tucked in, and her voice ratcheted to a quivering upper register, Alice’s take on Eleanor came across as something like a talking horse just out of a proper British finishing school. Her act started as a cocktail party trick, but soon became infamous enough that Washington gossip columnists would report whenever Alice added new features to it. Marion Dickerman recalled being at a White House luncheon when Eleanor asked Alice an awkward question: “Alice, why don’t you give one of your impersonations of me now.” Dickerman recalled that the always self-assured Alice seemed, briefly, uneasy before performing the routine that had been generating guffaws at parties across the capital. Eleanor obligingly laughed along. If she was hurt, she didn’t give Alice the satisfaction of responding. “The most helpful criticism I ever received,” Eleanor wrote, “was a takeoff of me on the radio done by my cousin, Alice Longworth. She did it for me one afternoon and I could not help being amused and realizing that it was a truthful picture, and that I had many things to correct.”

Not surprisingly, the Washington chattering class started predicting Alice’s exile from the White House once and for all. The story became such a hot topic that the reporters at one of Eleanor’s weekly press conferences asked if it were true. Eleanor denied it categorically. But Alice herself told a different story. Years later, she insisted that Eleanor dropped a series of hints to stay away:

“When Eleanor came to the White House, she said to me, ‘You are always welcome here but you must never feel that you have to come.’ So, [I went] with great alacrity and enthusiasm and had a lovely, malicious time. Then a little while later I had another communication from Eleanor. ‘I’m told that you are bored at coming to the White House, and I never want you to be that, so …’ So I wrote her a very cheerful reply, saying, ‘How disagreeable people are, trying to make more trouble than there already is between us, and of course I love coming to the White House. It couldn’t be more fun and I have always enjoyed myself immensely, etc., etc.’ Needless to say, she never asked me there again.”

It was true that Alice could test the limits of her cousins’ tolerance. When James Roosevelt proposed that his father appoint Alice to some unnamed government commission, FDR’s reply, “which I shall censor somewhat,” Eleanor told a friend, “was: ‘I don’t want anything to do with that woman!’” But the invitations to the White House kept coming. Several newspapers reported that Franklin and Eleanor invited Alice to the White House on February 12, 1934. That was Alice’s 50th birthday, and Eleanor knew that her cousin would enjoy celebrating the landmark at her old home.

It had always been Eleanor’s nature to try to smooth over disagreements that might rattle family harmony. But she could easily have abandoned her peacekeeper role. After all, she was the one now sitting in the White House. She was the one whose column had become a success nationwide, appearing in 62 papers by 1938. On the other hand, by June 1937 Alice’s career as a columnist was put to bed, 18 months after it began.

From the Archive: Click here to read Eleanor’s and Alice’s opinions on the Kennedys, Khrushchev, and other politicians.

Falling for Jackie Kennedy

This is the sixth installment of our series “Reconstructing Kennedy.”

Hollywood couldn’t have dreamed up two better characters than John and Jacqueline Kennedy to portray America’s ideal, romantic couple. She was elegant, poised, and incredibly well dressed. He was the newly elected president of the United States. Young, sophisticated and good looking, they seemed like the polar opposites of the previous residents of the White House, Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower. The Kennedy’s attractiveness quotient rose even higher just two weeks after the election when Jacqueline gave birth to a son.

Many Americans only got their first look at Jackie during the inaugural ceremonies. She’d remained at home during the campaign under her obstetrician’s order, though she was still giving interviews, taping TV commercials, and writing a weekly newspaper column called “Campaign Wife.”

In the following months, Americans read about the dazzling receptions she hosted, how she put international visitors at ease with her command of French and Spanish, and even got on the good side of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. Newspapers and magazines also ran stories on Jackie’s wardrobe and her French-influenced look. Copies by several domestic designers soon appeared on American women across the country.

But Jackie made her most memorable impression as first lady in 1962, when she conducted a televised tour through the recently refurbished White House.

The makeover had been sorely needed. As the Post reported in 1963 (“How Jackie Restyled the White House”), President Truman had ordered massive renovations to the White House’s structure in 1945 to prevent the building from collapsing. But the interior design had been an afterthought, entrusted to a hotel contractor who gave the rooms a bland, institutional look. One Washington reporter wrote, “The White House is safe, all right, but it has completely lost its charm. The restoration took the heart out of the building…Now it has no more appeal than the Pentagon.”

Arriving at the White House, the Kennedys discovered most of the furnishings dated back only as far as 1902. The paintings were all forgettable works that previous presidents hadn’t bothered to take with them when they left.

What Jackie proposed was more than just a refurnishing. Her intention was to build a collection of White House furnishings that would reflect the long heritage of American design. Under her direction, the Executive Mansion acquired 500 items of furniture and art. Some were former White House furnishings that she bought back from private ownership. Many other items came from wealthy collectors, but several were donated from average Americans who offered up their antique silverware, wallpaper, and chamber pots. When completed, the collection was protected by a law, proposed by Jackie, that would forbid the removal of any items from the White House.

The tour of the completed project was televised on February 14 when Jackie showed the new acquisitions and explained how each room was furnished in the style of a different era. The Lincoln room, for example, contained only furniture of the Civil War period and included Lincoln’s own portrait of Andrew Jackson and a table purchased by his wife, Mary. Jackie was seen that night by over 80 million Americans.

Jackie made her most enduring impression when she was no longer first lady. She remained in the public eye from the death of her husband right up to his burial at Arlington Cemetery. Throughout that time, she displayed a fortitude and courage that few had suspected in her.

Looking back at articles about her in the Post, it’s surprising to see how good a job she did as first lady even though it was a job she never wanted. Interviewed for the Post by an old friend (“An Exclusive Chat With Jackie Kennedy”), she admitted to a chronic shyness. “I can’t stand being out in front. I know it sounds trite, but what I really want is to be behind [John] and to be a good wife and mother.”

It wouldn’t have surprised John Kennedy. His wife had always impressed him with her quiet strength. Years earlier, he told a friend, “My wife is a shy, quiet girl, but when things get rough, she can handle herself pretty well.”

It’s no surprise that even today, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy remains an icon in American history.

Pre-Watergate Nixon letter expresses excitement for recording presidential history

Buried in the archives of The Saturday Evening Post are treasures from the nation’s nearly 300 years of history, whether in vintage advertising, classic illustrations, or insightful reporting that illuminates life in America of decades now passed.

Frequently we find old articles with an interesting point of view, providing us with insight on specific historical events from the people who lived through them.

And in the case of this gem from our Fall 1972 issue (right), some articles look much different when measured with the hindsight of history.

Then-President of the United States Richard Nixon wrote this letter for the Post in relation to a photo essay by official White House photographer Ollie Atkins, which appeared in the same issue. The full text of Nixon’s letter appears below. Click here to see the photo essay as it originally appeared in the Post.

 

To Communicate Dimensions of Truth

By Richard Nixon

In the archives and libraries of America are carefully preserved the records of each of our Presidents—letters, minutes, diaries, memoranda—and now even tape—recorded interviews with those who are a part of past administrations. But only in recent times has the strong effort been made to preserve a complete photographic account of Presidential history.

Though I often joke with Ollie Atkins, the official White House photographer, about his persistent efforts always to be in the right place at the right time with his cameras, I must say that I am very happy indeed with the modern practice of keeping a full photographic record of the Presidency. For as I look over Ollie’s pictures, including those which make up the photographic essay on these pages, I realize again their unique ability to communicate dimensions of truth which are often missed in the written record.

Through these pictures, for example, I can feel again the sense we all had in Peking and Moscow of participating in one of history’s watershed moments. And I am reminded, too, as I look through these photos, of nuances of personality in those I have known which are sometimes difficult to put into language. By helping to preserve the mood, the spirit, the character of a person or an event—or an entire administration—the photographer can perform, I believe, a unique public service.

When historians study all the records of the Nixon years, I hope they will conclude that these were good years, years in which we ended a difficult war, achieved significant arms control agreements and made peaceful negotiation the way of life among nations. I hope, too, that this Administration will be remembered as one which reordered an economy which had grown dependent on wartime spending, decentralized and revitalized a Federal bureaucracy which had grown rigid and unresponsive, and helped a divided Nation substitute the rule of reason for confrontation and disorder.

There have been moments of disappointment in these years, of course, but there have been many more moments of great satisfaction. After nearly four years as President, I believe we can be proud of the record we are leaving for those who will write the history of this Administration—even as I am proud of this photographic essay concerning some of its highlights

{signed} Richard Nixon
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

The Presidents and the Press

President Obama isn’t the first president to incur the wrath of America’s media. For most of his first term, he had a fairly good relationship with the press. If he was relentlessly attacked by some networks, he was given fairly friendly coverage from others. But all that goodwill flew out the window when the press learned that the Department of Justice had been trying to track down leaks of sensitive information by subpoenaing the phone records and emails of reporters.

As we look back at former presidents’ relations with the press, we realize how different it was in the days before our defense relied so heavily on secret intelligence.

Coming into the 20th century, newspapers were on fairly good terms with the president, according to reporter Herbert Corey. His 1932 Post article “The Presidents and the Press” explains that the media got their stories from a small handful of reporters selected by the chief executive.

President Theodore Roosevelt added a new feature to this arrangement. He would announce an impending action to a reporter on Sunday, knowing there would be little news in the Monday morning newspapers to compete for readers’ attention.

When the story appeared the next day, he watched the reactions from Congress, the press, and the public. If the response was too critical, Roosevelt would abandon the idea. And he would deny the story, leaving the friendly reporter alone to face the public.

President William Howard Taft came to the White House assuming that this pleasant arrangement would continue. His favorite reporter would arrive daily at the White House. Taft would chat with him and pass on whatever news he felt like sharing.

Soon other reporters were clamoring for the same access. Taft relented and invited in a select number for informal briefings. But when one of these newly admitted reporters published an “impertinently personal” story about Taft, the president was enraged. He petulantly canceled every appointment he had that day and refused to attend a state dinner in the evening. Eventually the first lady, Helen Herron Taft, pressured him into attending the dinner, but he arrived late. The story behind his late arrival was widely shared among Washington’s reporters, but none dared to print it for fear of causing another presidential outburst.

President Woodrow Wilson realized Taft’s methods of communicating with the press wouldn’t meet modern demands for more timely and more detailed news. He believed the American public wanted to know everything the president was doing. And so, one hundred years ago, he held the first press conference. At first, things went well; Wilson had already shown a talent for handling the press when he was governor of New Jersey. As president, he assumed reporters would appreciate his openness and would eagerly pass on his message to the public. He soon realized that they were straying from his points and was incensed when a reporter printed a personal story about his daughter. When he appeared before the correspondents, according to Corey, he said what many presidents have wanted to tell the press, “I am about to address you as Woodrow Wilson and not as the president. … This must stop. On the next offense I shall do what any other indignant father would do. I will punch the man who prints it in the nose.”

Wilson enjoyed generally enthusiastic support from the press as he sent American troops to fight in the First World War. But after the war, the newspapers were highly critical of Wilson’s Peace Treaty and his League of Nations, which would involve the United States in a global peacekeeping body. With many newspapers bitterly attacking what he felt was the only way of preventing future wars, Wilson lost his trust in the press. In 1919, he stopped holding press conferences.

By the time he left the White House, Wilson was so disillusioned with the press, according to Corey, he warned his successor, Warren G. Harding, “Be careful what you say to the press.”

But Harding was a newspaperman. He’d successfully run Ohio’s Marion Daily Star for 30 years. Corey reports that Harding said, “I know all about reporters. They will not throw me down.” Which, of course, they went and did.

“He had assumed they were friendly. Most of them were friendly to him, personally, but professionally they were cold as snakes,” writes Corey. In 1922, Harding made an uninformed remark about a naval treaty, implying that Japan was not covered by the mutual-protection agreement. “Instead of warning Mr. Harding, they printed the story. It was hardly on the streets before the Secretary of State was in the White House to offer his resignation.”

From this point on, Harding insisted that all questions from the press be submitted in writing, which might prevent him from making careless remarks. And when Congress began investigating the illegal sale of government oil by Harding’s secretary of the interior, he found he had very few friends in the press corps.

President Calvin Coolidge had an easier time than Harding, not because the press had suddenly become more respectful, but because he entered the White House during a time of peace and prosperity. The press was less inclined to dig into his remarks for an exposé. Also, ‘Silent Cal’ was not given to talking too freely; he made no embarrassing slips of the tongue that reporters could turn into news items.

The good times that prompted the press to take it easy with Coolidge ended seven months after his successor took office. The American press had sung the praises of President Herbert Hoover when he’d saved war-torn Belgium from starvation, and he’d been secretary of Commerce during the Coolidge prosperity. But when the economy collapsed and unemployment rose to 25 percent, the press became highly critical.

President Franklin Roosevelt got better treatment from the press simply for not being Hoover. In time, however, the criticism grew, particularly when Roosevelt pushed hurried new legislation and—especially—when he proposed expanding the Supreme Court with a few, administration-friendly judges. Yet, even with all the hostility, the press never mentioned Roosevelt’s paralysis, or printed pictures of the president in his wheel chair. It was a courtesy never requested by the White House but extended nonetheless.

All the way up to the time of President Harry Truman, the press conferences had been off the record. If the president misspoke, he had the chance to offer a corrected quote. So when Truman told reporters in 1950, “I think the greatest asset that the Kremlin has is Senator [Joseph] McCarthy,” he worked with reporters to issue a more acceptable do-over: “The greatest asset that the Kremlin has is the partisan attempt in the Senate to sabotage the bipartisan foreign policy of the United States.”

Dwight Eisenhower was the first president to speak entirely on record in the press conferences. He was also the first to televise the event. In 1960, the press’s regard for the war-hero president changed after it learned the government had lied about the U-2 spy planes that had been flying over the Soviet Union. That scandal ushered in a new era of heightened suspicion and mistrust, which President John F. Kennedy inherited. A new spirit of adversity grew as the administration began launching covert operations. The Bay of Pigs, the attempts to assassinate Castro, and the introduction of American ‘advisors’ to Southeast Asia—all increased the skepticism and, at times, outright hostility of the media.

We’ve come a long way from the days when the White House could safely pass war news to the public because it was weeks, or months, old. Today’s conflicts are, more than ever before, wars of time-sensitive intelligence. We shouldn’t be surprised that there are conflicts between our government, whose job is the gathering of intelligence, and our press, whose job is to broadcast it.