An Annecdotal account of the author's years as hostess at blair house, the official guest home of the White House, describing the protocol and procedures as well as many of the famous visitors.

"In 1948, Harry Truman, President of the United States, almost fell through the ceiling of the Blue Room in a bathtub into a meeting of the Daughters of the American Revolution. A team of the nation's top architects was hastily assembled to inspect the White House, and upon seeing the state the old mansion was in, insisted the First Family be evicted immediately. What followed was the biggest home-improvement job the nation had ever seen"--

Winner of the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Excellence in American History Book Award Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize “Cogent, lucid, and concise...An indispensable guide to the creation of the cabinet...Groundbreaking...we can now have a much greater appreciation of this essential American institution, one of the major legacies of George Washington’s enlightened statecraft.” —Ron Chernow On November 26, 1791, George Washington convened his department secretaries—Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph—for the first cabinet meeting. Why did he wait two and a half years into his presidency to call his cabinet? Because the US Constitution did not create or provide for such a body. Faced with diplomatic crises, domestic insurrection, and constitutional challenges—and finding congressional help distinctly lacking—he decided he needed a group of advisors he could turn to for guidance. Authoritative and compulsively readable, The Cabinet reveals the far-reaching consequences of this decision. To Washington’s dismay, the tensions between Hamilton and Jefferson sharpened partisan divides, contributing to the development of the first party system. As he faced an increasingly recalcitrant Congress, he came to treat the cabinet as a private advisory body, greatly expanding the role of the executive branch and indelibly transforming the presidency. “Important and illuminating...an original angle of vision on the foundations and development of something we all take for granted.” —Jon Meacham “Fantastic...A compelling story.” —New Criterion “Helps us understand pivotal moments in the 1790s and the creation of an independent, effective executive.” —Wall Street Journal

Frederick Douglass called the martyred president "emphatically the black man's president” as well as “the first who rose above the prejudice of his times and country.” This narrative history of Lincoln’s personal interchange with Black people over the course his career reveals a side of the sixteenth president that, until now, has not been fully explored or understood. In a little-noted eulogy delivered shortly after Lincoln's assassination, Frederick Douglass called the martyred president "emphatically the black man's president," the "first to show any respect for their rights as men.” To justify that description, Douglass pointed not just to Lincoln's official acts and utterances, like the Emancipation Proclamation or the Second Inaugural Address, but also to the president’s own personal experiences with Black people. Referring to one of his White House visits, Douglass said: "In daring to invite a Negro to an audience at the White House, Mr. Lincoln was saying to the country: I am President of the black people as well as the white, and I mean to respect their rights and feelings as men and as citizens.” But Lincoln’s description as “emphatically the black man’s president” rests on more than his relationship with Douglass or on his official words and deeds. Lincoln interacted with many other African Americans during his presidency His unfailing cordiality to them, his willingness to meet with them in the White House, to honor their requests, to invite them to consult on public policy, to treat them with respect whether they were kitchen servants or leaders of the Black community, to invite them to attend receptions, to sing and pray with them in their neighborhoods—all those manifestations of an egalitarian spirit fully justified the tributes paid to him by Frederick Douglass and other African Americans like Sojourner Truth, who said: "I never was treated by any one with more kindness and cordiality than were shown to me by that great and good man, Abraham Lincoln.” Historian David S. Reynolds observed recently that only by examining Lincoln’s “personal interchange with Black people do we see the complete falsity of the charges of innate racism that some have leveled against him over the years.”

This exquisite book documents the extensive restoration of the White House under the Kennedy administration. It examines the physical transformation of America's premier residence from "home of the President" to house-museum". Kennedy enthusiasts, architects, interior designers, collectors, history buffs, preservationists, and White House watchers alike will covet this book. Full color throughout.

November 1, 1950 -- an unseasonably hot afternoon in sleepy Washington, D.C. At 2:00 P.M. at his temporary residence in Blair House, President Harry Truman takes a nap. At 2:20 P.M., two Puerto Rican natives approach from different directions. Oscar Collazo, a respected metal polisher and family man, and Griselio Torresola, an unemployed salesman, don't look dangerous, not in their new suits and hats, not in their calm, purposeful demeanor, not in their slow, unexcited approach. What the three White House policemen and one Secret Service agent guarding the president cannot guess is that under each man's coat is a 9mm German automatic pistol and in each head, a dream of assassin's glory.

Benedicte Valentiner invites the reader behind the scenes of one of the world's most prestigious official guest houses: the historic, charming, and beautiful Blair House, across from the White House. For more than thirteen years Mrs. V hosted Chiefs of State and Heads of Government during their official visits with Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Her anecdotes about the world's most powerful leaders are revealing, entertaining, and dramatic; we are present when George H. W. Bush plays with his grandchildren, when an inebriated Boris Yeltsin is discovered wandering through Blair House, and when the Togo delegation's luggage reveals a smoked monkey, an enormous lizard, and giant cockroaches. Mrs. V also writes about the year spent in raptor research in Iran, about weaving in Mexico, and how she very early decided on the career which led her to one of the world's most prestigious hospitality positions. PROLOGUE On the first night of Boris Yeltsin s?visit in September 1994 our two security officers on duty got a bigger adventure than they could ever have imagined. At about 12:30 am Officers Paul Besett and Michael Cooney saw on their computer screen an astonishing sight. Clad but sparsely, having forgotten to put on his pajamas, the mighty President of the Russian Federation was briefly dressed as he negotiated the back stairs with the certainty of a person who had a directional problem. He was stoned out of his skull and he was almost naked. Our security officers were glued to the computer screen. At the bottom of the circular emergency staircase going from the dressing room in the Primary Suite and leading to the New Executive Office building s garage, they saw Boris Yeltsin trying to open the garage door and nearly jumping out of his briefs from fright as it gave off a loud signal. Then the security officers lost him on the screen. Frantically they called the USSS Command Post to alert them that their man was loose in the house. And when they turned away from the screen they had another shock. There was Boris Yeltsin in the flesh and such a lot of it too holding on for dear life to the door frame of their office. Without a word, he bowed gravely to them and staggered out, rolling around the corner into the Leslie Coffelt Room. This room, named for the security guard who gave his life defending President Harry S Truman during an assassination attempt by Puerto Rican Nationalists on November 1, 1950, was set aside as a down-room for the Metropolitan Police and USSS uniformed police so that during their strenuous and long hours protecting our visitors they could come in out of the cold and refresh themselves. During that particular night there were thirty sitting around when Yeltsin turned up. There is a drunken Russian in here, someone casually said to which another one replied: This is not a drunken Russian. It s B o r i s Y e l t s i n!