Rowan Roy - First dogs: american presidents and their best friends

ALSO BY ROY ROWAN

Throwing Bullets

Surfcasters Quest

Chasing the Dragon

Solomon Starbucks Striper

Powerful People

The Intuitive Manager

The Four Days of Mayaguez

A Day in the Life of Italy, Coeditor

AMERICAN PRESIDENTS & THEIR BEST FRIENDS

by Roy Rowan and Brooke Janis

ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL

Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of
WORKMAN PUBLISHING
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014

1997 and 2009 by Roy Rowan and Brooke Janis. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

eISBN 978-1-56512-965-8

For Helen and for Lee,

without whom wed have

gone to the dogs

FIRST DOGS

A CABINET SEAT FOR LADDIE BOY

Warren Hardings airedale not only had his own hand-carved chair to sit in during Cabinet meetings, he had a personal White House valet. In a famous interview with The Washington Star, Laddie Boy rated members of the Presidents Cabinet and offered opinions on such subjects as the working hours of guard dogs and the use of sled dogs to haul mail in Alaska. Ohio Historical Society

IF YOU WANT A FRIEND IN WASHINGTON, HARRY TRUMAN ONCE SAID, GET A DOG. MAY BE THATS why for most of our Republics history there have been two top dogs at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenueone with two legs, one with four. However, never before the election of Barack Obama had the selection of a First Dog been anticipated with such excitement. From the moment of his victory speech before cheering thousands in Chicago, when he promised his two daughters that they could have a puppy in the White House, the picking of a First Dog was followed with the same rapt attention as the appointment of the new Presidents cabinet.

Occupants of the White House Oval Office, we all know, leave us their memoirs before passing from the scene. George H. W. Bushs springer spaniel, Millie, was no exception. Millies Book was her own heart-warming account (as dictated to Barbara Bush) of a dogs life in the White House. But Millies book ultimately proved to be something of an embarrassment to the President, outselling his own memoirs. And her stature as a bestselling author did not succeed in helping him defeat the dogless Bill Clinton in 1992.

COLD WAR COUPLE

Welsh terrier Charlie and Russian mate Pushinka, happy as any newly-weds, pose in front of the Kennedy White House. They produced four pups: Butterfly, White Tips, Blackie, and Streaker. John F. Kennedy Library

For the first five years under Clinton the White House was the domain of a white-pawed cat named Socks. But one of the dark secrets of Bill Clintons days as governor of Arkansas concerns the mysterious death of Zeke. The cute blond cocker spaniel somehow escaped from the governors mansion and was run over by a car several years before Clintons 1992 presidential bid. Zeke was often seen cavorting around the governors mansion in Little Rock along with Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea. He starred in various photo ops, especially the one accompanying the proclamation of Be Kind to Animals Week. The circumstances surrounding his death are unclear, and so far the Whitewater Special Counsel has not investigated them. Given what practically amounted to a state funeral, Zeke presently rests in peace behind the Arkansas governors mansion.

By coming dogless to the White House, Clinton was defying not only tradition, but also the warning of a former chief executive. Any man who does not like dogs and want them about, claimed Calvin Coolidge, does not deserve to be in the White House.

Many Americans seem to have shared Coolidges view. Since the first days of the Union, our presidents have been measured in part by the canine company they kept. In fact, some presidential dogs, like Franklin Delano Roosevelts Fala, appeared to have wagged the tail of U.S. policy.

Fala and FDR were inseparable, their lives intertwined with the World War II history of our country. Yet this Scottie celebrity was a canine nobody named Big Boy, watering trees and burying bones in Westport, Connecticut, before he was presented to Roosevelt. Renamed Murray the Outlaw of Fala Hill after one of the Presidents Scottish ancestors, he is now buried beside his master in the Rose Garden at Roosevelts Hyde Park, New York, estate.

What an extraordinary life this little dog led! He witnessed the signing of the Atlantic Charter aboard the USS Augusta, becoming a shipboard pal of British prime minister Winston Churchills poodle Rufus. He often rode in the limo beside Roosevelt past cheering crowds lining Pennsylvania Avenue. And, so the story goes, Roosevelt ordered a destroyer sent back to fetch Fala after he was mistakenly left behind in the Aleutian Islands. Political opponents carped that this naval rescue operation had cost American taxpayers $15,000. These Republicans have not been content with attacks on me, my wife, or my sons, exclaimed Roosevelt in one of his famous fireside chats. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala.

THE EAR-IE STORY OF HIM AND HER

Irate dog lovers demanded an explanation when Lyndon Johnson picked up his beagles, Him and Her, by their ears. To make them bark, replied LBJ. Its good for them. The two beagles White House days ended sadly. Her died on the operating table after swallowing a rock. Him was run over by a car while chasing a squirrel across the White House driveway. UPI/Corbis-Bettmann

NIXONS CHECKERED CAREER

In 1952 the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket was far ahead in the polls when a story surfaced that Nixon had a secret slush fund contributed by rich supporters. His cocker spaniel Checkers was used to win public sympathy. If it hadnt been for this cute dog, Nixons political career might have ended right there. The Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace

Canine diplomacy goes back to the very founding of the nation. Several of the hounds that George Washington rode to were French imports, which explains why they bore such sexy names as Sweet Lips and Scentwell. They were sent by Washingtons Revolutionary War comrade the Marquis de Lafayette, who gave them to our countrys founding father to cement relations between France and the newly independent United States. Years later, those same diplomatic ties needed a little patching, as did the striped pants of the French ambassador, after Teddy Roosevelts bull terrier Pete chewed a hole in them at a White House reception.