Kate Andersen Brower - The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House

THE RESIDENCE. Copyright 2015 by Kate Andersen Brower. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

PORTRAITS ON PP. 82, 95, 119, 157, 216, 260: TINA HAGER/WHITE HOUSE, COURTESY GEORGE W. BUSH PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

FIRST EDITION

ISBN: 978-0-06-230519-0

EPub Edition April 2015 ISBN 9780062305213

15 16 17 18 19 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

FOR BROOKE BROWER, MY HUSBAND, AND THE ONE WHO MAKES ME BELIEVE THAT ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

AND FOR OUR JOYOUS BABIES, GRAHAM AND CHARLOTTE.

1. CHAPTER I
   Controlled Chaos
2. CHAPTER II
   Discretion
3. CHAPTER III
   Devotion
4. CHAPTER IV
   Extraordinary Demands
5. CHAPTER V
   Dark Days
6. CHAPTER VI
   Sacrifice
7. CHAPTER VII
   Race and the Residence
8. CHAPTER VIII
   Backstairs Gossip and Mischief
9. CHAPTER IX
   Growing Up in the White House
10. CHAPTER X
    Heartbreak and Hope

Living in the White House is like being on the stage, where tragedies and comedies play alternately. And we, the servants of the White House, are the supporting cast.

LILLIAN ROGERS PARKS, WHITE HOUSE MAID AND SEAMSTRESS, 19291961, MY THIRTY YEARS BACKSTAIRS AT THE WHITE HOUSE

P reston Bruce was sitting in his Washington, D.C., kitchen with his wife, listening to the radio and having lunchthe one meal they ate together every daywhen an announcer interrupted with an urgent message: the president has been shot.

He jumped up from his chair, cracking his knee on the table and sending dishes crashing to the floor. A minute or so later came another announcement, the voice even shriller: The president has been shot. It has been verified that he has been shot. His condition is unknown.

This cant be happening, thought Bruce. He threw on his coat, forgetting his hat on the brisk November day, and jumped in his car, tearing out of the driveway. His wife, Virginia, was left behind standing in their kitchen, shell-shocked amid the shards of broken dishes lying on the floor.

The normally unflappable Bruce was weaving through downtown traffic at fifty-five miles an hourI didnt realize how fast I was going, he would say laterwhen he suddenly heard a police siren blaring behind him. An officer on a motorcycle pulled up alongside him at Sixteenth Street and Columbia Road, jumped off his bike, and walked over to the drivers door.

Whats the hurry? He was in no mood for excuses.

Officer, I work at the White House, Bruce said breathlessly. The president has been shot.

A stunned pause followed. Not everyone had heard the devastating news. Cmon, the startled officer said, jumping back onto his motorcycle. Follow me! Bruce got his own police escort to the southwest gate of the White House that day.

Most Americans who were alive in 1963 remember exactly where they were when they learned that President Kennedy had been shot. For Bruce, though, the news had a special impact: Kennedy wasnt only the president, but he was also his boss, andmore importanthis friend. Preston Bruce was the doorman at the White House, and a beloved member of the staff. Just the morning before, he had escorted the president, the first lady, and their son, John-John, to the marine helicopter on the South Lawn, which would carry them to Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base. From there the Kennedys would leave for their fateful two-day, five-city campaign tour of Texas. (John-John, who was just four days shy of his third birthday, loved helicopter rides with his parents. He went only as far as Andrews; when he was told he couldnt accompany his mother and father all the way to Dallas, he sobbed. It was the last time he would ever see his father.)

Im leaving you in charge of everything here, President Kennedy shouted to Bruce, above the whir of the helicopters engines on the South Lawn. You run things to suit yourself.

A descendant of slaves and the son of a South Carolina sharecropper, Bruce had become an honorary member of the Kennedy family. He watched movies with them in the White House theater and looked on as the president played happily with his children. He winced when Kennedy bumped his head on a table while chasing John-John, a rambunctious toddler, around the Oval Office. (JFKs desk was one of John-Johns favorite hiding places. Bruce would sometimes have to fish him out from underneath before important meetings.) Tall and thin in his midfifties, with a shock of white hair and a bright white mustache, Bruce wore a black suit and white bow tie to work every day. He was so devoted to his job, which included the delicate assignment of seating nervous guests at state dinners, that he designed a table nicknamed the Bruce Table, with a slanted top that made it easier to arrange table place cards. His invention would be used for decades.