Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The Hidden White House 20140413

Know, one last time as, you know, Adolf Eichmann faked his death and his wife reported him as dead . So he sits atop the most wanted list with an asterisk as presumed dead but not absolutely sure, and thats where the case remains from his perspective to this day. So thank you again for joining us. Thank you [inaudible conversations] booktv is on facebook. Like us tonight with booktv guests and viewers. Watch abuse and get uptodate information on events. Facebook. Com booktv. You are watching booktv on cspan2. On cspan2. Heres our primetime lineup for tonight. Battle happens tonight on cspan2s booktv. And the on booktv robert klara becomes the physical improvements made to the white house in 1948. The author reports on the decampment of president harry truman and his family to blair house during the reconstruction which consisted of a gutting of the entire interior of the building and the addition of a steel frame and an underground shelter. Thank you very much, and thank you for inviting me. And thank you all for turning out. Its nice to be here. This is, as you can surmise, something thats taken up the last three years of my life. In researching and writing this book, which by the way and encompasses the time period of eight years, is no small challenge to figure out to present this to you all and still having to be conscious when im finished. I did some math the other night and determine if i were to really do this thoroughly, for an eight year story i would have to cover roughly one day per second. And if i were to do that i would already be terribly behind. What i thought we would do instead of taking his day by day is out what to think of this in terms of addressing two central questions which im often asked about this book. The first is, how is it that the most important house in the United States of america, the symbol of the executive branch, is allowed to deteriorate to the point where it nearly collapsed and killed our president , which is a big question. And the second thing is, the second thing i would like to address is how did we get the white house we have today . You might not know this but when you look at the house, yes, you are seeing a house but a good portion of to be invited inside, s. And you step in the front door you are not in a hostile not in a Historical Building anymore. Not in a hostile kabul to convert your skin is something built in 1950. Thats quite a bit of engineering. Im going to try to cover the more interesting parts of it this evening. So to kick this off, and every good story in my experience needs a villain, someone like to introduce to you to one of the villains of my story. This is a 1902 photograph of a chandelier built by caldwell and company around 1901. Its number 11836. They had been in fort. They never waited for, unfortunately it was three and a half feet across and nearly six feet tall. My estimates are, given all the bleeding and crystal on the thing, it probably weighed around 1000 pounds. On a winter afternoon in early 1948, it was hanging here in the blue room of the white house. Act like youd use your imagination and try to imagine about 100 women in this room sipping tea, 1948, they have Hallowed Ground hornrimmed glasses on and make stalls and everything. First Lady Bess Truman standing directly beneath this chandelier making small talk which she couldnt stand it, and suddenly i met all the pleasant chatter she hears a tinkling sound. She looks up and she sees that chandelier start to sway. At first she tries to ignore it, but the sound gets louder and she cant. She looks up again and now it is truly moving. So she summons the assistant usher over and she says could you please go upstairs and find out whats going on . The assistant ushers name was jb west. Mr. West raced up the stairs to the oval study which is the room directly above this one and he finds nothing a mess except for one thing. In the adjoining room which happens to be the president s bathroom, harry s. Truman is splashing around in the bathtub. And i dont believe he was a particularly there goes beta, but apparently it was enough to get the been shaking and in the to shake this chandelier. So the guests go home. The daughters of the American Revolution, no one is harmed. Are given a there goes and the way. Bess truman goes upstairs and she said, i was afraid that chandelier was going to come down on top of all of those people. And at that, president truman bursts out laughing. He thought that was fantastic. He thought it would be wonderful if the bathtub sli slipped throh the floor with him in it wearing nothing other than hi his readig glasses and did it come them right in the middle of the daughters of the American Revolution, as one of his architects put it later, to dissent in the tub among the ladies. But truman was a practical man and after he stopped laughing, he said to usher was coming you better get some engineers in here to take a look around. So thats how my book starts and thats how i started, so obvious im going to move faster now. Truman had harbored suspicions about the white houses integrity almost since the point that he moved in 1945 when this picture was taken. He would work in his oval study late at night, and he was troubled by the sounds he kept hearing. There were creaking noises, and the curtains would sway on their own even though the windows were closed. At one point in june of 1945 he wrote to his wife, i sit here in this old house and work on foreign affairs, read reports and work on speeches, all the while listening to the ghosts walked up and down the hallway. The floor spot and the drapes move back and forth. This was the hallway. Ive looked. If you see any goes, if you talk to me when im finished, over time truman had heard so many sounds coming from this hallway that he stopped thinking that goes might be the reason for them. At one point the chandeliers shaking and trembling started to get to be a regular thing, which was very troublesome. And at one point she was also barred his doctors stethoscope and walk over to one of the walls and depressed the diaphragm at against the plaster and he could hear the house creaking slowly back and forth. This was a threestory house, not a skyscraper. Shouldnt be making that noise. Finally, one morning truman wrote in his diary quote the big fat butler wrought me my breakfast, and the floor sagged and moved like a ship at sea. That was a very serious warning sign. The floor wasnt just shimmying. It was truly moving. But we need a last straw, right . Here it comes. As 1948 progress, the problems of course got worse. Not only the daughters of the American Revolution tea that i told you about, but an incident in june when the family was not home, when margaret truman, who was pictured here with her baby grand piano which weighed about 550 pounds, fell through the floor. And now it should be clear the entire piano did not fall through the floor. One of the legs fell through the floor. But thats enough. To tell you that theres a problem with your house, and margaret said, i sure theres some question as to whether it was a spinet that felt for the grand, im aware theres a discrepancy. Api to fell to the floor. Possibly this one. Margaret later wrote, if there was evidence that was needed to the white house i was falling apart, it came with my piano and sitting room broke through the floor. No kidding. Harry truman hadnt sat idle while all of these spooky things were going on. In february of 1947 he sent out some confidential letters to douglas or of the American Institute of architects. Thats him right there in the classic also sent another letter to Richard Daugherty who is head of the American Society of civil engineers. Daugherty righ right there. Udacity did he come to the white house and take around, and please keep it a secret. And they did. In fact, these gentlemen and more and more engine is an architects and the public buildings and administration would visit the white house throughout 1947 and into 1948 and expect the house and incredibly were did not get out to the public what they were finding. The truth came only after truman was reelected in 1948 by the moment that he was, literally the moment, within a few hours, he was evacuated from the house along with his family. The house was condemned. They were afraid if the rate miner size trim in washington the entire house would coming. So why would evacuate the president of the United States . What on earth have they found . By this time each element by the way should mention it formed into an official body known as the commission on renovation of the executive mention. This was the body that would oversee the renovation work. When i see Commission Im referring to these gentlemen. What did they find when they kicked around . They found this. When they chipped away the plaster covering the interior of brick walls, they found cracks. Not in the plaster, in the bricks. Some of the cracks were two stories tall. It was obvious what was happening to the engineers. The interior brick walls were actually pulling away from the outer stone walls of the white house. In some cases they had pulled away so far they left gaps big enough for you to put your arm through. The walls were, in fact, sinking into the ground, pulling everything down around them as they went. And it created out mayhem. Including an incident one afternoon when the ceiling of the east room dropped six inches in about an hour. And it became common practice for the carpenters to rush in and build scaffolding like this, and since scaffolding like this was all over the house. They were desperate simply to keep the place standing. The wonder of all of this is how long the trumans lived with the scaffolding and the public didnt know about it. What else did they find . They found cracks in the beams of the floors. These are 130 yearold beams dried out, rotten, never sealed. I do mean little cracks like the kind that usually happen in old wood. If you look at this brace, this shackle and that shackle, up from there you might be able to make out one of the cracks. If you cant we can go closer. Maybe you can see it now. This is the actual game thats preserved at the Truman Library in missouri. Truman had this cut out and set aside can possibly because he was worried that people not believe how ridiculous this had all gotten. And that is a big crack. So the engineers found not only this but also things that were utterly inexplicable, massive notches cut into the beams literally in some cases there was only two inches of wood left that was supporting tons of weight. The wonder was the house of simply didnt fall in. So by early 1949, americans finally got truman save the related and are able to make the announcement that a complete budding gutting and rebuilding was what was necessary literally to say the house. So lets consider what we have. We have a president been hastily moved across the street to the blair house, and thats him on the front steps. We have the single most important piece of the United States Architectural Heritage about to collapse. And perhaps you are thinking wouldve but else in the United States was thinking at that moment. Who was to blame . Who was to blame . Well, since were talking about washington, d. C. I thought we would go to local custom and blame some people. Im going to start with names of men you probably already know. We will start by blaming president jackson, polk. No, johnson come his come harrison, and have. Why . These gentlemen brought in what at the time they called improvements to the house. Every time science against and it was something new to make domestically easier, of course the president had to have the it started with jackson who brought in water pipes and hollowed out logs. Poker brought in gaslight. Peers back in hot water. Johnson brought in the telegraph. Case the telephone to arthur an elevator. Hairston electricity and taft in the lower right here a one ton of debt. That was the way without mr. Taft. This seems reasonable, right . The president should be living comfortably. Nothing wrong with bringing water into the white house. Why not . There was a problem ask a. Every time they brought in a system like this they had to drill a hole through a beam, through a wall stud. They were told every up, the workmen, you are inconveniencing the president. Korea. They would rip than what they had, past the with her and cover it all back up. Thats what they constitute damage in those beams i referenced earlier. The other problem was the additions were very heavy. A lot of them are cast iron. In a house that would be built today, bring in a lot of steel pipe wouldnt necessarily be a problem, but it was a pub in the white house. I want to explain why. The white house had a very unusual system, not unusual for the time but a distinct system to distribute its weight load. The outer walls of the house which i have here from when looking out at the house, they are in black. Those were four feet thick. They were stone, and the foundations went about five feet below the ground and they capped off with spread footing. Think like a pyramid type foot. It was pretty decent anchoring for the time. The big problem was that the interior walls, which are red, those were walls of brick and they basically have no foundation at all. I dont think you need an engineering degree to understand that thats a problem. No foundation. People ask me, no foundation, seriously . Seriously. I had hard time believing this because in the engineers discovered and 90 for a almost none the white houses original structural drawings had survived. Depends on what. Somewhere lost in the fire. But i found this photo from 1902 and a congressional report, and it pictures the installation of a new boiler for Teddy Roosevelt in 1900 do. Its not very easy to see but if you can kind of narrow in on this is the best you can, its rather instructive. This is a brick here on the ground fo floor level of the whe house. That would be a brick. That would be supporting a help to support all of the house about it. What you see broken up would be the very bottom of the house and what you see would be what they excavated to take note of the men there for skill. I want you to look at this. What is not . Thats called rubble work. Is a very crude foundation. Basically they found stone that they dug and they threw them down there, maybe with a bit of mold a bit of mortar, maybe not. They built the brick on top of it. If you use the mans legs rescue, maybe three feet or so. You may think three feet of stone isnt a bad foundation. Maybe not. But consider that on this pier and on every other pier in the basement, the white house was pressing down at 20 tons per linear foot. And the ground beneath the white house withstand, which was another problem. So back to the blame game. I want passionate i dont want to kick much unto me people. Isnt the real culprit james open who designed the white house in 1792 . Know. Actually it isnt. The study of soil mechanics did exist in his only building the building that George Washington had asked them to come which was a country gentlemans house but it was perfectly suitable for the time. It was not suitable for 1950 as one of truth assist labor, the white house was quote designed as a comfortable late 18th century home but it has become the nerve center of the world. So lets continue on with the damage. Your culprit list im adding Edith Roosevelt on the left who decided in 1900 do that she needed a bigger dining room. She had 50 feet she wanted 107. The only way to give that to her was to take this wall and the staircase, and rip it out. That is what poor charles, who also built penn station force in new york, had to do. So what do they do to replace the wall . He built a hanging trust in the floor above it. To carry the weight instead of supporting it from below. He would hang it from above. It was perfectly fine until 1913 when alba and destroyed it i modified the third floor and acting bathtubs and living quarters and more tons of piping and i am. Along came Calvin Coolidge in 1927 he decided to rebuild the third floor and the roof. It needed to be done but mr. Go to rebuild it out of cement. By the time this was done, the two upper floors of the white house had risen to 180 does. Finally, im afraid i have to explain harry truman, as much as i like the man, for adding a balcony to the south portico right here, even though he was aware that the house was in trouble while it was going in. The balcony was made of steel and concrete, 18 inches thick. Icac laid it waste another 62 tons. So do we understand why were seeing cracks in the walls . Why these walls are sinking . These problems sell to these men. This is the commission. This is their meeting room in the east wing. These men were trusted with solving a big problem, which is what a north with you going to do about this house . Battled to get to decide what to do about the house but they also had to face off with those who said at the time, you know what . If the white house if the white house isnt as bad as you can maybe we should just rip it down. Who on earth would Say Something like this . This man said Something Like that. This is congressman clarence cannon, who is chair of the House Appropriations committee, and mr. Gannon believed that 5. 4 million, which was the price tag affixed to the renovation work, was too high. Can argued harry truman in a letter quote he said the people want a new building. And if you think thats a french frangipane, what you think that congressman kinnick of the Washington Post editorial page to agree with them. Fortunately, the commission had always favored the plaintiff and drawn up by lorenzo lindsley was the white house architect that fdr hired and truman kept on. And on august 21949 the Commission Voted that theyre going to preserve the house. I want to explain what preserve means because preserve back then mean something very different than what we would understand it to me today. What they were able to save was only the facade of the house. As far as those inadequate foundation, even on the outside wall, those are the original footings down about five feet. They determined they would have to bring them down another 22 feet before they hit a solid layer of gravel that the white house could sit on. So they had to build these walls down by excavating liberal columns and then pouring cement into them. And then had to dig out all of the earth inside, and then inside the house they would erect a skeleton not unlike what you see in a skyscraper. Thats a big job. So meanwhile meanwhile, the widy got sent over to the National Gallery but it took everything out. This is the widest nurture in storage at the National Gallery. Encases does look a the National Gallery, this was unfinished at the security guards converted into a basketball court. I should mention most of his furniture wasnt worth very much. President s routinely redecorated, and so we are not looking at all chippendales. Chester arthur, in 1882 trucks 24 wagon loads of white House Furniture off to the auction house. Many president s did this. And Grace Coolidge limited when she became first lady that she looked around for original pieces of furniture and all she could find was a single chair that had the lungs of abraham lincoln. There wasnt much to say. There were a few pieces and the to do pieces and the ticket with a good and and they moved it to the National Gallery. So this is the state dining room just before the renovation began and id like you to imagine it without its furniture, without the lincoln porter, without the lighting fixtures. Is there anything else in this picture that looks possibly worth preserving if it were up to you . Well, maybe all that nice carved oak paneling perhaps . Maybe that really nifty stone fireplace . The truth is the commission didnt care about any of those things. They were ready just to demolish all of this stuff. Luckily for us one man did care about this and that was lorenzo winslow, the white house architect. Lorenzo winslow took all of those beautiful car fittings off the walls to get them all numbered and had them all shipped down to this warehouse on the right side down on d. Street. Winslow had planned once the renovation was finished, he thought we will have stupidly assemblages simply take these beautiful wooden interior panels and door frames and windows and everything and put everything right back where it was. That was the plan. Id like you to remember that because we will come back to that. So the bids were opened and the philadelphiabased Construction Firm of john the chain broke ground on the job two weeks before christmas. Mr. Mcshane is bent towards the right in this photo with his hands folded in front of him. Let me give you a better picture. There he is. John mcshane is already a legend in washington accused him as the man who built washington. By this time he had already built the bureau of engraving and printing, the Jefferson Memorial and the pentagon which he put up in 14 months. He was the man who knew how to get things done. But when it came to the white house job, most of the bids for the job, this was, by the way, this was a costplus fixed fee contractor im sure that probably means a lot to some of you. I had to look at it. Basically was bidding on his feet, what would be his profit on the job. Host of the contractors put in bids of half a million, three quarters of a Million Dollars. Mcshane did 100,000. It was impossible for him to make a profit on a bid that low, and he didnt care. He had already made his fortune, and his daughter who is still with us, told me in an interview basically there was no way that daddy wasnt going to get that job. So now things began to move very quickly because john the chain and his men have only six under 60 days to get the house, put in a foundation and raise the steel skeleton inside the just a few days into the start of the demolition and just help you appreciate what men can a cop which with sledge hammers when theyre paid and told to enjoy themselves, i that we would do some before and during photographs. This is the Entrance Hall before and with sledgehammers. This is what they did to the blue room, and this is what they did to the east river they were good, werent they . Make chains mens literally mauled of the house down to the otter the outer wall to two months into the job the white house looked like this. Five months into the job the house looked like this. Truman wrote to his cousin back in missouri around this time, and he said, this is the summer of 9050, the old building is nothing but a shell. Theres not a thing in it from cellar to get. And he was right. So this is another question i get asked a lot. The white house had 1. 3 million cubic feet of interior space, 56 rooms worth of laughs and plaster and brick. Nobody counted the beans and the wall studs that somebody estimate there was Something Like a million bricks became out of this house. Where did it all go . What happened to it . Believe it or not the common debris, the bricks, the nails and all that wound up in a corrugated steel warehouse in fort myer in virginia which is there on the left. It was chopped up and fit into one of the strangest Government Programs in history. Theres a lot of strange Government Programs in our history. This was the official white house Souvenir Program and you could write in and they would send you a catalog, and you can choose whatever souvenir you want to do everything was free to all you did was pay for postage but if you want a britain, it was just a dollar figure jointed bookends it made of actual tofu house, that was only 2. If youre willing to pay the shipping, for 100 bucks to send you enough white house stone to build a fireplace. Quite a few people ordered it. So some of these souvenirs, and amazingly, are still floating around, like in my apartment. On the left is a lucite paperweight that went for 50 cents and they give you a nifty irondale and a piece of the foundation, a piece of the whitestone plus an authentication plate in case your friends didnt leave it on the right is one of the bookends. That was only 2. How about the rest of it . Some of the bricks went to not further, George Washington sunken to patch things up. Kept david received a plumbing and radiators which may still be there to this day. Kept david. Some of the stone wound up in georgetown to patch walls in the chesapeake and ohio canal. They have so much to lift over that some of it was just simply left on the ground. Figuring maybe we will need it later. And i got permission to show you this photo in exchange for promising not to tell you where it is located. Okay. So back to that. June of 1950, let me spend what were looking at. Theres three jobs in process at the demolition is just finishing up. He see some bricks still over here and now theyre also bringing the foundation down 20 feet until it hits gravel level. See this on the wall where the stonefaced is way too smooth cement . That is the Foundation Going down. Once they got it down, see the bulldozer . They had to scoop out all of the earth, 270,000 cubic feet of earth had to be taken out. And then finally since the decision was made to keep the cement third floor of the house, they had to build these temporary columns to hold the roof up. Once they had those, they brought in these lateral support beams that literally kept the white house historic walls from caving in. So once they got in with that it was time for the structural steel to go in. Im not going to spend much time on that but i did what is sure this picture because i want you to look at the thickness of the steel beam and consider that this is going into a threestory building, okay . If youve ever seen the New York Times photographs of the construction of the Empire State Building can you see beams about this thing. What on earth were they thinking . Harry truman said this is going to be the last time that the white house was ever going to be rebuilt, and he was right. But there were other things going on in on the global stage that led to these decisions. Two events on the global stage that were important. In august 1949 the soviets exploded the first atomic bomb many years before we thought they would. We didnt know yet the Manhattan Project had a mole in the. So we called this gel ones which was short for Joseph Stalin and its a today but nobody was laughing. This test took us by surprise. It was also a bigger bomb than we had, a russian was 15 kilotons. This was 22. The soviets were better at bombs than we were. Then in june 1950 the North Koreans cross the 38th parallel and invaded south korea and they did it using soviet tanks. Which made it clear that the soviet union was willing to engage as by proxy. And so the commission and trumans security men took a second look at those two new subbasement levels of the house, once theyre going to be used only for storage, and then this memo shows up. Im not going to read the whole thing. You can stand if youd like but theres to give ms. And id like to call your attention to. One of them is this is basically from admiral dennis and informing the commission that part of the basement is going to now passed out of their control, in order to create quote certain protective measures, and quote, protective characteristics. What does that mean . Well it means exactly what you think it means. It means a bomb shelter. This gets a little tricky because the bomb shelter still a sensitive installation and we dont know much about it, and we shouldnt. What i know is historical, which ill share with you. We know from lorenzo winslows note that in august of 1950 was designing a shelter under the east terrace. Thats what were looking at here. The east terrace is a narrow connector to the east wing. This also happened to be the location of a bomb shelter that fdr had constructed during the second world war, and its a logical extension of the that the appropriate about and expanded it. One thing is clear, they are building something. Now, if truman is sitting in the oval office and th the west wing and a bomb shelter is in the east wing, whats he going to do . Well, this is the new twolevel subbasement we are looking at. Was a bill for him was a steel reinforced concrete tunnel. It would permit him to get from one wing to the other. It was also accessible from the hills above. This is what it looks like standing inside the. That concrete is two feet thick. Before i move on your i want to make one point very clear, lest people think im telling secrets i shouldnt be telling. The bomb shelter was obsolete almost from the time that it was built. As soon as the soviets tested a Hydrogen Bomb in 1953, moving from the kiloton to the megaton range, the idea of a president sheltering in place became completely preposterous. The bombs were just too powerful. The other thing is truman never any intention of using a shelter, and he said so. He had told one of his security men, and im quoting, youve got to god with all this plan at all these arrangements i wanted a one thing, if a situation ever develops, i dont intend to leave the white house. I am going to be right here. As it turns out, in my book i relate this story. There indeed was a false alarm, and truman stayed upstairs. He didnt go down to the shoulder. He believes if americans didnt have a shelter, he shouldnt have one. I submit to you that we do not have president s of that ilk anymore. [applause] okay, so back upstairs. Cents mid 1950, this job started running seriously behind. I mentioned the korean war. Why is that a problem . It choked off the supply of labor and increased the cost of materials. Thats going to be important about 20 seconds. By early 1951 the interior masonry is starting to go a. This is lorenzo winslows plan for the new entry. This is complicated and dont want to stultify you with a, but this is the main folder i just want to make two points. The layout of the walls are considered sacrosanct are going to want to make it want you to can the white is for Thomas Jefferson by some miracle, it would look familiar to. Even want to move things around too much. But he took a freehand downstairs and upstairs. Here on the second floor he moved walls around just a little bit to give all the bedrooms their own bathroom, and also something that the white house never had before this time, which was closets. As a manhattan rent regulated regulator i can certainly appreciate that the i dont have any. Okay, for the first time in the first time and a longtime pal started looking like a house again. This is in august 1951 by mentioned that shortage of time and money and the problems that would cause, and i wanted to explain that. I want to start with money. The commission had 5. 4 million to work with. Later, theyre given a little more money but we will stay with that figure. From the demolition excavation work, all the cost 1. 2 million, then after that was done, they had to pay an avalanche the roofing commission, painting, elevators, insurance contrasting, all of that. Thinkinthen came the electricald mechanical systems. That was another 1. 3 million. So when it came time to actually finish the interior of the house so it looked like an executives house, these bills were very problematic. Parquet floors for 74,500, marble and stone for 247,000, plaster to 75, woodwork 470. These are 1951. That would work would cost more than 4 million to be. Why am i kidding you with these figures . Well, some pointed to bring in a decorator, got a wicked wallpaper and the curtains and the furniture and a pollster and all the other stuff. By the time that portman enters the picture, this is him, his name is charles, who is a decorator for b. Altman and company. B. Altman said will do the decorating for free. All the labor history. All we will charge for is the cost of materials, which was a pretty good deal, right . They saw a marketing tiein pretty well back then, too. But when charles height who assumed he would be given a generous budget for the decorating met with the commission, he was in for a coldwater chat. He was told we have 210,000 left. And that comes down to about 1590 per room. Thats for everything the furniture, drugs, wallpaper, everything. And he said quote i can sprinted to a 10,000 the best it could be spent and all things will not make a penny that it is not enough. And it wasnt. Winslow room 1000 sure do what was look like in the early 1800s and the press Office Released this Florida Press release that declared that the white house would be the regression an american interpretation of the georgian hiccup. The truth was that most of this furniture were colonial reproduction pieces from drexel urge to basically to find any traveling salesmans hotel. I dont think you need to be an expert in a federal period to realize thats not exactly something that Thomas Jefferson would have done in his own hand. Although some of the pieces were nice. Mantelpiece was not. Eleanor roosevelt later said mr. Can turn it around the widest which led to me exactly like a sheraton hotel. And Jacqueline Kennedy later said famously, that the true enter design of the white house was early statler. So a handful of able pieces on the state court were restored and put back, leaving the state for looking at least respected. They had some chippendales and they did their best. But overall the interior decoration was a bit of disappointment the there was not until mrs. Kennedy redecorated. I also mentioned a shortage of time, and that kind of leads us to the last portion here. Harry truman wanted to come back and live in the restored white house for a least a year, but by the summer of 1951 he was realizing that wasnt terribly likely. He said to jb west, assistant usher quote, ive been using a trick him on the contractors to try to speed up reconstruction. He leaned on them, hurry it up. You would expect a president to say that the unfortunately, that pressure and other forces that would exact a very serious toll. Remember i had mentioned all of those beautiful interior finishings, the panel, the mahogany doors, and i winslow that move them all to his warehouse where they weighed it. Well, as it turns out the woodworkers discovered that making reproduction pieces was faster and cheaper, and thats what they started to do. And a lot of the historic pieces will be marooned in this warehouse and not put back in the white house. I want to be clear that some of the interior was put back, and basic interior, original interior is more like 1900 Teddy Roosevelt interior is about as old as the. This is the state dining room but it got its original paneling back, and the same happened with the red, green and blue rooms, but that was only four rooms out of 48 that had been dismantled. So what happened to all the other historic stuff . Where did it go . It was given away and in some cases it was thrown away. This is the wharton state penitentiary in virginia, now closed. This prison receive the white houses ornamental ventilation grills, the fire backs, three crates of door frames, 12 crates of window trim and 22 crates of hardwood paneled doors. Prisoners had nice looking rooms in the president did. Unfortunately, it gets worse. Much of what was left over was simply buried. It was buried in the Fort Myer Military base just across the potomac. You can visit these days but i dont recommend visiting with a shovel. The pr guy tells me dont try digging but everything is now under 30 feet of topsoil, but for the record, if you driving here in park and take a walk and you stand between child Element Center and the socalled field, you will be standing where much of the white house was buried. And while his private feeling about the job were mixed, in his diary he said that he himself could done it faster and for less money. Just one of the things i love about harry truman years that is also a politician. So his a book persona was thea, renovation. He was in a position Fiction Convention on television to be the first president who could give a televised two or. Yes, he did it before jackie david. He took americans on a tour of the white house that they had paid to restore with their tax dollars. This is him talking to frank vocals are at cbs. At this point in the two if it actually wondered into the blue room, which is her Office Troubles guarded. What tremendous looking up at this point is the chandelier, which is also where a lot of the trouble started. It is the pd that people at home couldnt see how beautiful the blue room was on the lacquered White Television set. But it looks like this. You might also notice they shop at this chandelier and i doubt that was an accident he is the one they put in was much smaller and lighter. So i want to leave you with a closing thought. Of course i wouldnt leave you with an opening cockpit i put by for a Million Dollars in 1949 seemingly believe the currency converter on google converts to a little over 51 million today. 51 million today is roughly the cost of a single c. 27 jay cargo plane for our government. Given the history of Government Spending we have in this country, i would argue we got a pretty good deal. I got a good deal because youve been extremely appreciative but the analogy thank you all for coming. Ill take questions. If you have to go thats fine. Thank you all for coming. [applause] i think we have a roving microphone guy. Am i on . You mentioned at the beginning of your top pictures and wanted to keep it secret and he instructed his commission was the first two numbers. Why is that . He had a very good reason. The question is what instrument keep the disastrous results uncovered by the architects and engineers the secrets of the public, which is something they shouldve asked lane. He was running for reelection at the time these terrible problems were coming to light in the theater was that the public found that the state the white house within them that they would blame it on hairy german. Its important to vendors in the context. Hairy chairmen come his own motherinlaw still refer to him as victor farmer businesses while he while he was president. He was of an agrarian background. He was from missouri and the east coast establishment, many of them turned their noses. So did many people in the country. Margaret later wrote in her books, shes written in front of his several times. She said of the public found out about the condition of the white house, it would be a metaphor for the true minute initiation at self, rotten to the core. So they all kept secret in the wonder of this is that in some ways you can take a cab to secret at their own physical expense, after a peril because there were so many scaffolding direct inside the house at that time in the places in such dire shape they believe the family family should have been the singer. The fact he was concealed from the public was a political decision. Anyone else . [inaudible] what happened to attend a leak . Ive been looking for it to pop up on ebay. I wrote to the white house curator announced him. I just want to think white house carrier for his patient to theaters these days. Apparently the chandelier was never put back in the house come even though they have plenty of chandelier space percolate as needed. Every time you have a new first family, they redecorated they wish. Its like a museum or use the part of the collection on the wall at any given time. Same thing with the white house. Maybe never brought back out. Im assured that its been kept safe and is still in fine shape, but its never been rehung in the house. [inaudible] no, it wouldnt. Disagree the time to put it back. You know, given the thickness of the beams, they could put more than one up there now. You know, that chandelier was for many keynote to renovation, which is significant because the kim who is suing the decorating at the time, you know, he had a neoclassical aesthetic, which is so happen to agree with what winslow had in mind in 1948 and 1949 because the american georgian. If you will also has a strong affinity for neoclassicism. But that mightve translated to say a cornice or a column. That chandelier is way over the top. I wish i had found none and somebody said this is live for this top tier they cant put this back in. Obviously they thought it was too much. In your reason search, do you need to access the white house today are at the south permission to access the white house click great question. If you want to tour the white house stays, you can pay a lot of money to go on tour or you can write to your congressperson. I couldnt arrange the time that was convenient and reasonable. Then i realized some ways it really wasnt all that working for me to go. I say that for two reasons. One, my folks took me when i was little. Too, if they only take you to the old groundfloor and then they take you to the seafloor. Naturally as they say to everybody, the two most interesting spaces in any house or the basement and attic, which are places they werent going to take me. I thought im not going to get to see the things im curious about. They were going to take them down to the shelter. I thought maybe i dont need to. Finally, its important to remember the very first image that comes in there, even though they tend to leave the seafloor is relatively alone compared to the family quarters at tears, but the seafloor has changed very much since this time. So i was afraid of seeing the way the house would have let this be a bona fide done it and having not as a mental picture because they really needed to discipline mattis for naco pat 1950. In some ways it is important for me not to see the white house. Anyone else . How is supporting congress for for the funding . You know what, by todays candidates, but curtis in. But whats interesting is who is very difficult to get something out of congress is the short answer is you can imagine. Congress for his funded the initial round of action. 50,000. But this is a congress that didnt like harry truman very much for a whole variety of reasons theres probably no time to get into. They werent terribly friendly and they werent eager to fork over the money. But they cant fork over 50,000 for the michelin action entremed deliberately sent one of the inspectors sent to capitol hill to testify on what they had found. I forget the gentlemans name, but i have the transcript and he testified that the white house is staying up through force of habit alone and he basically scared the out of them and he scared the funding out of them. If only it were that simple today. So they are rather antagonistic about it. They were even at visit congressman who toured the house. Winslow brett tours through the house and said look, look at the wall, and even then there are congressmen who did not want to send a dime on this house, which gives cause. The next turkoman teacher of a question or [inaudible] yeah, i think fdr treated the knowledge of the white house more or less the way he treated the knowledge of his own health, which is basically he didnt want to know. I found a report that had come to fdr that warned him the house was a fire track any done nothing about it. And so, they were aware of it though, we know this. When the Sherman Square getting ready to move in in 1945 and alan r. Was packing up in the mat and fdr had our detective week earlier, all the moving vans were loaded and alomar ran across the street to pay a visit to margaret truman, basically to say hey, have a good time over there. Either way, the place is infested with rats. Just figured it out yet. And she laughed. And she didnt and not anaphoric leap. Theres an entire rack history with the white house. I dont mean the random rant. I mean like union rat, you know . Go of the at least two the administration and their reports of Theodore Roosevelt who would be in the family dining room having dinner. It had to put their forks and knives santucci rats out of the room. So the problem is with the house renders to. The other or to your question is fdr really loved old houses. And truman did too. Hed grown up on the farm. So what frame houses to create, its probable to thought not a big deal. So the answer to your question is yes, roosevelt said no to a degree, but they certainly didnt know if its bad. I remember when Jacqueline Kennedy lived in the white house and she was horrified by the furnishing and the eisenhower set out and stuff from sears. The eisenhowers made made it worse in the german. I dont want to make personal judgments here, but so it was each president sort of like a residential room . Been macinnes. Usually what you see here what i saw this time. I dont how they do it today. I would assume its an analogous arrangement is the news paper will run a story that the first lady is redecorating. What that means is they hire a decorator who comes in with drawing splotches and says pick what youd like. And then they try to harmonize and they make it all fit in the first lady to credit. That happened with s. Truman, although i did find one interesting theme. They have lived in an Apartment Building on connecticut avenue and i found some pictures of the night of their apartment and they had these garish floral curtains, the state bombastic flowers. And then i saw curtains in the white house admitted the same flowers. Obviously thats his touch. So they are given a considerable degree of latitude. The important thing to do, first about, does truman her family had money, but she came from a relatively upper middle class background. Mrs. Eisenhower was a military wife. So these women would not have come into the white house. Its a provincial taste they tend to bring them within. The Jacqueline Kennedy was fancy and she also did something and it baffled me why the commission didnt do this, that they had almost no money for decorating and wealthy cultured people were writing income is saying we look at the thing. Would you like this secretary, this chest of drawers. With only a few exceptions the fed now and ive not been able to answer that question to my satisfaction. They said they didnt want things accumulating. They fit the entire second floor had to look like the park hyatt and they couldve done better. Thats really what mrs. Kennedy did. Her genius was deploying the third to give what i can and the kids that were kids that were and viewed them with this wonderful sense of patriotism and furnish imbued them with this wonderful sense of patriotism and furnish this big house with the things that belong in it. In some cases the remote ring back pieces had been there before. We all a lot sooner. As far as what we have the truman, what i would defend the place didnt fall down. For decorating, not so much. Before they started rebuilding, how serious was the idea that they should just knock it down and build another . Good question. If you didnt hear, how serious are they about tearing the house down . On paper, entirely serious. They debated this. I found a transcript that indicated for a while they tossed the idea that in the white house out to the suburbs. I dont know if they wouldve put them in a splitlevel ranch house. I hope not. I found one that said they wanted to build in the same hardball palace in maryland. The key question is this. There was claimants can have one at the house demolished. But theyre not too many people who believed the how should simply be raised. There is because his point was look, if its in this bad a shape, truman was kind of a victim of its own good argument. In any case, look, the place is about to fall down. Some politicians as well for having sake dont let it anybody. Knock it down. The real question wasnt so much whether they should absolutely raised the place at the bus whether they should keep the houses in the a. M. And half the price that live elsewhere or whether they should go for the big fix. Ultimately, when the Commission Voted, there was only one member devoted not to go with the renovation. So i tried to do with this in the boat. It was kind of a foregone conclusion because truman also had an enormous consultant and he had a hand in everything. She wanted to please and so more than likely he would have been in any case. But what i found really disturbing was not withstanding the fact that probability was low that they were place down. I was to search by the factors consideration. I think its important to remember that this was 1948. We lost and station in this indian 1963. Detectives say really want time to learn that we learn to take care of what we had. Of course this day there is question i cannot, could they have done this in a way that it is enforcement that it took a historical integrity of what was in the house quiet and thats a very difficult questions to her. The british had her in the house down and as i write in the book, i must not timbers a rate that can when they rebuilt it. The heat of the fire had weakened so badly that the Bureau Standard determined they had only about 41st and their strength left. I believe that was the feature. So they couldnt really leave those in place and they certainly couldnt leave those floors in place. This is a slippery slope as it deletes huxtable has written far more eloquently come you dont really restore anything. You replace it. When they made this wallpaper is that the. Comment well it is that the period, but it new wallpaper. But what are you going to do quite you cant have the press that they been in a room for the sake of keeping it. Its one thing to keep the acropolis are in, but nobody lives there. So you know, these are very difficult questions they were grappling with and they were doing at a time with the understanding of what preservation meant was in its embryonic phase. At that time, preservation that keep the outside of the building and youre good. Today we are familiar a landmark in hot that the new york. Ha ha clearly marking. Only the lobby is landmark. Say like the one apartments up on 52nd street, database the most they lobby as part of the landmark as is the exterior. If youre fortunate to have an apartment there, theyll tell you can replace your kitchen sink. Of course you can. Where does restoration and renovation became a statistical question. Remember these guys are russian. Truman was an assist you in playhouse and he was cranky. I remember sister mcshane, sean mcshanes daughter who became a cap gun, she told me Commission Said truman was very hard on daddy. He was the difficult man. The president pounding of fists and name finish my house, you finish the house. Scary. On the imac im crazy. The first book i committed was the fdr funeral train book. Because of this about a minute ration or what remains an overlap to determine if ms. Ration, i had an opportunity to use their because truman was on board. If you are single trains that familiarize myself with them. I dont remember exactly where he sought, if it was a library or ebook. Kind of blurry to me now. I remember coming across a photo of the inside of the coated house with just those beans and not bulldozer driving around in that. I didnt give it much thought. At first i was the parking garage or warehouse or something. And then i went back and read the caption that the white house and 50. I thought i hadnt heard about that and im fairly well read on his door full text it. And then i started a little trial balloon conversation at china mobiles new about this either. I figure somebody must have written a book about this, but nobody had. So i did it. [inaudible] saturday. I developed a deeper understanding of him. The weird thing was even not by even if they learned about the strongarm type pics, send things about him that i didnt necessarily like very much in the first lowlevel, i actually came away respecting the man more. Ill tell you why. Because this theme is not only not groomed for the president viento, he had met with fbi or Something Like dont know six or eight times. And these are just informal meeting. Fdr shared nothing with