Tales of White House Ghosts, Nancy, Raisa and the Secret Service
The White House is really quite a place to stay. I love the Lincoln Bedroom and its sitting room, with its oversize and ornately carved rosewood bed. There’s some wonderful Lincoln memorabilia, like a signed holograph of the Gettysburg Address and a dance card from his inaugural ball.
The room positively pulses with history. It’s impossible to spend any time there without feeling Lincoln’s stately presence. In fact, my husband Dennis and I could swear the room is haunted. I know, I know, it sounds hard to believe and weird as all get-out, but we’ve each seen a ghost during our stays there.
Laugh if you will, but it’s true. Dennis was the first to see a shadowy figure by the fireplace late one night. I thought he was crazy when he woke me up and told me about it, but it wasn’t long before I had a vision of my own. One night, I woke up and saw, in the half-light, what appeared to be a man wearing a red coat. My first thought was that my intruder was my father--he sometimes wears a red bathrobe--and I remember wondering what the President was doing in my room. But then as I looked closer I realized that what I was seeing had no substance whatsoever. He was transparent. I could see right through him to the windowsill and the magnolia tree outside. A chill crept through me. The “man” just stood there, staring pensively out the window at the tree. I couldn’t make out any distinguishing features, but it was very definitely a human form. Then he slowly turned around and stared at me before vanishing into thin air. I called Dennis out in California to describe to him what I’d seen, and my account fit exactly with his. The similarities were indisputable.
Dad thought we were loony-tunes. We tried to tell him about our middle-of-the-night visitor, and he just laughed and laughed. “If you see him again,” he said, “send him down the hall. I have some questions.”
But even our skeptical President had a run-in of his own before long. One night when the Lincoln bedroom was empty, the folks’s dog Rex began inexplicably and slowly stalking that end of the hall. There was no one there, but Rex kept up his chatter and Dad followed him. Rex kept barking and headed directly for the Lincoln Bedroom. Dad opened the door and Rex hugged the floor and growled, his eyes fixed on something. The President went into the room to see what was causing Rex’s commotion. He couldn’t find a thing. Rex calmed down but wouldn’t go inside the room, so the President began to think that maybe we were onto something with our “visions.” It’s funny that he wouldn’t take his own daughter at her word, or his son-in-law, but he’d believe a barking dog. Or maybe he thinks we’re all a bit bonkers.
Dad loved everything about the White House, not just his after-hours prowls with Rex. He loved the mansion’s charming, unpretentious architectural style, its warm and elegant staff, its spacious rooms and historical furnishings. He even loved the squirrels.
The thing that struck me most of all was that the President never had a day off. Never. Not even on his so-called vacations. I never paid any attention to what the press said about his nap-shortened workdays. From where I sat, the country got its money’s worth out of Ronald Reagan, believe me. He’d put in a long, tiring day, usually with dozens of ceremonial functions, staff meetings and briefings with other elected officials. And he’d have an endless stream of paper work to deal with. When there was no evening function he needed to attend, he would come upstairs at about 5 o’clock and exercise with weights for about an hour. After a shower, he would watch the network news feeds, and then he’d enjoy a nice leisurely dinner. After dinner he would usually retire to his study for another 2 or 3 hours of work, though on occasion the folks would treat themselves to a night off and screen movies or watch a special television program or read.
One of the great fringe benefits of my spending so much time in the White House was the chance it allowed for Nancy and me to become really well acquainted. Not since I was a little girl, on our long car rides out to the ranch . . . had we spent so much time together. We’d always marvel at the way the press kept insisting we didn’t like each other, but the truth of it is that we spent more time together during the last 5 years of my father’s Administration than we ever had before, and we came away from the experience liking each other a whole lot more than we ever had before.
We’re great friends now, actually. She’s even taken to mothering me in my old age. I’ll never forget one time, just before Dad’s second inauguration, when I was terribly sick with the flu. Nancy must have called the doctor three times a day to make sure I would recover in time for the festivities.
When the date was set for the (Washington) summit meeting, the First Lady wrote a letter to her Soviet counterpart, Raisa Gorbachev, inviting her for tea on Wednesday afternoon, the second day of their visit to Washington. Weeks went by and Nancy never heard a word. Privately, the folks stewed over Raisa’s oversight. As time went on, the American officials arranging the visit came right out and asked the Soviets if Raisa was going to accept the First Lady’s invitation.
Yes, they were informed, she did plan to come, only not at 3 o’clock, as invited.
A few hours after the coffee, as Dennis and I came downstairs to join 250 invited guests to witness the historic signing (of the missile reduction treaty) in the East Room of the White House, we were stopped by Barbara Bush. “Has Nancy told you what happened this morning?” she inquired. Dennis and I both shook our heads. “Well,” she continued with some exasperation, “as you know, the First Lady invited some of us for coffee with Raisa. Let me tell you, all that woman wanted to do was lecture all of us on the glories of the U.S.S.R. and the shortcomings of the American political system. She wouldn’t let anyone else get a word in. She’d just cut you off and keep talking. I’ve never seen anything so rude. I don’t know how Nancy kept her cool.”
Later when I asked Nancy about Barbara Bush’s story, she just sighed. “That is what always happens with Raisa,” she finally said. “Now maybe someone will realize what a chore it is to spend time with her.”
Of course, no discussion of life in the White House would be complete without mention of the Secret Service. They’re everywhere. The first thing they do is give you a code name so they can keep track of you in their own shorthand. Once a code name is established for the President, the names for the rest of the family must all begin with the same initial. Mine was “Radiant.”
For 8 years the only time any of us were alone--Dad, Nancy and all four of Dad’s children--was when we were inside the walls of our own houses. In the White House that meant the Secret Service agents were in all the hallways on the residence floors but not in the actual President’s House. At home in California, it meant they were always parked outside in front of my house. For 8 years we had to notify someone before going to the market for a quart of milk or walking the dog. For 8 years Dennis and I had company on our romantic dinners and our walks on the beach.
On our honeymoon/business trip to Europe, Dennis and I decided to have dinner one night at a restaurant called Tiddy Dol’s in London’s Shepherd Market. As was becoming our custom, my agents accompanied us and dined at a nearby table. (They lived pretty well during that trip, come to think of it.) They had visited the restaurant earlier in the day, identifying themselves only to the manager, who promised not to reveal their identities.
But even if their cover was safe, they did make an odd picture. At one point, a waitress went up to the manager and asked why the six men in dark suits at the far table all had these wires on and plugs coming out their ears.
Thinking quickly, the manager said, “Those poor chaps are all hard of hearing. One of them told me they all recently graduated from a school for the deaf, and they’re here to celebrate.” Well, the waitress went back to her “hard-of-hearing” customers and proceeded to shout at them for the rest of the evening. At the top of her lungs. Every head in the place turned every time she went over to their table. In the entire 8 years that we were together, I have never seen the men on my detail look so flustered.
North America Syndicate, Inc.