THE WHITE HOUSE : Center Gives Tourists Break From Weather

When the National Park Service asked tourists how it should change the White House tour, people said they wanted to learn more about the First Families and how the presidential home ran behind the scenes. Most of all, however, they wanted to spend less time lined up outside in Washington’s often-harsh weather.

The Park Service believes that a White House visitor center, which opens to the public today, will help--giving tourists a place to wait inside for tickets to the tours while looking at a videotape on the building and presidential photos and artifacts.

The center does not eliminate standing outside for visitors, who after getting their tickets will still have to wait 20 minutes or so near the White House’s tall black fence before starting the tour.

But it is expected to improve waits for tickets, a process that now can take several hours outdoors on muggy summer days. Last year, 60 White House tourists required medical care--including one who had a fatal heart attack last summer. Most of the problems stem from heat exhaustion.

Getting tourists inside is a great idea, said Jackie Peiffer, 46, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, resident waiting in line recently to visit the White House. “We’re cold,” she said after spending 1 1/2 hours outside in a chilling wind.

For those who can’t get to the presidential home during the limited morning hours when tours are offered, the center will provide a “surrogate White House experience,” according to James I. McDaniel, the Park Service’s White House liaison. The Park Service hopes to occasionally bring White House florists and chefs to the center to demonstrate their arts.

The center is in a cavernous, elegantly restored hall in the 1928 Commerce Building. The restoration, which included repainting an ornately carved plaster ceiling that had become soot-blackened during the hall’s years as a patent library, cost $3.7 million. The center, with displays and videotapes on the history of the White House, its architecture and china, is expected to draw 2 million visitors a year.

But the greatest draws are expected to be the exhibits the public demanded: family portraits, pictures of presidential pets and a description of the orchestration of a state dinner. The First Ladies also get much attention. Their exhibit is larger and more prominently displayed than the one nearby on their husbands.

This reflects public interest, said Mel Poole, the Park Service’s manager of the White House and nearby areas. People want to know how the White House entertains, and “a lot of the social side really is the First Lady’s domain,” Poole said.

One display notes that First Ladies must approve the menus for state dinners before they go to the calligrapher for printing.

The public also is fascinated with First Lady-as-activist, a role, Poole noted, did not originate with Hillary Rodham Clinton. In one photo, Betty Ford wears a large equal rights amendment button. Nancy Reagan is pictured near a “Just Say No” placard.