Clintons Have a White Houseful at Christmas

If President Clinton’s hair looks a tad grayer during the State of the Union address next month and his wife’s that much lighter, perhaps it’s because they’ve been blanched by flash bulbs.

In the last three weeks, the Clintons have hosted no less than 16 holiday receptions, shaken 7,500 hands and had their picture snapped with every person attached to one of those hands.

Meantime, more than 160,000 people have passed through the White House on tours, taking in the elaborate Christmas decorations and, if they’re lucky, catching a glimpse of the first family.

The White House parties include everyone from generals to Cabinet members and from wealthy fund-raisers to White House telephone operators, reporters and just-plain-folks who plead for an invitation. The ropes are yanked off even the best antiques and an open bar is set up in the East Room while a buffet anchors the State Dining Room on the west side of the executive mansion.

While guests inhale jumbo shrimp, baby lamb chops and eggnog spiked with cognac, bourbon and rum, the Clintons spend all their time on the receiving line in the ground-floor Diplomatic Reception Room, never mingling with the rest of their party.

During their first year in Washington, the Clintons followed previous administrations and greeted people in front of the Blue Room. But aides found that this inhibited guests’ use of the Red, Blue and Green parlors on the first floor, so the Clintons have stationed themselves out of the way. Also, so guests don’t have to waste time standing around, they now receive a card stating precisely when they are to go downstairs for their snapshot with the Clintons.

“[The Clintons] don’t get to go upstairs and enjoy the party aspect of these events,” says Capricia Marshall, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s closest aide in her new job as social secretary.

It is never more apparent than at this time of year that there is a uniquely Washington gap between official reality and intuitive reality, with spokespersons and spinners caught smack in the middle.

So, for example, Marshall, like others before her, insists that the Clintons do not tire of the relentless grin-and-grip of December. “You’re going to find it unbelievable and hokey, but they love it, they get excited,” Marshall says. “It’s a chance to catch up with old friends.”

Indeed, at two separate holiday receptions last week, the president demonstrated his skill at connecting in a blink as guests filed by conveyor-belt-like for a handshake and snapshot. A bon mot here, a remembrance of an earlier meeting there, thank-yous all around--Bill Clinton was in high form.

But surely even he, on those nights when there were two receptions back to back, became sore-faced from all that smiling?

“Not really,” Marshall says the morning after the Clintons greeted 850 members of the Secret Service and White House staff in an hour and 50 minutes--a new hand every 7.8 seconds. “They were both invigorated.”

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Depending on who’s taking notice, the Clintons are either the most hospitable people to occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in recent years or the most opportunistic.

Between tours of public rooms, dinners in the grand halls, coffees in the Map Room and overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom, the Clintons, who haven’t owned their own home since the early years of their marriage, have used this one to its fullest--particularly in December and during high political seasons. During Christmases past, they have thrown as many as 25 holiday parties for more than 10,000 people.

Even during the eight-year Reagan reign, Christmas was never so frenetic, according to Sheila Tate, who served a stint as Nancy Reagan’s spokeswoman. The Reagans had the usual half-dozen Christmas events for children, staff and media, feeding them roast beef and pasta. (Who could forget the year Nancy stood in the receiving lines with a sign around her neck reading, “I Have Laryngitis. Merry Christmas”?)

“The entire social apparatus was more lively closer to an election, but the Reagans had a pretty strong tradition around Christmas,” Tate says. “They had a few parties and they were well-defined.”

The Reagans also sent out about 60,000 Christmas cards, paid for by the Republican National Committee. This year the Clintons have sent out 300,000 Christmas cards, paid for by the Democratic National Committee.

Unlike the RNC, the DNC also picks up the tab for all the Christmas receptions, except for the congressional ball. “We [pay] because we invite Democratic activists and people who have supported the party,” says Melissa Bonney, a DNC spokeswoman.

Indeed, Johnny Chien Chuen Chung, one such supporter, alleges that he was hit up for $50,000 by a White House aide to help defray the cost of Christmas parties in 1994. And he claims that after attending a Christmas reception the following year, he was solicited for another $25,000 donation for a pro-Clinton group.

The White House vehemently denies any aide put the squeeze on Chung to pay for a holiday party. Needless to say, the Torrance businessman did not make the Clintons’ party list this year.

But then again, some 7,000 people were dropped from the 1997 list.

With the DNC $13.5 million in debt, party leaders this year decided to tighten the holiday belt, demanding that party costs be held to $300,000, well under the $430,000 spent last year. And so for several reasons, including scheduling problems, the Clintons trimmed the number of receptions. Instead of last year’s 22, they’ve had only 16 this year, which means three sit-down dinners had to be compressed into one for 330 of the Clintons’ closest advisors, campaign supporters and, as always, a few celebrities, such as Whoopi Goldberg and John Cusack.

Social Secretary Marshall says there were plenty of reasons other than financial ones to review all the party lists: “We were sending out invitations to people who were dead,” she says.

Marshall had 14 volunteers in the East Wing social office--young people of college age--fielding angry calls from people whose invitations had not arrived and probably never would.

How do they maintain their Christmas spirit?

“It’s a good thing I’m Jewish!” says one woman, demanding anonymity.

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Of course, members of the press grumbled the loudest. In a column the weekend before the receptions, New York Times columnist William Safire announced that he and his fellow opinion writer Maureen Dowd, widely read critics of the Clintons, did not receive invitations to the White House press parties.

Michael Kelly, former editor of the New Republic and now a senior writer for the National Journal, also was not invited. But he says he quit attending these parties a few years ago because “I felt it was no longer fair of me to inflict my personal presence on the Clintons. If they didn’t cut me now, what kind of cutting operation did they have?” he chuckles.

Ultimately, Kelly says he finds the whole party scene “instructive.”

“You realize the true horror of the political life,” he says. “There you are, president of the United States, which is a pretty good life, but you have to stand there for four hours posing for photos with people you don’t like and who you strongly suspect don’t like you.”

The evening of the media parties, White House Press Secretary Michael McCurry, standing just off the Grand Foyer in front of a portrait of Ronald Reagan, insisted that unflattering writing about the Clintons was not a factor in whether or not an invitation was issued. In fact, he said, the White House was just trying to make some sense out of what was intended as an invitation to people who actually toil at the White House.

When pressed about whether the Clintons were developing some kind of enemy list, McCurry finally grabbed passerby Paul Bedard, a ferociously right-wing White House correspondent for the Washington Times. “No! no! Here’s the proof!” he screamed.

There were several more items in the press that week about late invitations and long waits to get through the White House gates. And that’s after journalists consumed 700 pounds of shrimp, 150 pounds of grilled salmon and 60 pounds of smoked salmon.

Walter Scheib, the White House chef, says parties for members of the media are “the most challenging.” Apparently, they eat more than anyone else invited to the White House--and at quite a brisk pace.

In other words, they’re pigs?

“Oh, no,” says the Clintons’ chef. “I take it as a compliment.”

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There are people who attend White House Christmas parties every year and still find it an honor and the setting a thrill--the 23 grand trees inside the house, many decorated with gold balls and burgundy ribbons, the hand-carved wood and terra cotta creche with 47 figures and a giant gingerbread house this year depicting Santa on a cell phone to the president asking permission for Socks the cat to help distribute gifts.

On the evening of the party for Secret Service agents, military aides, White House operators and other staff members working in the Old and New Executive Office buildings, the women all looked to be wearing their dressiest outfits. There were long, backless velvet dresses and glittering jackets and satin skirts. The military men and women were in full regalia.

Lottie Graham, a White House telephone operator for 14 years, was talking about the parties while waiting to sit on Santa’s lap in front of the official tree, a 18-foot Fraser fir. “This is just a little something the president does for us,” she says, explaining that the operators deserve “a little something,” considering how much grief they put up with from rude callers.

“They call about everything and anything in the news,” she says. December, she adds, was the month of “the dog,” Clinton’s new chocolate Labrador retriever. “ ‘Name him Fido,’ they all said,” Graham reports. Clinton chose to name the dog Buddy instead.

On the other side of the tree, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Henry H. Shelton is shaking hands with several military aides. Tom Wiley, a supervisor in the Secret Service for 25 years, and his wife are looking out the window at the Christmas tree twinkling on the Ellipse and at the Washington Memorial.

And in the next room, with a Marine band playing jazzed-up versions of Christmas tunes, two of the five military aides who accompany President Clinton carrying the “football”--the bag containing codes to launch nuclear arms--are drinking freely from the open bar, joking with their wives and talking about their seemingly glamorous jobs.

“We see a lot of kitchens, hallways and backs of offices going around with the president,” says Air Force Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson.

“Oh, he’s lying,” says Nicole Patterson, his wife of less than a year. “He once called me from a castle.”

Meantime, Chelsea Clinton, wearing blue jeans and a shy smile, briefly stops by the Grand Foyer with a friend to hear a choral group from Stanford University, where she is a freshman this year.

By tonight, the Clintons’ Christmas marathon should be winding down and they are expected to be in their private quarters decorating still another Christmas tree--their own.

“It’s important to Chelsea for her dad to get up on a ladder,” Marshall says.

But the partying is not quite over.

On Christmas Day, the Clintons will have to summon up whatever shreds of holiday spirit they may have left to host one more event, a Christmas lunch with dishes--all top secret--drawn from the Clinton and Rodham family traditions. But this is not to be an intimate affair. They’re expecting 30 of their nearest and dearest.