National Geographic: Inside the White House (1995) Movie Script
It is a simple mansion,
built of stone and irony,
a symbol of freedom
invested with the labor of slaves
and great statesman alike.
It is like no other place on earth,
a house alive with the past and present.
I deem this reply a full acceptance
of the unconditional surrender of Japan.
...that a strong and a confident
and a vigilant America
stands ready tonight...
It is an odd place,
where the monumental and
the mundane coexist.
to provide a nuclear strike capability
against the Western Hemisphere...
therefore, I shall resign
the Presidency effective
at noon tomorrow.
It is where the most critical decisions
in our history are made.
And where any American can visit.
And all the things that American
Independence means to you
and to me and to ours.
My fellow Americans,
our constitution works -
here the people rule.
Now you will journey
through time and a day
meeting the people
and hearing the stories
that give this powerful place its soul.
For this is more than just an office
or a monument or a home,
it is an American idea
known as the White House.
This isn't the biggest house.
Many and most, in even smaller countries
are much bigger.
This isn't the finest house,
but this is the best house.
It's the best house
because it has something
far more important than
numbers of people who serve,
far more important than numbers
of rooms
or how big it is,
far more important than numbers
of magnificent pieces of art.
This house has a great heart,
and that heart
comes from those who serve.
At the White House,
there is no such thing as a typical day
For those who serve inside,
today will be one of the most intense.
These people, stagehands to history
are preparing the house for the visit
of Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Hi, Brenda, this is Gary Walters
at the White House.
How are you today.
Fine.
Is Jerry in?
Each time a foreign leader
visits the White House,
the President has an opportunity
to showcase the power
and heritage of the nation
in a setting
that embodies them in every wall,
floorboard, and stone.
This is the symbol
not only of the Presidency,
but in the eyes of the world,
of the United States of America.
Nothing compares to the simplicity
and the strength
nothing, nothing in the world like it.
...black tie, the dinner is...
will start off
with the private reception...
Very shortly the Yeltsins will arrive.
To insure a flawless visit,
there are briefings on the 1000 details
of protocol and timing.
Then in terms of the movements,
the arrival back here by the car,
going up to the stage...
The high point of the visit
will be the state dinner tonight.
Dramatic, entertaining, and essential,
the state dinner is the ultimate
expression of White House power.
Not a thing. Not a thing.
Okay, we're gonna start
the escorts out to the South Lawn now...
More than 200 reporters will cover
the visit of the Russian leader.
It will begin in a few moments
with a carefully orchestrated event
called the arrival ceremony.
Will you repeat the name again please.
Ladies and Gentlemen
this is an audience check
from the South Lawn of the White House.
Checking one, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten
ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one.
I'm Mrs. Gore.
I'm Secretary Christopher.
Inside the White House,
with only minutes to go,
the President and the First Lady
receive their final briefing.
The only thing I don't remember
is what are the cues for down here -
both coming and going?
I hope I don't sneeze...
Ladies and Gentlemen.
The President of the United States
and the First Lady.
The White House is
so universally recognized today
that it's hard to imagine
when it didn't exist.
But almost 13 years
after the United States
had declared independence,
the city of Washington
was still nothing
but untamed woodlands.
In 1789, Congress agreed
to build a new capital city.
Ridiculed in New York and Philadelphia,
the city and the President's house
would never have been built
had it not been for one man.
Washington wanted the city built.
By law it had to be occupied
by November 1, 1800
and many forces
were acting against this new city
in the wilderness.
Washington wanted it, he wanted it
in the middle of the country,
he wanted it on the Potomac River.
And he was determined
in having those buildings,
because in having the buildings,
he would have his capital.
Its foundations were dug by slaves,
the intricate stonework
carved by Scottish masons.
More than half the workforce were
foreign born.
The workers lived at the job site
and each morning received a lb. of meat
and all the cornbread they could eat.
After one especially randy night there,
the commissioners overseeing
the project closed down the only house
of prostitution
to have ever operated
on the White House grounds.
When it was finished, it was immense;
a bigger home would not be built
in this country
until after the Civil War.
Today, the power of the symbol
is inescapable,
something every visiting
leader learns upon arriving.
At that moment...
...I become the United States
and he becomes Russia.
And we stand for all of our people.
And if this state visit goes well,
then it's proof that
the Cold War is really over.
And we're making a newer
and better world.
And I don't want to mess it up.
I want to do it right,
because it's the United States.
Conceived by President Kennedy in 1961,
the modern ceremony not only
impresses the visiting leader,
it gives him the distinction
of being welcomed here.
Together we have agreed
to safeguard nuclear materials
and to shut down
plutonium production reactors.
Together we can and we will
make a difference
not only for our own people
but also for men, women,
and children all around the world.
The receiving line's going on
right now inside.
The President and Mrs. Clinton
are receiving the official party.
We have a full day, full slate
in front of us.
We have some canopies to put up yet,
flower material to put around,
there's a lot of activities going on,
yeah.
See ya later.
All right, Jim what else you got?
In the White House basement,
the first preparations
for the state dinner are underway.
Here the butlers will find some
of the 1,500 different pieces of china
to set tonight's tables.
It's one of a hundred different tasks
the White House staff will finish
in their push to the dinner,
now ten hours away.
Upstairs, in the entrance hall,
a receiving line welcoming
the Russian delegation is concluding.
Just a few steps away,
the china is wheeled into
the old family dining room.
The White House is barely large enough
to hold a dinner like the one
planned for tonight.
So this elegant room has been converted
into a giant pantry
so butlers like Buddy Carter
can serve tonight's 150 guests.
There are so many people
that are capable of doing this job,
but I'm one of the few selected
that get to do it.
So I take a lot of pride
in what I do and I love it.
Can I speak to Jim please?
Chief Usher Gary Walters
is the house conductor.
He directs everyone
from butlers to plumbers,
all the people who serve the family
and make the house work.
Although he built the house,
George Washington died
before it was finished.
John Adams, intimidated by the expense
of running such a home,
said he'd prefer a row house instead.
But Washington's house held
irresistible allure,
and on the night of November 1, 1800,
Adams became the first President
to sleep in the White House.
Well, he woke up the next morning
and he wrote a letter to his wife.
It seemed to settle in on him.
And it's really, you might say,
the first experience, you know
of a President having in that house
and see by now
it is the President's house.
It seems almost an afterthought,
it was very beautiful,
when he says, you know,
may heaven bestow the best of blessings
on this house and may none
but honest and wise men
inhabit it hereafter.
When the Johnsons
entered the White House,
the nation was still in mourning
for President John Kennedy.
One of the times that was
a throat gasping time
for me
was the morning of a December the 22nd,
when I came down to the first floor
where all of the chandeliers
had been draped in black net,
and to come back and see that gone
and the Christmas tree
brilliantly alight,
I think we had it in the Blue Room.
That was just a...
you just gasp with sort of a relief,
and now we are started,
and life will go on.
For the first families,
from the moment they move in,
life goes on in the public eye.
For their own sanity,
there must be a refuge
and at the White House it is upstairs.
Only above this stair
is privacy absolute.
Never, while the Presidential family
is in residence,
may cameras pass beyond this gate.
Cameras above the first floor
are still rare,
because this is where the families live.
The second and third floors
are one of the few places on earth
where the families
are not accompanied by Secret Service.
At the heart of the second floor
is the Yellow Oval Room
which leads to the Truman Balcony.
These rooms provide a haven,
a place safe from everything
but history.
For me, I would get so caught up
in what I was doing
that you forget where you are...
that this is home.
But then we'd sit down at dinner
at night
and here would be
Abraham Lincoln's plate,
and then it would all just kind
of come back,
here I am in this historic house,
and it was overwhelming sometimes.
While overwhelming, this public housing
does come with some useful amenities.
Living in the White House
is quite a dream for any homemaker.
There's somebody to do everything,
and it's not just the wonderful
butlers and maids,
but if you need a plumber,
all you do is pick up the phone
and the plumber is there right away.
Well, when President Johnson
first came into office,
the Chief Usher call me up and said
the President wants to talk to you
about the shower.
He says, "Come up," so I came up.
The President stepped off
the elevator coming down
going to the Oval Office that morning.
So, he told me he wanted more water,
colder water, and he said,
"If I have to, I'll go over
to the Elms and take my shower."
So the first thing I did,
I got a chauffeur and went to the Elms
to see what he had over there.
And we came back to the White House
and we thought we had it,
you know, perfect for him, you know.
We had it much better
than he had at the Elms.
But, he wasn't satisfied with that.
He wanted 50 degree cold water.
He wanted body sprays around him.
And then he told me that
he wanted a showerhead
about two feet off the floor.
He said, "I want a showerhead
right there."
I said, "Well, you hold your finger there
Mr. President.
Let me mark that spot."
In your home, probably you have
about eight to ten pounds
of running pressure on your showerhead
when it's running.
His was 110 pounds of pressure
while it was running.
It was like a mini-car wash.
The Chief Usher was Rex Scouten.
He said,
"I have to try that shower out."
And it just kind of pinned him
right up against the wall.
The employees are like a family
because everybody see, you know -
it's like you've got
different departments
and everything like that.
But it's not operated that way.
If you see something
that needs to be done,
regardless of which department it is,
you do it.
That's why we say it's like a family.
I remember one time teasing a member
of the staff, one of the butlers,
and they are really like family
and treated our children like family,
and I said,
"If you don't behave,
I'm going to get you fired."
And he burst out laughing and said,
"Presidents
come and go, butlers stay."
In 1945, a young electrician
named John Muffler came to work here.
For the last 50 years,
in addition to electrical jobs,
he has handled the little annoyances
of life for ten first families,
like replacing watch batteries
and fixing eye- glasses.
You want to do the Ground Floor, right?
No one in the history of the House
has served here longer.
Am I going too fast for you?
The man with the longest tenure here,
fittingly, also is in charge of time.
Every Friday, Mr. Muffler
winds the clocks
in every part of the White House.
How many clocks are there in the place?
Several.
...Mr. President?
Yes, it's a beautiful clock.
And it still keeps good time.
Do all these clocks run,
Mr. President...
Yes, they all run.
We have a special man
who winds clocks every Friday.
I'd always managed to be there
when he'd come in somehow,
and one morning he said to me,
"Son, do you know why
when I come into this office,
these pictures are all crooked
and all bent out of shape?"
I said, "No, Sir, Mr. President,
unless the cleaners,
when they're dusting,
they move the pictures around."
He said, "No, no, no,
that's not the reason."
He said, "Would you like to know?"
I said, "Yes Sir, Mr. President,
I would."
And he said, "The rotation
of the earth causes that."
And I said,
"Yes Sir, Mr. President."
But he went over every morning
and straightened 'em...
Oh, I love Mr. Muffler.
I can't do anything like program VCRs
or set digital clocks
and so I'm always needing his help
to come to my rescue,
but he's a perfect example
of the kind of...
...dedicated service that people
have given to the White House
and to Presidents and their families
for over 200 plus years.
United Nations War Council.
President Roosevelt
and Prime Minister Churchill
at the White House...
Because of what happens here,
even in the wee hours of the night,
someone is always on call.
Alonzo Fields,
White House butler for 21 years,
developed a unique relationship
with Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Around 1:30, I decided that
the Prime Minister satisfied
and I was thinking of going...
really going to bed.
And the bell buzzed.
I went in, the Prime Minister
is walking up and down...
...with this scotch in his hand,
talking, quoting,
and saying different things and he says,
"We're trying to find out
from the Russians
what we can do for them.
But what can we do?
It's like an iron shade."
And then he stopped
and stomped his foot,
"Oh, make that an iron curtain."
And then he saw me
and my eyes saw the bottle was empty.
"My poker face didn't fool you."
He says, "Yes, my man,
I need some more to drink."
He says, "I have a war to fight.
And I need fortitude."
So I proceeded and got
a bottle of scotch and opened it
and poured the Prime Minister
a drink and then I said to him,
"Mr. Prime Minister,
will that be all for the night?"
And he says, "I don't know.
I can depend on you."
And I said, "Well, Mr. Prime Minister,
what is it?"
And he says, "Well, if ever
I'm accused of being a teetotaler,
I want you to come to my defense."
I says, "Mr. Prime Minister,
I'll defend you to the last drop."
It's hard to imagine today,
but back in the Madison Administration
during the War of 1812, the British Army
captured the city of Washington
and burned the White House.
The Madisons were trying to keep
a cheery face on it all
and they had a dinner party.
And some of the most amusing
in context
letters of the Madison paper
are regrets to
that particular dinner party
that night in August.
Lo and behold,
you could hear the gunfire.
Mrs. Madison finally fled herself,
left the house alone with Paul Jennings
a slave.
Jennings was to bank the fire,
ironically, to keep it
from burning down.
But the British came in
at eleven at night.
They saw the dinner.
The officers sat down
and had the dinner.
The furniture was piled up
in the rooms with lamp oil on it,
the windows broken out.
And about 1 a.m.,
the British stood with flaming javelins
in a circle around the house
and Lieutenant Pratt fired his pistol.
The javelins were thrown
in the house and it exploded.
Mrs. William Thornton a British citizen,
was there and said,
"It glowed like a great plum cake."
The White House is reduced to ashes
except for the stone walls
that General Washington
had cherished so.
Upstairs on the Truman Balcony
we have one block that's unpainted.
But whenever we have people up there,
I take them outside and I look at it,
and I say,
"You remember this house burned in 1814."
I look at it all the time,
every time we have any kind
of international incident.
When Captain O'Grady was rescued
out of Bosnia,
I went out on the Truman Balcony
and I looked at the burn marks.
But I'm very aware every day
I go to work about how this house
carries the whole story of America
and how we're still creating that story
and what our obligations are.
Throughout the day during a state visit
meetings between the official delegations
are held and the press moves
from room to room
for photo opportunities.
...care to respond to
the health care situation...
Those living here are surrounded
by constant reminders...
...that they are not living
a private life.
"I feel as though I have just turned
into a piece of public property,"
Jacqueline Kennedy said
after only two months in White House.
Grandpa lives in the big White House
in Washington.
And Grandma lives there too.
And there she is
with two of the grandchildren...
as the entire family
goes to the East Room
to pose for the News of the Day camera.
The South Lawn has always been
the quintessential American backyard...
...something between a playground
and a formal garden.
President Wilson kept
a flock of sheep here
and he also welcomed
the first autogiro.
Each morning during
the Hoover Administration
the Cabinet played an exercise game
with an eight-pound medicine ball.
When Ike installed
the first putting green,
the stage was set for confrontation
with the local constituents.
Squirrels have created a nutty problem
at the White House
with President Eisenhower complaining
that the four-legged vandals are
tearing up his private putting green.
The President, a very earnest golfer,
brought on a mighty political storm
with his decision
to banish the squirrels,
even though nobody has found out
whether the animals
are Republicans or Democrats.
Well, the South Lawn is well inhabited
by squirrels.
And up at Camp David,
I noticed that the oak trees
shed acorns to a great extent.
And the squirrels didn't do much
about them.
So when the day came to go back down
to the White House,
I'd fill my pockets with acorns.
And there,
up and down and in the Rose Garden,
there would be these squirrels
and I'd throw the acorns out to them
and you'd see them, wham, they'd
just go and grab for those acorns
One occasion, at Camp David,
I didn't get any acorns,
and when I came back,
well, I went into the Oval Office
and we were having a meeting there.
I looked and in every one
of those windows,
the squirrels were standing
on their hind legs
and looking through their front legs
inside.
And they're looking at me.
And they literally...
I could see were saying,
"Where are the acorns?"
At about 3 p.m.,
the pianist for tonight's entertainment
practices in the East Room.
One floor below,
in the White House kitchen,
chef Walter Scheib is gearing up
for dinner now only five hours away.
In addition to the normal pressure
to please, turn-of-the-century chefs
...had to routinely serve seven-course
family meals
and twenty-course state dinners.
The pleasures of these meals
were not lost on President Taft,
who tipped the scales
at more than 300 pounds.
Though a success in the kitchen,
the chef's handy work
was causing problems elsewhere.
White House bathtubs proved
too narrow for Taft;
to his consternation
the President was frequently
left stuck in the tub.
White House ushers were sent scurrying
to find a proper vessel.
When it finally arrived,
it was 41 inches wide,
could hold nearly 65 gallons of water,
and all the men who installed it.
Tonight's guests will be served
one of the legendary
White House desserts,
the creation of pastry
chef Roland Mesnier.
That goes back.
This is when I am even more nervous
than normal.
You have to remember, you know,
when you serve a state dinner,
who are your guests?
The dining room is filled with
extremely important people,
people who have been everywhere,
that have tasted all sorts of food,
and our job is to make sure that
the guests will leave the White House
feeling that the President
and Mrs. Clinton did an excellent job
receiving the guests,
not the pastry chef, no,
or anybody else, but that
the President and the First Lady.
That has to be very well understood.
I think if you can do that,
then I think you do your job very well.
Mesnier's almond baskets
will be the dinner's grand finale.
It's the type of culinary touch
that has always attracted
the attention of gourmets,
including Julia Child.
While history has recorded the names
of almost every White House chef,
the names and lives of the kitchen
assistants and the servants
who toiled on the staff
have gone largely unrecorded.
In 1909, Mrs. Taft considered
firing all of the white ushers
because they couldn't be treated
like servants in the same way as blacks.
She was persuaded not to.
Despite the discrimination,
black Americans who worked here then
created a vibrant world.
Their White House positions placed them
in the upper strata
of Washington's black society.
James Coats, Adolph Bird,
and Arlen Dixon,
I remember the first three butlers
I met during the Tafts Administration.
Lillian Rogers Parks,
a White House seamstress for 30 years,
was introduced to that society
by her mother, Maggie Rogers,
a maid to Mrs. Taft.
They had their homes
and they entertained
and then we had clubs.
That was very classy.
And that gave them the idea
to get together
and have a little a club
at the White House
called the Chandeliers.
Named for the cut glass fixtures
in the East Room, the Chandelier Club,
like many social clubs
in the early 1900s,
held a ball each year.
Though it was not staged there,
the White House imprimatur
made the Chandelier Ball exclusive.
The Marine Band played and
White House dignitaries always attended.
But outside the ball,
black workers were still treated
as second-class citizens.
In 1902, President Teddy Roosevelt
invited the noted educator,
Booker T. Washington,
to the White House for dinner.
Press reaction in the South
and the North was severe.
Roosevelt was chastened.
No black American received
another social invitation
to the White House for 28 years.
In the entrance hall,
the honor guard practices
for their ceremonial march
later this evening.
They are performing a kind of ritual
that helps define what has become
a national shrine.
For the occupants of the late 1800s,
the White House was too small
and not nearly grand enough
for the nation's aspirations.
There were frequent and elaborate plans
to expand or even abandon it.
I don't think the White House
would have survived the late 1860s,
had it not been where Lincoln had lived.
You think of Lincoln in his nightshirt
going down the hall at night
with the wind blowing
and his dreams that
his secretary sold him out,
and his wife's problems,
the child's death.
And it all happened in the White House.
And it's from the White House
he left in his carriage to go to
Ford's Theater
and it was to the White House
he was brought back dead.
It's not too excessive to say that
Lincoln sanctified the White House.
Now those...
this is what we call pull sugar,
which is simply water,
glucose and lemon juice...
With only hours to go
before the evening begins,
pastry chef Roland Mesnier is finishing
tonight's culinary grand finale.
Until you feel that you are...
that the ribbons is wide enough
because as you pull it thin,
it will get narrow on you.
That's...
just like a baby,
very, very careful,
you have to kind of have to tickle it
and massage it and be nice to it.
See, look at these.
Precision and timing is the key
to beautiful ribbons.
It makes you very nervous because of
the kind of material we're using.
Some as you can see shatters
just like this.
And, you know, one touch,
and that's it.
One wrong move,
in the corner of the dough.
So I think every state dinner
I age about two or three years.
Mesnier's creations represent
the sophistication
of the White House staff.
But it wasn't always this way.
At the end of the 19th century,
the President's house reflected
the manners of a frontier nation,
not the style of
an emerging imperial power.
It was a home comparable to many other
residences from its beginnings,
and then enormous demands came upon it
and we've had a rather imperial
community come to Washington.
General Grant, goodness,
he went out and got an old orderly
in the military that was
a friend of his to come be the chef.
And they had a state dinner and here,
apple pie came out
and big slabs of roast beef
with gravy dripping off of the plates
and Mrs. Grant was mortified.
These ambassadors didn't know
what to do with it -
get on the floor and chew it
or what.
By 1902, a brilliant young man
named George Cortelyou
had changed all of that.
At Roosevelt's request, he created
an almost regal White House style
that redefined the house
for the new century.
As part of the new look,
Teddy Roosevelt officially changed
the name of the mansion:
the new letterhead read simply:
"White House, Washington."
As part of Teddy Roosevelt's
re-invention of the White House,
he added a new wing.
It is in this Wing,
not in the house itself,
that the most famous room
in America stands: The Oval Office.
Frankly... and definitely
there is danger ahead.
Danger against which we must prepare.
We are now prepared to destroy,
more rapidly and completely,
every productive enterprise
the Japanese have in any city.
We shall destroy their docks,
their factories, and their communication.
It shall be the policy of this nation
to regard any nuclear missile
launched from Cuba... against
any nation in the Western Hemisphere
as an attack by the Soviet Union
on the United States.
Because of the history
that has been made here,
the White House is the most
potent symbol of power in the world.
Inside the symbol with only an hour
before the first guests arrive,
the White House staff is in a whirl
of final preparation.
No, no, no.
They greet these people here...
Each of the head people:
The tables have been set up very well.
I've personally checked them...
I hope there's nobody here.
It's those mundane chores
that have to be done.
That's part of what the evening's about
...is part of setting a mood
as well as entertaining guests.
We're trying to set a mood which is
a nice pleasant evening for everybody.
Since any of these plates
could be the President's,
each has to be perfect.
Though each guest eats the same meal,
everyone doesn't get to
dine with the President.
All of tonight's 151 guests will not
fit in the State Dining Room
so some of them will have to eat here
in the Ground Floor Map Room.
To the Russians
who have been relegated here,
someone may have to explain
the American concept of "the kids table"
You gotta know what you're doin'.
Not just anyone can serve the President
and his guests.
Besides careful training,
each of these waiters has undergone
an FBI background check.
The State Dining Room,
like the rest of the house, is ready,
but Gary Walters isn't
taking any chances.
If the Chief Usher had made a similar
inspection of the House 45 years ago,
he would have found
a few things out of place.
In 1948, the White House
was completely gutted.
The floors that Jackson, Lincoln,
and two Roosevelts had walked across
were gone.
After five years of demolition
and construction,
the White House was res rebuilt.
The inside of the house was put back
exactly as before.
Though it was now constructed
of steel and concrete,
Jefferson and Lincoln would have
easily recognized their old home.
And the idea is preserved.
That's really what it is.
The idea of the house and the symbol
is bigger than any material part of it.
And that has remained intact
and is really more powerful
than ever today.
By the time the President and First Lady
reach the first floor,
everything is ready.
All the preparations have
led to this moment;
now all they need are guests.
At night, it's a very different thing
than what happens at the beginning
of the state visit.
We will have worked all day long.
And the visit will either
have been a success
or a moderate success
or maybe not so successful,
but what you want to do at night
is to simply seal the best
possible relationship you can
between the leaders of the countries.
So at night you really just want them
to enjoy themselves,
you want them to have a good time
at the dinner,
to say what they want to say
at the toast
and just be glad that they can be there.
In the family's private quarters
on the seldom seen Second Floor
of the White House,
one of the most critical moments
of the visit unfolds.
Here, the President and First Lady
have a chance to relax with their guest
in the warm atmosphere of a home.
The press waits at the foot
of the Grand Stair where in a moment
one of the most formal ceremonies
of the state visit will occur:
the Presidential entrance march.
Ladies and Gentlemen, President of
the United States and Mrs. Clinton,
accompanied by the President of
the Russian Federation and Mrs. Yeltsin.
The receiving line is charged
with excitement
because famous as the guests may be,
they are about to meet the two
most powerful men in the world.
The rising anticipation of the evening
is peaking by the time
the official toasts are made.
President Yeltsin's should be finishing
any minute now.
He's going a couple a minutes
over his five minutes.
He's up to about eight minutes now
of speaking.
And finally, dinner begins.
While dinner continues upstairs,
downstairs,
the staff is battling back
an avalanche of dishes.
Working hard. Working hard.
Cocktails is serving.
After the cocktails
that's when it starts flowing in.
Start coming down and after that,
it's nonstop.
Do you kind of forget where you are?
No, no. You know you're in the kitchen
washing and drying dishes.
At the top of the winding stair
that connects the two worlds,
days of work are about to payoff
for pastry chef Roland Mesnier.
If you are hungry enough,
you can eat the whole thing, yes.
On evenings like these,
dinner is followed by a performance
in the East Room.
During the civil rights movement,
singer Sarah Vaughan performed here.
At the end of the evening,
a staff member found her sobbing
in her dressing room.
When asked what was wrong,
she said, "Nothing is the matter.
It's just that 20 years ago
when I came to Washington,
I couldn't even get a hotel room,
and tonight I sang for the President
of the United States in the White House-
and then he asked me to dance with him.
It is more than I can stand!"
Tonight, Diva Kathleen Battle
lends her voice to the house.
I think one of the attractions
of the White House,
one of the things that makes it
so precious in our country,
is the fact that a family really
is living there every day.
That it's a center not only
of political power and prestige
on a global basis,
but has that human touch of individuals
enjoying life within those...
I guess you might say,
hallowed halls.
Tomorrow it will start all over again
and every day for as long
as there is a republic.
Families will come and go,
just as butlers and maids do,
dignitaries and old gentlemen
who wind clocks.
These are the people
who furnish this house and give it life
and as they do,
an American idea endures.
built of stone and irony,
a symbol of freedom
invested with the labor of slaves
and great statesman alike.
It is like no other place on earth,
a house alive with the past and present.
I deem this reply a full acceptance
of the unconditional surrender of Japan.
...that a strong and a confident
and a vigilant America
stands ready tonight...
It is an odd place,
where the monumental and
the mundane coexist.
to provide a nuclear strike capability
against the Western Hemisphere...
therefore, I shall resign
the Presidency effective
at noon tomorrow.
It is where the most critical decisions
in our history are made.
And where any American can visit.
And all the things that American
Independence means to you
and to me and to ours.
My fellow Americans,
our constitution works -
here the people rule.
Now you will journey
through time and a day
meeting the people
and hearing the stories
that give this powerful place its soul.
For this is more than just an office
or a monument or a home,
it is an American idea
known as the White House.
This isn't the biggest house.
Many and most, in even smaller countries
are much bigger.
This isn't the finest house,
but this is the best house.
It's the best house
because it has something
far more important than
numbers of people who serve,
far more important than numbers
of rooms
or how big it is,
far more important than numbers
of magnificent pieces of art.
This house has a great heart,
and that heart
comes from those who serve.
At the White House,
there is no such thing as a typical day
For those who serve inside,
today will be one of the most intense.
These people, stagehands to history
are preparing the house for the visit
of Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Hi, Brenda, this is Gary Walters
at the White House.
How are you today.
Fine.
Is Jerry in?
Each time a foreign leader
visits the White House,
the President has an opportunity
to showcase the power
and heritage of the nation
in a setting
that embodies them in every wall,
floorboard, and stone.
This is the symbol
not only of the Presidency,
but in the eyes of the world,
of the United States of America.
Nothing compares to the simplicity
and the strength
nothing, nothing in the world like it.
...black tie, the dinner is...
will start off
with the private reception...
Very shortly the Yeltsins will arrive.
To insure a flawless visit,
there are briefings on the 1000 details
of protocol and timing.
Then in terms of the movements,
the arrival back here by the car,
going up to the stage...
The high point of the visit
will be the state dinner tonight.
Dramatic, entertaining, and essential,
the state dinner is the ultimate
expression of White House power.
Not a thing. Not a thing.
Okay, we're gonna start
the escorts out to the South Lawn now...
More than 200 reporters will cover
the visit of the Russian leader.
It will begin in a few moments
with a carefully orchestrated event
called the arrival ceremony.
Will you repeat the name again please.
Ladies and Gentlemen
this is an audience check
from the South Lawn of the White House.
Checking one, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten
ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one.
I'm Mrs. Gore.
I'm Secretary Christopher.
Inside the White House,
with only minutes to go,
the President and the First Lady
receive their final briefing.
The only thing I don't remember
is what are the cues for down here -
both coming and going?
I hope I don't sneeze...
Ladies and Gentlemen.
The President of the United States
and the First Lady.
The White House is
so universally recognized today
that it's hard to imagine
when it didn't exist.
But almost 13 years
after the United States
had declared independence,
the city of Washington
was still nothing
but untamed woodlands.
In 1789, Congress agreed
to build a new capital city.
Ridiculed in New York and Philadelphia,
the city and the President's house
would never have been built
had it not been for one man.
Washington wanted the city built.
By law it had to be occupied
by November 1, 1800
and many forces
were acting against this new city
in the wilderness.
Washington wanted it, he wanted it
in the middle of the country,
he wanted it on the Potomac River.
And he was determined
in having those buildings,
because in having the buildings,
he would have his capital.
Its foundations were dug by slaves,
the intricate stonework
carved by Scottish masons.
More than half the workforce were
foreign born.
The workers lived at the job site
and each morning received a lb. of meat
and all the cornbread they could eat.
After one especially randy night there,
the commissioners overseeing
the project closed down the only house
of prostitution
to have ever operated
on the White House grounds.
When it was finished, it was immense;
a bigger home would not be built
in this country
until after the Civil War.
Today, the power of the symbol
is inescapable,
something every visiting
leader learns upon arriving.
At that moment...
...I become the United States
and he becomes Russia.
And we stand for all of our people.
And if this state visit goes well,
then it's proof that
the Cold War is really over.
And we're making a newer
and better world.
And I don't want to mess it up.
I want to do it right,
because it's the United States.
Conceived by President Kennedy in 1961,
the modern ceremony not only
impresses the visiting leader,
it gives him the distinction
of being welcomed here.
Together we have agreed
to safeguard nuclear materials
and to shut down
plutonium production reactors.
Together we can and we will
make a difference
not only for our own people
but also for men, women,
and children all around the world.
The receiving line's going on
right now inside.
The President and Mrs. Clinton
are receiving the official party.
We have a full day, full slate
in front of us.
We have some canopies to put up yet,
flower material to put around,
there's a lot of activities going on,
yeah.
See ya later.
All right, Jim what else you got?
In the White House basement,
the first preparations
for the state dinner are underway.
Here the butlers will find some
of the 1,500 different pieces of china
to set tonight's tables.
It's one of a hundred different tasks
the White House staff will finish
in their push to the dinner,
now ten hours away.
Upstairs, in the entrance hall,
a receiving line welcoming
the Russian delegation is concluding.
Just a few steps away,
the china is wheeled into
the old family dining room.
The White House is barely large enough
to hold a dinner like the one
planned for tonight.
So this elegant room has been converted
into a giant pantry
so butlers like Buddy Carter
can serve tonight's 150 guests.
There are so many people
that are capable of doing this job,
but I'm one of the few selected
that get to do it.
So I take a lot of pride
in what I do and I love it.
Can I speak to Jim please?
Chief Usher Gary Walters
is the house conductor.
He directs everyone
from butlers to plumbers,
all the people who serve the family
and make the house work.
Although he built the house,
George Washington died
before it was finished.
John Adams, intimidated by the expense
of running such a home,
said he'd prefer a row house instead.
But Washington's house held
irresistible allure,
and on the night of November 1, 1800,
Adams became the first President
to sleep in the White House.
Well, he woke up the next morning
and he wrote a letter to his wife.
It seemed to settle in on him.
And it's really, you might say,
the first experience, you know
of a President having in that house
and see by now
it is the President's house.
It seems almost an afterthought,
it was very beautiful,
when he says, you know,
may heaven bestow the best of blessings
on this house and may none
but honest and wise men
inhabit it hereafter.
When the Johnsons
entered the White House,
the nation was still in mourning
for President John Kennedy.
One of the times that was
a throat gasping time
for me
was the morning of a December the 22nd,
when I came down to the first floor
where all of the chandeliers
had been draped in black net,
and to come back and see that gone
and the Christmas tree
brilliantly alight,
I think we had it in the Blue Room.
That was just a...
you just gasp with sort of a relief,
and now we are started,
and life will go on.
For the first families,
from the moment they move in,
life goes on in the public eye.
For their own sanity,
there must be a refuge
and at the White House it is upstairs.
Only above this stair
is privacy absolute.
Never, while the Presidential family
is in residence,
may cameras pass beyond this gate.
Cameras above the first floor
are still rare,
because this is where the families live.
The second and third floors
are one of the few places on earth
where the families
are not accompanied by Secret Service.
At the heart of the second floor
is the Yellow Oval Room
which leads to the Truman Balcony.
These rooms provide a haven,
a place safe from everything
but history.
For me, I would get so caught up
in what I was doing
that you forget where you are...
that this is home.
But then we'd sit down at dinner
at night
and here would be
Abraham Lincoln's plate,
and then it would all just kind
of come back,
here I am in this historic house,
and it was overwhelming sometimes.
While overwhelming, this public housing
does come with some useful amenities.
Living in the White House
is quite a dream for any homemaker.
There's somebody to do everything,
and it's not just the wonderful
butlers and maids,
but if you need a plumber,
all you do is pick up the phone
and the plumber is there right away.
Well, when President Johnson
first came into office,
the Chief Usher call me up and said
the President wants to talk to you
about the shower.
He says, "Come up," so I came up.
The President stepped off
the elevator coming down
going to the Oval Office that morning.
So, he told me he wanted more water,
colder water, and he said,
"If I have to, I'll go over
to the Elms and take my shower."
So the first thing I did,
I got a chauffeur and went to the Elms
to see what he had over there.
And we came back to the White House
and we thought we had it,
you know, perfect for him, you know.
We had it much better
than he had at the Elms.
But, he wasn't satisfied with that.
He wanted 50 degree cold water.
He wanted body sprays around him.
And then he told me that
he wanted a showerhead
about two feet off the floor.
He said, "I want a showerhead
right there."
I said, "Well, you hold your finger there
Mr. President.
Let me mark that spot."
In your home, probably you have
about eight to ten pounds
of running pressure on your showerhead
when it's running.
His was 110 pounds of pressure
while it was running.
It was like a mini-car wash.
The Chief Usher was Rex Scouten.
He said,
"I have to try that shower out."
And it just kind of pinned him
right up against the wall.
The employees are like a family
because everybody see, you know -
it's like you've got
different departments
and everything like that.
But it's not operated that way.
If you see something
that needs to be done,
regardless of which department it is,
you do it.
That's why we say it's like a family.
I remember one time teasing a member
of the staff, one of the butlers,
and they are really like family
and treated our children like family,
and I said,
"If you don't behave,
I'm going to get you fired."
And he burst out laughing and said,
"Presidents
come and go, butlers stay."
In 1945, a young electrician
named John Muffler came to work here.
For the last 50 years,
in addition to electrical jobs,
he has handled the little annoyances
of life for ten first families,
like replacing watch batteries
and fixing eye- glasses.
You want to do the Ground Floor, right?
No one in the history of the House
has served here longer.
Am I going too fast for you?
The man with the longest tenure here,
fittingly, also is in charge of time.
Every Friday, Mr. Muffler
winds the clocks
in every part of the White House.
How many clocks are there in the place?
Several.
...Mr. President?
Yes, it's a beautiful clock.
And it still keeps good time.
Do all these clocks run,
Mr. President...
Yes, they all run.
We have a special man
who winds clocks every Friday.
I'd always managed to be there
when he'd come in somehow,
and one morning he said to me,
"Son, do you know why
when I come into this office,
these pictures are all crooked
and all bent out of shape?"
I said, "No, Sir, Mr. President,
unless the cleaners,
when they're dusting,
they move the pictures around."
He said, "No, no, no,
that's not the reason."
He said, "Would you like to know?"
I said, "Yes Sir, Mr. President,
I would."
And he said, "The rotation
of the earth causes that."
And I said,
"Yes Sir, Mr. President."
But he went over every morning
and straightened 'em...
Oh, I love Mr. Muffler.
I can't do anything like program VCRs
or set digital clocks
and so I'm always needing his help
to come to my rescue,
but he's a perfect example
of the kind of...
...dedicated service that people
have given to the White House
and to Presidents and their families
for over 200 plus years.
United Nations War Council.
President Roosevelt
and Prime Minister Churchill
at the White House...
Because of what happens here,
even in the wee hours of the night,
someone is always on call.
Alonzo Fields,
White House butler for 21 years,
developed a unique relationship
with Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Around 1:30, I decided that
the Prime Minister satisfied
and I was thinking of going...
really going to bed.
And the bell buzzed.
I went in, the Prime Minister
is walking up and down...
...with this scotch in his hand,
talking, quoting,
and saying different things and he says,
"We're trying to find out
from the Russians
what we can do for them.
But what can we do?
It's like an iron shade."
And then he stopped
and stomped his foot,
"Oh, make that an iron curtain."
And then he saw me
and my eyes saw the bottle was empty.
"My poker face didn't fool you."
He says, "Yes, my man,
I need some more to drink."
He says, "I have a war to fight.
And I need fortitude."
So I proceeded and got
a bottle of scotch and opened it
and poured the Prime Minister
a drink and then I said to him,
"Mr. Prime Minister,
will that be all for the night?"
And he says, "I don't know.
I can depend on you."
And I said, "Well, Mr. Prime Minister,
what is it?"
And he says, "Well, if ever
I'm accused of being a teetotaler,
I want you to come to my defense."
I says, "Mr. Prime Minister,
I'll defend you to the last drop."
It's hard to imagine today,
but back in the Madison Administration
during the War of 1812, the British Army
captured the city of Washington
and burned the White House.
The Madisons were trying to keep
a cheery face on it all
and they had a dinner party.
And some of the most amusing
in context
letters of the Madison paper
are regrets to
that particular dinner party
that night in August.
Lo and behold,
you could hear the gunfire.
Mrs. Madison finally fled herself,
left the house alone with Paul Jennings
a slave.
Jennings was to bank the fire,
ironically, to keep it
from burning down.
But the British came in
at eleven at night.
They saw the dinner.
The officers sat down
and had the dinner.
The furniture was piled up
in the rooms with lamp oil on it,
the windows broken out.
And about 1 a.m.,
the British stood with flaming javelins
in a circle around the house
and Lieutenant Pratt fired his pistol.
The javelins were thrown
in the house and it exploded.
Mrs. William Thornton a British citizen,
was there and said,
"It glowed like a great plum cake."
The White House is reduced to ashes
except for the stone walls
that General Washington
had cherished so.
Upstairs on the Truman Balcony
we have one block that's unpainted.
But whenever we have people up there,
I take them outside and I look at it,
and I say,
"You remember this house burned in 1814."
I look at it all the time,
every time we have any kind
of international incident.
When Captain O'Grady was rescued
out of Bosnia,
I went out on the Truman Balcony
and I looked at the burn marks.
But I'm very aware every day
I go to work about how this house
carries the whole story of America
and how we're still creating that story
and what our obligations are.
Throughout the day during a state visit
meetings between the official delegations
are held and the press moves
from room to room
for photo opportunities.
...care to respond to
the health care situation...
Those living here are surrounded
by constant reminders...
...that they are not living
a private life.
"I feel as though I have just turned
into a piece of public property,"
Jacqueline Kennedy said
after only two months in White House.
Grandpa lives in the big White House
in Washington.
And Grandma lives there too.
And there she is
with two of the grandchildren...
as the entire family
goes to the East Room
to pose for the News of the Day camera.
The South Lawn has always been
the quintessential American backyard...
...something between a playground
and a formal garden.
President Wilson kept
a flock of sheep here
and he also welcomed
the first autogiro.
Each morning during
the Hoover Administration
the Cabinet played an exercise game
with an eight-pound medicine ball.
When Ike installed
the first putting green,
the stage was set for confrontation
with the local constituents.
Squirrels have created a nutty problem
at the White House
with President Eisenhower complaining
that the four-legged vandals are
tearing up his private putting green.
The President, a very earnest golfer,
brought on a mighty political storm
with his decision
to banish the squirrels,
even though nobody has found out
whether the animals
are Republicans or Democrats.
Well, the South Lawn is well inhabited
by squirrels.
And up at Camp David,
I noticed that the oak trees
shed acorns to a great extent.
And the squirrels didn't do much
about them.
So when the day came to go back down
to the White House,
I'd fill my pockets with acorns.
And there,
up and down and in the Rose Garden,
there would be these squirrels
and I'd throw the acorns out to them
and you'd see them, wham, they'd
just go and grab for those acorns
One occasion, at Camp David,
I didn't get any acorns,
and when I came back,
well, I went into the Oval Office
and we were having a meeting there.
I looked and in every one
of those windows,
the squirrels were standing
on their hind legs
and looking through their front legs
inside.
And they're looking at me.
And they literally...
I could see were saying,
"Where are the acorns?"
At about 3 p.m.,
the pianist for tonight's entertainment
practices in the East Room.
One floor below,
in the White House kitchen,
chef Walter Scheib is gearing up
for dinner now only five hours away.
In addition to the normal pressure
to please, turn-of-the-century chefs
...had to routinely serve seven-course
family meals
and twenty-course state dinners.
The pleasures of these meals
were not lost on President Taft,
who tipped the scales
at more than 300 pounds.
Though a success in the kitchen,
the chef's handy work
was causing problems elsewhere.
White House bathtubs proved
too narrow for Taft;
to his consternation
the President was frequently
left stuck in the tub.
White House ushers were sent scurrying
to find a proper vessel.
When it finally arrived,
it was 41 inches wide,
could hold nearly 65 gallons of water,
and all the men who installed it.
Tonight's guests will be served
one of the legendary
White House desserts,
the creation of pastry
chef Roland Mesnier.
That goes back.
This is when I am even more nervous
than normal.
You have to remember, you know,
when you serve a state dinner,
who are your guests?
The dining room is filled with
extremely important people,
people who have been everywhere,
that have tasted all sorts of food,
and our job is to make sure that
the guests will leave the White House
feeling that the President
and Mrs. Clinton did an excellent job
receiving the guests,
not the pastry chef, no,
or anybody else, but that
the President and the First Lady.
That has to be very well understood.
I think if you can do that,
then I think you do your job very well.
Mesnier's almond baskets
will be the dinner's grand finale.
It's the type of culinary touch
that has always attracted
the attention of gourmets,
including Julia Child.
While history has recorded the names
of almost every White House chef,
the names and lives of the kitchen
assistants and the servants
who toiled on the staff
have gone largely unrecorded.
In 1909, Mrs. Taft considered
firing all of the white ushers
because they couldn't be treated
like servants in the same way as blacks.
She was persuaded not to.
Despite the discrimination,
black Americans who worked here then
created a vibrant world.
Their White House positions placed them
in the upper strata
of Washington's black society.
James Coats, Adolph Bird,
and Arlen Dixon,
I remember the first three butlers
I met during the Tafts Administration.
Lillian Rogers Parks,
a White House seamstress for 30 years,
was introduced to that society
by her mother, Maggie Rogers,
a maid to Mrs. Taft.
They had their homes
and they entertained
and then we had clubs.
That was very classy.
And that gave them the idea
to get together
and have a little a club
at the White House
called the Chandeliers.
Named for the cut glass fixtures
in the East Room, the Chandelier Club,
like many social clubs
in the early 1900s,
held a ball each year.
Though it was not staged there,
the White House imprimatur
made the Chandelier Ball exclusive.
The Marine Band played and
White House dignitaries always attended.
But outside the ball,
black workers were still treated
as second-class citizens.
In 1902, President Teddy Roosevelt
invited the noted educator,
Booker T. Washington,
to the White House for dinner.
Press reaction in the South
and the North was severe.
Roosevelt was chastened.
No black American received
another social invitation
to the White House for 28 years.
In the entrance hall,
the honor guard practices
for their ceremonial march
later this evening.
They are performing a kind of ritual
that helps define what has become
a national shrine.
For the occupants of the late 1800s,
the White House was too small
and not nearly grand enough
for the nation's aspirations.
There were frequent and elaborate plans
to expand or even abandon it.
I don't think the White House
would have survived the late 1860s,
had it not been where Lincoln had lived.
You think of Lincoln in his nightshirt
going down the hall at night
with the wind blowing
and his dreams that
his secretary sold him out,
and his wife's problems,
the child's death.
And it all happened in the White House.
And it's from the White House
he left in his carriage to go to
Ford's Theater
and it was to the White House
he was brought back dead.
It's not too excessive to say that
Lincoln sanctified the White House.
Now those...
this is what we call pull sugar,
which is simply water,
glucose and lemon juice...
With only hours to go
before the evening begins,
pastry chef Roland Mesnier is finishing
tonight's culinary grand finale.
Until you feel that you are...
that the ribbons is wide enough
because as you pull it thin,
it will get narrow on you.
That's...
just like a baby,
very, very careful,
you have to kind of have to tickle it
and massage it and be nice to it.
See, look at these.
Precision and timing is the key
to beautiful ribbons.
It makes you very nervous because of
the kind of material we're using.
Some as you can see shatters
just like this.
And, you know, one touch,
and that's it.
One wrong move,
in the corner of the dough.
So I think every state dinner
I age about two or three years.
Mesnier's creations represent
the sophistication
of the White House staff.
But it wasn't always this way.
At the end of the 19th century,
the President's house reflected
the manners of a frontier nation,
not the style of
an emerging imperial power.
It was a home comparable to many other
residences from its beginnings,
and then enormous demands came upon it
and we've had a rather imperial
community come to Washington.
General Grant, goodness,
he went out and got an old orderly
in the military that was
a friend of his to come be the chef.
And they had a state dinner and here,
apple pie came out
and big slabs of roast beef
with gravy dripping off of the plates
and Mrs. Grant was mortified.
These ambassadors didn't know
what to do with it -
get on the floor and chew it
or what.
By 1902, a brilliant young man
named George Cortelyou
had changed all of that.
At Roosevelt's request, he created
an almost regal White House style
that redefined the house
for the new century.
As part of the new look,
Teddy Roosevelt officially changed
the name of the mansion:
the new letterhead read simply:
"White House, Washington."
As part of Teddy Roosevelt's
re-invention of the White House,
he added a new wing.
It is in this Wing,
not in the house itself,
that the most famous room
in America stands: The Oval Office.
Frankly... and definitely
there is danger ahead.
Danger against which we must prepare.
We are now prepared to destroy,
more rapidly and completely,
every productive enterprise
the Japanese have in any city.
We shall destroy their docks,
their factories, and their communication.
It shall be the policy of this nation
to regard any nuclear missile
launched from Cuba... against
any nation in the Western Hemisphere
as an attack by the Soviet Union
on the United States.
Because of the history
that has been made here,
the White House is the most
potent symbol of power in the world.
Inside the symbol with only an hour
before the first guests arrive,
the White House staff is in a whirl
of final preparation.
No, no, no.
They greet these people here...
Each of the head people:
The tables have been set up very well.
I've personally checked them...
I hope there's nobody here.
It's those mundane chores
that have to be done.
That's part of what the evening's about
...is part of setting a mood
as well as entertaining guests.
We're trying to set a mood which is
a nice pleasant evening for everybody.
Since any of these plates
could be the President's,
each has to be perfect.
Though each guest eats the same meal,
everyone doesn't get to
dine with the President.
All of tonight's 151 guests will not
fit in the State Dining Room
so some of them will have to eat here
in the Ground Floor Map Room.
To the Russians
who have been relegated here,
someone may have to explain
the American concept of "the kids table"
You gotta know what you're doin'.
Not just anyone can serve the President
and his guests.
Besides careful training,
each of these waiters has undergone
an FBI background check.
The State Dining Room,
like the rest of the house, is ready,
but Gary Walters isn't
taking any chances.
If the Chief Usher had made a similar
inspection of the House 45 years ago,
he would have found
a few things out of place.
In 1948, the White House
was completely gutted.
The floors that Jackson, Lincoln,
and two Roosevelts had walked across
were gone.
After five years of demolition
and construction,
the White House was res rebuilt.
The inside of the house was put back
exactly as before.
Though it was now constructed
of steel and concrete,
Jefferson and Lincoln would have
easily recognized their old home.
And the idea is preserved.
That's really what it is.
The idea of the house and the symbol
is bigger than any material part of it.
And that has remained intact
and is really more powerful
than ever today.
By the time the President and First Lady
reach the first floor,
everything is ready.
All the preparations have
led to this moment;
now all they need are guests.
At night, it's a very different thing
than what happens at the beginning
of the state visit.
We will have worked all day long.
And the visit will either
have been a success
or a moderate success
or maybe not so successful,
but what you want to do at night
is to simply seal the best
possible relationship you can
between the leaders of the countries.
So at night you really just want them
to enjoy themselves,
you want them to have a good time
at the dinner,
to say what they want to say
at the toast
and just be glad that they can be there.
In the family's private quarters
on the seldom seen Second Floor
of the White House,
one of the most critical moments
of the visit unfolds.
Here, the President and First Lady
have a chance to relax with their guest
in the warm atmosphere of a home.
The press waits at the foot
of the Grand Stair where in a moment
one of the most formal ceremonies
of the state visit will occur:
the Presidential entrance march.
Ladies and Gentlemen, President of
the United States and Mrs. Clinton,
accompanied by the President of
the Russian Federation and Mrs. Yeltsin.
The receiving line is charged
with excitement
because famous as the guests may be,
they are about to meet the two
most powerful men in the world.
The rising anticipation of the evening
is peaking by the time
the official toasts are made.
President Yeltsin's should be finishing
any minute now.
He's going a couple a minutes
over his five minutes.
He's up to about eight minutes now
of speaking.
And finally, dinner begins.
While dinner continues upstairs,
downstairs,
the staff is battling back
an avalanche of dishes.
Working hard. Working hard.
Cocktails is serving.
After the cocktails
that's when it starts flowing in.
Start coming down and after that,
it's nonstop.
Do you kind of forget where you are?
No, no. You know you're in the kitchen
washing and drying dishes.
At the top of the winding stair
that connects the two worlds,
days of work are about to payoff
for pastry chef Roland Mesnier.
If you are hungry enough,
you can eat the whole thing, yes.
On evenings like these,
dinner is followed by a performance
in the East Room.
During the civil rights movement,
singer Sarah Vaughan performed here.
At the end of the evening,
a staff member found her sobbing
in her dressing room.
When asked what was wrong,
she said, "Nothing is the matter.
It's just that 20 years ago
when I came to Washington,
I couldn't even get a hotel room,
and tonight I sang for the President
of the United States in the White House-
and then he asked me to dance with him.
It is more than I can stand!"
Tonight, Diva Kathleen Battle
lends her voice to the house.
I think one of the attractions
of the White House,
one of the things that makes it
so precious in our country,
is the fact that a family really
is living there every day.
That it's a center not only
of political power and prestige
on a global basis,
but has that human touch of individuals
enjoying life within those...
I guess you might say,
hallowed halls.
Tomorrow it will start all over again
and every day for as long
as there is a republic.
Families will come and go,
just as butlers and maids do,
dignitaries and old gentlemen
who wind clocks.
These are the people
who furnish this house and give it life
and as they do,
an American idea endures.