Upstairs at the White House by J. B. West EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: J. B. West
- Publish Date: September 28, 1973
- Language: English
- Genre: US Presidents
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 8 MB
- Pages: 381
- Price: Free
- ISBN: 069810546X
CONTRARY TO PUBLISHED REPORTS, Eleanor Roosevelt never walked anywhere.
She ran.
She always raced down the halls of the White House from one
appointment to another, skirts flapping around her legs. And then she would
sail out the front door at full speed, jump into her waiting car, and call out to
the driver: “Where am I going?”
Or she hurried down the driveway and out the front gates to the bus stop
or, on a sunny day, marched resolutely a full ten blocks up Connecticut
Avenue to her volunteer office on Dupont Circle—and on her way back, she
gathered up people to bring home for lunch. There were no Secret Service
men hovering around Eleanor Roosevelt.
I was introduced to this awesome study in human motion on my first day in
the White House, March 1, 1941. I had just begun work as assistant to Chief
Usher Howell G. Crim, a small, proper man in a black suit, and was sitting
beside his desk near the front door. Suddenly, the First Lady of the Land
appeared in the doorway of the Usher’s office. I jumped to my feet.
“Mrs. Roosevelt, may I present J. B. West, my new assistant,” announced
Mr. Crim.
The tall, imposing woman smiled, showing more teeth than I’d ever seen,
and extended a slim, graceful hand. It was surprisingly soft in my grasp.
“How do you do, Ma’am,” I managed to say.
She was wearing a dark skirt and a white ruffled blouse, and wisps of gray
were beginning to stray from her hair, which was loosely pulled back into a
knot. When she spoke, her voice was high-pitched and shrill, and she talked
so fast I had trouble understanding her.
Dismissing me with a pleasant nod, she turned to Mr. Crim, who handled
all appointments in the mansion: “I’m having the Japanese Ambassador to
tea,” she said. “I’ll see him in the Red Room, but please don’t leave me in
there too long with him—I don’t know what to talk about!”
And she was off.
Mrs. Roosevelt well knew that American and Japanese leaders were
engaged in a delicate verbal sparring match, while her husband sought to
prepare the country for any eventuality, including war. And as a single male
of twenty-nine, reading newspaper warnings of impending war, and reports
about Japan’s invasions, I, too, was concerned.
A few minutes after Mrs. Roosevelt hurried down the red-carpeted
hallway, Secretary of War Stimson, Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau,
and Presidential Advisor Harry Hopkins entered the White House through the
North Portico facing Pennsylvania Avenue. The liveried doorman brought the
three gentlemen to the Usher’s office, the first door to the right off the marblefloored main lobby.
Mr. Crim checked their names off the list of Presidential appointments
and accompanied the three men upstairs to meet with Franklin Delano
Roosevelt.
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