White House - West Wing

Having powerful friends is of little use unless you can exercise that power for your own benefit. Last month, I was able to accomplish this rare feat when Tracy and I were invited to a tour of the White House. Before you turn up your nose and declare, quite correctly, than any schoolkid can get in the White House for a tour, please bear in mind that this was not the proletarian East Wing tour. This, my friends, was the fabled West Wing. A place not open to the public, and where mere mortals such as myself dare not tread.

Obviously, the tour was arranged by Ron M., and I don't know if he had to expend any silver bullets to pull this off, and I didn't ask. I was happy enough just to get in to where all the action occurs. The no-camera policy precluded the capture of any truly interesting photographs, but a few were obtained before we began.

If you look closely in the picture above, you can make out Tracy, Kara, and Austin just before we entered the facility. Note that we are inside the perimeter at this point and located on a street that separates the White House from the Executive Office Building.

This was my favorite picture that I took that day. This image of the seal was taken inside the vestibule that you saw us entering in the previous picture.

Due to the quality and knowledge of our benefactor, we eschewed the standard guide and toured the facility ourselves. Once inside we took a look at the latest installment of official White House photographs that adorn the visitor's lobby. We were even lucky enough to find one that had Ron in it. Austin and I took the opportunity to visit the men's room just so we could say we did. We took a quick look at the West Wing dining room and headed upstairs.

One there we took a brief detour outside to the Rose Garden. The shot you see above was taken there. It's hard to tell from this picture, but the windows here are to the Cabinet Room and the Oval Office. We left here to visit the Cabinet Room, which is the nearest set of doors in the picture above. The Cabinet Room was interesting both in the fact that all of the cabinet members had their names engraved on brass plates mounted on each chair, but that we found out that the Wall Street bailout meetings were held in this very room. In a subtle recognition of his standing, the President's chair is slightly taller than all of the others and is in the middle of the oval table rather than at one end.

There is a small office for the Presidential Secretary beside it, but it was not open. Next we visited the star of the show; The Oval Office. As head-of-state residences go, the White House is actually rather small, and as a result, visitors are often surprised at how small the Oval Office actually is. I found it somewhat larger than expected. When we were told that President Bush was using the Kennedy Desk, Tracy commented on the famous picture that showed John John sitting under the desk at his father's feet.

There was no opening in this desk, but a helpful guard explained that the desk actually has a door that swings open in front of it. This door is visible in the picture to the left. This desk is known as the Resolute Desk. The HMS Resolute was abandoned in the Arctic in 1855, but was rescued by the Americans the following year. When it was decommissioned about 20 years later, Queen Victoria had twin desks manufactured from the timbers and gave one to President Hayes in 1880, as a show of gratitude for its rescue. With the exceptions of Johnson, Nixon, and Ford, every sitting President has used this desk in the Oval Office. I am not sure if the kids grasped what they were seeing, but as a student of history, this was a rare treat.

The last stop of our tour was the Press Room. This is a room that we have all seen during news conferences, and it was here that I had my first real surprise. This room is tiny. It is so small that all major news outlets are issued a single seat. The room itself is not much wider than the following picture of the lectern.


We left after that, but I can't thank Ron and Amanda enough for the tour and, although my children are not likely to grasp the significance of where they were until they are much older, it was a lifetime event for all of us.