Notes from an Open White House

By Hugh Sidey

Some things were different in Washington last week.

New York's Congressman Barber Conable, who has been part of the Republican leadership for four years, got his first invitation to the Oval Office.

He came in the northwest gate without a pause, found himself ushered cheerfully into the visitors' lobby of the West Wing, then next thing he knew he was in the back rooms having a good discussion on health insurance and tax reform with two old friends, Mel Laird and Bryce Harlow. He was led down to the President's office and found himself standing right at the heart of things shaking hands with another congressional friend, Jerry Ford.

Conable said it was his first time in the Oval Office. Ford looked surprised, assured him it would not be his last. The President ordered iced tea for the two and they settled on the sofas. "Is that a Gilbert Stuart?" asked Conable, admiring the portrait of George Washington over the fireplace. "I don't know," said the President. "I haven't been here long enough." Conable got down to business. "What kind of Vice President do you want?" he asked Ford. "Wait a minute," said the President, "I asked you here to tell me what kind of Vice President I should have."

Between the Nixon resignation and the Cyprus crisis, Henry Kissinger stood in his huge domain on the seventh floor at the State Department and actually let his mind wander from statecraft. "What do you think of this rug?" he asked a visitor, pointing at a handsome Oriental that had been laid over the broad and lifeless expanse of beige G.I. carpeting. "Nancy thought I needed something to break things up. It's a little too busy, isn't it?"

Three reporters in the 1971 chartreuse Pinto belonging to the Milwaukee Journal's Jack Kole sped up to the White House following Ford's address to Congress. They wanted a text of the speech. "We are going to test the Administration's new openness," the Chicago Daily News's Peter Lisagor told the guard. "Can we drive in?" The police officer checked, was told it was okay. They drove up West Executive Avenue, sometimes called Limousine Alley, finding a parking space in slots reserved for the Vice President. They got the text, went off into the night as easily as they had come.

West Virginia's Republican Governor Arch Moore, who has been going to the White House as Congressman or Governor since the days of Dwight Eisenhower, came around for the President's courtesy meeting with the Executive Committee of the National Governors' Conference. Moore found himself swept along in congenial confusion through those sacred corridors of power in the White House. He paused at the Oval Office, then went on to the Cabinet Room. There was no agenda and Ford just came into the room with no fanfare and started to shake hands around the big table. "This should be a frank discussion," he told the men, "but most important, it should be relaxed."

It was. It included a talk about football and about working together. It struck Moore that there were only three presidential aides in attendance. He recalled that in the previous years the walls had been papered with those young, eager staff members that inhabited the White House. Back in Charleston, the Governor pondered the pleasant interlude. "We had the impression," he said, "that we were most welcome." Everywhere there was the feeling that the American presidency was back in the possession of the people.

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