The Keeping of a President
Bonafede, Dom
THE KEEPING OF A PRESIDENT DOM BONAFEDE Crackbacked by Watergate, Agnew, walking pneumonia, creeping inflation, the energy crisis, vanishing tapes, and exposed tax writeoffs, President Nixon can...
...Among the seventy-five are: a head butler and four butlers...
...Yet several items in the Nixons' White House family budget surprised even some members of a House appropriations subcommittee headed by Tom Steed, Oklahoma Democrat...
...Not included are extra waiters and other help recruited for special events, U.S...
...six maids...
...Routine maintenance and inspection of two elevators were pegged at $7,000, apart from extra charges for repairing breakdowns...
...That seems like a terribly high price...
...This is in addition to the estimated $10 million in Federal funds used to make Mr...
...Normal upkeep of major appliances, "such as walk-in refrigerators, dishwashers, and refrigerators," came to $36,000...
...Normally the subcommittee glances over the White House budget with somewhat less ennui than endorsing National Curb Your Dog Week...
...Over the five years that the Nixons have been in the White House, the Executive Residence appropriation has climbed from $800,000 to the proposed $1,370,000—a seventy-one per cent increase...
...floral designer, a floral designer, and an assistant floral designer...
...Surely most Americans want the First Family to keep up with such imperial households as those of the Shah of Iran and the King of Thailand...
...It is a lot of dry cleaning," he observed...
...THE KEEPING OF A PRESIDENT DOM BONAFEDE Crackbacked by Watergate, Agnew, walking pneumonia, creeping inflation, the energy crisis, vanishing tapes, and exposed tax writeoffs, President Nixon can at least rest easy concerning a problem troubling the rest of us—the high cost of living...
...These days, when government officials talk of billions with less concern than a horseplayer putting down a two-dollar bet, that is a mere bagatelle...
...taxpayers $1,370,000 to maintain the living quarters of the White House, known as the Executive Residence, in the style to which the Nixons have become accustomed...
...a chef, an assistant chef, a second cook, a pastry chef, and two kitchen stewards...
...During budget hearings last spring, Russell E. Dickenson, director of the National Capital Parks Service, which acts as housekeeper for U.S...
...military personnel assigned to the White House, Secret Service agents, Navy cooks for the White House staff mess, fifteen gardeners, Executive Protection Service officers, General Service Administration employes who handle the West Wing business office area, and the President's executive staff...
...a maitre d'hotel...
...a head laundress, an assistant laundress, and a combined porter and laun-dryman...
...Presidents, observed that the $1,370,000 budget request for the 132-room "house" covered kitchen expenses, food purchases, storage costs, floral decorations, and general maintenance and repairs...
...a chief Dom Bonafede is the White House correspondent of the National Journal...
...Nixon's baronial estates in San Clemente, California, and Key Biscayne, Florida, comfortably secure and securely comfortable...
...This item prompted Myers to note, "That is an awfully high contract for two elevators, I might say...
...Fiscal 1974 budget hearings show that it will cost U.S...
...a pantryman and a pantrywoman...
...a foreman of housemen and six housemen...
...There are also a transportation specialist, a film projectionist, three operating engineers, and someone with the title of "principal foreman operating engineer...
...four doormen...
...But indubitably it is a contributing factor to the making of an aristocratic Presidency, and, for the Nixons, it is a far cry from the days of the "good Republican cloth coat" which Pat once proudly wore...
...On hand to take care of the Nixons at the White House are seventy-five retainers, including forty-two mechanical and maintenance workers, thirty domestic employes, and three civil servants on loan from other Federal agencies...
...But when Administration officials acknowledged that the White House dry cleaning bill ran to $10,000 a year, Representative John T. Myers, Indiana Republican, was moved to wonderment...
...Still, Dickenson allowed that the White House may return to the subcommittee for an additional appropriation for "kitchen equipment and other types of special mechanical equipment...
Vol. 38 • February 1974 • No. 2
