Few buildings in the world fuel so much interest, even fantasies. Yet the history of the White House is still largely unknown. Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The White House: This Is What The Book Is About The manor, that Maurin Picard, journalist based in New York, correspondent for Le Figaro and Le Soir, has just published with Perrin editions.
He tells the story of the construction of the building at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, by black slaves between 1792 and 1800, to whom Michelle Obama will pay homage two centuries later as First Lady. At the time, the walls were not white, but they became so fifteen years later, when the place was burnt down by the English during the war of 1812-1815 and it had to be repainted urgently. The White House becomes the main residence, chosen or endured, of Heads of State, where multiple events occur of which the general public knows nothing. The author takes us behind the scenes of this impressive colonnaded building, and tells us the little-known stories of the Presidents within these four walls.
Pub
Tenants who undertook to modernize it: in 1877, Rutherford Hayes introduced the first telephone – invented by Bell the previous year – and in 1878 one of the very first phonographs. In 1905, Teddy Roosevelt inaugurated the Oval Office and created the Secret Service, which ensured the protection of Presidents 24 hours a day. In the middle of World War II in 1942, Teddy Roosevelt had a bunker built there in the basement and John Kennedy demanded the “Situation room” in the middle of the cold war, after the Bay of Pigs scandal in 1961.
Some hated it, like Harry Truman who nicknamed it “the great white prison” and dreamed of escaping. But the White House is also about family stories, secrets and dramas: three presidents took turns in breathing their last breath there in the 19th century, due to the poor quality of the water in this marshy region. Two First Ladies lost their children there, Jackie Kennedy lived a marital hell there, and the ghost of Abraham Lincoln would continue to wander the halls. One thing is certain: whatever the identity of the next American President next Tuesday, he will enter a place steeped in history.
Le Manoir, by Maurin Picard, Perrin edition:
