in new york, and i knew i had to call him. they were inviting the bushs to a movie screening, and i think i've got to call him. it's been almost three weeks, and i didn't just want to send a letter, and so i dialed this man in manhattan, and we were on the phone, and we were speaking. i always had my little tv muted, usually on fox or cnn, and -- and we were on the phone, and i'm not sure who said it first. maybe i said it first because i think i glanced at the screen, and i guess it was, what, oh, maybe 8:25 or so, and i said was there an accident? and he said, well, i don't know. i said did a plane hit a building in new york because i -- i had seen these various shots, and he said, you know, i think i have a message from someone on my phone. so i said, all right. well, we ended our conversation. it was good to speak to you, and just as i hung up was when i think my husband called me, and

my brother-in-law's a pilot. he said, you know, cathy, have you heard. unbeknownst to me i guess enough was going on that one of our administrative assistants had already left the office, but my deputy, jeanie figg, was still in her little outer office, and he said, cathy, a plane has hit, you know, the world trade center, and then i think maybe he knew a second plane had hit, so he said stay in touch. i said i will, and i hung up the phone, and then i looked up and there was russ appleyard, this darling uniformed secret service agent, they were the ones in the blue blazers who had conducted tours, and i knew him for over 20 years, and his face is beat red and he's a redhead himself, and he said, cathy, you know, two planes have hit the world trade center, and a third, has hit the pentagon, and we're evacuating. i yelled at jeanie, and that's when jeanie and i grabbed our bags, and we ran downstairs, i think, you know, as my mind went through, as i worked out the

door. all of a sudden i saw large weapons coming out, and i thought this is strange. what is this going to do, and i also realized we're evacuating and we're going into lockdown and they wanted us out of sight. they opened the wrought iron gates and we began walking. i guess there were 20 of us at that point in the east wing and we started walking east and jeanie's husband was in an office building up on 14th street and he said, why don't you come here. that's where we ended up. and then i guess the rest is history, you know. mrs. bush went to an undisclosed location and we went on and the skeleton essential emergency workers at the white house remained, the chief usher and a few others, and i know what they did in the next 48 hours was begin to take all of this food and create almost over 700 plates of food to send over to the pentagon to the relief workers. >> really.

>> so sing their praises, yeah, walter sheib. >> you had vietnam to deal with. out on pennsylvania avenue with demonstrators, but he didn't stay outside. it occasionally invaded social events. can you describe what it was like? >> well, first of all, you have to imagine linda and lucy's rooms faced pennsylvania avenue, and there were demonstrators out there through the evening. they would go into their rooms, go to bed at night, and there were chanters out there, hey, hey, lbj, how many kids did you kill today? hey, hey, and on it would go. i think the climate that had invaded the white house, i tried

to avoid that because i kept track of these full-page ads that ran in the "new york times" every sunday, sometimes during the week, they would have people, artists, writers, signing petitions to the president, and i kept track of those because i didn't want to invite those people to the state dinner. i didn't -- i didn't want them to be sending ugly regrets. we didn't need that. we wanted a pause. but an intellectual had been added to the white house staff, a man from princeton named eric goldman, and eric had this idea of a white house festival of the arts, which we had already been thinking about in my office, but i was talking to eric about it, and i was going to do "x" part

of it and he was going to do "y" part of it, and the "y" part of it was that he was inviting writers to come and read their works, and i was -- i was really concerned about that because i thought that he ought to compare his list of writers to my list of "new york times" advertisements but he didn't. he said you just want to censor things. and then when i said now, eric, we want to have the writers come in the day before and test the

mikes, be sure the sound levels are right and that they have the podium at height that they want and so forth and there are no surprises, and he said, oh, you just want people to come in there so you can censor them. i said, eric, i promise you, they will have been glad to have been here and not just arrive that morning and be presented with lights in their eyes and so forth, so we finally went ahead with that. with that, and they did come, and several of them thanked me and thanked eric for having them come over and see the room, test things out and so forth. he had invited robert loyle, so loyle, he came, but then he came, or did he write something -- >> he wrote something out of time, but then did he come actually, was he there? >> i don't think he did. >> so he was invited and then, i guess, he wrote, probably, an op-ed piece in the "new york times" how terrible the johnsons

were and how terrible the whole administration was and he wasn't going to come to the white house festival of the arts, and somebody came, an accolade of robert loyle, i guess, and was circulating a petition during the -- during the party, and i don't think he got any signatures. that was the good thing. >> and there was the eartha k t kitt -- ertha kitt. she create hed her own stir. >> yes, and she was very late at arriving to the ladies' lunch. the ladies had gathered, it was one of mrs. johnson's women doers luncheons. there were two things that she did that we never could get a good word for, women doers luncheons, anyway, that's what they were called, and beautification, stuff of that, i

always wanted a new name. but, so -- so ertha kitt was late, late, late. the ladies had had sherry and orange juice in the blue room, and we were getting ready to take her plate off the table. the luncheon was in the family dining room, so just about that time, all the ladies had gone in, and ertha kitt came up the stairs to the main floor, and she came across the -- the foyer, this large marble foyer, and she was doing dancers leaps all across, it was quite stunning and beautiful, but i thought she was going to crash into me in the doorway, so i moved sideways and she went on in the blue room, and i said oh,

ms. kitt, the luncheon has actually started, but i'll take you to her table. so we went in there, she sat down, the butler said, she never ate a thing, but he kept filling up her wine glass, and she kept emptying it, so, i guess, she was high as a kite, but the president came in and was making some remarks to the women who were there saying how terrific it was and women could make anything happen, and this, i think the subject of this luncheon was about a crime, and as soon as the president left, ertha kitt stood up and started talking to mrs. johnson

about how terrible it was that we were sending these boys halfway around the world to die, and she had just had this baby pulled out of her gut and she didn't want him going over and dying in southeast asia, and betty hughes, whose husband was governor of new jersey, stood up, and the hughes had a batch of children, and i think a couple of them were serving in the pacific, and mrs. hughes, i will say it's the one time i remember mrs. johnson being -- taken off guard, but betty hughes picked up the ball and ran with it, and about what a wonderful country we are and

we're here to talk about "x" and make these good things happen for our country, and so forth. why don't you ask me about some of the good things that happen, rats. richard, you're the pits. i thought you were my friend. >> we'll get to joan crawford later. laurie, you, of course, also had the first gulf war. which certainly didn't have the same impact -- >> or as long. >> -- as vietnam, but it must have transformed daily life in the white house. >> well, it did. i mean, i think that was the only calm period in terms of events, because up until that time and then afterwards, we were, you know, having state dinners once a month and entertaining non-stop, but

absolutely, when the war was on, everything came to a stop, and, i mean, everything shut down really. i think everyone was as concerned and knew how -- what a grave decision it was that president bush had made and felt -- felt that emotion that he did, and i know mrs. bush, certainly, did and conveyed it to all of us on the staff, so it was a very -- i really remember it as being a quiet time and having to cancel a couple state dinners. i think one was saudi arabia. >> certainly, in the reagan white house, there was no shortage of hollywood celebrities. i want to ask each of you some of your favorite memories, positive memories. as i said, we're saving joan crawford for last.

tell us about running into, i suppose, people who you'd seen on the screen all your life. >> well, it was amazing. i was much younger. i'm dating myself now, but it was 19 -- i guess, '83 -- or '84 when high had -- when i had first began my job as a deputy social secretary, and, actually, they came to me 24 hours before, and it was before the chinese state dinner, and it was january, and they said, you know, cathy, we'd like you to succeed linda faulkner, and i had been there in the correspondence section and done a lot of events and they thought i was up to speed, so i said i was honored to do this, they said you should run home and get a dress, and i thought what am i going to put on. i had a basic black full-length dress, empire "v" neck, long

sleeves, came back, and we had a very lengthy, probably three or four page, what we called our sequence of events, scenario for the evening. i remember looking at it and thinking how am i going to remember every one of these moves? it becomes second hand and you eventually go through it and you recognize you do the same pattern over and over again, and a house as large as it is, there are so many limited rooms, particularly for something as complex as a state dinner, and i remember standing at the top of the stairs, and i was beginning to greet the guests as they were given their escort envelopes by the calligraphers and as i was usher them in to other military social aides, who would escort the guests for these special occasions. so i looked down the stair case and who is coming up, but gregory peck, i really did, i was star struck, one of

as a little girl, one of my first movie was to see "to kill a mockingbird," so he was a real hero to me. so that was being around hollywood glitter and such incredible actors and actresses, john wayne and jimmy stewart, i remember meeting jimmy stewart at president reagan's 70th birthday party, he was so serene and so calm and he was just like, you know, in a wonderful life. claudette colbert, loretta young, all these incredible screen stars, and they were all the reagans' friends, kirk douglas, they were all the reagans' friends. it was fascinating. >> famous story, president reagan got to turn the table on bob hope, who he once introduced, i believe, it may have been a dinner for queen elizabeth, but any event, hope was there, and president reagan introduced hope as someone who had performed for seven american presidents and entertained four.

great line. >> great line. >> did the bushs have favorite entertainers? >> oh, yeah. i think, we had -- we always had an eclectic miss. i remember having lyle lovett, we had natalie cole, who was fabulous, for one of the dinners. we had opera singers, we had the boys choir of harlem, i think, for one of the ladies lunches. we always try to -- you would try to have sense who the visiting head of state, if it was the state dinner, if they had a preference, whether it was classical or temporary, and we'd try to book them. and booking the entertainment is always challenging. >> has it gotten harder?

have you ever had an entertainer say, a, we want to be paid, or, b, we won't come because of politics? >> no, we didn't ask them. no. no, but they -- no, most of them usually came from new york, and so i think we sent them shuttle tickets, a driver would pick them up at the airport, we'd put them up at the hay-adams. they would come to dinner. >> and the honor thing, clearly. >> they got a program with their name on it, and they were -- they were treated well. it was fine. the wonderful thing, one of the many wonderful things about being at the white house were

those white house operators, so you could find people, and one time, this will really date me, but i was trying to reach bing crosby, and i reached mr. crosby, and we were chatting on, and i said, mr. crosby, where did the white house operators find you, and he said, i'm on a sailboat off tahiti, so they were wonderful, but we had -- the entertainment, when we were first in the white house, was different than the entertainment after the vietnam war heated up, because we had a lot of -- we had a lot of dance, and at one point, a couple of newspaper people came to me and said, i didn't realize that the president was such a big fan of ballet. well, the thing, the ballet

dancers, they are too busy running their own -- keeping their bodies in shape, they don't have time to be out protesting. so we had -- we had the american ballet theater, we had the joffrey ballet, we just became big fans of ballet. [ applause ] >> and i read somewhere, you really wished you could have done a square dance, but you felt you couldn't because of the cultural condescension that many had towards the johnsons and texas. >> i couldn't do a barbecue either. we did do a barbecue at the tail

end. it was a staff party, because i told the president, i said, all these people who work for you so we did have a texas barbecue then, and it was kind of a tail end of one of the country fairs that we had. gosh, that was fun, and it came about, because the president called me and said, the congress has been so great this year. they've worked hard, they've stayed late, they passed my program, and i want you to think of something really fun to do for the congress, and then as i was leaving the office, he said, well, he said, you know, people appreciate what you do for their kids more than what you do for them, so think of something that would be fun to do for the kids,

so i thought, oh, we can do a country fair. and we had a carnival on the south lawn with a merry-go-round and a ferris wheel and fortune teller tents, and all kinds of games and hot dogs and baseball players from baltimore who came and ran a tent that you knock down bottles and so forth, and when i was working on getting the props for the -- for the carnival setup, i called this place in new york where we ordered a lot of props, and i said, i need -- i have two fortune teller tents, and i need a crystal ball, two crystal balls, and this guy that i was talking to said, where do you want me to send these crystal balls? and i said, send them to the

white house. and he says, lady, i'll send them, but you got to tell the president they don't really work. but they were -- the country fairs were a great success. >> laurie, any crystal balls in the first bush white house? >> no, i'm sorry, we didn't get any crystal balls. we would have liked one, but -- >> were there favorite entertainers? >> favorite? >> favorite entertainers? >> well, when you were talking about bob hope, it reminded me he came a couple of times to our state dinners. you know, he would walk in and just act like he owned the place

and he'd say, i've been here so many times, you weren't even born when i was here. so he was fun. and we did -- we had elizabeth taylor once, which was very exciting, and she, of course, was very glamorous, and we had don johnson and melanie griffith one year, and that was quite interesting. she wrote the cutest note to the president and barbara afterwards saying, my mother never told me what i should wear to the white house, and the reason was that she had come in what she thought was a lovely little outfit. it was a gold, all gold sequins. that part was okay. it was very low and very short. >> it was a very little outfit. >> a very little outfit, and so

she looked adorable in it, of course, because she had a beautiful figure, but she was very cute, and it was cute of her to write and say, you know, i didn't realize i should have -- i was maybe not quite properly dressed. >> let me ask you, because the white house, obviously, reflects the broader culture. a lot of people think that broader culture has been coarsened over the last half century, has that, in any way, found its way in the white house? how's the dress code, for example, compared to -- >> when we were there, i even noticed over the four years, but people, you know, i think, originally came to a black-tie dinner in a long gown and even more long gloves in the very way back. they weren't wearing long gloves, but many people, they wore beautiful gowns and lots of jewelry and all of that and

looked elegant, but, you know, as time went on, you saw things like pants and short dinner dresses and just, you know, a lessening of the formality that had originally been there. >> we also know, we won't mention them, because to do so would gratify their insatiable desire for publicity, but we all know of gate crashers. you had a rather distinguished official party crasher in senator thurmond. >> oh, he crashed all of ours. >> he didn't crash, he was always invited, but he always had ms. peach blossom or ms. watermelon queen or something that he would show up with who wasn't on the guest list.

well, i wasn't -- i wasn't -- it was not my role to make senator thurmond mad. the president had enough problems with mr. thurmond without my getting crossways with the watermelon princess. so he came in. but i want to say one thing about entertainers, because we had -- i don't know, did you all have the brits that came just twice a year, three or four times a year? >> yes. >> so prime minister wilson was coming, and we didn't have a week's notice, so i thought it's not a big deal and i'll just call bob merrill, who was a baritone for the metropolitan, and he had done so many things for the white house, and it was

going to be easy. and his wife, marian, was always his accompany nis so it wouldn't be a big deal. so i called bob and asked if he'd be available at "x" time, and he said, yes, i think i can, i have a rehearsal, but i think i can juggle that, which he did, he said, yes, we'll come down the shuttle, as usual, send a car for us, okay, good. i said when you get the program organized of what you're going to sing and play and so forth, just call the office and we'll have the program printed up. so all is sweetness and light, the invitations are out this time by telephone because there's not enough time to send them out properly. and i get a call from walt rossdale, who was then the president's national security

adviser, and he had just read in the paper, liz carpenter put out the press release that bob was singing, what he was singing, and so forth, and he said, you cannot -- you cannot sing for the british prime minister who's just announced a pull-out of troops east of suez, you cannot sing "on the road to mandalay," and you cannot -- you cannot sing for the british prime minister who's just announced devaluing the british pound, "i got plenty of nothing," so i'm making my little speech, this is not politics, this is art, and, well, you know, we came to the party and realized it is politics, so i call bob and, i said, do not answer your phone, but this is the situation.

tell me what else you might sing and we'll have another set of programs printed up, so, which he did, but i said, when you and merriam come, make sure she brings all the music, so at the arrival ceremony out on the south lawn, then the british prime minister and the president come into the diplomatic reception room, and the first -- the first negotiations was, because they've had cartoons in the london papers about how the white house is making fun of the prime minister with this show they are putting on for him, so the prime minister has been given words that we're changing the program, so he says, you cannot change the program. i cannot survive the change of the program.