http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/12/socialDC200712When Washington Was FunThe grand hostesses are history, the president would rather be in bed, and there’s a price tag on every evening these days. Who killed Washington society? Ask a few of the local experts.
by Maureen Orth December 2007
The Kennedys entertain the André Malrauxs, 1962. By Robert Knudsen/courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Library.
Red Fay, undersecretary of the navy under John F. Kennedy, was a charming bon vivant, a great pal of the president’s, and the uncle of my roommate at Berkeley in the 60s. So it was my great good luck, on my very first trip to the capital, in May 1964, just six months after Kennedy’s assassination, to have “Uncle Red” invite me to dinner on the presidential yacht, the Sequoia. A few minutes after we arrived on board, I was amazed to see not only Jackie Kennedy but also Bobby and Ethel Kennedy and Jean Kennedy Smith and her husband, Steve Smith, walking up the gangplank. They were followed by George Stevens Jr., the youthful head of the U.S. Information Agency’s motion-picture division; the Peruvian ambassador and his wife; and my roommate’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles McGettigan, of San Francisco. This was one of Jackie’s first nights out since the tragedy, but she greeted everyone graciously. She was in ethereal white and spoke little during dinner, except to the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who was seated to her right.
What I remember most vividly about that evening was an exchange I had with Bobby Kennedy, the attorney general. “What are you going to be next, vice president or senator?,” I asked rather impudently, because I did not want him to think I was a brainless bimbo. The question of how the Kennedy dynasty would proceed was very much in the air, for Lyndon Johnson had not yet announced a running mate. “What do you think I should be?,” Kennedy shot back, his steel-blue eyes boring into me. “Well, I think you should be senator,” I said, “because everyone remembers you trying to twist arms at the last convention, and I don’t think Lyndon Johnson will let you be vice president.” He then opened up a barrage of questions: “Who are you? What does your father do?” In the middle of one of my answers, he turned away and waved to a group of tourists on a boat at least a hundred yards from us across the Potomac. I was highly insulted, for I had been planning to enlist in the Peace Corps, whose director was his brother-in-law Sargent Shriver, and suddenly Bobby Kennedy seemed to me like just another pol. (In those days he was still closer to J. Edgar Hoover than to César Chávez or Martin Luther King Jr.)
The dinner was great fun, however, with lots of jokes and toasts, and the next day Uncle Red took me out to Hickory Hill, Bobby and Ethel’s residence in McLean, Virginia. R.F.K., in cutoff jeans, was playing touch football on the front lawn. Ethel, wearing a two-piece bathing suit, was visibly pregnant. In the driveway, a limousine waiting to take the attorney general “up to New York” was sure proof, I felt, that he must be going for the Senate. (Like Hillary Clinton, R.F.K. became an instant resident of the state, and he went on to defeat incumbent Ken Keating.) “Bobby,” Red Fay said, “I brought Maureen out here so you could give her some advice about her life.” Bobby smiled. “Advise her?” he said. “Hell, last night she told me what to do!”
J.F.K. and Jackie at the 1962 Nobelists dinner, seated between Pearl Buck and Robert Frost. By Robert Knudsen/courtesy of John F. Kennedy Library.
That trip to the capital allowed me to catch a glimpse of what I thought life in society must be like at the highest level, and to talk to the people who lived it. There was no agenda, no fund-raising, and a young woman like me could actually be allowed in close. In her three years in Washington, Jackie Kennedy set a standard against which social behavior here is still measured. Her White House was a locus of beauty, taste, and excellence. At the dinner the Kennedys gave for French author and cultural minister André Malraux in May 1962, for example, the guests included Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Saul Bellow, Robert Penn Warren, Mark Rothko, Andrew Wyeth, Isaac Stern, George Balanchine, Leonard Bernstein, Robert Lowell, Elia Kazan, Charles Lindbergh, David Rockefeller, and Adam Clayton Powell, the outspoken Harlem congressman.
Just 12 days before that, they had given a dinner for 49 Nobel Prize winners, which the staff referred to as “the brains dinner.” That evening Jack gave an often quoted toast: “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” And before those two momentous events, the First Couple had thrown a sumptuous state dinner for the Shah of Iran.
Today, people who remember those days never cease to lament how the capital has changed. The cost of running for office, the proliferation of lobbyists, the intense preoccupation with security since 9/11, the increase in careers for women, the deaths or withdrawals of ruling society figures, and an unpopular president and an unpopular war have all converged to kill much of the fun and excitement once unique to Washington social life. I spoke to a number of participants in, and close observers of, the Washington social scene then and now in order to hear what they have to say about how “the city of conversation,” as Henry James called it, has become more partisan, less tolerant, and unabashedly focused on doing well rather than doing good.
Letitia Baldrige, social secretary to Jackie Kennedy and author of Taste: For the Kennedys, the criteria of a White House guest list were great minds, people of substance, doers, and the cultural scene—painters, composers, actors. We all contributed to the guest lists, because the Kennedys cared about it. Jackie and the president went over the lists very carefully. They knew there always had to be a few fat cats, but the majority of people were those who deserved to be there.… It was the best in everything—and hold back the political paybacks so they don’t take over the guest list. The Kennedys would ask, “Where are the interesting people who make the place go?” President Kennedy used to throw the whole list in the wastebasket, he’d be so mad when he saw a list of all the political paybacks that have to go in. The Kennedys would just say no and would throw it away.
Sally Quinn, author, co-founder of the blog On Faith, wife of former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, and Georgetown hostess: The biggest difference is that entertaining now is so much more partisan. When I first came here, you’d go to dinner and all different political persuasions were represented. You were all working for the same country, but you differed in what you thought was best for the country.… The people who did the entertaining were women who today would have a career, and what they did for a living was to bring people together. At parties, a lot of news was made and deals were made. That rarely exists anymore.
Much more of an interesting article from "times gone by" by Russert's wife...here...
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/12/socialDC200712
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