Escapes From The White House
When Washington gets to be too much, presidents need to get away. A look at their private worlds
A few weeks after his first inauguration, in 2001, George W. Bush took a stroll on the South Lawn of the White House with a friend. It was a clear, crisp February night; the Washington Monument glowed majestically across the Mall, and the White House was illuminated in all its grandeur. But Bush longed for escape. "Fifteen years ago, I never would have imagined living here," he said. "But it's like living in a museum." People were constantly peering through the iron fences hoping to catch a glimpse of the president or the first lady. He couldn't slip away to a restaurant or a hardware store, he said, without bringing along an entourage of Secret Service agents, military aides, reporters, and photographers. Inside, he found grim-faced armed guards in nearly every corridor. Bush needed to get back to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, he said, as soon as possible, to restore his "perspective" and get away from Washington's bitter atmosphere.
A few weeks later, he started what would become a ritual: visiting Prairie Chapel Ranch. So far, he has spent more than 300 days at his 1,600-acre spread. This may seem like a lot of time away from Washington, but it's also true that no matter where he goes, a president can never truly free himself from the burdens of office.
Bush's getaway habits mirror those of many of his predecessors. Virtually every one had a private hideaway, retreat, or family home where he could go to relax and find a bit of peace. These retreats are also where they have made some momentous decisions, including Bush's setting the early course of the war on terrorism and Franklin Roosevelt's decision to proceed with the development of the atomic bomb.
American presidents tend to reveal themselves in their private worlds in unique ways. To peer into the lives of the presidents at their retreats is to see each man as he really was, without the facades that so many of them created to obscure their private selves. What emerges is a series of portraits of real human beings, subject to self-doubt and overconfidence, physical afflictions and exhaustion, sorrow and heartache, depression and melancholy, self-indulgence and laziness--in short, the very same weaknesses and problems that affect the rest of us. (All this is described in a new book, From Mount Vernon to Crawford: A History of the Presidents and Their Retreats, published by Hyperion this week.)
Lazy days. Many of the presidents, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and George W. Bush, were wealthy individuals who had their own estates. Others, unblessed by personal fortunes, like Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton, borrowed or rented the homes of rich friends or supporters or stayed at hotels or resorts.
One fact that may come as a surprise is the frequency with which presidents have made their escapes. Washington and Jefferson got away to their Virginia plantations for weeks at a time. Abraham Lincoln lived at the Soldiers' Home, a residence for injured Union troops during the Civil War, and, for a quarter of his presidency, commuted 3 miles to the White House. Every summer, from 1902 through 1908, Theodore Roosevelt moved the functions of the executive branch to his family estate at Sagamore Hill, N.Y.
Over his 12 years in office, Franklin Roosevelt made 134 trips to his home at Hyde Park, N.Y., spent more than 500 days there, and savored an additional 175 days at a health resort in Warm Springs, Ga., where he received treatments for polio. Kennedy found solace during the depths of the Cold War by spending long, lazy weekends at his family estate in Hyannis Port, Mass. Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan each spent a total of a year of their eight-year terms at their private getaways--Ike at his farm in Gettysburg, Pa.; Reagan at his ranch near Santa Barbara, Calif.
It was George Washington who, as in so many things, set the pattern as the nation's first president. The picture that emerges of Washington at home may surprise those familiar only with his historical image as a military and political leader. He considered himself primarily a Virginia planter, and he took pride in being recognized as one of the leading farmers of his time. Despite his reputation as the man who refused to be king, at home Washington lived as what historian Henry Wiencek called "a colonial potentate," enjoying fine foods and wines.
As did Washington, most other presidents let down their guard at home--something they rarely do anywhere else. The full dimensions of Lyndon Johnson's outsize personality, for example, were nowhere more evident than on his ranch in the Hill Country along the Pedernales River in west central Texas. Despite his talk about how the ranch brought him serenity, the estate became a frenzied hive of activity when Johnson was there. Dozens of advisers, cabinet secretaries, clerical staff, and security personnel accompanied LBJ on his visits there. Johnson loved taking guests on tours, sometimes shocking them by getting out of his big white Lincoln Continental convertible and relieving himself at the roadside. He also had a particular fondness for an amphibious car, which operated on land and in water. Without telling his passengers about the vehicle's aquatic capabilities, he would drive to a spot near the Pedernales River or nearby LBJ Lake and head toward the water. Suddenly he'd shout, "The brakes won't hold!" and the car would plunge in with a huge splash. Johnson would roar with laughter as his frightened passengers gradually realized the car could float.
Ronald Reagan found solace at Rancho del Cielo, which, he once confided, "can make you feel as if you are on a cloud." Reagan and his wife, Nancy, made the ranch and its simple, two-bedroom adobe house into a love nest where they could forget their official lives, mostly keeping to themselves in a routine of daily horseback rides, cozy lunches and dinners, and TV or old movies by the fireside.
George Herbert Walker Bush escaped to his family estate in Kennebunkport, Maine. Located on a gorgeous promontory called Walker's Point, it was a gathering place for his extended family, for friends, even for casual acquaintances. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Bush spent hours bluefishing with his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, pondering an overarching theory about the post-Cold War world. The next step in U.S. foreign policy, Bush concluded, should be the building of a "new world order" in which the United States would take the lead in organizing international coalitions, including Arab nations, to combat the world's thugs and brigands.
Bush, like most modern presidents, was reluctant to break off his vacations, even during crises. He told aides he had all the communications facilities that he needed to stay in touch, and his senior advisers were always close by. In the end, however, Bush suffered politically from his extended stays at Kennebunkport. Voters, mired in a deep recession, thought Bush was insensitive and out of touch, and he lost his bid for re-election in 1992.
Bill Clinton never had a home of his own until he left the presidency, so he had to borrow the residences of rich friends and supporters to get some R&R. His favorite place was Martha's Vineyard. Summering there for six of his eight years as president gave him and his wife, Hillary, several things they relished: time to relax, the opportunity to spend time with daughter Chelsea, and the chance to socialize as much as they wanted with friends. It was at Martha's Vineyard that Clinton tried to repair his marriage after finally admitting that he'd had an affair with former intern Monica Lewinsky.
Sanctuary. Like Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush gets back to his ranch as often as he can. There he has made many key decisions in directing the war on terrorism. "We met on the Iraq war here a lot," Bush said in an interview at the ranch. "Transformation issues have come up here as a result of annually the joint chiefs coming down, or [Joint Chiefs Chairman] Dick Myers coming down with [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld and others to go over different aspects of military planning. . . . I spend more time particularly when senior members of my administration come, thinking big-picture items--relationship between the United States and Europe, for example." Bush added: "There's nothing like having your own property . . . if you own your land, every day is Earth Day." Prairie Chapel Ranch is home, a place where Bush can spend time with his wife, Laura, and friends, chop cedar, and clear brush. He goes mountain biking, listens in the morning for the whistling calls of the bobwhite quail, and takes walks with Laura amid the ash, walnut, sycamore, oak, and pecan trees. He entertains small groups of friends over dinners of broiled fish caught in his stocked lake and pitchers of iced tea or diet cola. The president and first lady like to retire early, rarely later than 10 p.m. They get up at dawn.
More so than anywhere else, at the ranch Bush projects an image he has carefully cultivated in his political life--that of the Washington outsider content with life's simple pleasures and chafed by the self-important ways of the capital. When he knows he'll be at the ranch for more than a few days, Bush will come armed with a detailed work plan for making improvements. During his first year in office, he focused on building a nature trail through his canyons. In August 2003, he began to clear an area for a new office separate from the main house; that office has now been built. His master plan includes the construction of houses for his twin daughters, so they can visit and have some privacy well into the future.
Bush feels no need to share the details of all this with the public. Nor does he publicize the names of those who have joined him as guests. "He doesn't feel like he owes anyone an explanation," a friend says. "It's his sanctuary."
WHITE HOUSE GETAWAYS
Excerpted from From Mount Vernon to Crawford: A History of the Presidents and Their Retreats by Kenneth T. Walsh. Copyright (c) 2005 by Kenneth T. Walsh. Published by Hyperion. Available wherever books are sold.
This story appears in the May 16, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.