They stood in the center of the sixth floor of the office building. There were no walls, just support columns and a sweeping view of the Potomac River. “We’ll design it for you however you want it to be,” Cecchi promised. Oliver sensed Cecchi desperately needed tenants for the new office building.
“I’m in negotiations already with a couple other places,” Oliver said.
“We can beat any offer you have,” Cecchi insisted.
When Oliver got back to the office, he popped in to see Bailey. “I think they’re gonna make us a deal,” Oliver said.
Cecchi sent over a proposal. He offered the DNC the entire sixth floor of the Watergate Office Building, with the potential to expand into another floor during presidential campaigns, plus another suite on the basement level for the new DNC computers. Next door, in the Watergate Hotel, Cecchi included a three-bedroom hospitality suite upstairs in the hotel, overlooking the Potomac, for only $300 a month. (Separately he leased a dining room, kitchen and office on the B-2 level for the National Democratic Club.)
“We’ll never raise the rent,” Cecchi promised.
Bailey took the deal.
ON APRIL 1, 1967, THE WATERGATE HOTEL OPENED TO THE public. Hotel rooms—called “apartments” in the press release—could be rented by the month or by the day. Two-bedroom “presidential suites” were available for $900 per month.
The interiors of the 213-suite “apartment hotel” were designed by Ellen Lehman McCluskey of New York, a daughter of a Lehman Brothers partner and a debutante, presented at the Court of St. James’s in London in 1932. She was an accomplished ice dancer and a pilot who trained men to fly during World War II. After the war, she opened her own firm in New York, designing interiors for the Plaza in New York and the Motor Lodge at Chatham Center, Pittsburgh.
According to a Watergate press release, she selected “period pieces” to “soften” the hotel’s modern interiors. Her lobby design was “oriental in feeling,” with leather sofas, antique Chinese chairs and a European commode. She placed abstract paintings throughout the public areas. “The architecture of the building has dictated a contemporary treatment of the interior design throughout,” according to an article in the August 1967 issue of Interior Design. “The curvature of the exterior walls, the vast expanse of windows and the fact that all the supporting members of columns extend into the rooms posed a number of interior designing problems which Mrs. McCluskey has solved by presenting 89 different furniture arrangements to satisfy each irregularity of plan, and five different color schemes are interspersed throughout. In a way, this was an asset as it gave each apartment an individual look all its own.” Cecchi sent a copy of the magazine to Samaritani in Rome, who was unimpressed. He found the design “awful.” Any number of “top-notch” interior designers, Samaritani wrote, could have created interiors “of a very different design than that which has been created by the woman for Watergate.”
The Watergate Office Building, marketed as “planned and constructed to meet the special needs of Washington’s many trade associations, professional firms, and non-profit and charitable organizations,” opened the same day as the Watergate Hotel. According to a press release, the office building was “more restrained in its design” than the hotel and apartments and was the only building “without sweeping balconies.” The Watergate Office Building’s only outdoor space was the terrace on the sixth floor—the new home of the Democratic National Committee.
ANNA CHENNAULT’S HOUSEWARMING PARTY WAS COVERED by Washingtonian magazine and the Washington Star. Guests included three of her “closest friends” in Washington: Senators John Tower of Texas, Karl Mundt of South Dakota and Jack Miller of Iowa, all Republicans for whom she had campaigned. She invited FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, but he sent his regrets. Chennault’s guests admired her “oriental” living room and made their way up the spiral staircase to enjoy a view of the Capitol, the Washington Monument and the Potomac. Someone produced a “wiggly substance” called “super stuff”—“the newest thing in children’s toys.” Senator Tower kept rubbing his hand along the side of his dinner jacket to get rid of the “sleek feeling.” Another guest produced a “super ball.” No bigger than a marble, the rubber ball, when thrown properly, bounced back—no matter where it was thrown.
IN JULY 1967, PRESIDENT AND MRS. JOHNSON ATTENDED THE open house at the DNC’s new Watergate offices. Bailey showed the president the computer room. Upstairs, Lady Bird Johnson admired the view, but expressed concerns about the 220-foot-high smokestacks that marred the otherwise picture-postcard view of Georgetown from DNC vice chairman Margaret Price’s office. The first lady was in the midst of a national beautification initiative and was happy to learn the unsightly structures were about to come down. Nobody told her a freeway would replace them.
Some of the party faithful were “uneasy, even sheepish,” as they tried to reconcile the new offices—with their wall-to-wall carpeting, art-and-tapestry-lined walls, pastel push-button telephones and “VIP Room” with a built-in sink and refrigerator—with the “Common Man image of the New Deal, the Fair Deal and the Great Society,” the Washington Star reported. “It looks like Republican headquarters,” observed Johnson’s labor secretary Willard Wirtz, only half in jest. “Nothing’s too good for the party of the people,” said Associate Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. According to the Miami Herald, “The music is soft and piped. The girls looked like they escaped from a James Bond movie. There’s a great view of the Potomac, too. Real or contrived, happiness pervades the sixth-floor ultra-modern suite.”
One unnamed official said the DNC was able to get the “plush” suite at a good rate because building management had failed to anticipate the robust demand for office space in the new building. Committee staff members had numbers at the ready to defend the move: The new offices contained 20 percent more floor space (5,000 to 6,000 feet) and cost $7,000 a month—$100 less than the monthly rent on their previous digs. “By taking a whole floor in a new building, we got our space custom-designed for our needs,” said Al Mark, the DNC’s public affairs director. “The air conditioning has especially installed ducts” to accommodate the committee’s “data-processing equipment,” he added. Another attendee at the VIP opening reception pointed out to a reporter the curtains were fiberglass and “quite inexpensive.”
Party chairman John Bailey said the move would help the Democrats get a “smooth start” on the 1968 campaign. The Johnson organization reserved space for the reelection campaign next door, in the Watergate Hotel.
AT ITS SEPTEMBER 1967 MEETING, THE KENNEDY CENTER board of trustees voted unanimously to oppose construction of the final Watergate building. They had tried to work with the developers to reduce the height and had been unsuccessful. Now they wanted the building nixed entirely.
The Commission of Fine Arts took up the matter in a closed session later that month. In the eyes of the CFA, protectors of the aesthetic quality of Washington, the Watergate was no longer an issue. The problem was Edward Durell Stone’s design for the Kennedy Center.
“Frankly,” said Gordon Bunshaft, the Watergate fit the site “much better than this thing that Stone is doing.” The Watergate, he added, was designed before the Kennedy Center—and therefore was one of the “problems” Stone had to work with, “which he ignored.”
The next day, in a public session, Edward Durell Stone appeared before the CFA. “It is my belief that this building should not be built,” Stone said, gesturing to an illustration of the final piece of the Watergate.
Commissioner Roszak asked Stone what he would do if someone came to him and suggested one of his designs should be cut in half. “Now, you may not agree with Mr. Moretti,” Roszak said, “but this man has a right to his expression, and I think it is tremendously presumptuous to tell an artist what to do.”
“I have a compassion for fellow creative workers,” Stone sniffed. “I haven’t said the buildings were ugly.”
Nicolas Salgo read from a Washington Post report fi
ve years earlier in which Stone said the Watergate would not “crowd in” on the National Cultural Center. “I think it will look wonderful together with the Center,” Stone had reportedly said.
“I have no recollection of making such a statement,” Stone asserted. “Certainly, I never made it formally. It is a suicidal statement, and I doubt under any circumstances that I would be that foolish.”
Stone failed to persuade the Commission of Fine Arts to stop construction. The CFA approved the final Watergate building, at the same height as the rest of the complex. The CFA added, however, that their action “should in no way affect” any efforts by the Kennedy Center to acquire the site from the developers.
The Washington Post published an editorial slamming the “unattractive arrogance” of the Kennedy Center trustees. “Maybe the Kennedy Center would look a little better if the White House were moved slightly to the left,” the Post sneered. “Maybe the lily of culture could be gilded a trifle by moving the Watergate Development to the other side of the Potomac.”
The fate of the final Watergate building was now in the hands of the District Board of Zoning Adjustment, which took up the question on October 18, 1967. Charles M. Nes, Jr., of Baltimore, a former president of the American Institute of Architects, testified against the Watergate. He said he did not “know of any country in the world that would permit a speculative building within 300 feet” of a national performing arts center. John R. Immer, a local activist, urged the Kennedy Center to be relocated to Pennsylvania Avenue—“where it belongs.” The board voted four to one to approve the final building as designed—allowing it to rise four feet above the Kennedy Center.
The Kennedy Center trustees, however, refused to surrender. Their lawyer promised to file a lawsuit to prevent the District from issuing a building permit. They turned to the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior to request for purchase of a “scenic easement” for the Watergate property. In January 1964, the interior department paid Jacqueline Kennedy’s stepfather, Hugh D. Auchincloss, $500,000 to stop construction of a proposed seventeen-story apartment building at the Merrywood estate, on the Potomac River. The interior department told the Kennedy Center this option was not available, as the department had no funds with which to purchase an easement and did not believe Congress would make an appropriation. Interior secretary Stewart Udall agreed to step in and attempt to mediate the dispute over the final Watergate building.
At the December 1967 meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission, Chairman Rowe cited language in the original permit that promised the final Watergate building would be subject to further review by federal and local planners. The building closest to the Kennedy Center, she said, “didn’t have final Commission approval,” and should be “stepped down . . . as a way of fitting it into the Kennedy Center.”
ON APRIL 4, 1968, DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., WAS ASSASSINATED and riots swept through Washington. George Arnstein and a few neighbors went up to the roof of Watergate East. “We could see the fires in the distance,” he recalled years later. “And there were . . . police vehicles in our garage, presumably as a precaution.”
R. Spencer Oliver and his colleagues at the DNC offices at the Watergate stood at the windows of their suite, looking out at the smoke rising over the city. The staff went down to the lobby bar in the Watergate Hotel. The doors suddenly burst open and soldiers, wearing riot gear and gas masks, flooded into the lobby and announced the city was shutting down.
The hotel closed the bar. Oliver and his coworkers headed home.
ON APRIL 22, 1968, INTERIOR SECRETARY UDALL ANNOUNCED a compromise: The final Watergate building, originally planned for apartments, would instead become a second office building and be turned slightly, adding 380 feet between the two structures and creating 600 additional parking spaces. The trustees of the Kennedy Center unanimously endorsed the revised design.
Later that evening, however, the directors of the Watergate East co-op voted unanimously against the agreement. As reported in the Watergate Post, the community newsletter, residents attacked the revised plan, which they said would change the character of the entire complex, introduce traffic congestion and “bright fluorescent lights,” and undermine “enjoyment of the pool.” Board member William Simon said the owners of Watergate East were “never consulted” during the mediation process and the agreement “gave very little to the Center, a greater deal to the developer, and was at the great expense of Watergate East owners.” Simon denounced the collaboration of the developers and the Kennedy Center as an “unholy alliance.”
On May 1, 1968, Watergate attorney William R. Lichtenberg told the owners of Watergate East the developers did not “promise” an apartment building would be built adjacent to them, and only said the final Watergate building was “planned” for apartments. One owner asked Lichtenberg why the developers changed their minds. “Because the United States Government asked us to,” Lichtenberg replied. An unnamed federal official who was present at the meeting was asked directly if that was the case. The official said no.
Two weeks later, Simon wrote an eight-page letter to Pope Paul VI—“the controlling stockholder in SGI”—asking him to investigate the situation at the Watergate. “Your Holiness,” Simon wrote, “in all commercial dealings I believe we are entitled to expect integrity from those with whom we do business. I urge you to require that standard from SGI.” Simon sent copies of the letter to the Apostolic Delegate in Washington and to Samaritani back in Rome.
On June 19, 1968, Simon wrote to District mayor Walter E. Washington, city council members John W. Heckinger and Walter E. Fauntroy, and the Architect of the Capitol J. George Stewart, to oppose the rezoning of the final Watergate building from residential to office use. “In my view,” Simon wrote, “such a change would go clearly against the interests of the people of the District of Columbia. It would permit a small group of foreign businessmen, whose recent practices have flouted conventional business ethics, to profit at the expense of causing financial loss and psychological discomfort to the residents of Watergate East, compromising the integrity of the District of Columbia Zoning Commission and depriving the District of an attractive view as well as an opportunity to attract new taxpaying residents which Mayor Washington has recognized that it so desperately needs.” The proposed office building, Simon continued, would bring at least 3,500 daily workers, not including visitors and vendors. The traffic congestion “will be intolerable.” The park areas among the Watergate buildings would be filled with “office workers and their litter” during lunch hours. And security would be much more challenging with the many people passing through the office building. “This is not the exotic beauty we were sold,” Simon wrote. He sent a copy of his thirteen-page letter to Roger Stevens, Aldo Samaritani and Interior Secretary Udall.
On June 26, 1968, more than 150 residents of Watergate East testified before the District Zoning Commission against the proposal to rotate the final building and convert it from residential to commercial use. A Washington Post city reporter named Carl Bernstein sat in on the hearing and reported on the dispute.
“The developers took our money on the representation . . . that this was an apartment development, not an office building area,” said Democratic senator Wayne Morse of Washington, a Watergate East resident. “We should not have our property values decreased . . . by an office building.” Thomas Corcoran—identified incorrectly in Bernstein’s report as a resident of the Watergate—also testified against the proposal. “God knows, as an Irishman of New England, I’m for the Kennedy Center and for the memory of the Kennedys,” he said. But the construction of an office building was “an affront to the owners of the Watergate,” who collectively had invested $20 million in their units. Corcoran charged developers were attempting to “blackmail” residents of Watergate East into supporting the plan by offering to repair a leaky roof, at a cost of $400,000, under the condition that they drop opposition to the fifth building. William Lichtenberg scoffed at a
ny suggestion the offer was an attempt at blackmail. “If they have any claims” for repairs, he said, “they obviously have to be taken care of.” Corcoran questioned the timing of the offer; a request for these repairs had been pending for months.
THE SAME DAY CORCORAN WAS TESTIFYING IN WASHINGTON against the final Watergate building, Anna Chennault was in New York. She stopped by the Nixon for President campaign headquarters to see the Republican candidate. He wasn’t in the office, so Chennault left a message with a secretary and followed up two days later with a note. “In my humble opinion,” she wrote, the Johnson administration should explain to the American public “what to expect of the Paris peace talks and what position the Administration plans to take if the peace talks should fail.”
She offered to arrange a meeting between the Republican presidential candidate and the president of South Vietnam. “President Thieu of South Vietnam’s visit to Washington was canceled after Senator Bob Kennedy’s assassination but now it has been rescheduled,” she continued. “He will be in Washington for two days. . . . If you should decide to meet with President Thieu, please let me know and I will work out the detail and make the arrangement.”
Chennault’s letter was forwarded to Nixon with the annotation “NO! NO!” and a message: “Allen”—referring to Richard Allen, the campaign’s national security advisor—“recommends this not be done for any reason and under no circumstances. Proposal dangerous in the extreme and injurious to our V.N. [Vietnam] position—i.e., to U.S. national interests.”
ON JULY 11, 1968, ELIZABETH ROWE ATTENDED HER FINAL meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission. She had earlier informed President Johnson she was stretched thin by her responsibilities as commission chairman and as a mother, and had asked him not to reappoint her. The new chairman was Philip Hammer, a Harvard-trained urban economist and city planner. “I won’t even try to fill your petite shoes with my size-11 feet,” he told Rowe. “You had the glamour,” he said to the commission and its staff, “now you get the ‘Hammer.’”
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