by Mo Rocca
She was the most sought after interview—or “get”—of the season. Every one of broadcast television’s biggest names went after Helen with an appalling relentlessness.
The most extravagant offer was made by CBS, a division of Viacom. The package included a sit-down with 60 Minutes’s Ed Bradley, a guest spot on CSI: Miami, a sitcom pilot on UPN, a roast on Comedy Central, a Jacob watch from BET, a book deal from Simon & Schuster, and a suitcase packed with five million dollars in unmarked bills (through CBS’s entertainment division, of course). The offer was tempting but the added perk of an MTV concert in her hometown featuring the rock group the Cranberries was just insulting.
“They think I’m a turkey!” said Helen, disgusted.
ABC’s Diane Sawyer made the same mistake: She sent Helen three bags of grain and an offer to do an interview on Plimouth Plantation. Helen accepted this offer, though.
“Diane used to leak me all sorts of information during the Nixon administration. I’ve got a soft spot for her,” she explained.
Helen insisted I go with her for the interview. Diane, Helen, and I nestled together on an L-shaped haystack. But Diane, outfitted in overalls, only wanted to talk about Helen’s relationship with Millard Fillmore.
“Here you were, a turkey buzzard no older than fifty and in love with the vice president,” Diane said with extra breathiness.
“It wasn’t easy, Diane,” Helen sighed. “I was just so young.” She was better at this than I thought she’d be.
Diane paused meaningfully. “If you had to do it all again, Helen, would you?”
“Every last minute, Diane,” she said, then remembered to add, “well, maybe not the murdering the President part.”
(Helen’s sit-down with Charlie Rose was less successful. By the time Charlie finished asking his first question, the hour was up.)
The next big decision involved choosing who would do the authorized television documentary of Helen’s life. Because I’d worked with Harry Smith I put in a word for A&E’s Biography. But Ken Burns made the most impassioned pitch for a 352-hour film about her life. “We won’t actually need to interview you. Just give us a few snapshots to pan over and Linda Hunt will lay down the voice-overs.”
Helen rejected both in favor of Truman biographer and PBS host David McCullough. “Talk about a hot piece of ass!” she exclaimed when his name came up.
Helen spent hours touching up her crop before their meeting. David proposed a ten-hour special profile of Helen for PBS’s American Experience. She said yes to every idea he suggested, not that she heard a word of what he said.
“Helen, you do realize that he’s married?”
“Married. Not dead,” she snapped.
Of course not everything panned out. The Hollywood Reporter trumpeted the long-awaited return of the variety show after Animal Planet offered one to Helen. They agreed to give her a stage with a giant “HELEN” written out in lights. Helen walked away from the offer, though, when the network insisted she work with a sidekick salamander voiced over by Jerry Van Dyke.
As for the writing of Helen’s story, I decided to go ahead and give it a shot, but Ken Auletta beat me to the punch with a 430,000-word piece for The New Yorker (still shorter than his profile of Harvey Weinstein). Then Tom Brokaw came out with his own book, at which point Tom Hanks and Bob Dole jumped onto the bandwagon with a proposal for a Presidential Pets Memorial.
The design competition was fierce. In the end Maya Lin’s brooding dog bowl sunk into the ground was rejected as too much of a downer. Instead the committee designed their own monument: a 750-foot-tall alabaster bone that completely overshadowed the Washington Monument. (D.C.’s height restriction was waived.) To help defray the cost, Iams, the major sponsor, had its name etched along the side. It was all pretty obscene, but no one wanted to go against the mood. And to be fair, even L’Enfant would’ve admitted that the observation deck was pretty cool.
The Presidential Pet Memorial, Washington’s newest and tallest monument.
Barney ended up not writing his own book. Instead he felt mysteriously compelled to tell all to reporter Bob Woodward. Woodward’s book, clunkily titled All the Presidents’ Animals, was delayed due to the sheer number of other insider pets who’d lined up to confess their every secret to him. Early word had it that the book chronicled a nasty breakdown in communication between Colin Powell’s tabby cat and Dick Cheney’s cobra.
Mr. Peabody wrote his own book. Burning Down My Master’s Doghouse was heavily promoted but never broke #2,000 on Amazon’s sales ranking. He tried to return to the time machine business but despite Lou Dobbs’s best efforts, his job got outsourced.
THAT DECEMBER I ESCORTED Helen to the White House Christmas party.
I knew that my stock had risen when early in the evening, Kate Snow and Norah O’Donnell, wearing brand-new Pink Ladies jackets, approached me and invited me to take part in their spring-break Cancún house.
“It’s going to be a blast!” said Kate.
“Hello-o?” said Norah. “It’s going to be a major blast.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s really nice of you. I’d love to but I already promised Candy and Jim Angle that I’d go to Atlantic City with them . . . Sorry.” I dreaded the prospect of becoming unpopular again.
But Norah and Kate were still smiling. “If you change your mind, just call,” Norah said.
Just then the United States Marine Band—dubbed “The President’s Own” by Jefferson—struck up a medley of Bee Gees songs. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank rushed in excitedly. “Helen and Mo, we’re waiting!”
Helen and I, happy at last.
It was 1985 again but instead of Princess Diana and John Travolta wowing everyone with their dancing at the Reagan White House, Helen and I were doing a mean hustle in the East Room.
The room was spinning in one direction as Helen and I turned in the other. Laura Bush and Barney looked on, beaming. President Bush clapped his hands to the beat, sort of. But when the dance ended, Helen seemed unusually winded.
She whispered in my ear: “I don’t feel well.”
30
All the Presidents’ Pets
The Next Generation
I didn’t see Helen for three weeks. We spoke only occasionally, but she wasn’t her chatty self. She sounded so tired and weighed down.
Finally one day she called me with news. “Something has happened. I want you to come over.”
The Army Corps of Engineers had agreed to rebuild Helen’s lair after its destruction. Until then Helen was living in a quaint apartment in Woodley Park, just across from the zoo. I rushed over to see her.
A somber Jack Hanna, in a lab coat and stethoscope, answered the door. “Hello, I’m Helen’s nurse,” he said.
“Nurse?! I’m here to see Helen,” I said. “Is she okay?” I was led into a small, sunny room. Helen was crouched down in a corner. She looked exhausted.
“Mo,” she said faintly. “You’ve come.”
“Yes, Helen, how could I stay away? I’ve been worried sick. Now I see you’re receiving medical care. What’s wrong?”
Helen said nothing. She simply stood up, revealing two large eggs she’d been sitting on. The eggs were cream-colored, splashed toward the larger end with irregular markings of brown and black, approximately 2 7//8 inches in length.
“Helen! You’re going to have babies.”
“Yes, I am,” she smiled wanly. “But I have something else to tell you. I’m not going to be returning to the White House.”
“What?!”
“I’m done for. My days in the press corps are over,” she said stoically. “I’m . . . moving on.”
I was immediately overcome. I threw myself on the floor in front of her, my body racked by sobs. “Helen, you’re my true friend. I can’t just let you die! Please, Helen, I need you,” I heaved.
“Pull yourself together,” snapped Helen. “I’m sticking around until at least the 2036 election—the smart money’s on George P.”
>
“Oh, Helen,” I said, wiping the tears from my eyes.
Just then a cracking sound was heard from Helen’s nest. The eggs were hatching! The babies were miniature Helens, except that their bills were tipped with pale blue and their irises more yellowish, typical for newborn buzzards. Each of them held little steno pads. They were ready for work.
“Salutations!” they chirped in unison.
“Aren’t they just adorable?” beamed Helen.
“Adorable? What’s ‘adorable’?” they asked in unison. “We’re hungry.” Helen lovingly regurgitated some hedgehog carrion and gave her girls their first feeding.
“Yummy! Thank you, Mommy!” they sang, then frowned at Helen. “But you didn’t answer the question,” they scowled. “What’s ‘adorable’?”
“Oh, here we go,” said Helen. “Listen, Mo, I hate to be rude but I’ve got my hands full right now. The girls won’t be ready for the White House beat till they’re full grown.”
“That’s seventy to eighty days,” I said.
“Right. Until then I’ve got lots to teach them. Ugh, I just know I’m never going to be able to see a movie again!”
“I’ll get you a subscription to Netflix. Anyway, I’ll let you go, Helen.” Most of my friends with newborns were so busy I knew it would be a long time before I’d see her again. “Thanks again for everything, Helen. You’ve changed my life.”
“Well, you’ve certainly changed mine,” she responded flatly, with a look toward her chicks.
I had been lucky: It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good reporter. Helen was both.
AFTER I HELPED HER install her car seats, I left and walked down to the Mall, to the Presidential Pet Memorial. I was in a meditative mood.
Climbing the steps, I thought of the greatness that had shaped our country. The nobility of Washington’s horse Nelson. The conviction of Kennedy’s dogs Charlie and Pushinka. The courage of Grant’s gamecocks. (They’re in the sequel.)
As I stepped out on the observation deck I was so high I could see the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay beyond, and ever so faintly in the distance the Atlantic Ocean, upon which Reverend Winthrop once sermonized about “a City upon a Hill.” Damn, this thing is tall.
Perhaps Barney could one day join that pantheon of the great presidential pets who had helped make America a beacon. With the vigilance of me and the rest of the press corps, he stood a chance.
The Presidents and Their Pets
A SELECTED LIST
GEORGE WASHINGTON
Washington deserves the additional moniker “Father of the American foxhound” after crossing General Lafayette’s gift of seven stag hounds—among them, Sweet Lips, Scentwell, and Vulcan—with his own smaller black-and-tan Virginia hounds—among them Drunkard, Taster, Tipler, and Tipsy—to create “a superior dog, one that had speed, scent, and brains.”
Royal Gift the jackass did indeed sire a race of “supermules.”
Nelson the horse carried Washington to Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown.
JOHN ADAMS
Dogs Juno and Satan offered the man known as the “Duke of Braintree” solace after his humiliating loss in the election of 1800. 16
The presidential stables were built for his favorite horse, Cleopatra.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Buzzy the Briard sheepdog sailed back from France with the president.
Several unnamed grizzly bears, a gift from either Lewis and Clark or Lt. Zebulon Pike, were caged on the White House lawn, which political opponents soon dubbed “The President’s Bear Garden.”
Dick the mockingbird was a constant companion.
(Jefferson once said that maintaining slavery was like “holding a wolf by the ears.” There is no record of his ever having had wolves.)
JAMES MADISON
First Lady Dolley saved three things when the British burned down the White House in 1814: the portrait of George Washington, the Declaration of Independence, and Polly the Parrot. The President had fled hours before.
JAMES MONROE
Monroe’s daughter Hester Maria had a black spaniel, name unknown.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
President Adams and his wife, Louisa, reared silkworms.
An alligator brought by the Marquis de Lafayette during an 1825 visit resided in the East Room for several months.
ANDREW JACKSON
Old Hickory’s obscene parrot Pol was found in a Nashville confectioner’s shop.
His prized Tennessee fighting cocks all suffered defeat against Virginia fighting cocks.
MARTIN VAN BUREN
The “Little Magician” was forced by Congress to give his two tiger cubs, a gift from Kabul al Said, Sultan of Oman, to the zoo.
(Van Buren was vilified for allowing the War Department to use Cuban bloodhounds to remove Seminoles from Florida in 1840 and track down runaway slaves.)
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON
Sukey the cow was purchased locally and barely had time to get to know her president.
JOHN TYLER
Le Beau the Italian greyhound was sent from Naples.
Johnny Ty the canary was single until President Tyler found him a mate. But after the mate was added to the cage, Johnny died within a week. The mate turned out to be male!
Tyler wrote the following epitaph for his horse The General: “For years he bore me around the circuit of my practice and all that time he never made a blunder. Would that his master could say the same . . .”
JAMES K. POLK
He had a horse.
ZACHARY TAYLOR
Old Whitey the horse was knock-kneed and as misshapen as his President. Visitors plucked souvenir hairs from his tail.
MILLARD FILLMORE
No pets, at least officially.
FRANKLIN PIERCE
President Pierce received seven miniature Oriental dogs and two birds from Japan, part of a large consignment marking the opening of diplomatic relations. He gave one of the birds to Mrs. Jefferson Davis, though he probably never remembered doing so, since he was never sober.
JAMES BUCHANAN
Lara the 170-pound Newfoundland became a celebrity, known for lying motionless for hours at a time with one eye open.
Punch the tiny toy terrier was a gift from the U.S. consul in South Hampton, England.
The King of Siam sent along a herd of elephants.
Two bald eagles were a gift from a “friend” in San Francisco.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Lincoln indulged his boys, Tad and Willie, with a menagerie of animals, including two ponies. Not long after Willie’s death, the two ponies were trapped in a fire, from which the president unsuccessfully tried to rescue them.
Tad found contentment with his goats, Nanny and Nanko.
Jack the turkey was originally slated for Christmas dinner. The sentence was reprieved after Tad’s plea for clemency.
Fido the mongrel was the first presidential pet to be photographed. He followed Lincoln’s funeral procession throughout Springfield. A year later he was stabbed by a drunk.
ANDREW JOHNSON
During the period of his impeachment, the “Tennessee Tailor” found white mice in his bedroom and began leaving them handfuls of flour. “The little fellows gave me their confidence. I gave them their basket and poured some water into a bowl on the hearth for them.” He was also a drunk. There is no evidence that he murdered Fido.
ULYSSES S. GRANT
Grant’s horses included Cincinnatus (a gift from the citizens of Cincinnati), St. Louis, Egypt, Reb, Billy Button, and his pointedly named wartime mount, Jeff Davis. Butcher Boy was so fast, the President received a speeding ticket from the D.C. police.
Rosie was an unpedigreed yellow-and-black bitch.
RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
Hayes’s collection of dogs included Dot the cocker spaniel, Hector the Newfoundland, Deke the English mastiff, Juno and Shep the hunting pups, Grim the greyhound (killed by a train), and Jet the small black
mutt.
Other pets included a goat, a peacock, a cat named Piccolomini, and a mockingbird.
And of course there was Miss Pussy the Siamese cat.
JAMES GARFIELD
Veto the dog was named as a threat to Congress.
CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR
“Elegant Arthur” burned all his papers the day before he left office, and we know nothing about his pet status. 17
GROVER CLEVELAND
First Lady Frances Folsom’s mockingbird sang very loudly, much to the annoyance of the family’s Japanese poodle and dalmatian.
BENJAMIN HARRISON
His Whiskers the goat used to drag Harrison’s three grandkids in a cart, followed by Dash the collie.
Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection were the resident First Opossums.
WILLIAM MCKINLEY
Washington Post the yellow-headed Mexican parrot used to chant, “Oh, look at all the pretty girls,” to anyone who passed by his cage in the White House.
First Lady Ida named four angora kittens after news figures of the day, including Valeriano Weyler, the Cuban governor, and Enrique DeLome, the Spanish Ambassador to the U.S. After the commencement of the Spanish-American War, she had those two kittens drowned.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
TR’s six children turned the White House into a veritable zoo. Dogs included Skip the short-legged rat terrier, Blackjack the Manchester terrier, Manchu the black Pekingese (a gift from China’s Empress Dowager Ci-Xi), Rollo the Saint Bernard, and Sailor Boy the Chesapeake retriever. Pete the bull terrier was banished after tearing a hole in the pants of French Ambassador Jules Jusserand.
Cats included the terrorizing Tom Quartz and the six-toed Slippers.
Emily Spinach the garter snake was named so by daughter Alice “because it was green as spinach and as thin as my Aunt Emily.” Quentin once unleashed his own four snakes in an Oval Office meeting.
Archie’s pony Algonquin famously got stuck in the White House elevator, so entranced he was with his own reflection in the mirror.
Maude the pig, Josiah the badger, and Jonathan the piebald rat shared digs with the guinea pigs, Dr. Johnson, Bishop Doane, Fighting Bob Evans, and Father O’Grady.