Gene Carter
During his first term, Ronald Reagan appointed Rita Rodriguez, my spouse, to the Board of Directors of the U.S. Export-Import Bank. Rita was a tenured professor of international finance, at the time on leave to write a book and care for baby Adi. She had no interest in a job in Washington, DC, or in an appointment by Reagan, but she eventually accepted and was confirmed by the Senate. We packed up our comfortable Victorian house in Hyde Park, Illinois, and trundled off to a small post-war Georgian near the Washington Cathedral. Thus began our life as outsiders inside-the-Beltway.
We had quite a time with all the inaugural festivities for Reagan’s second term, our first experience with what we imagined would be insider glitz. We brought Rita’s dad up from Miami to handle the baby sitting for our daughter Adi and planned on taking him to the swearing-in, which, of course, was frozen out. As Hodding Carter remarked, Democrats said some years back that it would be a cold day in hell when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, and indeed it was cold as hell.
The circus started on Saturday for us. The Illinois state society session was fun, but never had we seen such serious eaters. They were in line right out of the coat checking room at 5:30 for the dessert table, ignoring the main buffet in the next room, but figuring they better hit this while they could. Later, Governor Jim Thompson would be introducing Cabinet Secretaries Block, Pierce, etc. and other dignitaries from Illinois plus other characters, while all the time the serious folk were wading into the prime rib at the buffet table ten feet from his nose. One moose shoved Rita and me out of the way, which irritated me and I was going to poke him. Then Rita noted to me that he was the new Agriculture secretary’s Secret Service guy clearing the way. She noted protection goes with rank. II could not imagine who could possibly identify the Ag secretary, let alone care enough to do anything about it.
From there we walked a few feet to the new Marriott and the Hispanic Inaugural Ball, immediately after Rita changed her clothes and stuffed things in a small flight bag. Well, they started late, there was a mob of people, and then there was no place to SIT! Rita was furious, for those who paid $1500 for a table had their tables marked out on the seating chart, but the peons who only paid $75 a ticket were informed that “there was no guarantee of a seat.” Then, an hour and a half into it, they announced that hotel had not set up things correctly. The board with information on where the tables were was incorrect; i.e., even the tables for the high-flyer blocks were not in the right place. The entertainment went on, and we were not hungry anyway.
Rita claimed that the trouble with Hispanics is that they cannot get organized, since status means no one will take orders from anyone else, so nothing gets done. Time and again on her campaign trips to Texas, Miami, California, etc., she noted there were just basic things that were not done. In the end, if she screamed enough, some one would do it as a personal favor, making a big macho thing out of it. She was disgusted with the clowns at the Hispanic Inaugural Ball and finally went through a line and just sat on the floor. A few stared, but most did nothing, so obviously they were not embarrassed.
Two hours into the event, slow-moving hotel help put five more tables on edge of the tiny dance floor, perhaps appeasing some diners (now at 11 PM) but infuriating 300 others. All comical. Meanwhile Bob and Elizabeth Dole and other politicos waltzed through. Little did we know that this was well-organized compared to the regular ball we would see Monday night.
On Sunday we went to party given by Maureen Reagan, which was the classiest. Sadly, she told me her husband, Dennis Revell, was called Mr. Reagan just as I get the Mr. Rodriguez bit. The Superbowl was on, and Rita told me I had better check the TV, for the town goes wild if the Redskins win. That was not a problem, of course.
Rita knew White House counsel, Fred Fielding, who had been a junior guy (and some think was Deep Throat) in the Nixon White House. I started off by asking him about Watergate, which I thought was a great ice breaker. He said his job would be great if you could have it one day a week for the rest of your life. That Sunday afternoon, he had just come from two hours in a group meeting at White House. I had asked him about the parade and inauguration (they had announced parade was cancelled an hour earlier), and he told me to keep warm and listen to my radio.
In contrast to this lawyer, HHS Secretary Margaret Heckler was busy telling everyone that it was not worth going to the indoor Capitol ceremony even if you could — all before any announcement of cancellations. Anyway, officials had two hours to cancel the parade, and I asked Fielding why it took so long, for everyone knew about musical instruments and valves freezing, lips freezing, etc. He just said, “OK, next time I’ll let YOU tell the First Lady that the parade ought to be called off.”
A running joke in wake of the staff job swap of Regan/Baker Treasury/Chief of staff was that the next one should be Donovan and Heckler for Labor/HHS since he had ethics issues and she was under fire for trying to deal with AIDs crisis in Africa, etc. Rita wanted to ask Caspar Weinberger why his Defense budget was increased while hers at the Ex-IM Bank was being eliminated, but she skipped it.
We all watched the inaugural ceremony on TV, which was fine, and then came the real disaster. We were at the new
D.C. Convention Center, a fabulous building which had two of the nine inaugural balls there. We went by subway (others did, too), and checked in, noting that kids were putting coats on hangers and attaching paper tags, but placed our two coats with consecutive numbers on different ends of the pipe stand coat rack.
OK, onward. About that time, with everyone lined up to pay $20 to have picture taken in front of a cardboard inaugural seal(!), we wandered into McCormick Place East, with several bands going, etc. Damnedest collection of people–did not look like rich Republicans or anything, just crazy. The California group, in contrast, was very nice looking, etc.; presume coming that far, only the loyal rich make it; ours was DC, Maryland, Virginia, etc. locals–not clear why we were invited to the DC rather than Illinois ball.
It was a real zoo. Reagan bounces in, makes his little speech, dances with Nancy, and rips out–he did hit all nine balls in 2 1/2 hours. We come late, about 9 pm and decide to leave at 10:30, getting in small line at coat-check stand.
To make a long story short, we finally turned in our coat tickets at 11 and had no coats until 11:50. The Washington Post ran front page story, complaining about chaos and drunken Republicans, which was nonsense. Essentially, I was cursing damned disorganized free enterprise Republicans, then decided it was Democratic Mayor Marion Barry’s revenge on the Republicans. Indeed, it turned that our Boy Scout volunteers were helping the regular outfit, and the regular outfit must be incompetent.
At one point they invited people in to find their own coats, which Washington Post reported as Republicans forcing their way in. Essentially, they had five rooms of coats on racks, with no order to any of them. There were probably 5000 coats, assuming some celebrators left them in busses or cars. Rita was on the front row, I beside/behind her, and it was rough. Most people in the crowd joked, although one woman who said something witty to me did not laugh when I remarked with the old crack, “They told me if I ever voted for a Democrat, there would be chaos. I did and there is.”
(On the other hand, the AP came out earlier to our home to take a picture of me putting on my special Reagan inaugural license plate, CARTER, which they found funny. These are legal for 90 days, too!)
Finally, security people appeared, and they kept saying, “There is only one way we are going to solve this,” but never saying what it was. Eventually, DC’s finest came, with one of them in front putting hands on Rita and telling everyone to stand back. She glared and then told him off, telling him to take his hands off her. He did and moved on. Then one cop stood on a table and said they would bring one coat at a time out and have people claim it as they held it up. That was laughed down so fast, he left.
Eventually, they got cops halfway back to move crowd a bit. At this point, I saw our coats go by in front of us–they had never been inside at all! Rita grabbed hers, but I could not get guy to stop rolling the rack even though I was holding onto his jacket. I blew my stack at all of them, with no profanity, but nothing else happened anywhere. Finally, a good Boy Scout leader found my coat and we fled. I gathered that the coat chaos went on for hours, and $30,000 furs went home with the wrong people. These were supposedly returned later to clear up confusion. Amazing stupidity.
I think one inaugural ball per lifetime is enough. In the following years, we left town during inaugurations. This one was really awful in general, and coat scene was only the finish. I was sorry not to get a real riot out of it. The chairman of the Ex-Im Bank was at he Frank Sinatra party, which just shows how other half lives.
Our daughter Adi and her Gangi Tom did seem to have had a great time together….
Editor’s Note: Gene has written about life as outsiders on the inside in Washington, DC.
See “Washington DC, a Company Town Part 1” and “Company Town Part 2.”
