White House Confidential: Revised and Expanded Edition

Gregg Stebben and Austin Hill
Cumberland House Publishing (2006)
ISBN 9781581825442
Reviewed by Cherie Fisher for Reader Views (3/07)


I always thought that politics and politicians were in a downhill spiral when compared to the good ole days.  Well, that is definitely not the case.  According to “White House Confidential” this has been going on for centuries!  The authors Stebben and Hill give us a book uncovering lies, secrets and more lies and secrets that have been going on in the government since the beginning.  I was fascinated from beginning to end. 

Oh, the scandal of it all!  If you think the Bill and Monica saga were the first sex scandal to hit the White House, think again.  Who were the President and First Lady who moved their mistresses, oops, I meant friends, into the White House?  Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved Missy LeHand (from the secretarial pool) into the White House.  And his wife Eleanor moved her favorite friend nicknamed “Hick” into the White House.  Hick turned out to be a woman named Lorena Hickok.  The authors uncovered a note sent from Eleanor to Hick in 1933 “Good-night, dear one.  I want to put my arms around you and kiss you at the corner of your mouth.  And in a little more than a week now – I shall.”  Hmmm…..not the usual note one would write to a friend.   Oh, and then there is my other favorite tidbit.  Which President and Vice President (from different administrations) were so inseparable they were nicknamed “Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy?”  It seems that the White House may have already had a gay president.  And that is just the tip of the iceberg on what has been going on in the White House for the past couple hundred of years.  The chapter also includes a list of all Presidents including who cheated, and who did not.

The book goes on to include chapters on impeachment, worst presidents, death in office and “Tricky Dick” Nixon; the Kennedy’s almost needed their own chapter.   If you thought that the Nixon administration was corrupt then how about this.  The authors write “How bad could it get, you ask?”  James Buchanan’s administration was so corrupt that given the chance to buy Cuba for only thirty million dollars, Congress voted to pass on the deal because there was a collective fear that Buchanan and his cronies would somehow abscond with the money.” 

The quotes throughout the book are priceless.  The chapter on “The VEEP’s” had some of my favorites: “Once upon a time there was a farmer who had two sons.  One of them ran off to sea.  The other was elected vice president of the United States.  Nothing was ever heard of either of them again.”  Thomas Marshall, V.P. under Woodrow Wilson and the best “You die, I fly” George H. W. Bush V.P. under Ronald Reagan. 

“White House Confidential” is fun and very informative.  I highly recommend it to people who enjoy politics.  It will definitely give them something to talk about for a long time. 

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