Nixon chose this desk for the Oval Office because of his mistaken belief that former President Woodrow Wilson had used it there. In 1971 Nixon had five recording devices secretly installed in the Wilson desk by the United States Secret Service. These recordings constitute some of the Watergate tapes. Upon Jimmy Carter's ascent to the presidency, he moved the Wilson desk back to the Vice President's Room, preferring to work at the Resolute desk.
Nixon referred to the desk in 1969 in his "Silent majority" speech, stating: "Fifty years ago, in this room and at this very desk, President Woodrow Wilson spoke words which caught the imagination of a war-weary world."[1] In actuality, the desk was never used by Wilson in the Oval office. Nixon was informed by one of his speech writers, William Safire, that the desk was actually used by Vice President Henry Wilson during President Ulysses S. Grant's administration. This is also untrue since the desk was purchased 23 years after the former's death.
The Wilson desk is a mahogany double-pedestal desk with ornate carving.[2][3] The 31in (79cm) high desk has a workspace which is 80.75in (205.1cm) wide and 58.25in (148.0cm) deep.[4] The knee-hole extends all the way through the desk and both pedestals contain drawers on both the front and back of the units. During its time in the White House the desk featured a glass top which was placed to protect its work surface.[5] The desk bears a property decal from the Sergeant at Arms of the United States Senate and is numbered S-4966.[6] Within the kneehole area there is a small wooden box affixed to the desk where a button was installed that allowed Richard Nixon to turn on recording devices. The button no longer exists but its location is still apparent.[3]
According to the book Presidential Anecdotes by Paul F. Boller, Nixon enjoyed working in the Oval Office with his feet propped up on the Wilson desk and, in spite of the glass cover, Nixon's "...heels began leaving scars on the top of it."[7] Someone at the White House noticed the marring of the historic desk and, while Nixon was out of the United States, had it refinished. When Nixon returned and saw what had been done he supposedly stated, "Dammit. I didn't order that. I want to leave my mark on this place just like other Presidents!"[7]
The desk was likely ordered in 1898 from W.B. Moses and Sons by Hobart.[9] According to the United States Senate Curator's Office, W.B. Moses and Sons was, at the time, "the largest exclusively retail furniture, carpet, and drapery business in the nation."[10] W.B. Moses and Sons also provided other furniture for the Senate around this time including eight benches for the United States Senate Reception Room.[10]
Richard Nixon became vice president in 1953 and used this desk throughout his tenure. Nixon was an admirer of Woodrow Wilson and believed this desk was used by him during his term as president.[5][11]
A 1974 document created by the White House Office of the Curator states in 1965 the Vice Presidents Room was handed over to Hubert Humphrey who refurbished the space and had the desk placed in storage for the four years he used the room.[12] This official accounting of the history of the desk is in conflict with a 1963 television interview with Lady Bird Johnson where she shows the desk in then vice president Lyndon B. Johnson's office at his ranch in Texas.[13] In this interview Lady Bird discusses how the desk ended up at the ranch. She explains the desk, "was used in the Capitol for a great many years, then his office force went in together and bought it for him when it was declared surplus available." Richard Reeves also states in his book President Nixon: Alone in the White House that Johnson had the desk shipped to Texas to use in his office there.[14] James Davies, the gardener at the Johnsons' house in Texas, stated in an oral history of the office, within the 1987 Historic Structure Report of the building, that when Johnson was inaugurated as vice president a new desk was moved into the office, and a different desk was moved in when he became president.[15] This recalling of desks is in conflict with a picture the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum has of Johnson sitting at the desk in his office on April 17, 1965, which was after his second inauguration.[16] In 1967 the General Services Administration refinished a desk and chair in Johnson's office at his ranch. It is unclear which desk this was.[17]
On January 20, 1969, when Nixon became president, the desk was placed on loan to the White House, was returned to Washington from Texas, and became the Oval Office desk for his presidency.[2][14] It was known at that point as the McKinley-Barkley desk.[6]
Nixon had a secret audio recording system installed in the Wilson desk in February 1971. The president's offices in the White House, Camp David, and the Old Executive Office Building all had hidden microphones installed by the United States Secret Service. Some of the recordings created by this system make up the Watergate tapes, a series of secret tape recordings revealed to exist during the 1973-74 Watergate scandal.[18] Nixon's refusal to release the tapes formed one of the article of impeachment against him.[19] There were seven microphones in total installed in the Oval Office, one on either side of the fireplace and five located within the Wilson desk. These microphones, as well as recording devices in the Cabinet Room, were all wired to central mixers and recorders in "an old locker room in the White House basement."[18] Not long after April 9, 1973, a switch was installed in the desk to allow Nixon to turn the microphones on and off at will. Previously they turned on automatically whenever someone began talking.[20] A total of 502 tapes were recorded on these microphones, as well as two by the Oval Office fireplace, while the system was in existence, between February 16, 1971, and July 12, 1973.[21]
Throughout Nixon's presidency he referred to the Wilson desk hundreds of times in official speeches, such as the "Silent majority" speech, and in talks with high ranking visitors. During official White House tours, guides wrongly told of how Woodrow Wilson used the desk.[11] This misconception was first discovered to be untrue by an assistant curator at the White House.[11] This assistant curator came to yet another incorrect conclusion about who had previously used the desk. This curator wrongly stated[2][8] that the desk was not used by Woodrow Wilson, but instead by Vice President Henry Wilson, under President Ulysses S. Grant's administration. The assistant curator informed Cecilia Bellinger, a chief researcher in the writing operation at the White House, about the mistake. Belinger in turn told William Safire, one of Nixon's speech writers. It fell to Safire to inform Nixon about the mistake in the desk's provenance.[11]
Fifty years ago, in this room and at this very desk, President Woodrow Wilson spoke words which caught the imagination of a war-weary world.
Later research indicated that the desk had not been Woodrow Wilson's as had long been assumed but was used by Vice President Henry Wilson during President Grant's Administration.
- Footnote on page 909 of 1969 edition of Public Papers of the Presidents[1]
Safire was chosen to inform the President of the issue because he was "the most frequent Wilson-quoter on the writing staff".[11] Safire wrote a memo to Nixon explaining that it was Henry Wilson, not Woodrow Wilson, who sat at the desk, and listed a litany of Henry Wilson's character traits and virtues. Safire heard nothing back from the White House about the memo.[11] The only recognition Nixon's White House gave to their major mistake in the provenance of the desk was in 1969 when on page 909 of that year's edition of Public Papers of the Presidents there is a footnote to Nixon's "Silent majority" speech which states, "Later research indicated that the desk had not been Woodrow Wilson's as had long been assumed but was used by Vice President Henry Wilson during President Grant's Administration."[11] This is also untrue as the desk was purchased 23 years after Henry Wilson's death.[2][8]
After Nixon's resignation from office on August 9, 1974, Gerald Ford redecorated the Oval Office. The redesign extended to changing out artworks, rugs, window treatments, and he even oversaw the removal of secret sliding door entrances into the room.[22] On August 16, 1974, a memo was sent from Frank R. Pagnotta to Counselor to the PresidentRobert Hartmann explaining the various desks in the White House that were at the presidents disposal for the Oval Office. This memo erroneously claimed that, "President Grant's Vice President, Henry Wilson, fell ill... and died on the couch next to the desk in 1875. From its use by Vice President Wilson it took the name 'Wilson desk.'"[4] On the 28th a response was made to this memo quoting Ford saying, "Let's keep what we have presently."[4]
In February 1975 the Senate asked for the desk to be returned, not realizing it was being used by President Ford. Once informed it was being used in the Oval Office the request was delayed until Ford left office.[6] When Jimmy Carter became president in 1977 he replaced the Wilson desk with the more widely known Resolute desk.[2] According to Carter the first decision he made in the Oval Office was to replace the Wilson desk with the Resolute desk. Carter states, in his memoir, "On the first day... I sat down at the President's desk and looked it over. It was a surprise to see that it was not the same one which had been photographed when John Kennedy was there, with his little son peeping out from the door underneath. My first decision: to replace this desk with the one I remembered."[23] The Wilson desk was returned to the Vice President's Room at this time, where it has remained in use since.[2][9]
The Vice President's Room and the Wilson desk are now used infrequently by vice presidents, largely when they must come to the Senate floor to cast a tiebreaking vote.[24] These votes are so rare that since the desk was returned to the Vice Presidents Room, two vice presidents, Dan Quayle and Joe Biden, did not have the opportunity to cast any tie breaking votes.[25] While not a popular room it is still in use. Walter Mondale was known to crawl under the desk with visitors to show the screw holes and other markings left by the controls to Nixon's recording system.[24]Dick Cheney saw working with the Senate as a much higher priority than previous vice presidents and used the Vice President's Room and the Wilson desk every week.[3]
During the two time periods the Wilson desk was located in the Vice President's Room, before and after it was loaned to the White House, no vice president had the last name of "Wilson". Because of this, the "Wilson desk" has never had a "Wilson" use it on a regular basis, but a marble bust of Henry Wilson, the vice president mistakenly believed to have used the Wilson desk, does sit in the Vice President's Office near the Wilson desk. This bust, commissioned in 1885, "served as the genesis for the Senate's Vice Presidential Bust Collection".[2]
There are two replicas of the Wilson desk, both of which reside in replica Oval Offices in presidential libraries. The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, located in Yorba Linda, California features a replica of the Wilson desk as part of their full-scale recreation of President Nixon's Oval Office. Visitors can approach the replica and have their picture taken with it.[26] A second replica of the Wilson desk is located in the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as a part of a full-scale replica of the Oval Office furnished as it was during Ford's presidency.[27]
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