Free The Residence - Inside the Private World of The White House by Kate Andersen Brower

Cliber, who worked on nine transitions, said that the Clintons’ arrival was by far the most difficult. Shortly before the inauguration, Hockersmith told him that he and the other electricians needed to rehang seven chandeliers— now .
    “Why does it have to be done now? Let them move in and we’ll do it one a day,” said Cliber.
    “No, they want them all changed before they come in the door,” she replied.
    Cliber had no choice. He went to the second-floor Treaty Room, which Clinton would use as a private study, to start work on one of the chandeliers.
    Almost as soon as the Clintons returned from the inaugural parade, Hillary appeared in the Treaty Room. “How long are you going to be in this room?” she asked Cliber.
    “Truthfully, I’m looking at maybe four hours,” he told her as he handled the elaborate crystal chandelier that was dismantled on the floor.
    “Hmm, we’ll see about that,” she said, and stormed out.
    Hockersmith poked her head in and told him to leave the roomwithin twenty minutes. Cliber said he’d need more time just to collect the hundreds and hundreds of priceless crystals strewn about the floor. She replied: “Don’t worry about it. They can be replaced.”
    “No, ma’am. This is crystal that can’t be replaced,” he told her indignantly.
    Cliber did as he was told, leaving the Treaty Room a mess with crystals everywhere. But he wasn’t about to let the first lady, or her decorator, have the final word. Chief Curator Rex Scouten (who was well respected on the staff and had been an usher and then chief usher from 1969 to 1986 before he took the job as curator) locked the door to protect the chandelier until Cliber could get back to work. The electrician wasn’t allowed back in the room for three weeks.
    Gary Walters is always careful not to single out any one administration for criticism. But when I asked him how the Clinton move-in went there was a long pause: “That’s when you get the most difficulty, when you’re going from one administration to another of different parties.” The Clintons, he said, “had no concept of what the White House was like.” He had to go up to the residence multiple times a day to answer questions.
    Usher Nancy Mitchell was on duty early in the morning when the first couple came home from the inaugural balls. “President Clinton wanted to make a phone call, so I had gone upstairs with him and I hear this roar from him, ‘Nancy!’ and I say, ‘Yes, sir.’ He says, ‘How do I make a phone call?’” When the president picked up the phone, he was greeted not by a dial tone but by a White House operator; he was shocked that he couldn’t just dial a number himself. The entire phone system was changed shortly thereafter.
    It did not help that the Clintons invited friends from Little Rock (“friends of Bill’s,” or “FOBs”) to help them unpack, which only served to complicate matters.
    “We’ve been doing this for two hundred years,” said Usher ChrisEmery. “They made all these promises to various people to come in and help. Of course we were upset, it was such a mess.” Emery, who had a difficult relationship with the Clintons and would eventually be fired during their administration, said that many FOBs actually had criminal records. According to Emery, the Secret Service called the Usher’s Office several times to report that some of the Arkansas guests had not passed their background checks and were deemed “do not admits.” Emery told agents, “The president’s expecting them. Make it happen.” They ended up having to assign Secret Service officers on every floor: “Typically if you bring a worker that has a ‘hit’ [on his background check] they have to be escorted.” Before long, much to Emery’s chagrin, there were several people with “hits” at the house.
    Hockersmith took a hands-on approach to some elements of the redecoration, including the placement of the Clintons’ personal photographs and the