Free All the Presidents' Pets by Mo Rocca Page B

tell you some stories.”
    â€œYes, some of them are cute,” I agreed.
    â€œThat’s one way of putting it,” she answered curtly. She caught herself and spoke more gently. “Look at the Kennedys here.” She showed me a picture of Jack and Jackie with Caroline and John-John, tanned, healthy, and happy, with Charlie the Welsh terrier and Pushinka the beautiful white half husky. Pushinka was a gift to Jackie from Soviet premier Khrushchev and the daughter of the famed space dog Strelka.
    Helen probably had especially fond memories of the Kennedy administration. She was a brand-new White House reporter back in 1961, full of ambition. Although she was restricted to covering Jackie (that was a “woman’s beat”), her memories of the Camelot period were bound to be extra sweet. “Those dogs were special,” she said meaningfully.
    â€œOh, I’m sure they were lots of fun.” It was a lovely picture.
    â€œI don’t think you’re getting me.” She looked hard at me. “Sit down.” I sat. She opened a drawer, pulled out a manuscript, and tossed it on my lap. It was an edited draft for a magazine piece that she’d written. Right off the bat the title was crossed out.

    â€œ ‘The Cuban Missile Crisis: The Honest to Dog Truth,’
    by Helen Thomas,
Ladies’ Home Journal.
First draft, October 29, 1962,”
    â€œDon’t stop now,” she said.

9
    How the Pupniks Saved Civilization
    Â 
    As a rookie gal reporter in our nation’s capital, there’s no place more exciting to cover than the White House, home of our Commander-in-Chief. Recent events have had all of us feeling a bit on edge but that hasn’t stopped Mrs. Kennedy from continuing her stunning restoration of the presidential mansion. Already it’s come a long way since the days when Abigail Adams hung laundry in the East Room.
    Last year the First Lady invited me to follow her around during a series of visits spanning eighteen months. The first took place in April of 1961. Mrs. Kennedy’s press secretary, Miss Letitia Baldrige, led me to the beautifully refurbished elliptical Blue Room, where I waited for the First Lady, who was understandably delayed by the innumerable obligations that come with her position as Chief Hostess.

    With a spectacular view of the South Lawn, the French Empire Blue Room, with its suite of gilded furniture and marble-top center table, was the site of Grover Cleveland’s 1886 exchange of wedding vows with the beautiful Frances Folsom, and an appropriate place for cooling my heels. The Clevelands were the last couple before the Kennedys to raise small children in the White House and the oh-so-precious gold-plated miniature carousel I found there, a gift from Charles de Gaulle, demonstrated that it is indeed a long way from Cleveland to Camelot!

    Mrs. Kennedy rushed in, flush with excitement and trailed by her dashing friend and designer to the stars, Oleg Cassini. Mrs. Kennedy, as entrancing as the photographs suggest, and Mr. Cassini were accompanied by a short Spanish man with a cello case, all three weighed down with shopping bags from all the best boutiques.

    â€œMiss Thomas, please forgive me! Saks is a terrible labyrinth. But Oleg and I have conceived of the most
new
look for me today. It’s really too exciting. Oh pardon me, have you met world-famous cellist Pablo Casals?” The cellist greeted me warmly. “Senor Casals joined us for espresso. I insisted he stay on.” Mrs. Kennedy’s White House is indeed a salon to rival any in Europe.

    Just then a beautiful white dog, part husky, pulled up the rear.

    â€œOh, and you must say hello to Pushinka, the latest addition to the family.” The recent gift from Soviet premier Khrushchev to Mrs. Kennedy of Pushinka, the daughter of pioneering space dog Strelka, was rumored to have been a source of some disagreement between the President and First Lady. Dare I