STYLE WHITE HOUSE DETAIL

LINDA FAULKNER’S work in public relations at Neiman-Marcus was demanding, sure. She had deadlines and commitments without number. And a good thing she did. How else could she have prepared herself for a job in which the slightest miscue might embarass not only her but her boss-the President of the United States? As Deputy Social Secretary for the White House, Linda lived with constant pressure. She not only survived, but thrived.

“We were elated when she got it,” remembers Keith Nix, vice president of public relations for Neiman-Marcus and Linda’s immediate boss. “She had two interviews and we lovingly went through the process with her. Everyone from Stanley Marcus on down wished her marvelous luck. This office has been a launching pad for many careers, but Linda going to the White House is our biggest success story to date.”

People find it gratifying to know they have a friend in the White House, and even more gratifying to be able to boast about it.

But what, exactly, was Linda Faulkner doing at the White House? Well, at one point she was lunching with Madam Sadat and Barbara Walters; at another, her breath was taken away by meeting Cary Grant; at still others, she was busy massaging her aching feet after spending hours in high heels walking on marble floors while supervising a state function. Most of the time, she was working 11-, 12- or 16-hour days under the kind of pressure that eventually takes its toll.

Lessons learned the hard way brought it home very early to Linda that “what constitutes no more than a simple mistake in a normal office takes on the proportions of a disaster when it impacts the lives of the First Family.” Upon their shoulders rests much of the nation’s prestige and dignity. Anything that detracts from that prestige serves to reduce the stature of the presidency in the eyes of the nation and the stature of the nation in the eyes of the world. Pressure, therefore, increases in direct proportion to expectation. And from no other institution do Americans expect as much as they do from the White House.

For those who work there, this translates into a regimen in which attention to the most minute detail preoccupies daily life. Events such as state dinners are planned months in advance; finely balanced guest lists drawn up; seating arrangements worked out by the strictest protocol, invitations penned by meticulous hands in the calligrapher’s office; menus anguished over; entertainers booked, briefed and rehearsed; the evening’s every moment timed down to the last step and second as if it were a parade ground exercise-all in an effort to eliminate the unexpected-the random happening that could give offense to a foreign dignitary or conspire to make the president himself lookfoolish. For a visit by a head of state, arrangements eventually unfold like this:

7:15 Advance party of the visiting Head of State congregate in the Yellow Oval Room on second floor and are welcomed by the president and first lady.

7:27 President and first lady take the elevator to ground floor.

7:30 President and first lady greet arriving head of state at North Portico. Press takes photographs. Group takes elevator back up to second floor.

7:40 Guests leave in reverse order of protocol, descend by elevator to East Room on first floor and form line in correct order of protocol.

7:45 President and head of state descend to first floor by Grand Staircase. Marines Band plays Ruffles and Flourishes and Hail to the Chief. Photographs.

7:50 Receiving line begins in East Room

8:15 Dinner (four courses in European style with salad following entree, but served with exclusively American wines).

9:15 Presidential toast in honor of visitors.

9:25 Response from visiting head of state.

9:40 Adjourn into Color Rooms (Red, Green, Blue) for informal conversation over coffee and liqueurs.

10:00 Assemble in East Room for evening’s entertainment.

10:30 Entertainment concludes, performers thanked.

10:35 President and first lady escort head of state down to North Portico.

10:40 Head of state departs.

10:45 President and first lady begin the dancing and champagne (American) is served.

11:00 Presidential couple retire to private quarters.

11:30 Guests depart.



NOTHING, BUT NOTHING, is left to chance.

Depriving chance of any opportunity was Linda’s forte. “I don’t know what I would have done without her,” says Gahl Hodges, who took over as social secretary two years into the administration. “She saved me from some dreadful moments. Her attention to detail is meticulous. She considers everything from where the cars will be parked to where the sun will be. When I was trying to create an event, she would always come up with obstacles and it would drive me crazy. But you’d always have to consider it because she was right.”

Linda had not, of course, arrived at the White House porch with these skills neatly packed in her luggage, ready to be unfolded and shownoff. Those first weeks of 1981, she recalls, were “like being a college freshman again: enthusiasm, excitement and fear all at the same time.”

Because of the altogether unfamiliar world with which she was confronted daily, Linda was compelled to develop that discriminating, almost ruthless eye for which her employers were so grateful. It was a world governed by “considerations of etiquette,” by considerations of “form and tradition,” by Mrs. Reagan’s own insistence on standards of “decorum and graciousness.” In short, a world where spontaneity makes people nervous.

If something is not planned, it may not be possible to control it; if it cannot be controlled, it might be embarrassing; if it is embarrassing, it is not welcome. Its intrusion is a signal for the stomach to churn, the eyes to roll and the brain to yield to apoplexy. It’s fascinating, then, to realize that Linda’s most vivid memories of her White House days are of those times when Spontaneity (forever accompanied by Possible Disaster) came a-calling.

Consider the luncheon in honor of Madam Sadat, who in the days before her husband’s assassination was in Washington to open an Egyptian art exhibit. Mrs. Reagan had requested a small, intimate luncheon for Madam Sadat, her companion, and a few distinguished guests. “The same day,” recalls Linda, “the president had a luncheon for women in the administration to which Muffie Brandon (then social secretary) was invited, so she turned to me and said, ’You’re in charge.’ We were to serve drinks in the Blue Room and then the meal in the Red Room. When Mrs. Reagan ushered her guests in to lunch, we were horrified to see that one of the seats was empty. A woman from Philadelphia had not turned up. Peter McCoy (Mrs. Reagan’s chief of staff) took one look at me and pointed to the chair. I said, ’No, I can’t.’ ’You’ll have to . . .’ “

But she did, and found herself seated between Nancy Kissinger and Barbara Walters, across the table from Millicent Fen-wick, Madam Sadat and a smiling, understanding First Lady.

The conversation centered on “the breakdown of morals in our society and the education of today’s youth,” Linda says but she also remembers “a lot of humor, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.”

Her delight reached a peak when, upon finishing lunch with the President, Muffie Brandon came out, and took in at a glance what had happened. As soon as the guests had left, she made me go and write down everything I could remember about the conversation. [I wrote down that] we talked about the circumstances of Madam Sadat’s courtship, because she had been so young. But she knew what she wanted and went after it. It was the sort of thing women would talk about.”

And what of Linda’s own contribution? “I remember making a couple of comments to Nancy Kissinger, but as far as interjecting into the main conversation, no, I didn’t. After all, I can hear myself talking any time.”

Another time, spontaneity arrived on the tails of Marvin Hamlisch. The occasion was a “private” dinner party that the Reagans were giving for Britain’s Princess Margaret and a few of her friends. Mr. Hamlisch was to perform on the piano. The day before the event, Linda was “walking through” the following night’s arrangements with the artist’s agent when he announced that Marvin intended to do a little routine he called Song Titles. This involved, much to Linda’s dismay, “audience participation,” an unheard-of danger that contained all sorts of potential for embarrassment, especially with the British, who are reknowned for their reserve. Linda quickly voiced her objections, had her fears confirmed by her colleagues, and knocked the idea on the head. Mr. Ham-lisch would have to rethink his repertoire.

The next night, dinner was over, coffee and liqueurs had been served, and the distinguished group was seated in front of the piano awaiting the entertainment when the agent reappeared with the news that Ham-lisch had thought about the situation and decided to do Song Titles anyway. “There was nothing we could do,” Linda still gasps. “It was going to happen.” And when it did? “In all the time I was there, I never saw or heard laughter like it.”

Hamlisch began by explaining to the guests that he had been asked not to do what he was about to, and that if it went wrong, it was not the fault “of the people in charge.” He then suggested to his audience that they either participate or stay there all night. A British voice immediately piped up and set the tone with the title Will He Run? which started everyone laughing because, although the president hadn’t announced his intention to seek another term, everyone knew he would. From that point on, Hamlisch’s brilliant extemporizing gave him total control, and prompted Linda to admit that she had been overly concerned.

Embarrassment is one thing; danger is another. Linda wasn’t alone in her concern when, during a speech by the president concluding a ceremony for the Special Olympics (involving the mentally retarded), a tall young man suddenly got up and began to advance on Reagan. Secret Service agents were immediately alert to a potentially dangerous situation. (This was after the Hinkley assassination attempt.) But the young man had nothing more brutal on his mind than to treat the President to a great big hug. Everyone, including Reagan, was deeply moved by the young man’s instinctive affection. “It was,” Linda says, “the high point of the whole day.”

What all these recollections have in common is a happy ending. You won’t hear of the Washington depicted by novelists such as Gore Vidal or Joseph Heller from Linda Faulkner. Her experiences have left her neither cynical nor sarcastic about White House life. Although she realized that “like any other large office with its different levels of power, turf battles sometimes flared up,” her days in Washington were enjoyable and marred not at all by the long knives popularly associated with high political life, even on its social side.

Not even the unrelenting formality got her down. “When you’re backstage, you’re okay. During the large dinner parties, we sat in the serving room, off the State Dining Room. We were served our meal just like the guests, but we saw the hustle and bustle as the waiters rushed back and forth; we saw all the beautiful dishes and desserts before they were sent out. We got to see the informal side of things, and I never did feel that the formality was stifling.”

But it was exhausting. “I was always tired at the end of the day. I never had any energy left over to party or go out on the town. I probably could have gotten more involved with activities at the Kennedy Center, for instance, but I turned down the opportunities because I wanted to conserve my energy. It was something I willingly accepted.”

Today, Linda is back in Dallas, where she’s launched her own public relations firm. The office walls at Linda Faulkner Enterprises are decorated with photographs of her days in the White House, and on her desk is a jar of jellybeans bearing the presidential seal. Why did she choose to give up the White House? Gahl Hodges understood: “Three years in this place is plenty. Linda enjoyed her time here, but she’d done it. I think she’d grown as much as she was going to grow. The social secretary is bound by restrictions and limitations on one’s creativeness, and when one realizes that, it can be frustrating. Linda is highly creative, and it was time for her to take on a new challenge. There are no bounds on her creativeness with her new business.”

An ancient Persian proverb says: “Luck is infatuated with efficiency.” If that’s true, then Linda can look forward to being lucky again.