E. S. Turner's review of Upstairs at the White House: My life with the First Ladies by J. B. West and Mary Lynn Kotz and I Never Danced at the White House by Art Buchwald was published in the TLS for February 14, 1975.

The Chief Usher of the White House, J. B. West, had just "eased out" of his job a redundant specialist in ice sculpture whose work as a "platter prettier-upper" had failed to entrance Mrs Kennedy. Soon afterwards the apprehensive First Lady asked Mr West to persuade the staff to sign a pledge not to write about their experiences in the presidential service. When the press sniffed out this enlargement of executive privilege, a worried President came to Mr West. "I want you to help me", he said. "This 'pledge' business is causing a lot of trouble. Would you take the blame for it?" Mr West did so without demur.

Evidently no pledge of secrecy is exacted from chief ushers, whose post curiously combines the functions of lord steward, general manager and receptionist. The first chief usher of the line published his reminiscences of the executive mansion, but Mr West's immediate predecessor refused, in his own words, to "kiss and tell". Mr West kissed the widowed Mrs Kennedy and tells us about it.

This venture into Upstairs, Downstairs territory should have been put through a winnowing machine to expel the chaff. It strives for dignity but keeps slipping into lackeyish detail. We are told who rinsed out Mrs Eisenhower's stockings and where; we learn that Margaret Truman always washed her own hair; and that President Eisenhower had an ex-soldier to hold out his undershorts so that he could step into them. Truly these are the footnotes to the footnotes of history. When it rises above the dog stains on the carpet the book gives an acceptable account of the tastes and characteristics of the First Ladies from 1941 to 1969. It describes their campaigns of redecoration, their quirks of housekeeping and their styles in entertaining. Under Mrs Roosevelt, haphazardly invited guests turned the White House into Liberty Hall. Alexander Woollcott (The Man Who Came to Dinner) came for two days and stayed two weeks. In 1941 arrived Winston Churchill, who tried out all the beds before taking the Blue Suite. He sat about naked in his room in front of the servants and in this state was prepared to receive President Roosevelt: but "the President quickly backed out into the hall until Mr Churchill could get something on".

Much of the detail reads as if invented by a satirist. Guests were (and are) entertained by the Air Force Strolling Strings. The Marine Band (which has a "rock combo") was ordered to sing a song, "Arrivederci Tish", specially written by Mrs Kennedy, for a social secretary's farewell. Mrs Johnson hated to miss Gunsmoke on television, so the Army Signal Corps videotaped the programme when she was unable to watch it, and it was later re-run for her on her bedroom television set. In the Second World War army engineers urged that the White House be painted black to make it less conspicuous, but were told to forget it.

There are good stories to reward the persevering reader. President Johnson took a mouthful of meat at a banquet and called to his guests: "Don't anybody touch it. It's spoiled." Among those who tasted the dish downstairs, in the line of duty, was the Chief Usher. It was Tournedos Rossini, or filet of beef with pate de foie in the centre. Back to the President went the message: "It's supposed to taste like that."

Art Buchwald in I Never Danced at the White House mentions the Air Force Strolling Strings and must wish that he had thought of them first. One of his 120 reprinted pieces is entitled "Servants' Memoirs Are Worth Millions". How one would like to read him on chief ushers. His accounts of purported events and conversations in the White House make splendid burlesque. Too often columns syndicated to hundreds of newspapers are dull and trite: why are Mr Buchwald's so very good, so very often? He achieves his effects within a span of 500 words. That leaves no room for self-indulgence, or colourful word-spinning in the Perelman manner. Dialogue is Mr Buchwald's favourite form. He uses the working humorist's familiar tricks of inversion and extrapolation, but does so with a skill which makes the pared-down result look effortless. Inevitably many of these items are about the Watergate affair, now an exhausted seam for mirth; but Mr Buchwald is very rewarding on the subject of America's self-obsessed and thankless young, determined to bum around until they find themselves.

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