When images of the East Wing demolition began to circulate, Penny Adams looked closely.
She noticed the windows of the office where Connie Stuart, the staff director and press secretary for Pat Nixon, worked. Adams’ eyes moved down the row of windows, settling on one that had inexplicably been left open.
“Oh, my God,” Adams said. It was her former office.
Adams, now 84, worked for the former first lady in the East Wing of the White House for about four years as her radio and television coordinator and eventually her deputy press secretary. She wore many hats in that role — including putting on state dinners and other White House events — and while it has been decades since she worked in the White House, Adams and some of her former colleagues had in recent months taken on a new job: trying to save the East Wing from demolition.
It hadn’t worked.
By now, the East Wing of the White House — where first ladies and their teams worked over the years — has been demolished, making way for President Donald Trump’s planned ballroom.
The pricetag for what Trump has called his “great legacy project” sits at $300 million. The project has drawn criticisms — over the price and relative lack of transparency — from Democratic lawmakers, former White House staffers and preservation groups.
About a month before bulldozers took to the East Wing, Adams and other former Nixon staffers staged a letter-writing campaign to the National Capital Planning Commission.
“Elegant state dinners” have been held in the White House’s State Dining Room, which can seat about 140 people, they noted. The dinners are intimate affairs, they said, and “part of the magic was the experience of being inside the White House.”
“No one wants to be in an adjunct building in a huge crowd with lengthy security protocols,” they said in their September letters, shared with the Southern California News Group.
Besides, “the White House is owned by the American people, and the president is only a temporary occupant who should never be permitted to change it single-handedly.”
Those who worked in the East Wing during the Nixon administration were a close-knit group and mostly women, Adams recalled.
It was Deborah Sloan, a former assistant to the social secretary, who kicked off the letter-writing campaign. Susan Dolibois, also an assistant to the social secretary, joined as well, reported East Wing Magazine, a publication that covers first ladies past and present.
“It was a very small gesture, but we were very committed to figuring out what was going on,” Adams said in an interview with the Southern California News Group.
“We thought maybe we could get a word into those people at the (NCPC) commission that there is some resistance to what’s going on. And we’d like to know more. What are the plans there?”
The NCPC “provides overall planning guidance for federal land and buildings in the (National Capital Region) by reviewing the design of federal and certain local projects, overseeing long-range planning for future development, and monitoring capital investment by federal agencies,” according to its website. It doesn’t, however, “have jurisdiction over site preparation and demolition,” NCPC said in an email to Adams.
It’s understandable, said biographer Heath Hardage Lee, that people are jarred and shocked by the images of the East Wing destruction.
“History has been wiped out, seemingly out of nowhere,” said Lee.
Aside from the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, a bunker meant to shelter presidents during an emergency (Trump was hidden here during protests in early 2020), the East Wing has served as a main entry point for White House visitors and housed first ladies’ offices and staff.
Lee credited Eleanor Roosevelt as the initial first lady who used the East Wing as “an operational center,” holding meetings and press conferences there, and generally working out of the space. First ladies Bess Truman and Mamie Eisenhower used the space in more of a ceremonial capacity, Lee said, before Jackie Kennedy came in and set about preserving the historical integrity of the White House.
It was Rosalynn Carter, though, Lee noted, who “professionalized the East Wing” and formally created the Office of the First Lady in 1977.
But before Carter, there was Nixon, who Lee said “laid the groundwork to expand East Wing operations.”
“You see a huge change under Pat Nixon from the Kennedy and Johnson administrations because she really expands the East Wing staff,” said Lee, author of “The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon,” a biography about the former first lady. “Mrs. Nixon does most of her work out of a desk in the family quarters, as a lot of the first ladies did, but she’s in and out of the East Wing all the time, supervising operations and also working on her signature project of volunteerism.”
The work the first ladies have done in the East Wing is incredibly important, particularly from a diplomacy standpoint, said Lee.
“I like what Betty Ford said about the East Wing. It’s the heart of the White House, whereas the West Wing was the mind of the White House,” Lee said. “You need the two to bring everything together, particularly diplomacy. So much international diplomacy happened because of what happened in the East Wing, through these state dinners planned in the East Wing.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has defended the project, saying it will be paid for by the president and private donors.
“Trust the process,” Leavitt said in a recent press briefing. “This is going to be a magnificent addition to the White House for many years to come.”
The Trump administration has continued to point to other construction projects at the White House over the years, saying the ballroom “continues (a) proud presidential legacy.” In a post online, the White House lays out a timeline that includes the building of the West Wing in 1902 under President Theodore Roosevelt, the construction of the modern Rose Garden by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, President Bill Clinton’s refurbishment of the Executive Mansion in 1993, and Trump’s new tennis pavilion in 2020.
The White House’s website also now details the timeline for the changes to the East Wing as well as highlights other construction projects.
“In due time, the East Wing is going to be more beautiful and modern than ever before, and in addition, there will be a big, beautiful ballroom that can hold big parties and state visits for generations to come,” Leavitt said.
For now, Adams is just left with memories of her time in the East Wing.
There was the time when the president and first lady hosted a large dinner to honor servicemen who had been prisoners of war during the Vietnam War. The dinner, held on May 25, 1973, featured comedian Bob Hope and actors James Stewart and John Wayne. It was the largest dinner in White House history, according to the Nixon Foundation.
There was also the time when Stuart, the press secretary for the first lady, had a shower put into one of the women’s restrooms in the East Wing.
Several staffers, Adams included, lived fairly far from the White House and didn’t have time to work a full shift over on Pennsylvania Avenue, go home to freshen up and change into an evening gown, and get back to the White House in time for a state dinner or other fancy event.
It was a great accommodation, Adams said — except for the time she was using it, and uniformed Secret Service agents bust in, overturning a large trash can, in search of a potential bomb. (Spoiler: No bomb was found.)
“It was such an honor to be working for her (Pat Nixon) and to be in that White House and in the East Wing,” said Adams. “For me, every single day, it was like I was floating on clouds. I worked very hard — we all did — but it was such an honor to be there.”
The demolition of the East Wing happened so quickly, Lee said she hopes enough of it was preserved through photographs and other digital archives.
“You lose a tremendous amount of history and memories” with this project, Lee said. “It happened so fast, I’m not sure how much of those memories have truly been preserved.”
