 President Reagan, Mrs. Reagan, honored guests. Difficult as it may be for us to do, I'd like for all of us just for a minute to forget that we're sitting here in this elegant East Room. Imagine if you will that we're stepping back in time 200 years and then picture men still at work on this great house under the watchful eye of George Washington. The outside walls are still wet and gleaming with a coat of whitewash, not paint, mind you, a very common practice of the day for a most uncommon building. Now among the men who built these walls were a group of very hardy Scotsmen who had been imported from Edinburgh to the United States because the young country lacked skilled laborers. Every day those stoneworkers and masons who worked on the high scaffold were given a ration of one pint of whiskey or one pint of rum by their superintendent. Now whether he gave them the ration before, during, or after work, we're not sure. But at any rate the superintendent believed that it would build resistance as he said and encourage strong bodies. Of course this was based on the assumption that the men would not fall off the scaffold. And since there's no record of any casualties we assume that the Scotsmen readily adapted to the American brand of whiskey. The president's house, as it was called for its first 100 years, was still unfinished when John and Abigail Adams became its first occupants in 1800. The house was cold and damp, there weren't enough logs in the fireplaces, and the main stairway was still unfinished. But in spite of all these inconveniences Mrs. Adams envisioned correctly that this house, as she said, is built for ages to come. Now almost two centuries later the White House Historical Association is publishing a chronicle of that house built for the ages, beginning with events leading up to its construction and carrying forward to the mansion as you see it today. For almost 25 years the White House Historical Association, which incidentally will celebrate its 25th anniversary next month, has been interpreting the historical White House to the American people through a series of publications produced as a public service by the National Geographic Society. Proceeds from the sale of these books through the years have gone toward purchasing antique furnishings and works of art that you see all about you today. The latest being a portrait from life of John Adams now hanging in the blue room. It's not generally known, but Congress doesn't provide funds for such purposes. That funding must come from private sources. The series of books began in 1962 with one called the White House an Historic Guide. Since then more than seven million books in the series have been sold and the association has contributed some six and a half million dollars toward furnishings and paintings in the state and public rooms. Ten years ago the Board of Directors of the Association decided that it would be a useful public service to produce a documentary film on the history of the White House subject of course to the approval and cooperation of the administration then in office. This appeared to be forthcoming and we began to search for a qualified writer to research and prepare the historic background material as a basis for a shooting script. Our search ended with Dr. William Seal who had an outstanding background in historical architectural research. He'd written a number of books on the subject and had participated in the restoration of the Appomattox Courthouse complex and the restoration also of the Governor's Mansions of Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi as well as several state capitals. We engaged Dr. Seal and he promptly said about doing research on the film. He soon found however that there was a serious lack of published historic material on the White House. And the last book on the subject he found was published in 1907. When Dr. Seal reported back to us the directors of our Association decided that a new, updated, and more comprehensive history of the White House from the very beginning should have priority over the film. We believed that such a book would be more significant and would be of greater lasting value to students, historians, and scholars. We asked Dr. Seal with Robert Cole as his researcher and assistant to proceed with the book, which all of us believed would take probably no more than two or three years to write and would be approximately 300 pages in length. However, none of us had any idea of the enormous wealth of important and fascinating material that for the most part had lain dormant for more than 180 years. What has emerged is a two-volume book of some 1300 pages and almost half a million words. It is undoubtedly the most complete documented history ever published on the White House from its inception in 1791 to the second and last complete restoration between 1948 and 1952. And so, as president of the White House Historical Association, it is my distinct honor to present to you the author of this magnificent volume, The President's House, A History, Dr. William Seal. Mr. President, Mrs. Reagan, and friends, before I begin my remarks, I would like to recognize the two men whom this book is dedicated, T. Sutton Jett, former president of the White House Historical Association, and Melvin M. Payne, chairman of the board. Would they please stand? Dr. Payne. The White House history has no two greater friends. Nearly two centuries of life and living linked this house to the founding fathers. All of our presidents, but one, have called the White House home, and that one, George Washington, built it. This was his dream house, a dream house for a nation at that time raw and new and by no means secure. This house and its design, its plan, its details embodies George Washington's vision and wish for the presidency of the United States. And one of the greatest legacies of the White House is that it has remained a dream house, fresh and new for each presidential generation. No house I can think of has let it once so many lives and yet so singular a life. No house I can think of has remained so constantly at the top of things for so long. No house has served such a succession of distinguished masters. And no house has had so much demanded of it by so many. When the White House Historical Association and I first sat down and discussed what this book might be about 10 years ago, maybe a little more, we settled on an architectural history. It was presumptuous, of course, to plan a history book before any research was done. We knew that from the beginning. In writing history, the material naturally determines the shape and to some extent the form of the ultimate work. In this particular material, which was far afield and scattered, architecture itself as it turned out was only a little part. In fact, it proved impossible to separate the subject from a succession of fascinating characters, presidents and their wives, builders, butlers, gardeners, military men, news reporters, aides, secretaries, commissioners of this and that, and, of course, swarms and swarms of politicians. The focus of the book remains the house. The house is the main character. But I found that the story could best be told in terms of people, thus the task enlarged with the blessing of the association. And the result is what you see, a history of the interaction between the house and the individuals in control of it through the years. My sources were numerous and varied. Public records formed the spine. To these were added legions of personal letters, diaries, memoirs, and some interviews. White House documents are surprisingly limited, certainly when compared to the vast material generated by the Congress. Still an association with this place on a high level or even a low level is always a major event for anyone. And until I found out otherwise, I assumed that everyone involved made some sort of record of his reaction and his adventures here. And for some very obvious ones, I'm still looking. The old stones of which this house is made are saturated with human experience and both burdened and enriched by history. I encountered hundreds of characters, lives I like to call them, although my narrative lingers on most of them only briefly. A youthful Maryweather Lewis, the protege of Thomas Jefferson, slept in a corner of this room, that corner as a matter of fact. During the time when the two were planning the Great Lewis and Clark expedition to the West in 1802 and 1803, his room was made out of sailcloth like a tent and didn't go all the way to the ceiling because the eastern was unfinished. He was an outdoorsman who loved to hunt, and he hunted on autumn mornings along a wild and rugged Pennsylvania Avenue, bringing home game to the cook in the Great Kitchen in the basement beneath the entrance hall. President James K. Polk was a little, unsmiling man of very few words. His glamorous dark-eyed wife, Sarah, was displeased with the way people failed to notice him when he entered a crowded room. So she devised a procedure we still see at the White House today. Following a mighty crash of drums, the Marine Band would play Hail to the Chief. Jimmy Polk would march into the room to music and everybody noticed. Sometimes over the years, presidents had a terrible time with criticisms about living in a princely manner at public expense. It was all well and good for the Congress to pay for a full-length portrait of George Washington over here in a kingly pose. He lacks only a crown and an ermine-trimmed robe to complete the picture, but two decades later only when President James Monroe bought a whole lot of regal furnishings for this house in France. The commissioner of public buildings got hauled before a congressional committee of investigation to explain the high cost. One of the pieces was the silver soup terrain you see in the case here on the platform. Commissioner Sam Lane pleaded with the Congress to try to understand that some of these costly purchases may have been costly, but they were permanent, and that was important. Some of this, he said, will last perhaps 20 years. That's a long time here. This terrine and a number of other of those notorious Monroe purchases are still in use here at the White House. There are two other items Rex Scouton has put up here from his curatorial cave, which is made from the old kitchen where Mary Weather Lewis used to take his squirrels and wild birds and other game. The little medicine box over here, to my right, belonged to James Madison. A British sailor stole it the night he and his comrades burned the house down, and his descendants presented it to Franklin D. Roosevelt. The typewriter was Woodrow Wilson's, and he once wrote of this machine, it and I have gone through many thoughts together and many emotions. He did all of his own typing, if you can imagine. The French call such bits and pieces of fact, such close-ups, little history. You will find the president's house abundant in this sort of thing because human anecdotes illuminate best the long history of a very human house. My objective in writing this book was to resurrect the past of the White House through words to do what pictures could not, because we have so few pictures. Distance in time sharpens vision and understanding. The privilege of hindsight should not be abused. All cannot be pure cream. The historian's role is to find more than just a good story. My broadest hope for the president's house is that it will provide a unique perspective here to fore unseen of the changing texture of American life. For though it is the home of the president, this extraordinary place is inescapably a mirror of us all. Thank you. Now, Mr. President, it is my great privilege and pleasure to present to you and Mrs. Reagan on behalf of the White House Historical Association this specially-bound volume for your personal library. Actually, there are two, but they're very heavy, so why don't you be one of the second? I know that you don't have much time for reading this sort now, but perhaps eventually, perhaps at the ranch, you'll have time to read it. I'm sure that both of you will find it very enjoyable having spent such a long period of time in such a historic and beautiful house. Thank you very much. Well, thank you all very much. And thank you, Mr. Breeden and Dr. Seale for these volumes. I see that I have my reading cut out for me. It's wonderful to be here and to celebrate the publishing of Dr. Seale's history, the President's House. Of course, Nancy and I have always thought of it as the people's house, which they've let us rent for a while. This house, of course, is, as you've gathered already, and this course, this is more than a house, and Dr. Seale is right in calling it the main character of his book because it is a place alive with history. It's so easy to imagine, for instance, in this room where I often give my press conferences Abigail Adams hanging out her laundry to dry, or Teddy Roosevelt entertaining his rough writer companions. They were so rough, in fact, that the butler wouldn't allow them to use the front door. I have to admit that sometimes during my press conferences, wish I had them here to help me out. You know, I can't help it. Add one little tidbit and I'm gonna look very through the book to see if it is there. At that time, the president's staff, the executive staff, the cabinet and all, this was also the public rooms for them. And one day, Mrs. Roosevelt, with the six children, said to her husband, as they were arriving for the day's work, the rest of the, not the children, the staff and all, said, if I'm gonna raise six kids in this house, you're gonna get your people out of here. And you know, during Harry Truman's time, an engineering study was done at the White House. The engineers reported back that the only thing holding up the White House was force of habit. As a matter of fact, I delight in telling guests on the second floor above the blue room there in the yellow oval room, that where Harry Truman learned that he was going to have to live somewhere else for a while, was when he came in one day and the piano legs had gone through the floor. Then they moved out. Well, all of this has begun a major renovation which Nancy and I like to feel we're carrying on today. Perhaps you've seen the large sheets of plastic that are covering portions of the exterior. Apparently, there were so many coats of paint on the walls after that whitewash that it was no longer adhering. So we're going section by section, scraping the old paint off and putting on a new coat. It's all part of our effort to leave this historic building maybe just a little bit better than we found it, much as others have done before us. You know, Dr. Seal, I've taken an interest in the progress of these volumes, which I'm sure will become the standard history of the White House. You let me see parts of it as it was being prepared for publication. And I hope you won't mind if I tell one story from the book. President and Mrs. Grant were in Philadelphia in 1876 to open the Centennial Exposition and use the opportunity to acquire a new centerpiece for the table in the state dining room. Dr. Seal writes, the new centerpiece, the Hiawatha fruit stand was large and elaborate, more a sculpture than tableware. Longfellow's romantic Indian was represented in sterling silver, guiding his barge full sail among the water lilies and cattails of a mirror getchie-goomy. The Hiawatha stand caught Mrs. Grant's eye and completely absorbed her with its beauty and nationalistic symbolism. It made its debut on the state dining room table in December of 1876. I had to memorize the Hiawatha poem in my school days and the Hiawatha centerpiece which we'll all see on the buffet table at the reception keeps a little part of the past alive. Both our nation's past and my own. And that's what our custodianship of this great White House is all about, preserving the great inheritance of our nation's past so that we know we're building on sure foundations. When you think about it, this house and its history are like the United States itself. Challenged by wars and foreign aggression, tested by hardship, these United States of America, this great experiment in human liberty has endured and grown stronger. And today, this beautiful house and the long history of its many occupants stands as a living symbol of the democratic ideal of limited government and the peaceful transition of elected leaders. As this book so clearly illustrates, the White House is the symbol of our fondest hope and truest belief that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall never perish from this earth. Now, ladies and gentlemen, Nancy and I look forward to greeting each one of you personally. Hope you can stay for the reception and we'll precede you and meet you again down the hallways on your way to the buffet in the state dining room. Thank you all. God bless you. Thank you.