WASHINGTON — Every detail of the recent state dinner for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was orchestrated and touched with sophistication one would expect from the White House.
Before the dessert course, waiters executed an extraordinary maneuver: They removed all the vermeil eagle place-card holders from the tables so that guests would not be tempted to swipe them.
Such is the reality of entertaining in the White House. Despite the elegant setting, or maybe because of it, there’s always a risk items might disappear.
Most of the pilfering is minor: plush towels embossed with the presidential seal, or cheap spoons the White House rents from a caterer for large parties.
Other items are pricier, including the place-card holders, small silver spoons and cut-glass pieces dangling from sconces in the women’s washroom.
On Air Force One, everything from tumbler glasses to pillowcases have been taken by reporters, staff and lawmakers.
The “stealing” is not new and might be reflective of the enduring high regard in which people hold the presidency.
“This has been an issue since the White House opened and John Adams began entertaining people,” said William Bushong, chief historian of the White House Historical Association. “The main temptation is the fact that you want to have something that is a memento, that gives you a connection to that experience you had in the house.”
To curb the exodus of odds and ends, the White House staff has adopted coping techniques over the years. For instance, after pieces of flatware engraved with the words “The President’s House” kept vanishing after then-first lady Laura Bush hosted an event, she wrote in her memoir, “we used it only in the private dining room upstairs.”
One-percenters are not above taking a few knickknacks. Oscar winner Meryl Streep is a repeat offender. She first ‘fessed up to pocketing hand towels when she visited the White House as a Kennedy Center honoree in 2011. Three years later she was back again in the ladies’ washroom — this time as a Presidential Medal of Freedom winner — when another guest started eyeing the towels stamped with a presidential seal.
“Go ahead, take one, I already put one in my purse,” Streep told the woman, in a conversation confirmed by the actress through a spokeswoman.
Television personality Barbara Walters became so notorious for swiping washroom towels that in 2012, the first family sent her a basket of tchotchkes from the residence, including a spoon.
“It’s always just a tremendous joy to have her here, as she tries to steal various items from the White House,” Michelle Obama told ET several months later. “Barbara, you can take what you want, whenever you want.”
