Photo by Steven Rubin
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D.C. Confidential
By Ed Dwyer, November-December 2003
Novelist and satirist Christopher Buckley delivers the dish on hidden Washington
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The night Christopher Buckley arrived in Washington to begin work as a
speechwriter for newly elected Vice President George H. W. Bush he got lost.
"I had the top down on my Volkswagen Rabbit, and I had no idea where I
was," he recalls. "When suddenly I looked up and there was the
gleaming dome of the U.S. Capitol. It was like a scene in a movie, and I still
get a lump in my throat every time I think about that moment."
Like most who come to work for the government, he figured his stay in our
nation's capital would be brief. Instead, after laboring for two years in
the White House and marrying a CIA officer ("She still refuses to tell me
what she did there"), Buckley made Washington his home—and the
setting for several of his scathing political satires. This year's quirky
Baedeker, Washington Schlepped Here: Walking in the Nation's Capital
(Crown Journeys), sealed his credentials as a genuine D.C. insider. We asked
the urbane Buckley for the lowdown on his favorite hometown haunts.
Where Adams Fell
"Let's start with one of my favorite
plaques in a city full of them. You'll find it in National Statuary Hall,
the original House of Representatives chamber. It marks the spot where John
Quincy Adams, who had been a president and then a nine-term congressman,
collapsed while giving a speech in 1848 denouncing President Polk's Mexican
War. He died soon after of a cerebral hemorrhage. It's been too long since
we lost a congressman this way."
“The National Air and Space Museum is the Vatican of flight.”
The Artist's Lady
"The Great Rotunda of the Capitol
never fails to take my breath away. Peer up 180 feet at Constantino
Brumidi's fresco 'Apotheosis of Washington.' Washington had long
since ascended to Olympus by the time it was painted in 1865, and it's just
as well; a modest man, he probably would have taken one look at it and had it
wallpapered over. If you've brought your binoculars with you, check out the
woman with the sword and shield hovering beneath the godlike Washington:
It's rumored to be Brumidi's mistress."
Career Suicide
"Located next to the White House, the Old
Executive Office Building (renamed the Eisenhower Executive Office Building
last year) is my favorite building in Washington. Finished in 1888, it's a
gaudy old pile, technically French Second Empire in design. This is where my
office was, in a room with a majestic view of an interior courtyard parking
lot. The OEOB was the creation of an English immigrant architect named Alfred
B. Mullett. Poor old Mullett worked 17 years building his masterpiece only to
end up suing the government. He felt overworked and underpaid. The government
told him to get lost, and Mullett shot himself. His ghost is supposed to wander
the two miles of corridors, but I never saw it, even though I spent many late
nights in the place."
Lincoln's Sign
"I always feel at once proud and humbled
when I go to the Lincoln Memorial and reflect on what he accomplished. As it
happens, Daniel Chester French, who sculpted the magnificent statue of Lincoln,
knew and admired Edward Miner Gallaudet, the son of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet,
founder of the first institute of learning for the deaf. And Lincoln signed the
legislation that chartered Gallaudet College. Look at the hands on the
sculpture. Some say that his left hand spells out in sign language the letter
A; his right hand spells the letter L."
Everybody Goes to Franco's
"The big testosterone set in
town tends to congregate at The Palm. But the place I go to clear my head is
Café Milano on Prospect Street in Georgetown. I have my epic lunches
with my buddy and fellow writer Christopher Hitchens there; epic defined as
lunch begins at 12:30 and ends at 7. It's run by Franco Nuschese, and
it's an absolutely delightful platform to watch the parade go by because
absolutely everybody goes there. It's the Rick's Café of
Washington."
Read Them and Weep
"I was present on November 13, 1982, the
day the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated. At the periphery of the crowd,
I saw a marine, his chest crowded with decorations, in ceremonial dress. He
turned away from the Wall and put a white-gloved hand to the bridge of his nose
and wept. That moment has stayed with me forever. If you have ever stood before
it and seen the 58,234 names etched on the two walls, no explanation is needed.
If you haven't, no explanation will suffice."
Pei Dirt
"If the world ever becomes too much with you and
you find yourself reaching for the pill bottle or the noose, head to the I. M.
Pei-designed East Building of the National Gallery of Art and sit awhile
underneath Alexander's Calder's gigantic mobile. It just sort of makes
you go 'Ahhhh.' Do try to avoid the Andy Warhol self-portrait. I came
upon it accidentally once and fell into a severe melancholy for several
hours."
Fright Castle
"A confusion of towers, turrets, and
pinnacles, the Smithsonian Institution Building (a.k.a. 'The Castle')
is the sort of building we call 'venerable' without actually wanting to
live in it. Then again, I have a rule about living in buildings that have
sarcophagi in the foyer. This is where Institution benefactor James Smithson,
an English scientist who never visited the United States, is buried. There are
rumors that his ghost gets up every now and then and sort of walks around and
scares French tourists and such. Ask the man behind the desk about
Smithson's ghost. When he rolls his eyes and looks at you as if you've
just escaped from St. Elizabeth's mental hospital across the river, remind
him that technically he works for you. That always works with government
employees."
Fly Me to the Moon
"The National Air and Space Museum is the
Vatican of flight and reputedly the most popular museum in the country. No
wonder. You look up, and there's the Spirit of St. Louis, the Apollo 11
command module Columbia, and the Wright Brothers' 1903 Flyer. What they
don't tell you in the brochures is that it was built on the site of one of
Washington's largest and most successful bawdy houses during the Civil War.
Yes, one way or the other, this particular space has always been about sending
man to the moon."
Tomb with a View
"I don't want to give the impression
that I'm too terribly morbid, but I've spent a lot of time wandering
around the graves in Arlington. It is a place of great tranquility; a place
where you can be at peace with mortality. Look for a marble slab in front of
the Robert E. Lee mansion, just at the crest of the hill that slopes down
toward the Kennedy grave and beyond to the Potomac. This is the final resting
place of Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the Frenchman who designed America's
new capital city—and without a doubt absolutely the best view in town. If
the dunderheads at Arlington refuse to bury me here with full military honors,
I may have my executors sneak in at night and scatter my ashes next to
L'Enfant's mortal remains."
Ed Dwyer is a contributing editor to AARP The Magazine.
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