AMERICAN NOTES: White House Christmas

Americans rarely get a close-up look inside the Executive Mansion. Harry Truman showed television viewers around the newly renovated White House in 1952; since then, Jacqueline Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson and Tricia Nixon have taken the nation on similarly memorable televised tours. This Christmas season, CBS cameramen and reporters were allowed into the secluded second-floor family living quarters to record White House preparations for the holidays. Viewers will see the Nixons’ private tree; they will watch as Son-in-Law Eddie Cox is welcomed for his first Christmas at the White House, and get an unusual peek into the First Family’s album of Christmases past. Most remarkable, however, is the spectacle of a nattily dressed Richard Nixon romping on the sitting-room floor with his dogs, King Timahoe, an Irish setter, Vicky, a gray miniature poodle and Pasha, a Yorkshire terrier. The President, doubtless mindful of the outcry when his predecessor tugged on canine ears, scrupulously confined his gestures of affection toward King Timahoe to playful pats.