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The Plump Raisin. Pat's publicity problems were the least of the White House headaches. As the months ticked off, Social Secretary Bess Abell, Distaff Press Secretary Liz Carpenter and their combined staffs of seven became al most totally engrossed in nuptial arrangements, letting routine social functions pretty much run themselves. Mrs. Carpenter coped with staggering demands for invitations and information from all over the world. She also worked out an embargo system and a schedule of minutia-laden releases in order to control the flow of information. Last week's wedding-cake handout was replete with detail, down to the birthplace of Pastry Chef Ferdinand Louvat (Grenoble) and the treatment of each seedless white raisin (soaked until plump) allowed into the cake.
For Luci, the last few months became a blurred montage of interviews and photographs, of last-minute domestic tips from her mother and from Cook Zephyr Wright, of shopping excursions in Manhattan and Washington, of parties and showers, of picking silverware (Old Maryland pattern) and china (Ambassador Limoges). After accompanying her father on a fast one-day swing through Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky late last month, she appeared so wan in public that the White House explained that she was exhausted, not ill. Nonetheless, at a press conference a few days earlier, Luci had proved more than a match for her inquisitors.
Yes, she confirmed, they would both attend the University of Texas, he to study for a master's degree in business administration and she to work on a bachelor's degree "in I don't know what"—and Luci hinted that she might also take courses in typing and shorthand, which her father considers "the two greatest virtues" a woman can have. What would they do for income? "I haven't heard," she said archly, "of a lot of schools that give salaries." Insisting nonetheless that they would support themselves, she confided that her fiance "has pretty much saved up because we haven't been going places, and we feel as though we can make it with what we both have right now." In all probability, Pat will work several hours a day at KTBC, the Johnson family TV station in Austin.
Their first house will be considerably more stylish than the average students' quarters. Luci noted that it has "two skylights, which I find just great, and besides, they save electricity." More specifically, the house at 1105 Heritage Way, of a type that rents for about $165 a month in Austin, is half of a new two-family duplex in one of the city's better residential neighborhoods. The Nugents will have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a cathedral ceiling in the living room, wall-to-wall carpeting in two rooms, an automatic dishwasher in the kitchen, air conditioning throughout, and of course a resident Secret Service man, who may occupy the adjacent house.
Regular Guy. Pat, meanwhile, has reacted stoically to the brouhaha. In his few appearances at public functions with Luci he has displayed studied sang-froid and said exactly what his position called for: virtually nothing. Luci's fiancé, an acquaintance observed, has "a chameleon personality that allows him to fit in anywhere."