The desk in the Vice President's Room of the United States Capitol, colloquially known as the Wilson desk and previously called the McKinley-Barkley desk, is a large mahogany partners desk used by U.S. presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in the Oval Office as their Oval Office desk. One of only six desks used by a President in the Oval Office, it was purchased in 1898 by Garret Augustus Hobart, the 24th vice president of the United States, for the Vice President's Room in the United States Capitol.
Nixon chose this desk for the Oval Office because of his mistaken belief that former president Woodrow Wilson had used it there. In 1971 Nixon had five recording devices secretly installed in the Wilson desk by the United States Secret Service. These recordings constitute some of the Watergate tapes. Upon Jimmy Carter's ascent to the presidency, he moved the Wilson desk back to the Vice President's Room, preferring to work at the Resolute desk.
Nixon referred to the desk in 1969 in his "silent majority" speech, stating: "Fifty years ago, in this room and at this very desk, President Woodrow Wilson spoke words which caught the imagination of a war-weary world."Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon. United States Government Printing Office. Washington. 1971. p. 909. Retrieved December 3, 2020. In actuality, the desk was never used by Wilson in the Oval office. Nixon was informed by one of his speech writers, William Safire, that the desk was actually used by Vice President Henry Wilson during President Ulysses S. Grant's administration. This is also untrue since the desk was purchased 23 years after the former's death.
Design and markings
The Wilson desk is a mahogany double-pedestal desk with ornate carving.The Vice President's Room. Page 6. U.S. Senate Commission on Art by the Office of Senate Curator. Senate Publication 106–7. Retrieved October 12, 2011.Vice President's Ceremonial Office. C-SPAN. Program ID 192302-5. JUNE 2, 2006. Retrieved November 30, 2020. The high desk has a workspace which is wide and deep."Memo, Frank Pagnotta to Robert Hartmann" Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Handwriting File, retrieved January 25, 2017 The knee-hole extends all the way through the desk and both pedestals contain drawers on both the front and back of the units. During its time in the White House the desk featured a glass top which was placed to protect its work surface.Nixon. The Virgin Islands Daily News. January 23, 1969. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
The desk bears a property decal from the sergeant at arms of the United States Senate and is numbered S-4966.President - Oval Office Desk, 3/75. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. John Marsh Files. Box 28. Retrieved November 30, 2020. Within the kneehole area there is a small wooden box affixed to the desk where a button was installed that allowed Richard Nixon to turn on recording devices. The button no longer exists but its location is still apparent.
According to the book Presidential Anecdotes by Paul F. Boller, Nixon enjoyed working in the Oval Office with his feet propped up on the Wilson desk and, in spite of the glass cover, Nixon's "...heels began leaving scars on the top of it."Boller, Paul F. Presidential Anecdotes. pp. 328. Oxford University Press. 1996. Someone at the White House noticed the marring of the historic desk and, while Nixon was out of the United States, had it refinished. When Nixon returned and saw what had been done he supposedly stated, "Dammit. I didn't order that. I want to leave my mark on this place just like other Presidents!"
History
Garret Augustus Hobart, the 24th vice president of the United States, served from 1897 to 1899 under President William McKinley. While in office he purchased and ordered many lavish furnishings for the Vice President's Room of the United States Capitol (room S–214), then the official office for the vice president. The furnishings either purchased or ordered by Hobart included Persian rugs, mohair carpeting, Neapolitan silk curtains, "a silk velour slumber robe" to match the velour cushions on his office sofa, a $600 () floor clock from Harris and Schafer jewelers, and a large mahogany desk, now known as the Wilson desk.Hatfield, Mark O. with the Senate Historical Office. Vice Presidents of the United States 1789-1993 : Garret A. Hobart (1897-1899). . U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 289-293. 1997. Retrieved November 2, 2011.
The desk was likely ordered in 1898 from W. B. Moses and Sons by Hobart.Desk, Flat-Top. United States Senate. Retrieved November 30, 2020. According to the United States Senate Curator's Office, W. B. Moses and Sons was, at the time, "the largest exclusively retail furniture, carpet, and drapery business in the nation."Senate Reception Room Benches.United States Senate. Retrieved November 30, 2020. W. B. Moses and Sons also provided other furniture for the Senate around this time including eight benches for the United States Senate Reception Room.
Over the next few decades the desk remained in the Vice President's Room and continued to be used by each Vice President of the United States there. The Vice President's Room saw many ceremonial functions, caucuses, press briefings, and meetings during this time. On June 4, 1919, Vice President Thomas R. Marshall signed the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on this desk, which granted women the right to vote, and in 1937 Vice President John Nance Garner set aside April 6 as National Army Day by signing a resolution on the Wilson desk.
Alben W. Barkley, the U.S. vice president from 1949 to 1953, asserted in his 1954 autobiography that the desk in the Senate office for the vice president was once used by presidents McKinley and Woodrow Wilson, referring to it as the "Mc-Kinley-Wilson desk".
In 1953, Richard Nixon succeeded Barkley as vice president and used this desk throughout his tenure, believing likewise it had been previously used by presidents McKinley and Wilson. Nixon was an admirer of Woodrow Wilson and believed this desk was used by him during his term as president. He had traced the provenance to President Wilson based on an assumption that it was a desk originally used by McKinley but withdrawn after his assassination; afterwards, the desk was asserted to have been used by President Wilson for his two terms before finally being moved to the vice president's office.
A 1974 document created by the White House Office of the Curator states in 1965 the Vice Presidents Room was handed over to Hubert Humphrey who refurbished the space and had the desk placed in storage for the four years he used the room.White House - Oval Office. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. Series: Sheila Weidenfeld's General Subject Files, 1974 - 1977. p. 10. Retrieved December 2, 2020. This official accounting of the history of the desk is in conflict with a 1963 television interview with Lady Bird Johnson where she shows the desk in then vice president Lyndon B. Johnson's office at his ranch in Texas.The Johnsons of Johnson City (1963). KPRC-TV. 27:12 - 27:32. 1963. Retrieved November 16, 2021.
In this interview Lady Bird discusses how the desk ended up at the ranch. She explains the desk, "was used in the Capitol for a great many years, then his office force went in together and bought it for him when it was declared surplus available." Richard Reeves also states in his book President Nixon: Alone in the White House that Johnson had the desk shipped to Texas to use in his office there.Reeves. p. 27.
James Davies, the gardener at the Johnsons' house in Texas, stated in an oral history of the office, within the 1987 Historic Structure Report of the building, that when Johnson was inaugurated as vice president a new desk was moved into the office, and a different desk was moved in when he became president.Bearss, Edwin C. "Historic Structure Report: Texas White House, Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, Texas". Division of Conservation, Southwest Cultural Resources Center, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. 1986. p. 23. Retrieved November 16, 2021. This recalling of desks is in conflict with a picture the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum has of Johnson sitting at the desk in his office on April 17, 1965, which was after his second inauguration.LBJ Library, @LBJLibrary. "Wherever LBJ was is where work was. But, it looks like one of the beagles wasn't too into #TakeYourDogToWorkDay. Sleeping symbol Face with tears of joy Camera President Johnson works in his office at the LBJ ranch as one of his beagles sleeps under his desk, April 17, 1965." Twitter. June 22, 2018. Retrieved November 16, 2021. In 1967 the General Services Administration refinished a desk and chair in Johnson's office at his ranch. It is unclear which desk this was.Expenditure of Federal Funds in Support of Presidential Properties. United States Congress. House. Government Operations Committee. 1973. pp. 419-420. Retrieved November 16, 2021.
On January 20, 1969, when he became president, Nixon called then-Senate minority leader Everett Dirksen requesting the "Wilson desk" from the Capitol. The desk was placed on loan to the White House, was returned to Washington from Texas, and became the Oval Office desk for his presidency. It was known at that point as the McKinley-Barkley desk.
Nixon had a secret audio recording system installed in the Wilson desk in February 1971. The president's offices in the White House, Camp David, and the Old Executive Office Building all had hidden microphones installed by the United States Secret Service. Some of the recordings created by this system make up the Watergate tapes, a series of secret tape recordings revealed to exist during the 1973-74 Watergate scandal.History of the White House tapes. Nixon's refusal to release the tapes formed one of the article of impeachment against him.
There were seven microphones in total installed in the Oval Office, one on either side of the fireplace and five located within the Wilson desk. These microphones, as well as recording devices in the Cabinet Room, were all wired to central mixers and recorders in "an old locker room in the White House basement." Not long after April 9, 1973, a switch was installed in the desk to allow Nixon to turn the microphones on and off at will. Previously they turned on automatically whenever someone began talking.Reeves. p. 593. A total of 502 tapes were recorded on these microphones, as well as two by the Oval Office fireplace, while the system was in existence, between February 16, 1971, and July 12, 1973.Nixon Secret White House Recordings: Collection Specifications. Miller Center of Public Affairs. University of Virginia. Retrieved December 5, 2020.
Throughout Nixon's presidency he referred to the Wilson desk hundreds of times in official speeches, such as the "silent majority" speech, and in talks with high ranking visitors. During official White House tours, guides wrongly told of how Woodrow Wilson used the desk.Safire, William. Before the Fall: an inside view of the pre-Watergate White House. Pages 104-106. Transaction Publishers, 2005. This misconception was first discovered to be untrue by an assistant curator at the White House. This assistant curator came to yet another incorrect conclusion about who had previously used the desk. This curator wrongly stated that the desk was not used by Woodrow Wilson, but instead by Vice President Henry Wilson, under President Ulysses S. Grant's administration. The assistant curator informed Cecilia Bellinger, a chief researcher in the writing operation at the White House, about the mistake. Belinger in turn told William Safire, one of Nixon's speech writers. It fell to Safire to inform Nixon about the mistake in the desk's provenance.