Wilson desk

The Wilson desk is a large mahogany desk used by 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 between 1897 and 1899 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.

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." In actuality, the desk was never used by Woodrow 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 of the United States Henry Wilson during President Ulysses S. Grant's administration. This also appears to be untrue, since the desk wasn't ordered until 1897 or later, more than 22 years after Henry Wilson's death. The "Wilson Desk" appears to be a misnomer, as it has never been continuously used by anyone with the last name of "Wilson."

Design and markings

The Wilson desk is a double-pedestal desk built of mahogany. Its workspace is 58 1/4 inches by 80 3/4 inches and it is 31 inches high. It has drawers in both pedestals, and the knee-hole extends all the way through the desk. During its time in the White House a glass top was used on top of the desk. This sheet of glass covered the whole workspace of the desk.

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." 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 furnishing 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.

The desk which Hobart bought remained in the Vice President's Room and continued to be used by each Vice President until 1969, including the future presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and by Nixon himself. When Nixon became president the desk was placed on loan to the White House, and became the Oval Office desk for his presidency. Nixon took a liking to the desk during his terms as Vice President because he was under the incorrect impression that it was used by Woodrow Wilson during his term as President.

During February 1971, Nixon had a secret audio recording system installed in the Wilson Desk. 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, and some of the recordings created by this system make up the Watergate tapes. 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.

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. 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 enlightened Cecilia Bellinger, a chief researcher in the writing operation at the White House, about the mistake who in turn told William Safire, one of Nixon's speech writers. It fell to Safire to inform Nixon about the mistake in the provenance of the Wilson Desk.

Safire was chosen to inform the President of the issue because he was, "the most frequent Wilson-quoter on the writing staff." Safire wrote a memo to Nixon explaining that it was Henry Wilson, not Woodrow Wilson, who sat at the desk, and listed a litany of character traits and virtues of the other "Wilson." Safire heard nothing back from the White House about the memo. The only recognition Nixon's White House gave to their major mistake in the provenance of the desk was in 1969 when on page 909 of that year's edition of Public Papers of the Presidents there is a footnote to Nixon's "Silent majority" speech which states, "Later research indicated that the desk had not been Woodrow Wilson's as had long been assumed but was used by Vice President Henry Wilson during President Grant's Administration." This footnote itself is also in need of a footnote as the Wilson desk was not ordered until 1897 or later by Garret Augustus Hobart, more than 22 years after Wilson's death and therefore Henry Wilson could not have used the desk.

After Nixon's resignation from office in 1974, the desk remained in the Oval Office throughout Gerald Ford's tenure as President. Ford changed much in the Oval Office including artworks, rugs, window treatments, and he even oversaw the removal of less than public entrances into the room, but the Wilson desk was one of the few things he left in place. The desk stayed in the Oval Office until 1977 when Jimmy Carter became President of the United States. Carter replaced it with the more widely known Resolute desk. The Wilson desk was returned to the Vice President's Room at this time, where it has remained since.

During the two time periods the Wilson desk was located in the Vice President's Room, before and after it was loaned to the White House, no Vice President has had the last name of "Wilson." Because of this, the "Wilson desk" has never had a "Wilson" use it on a regular basis, but a marble bust of Henry Wilson, the Vice President mistakenly believed to have used the Wilson desk, does sit in the Vice President's Office near the Wilson Desk. This bust, commissioned in 1885, "served as the genesis for the
Senate's Vice Presidential Bust Collection."

Timeline
Below is a table with the location of the desk from its purchase by Garret Augustus Hobart to present day and each tenant of the desk.

Replicas
The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, located in Yorba Linda, California features a replica of the Wilson Desk as part of their full-scale replica of President Richard Nixon's Oval Office, offering guests an immersive exploration of the most famous office in the world and the opportunity to take a photo behind the President's desk.

A replica of the Wilson desk is located in the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as a part of a full-scale replica of the Oval Office furnished as it was during Ford's presidency.

References

External links
 
 video of the "Silent Majority" speech from C-SPAN

Category:Furnishings of the White House
Category:Desks
Category:Presidency of Richard Nixon
Category:Presidency of Gerald Ford
Category:Vice Presidency of the United States
Category:Individual pieces of furniture