It turns out that the late Bill Matthews (1942-1997), author
of A Happy Childhood and other works
of poetic excellence, had a side to him that not even his admirers suspected.
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President William Matthews sat where American presidents
have always sat — his back to the south wall of the room, facing northward
across a wide antique desk toward the classical marble fireplace that dominates
the north wall. His chair, unlike that of most of his predecessors, who had
favored personalized, made-to-measure seating, was a factory-made, high-backed
swivel chair of the kind any senior corporate executive might have. For “Bill”
Matthews, as he insisted his publicity posters call him, had always through his
successive and successful election campaigns stressed his ordinary, down-home
personal tastes in clothing, food, and creature comforts. The chair, therefore,
which could be seen by the scores of delegates he liked to welcome personally
into the Oval Office, was not luxurious. The fine antique desk, he was at pains
to point out, he had inherited, and it had become part of the precious
tradition of the White House. That went down well. But there Bill Matthews drew
the line.
When he was in conclave with his senior advisers, the “Bill”
that his humblest constituent could call him to his face became the formal “Mr.
President.” He also dropped the nice-guy tone of voice and the rumpled
bird-doggrin that had originally gulled the voters
Into putting the boy-next-door into the White House. He was
not the boy-next-door, and his advisers knew it; he was the man at the top.
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See Frederick Forsyth, The
Devil’s Alternative, for more details.
— DL