Messed Up Moments In White House History

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

The White House has been home to some of the most consequential moments in modern human history. Presidents, from the admired to the reviled, have turned its white walls into a beacon of liberty and light for the world. This is the building where Lincoln freed the slaves and FDR gave his fireside chats.

It is a living embodiment of our American history. As our only African-American first lady once stated, "I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves," only to later be occupied by her daughters, "two beautiful, intelligent, black young women playing with their dogs on the White House lawn."

But, behind those colonnades there are secrets that most presidential historians just won't tell you. Messed up moments that may not have reshaped history, but will still blow your mind. Moments filled with ghosts and YouTube stars, sex scandals and reality show presidents. If those walls could talk, this is what they'd tell you.

Lyndon Johnson had a famous take-no-crap attitude, chewing out his staff with fulsome foul language, often from the toilet, where he would conduct meetings. But perhaps the strangest story regarding Johnson's time in office showed him practicing some uncharacteristic patience.

While presidents are often given gifts from foreign powers, those gifts usually are tokens and trinkets. Something you can stick in a closet and never think about again. That wasn't the case with Mr. Wong, a living, breathing person gifted to Mr. Johnson by a Central American dictator. According to the book Inside the White House, Wong, a Chinese cook, "spoke no English, and was only dimly aware of his intended purpose." 

The 4-foot-8 man arrived in a straw hat, having never heard of the president or the legendary building he was now supposed to work in. Wong spent his days in the White House aimlessly wandering, rarely cooking, and often acting in bizarre ways. For instance, he loved to play hide and seek, ducking behind curtains when LBJ or the staff came searching for him. It took months for him to realize that he was, in fact, supposed to work there, and not just kill time. There's little evidence of what became of Mr. Wong, but for a few years, this very confused man was given a front row seat to history and understandably chose to hide behind the curtains.

If you're worried relations between the president and the press are bad now, just be grateful no one's put a hit out on Don Lemon. Because that's exactly what Richard Nixon did to one particular reporter, according to the book Poisoning the Press.

As author Mark Feldstein makes clear, "Nixon's administration wiretapped journalists, put them on enemies lists, audited their tax returns, censored their newspapers, and moved to revoke their broadcasting licenses." But that was just the tip of the impeachable iceberg. Nixon was determined to destroy one reporter in particular, a columnist named Jack Anderson whose rivalry with the president dated back to the '50s, when his reporting about the then-vice presidential candidate's improper use of campaign cash forced Nixon to give his infamous "Checkers speech."

Decades later, Anderson was still a thorn in Nixon's side, and Nixon wanted to be free of him. According to Timeline, in March 1972, Nixon gave his dirty tricks team marching orders. It was time to take Anderson out by any means necessary. Some of the options included running him off the road, replacing his aspirin with poison, and smearing his steering wheel with LSD. They even spoke with a CIA doctor about slipping something into his booze. Unfortunately, the guy was Mormon and never touched the stuff. In the end, the thing that may have saved the journalist's life was the same thing that ruined Nixon's career: a botched break-in at the Watergate Hotel.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Well, and ghosts. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who spoke those famous words during his first inaugural address, could have also mentioned the ghosts. That's right, spooky specters from the netherworlds have reportedly haunted FDR's former home for centuries.

Presidents ranging from Taft to Truman to Reagan have claimed to have witnessed some sort of paranormal activity in the White House. A strange rapping at the door, only to find no one behind it. A salty phrase whispered in the dark, sounding remarkably like Andrew Jackson. A former first lady floating through a wall, as if taking laundry out to dry.

But for all the creepy accounts the people populating the White House have shared over the years, Winston Churchill's surely takes the cake. The former prime minister of the United Kingdom was reportedly bunking in the Lincoln Bedroom during World War II when he decided to take a long bath. When he reentered his bedroom, naked as a jaybird, he saw none other than President Lincoln standing by the fire. Yes, that Lincoln, who'd been dead for 70 or so years. The two exchanged eye contact, and Churchill, never one to have his feathers ruffled, said, "Good evening, Mr. President. You seem to have me at a disadvantage." The ghost apparently smiled and faded away into the ether. Churchill never again slept in that room.

George W. Bush may have described Donald Trump's inauguration as "some weird sh*t," but it had nothing on Andrew Jackson's. As the first "frontier president," namely a politician not from the East Coast elite, Jackson wanted an event for the people. And boy did "the people" show up, a record 30,000. Senator Daniel Webster said these visitors were "like the inundation of the northern barbarians on Rome."

"Ladies fainted, men were seen with bloody noses and such a scene of confusion took place as is impossible to describe," recounted a Washington society type. And like any good party, no one wanted it to end. When Jackson finished his speech, the mob followed him back to the White House, where they broke in, climbed the furniture, broke the dishware, and just about destroyed the place. In the chaos, Jackson was nearly trampled to death.

Not sure how to break up the raucous crowd, the White House staff filled punch bowls with booze and dragged them out on the front lawn. And like any true American, they followed. As one Washington matron described it at the time, "What a scene we did witness! The Majesty of the People had disappeared, and a rabble, a mob, of boys, negros, women, children, scrambling, fighting, romping. What a pity what a pity! No arrangements had been made, no police officers placed on duty and the whole house had been inundated by the rabble mob." Good times.

Since his election, Donald Trump has acted as a one-man wrecking crew to many historical norms of the presidency. Maybe the Donald just isn't thrilled to be living in a building he's rumored to have called "a dump."

Still, that doesn't explain why Trump invited Russian officials Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Kislyak into the Oval Office, an unusual move considering Kislyak is a well-known spy thought to have led the Russian effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. You don't usually invite a geopolitical foe into your innermost sanctum, when they could turn around and bug the darn place. 

Trump then began to brag that he'd "just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nutjob. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off." The fact that Trump didn't allow American media in to document the affair, while Russian media were given carte blanche, only heightened the confusing nature of the encounter.

Then, to top it all off, Trump reportedly revealed top-secret intelligence, causing officials in intelligence services and in allied capitals around the world, to blow a few gaskets. (The White House denied the allegations.) Republican Senator Bob Corker called the news "very, very troubling" if true, and said "obviously, they're in a downward spiral." Good thing they pulled out of that.