Catering to the Chief: White House usher on 9/11, movie night and 7 presidents
- - Catering to the Chief: White House usher on 9/11, movie night and 7 presidents
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, USA TODAYDecember 7, 2025 at 5:02 AM
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WASHINGTON - He watched President Bill Clinton go over homework with his daughter Chelsea at the White House kitchen table. He’s witnessed President Jimmy Carter pluck a long-stemmed rose from the Rose Garden for his wife Rosalynn on his way back from the Oval Office. He looked on as President Gerald Ford took the inaugural dip in the newly-built outdoor swimming pool.
As the longest-serving chief White House usher, Gary Walters has served seven presidents and their families, working inches from where they lived their lives. He was the first to greet the president and the first lady in the morning after they emerged from their private quarters to the residence area.
Usher is a role akin to a general manager of the building, overseeing everything from food service to construction and managing a staff of about 90, including butlers, maids, housekeepers, chefs, curators and engineers.
And the public holds a degree of fascination for the position: If you watched "The Residence," the fictional Netflix series about a murder at the White House, the usher is played by Giancarlo Esposito.
In his new book titled "White House Memories 1970-2007: Recollections of the Longest Serving Chief Usher," released on Dec. 5, Walters told USA TODAY his goal was to portray the White House as a home, and something other than a purely political entity. The book was published by the White House Historical Association.
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“First and foremost, it’s the home of the family. There's an awful lot of activity,” Walter said during a phone interview, adding jokingly: “I mean, you turn on the news and it says, ‘today the White House said,’ well, I never saw that mouth.”
After first serving in the White House as part of the Secret Service assigned to protect presidents Nixon and Ford, Walters joined the usher's office in 1976 and was promoted to chief usher in 1986. He served in that role until his retirement in 2007.
Walters, 79, also served Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and their families.
Gary Walters with his predecessor and successor in their role of chief usher. From left to right: Rex Scouten, chief usher from 1969 to 1986; Gary Walters, chief usher from 1986 to 2007; and Stephen W. Rochon, chief usher from 2007 to 2011
“The Chief Usher was probably the only person who dealt with the president and the first lady every day,” he said.
The following are some of his recollections as told to USA TODAY.
The ‘scariest’ day at the White House and a cancelled picnic
Laura Bush and Gary Walters in 2005 in the Movie Theater. Gary oversaw many renovation projects completed at the behest of First Lady Laura Bush, including the movie theater.
Shortly after 8:45 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, Walters saw off first lady Laura Bush as she got into a car from the White House grounds to head to the U.S. Capitol to testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on early childhood development.
“And as she was getting in the car, her agent turned to me, turned to her, and said there's just been a terrible accident. A plane has flown into one of the World Trade Center buildings,” he said.
At 8:46 a.m. the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 had just hit the North Tower.
The first lady’s car left soon after. She was unaware it was a terrorist attack.
Walters then made his way to a few trailers parked on the South Lawn, where smoked beef was being prepared for a congressional picnic that evening to be hosted by the president and the first lady.
“Starting at around five o'clock, we were going to have the entire Congress, their senior staff, the White House staff, the Cabinet,” said Walters.
The event was being catered by a Texas-based outfit.
Gary Walters with President Bill Clinton in 1993
“And they had been cooking beef on the south grounds in these huge trailers, smoking the meat for two or three days,” said Walters.
After checking in on them, Walters made his way back to his office on White House Entrance Hall and found his staff glued to the television.
“I asked one of my assistants how in the world could the press have gotten that picture on so quickly?” he said. “And they said, that's the second plane.”
Realizing the magnitude of the event, Walters called the social secretary to cancel the picnic.
His first order of business was to ask the caterers to dismantle the arrangements and get ready for the president, who he knew would be heading back from Florida where he had been visiting an elementary school.
“I started to walk out of the South Portico doors, and there was a thud. And I looked out across the top of the trees, and I saw the smoke, rising smoke from the Pentagon.”
Soon the call went out to evacuate the White House. Walters said he kept about six people with him on the south grounds to move 130 picnic tables. Each table weighed about 350 pounds. But they knew they’d have to make space for the president’s helicopter to land on the south grounds, as opposed to the original plan to land at the Pentagon.
The first lady had been taken to a remote location by the Secret Service.
White House Memories book jacket
“She didn't return to the White House till much later that night,” said Walters. “Right before the president spoke to the nation from the Oval Office.”
East Wing memories: Presidents 'lamented' lack of space
The East Wing, which houses the first lady’s offices and which was recently demolished to make way for a ballroom under the instructions of President Donald Trump, was where Walters met his wife.
She was the East Wing receptionist during the Nixon and Ford administrations.
Asked about his feelings about the demolition of the East Wing, Walters was reluctant to speak on the subject. But he said that, dating back to the Nixon administration, there was always a sense that the building lacked an appropriate place to host large gatherings.
Gary Walters with presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush , Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford in 1993. They’re pictured in the Treaty Room.
“During the Nixon administration, when we had the returning POW dinner on the south grounds for 1800 people, we started putting up these huge tents in the south grounds. And they were always a problem,” said Walters.
They took away the president's ability to land a helicopter there. Second, if floors were put down for guest inside the tents it would end up killing the grass, which would then have to be replaced with sod.
“I mean, it's an undertaking. And there'd been many presidents that I worked for, in fact, just about all of them, who always lamented the fact that the White House was limited in size compared to what they'd run into when they'd go overseas to different places,” he said.
First Lady Barbara Bush with Gary Walters’s daughter Claire in 1990. Mrs. Bush invited Claire to help her read a book to children attending the Easter Egg Roll. They’re pictured together on the Truman Balcony during the event.Barbara Bush: The most social first lady
Barbara Bush and her husband loved to socialize. They had friends all over Washington and the world. George H.W. Bush had been a businessman, served in Congress, headed the CIA, and had been an ambassador to the United Nations before becoming vice president.
“They instituted a once-a-month movie night. And we'd have a first-run movie, which was provided by the Motion Picture Association. And Mrs. Bush would have a buffet set up in the private quarters, and they'd have about 50 people, and they'd be a mixture of congressmembers, the press and their friends,” he said.
“And then at a particular time, after Mrs. Bush kind of watched and made sure everybody was pretty much finished eating and drinking, she would go and get a little silver bell that she had, and she'd go through and she'd say, 'Movie time! Movie time!'” he said.
The Bush family matriarch, along with Walters, would then usher people out and down to the family theater, which was located in the East Wing.
“When people went in, the butlers were standing there with drinks and popcorn for them,” he said. “There was no specific White House way to do things. It was how families wanted to operate.”
No glancing at the watch for President Bill Clinton
One of his most “amazing” memories was watching President Clinton host his college reunion. Clinton invited the Georgetown University Class of 1968 for its 25th reunion to a dinner-dance party on the White House's South Lawn in June 1993.
Walters says he marveled at Clinton’s ability to remember each person’s name, inquiring after their children and their parents, and standing at the receiving line for more than two and a half hours.
“He wasn't working from a notebook or anything,” said Walters. “Some people said he's undisciplined with his time. If President Clinton was in a conversation with you, he continued that conversation to its conclusion. He didn't look at his watch and say, ‘Look, I gotta run.’”
Nancy Reagan and emergence of trial state dinners
While the tradition of state dinners started in 1874 when President Ulysses Grant hosted King Kalakaua of the Kingdom of Hawai’i, first lady Nancy Reagan introduced the concept of trial or practice dinners as a way of previewing the final product.
Once the chefs proposed a menu to the social secretary, it would go to Nancy Regan for approval and tweaks. A week or so before the main event, the chefs would work on a complete dinner and have a trial run exactly as it would be presented on the day of the event.
Gary Walters, his wife Barbara and daughter Claire, with President Reagan in 1987. The Walters family was regularly welcomed to the Reagan White House during the holidays
That tradition is followed to this day.
“There'd be a platter for 10 people at the table. And those dinners were served to the president and the first lady, and sometimes they'd have family or friends,” he said. “That way, the president and the first lady could see if it was difficult getting food off of the platter.”
Making the first family feel at home at the White House
Right after a new president is elected, the Usher’s Office begins setting up meetings with the incoming first family to get an idea of their preferences.
The idea is to ensure that when the family moves into the White House on the afternoon of the inauguration, everything is to their liking in the four or five hours between the time that the president and the president-elect go to the Capitol.
Barbara Bush holds up a puppy to show to Gary Walters.
“It involves their personal furniture, likes and dislikes as far as food goes, snacks in the kitchen and the pantry,” said Walters. “Sometimes, just changing around rooms to suit their needs and requirements.”
He would assess the number of bedrooms the new president wanted, often fashioned out of various spaces based on the size of the family.
“We strive diligently to make sure that the home is theirs from the time they walk in the front door on inaugural day until the time they walk out four or eight years later,” he said.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ex-White House usher gives behind-the scenes looks at past presidents
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