ON THE RECORD John Shinkle — P OLI T I C O Whiston Brings a Mother’s Touch to Dinner By Carol E. Lee

Others may scramble for the spotlight at the White House President Clinton’s motorcade, and I thought, “I hope they onstage. So our president [of the WHCA] at the time was up Correspondents’ Association Dinner. But as executive director of have a seat.” I had no idea they were coming. Back in those there trying to tell jokes. the association, Julia Whiston has been the quiet force behind the days, you really didn’t get all the guests’ names beforehand, evening for 17 years and three presidents. the way we really have to do now. Security has changed a There must be many times when there’s a backstage She operates with a mother’s tough love and has seen and heard lot. panic no one notices but you and your team of it all over the years — from discovering Aretha Franklin’s That year, there was a man backstage, and I didn’t volunteers. distaste for air conditioning to barring Drew Carey from a VIP recognize him. He said, “The Clintons want to talk to me.” One year President Bush, afterward (at the head table, reception with President George W. Bush to having her daughter I said, “Oh, really. Who are you?” And he said, “Richard they’re served first), was a little like, “Let’s get this party shield Sean Penn from paparazzi. Dreyfuss.” liked to call people up to the table, started.” So I had people running through the crowds trying Whiston got her start working on a dinner for the National Press Hollywood people. When he’d see them, when people were to find presenters to get them up to the stage. My husband Club Foundation in 1986. The mother of four daughters, she drew eating, he’d say, “Do you mind getting so-and-so?” found Charlie Wilson in the restroom. Thank God he had on on her experience organizing carnivals and fundraisers for the a white dinner jacket. We would never have found him in a PTA. In 1993, she was hired to coordinate the WHCA dinner and What were some of the big moments? black tux. became the association’s executive director two years later. We had Aretha Franklin — that was huge. We had guests So many people wanted to come to the 1993 dinner — the first literally standing on their seats, waving napkins and bowing Your children and the same group of longtime family one of the Clinton administration — that Whiston located the to her while she was singing. friends have volunteered for years to help with the U.S. Marine Band behind the head table to make room for more dinner? tables. The arrangement continues today. But that almost didn’t happen, right? Yes, they do. They look forward to it. And they do it right. Whiston, now a grandmother of 17, keeps a low profile, but she The afternoon of the dinner, she came up onstage, said One year Sean Penn was at the dinner, and people with opened up to POLITICO about her role with the WHCA, the she felt air circulating and said she couldn’t stay. She had cameras were chasing him. He went in the men’s room, and flowers she once received from John F. Kennedy Jr. and what she wanted no air conditioning, and we had said we couldn’t my daughter stood and barricaded the door to keep people thinks of Michaele and Tareq Salahi and former White House have almost 2,700 people in the ballroom without air away. social secretary Desiree Rogers. conditioning. Somebody who had worked with her followed her offstage and made everything OK. You must get party crashers all the time. The first dinner you organized was also the first one We are constantly looking for crashers. I’ve stopped a under President Bill Clinton. What was that like? Tell me about Ray Charles. woman in her 80s, in a long dress, and said, “What do you The Clintons had a large following in Hollywood, and a His contract said he’d go onstage at 10, and we were need?” And she said, “I need to see President Bush. I need lot of people were very interested in coming to this dinner. ready for him about seven minutes early. But he would to get in.” She had no ticket, so I motioned for security and The dinner oversold. Ted Danson and his wife showed up in not come onstage until his contract said he was to come she was gone. ➤

12 POLITICO ON THE RECORD

Even though they recognized them, last year two people who work for us as volunteers stopped Desiree Rogers and Valerie Jarrett and asked for their tickets. We have a very tight ship, I have to say.

You even caught a couple of posers? One year, one of the organizations having a party beforehand on the lower level did not ask a couple to show ID when they picked up their ticket. Other people at the table said the man was not the mayor of Miami or whoever he said he was. And sure enough, they had driven from Florida with a tux and a long dress, got into that party and said they were somebody they weren’t. We got them removed.

Was it the Salahis? No. And I would hope they would not be invited.

What did you think of what happened with Desiree Rogers and President Barack Obama’s first state dinner? I think it was probably a learning curve for everybody. At the press Christmas party, she was there working in a suit. And that’s the way I do it. I don’t get dressed up and attend something.

There are only 261 tables at the dinner. How do you decide who gets how many? Around the 15th of March, or the 16th, when we’ve got all these requests, the president of the organization sits down with me, and the decisions are made.

Once you’ve determined how many tables each organization gets, how do you figure out where the guests sit? Every year we do the seating; we have last year’s map right there. So the ones who were in the front last year, we move to the back. We try to rotate people through the room so people don’t end up in the same area year after year. What we did this year is stagger them through the room.

Has the demand for tickets changed? There’s more demand every single year.

And you have to refund money for requests you can’t fill this year? There were paid requests in for another 56 tables in the room, [amounting to] about $130,000.

What happened the year you found a way to get Drew Carey a seat and a ticket for the VIP reception with President Bush? A week later, his agent calls and says he’s not going to go with George Condon, who had one table for Copley News Service. His agent said Bloomberg had invited him, and they were going to send a plane but that he still wanted to come into the reception with the president. I said, “Absolutely not.” I’m out in front of the Cabinet Room that night, and this guy came up and said, “ wants to come in, and so does Drew Carey. The president wants to see them.” I said, “You can tell Kelsey Grammer he can come in. Drew Carey cannot. And if he wants to know why, I can tell him.”

You’re tough. I was a mother first before this job.

People must try to suck up to you all the time. People used to send flowers to the office after they got a table, say, and candy. But I think people have learned through the years: It doesn’t work.

What was one of the more memorable moments? One year, John Kennedy, when he launched George magazine, his press person called and said, “We’re sorry we’re late, but John would like a table at the dinner.” And I apologized and told him the tables were gone. The next day I got a call from Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office, and they said, “Perhaps you don’t understand, John is coming, with his wife, Carolyn. And there must be space — this is a new publication. He’s a member.” I explained that there wasn’t but suggested they ask the publisher for one of its tables. That night, I go home to Arlington, Va. The doorbell rings about 7. This man brings in this enormous flower arrangement, all white, beautiful flowers — white roses, white orchids, white hydrangeas. He said, “I’m the florist. It’s taken me all day to find all these specific flowers — can I stay here while you open the card?” And it said, “Thank you so much for the table. John Kennedy.”

Do people complain about where their tables are put? One year I had a news organization that didn’t like where their tables were — they had five tables. The editor called me and said he was going to have five tables of homeless people come to this dinner to protest where we had placed his tables. I will say, since this dinner has gotten more and more popular, fewer people complain about table placement.

After 18 dinners, do you want to keep doing this? Yes, I still have plenty of energy. I still love it.

14 POLITICO