From The IADC – Digital Cigar
Magazine
The White House cigars
Posted on August 28, 2015
It’s been 20 years since the last cigar was smoked in the Green
Room. Hillary Clinton is the one who banned tobacco in the White House in 1993.
Nevertheless, cigars were part of a ritual practiced by American presidents for
150 years.
It used to be that cigars were part of the White House protocol.
At the end of state dinners, women would go to the Red Room to smoke cigarettes
while men would settle in the Green Room to drink liqueur paired with sotgies
that the president himself would offer. The few American presidents who turned
cigars into their best companions are probably upset at the turn of events but
the smoke times are in fact over !
20
cigars per day
The man capable of competing with Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th US
president (1869-1877), is not about to sit in the Oval Office chair. A Hero of
the civil war, general Grant smoked about 20 cigars per day. Cigars are so much
part of his war achievements that his admirers sent him thousands of them. In
1868, when he left to go fight, his official song was unbelievably A Smokin’ His
Cigar. Once he was in the Oval Office, his enemies criticized him harshly for
his costly habit. Tough, churchillian before Churchill even existed, the old
soldiar responded that he drank his gin, smoked his cigars and wouldn’t change
his habits for a bunch of small minded politicians.
Pancakes,
cereals and cigars
The other cigar man in the White House was Calvin Coolidge, the
30th US president. Senator of the state of Massachusetts, Coolidge is elected
in 1923. Taciturn, the cigar plays the role of a barometer for his
interlocutors. The way he turns it between his fingers or takes it to his lips
became a precious indicator for his collaborators who would be thrown off by
the silences of this mysterious man.
Other times, other customs. Coolidge started the custom of
offering cigars during the business breakfasts, which would start at 8 am
sharp. Pancakes, ham, cereals and cigars from the president’s personal humidor
would be served. The humidor only contained Habanos and mostly Coronas, which
he chained smoked.
Jacky
too
After this quite unique president, the White House had to wait a
few decades before finding annother real cigar aficionado. In 1960, John
Fitzgerald Kennedy settles into the oval office. Educated on cigar by his
father, his preferences go to panatelas and petit coronas (H. Upmann is his
favorite brand). A small revolution : sometimes, his wife Jackie smokes
too. Never before had the White House had a smoking presidential couple !
The Kennedy years also mark a
turn in the American history of cigars. In February 1962, the young president
declares the full embargo with Cuba. Habanos thus become illegal on the US territory.
But before signing the embargo into law, he is carefull to get a stash that he
will use during the last months of his life. Not a fan of hypocrisy though, he
doesn’t hide the fact that he keeps smoking Habanos.
The following presidents are less emblematic than Kennedy.
Richard Nixon shares his cigars with other heads of states and carries on the
tradition of the after dinner cigar, smoked in the company of men, in the Green
Room. He is the last president to honor this protocol. Since his disgrace in
1974, this tradition has long been forgotten.
