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Article: White House Shields of Dreams
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- November 7, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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In 1938 the military, concerned about wars and rumors of wars,
began to worry about White House security. The defenders came up
with a bright idea: camouflage the White House with paint.
Fortunately, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt poured verbal
turpentine over that proposal.
But on Dec. 14, 1941, a week after Pearl Harbor, the military
in an exhaustive report again suggested so disguising the White
House, as well as "... painting the colonnade windows in the east
wing black and with mounds of sandbags, setting up machine-gun
emplacements on the roofs of the east and west terraces." So
historian William Seale relates in "The White House: The History of
an American Idea."
Now, all ...