Pago 2 Daily Nebraskan Monday, December 16, 1985 Mews 'Digest Ry The Associated Press :" V F I ' if Dan DulaneyDaily Nebraskan James Sanders (42) of the Harlem Globetrotters pokes fun at Gerald Hooks (20) of the Washington Generals after swiping the ball from him and giving him a purse in exchange. 'ales of GMstmas past White House holidays from benign to bizarre o o From the Associated Press Ghosts of Christmas past, some benign, some bizarre, haunt the old house on Pennsylvania Avenue. One Christmas, Dwight Eisenhower received a set of telescoping Russian dolls and handcrafted tree ornaments from Nikita Khrushchev, to whom both Christ and Santa Claus were non persons. Dolley Madison got a box of snuff. John-John Kennedy got a toy model of the presidential helicopter that lifted off outside his nursery window. Dou bling as Santa's elves, White House carpenters surprised Rutherford B. French chef. Old Hickory, an orphan who never had known Christmas, sur veyed the battleground with eyes brimming with laughter and tears. Confronted with the tears of 8-year-old Tad, his beloved "Tadpole," Abra ham Lincoln interrupted a Cabinet meeting to issue a presidential pardon for Jack, the White House turkey, an hour away from the chopping block. Winston Churchill, rumbling around naked in the Rose Room, ordered a bottle of brandy for breakfast, then squeezed into his unique jumpsuit and went to the Blue Room to help Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt open the presents. Abraham Lincoln interrupted a Cabinet meeting to issue a presidential pardon for Jack, the Vhite House turkey, an hour away from the chopping block. Hayes' 10-year-old daughter, Fanny, with a Victorian dollhouse, which Pat Nixon brought back a century later to high light her Christmas decorations. Ben jamin Harrison climbed a stepladder to decorate the first White House Christ mas tree in 1889. At a Christmas ball in the East Room, James Monroe's 16-year-old daughter, Maria, received a whispered proposal from Samuel Gouverneur, his private secretary, and a few months later became the first daughter of a president to be married in the White House. Radiant as the sugarplum fairy at her first holiday gala in the mansion, John Tyler's new bride, Julia, 30 years younger than he, created a tradition by instructing the Marine Band to play "Hail to the Chief whenever the presi dent entered the room. Bachelor James Buchanan invited a delegation of Paw nee Indians to share the Great White Father's groaning board in the great white wigwam. Herbert Hoover, pufing on a cigar, watched from the roof of the conserva tory as firefighters battled a blaze that sent an enormous chandelier crashing down in the president's office, while Mrs. Hoover kept a Christmas party for the staff and their families going in the State Dining Room. Andrew Jackson presided over an artiScal snowball fight in the East Room, arming his two grandchildren and their little friends with balls of cotton candy served up by his horrified Early on Christmas morning, Thomas Jefferson went to the old Marsh Market to select the White House goose and spent the afternoon playing the fiddle for 100 noisy moppets, including his six grandchildren. Lyndon Johnson spent most of the day on the telephone, while 16-year-old daughter Luci sere naded the security command post with the Broadway show tune "The Secret Service Makes Me Nervous," at top volume on her new stereo. Childless, abstemious, no-nonsense (no dancing or card playing, either) James Polk labored over a tariff mes sage to Congress. Woodrow Wilson skipped church and went to play golf at the Washington Country Club, distri buting Christmas baskets to the needy along the way. Still in mourning for 16-year-old Cal vin Jr., who had died of blood poisoning during the summer, President Coolidge joined carolers on the North Portico while Mrs. Coolidge found consolation in the nativity scene in the East Room, where she wrote in her memoirs, "The real spirit of Christmas seemed to radiate to every recess of that old mansion." The dignified Martin Van Buren had to stand on one leg and gobble like a turkey when no young lady volunteered to kiss him in a game of "Spin the Dish." Richard and Pat Nixon sent out 37,000 Christmas cards. The Carters mailed more than 100,000. This year, the Ronald Reagans sent more than 125,000, and Nancy had the big tree in the Blue Room trimmed with orna ments made from last year's cards by volunteers at drug rehabilitation cen ters. Christmas at the White House, ever since the first one in 1800 when John Adams' four-year-old granddaughter, Susanna, bit the nose off the doll of a playmate who broke one of her toy dishes, always has been a time for tears and laughter, of blessings disguised as bedlam and chaos remembered as charm. It has been a day for children and fam ily, for games and feasting and gala balls, for halls decked with mistletoe and holly and once with a quaran tine sign when Benjamin Harrison's granddaughter came down with scarlet fever for opening presents, for church services and caroling and Christmas creches beyond the reach of the civil libertarians, and often for grim busi ness as usual and sometimes for sorrow and even romance. The well-organized Eleanor Roose velt, who began her Christmas shop ping in January and wrote her Christ mas cards in July, delighted in holding a supper dance for her homecoming collegians and their dates in the can dlelit East Room, with the Marine Band playing romantic airs. But she kept youthful passions in check by serving raw onions and garlic sausages with the scrambled eggs at the midnight buffet. Ardent conservationist Theodore Roosevelt, with a brook of six boister ous youngsters in the White House, tried to set a national example by ban ishing Christmas trees from the White House, but was faced with a palace revolt led by a 9-year-old. Eleanor lost some of the holiday spirit when Winston Churchill turned up on the Christmas Eve after Pearl Harbor for a three-week visit, without Franklin warning her in advance. She never did get used to his strong Havana cigars and that new health diet calling for a pint of champagne daily, plus the breakfast brandy and FDR's ritually stirred martinis. Protocol on Christmas at 1600 Pen nsylvania Avenue always has gone up the chimney with the smoke of the Yule log, which John and Abigail Adams, the original tenants, first burned in 1800, along with 20 cords of wood to dry the still-damp plaster, when the White House was brown, unadorned Virginia sandstone and called the "Presidential Palace." oliticians, artists ltd screen legends ohm 1985 deaths From the Associated Press From the superstar friends of Rock Hudson to the widowed mother of Samantha Smith, the nation in 1985 mourned the passing of screen legends, artists, business giants and those who worked in large and small arenas for global understanding. Deaths this past year included the actor identified with "The King and I," the bushy-browed senator who chaired the Watergate hearings, the author of "Charlotte's Web," the developer of the Richter scale and the inventor of Twinkies. Entertainment Hudson's revelation that he suffered from acquired immune deficiency syndrome focused worldwide attention on the incurable disease. More than $1 million was raised at a benefit for AIDS research the month before Hudson's death at age 59. The handsome, rugged actor had been one of Hollywood's top leading men for two decades, from "Giant" and "Pillow Talk" to a stint on TVs "Dynasty." Orson Welles was a Hollywood "boy wonder." At age 25, he experimented with lighting, camera angles and daring subject matter to create the classic "Citizen Kane." He never achieved such heights again. Welles, who also created a panic with a 1938 "War of the Worlds" broadcast, was 70. Yul Brynner died of cancer at age 65 after a record 4,625 performances as the imperious, bemused monarch of Siam in the Rodgers and Hammerstin musical, 'The King and I." Cancer also claimed Simone Signoret, the activist and actress. Signoret, 64, won an Oscar in 1961 for "Room at the Top." The stage and screen also bid farewell this year to Sir Michael Redgrave; Edmond O'Brien; Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz"; Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, better known as Stepin Fetchit; Phil Silvers, and Clarence Nash, the voice of Donald Duck. Art and Literature E.B. White, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and essayist best known for his long association with The New Yorker and for children's classics includ ing "Charlotte's Web," was 86. Eugene Ormandy, who led the Philadelphia Orchestra to world fame, was 85; Italo Cahino, 62, was one of Italy's leading writers; Taylor Caldwell, 84, was the author of more than 30 best-selling novels, including "Captains and Kings." Business and Labor Robert W. Woodruff, 91, transformed Coca-Cola from a soda-fountain drink maker into one of the world's best-known businesses. William M. Allen, president of the Boeing Co. for 23 years, was 85. Robert H.W. Welch Jr., the candy executive who founded the John Birch Society, was 85; Sir William Lyons, founder of the Jaguar car company, was 83. WA "Tony" Boyle, former president of the United Mine Workers, died at age 83 while serving three life terms for the murder of a union rival and his family. Arnold Miller, a reform candidate who then defeated Boyle for the union presidency, died two months later at age 62. Also: John Willard Marriott, who parlayed a root beer stand into a hotel and restaurant empire; designer Laura Ashley, the empress of British country charm; currency dealer Nicholas Deak; James A. Dewar, inventor and defender of the Hostess Twinkie; and Hector Boiardi, founder of Boy-ar-dee Foods. Politics and Government Konstantin Chernenko, selected at age 72 to serve as the Soviet Union's sixth Communist Party chief after the death of Yuri Andropov, died at 73. Henry Cabot Lodge, the three-term senator and former U.N. ambassador, was 82. He had served as ambassador to South Vietnam, represented the United States at the Paris peace talks and was Richard Nixon's running mate in 1960. Lodge's brother, John David Lodge, a former ambassador, congressman and governor of Connecticut, died at age 82. Former North Carolina Sen. Sam J. Ervin Jr., the "country lawyer" and constitutional law expert who presided over the Senate Watergate hearings, was 88; Charles W. Sandman, a New Jersey Superior Court judge who as a congressman staunchly supported President Nixon during the Watergate impeachment hearing, was 63. Patricia Roberts Harris became the first black woman to serve in a presidential Cabinet when Jimmy Carter appointed her secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Harris, who went on to the top spot at Health, Education and Welfare, was 60. Deaths among the political elite also included: Tancredo Neves, who died the day before he was to be sworn in as Brazil's first civilian president in 21 years, and Dan White, the San Francisco city supervisor who killed Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in 197a White committed suicide nine months after his parole. Science Charles F. Richter, who developed the scale for measuring earthquakes that bears his name, was 85. When Dr. Luther L Terry, 73, was U.S. surgeon general, he issued the first federal report linking smoking to heart disease and cancer. Religion Spencer W. Kimball, who led the Mormon Church for 12 years, lifted the ban on black males in the priesthood, added the first non-Americans to the church hierarchy, spoke out against the MX nuclear missile and the Equal Kignts Amendment and presided over a near-doubling of church member ship, was 90.