In 1893, President Grover Cleveland was in a major political battle over repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. His position was opposed by many in Congress as well as his own Vice President, Adlai Stevenson, Grandfather of the 1950s presidential candidate bearing the same name. On June 18th, while the debate raged, Dr. Joseph Bryant, a physician friend of the President, was called by Cleveland who complained about a sore spot on his palate. A quick examination revealed there was a lump, the size of a quarter. Dr. Bryant believed it was malignant but sent a tissue sample to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for confirmation. When the report came back a few days later that it was, indeed, cancerous, the doctor reported the finding to President Cleveland adding, ‘Were it in my mouth, I would have it removed at once!’
Learning that the cancerous tumor had to be removed from his jaw, Cleveland hesitated because he was worried that news of his ill health and surgery would strengthen Stevenson’s position. Under pressure to have the surgery promptly, the President grudgingly consented but only if the condition and circumstances of surgery be kept secret. That meant he could not be admitted to a hospital because word would be leaked quickly to the press. Thus, aides camp up with this plan: the President would take a ‘vacation’ cruise aboard the ship Oneida, which would sail leisurely up the East River in New York. So, on June 30th, the President arrived in New York with some friends for what most people thought was the beginning of a Presidential vacation.
However, already on board was a team of doctors who had been secretly escorted to the Oneida hours earlier. Describing the scene that evening, H. Paul Jeffers, author of ‘An Honest President: The life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland’ writes: ‘Nobody watching from Pier A could have suspected that the president was in New York for a grim purpose. He settled in to a deck chair, lit a cigar, and chatted until midnight as though he were a man without a care.’ The person on board who exhibited the most anxiety was Dr. Bryant who joked with the captain saying, ‘If you hit a rock, hit it good and hard, so that we will all go to the bottom.’
The ship’s bar had been converted into an ‘operating room’. On the following day, Cleveland underwent the operation while strapped in a barber’s chair. As the Oneida moved along at half speed, a dentist pulled two teeth and a surgeon removed the entire left upper jaw from the President’s mouth. A rubber prosthesis was fitted to form an artificial jaw, which proved undetectable. Declaring the surgery a success, President Cleveland was on his feet in three days and went ashore unassisted. The conspiracy of silence was so complete that it would be nearly a quarter century before a full account of Cleveland’s cancer and surgery would be revealed. And, President Cleveland’s position prevailed over that of his Vice President as Congress repealed the silver clauses of the Sherman Act on August 28, 1893.
That historical footnote is one example of the way American presidents have used yachts. Before Camp David offered a president privacy and refuge and long before Air Force One lent itself to presidential travel and decision making, many US presidents used yachts as places to conduct official business, relax with family and friends, or conduct secretive negotiations. Although Cleveland’s Oneida was not an official presidential yacht, others were. Bearing the names Dispatch, Sylph, Dolphin, Mayflower, Potomac, Williamsburg, Honey Fitz and Sequoia, yachts offered presidents escape, privacy and the solitude they needed to make important decisions here are other fascinating details about presidential yachts.
While guiding the nation through the pains of a civil war, President Abraham Lincoln, on several occasions, used the Silver Queen. The steamer was leased by the Quartermaster General War Department from a George N. Power at the hefty price of $241 per day. On that vessel, Lincoln held his conference with the Confederate Peace Commissioners Alexander H. Stevens, R.M.T. Hunter, and John A. Campbell, at Hampton Roads on February 3, 1865.
Theodore Roosevelt used the Mayflower for diplomacy. Anchored in Oyster Bay, New York, near his Sagamore Hill home, the ship served as a floating negotiation center for delegates to the 1905 conference which ultimately ended the war between Russia and Japan.
During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson wrote these words from his cabin aboard the 275-foot Mayflower: ‘A point is reached where I must escape for a little while.’ It was essential, he told a daughter, ‘to get away from the madness’ of Washington for a day or two, not to stop work’ but to escape people and their intolerable excitements and demands.’ Two of the most important decisions of the 20th century were made on presidential yachts. Franklin Roosevelt and General Dwight D. Eisenhower made plans for D-Day on the Sequoia. Harry Truman is said to have pondered his decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan while in seclusion on the Sequoia.
Herbert Hoover loved spending time on the Sequoia and was often seen playing medicine ball on its top deck. He also used it for a Florida vacation. In 1932, a photograph of the yacht was the centerpiece of his annual Christmas card. That mailing brought Hoover massive criticism with people declaring the Hoover’s promotion of the Sequoia was indicative of his inability to grasp the suffering caused by the Great Depression.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt often sailed on two Presidential yachts, the Sequoia and the Potomac. On both ships, Roosevelt had an elevator installed to aid his movements between decks. On the Potomac, the elevator was concealed in a false smoke stack. The elevator was operated by the President using a rope and pulley. An electric motor could easily have been installed but Roosevelt used the elevator as a form of exercise. In 1939, he entertained King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England. In her book, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, author Doris Kearns Goodwin writes ‘For the president (Roosevelt), the Potomac offered the perfect escape from both the heat of Washington and the persistent ring of the telephone. Having loved the water since he was a child, he enjoyed mothering more than sitting on the deck, an old hat shading his head from the sun, a fishing rod in his hands. The Potomac was not a luxury liner, but a converted Coast Guard patrol boat, rough and ready, tending to roll with the waves, a sailor’s boat, with a fair top speed of sixteen knows.’ Roosevelt used the yacht to entertain politicians, host world leaders, play poker with friends, work on his stamp collection, and on one occasion, broadcast a ‘fireside chat’ to the nation from a tiny radio room on board.
By the time Harry Truman assumed office, the Potomac had been condemned by the Navy Department as being unfit for duty in open waters. As a result, the USS Williamsburg was commissioned the new presidential yacht. President Truman first cruised on the Williamsburg on November 10, 1945, and then used the ship to entertain a variety of foreign leaders including Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The Williamsburg was manned by the U.S. Navy involving 8 officers, 130 enlisted men and 26 stewards.
When Richard Nixon was under siege as a result of the Watergate scandal and pressured to resign, he boarded the Sequoia on August 5, 1974. Writing about those hours on the Sequoia, Nixon’s daughter, Julie, recalls being invited to join ‘mother and him for dinner on the Sequoia. I do not think anyone in the family, with the exception of my father, ever thoroughly enjoyed the rather public rides on the Sequoia, but we recognized they were relaxing for him. Being on the Sequoia was like bobbing along in a glass bottle. The boat moved at a snail’s pace, with no particular destination and under full view of escort Coast Guard speedboats. Now, in August of 1974, a flotilla of press accompanied us also. Reporters and photographers were posted as well at every bridge. We were the subject of a deathwatch.’ Four days after the Sequoia trip, Nixon announced his resignation from the presidency.
The Sequoia faithfully served several of the nation’s more recent presidents and their families. John F. Kennedy celebrated his last birthday on board the ship. Lyndon Johnson used it several times although his height caused him problems due to the low ceilings. Johnson had the floor of the shower in the Presidential Stateroom lowered 6 inches so he could stand straight while taking a shower. He also had a bar installed n the space where Franklin Roosevelt’s wheelchair elevator had been. Finally, when Jimmy Carter became president, he deemed the Sequoia a waste of tax payer money and said he had no need of the yacht. As a result, it was auctioned off for $286,000.