in the
Vice President's Room of the
United States Capitol leaning on the Wilson desk seated at the Wilson desk signing the
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution Garret Augustus Hobart, the
24th vice president of the United States, served from 1897 to 1899 under President
William McKinley. While in office he purchased and ordered many lavish furnishings for the
Vice President's Room of the
United States Capitol (room S–214), then the official office for the vice president. The desk was likely ordered in 1898 from W. B. Moses and Sons by Hobart. According to the United States Senate Curator's Office, W. B. Moses and Sons was, at the time, "the largest exclusively retail furniture, carpet, and drapery business in the nation." W. B. Moses and Sons also provided other furniture for the Senate around this time including eight benches for the
United States Senate Reception Room. In 1953,
Richard Nixon succeeded Barkley as vice president and used this desk throughout his tenure, believing likewise it had been previously used by presidents McKinley and Wilson. Nixon was an admirer of Woodrow Wilson and believed this desk was used by him during his term as president. A 1974 document created by the
White House Office of the Curator states in 1965 the Vice Presidents Room was handed over to
Hubert Humphrey who refurbished the space and had the desk placed in storage for the four years he used the room. This official accounting of the history of the desk is in conflict with a 1963 television interview with
Lady Bird Johnson where she shows the desk in then vice president
Lyndon B. Johnson's office at
his ranch in
Texas. In this interview Lady Bird discusses how the desk ended up at the ranch. She explains the desk, "was used in the Capitol for a great many years, then his office force went in together and bought it for him when it was declared surplus available."
Richard Reeves also states in his book
President Nixon: Alone in the White House that Johnson had the desk shipped to Texas to use in his office there. James Davies, the gardener at the Johnsons' house in Texas, stated in an oral history of the office, within the 1987 Historic Structure Report of the building, that when Johnson was inaugurated as vice president a new desk was moved into the office, and a different desk was moved in when he became president. This recalling of desks is in conflict with a picture the
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum has of Johnson sitting at the desk in his office on April 17, 1965, which was after his
second inauguration. In 1967 the
General Services Administration refinished a desk and chair in Johnson's office at his ranch. It is unclear which desk this was. On January 20, 1969, when he became president, Nixon called then-
Senate minority leader Everett Dirksen requesting the "Wilson desk" from the Capitol. The desk was placed on loan to the
White House, was returned to Washington from Texas, and became the
Oval Office desk for his presidency. Nixon's refusal to release the tapes formed one of the
article of impeachment against him. There were seven microphones in total installed in the Oval Office, one on either side of the fireplace and five located within the Wilson desk. These microphones, as well as recording devices in the
Cabinet Room, were all wired to central mixers and recorders in "an old locker room in the White House basement." A total of 502 tapes were recorded on these microphones, as well as two by the Oval Office fireplace, while the system was in existence, between February 16, 1971, and July 12, 1973. Throughout Nixon's presidency he referred to the Wilson desk hundreds of times in official speeches, such as the
"silent majority" speech, and in talks with high ranking visitors. During official White House tours, guides wrongly told of how Woodrow Wilson used the desk. This misconception was first discovered to be untrue by an assistant curator at the White House. On August 16, 1974, a memo was sent from Frank R. Pagnotta to
Counselor to the President Robert Hartmann explaining the various desks in the White House that were at the presidents disposal for the Oval Office. This memo erroneously claimed that, "President Grant's Vice President, Henry Wilson, fell ill... and died on the couch next to the desk in 1875. From its use by Vice President Wilson it took the name 'Wilson desk.'" The Wilson desk was returned to the Vice President's Room at this time, where it has remained in use since. These votes are so rare that since the desk was returned to the Vice Presidents Room, two vice presidents,
Dan Quayle and
Joe Biden, did not have the opportunity to cast any tie breaking votes. While not a popular room, it is still in use.
Walter Mondale was known to crawl under the desk with visitors to show the screw holes and other markings left by the controls to Nixon's recording system.
Dick Cheney saw working with the Senate as a much higher priority than previous vice presidents and used the Vice President's Room and the Wilson desk every week. During the two time periods the Wilson desk was located in the Vice President's Room, before and after it was loaned to the White House, no vice president had the last name of "Wilson". Because of this, the "Wilson desk" has never had a "Wilson" use it on a regular basis, but a marble bust of Henry Wilson, the vice president mistakenly believed to have used the Wilson desk, does sit in the Vice President's Office near the Wilson desk. This bust, commissioned in 1885, "served as the genesis for the
Senate's Vice Presidential Bust Collection". ==Timeline==