Betty and Jerry Are at Home

Though they have occupied it less than five months, Gerald and Betty Ford have already thawed the cold formality of the White House. Mrs. Ford hopes to keep it that way, she explained to TIME Correspondent Bonnie Angela.

Throughout the splendid state rooms of the White House last week, 685 guests made themselves at home while their host wandered genially among them. The festive scene was a congressional ball, the first time the entire Congress had been invited to the White House at one time since Lyndon Johnson closed out his term in 1969. There was no Hail to the Chief, no formal receiving line. It was, the Fords insisted, just Jerry and Betty welcoming at Christmastide old congressional friends, despite their recent proclivity for voting against the President's wishes.

The Underground. The Fords believe that parties are more than fun --they say something about the nation's first family. "I want our parties to reflect many fields of American culture in a variety of ways," says Mrs. Ford, "in the entertainment we choose, in the guest lists, in the decorations. We want to have people of achievement there --scientists, artists, intellectuals, people from the sports world." These lists reveal another, unspoken intent: bringing back people who were shut out of the White House in the Nixon years. At one Ford dinner the President invited Justice William O. Douglas, whom he had sought to impeach only four years ago; the two men had a friendly chat during the evening. At another dinner, Washington Post Owner Katharine Graham, spotting others who, like herself, had long been banned from the Nixon White House, declared with satisfaction: "It's marvelous--all the underground is here." Mrs. Graham was seated between Senator Charles Percy, another Nixon persona non grata, and Washington Redskins Star Running Back Larry Brown. "It was so funny," Betty Ford said later, "hearing Kay Graham leaning across Larry Brown to explain to Mrs. Oscar de la Renta just who Larry Brown is."

Over the years, the White House has been declared unfit for family habitation. The Trumans called it a goldfish bowl, Jackie Kennedy grumbled that it was a barn, Julie Nixon Eisenhower referred to it as a museum. But the Fords, who never lived in a house larger than eight rooms before being catapulted into the 132-room Executive Mansion, obviously disagree, at least so far.

Mrs. Ford tells of a hectic family dinner before the congressional ball. "I looked around the table and chuckled to myself. I thought, 'Well, it's the same old family dinner table, it's just in a different place.' Susan was there with a nightcap over her curlers, her date was there in his dress pants and suspenders, I had my robe and underpinnings on. It was just like home. I don't know what the staff must have thought."

Betty Ford has turned the presidential bedroom into a family den. "I took all the art off the walls--there's enough of that around--and put up family pictures. I brought in Jerry's old blue leather lounge chair and his tobacco things." After dinner the President works there with Betty keeping him company in the other lounge chair.

Relaxed Style. Mrs. Ford's friends from the years in Congress visit often. One evening she served the same stuffed peppers she used to have in their Alexandria, Va., kitchen and was roundly kidded by her guests. A budget watcher, even with her husband's $200,000 salary, Mrs. Ford recently instructed Chef Henry Haller on how to make pot roast. "With turnips?" asked the amazed chef. She insisted: "That's just the way we have it at home." The relaxed style does not stop at the White House gates. Mrs. Ford, with her personal assistant Nancy Howe, who affectionately calls the First Lady "Petunia," runs many of her own errands. After taking a watch in for repairs or buying cosmetics at the cut-rate drugstore, she and Nancy pull up at a Roy Rogers and stand in line for their fried chicken.

The White House staff has become accustomed to a new kind of presidential daughter. Susan Ford, 17, declines to alter her casual style. After classes, she changes from her skirt-and-socks school uniform into baggy white painters' pants with a Charlie Chaplin fit and an equally ill-fitting plaid shirt. Her third-floor world burgeons with plants and needlework (she made patchwork quilts of heirloom quality for special friends this Christmas) and her new hobby, photography, for which White House Photographer David Kennerly gives professional advice. She is cautioned against making demands on the domestic staff, so when her current steady, Gardner Britt, 18, a freshman at University of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, had to catch a 6 a.m. plane, it was Susan who cooked his breakfast. Despite certain reservations, Susan and her friends find the White House a teen heaven. They bowl in the downstairs alley, dance in the top-floor solarium, enjoy movies (most recent: The Longest Yard, with Burt Reynolds) in the White House theater.

When Mrs. Ford heard last week that William Conrad, "Cannon" of their favorite TV program, was touring the White House, she ordered, "Bring him up." The spur-of-the-moment invitation left her no time to dress, and so the First Lady was still in her robe as she received "Cannon" for coffee. Ex-Beatle George Harrison, invited for lunch by the Fords' son Jack, 22, says of the new atmosphere: "I feel good vibes about this White House." As he and Billy Preston toured the place, Billy sat down at the eagle-pedestaled piano in the East Room and struck up God Bless America, while Harrison hummed along.

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