When Perle Mesta Ran Washington, D.C.
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Perle’s first taste of victory came when the Democratic Party asked her to co-chair Truman’s inauguration ball on January 20. Perle relished the power of the post, as she was largely in charge of deciding who could buy tickets to the 5,300-seat National Guard Armory. She was deluged with requests.
Senators and congressmen wrote to her with pleas for tickets for their constituents, the Missouri Society sent in 10 names, White House officials and Cabinet members had to go through Perle for tickets. Even Bess and Margaret Truman requested Perle’s help for their friends. Perle had the bright idea of charging Republicans a premium and gleefully showed Truman several checks for up to $3,000 per box. He told her to return the money since he didn’t want to gouge anyone. He set the price at $250 per box (equivalent to $3,100 today).
Working out of the Inaugural Committee’s offices at the Tariff Building on F Street, Perle was so busy that she began bringing a monogrammed lunchbox containing a sandwich, an apple, and a slice of cake so she could work through lunch. She put a sign on her door reading “Knock. If urgent.”
An urgent problem materialized. Chicago Defender publisher John Sengstacke and Christine Ray Davis, a staffer for Black Chicago congressman William Dawson, uncovered an effort to keep Black people from attending the inaugural ball. A staffer was covertly omitting reply cards from invitations to Black guests. Perle spent five hours in her office with Sengstacke and Davis, working together to ensure the inauguration ball would be integrated.
Well-connected Republicans took to the newspapers to complain they couldn’t get tickets. United Press sent out a story on January 13 claiming that Perle was snubbing Republican hostesses, including Alice Roosevelt Longworth and Mrs. Edward “Dolly” Gann, sister of former vice president Charles Curtis. One GOP hostess railed: “You have to be a friend of Perle’s before you can get an invitation.”
Perle disingenuously insisted to United Press that she had no sway, claiming a “secret committee of 20” people screened all requests. This was nonsense, as Lyndon Johnson quickly learned. As Robert Caro recounts in Master of the Senate, the third volume of his LBJ biography, the newly elected senator dispatched junior aide Warren Woodward to get extra inaugural ball seats. He met with a woman whose name—he thought—was “Miss Masters.” Thrilled at receiving tickets from this minor volunteer, Woodward gushed to her, “I know Senator Johnson will be very grateful, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wants to have a dance with you.”
When Woodward reported back to his boss, Johnson broke in to say, “Her name wouldn’t be Mesta, would it? You were talking to Perle Mesta.”
Even as she was toiling away on the inauguration, Perle made time to rent a different residence, Uplands, a spacious redbrick Georgian mansion on a five-acre property at 1800 Foxhall Road. There was a delicious pleasure in taking over this mansion, previously owned by Daisy Harriman, the diplomat-hostess who had never given Perle the time of day. Harriman had been forced to sell the house due to deteriorating finances, and the new owner, a retired diplomat, rented to Perle.
Uplands was a historic preservationist’s dream. Built in the 1770s from raspberry-colored bricks imported from England, Harriman had installed antique wood paneling and parquet floors from France and added such American touches as marble tiles from a Capitol Hill hotel where Andrew Jackson and Daniel Webster once lived.
Although Perle’s sister Marguerite and brother-in-law George Tyson were devout Republicans, they were hungry for conversation after the tedium of Arizona ranch life. The couple moved in with Perle for an indefinite stay, along with Marguerite’s daughter Betty and grandchild. Marguerite made herself useful by stage-managing Perle’s parties.
Perle was setting up her personal headquarters just a few blocks from Gwen Cafritz, who lived in a hilltop marble and mirrored modern house, built by her developer husband. In the cloistered environment of Washington, the two women had often been in many of the same rooms. Gwen was frequently described as an elegant beauty in contrast to Perle, whose yo-yo dieting efforts were chronicled instead.
The already chilly relationship between the two women went into deep freeze when Gwen asked Perle for inauguration ball tickets. Perle turned her down for reasons that were likely more political than personal. In her eyes, Gwen and her husband were Republicans who enthusiastically backed Dewey. Aware that Perle would soon be living nearby, Gwen tried to make nice by saying, “Now that you’re a neighbor, I suppose I’ll be seeing more of you.” Perle’s tart reply, “I suppose not.”
Gwen was furious. Thus began a bitter rivalry that would last a decade, with Gwen making nasty comments about Perle at every opportunity and newspapers gleefully printing them.
For his new term in office, Truman was certain to revamp his Cabinet plus appoint a flock of new diplomats, but there was no indication he would break with his unwritten policy of only choosing men. Globetrotting columnist Dorothy Thompson reported from Washington: “Women here are glum over the chances any of them have to get important policy-making posts in the Truman Administration.” India Edwards compiled a list of 20 women with leadership capacity, but she wasn’t optimistic that Truman would take her advice.
The rumors swirling about Perle at that time had nothing to do with higher office—unless one counted the possibility of marrying into it. Syndicated columnist Cholly Knickerbocker breathlessly announced: “The hottest rumor from Washington is that Mrs. George (Perle) Mesta, Washington’s first hostess and President Truman’s best pal, may marry Vice President Alben Barkley. Both of them are unattached and have been friends for years.”
Perle enjoyed the column item, making coy references to “my beau” but declining to confirm or deny the story. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Elise Morrow, who knew Perle well, wrote, “The Vice President is a thoroughly sweet, warm-hearted, universally beloved man... It is not the opinion of those close to either one that they are involved romantically.” However, Morrow hedged her bets, adding that it was impossible to know what was going on “so it is just possible they might run off to a justice of the peace tomorrow.” They didn’t.
Thousands of people poured into Washington for Truman’s inauguration. Trains into the city were jammed, and hotels and restaurants were fully booked since even those without ball tickets wanted to be there for impromptu celebrations.
In his inaugural address on January 20, the always underestimated president reiterated campaign themes, denouncing communism as the enemy of world peace and vowing to support the United Nations.
Wearing jaunty top hats, Truman and Vice President Barkley rode together in an open car down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, followed by a two-hour parade of marching bands and state floats. An old-time circus calliope played “I’m Just Wild About Harry.” Police estimated the crowd at one million people.
That evening, as the Marine Corps band played “Hail to the Chief,” Perle made a grand entrance at the ball on the arm of President Truman. Photographers captured Perle beaming with joy, wearing an elegant ivory satin gown with gold brocade, diamond clips, and elbow-length white gloves.
The Woman Who Knew Everyone: The Power of Perle Mesta, Washington’s Most Famous Hostess
Listening to bands headlined by Guy Lombardo, Benny Goodman, and Xavier Cugat, Perle sat with friends in her VIP box. Perle loved to dance, but that night she was too tired from the preparations to even claim her whirl around the floor with Lyndon Johnson. She was content to watch others revel in the ball she had worked so hard to perfect.
Perle had much to be proud of. In a historical sense, almost nothing was as important as the story in the Chicago Defender, one of the nation’s leading Black newspapers. “Breaking a long-standing national precedent, Negroes participated on a completely integrated basis in all activities—invitational and otherwise—attending President Truman’s inauguration as the 33rd President of the United States. More than one hundred Negroes were present at the Inauguration Ball where they danced without racial segregation and enjoyed all the courtesies extended ball guests.” Perle played only a small role, but she helped make it an integrated celebration.
Excerpted from THE WOMAN WHO KNEW EVERYONE: The Power of Perle Mesta, Washington’s Most Famous Hostess by Meryl Gordon. Copyright © 2025 by Meryl Gordon. Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc., New York, NY. All rights reserved.
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