A Quiz: The Eisenhower Edition

“I believe every woman over fifty should stay in bed until noon.”
 
First Lady Mamie Eisenhower, Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies

Mamie Eisenhower, Arrival at White House Tea Hosted by Jacqueline Kennedy

​The person who made sleeping-in possible for Mrs. Eisenhower was her loyal and hard-working social secretary, Mary Jane McCaffree. McCaffree died last month at the impressive age of 106. She and Mrs. Eisenhower comprised a formidable team. Commented the former first lady’s granddaughter Susan Eisenhower, “My grandmother loved efficiency, and Mary Jane epitomized it.”
 
Building upon her work with Mrs. Eisenhower, McCaffree returned to government service in the 1970s, as Chief of Protocol for the State Department. In 1977, McCaffree put her years of on-the-job training to good use, writing a detailed book, The Official Handbook of Diplomatic, Official, and Social Usage, which is now back in print. Per her obituary in the New York Times, which of the following was not one of McCaffree’s dictates?

• One should not receive guests nor go through a receiving line holding a drink or cigarette.
• A foreign dignitary from a country where multiple wives are acceptable should bring only one to the White House.
• White shoes are not to be worn to a state dinner after Labor Day, unless the guest of honor is from a nation with a tropical or sub-tropical climate.
• The person being toasted at a formal function should not sip after the toast when everyone else does.

 
The answer is after the JUMP.

It was Serial Mom, not Mary Jane McCaffree, who objected to white shoes after Labor Day. Per McCaffree’s rules, former South African President Jacob Zuma would have had to choose which of his wives he brought to this state banquet. Moreover, there could be no smoking in the receiving line, and the honoree of a toast was forbidden to sip at its conclusion.

Image Credit: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum