Back in 2011, Shaun wrote a piece for Tony Martin’s website “The Scriveners’ Fancy” (no longer online) called The Resolute President. Move forward to recent times, and Shaun has hinted his next book is about the President’s Desk – one of which is called… The Resolute Desk.
Could this except from his original post on Tony’s website give us a hint of what’s to come….?
The President sat at his desk and ran his hands over the brilliantly polished timber. It had been only a month since he took office – and, in the rare moments he was alone, he still liked to revel in the newness of it all. He had managed to duck his security detail a couple of times to go off exploring, but as he was always on CCTV, they invariably found him after a few minutes. Even when he’d discovered that tunnel that Kennedy had used to smuggle in Marilyn Monroe, the Secret Servicemen had turned up in about forty seconds. The Oval Office was his favourite room, though, because LBJ had ordered all the wiring ripped out after Nixon. There were no cameras, no hidden microphones and, this morning at least, no people. He swivelled around on his chair to face the window and watch the peacocks in the Rose Garden. A gentle dawn filtered through the trees and chased away the last shadow of night, the distant drum of Washington’s waking traffic beating through the triple-glazing. A knock at the door broke his reverie and in walked Fellowes with a brisk ‘Good morning, Mr President.’…
“LBJ had ordered all the wiring ripped out after Nixon.” I guess all’s fair in love and fiction, but in real life, LBJ came before Nixon, not after.
Right you are, and for all the other inaccuracies (like the fact the Oval Office wasn’t built till after 1900) that’s actually the one Shaun fixed in the final book (changing LBJ to Carter).