White House Smoking Etiquette

A place setting from the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Administration (1963 — 1969) complete with the required ashtrays, White House matches and holders of cigarettes flanking the floral arrangement.  — At State Dinners and home dinners, smoking at meals was so commonplace, the 1940’s Sunset “Host and Hostess” book on entertaining cautioned that for a properly set dining table, each place setting needed an ashtray, no less than 3 cigarettes, and matches or a lighter. It wasn’t until the Clinton administration, that smoking was banned in the White House at the dining tables.

Smoke When They Please, Hang The Protocol at the White House

Washington (UPI) 

Backstairs at the White House: Be it a sign of less respect for strictly formal etiquette or the informality of the ‘New Frontier,’ but guests at White House State Dinners these days— some guests, at least— seem to smoke when they please and hang the protocol. It once was rigid custom that guests smoked only late in the dinner, certainly not until after the entree, and to be completely safe, not until the champagne was served before dessert. 

In the Truman administration, for example, smoking at formal dinners was controlled rather simply — no ash trays. When the time came for smoking, waiters placed ash trays along the glittering banquet tables. At one of the first Truman dinners, the wife of a new cabinet officer lit up right after the soup and discovered, to her horror, there was no place for ashes except the hallowed, historic dinner china or the floor. A stern butler let her collect ashes in her hand for a few minutes, then marched up disdainfully and relieved her of the smoldering butt. 

The Eisenhowers put ash trays on the table, with small dishes of cigarettes, but since neither the President nor his wife smoked, it was hard to watch them for guidance. Occasionally, late in a dinner, either the former President or his wife Mamie, would tell those nearest them to smoke if they wished. At some of the more recent functions given for visiting heads of state by President and Mrs. Kennedy, however, several guests started smoking early in the proceedings. 

At the recent dinner for Sudan President Ibrahim Abboud, several guests lighted cigarettes moments after they were seated, even before the dinner actually began. They apparently spotted raised eyebrows and doused the cigarettes quickly. The President does not smoke at the table. He lights up when he goes into the adjoining red, green, or blue rooms for coffee and liqueurs after dinner. 

The more valorous protocol would indicate no smoking until a host or hostess gives some indication, but it may be that with a growing climate of informality not only in Washington, but other gathering places of prominent people, the sin of smoking before the entree is becoming less heinous. The Kennedy’s, early in their White House career, stopped the long established custom of splitting the men and women into carefully segregated groups after dinner for brandy and cigars in one room, creme de menthe, frappe and cigarets in the other.— By Merriman Smith, White House Reporter, 1961

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia Etiquette Encyclopedia