While it’s easy to assume that getting into the White House to cause trouble is nearly impossible, free tours are still offered to the public. This is a service that has been provided for decades; any U.S. citizen can reach out to their congressperson and request a tour, and if you’re lucky enough to make the cut, you must have a government-issued photo ID.
For non-residents, contacting the appropriate embassy is the way to go about this. And while it would be riveting to go through the step-by-step process of how to get a free White House tour, this article is about one specific tour in 1956.
In the present day, the list of items you cannot bring on a White House tour is somewhere between extensive and absurd. Some of the items are self-explanatory: no lighters, weapons, stun guns, toy weapons, or fireworks. But would you believe that the White House lists “martial arts” as a prohibited item? The prohibited list also includes signs, tablets, video cameras and cameras with detachable lenses (but apparently fixed lenses are fine), liquids of any kind, and, obviously, flags.
But in the past the rules were a bit more lax.
Imagine the response if, today, someone was on a tour and managed to sneak in a lighter, or a flint, or some other item capable of extreme heat. Imagine then, that this person slipped away from their tour and started a fire in the White House. A step further: Imagine if this person proceeded to start four more fires in and around the building.
What do you suppose the response would be? Would they be promptly shot by the Secret Service? Would they be immediately thrown into a holding cell and subject to intense scrutiny and interrogation (enhanced or otherwise, but definitely not torture)? Or would they be calmly grabbed by security personnel and given a cup of tea?
On April 3, 1956, a woman touring the White House set five fires. Five. According to the New York Times, all five were quickly extinguished and did little to no damage, but she was apparently free enough to light them in different rooms as she explored the grounds. According to reports of the reports, she managed to escape her tour and effectively “go missing” for FOUR HOURS inside the White House. Somehow, that’s almost the end of the story.
The woman was clearly disoriented and/or mentally unwell, but rather than being tackled, tased, or shot, Secret Service agents (once they eventually found her) basically took her into the break room to see if she was okay. The woman identified herself as Julia Chase, and she stated that she was born in Hagerstown, Maryland 53 years prior to this event. They asked her where she had come from that day and she couldn’t provide a response; she said she didn’t know.
She reportedly set the first of the five fires in the Red Room, less than 100 yards from where President Eisenhower was sitting at the time, and the other four were just kind of wherever she felt the inclination.
You may be wondering why a person decided to light fires in the White House, particularly since they were seemingly not set with the intention of burning the building down. This is a perfectly logical thing to wonder, and the Secret Service asked Mrs. Chase that very same question. Her response was that she “had a lot of trash and just wanted to burn it.” It’s hard to argue with her logic, frankly.
Instead of all the possible legal punishments you might expect, Julia Chase was more or less held for observation for a few hours, given a cup of tea, and sent on her way. She was clearly not doing well, so observation was a completely reasonable – and probably correct – thing to do.
According to second and thirdhand stories, Mrs. Chase was given a few snacks and tea in the staff kitchen until her husband arrived to pick her up. She was described as “not lucid.”
Simpler times.