Daniel Inouye has represented Hawaii in Congress since statehood. He talked about his first week in Washington in a speech to the Honolulu Rotary Club at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in August 2009.
“On the 23rd of August, 1959, I stood in the well of the House of Representatives to be sworn in,” Inouye recalls. “Hawaii was admitted to the union, and I was elected congressman. I was the first Asian in Congress.”
“A man came to my congressional office with a letter from the White House. I opened the envelope and a card was inside.”
It said, “President Dwight David Eisenhower and Mrs. Eisenhower request the pleasure of your company at a dinner honoring the chairman of the Soviet Socialist Republics, Nikita Khrushchev. August 25, 1959.”
“Oh my God, that is just two days away,” Inouye thought. “I’m in Washington. I was just sworn in and I have this invitation. And another card had just two words: ‘White Tie.’ At that time in the state of Hawaii, there was only one person I knew who had a white-tie outfit, and that was the maitre d’ at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.”
“I was new to Washington, D.C., so I looked in the Yellow Pages and found a haberdasher who could rent me a white-tie outfit. It cost me $11.23. Today, $11.23 couldn’t rent you a pair of socks.”
Inouye told a colleague about the invitation, and he said that was terrific. “How are you going to get there?” “I’ll catch a cab,” Inouye replied.
“You can’t go to the White House in a cab!” the man said.
“How do I get there?” Inouye asked.
“Oh, you need a limousine.”
“So I rented a limousine. That set me back $45.”
Before the dinner, Inouye was in a hotel room, all by himself. “My wife hadn’t gotten to Washington yet, and when I took out the tuxedo, I found that the collar was separate from the shirt. I couldn’t get it on by myself, so I called the front desk and asked if they could send someone up to help me dress.”
“About 10 minutes later two guys come in. Two burly guys. They thought I was gay!”
They quickly saw his predicament and helped him get dressed. He hurried to the waiting limousine. It wasn’t far down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. A long line of limousines was waiting to get in the northwest gate.
“Just by coincidence, driving in ahead of me through the White House gate was the vice president, Richard Nixon. The guards saluted and waved him in.”
Inouye’s car pulled up to the guardhouse. “The window goes down. The Russian Secret Service and the American Secret Service are there. They look at me through the window. I handed them my invitation. “They probably had not seen many Asians that night.”
“Who the hell is that?” Inouye could overhear one guard whispering to the other.
“I think it’s the king of Siam,” the other replied.
“I’m a good American. I didn’t want to disappoint my fellow Americans. So I waved at them. Maybe someone somewhere is telling another that 50 years ago he met the king of Siam.”
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Bob Sigall, author of the “Companies We Keep” books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
