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Wednesday, June 24, 2009 A cast party in D.C.
Family ties
Speaking of famous family names, we ran into an Eisenhower this
past weekend, as in Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of President
Dwight D. Eisenhower, on the Sequoia, the legendary presidential
yacht.
Although the Sequoia was decommissioned in the 1970s by
President Carter as a government spending cut, the boat is still
used for special functions, and in this case was anchored at
National Harbor for a fundraiser for Luke's Wings, a local
nonprofit that flies family members of wounded soldiers abroad
to be with their loved ones while they convalesce.
Ms. Eisenhower, who is an expert on U.S.-Russian relations and
is president of the consulting firm the Eisenhower Group, seemed
right at home on the boat. After all, she said, "I have been on
the Sequoia a number of times - during the Nixon years at a
cruise they gave for Prince Charles and Princess Anne and on
several other, informal evenings over the years."
But on this night, Ms. Eisenhower was not there to brush
shoulders with royalty or high rollers, but with veterans of the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan whose families have been helped by
Luke's Wings.
"I try to do anything I can to support our troops. All of us
need to do what we can to thank them for their commitment and
their sacrifices," she said.
Ms. Eisenhower did, however, ruffle some feathers last year when
she left the party of her grandfather and endorsed
then-candidate Barack Obama for president.
"I was in Normandy when the president spoke. I talked to him
then," she said of her contact with the commander in chief.
Could an Eisenhower be joining the administration, perhaps? What
would the general think of that? |
