Inside the Beltway

Washington’s roots

We thought we knew everything there was to know about our federal city until reading “The Washington Century: Three Families and the Shaping of the Nation’s Capital” by National Journal contributing editor Burt Solomon.

Some intriguing nuggets from the new book:

• Frank Lloyd Wright criticized government buildings in 1938 — when the Federal Triangle monstrosities were going up — as “not built to serve the people, but to satisfy a kind of grandomania.”

“Much of Washington’s early architecture was very cool indeed, though some of it was controversial,” the author explains to Inside the Beltway.

Take the Old Executive Office Building, next door to the White House, with its 900 columns and flamboyant chimneys, revered by many but reviled by more. Its architect committed suicide two years after the building was finished.

• The Beltway’s first traffic snarl occurred the very same day the circumferential ring around Washington opened to motorists.

“After Governor Millard Tawes of Maryland wielded the golden scissors, everyone tried to leave at once, creating the Beltway’s first traffic jam,” Mr. Solomon says.

• Julius Hobson Jr., the top lobbyist for the American Medical Association, has learned from Sun Tzu’s ancient text, “The Art of War,” as well as a certain professional football coach in plotting his lobbying strategy, a subject he teaches at George Washington University.

“He studied the strategy of Joe Gibbs, the Redskins coach who had won three Super Bowls, buttressed by an ability to modify his game plan at half-time,” says the author, who adds of this disappointing football season: “Not sure that doctors would want Gibbs right now as their guru.”

• Today’s tight security around the U.S. Capitol feels much like Washington experienced on the night of Dec. 7, 1941.

“Overnight, Washington turned into a wartime capital. Helmeted guards patrolled the Potomac bridges. Soldiers with submachine guns secured the White House lawn,” Mr. Solomon writes of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. “The familiar air of leisure was gone, never to return.”

New leaders

The 109th freshman class of congressmen has elected its leadership, choosing as president Rep. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana; as vice president, DelegateLuis Fortuno of Puerto Rico (a speaker at the Republican National Convention this year); to its steering committee, Rep. Cathy McMorris of Washington; its representative to leadership Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas; and to its policy committee, Rep. Thelma Drake of Virginia, all Republicans of course.

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