Re: 8/29/00 - STARS DON'T FAZE YALE: Bush’s daughter to arrive with absolutely no fanfare
STARS DON'T FAZE YALE: Bush’s daughter to arrive with absolutely no fanfare
Walter Kita, Register Staff August 29, 2000
[picture]
Barbara Bush
NEW HAVEN — Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush’s daughter, Barbara, is coming to Yale this week with the rest of the class of 2004, but the school’s public relations machine isn’t gearing up for the big event.
In fact, the gears aren’t turning at all.
Typical of the arrival of a celebrity student, Yale officials are saying almost nothing about it. And one subject they especially don’t want to talk about is security.
But if Bush’s father defeats Democrat Al Gore in his bid for the Oval Office in November, Barbara Bush will become the first child of a sitting president to attend Yale in almost a century.
President Howard Taft’s son, Robert A. Taft, graduated in 1909.
In that case, expect more new arrivals to descend on New Haven and the Yale campus: a pack of Secret Service agents, reporters and TV camera crews.
"We can confirm that Barbara Bush is coming, but that’s all we’re prepared to say," said Yale spokesman Thomas Conroy. "It’s a school policy."
At an institution where celebrity students are as much a part of the terrain as the Wiffenpoofs, Skull and Bones and the statue of Nathan Hale on the Old Campus, Yale maintains the rich and famous are entitled to privacy as much as anyone else.
But "no comment" has never been an easy line to sell to the media.
"We’ll certainly keep our ears open," said New York Daily News gossip columnist George Rush, adding that his newspaper would most likely cover Barbara Bush in much the same way it has Chelsea Clinton, now a student at Stanford University in California.
"You’ve got to cut her some slack because she’s only a child and she was born into the public eye," Rush said. "But if (the story) isn’t malicious or cruel — something innocent about her love life or what she’s studying — generally that would be seen as fair game."
Yale observes strict rules of privacy for all its undergraduates, releasing only the barest information, such as the student’s age and class year in response to reporters’ inquiries.
Beyond respect for privacy, some Yale watchers in and out of the university cite another factor: it simply wouldn’t be in keeping with the school’s image to crow about its famous graduates or the celebrities it attracts.
Besides, the press historically has been more than willing to do the job.
The massive wave of good publicity Yale is currently enjoying — three Yalies are running for the nation’s two highest elected offices — has come after two rough years at the Ivy League school.
The murder of Yale senior Suzanne Jovin in 1998, followed by news that a Yale faculty member was a suspect, was the first blow. The arrest and conviction of Yale Professor Antonio Lasaga on child pornography and sex assault charges kept Yale in the spotlight.
The mood on campus is decidedly more upbeat today with Texas Gov. George W. Bush, a 1968 Yale grad, vying for the presidency on the Republican ticket,
His running mate, former U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, was admitted to Yale in 1959 but dropped out in his sophomore year. Cheney’s vice presidential counterpart for the Democrats, Connecticut Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, graduated from Yale in 1964.
Time magazine, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other publications have highlighted the Yale angle in this year’s presidential sweepstakes.
Another school might look to capitalize on news that the daughter of one its most prominent graduates has planned to spend the next four years at her father’s alma mater.
At Yale, officials have made it clear they don’t want to talk about Barbara Bush.
"We’re happy she’s coming here and continuing a long family tradition," said Yale Secretary Linda Lorimer. "Our goal is to give her the same experience all our other students have — which is to say a terrific one."
Yale University Police Chief James Perrotti did not return phone calls last week requesting information about added security that might be in place for Barbara Bush’s arrival.
Special Agent Mark Connolly of the Secret Service in Washington declined to discuss the "methods and means" the agency uses to protect presidential candidates, their spouses or their immediate families.
Coverage for candidates and their spouses begins within 120 days of the general election. Sources said coverage for family members is on a case by case basis.
City police officials said they have had brief discussions about security with their counterparts on the Yale police force, but beyond that they are keeping quiet.
George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, have long sought to shield their 18-year-old daughter and her twin sister, Jenna, from the press, according to published reports. Jenna Bush will attend the University of Texas at Austin in the fall.
"One of my great hesitancies about making this race is I really don’t want their lives to be affected by me," Bush told reporters last year. "I know what it’s like to be the son of a president, but I don’t know what it’s like to be the son of a president at 18 years old."
Bush said he hopes reporters will show his daughters the same degree of privacy they have accorded Chelsea Clinton during the eight years her father has been president.
At Stanford, Secret Service agents take up the dorm rooms on either side of Chelsea Clinton, according to the San Jose Mercury News. They are always with her, including the classroom, social events or when she takes a jaunt into Palo Alto, Calif.
Yale assigns its students to one of 12 residential colleges, but as freshmen they all live in various dorms on the Old Campus. If Barbara Bush gets Davenport College as her residence, the college where her father and grandfather lived, she would be assigned to the Vanderbilt dorm on the Old Campus for this year.
Security experts say Yale has another good reason for not discussing measures that could be implemented to protect Barbara Bush.
"The less you make known about the precautions you’re taking the more difficult it becomes for people that might want to harm the individual to achieve their goals," said Southern Connecticut State University Police Chief John Prokop, whose officers have helped provide security for notable visitors such as Walter Cronkite and Colin Powell.
Some famous students have been able to blend into the Ivy-covered woodwork with hardly a notice. That was true of actress Claire Danes, who attended Yale last year.
Princess Victoria, Sweden’s photogenic royal heir, was unable to get out of the spotlight. A German news magazine paid thousands of dollars to photographers to snap her face as she went to and from classes. Foreign reporters filed story after story chronicling her every move.
Yale’s tight-lipped stance extends to famous alumni and others who visit the school.
Two years ago, former president George Herbert Walker Bush, a 1948 Yale graduate, attended his 50th reunion under a veil of secret service protection. Yale officials provided minimal information to the press and declined all requests for interviews.
When tycoon Ted Turner and Jane Fonda visited New Haven for an afternoon two years ago to discuss social policy with Yale Professor Paul Kennedy the press found out, but not until a day later.
Barbara Bush joins a list of sons and daughters of political figures who have made Yale their college of choice. Included in that group are Ronald Reagan Jr., who dropped out before he was to graduate in 1980, and Cyrus Vance Jr., whose father was secretary of state in President Jimmy Carter’s administration.
Yale came close to landing presidential daughter Chelsea Clinton two years ago, but she chose to attend Stanford instead. Before heading west, she visited New Haven with her mother, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yale kept their campus visit a secret.
Among the film and TV set, Yale has proven to be a perennial favorite, attracting the likes of Jennifer Beals, star of the movie "Flashdance" and Academy Award winner Jodie Foster.
Yale history Professor Gaddis Smith remembers Foster as a top-notch student who relished the opportunity to cultivate relationships outside her Hollywood milieu. She was awarded a bachelor’s degree in English in 1985.
"She received no special treatment from the students or the faculty," recalled Smith. "She was here to be a student — and everyone at the school accommodated that wish."
Foster, who achieved her greatest fame after leaving Yale, returned in 1998 for an honorary degree.
Smith believes celebrity students deserve the privacy Yale affords them. But he knows there are times when Ivy covered walls — no matter how high — can’t protect them from everything.
He recalls the leave of absence Foster took from Yale in 1981 after John Hinckley tried to assassinate President Ronald Regan, apparently driven by a strange fixation for the actress.
"It was terrible thing — her having to leave school," said Smith. "She’s a celebrity, but she was also a young woman with a goal of getting a college education. I felt badly for her."
©New Haven Register 2000
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