IRISH politicians may boast about their access to the White House but it was the British Prime Minister, Mr Major, who got to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Thanks to the controversy over Democratic party fund raising, we now know the names of 831 people who stayed overnight in the White House as President Clinton's guests. The big question is whether some had to pay to lie in the 8ft by 6ft rosewood bed in which the embalmed Abe Lincoln was once laid out.
Mr Clinton has indignantly denied that guests paid in advance but there is no doubt that many contributed handsomely at some stage to the Democratic National Party (DNP). The New York Times tan a computer check comparing the guest list with DNP donors and it shows that guests shelled out about $10,2 million.
"The Lincoln bedroom was never sold," Mr Clinton insisted as the storm grew over the guest list. "I did not have any strangers here."
This is a very sensitive subject for the President who, along with the DNP, is already facing several Congressional inquiries into dubious fund raising from Asian tycoons. Using the White House for fund raising would breach the Hatch Act which forbids the use of federal property for this purpose. But the beleaguered White House argues that, as long as money is nol demanded at the door, so to speak, the law is not breached.
The trouble is that presidential aides have referred to some of the White House coffee mornings as "fund raisers". The President himself, who has been blaming the DNP for being too zealous in chasing dollars, is now revealed as leading the posse. When he received a memo from his finance chairman about how to "energise donors with meals at the White House, games of golf and jogging sessions with the President, he went further and in a handwritten note on the memo said: "Ready to start overnights right away". He even asked for a list of donors who had given $100,000 or more who could be invited for sleep overs.
The guest list - which the White House released knowing that it would more than likely leak from Capitol Hill - breaks down into various categories: Arkansas friends, 370 long lime friends, 155; friends and supporters, 111; officials and dignitaries, 128; arts and letters, 67.
Some of the prominent guests were from the film world - Jane Fonda and husband Mr Ted Turner, Candice Bergen, Richard Dreyfuss and Tom Hanks; and singers, Barbra Streisand and Judy Collins; the playwright, Neil Simon, and the preacher, the Rev Billy Graham.
Lincoln actually used the room as a Cabinet office and signed the Emancipation proclamation there.
But the bed was bought by his wife, causing Lincoln to complain about the cost while the Civil War was raging.
Lincoln's son died in, the bed and Lincoln himself was laid out and embalmed on it after he was assassinated in Ford's Theatre downtown.
Republican presidents have also invited "friends" to sleep in the room. By trying to light a fire under the sealed chimney, President Nixon smoked the place out when Bob Hope's wife complained of the cold there. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands heard a knock and saw a spectral figure in stovepipe hat.
Barbara Bush replaced the traditional horsehair mattress but some guests, like the Mayor of San Francisco, Mr Willie Brown, while thrilled with the honour, have found the bed,"lumpy".