Watching that wrecking ball take down the East Wing last month was like chopping off my left arm. Remembrances of things from my White House past flooded my inner inbox.

I had an office in the East Wing from 1981 until 1983, when I was deputy press secretary to the reigning first lady, Nancy Reagan, and it was heaven. I never got over the excitement of driving up to that big white confection of a building every morning, in my white Fiat Spyder convertible, and pulling into the parking space just outside the East Wing, reserved for Mrs. Reagan’s staff. I’d be warmly greeted as I entered, running up the flight of stairs to my tiny but perfect square of an office.

It felt like, and was, an eight-foot-square box, and I was free to decorate it any way I wanted. So I immediately had them con

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