The Nation: A June Wedding in the White House

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Even the domestic staff at the White House cannot say with certainty what she does with her time, apart from very occasional service as a teacher's aide in an all-black Washington third-grade class. The press has dubbed her "the Howard Hughes of the White House." In the back halls of the mansion, her iron will is legend. "Despite that Dresden-doll look, Tricia could handle anything," says the President's longtime personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods. Nixon agrees. "Tricia has a very strong personality," he said in an interview last year. "For example, when I say, 'Let's go to church,' sometimes Tricia says, 'No.' And she doesn't go." One White House staffer puts it less kindly: "Tricia has a princess complex. When she stamps her little foot, you'd better snap to." Tricia, however, finds the princess description "unreal."

Good Marks. Usually Tricia keeps to herself around the White House. Luci and Lynda Bird Johnson often slipped downstairs to stand with the social aides at the back of the East Room during the after-dinner entertainment, but Tricia does not appear unless she is a full-fledged dinner guest. Except for an outdoor affair honoring Prince Charles and Princess Anne, last year she attended only the dinners honoring French President Georges Pompidou, British Prime Minister Edward Heath, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the African ambassadors to Washington. One friend's explanation for her seeming aloofness is persuasive: "Tricia is basically shy. It takes three times as much effort for her to meet people and chat with strangers as it would for Julie." When Tricia does make the effort, she gets good marks for grace. Says the same friend: "She's like an actress who goes on."

Like a good actress, Tricia had something to offer the Love Story set when she met the ladies of the press on the morrow of the engagement announcement. "The most important thing for a successful marriage is love, but love is so intangible," she observed. "It's so important to accept one another, even though you are very different. I think you should complement one another." She said she may study American history while Cox finishes law school, and she told the startled newswomen, whom she had sedulously avoided: "I envy you all your jobs." On a more immediate point, she allowed that she knows how to make Eddie's favorite chocolate-chip cookies and can cook eggs and pancakes. But, well, "bacon is hard." Not a moment too soon, Mother Pat gave her a book of "foolproof" recipes as an engagement present.