George Washington gets his own marketing team

MOUNT VERNON, Va. -- He is the other president with a problem.

"I know that he was one of the first presidents," Lon Beard, 10, said of George Washington during a visit to his 18th century estate.

Lon's sister, Coral Krebs, 28, added, "He's on the dollar bill." Posterity is a rough game. After more than 200 years in the public eye, George Washington has been boiled down to a fact and some change. But the first president has his first-ever media and marketing team. And 1999 is a campaign year: the year Washington goes for the hearts of his countrymen. Troubled by stagnating attendance and a rocky recognition factor, especially among schoolchildren, the directors of Mount Vernon, the capital of George Washington's legacy, have inaugurated a $3 million public relations campaign to reposition him as a national figure with what the spinmasters might call "heat." Think Leonardo DiCaprio, Diana and Elvis Presley. "We were looking for something with a lot of sizzle," said Michael Quinn, one of Washington's campaign men. "He had great name recognition, but not a real high quotient of excitement. Dull, boring. He was the first president. Of course. So what?" The campaign is "Only in 1999," the name for a year of celebration tagged to the bicentennial of Washington's death on Dec. 14, 1799. In what scholars are afraid is a crowd-pleasing shift from education to entertainment at historic sites, Mount Vernon's advance guard has sent out 2,000 press kits and contacted 50,000 communities to encourage festivities that range from planting trees to tolling bells. Two new Web sites and three new books, including his diaries, will also help to establish Washington as First Guy: architect, environmentalist, entrepreneur, fashion plate, both flawed and fascinating. Robert Redford wants to make the movie. Washington is already on the road with a blockbuster show, "Treasures From Mount Vernon," parked at the New York Historical Society until Feb. 22. His ivory teeth, if not his smile, have been a great photo op. On Feb. 15, Presidents Day, the day he must share with Lincoln, he will be reintroduced at his home by the Potomac River. Mount Vernon has added a new museum and refurnished the mansion with 100 objects owned by Washington. A new "Death and Funeral Procession Tour" will provide black armbands for visitors. The master bedroom will be set up as the death scene, complete with blood-letting equipment used by physicians who tried to save him from his sudden cold. "Nearly a third of his blood was drained," said Sally McDonough, manager of media relations at Mount Vernon. "That took us two days to figure out." There was discussion of piping in bad smells, but consideration of the idea was put on hold because staff historians could not agree on what would be authentic to the period. The celebration will be capped by a televised 18th century state funeral on Dec. 18. "We're going to try to make it feel like the Diana funeral," said Melissa Groppel, manager of special events, who is handling the hand-crafted coffin and costumed cortege. Washington's makeover comes not a sound bite too soon. Annual attendance at Mount Vernon is far below its peak of 1.3 million visitors, which was reached more than three decades ago. In a 1991 Gallup Poll, the last one that asked people whom they considered the three greatest presidents, Washington's name came up in only 21 percent of the responses, lagging far behind Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt. "Clearly every indication is that he's on a downward slide," said James Rees, the resident director of Mount Vernon. Even Washington's appearance on the dollar bill, Rees said, is a mixed blessing. "It's the wrong image," he said. "The family never liked that Gilbert Stuart portrait. It shows him as a grubby old man." Three years ago, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, which for 141 years has owned and operated Mount Vernon as a nonprofit historic site, decided that they had to dust off the president. "We know we've got a great product," said Claire Edwards, an association member from Connecticut. "This is somebody more than the guy who sells cars on Presidents Day." The current image campaign, including a nose job to the famous Jean Antoine Houdon bust, refining its profile, is a war George Washington cannot afford to lose: Mount Vernon needs to boost its attendance by 10 percent to cover its bicentennial costs. Behind its security gates, the neoclassical mansion, in stark fields that overlook the river, is like a White House in exile. In late January, a squadron of geese threaded the sky above it. Wild turkeys crossed the driveway of the brick colonial-style administrative buildings. It was a brilliant blue day to meet the president's generals. Upstairs, in what used to be the Ladies' Association's dormered bedrooms, is the war office for Washington's campaign team. In a nearby $1 million, 23,000-square-foot center, 375 volunteers will be manning toll-free telephone lines to answer requests for bicentennial materials. In his office, Rees recalls the results of focus groups commissioned by Mount Vernon in 1992. "They often floated back to Jefferson, as being so creative, interesting," he said. Referring to the 1995 movie Jefferson in Paris, and a 1997 television biography produced by Ken Burns, Rees said, "I think he's got better PR." Washington's people are sensitive about Jefferson and his winning edge in the public's imagination. "While Jefferson and others were yip-yapping back and forth about the Declaration of Independence, quite frankly, Washington's out there winning the war," Rees said heatedly. Quinn, the director of programs, said: "He's actually led one of the more exciting lives you can imagine. And he's absolutely the embodiment of a rags-to-riches story." Washington, a self-taught surveyor with a modest income, rose to command the Continental Army at 43 and was unanimously elected to be the first president at age 57. "He's a victim of his own success," Quinn said. "He made it look too easy." Richard Brookhiser, the author of Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington (The Free Press, 1996), said Washington's achievements were beyond dispute. "Washington was one of the main reasons that the country succeeded," he said. "It's a success story that we take for granted." Brookhiser explained: "He knew what he was doing and he had the strength of character to do it. We tend to remember the bright boys - - Jefferson and Madison." As to the tabloid taste for scandals, scholars agree there were none. "Faults are attractive in today's world," said Rees, who would be happy to deal with the kind of publicity that Sally Hemings, the slave who may have borne Jefferson's child, brought to Monticello. With controversy and the Burns documentary providing extra draw, Monticello received 560,000 visitors in 1997, an increase of 30,000 from the year before. Mount Vernon also takes cues from Graceland, the Elvis Presley mansion. It received 700,000 visitors last year. "I keep a close eye on Graceland," Rees said. "We get some people coming not because they're history buffs but because Americans like to see where famous people live and eat."

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