Obama looking to avoid Waldorf hotel in New York after Chinese purchase
President Barack Obama meets at the Waldorf Astoria in 2009 with Denis McDonough, deputy national security advisor for strategic communications. (Photo: Pete Souza/White House)
Every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt has stayed in the presidential suite on the 35th floor of the Waldorf AstoriaNew York in Manhattan. The accommodations run $4,000-$6,000 per night, hotel officials say, and feature souvenirs collected from past commanders in chief and security measures like bulletproof glass windows. Current and former White House officials have long considered the hotel and its staff as the best in the world at hosting the most powerful man in the world.
That may all be about to change. President Barack Obama is on track to skip the Waldorf this fall when he heads to New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly, several officials told Yahoo News.
While the officials would not say so explicitly, they strongly indicated that the decision to reevaluate the historic relationship with the Waldorf was tied to the hotel’s sale to China’s Anbang Insurance Group, approved by U.S. regulators earlier this year. While Hilton will continue to operate the property for 100 years, one U.S. official linked the American decision to relocate the president to worries about Chinese espionage and to the announcement of an upcoming “major renovation” at the hotel that could provide an opportunity to install surveillance gear. The recent theft of millions of federal workers’ personal information, pinned on China, has fed the sense of alarm in Washington. China denies responsibility for the breach.
The Associated Press first reported that the State Department’s delegation to the largest diplomatic gathering in the world would stay away from the Waldorf , citing anonymous officials. State Department spokesman John Kirby has declined to deny that report, telling reporters, “I don’t have any venue decisions or any venue issues to talk about” during a daily briefing in mid-June.
But a knowledgeable official told Yahoo News last week that, if the decision is finalized, “none of the official delegation” from the United States to the U.N. would stay at the Waldorf. That delegation includes Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and hundreds of aides. The move would also apply to any “side events, like staff meetings, bilateral meetings with foreign officials,” the official said.
Officially, no final decision has been made on the matter. But another official shrugged off the public stance. “It may not be a ‘done deal,’ but it’s a done deal,” that official told Yahoo News.
American security and diplomatic officials have already carried out in-person assessments, known as “walk-throughs,” of the almost-certain replacement, the New York Palace Hotel, the official said.
One senior administration official insisted that “final decisions on U.S. venues for this year’s U.N. General Assembly events are still pending,” but noted that they would reflect “any possible security concerns.”
Another U.S. official steered Yahoo News to the State Department’s advice for Americans planning to travel to China.
President Barack Obama is briefed at the Waldorf Astoria for a bilateral meeting with President Hu Jintao of China in 2009. (Photo: Pete Souza/White House)
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