WASHINGTON -- You have heard a lot about the White House West Wing where the official action takes place. But there is also the East Wing, the first lady's bailiwick and, as I see it, the human side of the White House.

A candid memoir by Mary Finch Hoyt, who was press secretary to former first lady Rosalynn Carter, reveals the highs and lows, the good times and the bad times of life at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

In her book "East Wing," Hoyt tells of confronting many challenges. The most poignant are the tragic losses of her loved ones. You feel her pain and admire her honesty.

During World War II, she lost her beloved brother Tom, whose plane was shot down over Bulgaria in 1944. That same year her husband of six months, Robert Gordon Swanson, an Army Air Corps flight instructor, was killed when his plane crashed while he was training a cadet over the Red River Valley along the Texas-Oklahoma border.

She later went through two divorces, and while she was working at the White House, she received the shocking news that her son Stephen Hoyt was lost at sea with his crew while on a sailing jaunt.

Before jumping on the Jimmy Carter bandwagon, she was the spokeswoman for two potential first ladies whose husbands' Democratic campaigns failed in 1972. She became a close friend of both women -- Jane Muskie, wife of Edmund Muskie of Maine, who lost in the primary, and Eleanor McGovern, wife of George McGovern of South Dakota, who won the Democratic nomination that year but lost to President Richard Nixon.

In the process, Hoyt learned a lot about politics and the press that served her well when the Carters lived in the White House from 1977 to 1981.

In the book, she recalls how probing reporters pounced when Rosalynn Carter attended Cabinet sessions and took notes at the behest of her husband. Hoyt found herself fending off questions about the first lady such as "Who elected HER?"

Rosalynn Carter gained a high profile, particularly when she was on an official assignment representing her husband in Latin America.

Hoyt describes how the first lady reacted after reading a column that implied she had become so prominent that the West Wing was trying to keep her quiet.

Carter, who hailed from the village of Plains, Ga., said, "It's really interesting how I've gone from having a fuzzy image to being so powerful that I am being muzzled by the West Wing." She added, "I've done nothing differently from the day I walked into the White House."

Besides the criticism, she had to contend with snide cracks: "Being from Plains ... what's it like to be a member of the jet set?"

Carter's reply was: "It's like flying to Florida to make eight speeches and back again the same day."

Another ploy: "How nice to see you, Mrs. Carter. You're more beautiful than in person."

And this one: "The president has aged so much. ... I'm too kind to say what has happened to you."

Although wives of White House candidates are not running for public office, they might as well be. They have to appear with the candidate, make speeches, keep their cool, enjoy crowds, and smile even when they are ready to collapse.

In the White House, Hoyt recalls being the target of the "boys on the other side"; that is, the West Wing, where the "boys" accused her and her staff of being prudish and too cautious.

But she says that when heavy criticism was directed against her, the Carters reassured her that she had nothing to worry about.

When some Washington reporters told her that Rosalynn Carter's special concern with mental health was not "sexy" enough to write about, Hoyt found solace in stacks of newspaper clips in her office that contained "solid stories about Rosalynn from local papers nationwide."

Hoyt said she loved showing them to "the Washington 'big feet' reporters who sometimes wonder aloud why the first lady doesn't get more press."

But, as Hoyt revealed, her job had a lot of glamour. One high point was being in a first-tier box at Carnegie Hall in February 1977 with the first lady and Marian Anderson, the great contralto who was being honored on her 75th birthday.

Because she was black, Anderson had been denied access to Washington's Constitution Hall in 1939, but first lady Eleanor Roosevelt quickly arranged for her to sing at the Lincoln Memorial. Later, Anderson became the first black singer to perform at the Met.

Hoyt was obviously awed as the black opera star Leontyne Price appeared at center stage, looked "straight up at our box and (said): 'Dear Marian Anderson, because of you, I am."'

Anderson received a standing ovation and when she sat down, Hoyt says she was close enough to whisper in Anderson's ear -- if only she had dared -- that she had first heard Anderson sing at her hometown high school in Visalia, Calif, years earlier. "I'd want her to know that for me, nothing -- and everything -- has changed."

As is customary, Hoyt left a bouquet of flowers and a sentimental note on her desk for her successor, Sheila Tate, who was coming into the White House in 1981 as press secretary to Nancy Reagan. Hoyt wrote: "Always remember your time is short in the sweep of history, so take time to smell the roses and nod to the portraits of those who (were) privileged also to be here."