Tareq and Michaele Salahi with US Vice-President Joe Biden (centre)

Washington, Nov. 26: Two social butterflies breezed uninvited into what is considered the planet’s most secure place, fluttering around Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Barack Obama at the White House state dinner on Tuesday.

Michaele and Tareq Salahi, wine and polo promoters from Virginia, showed up around 7.15pm halfway through the guest arrivals. A Marine announced their names and Michaele, a glittering model-thin blonde decked out in a red-and-gold sari and holding the hand of her black-tuxedoed escort, swept past camera crews and reporters.

The couple, both in their 40s, stopped several times to pose for pictures and then entered the White House lower hallway, where they mingled with guests on the red carpet before heading up to the cocktail reception in the East Room.

A White House official confirmed the Salahis had not been invited nor seated for dinner at the tent. A spokesperson for the Secret Service — responsible for presidential security — acknowledged a checkpoint had not followed “proper procedures” but suggested Obama or Singh was in no danger.

The White House has asked the Secret Service for a “full review” of how the couple got into the state dinner.

The controversy could cast a cloud on the first-ever Indo-US polo match being planned in Washington on June 11 and 12 next year as part of America’s efforts to promote people-to-people contact. The Salahis, organisers of the America’s Polo Cup held at Washington’s National Mall, are the prime movers behind the June match, billed the India vs USA America’s Polo Cup World Championships.

The Indian embassy may find it tricky to involve itself with the project after the security breach — probably the first time in modern history that anyone has crashed a White House state dinner.

Pictures the couple posted later on their Facebook page appeared to show them posing inside the South Lawn dinner tent with Bollywood composer A.R. Rahman, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and a grinning Vice-President Joe Biden.

But the photos end there — no shots of the Salahis sitting at a table, their seatmates or the post-dinner entertainment — and it wasn’t clear how close they got to Obama and Michelle, or to Singh and Gursharan Kaur.

The Salahis “went through magnetometers and other levels of security, as did all (the 300-plus) guests attending the dinner”, the White House official said.

In the US, Singh is protected by the Secret Service as well as India’s SPG. The Prime Minister, included in the high-risk security category, enjoys the same protection as Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai.

A photograph on Michaele Salahi’s Facebook profile showed the couple drinking wine at the Indian embassy with deputy chief of Indian mission Arun K. Singh for the kickoff of a polo match earlier this year. Diplomat Singh was a guest at Tuesday’s state dinner.

Hours after the dinner, there was another unpublicised security tizzy around Manmohan Singh’s 10am media conference on Wednesday at a room in the hotel Villard Intercontinental.

Under the rules, the room should have been sanitised 12 hours earlier but camerapersons and their equipment were allowed in without X-ray checks. When the SPG realised this, the assembled journalists were told to go to another room and sniffer dogs were brought in to sanitise the conference room.

But how could the White House breach happen?

White House security is usually discreet, unlike the seemingly obtrusive layers that surround Indian VIP establishments. The state dinner was the first for the Obama White House and the stress was not to step on too many toes.

A former White House senior staffer -- who more than a decade ago encountered a crasher at one of the executive mansion’s less-fancy parties -- offered this theory: a savvy pair of crashers, dressed to the nines, might arrive and announce their names, then express shock when the security failed to find them on the guest list.

On a rainy night like Tuesday, with a crowd of 300-plus arriving, security might have lost track of or granted a modicum of sympathy to a pair who certainly looked as though they belonged there. If their IDs didn’t send up any red flags in the screening process, they would be sent through the magnetometers and into the White House.

And yet, the former staffer noted, someone from the White House social office should have been posted at the guest entrance.

The Salahis had indeed arrived in style. “Hey, that’s a Desperate Housewife!” one reporter yelled out, alluding to the TV series, as Michaele --- a former Redskins cheerleader ---- arrived at the White House entrance with Tareq.

The couple have been auditioning for a possible role in a housewives TV franchise, but a different one: The Real Housewives of Washington.

Once they were in, no one would necessarily ask them for further identification. They could check their coats, give their names to the Marine on duty, and walk into the lower hallway where guests picked up their table assignments. They would pass the junior staffers handing out seating cards and walk on up the stairs for cocktails in the East Room.

Later, all guests were directed to head for the dinner tent. Facebook photos suggest the Salahis walked into the tent; it’s unclear when they left. There is no security checkpoint to leave the grounds.

The White House, built in 1800, was open to the public till the early 20th century, with Thomas Jefferson holding an open house for his second inaugural in 1805, and a crowd of 20,000 at Andrew Jackson’s 1829 inauguration forcing him to leave for a hotel. Abraham Lincoln complained he was constantly badgered by job seekers in the White House.

Security personnel sometimes tend to be at ease in Washington, possibly lulled by the mystique surrounding the American capital and a perception, partly promoted by Hollywood, of invincibility associated with the world’s mightiest military power.

In 2000, the visiting Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was staying at Blair House, opposite the White House, when an Indian American walked up to his room to seek his blessings, sweeping past two layers of Secret Service-SPG security. It was only when the intruder reached the door of Vajpayee’s room that the guards realised the breach.

Old-timers recalled a similar security breach in Delhi: the visiting Indonesia President, Sukarno, left Rashtrapati Bhavan at night for a private visit in Delhi without informing security. When he returned later at night, strobe lights were switched off one after the other on the lawn, which some interpreted as a hint of displeasure by the security agencies.

The Salahis were pleased with their efforts and left a message on Michaele’s Facebook page: “Honored to be at the White House for the state dinner in honor of India with President Obama and our First Lady!”

By 8.15 Indian time tonight, the page had drawn over 250 messages. “Glad it was you, and not someone with malicious intent, who tested and beat White House security,” wrote Joe Galietta.

Many of the nearly 250 messages were negative. “You are absolutely pathetic. People will really do anything for attention,” said one Facebook user. Another comment read: “Enjoy going to jail.”

“Tareq Salahi wikipedia” and “Michaele Salahi wiki” were the hottest related searches in Google hot trends.

A woman describing herself as a publicist for the Salahis denied they were interlopers. Mahogany Jones’s statement said: “The Salahis were honored to be a part of such a prestigious event…. They both had a wonderful time.”

The Salahis have long been controversial. Last year, the America’s Polo Cup drew a lawsuit from a caterer over alleged non-payment. The couple have had a long-running feud with Tareq’s parents, Dirgham and Corinne Salahi, over control of the family’s Oasis Winery in Virginia.

Tareq had accused his mother’s attorney of punching him; the lawyer was found not guilty. Court records show that Oasis filed for bankruptcy in February, with Tareq listed as “debtor designee”.

Hours before the White House denied the Salahis were legitimate guests, The Washington Post asked the couple via Facebook how they happened to attend the dinner.

Tareq responded: “India is the challenger in the America’s Polo Cup World Championships June 11/12 2010, and they are very excited in this first ever cultural connection being hosted on the DC National Mall since Polo is one of the primary sports in India.”

Pressed about why they did not appear on the official list, he added: “It was last-minute attending.”