By JODI KANTOR


On the evening of December 7, Presidentelect Barack Obama’s three closest friends - Valerie Jarrett, Martin Nesbitt and Dr.Eric Whitaker - sat down in the study of Mr.Nesbitt’s house in Chicago for one of their increasingly frequent meetings.

They were puzzling over a new question: how the Obamas, who hope to remain close to their Chicago friends, will spend time with them while living in the isolation of the White House. Over Diet Cokes, the three drafted the beginnings of an elaborate visiting schedule that will bring the Obamas’Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago to Washington .

“O.K, Eric, you need to plan to be in D.C. the first six weekends of the presidency,” Ms.Jarrett, soon to be a senior White House adviser, instructed Dr.Whitaker, he recalled.

In the presidential campaign, the Obamas had a “no new friends” rule, surrounding themselves with a coterie of familiar faces. Even if the Obamas lift that rule in Washington, newcomers are unlikely to replicate the intensity of this group’s ties, formed over more than a decade by births and deaths, barbecues and vacations, but also by shared beliefs about race, success and responsibility.

Back when the Obamas were hardly the most prominent members of the group, the doctors, lawyers and businessmen from Chicago became not just one another’s friends but also one another’s supporters, forming a network that eventually helped the politician among them on his way to a Senate seat and then the presidency. Their bonds grew only tighter in the long march of the campaign.

“We knew Barack running for president would be hard on him and Michelle, but we didn’t realize the impact it would have on us,” said Dr.Whitaker, speaking of the frenetic travel schedule he and other friends maintained to keep Mr.Obama company and the scrutiny they endured.

“Marty and Eric and I will get together just to talk through experiences we’ve been through,”Ms.Jarrett said.“People are far more interested in us than any of us have ever experienced in our lives.”

Though Mr.Obama’s friends vow their friendships will not change, they all sound a bit worried: that others will try to take advantage, that they will no longer be regarded on their own terms but in relation to Mr.Obama, or that they will say something that will reflect badly on him. For all of their immense pride in the Obamas, being a presidential friend “is not all fun and games,”Dr. Whitaker said.

The Obama social universe is large, multiracial and far-flung. But the Obamas’ closest friends are the tight bunch from the South Side of Chicago, who never expected to find themselves in this situation.

Like Mrs. Obama, whose father worked for the city water department, most are from modest backgrounds. Mr.Nesbitt, now a real estate executive, is the son of a steel mill worker and a nurse; Mr.Whitaker’s mother was also a nurse, his father a bus driver. Like Mr.Obama, they attended private schools on scholarship.

As years passed and babies arrived, the group meshed over barbecues, husbandsagainst- wives Scrabble games and tennis lessons. They vacationed together: in December, with the Obamas in Hawaii; in August, with Ms.Jarrett on Martha’s Vineyard. Mr.Nesbitt’s wife, Dr.Anita Blanchard, delivered nearly all the children.

Soon, the group will split. Some members, like Ms.Jarrett, will move to Washington and take up administration business, while most of the Obamas’Chicago friends will stay behind. Dr.Whitaker works at the University of Chicago medical center, where he works on community- based health projects once handled by Mrs.Obama.

“I’m just beginning to grapple with the idea that my extended family is leaving town,”Dr.Whitaker said.


Barack Obama with, from left, Martin Nesbitt, Valerie Jarrett and Dr. Eric Whitaker; Mr. Obama and Mr. Nesbitt in Hawaii last summer. During the frenetic campaign the bonds of friendship grew stronger, they say.