The White House Staff Christmas Party (1967)

White House Christmas Party (1967)
The Blue Room at the White House  Christmas Party (1967)
Type Of Activity	Staff  Event
Location
Location	The White House Washington DC
Date of Activity	December 1967

December 1967 The Staff Christmas Party

The President and Mrs. Johnson always had the annual Christmas Party at the White House for the Support Staff.. If you attended you could pick up your Christmas Card from the President and Mrs Johnson, and if you couldn't attend the card would be sent to you.  

In 1966 the Christmas Card was not received by any of the WHCA personnel at Camp David, even after we discovered that all of Navy personnel had received theirs. If you could not attend The Staff Party your card was usually mailed to you within a couple of weeks of the event. It seemed like all requests about their whereabouts fell on death ears. One of the WHCA spouses decided to take action, and she wrote a very polite letter to Lady Byrd Johnson asking why we hadn't received our cards. We all know what rolls down hill and it did in this case, it was no time until Mr. Fontaine was making a list and checking it twice. I took about another week and everyone at Camp David had their cards. So in 1967, I decided to go to the Christmas party and pick the card up myself and bring it home.  I went with Al Jensen the Navy Seabee working at Cannonball Tower with me. 

I was only able to attend one party primarily because of driving distance from Mercersburg PA. and weather conditions..

The Marine Corp Orchestra

When we entered the White House we were greeted by the Marine Corp Orchestra I stopped and listened to them before entering the Blue Room and viewing the Christmas tree.  There was plenty of refreshments served and after we were there for about an hour when the Johnsons came in to greet all of us and announce the evening’s entertainment.   

 

The President and Mrs. Johnson in the Blue Room

The entertainment for the evening was bandleader Skitch Henderson of the Tonight Show with Jonny Carson.  The show was very entertaining and Skitch played many holiday songs getting all of the guests into a holiday spirit. 

Bandleader Skitch Henderson

After the show the Johnsons retired to their private living quarters and the party continued for a couple more hours.

 

As the guests left they were given their Christmas card to take with them. I ended up with five Johnson Christmas cards and five Nixon Christmas cards all framed and displayed proudly.

LBJ’s Staff Christmas Cards

1964 Staff Christmas Card

1965 Staff Christmas Card

1966 Staff Christmas Card

1967 Staff Christmas Card

1968 Staff Christmas Card

The San Clemente CCT's Support trips to Palm Springs (1970-1972)

The San Clemente (CCT) Support trips to Palm Springs Ca.
Welcome to Palm Springs
Type Of Activity	Communications Support Trips
Location
Location	Palm Springs California
Date of Activity	Nov. 19 1970 to Dec.  27 1971
Coordinates	33°49′26″N 116°31′49″W

The CCT was designed to be a quick response highly mobile unit.  We were deployed on several occasions to Palm Springs CA with the President and also provided the Vice President communications support on west coast trips and he would come to Palm Springs several times to play golf.  The Vice Presidents visits were usually pretty simple to set up and once finished required little activity because nothing was scheduled other than short motorcades to and from the golf course.

19 Nov 70 to Palm Springs CA with Vice President and Mrs. Agnew

Our First visit as a team wasn’t until November of 1970. Vice President and Mrs. Agnew were scheduled to visit for several days and play some golf.  This trip was turned into a full scale deployment of the CCT including all of our equipment as if we were going on an overseas trip. The goal was to set up all of our communications equipment as quickly as possible and establish HF contact with Cactus and establish a phone patch with DCSU Headquarters at Camp David.

 Our Motel in Palm Springs 

As soon as we arrived and checked into our motel, we started to deliver equipment. Our first stop was the GTE Central Office where we would install the Switchboard and Commcenter equipment. This would become the base for telephone, radio, radio paging and data communications.

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 Edom Hill Radio Site   
                

Our second stop would be a visit to Edom Hill where we had permanently installed Baker, Charlie and Sierra radio base stations. The San Clemente Detachment had placed these base stations here on President Nixon’s first trip to Palm Springs knowing that there would be many trips, and the only work necessary would be to power them up and test them.  The remote keying lines were ordered to terminate back at the GTE central Office.  We would return to final test everything once we were told that all of the keying lines were installed.

Our final stop that night was back at our motel to start the installation of the HF equipment in a room in the Motel. Early the next morning we would install the antenna on the roof of the Motel and started to power up the two AN/URT-23 SSB radios. I would spend the rest of the day establishing contact with Camp David, Collins Radio, Silver Dollar (Airborne Command Post) and other locations within the Andrews Airways HF system.  Successful phone patches were completed with various individuals and our activity was terminated.

The Hearst Residence Front Entrance   

The next day we visited the Hearst residence where The Vice President and Mrs. Agnew would stay on this visit.  We surveyed the residence and started to set up the USSS Command Post (CP). We completed a radio survey and headed to the Palm Springs International Airport where the VP’s arrival and subsequent departure would take place.

 Palm Springs International Airport

Vice President Agnew and Frank Sinatra Golfing in Palm Springs

Fore!!!!!

The Agnew’s spent several days in Palm Springs golfing with comedian Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra before they returned to Washington D.C. of course when they left we de-installed all of our equipment and returned to El Toro. We spent a total of 10 days in Palm Springs on this the team’s first trip.