The phones in the Oval Office (2021)

 

Phones in the Oval Office
The President’s Desk
Type of Activity	Visiting the Oval Office
Location
Location	Washington DC
Date of Activity	January 2021
Coordinates	38°53'51.2"N 77°02'20.9"W

On January 20, 2021 the 46th president of the United States was inaugurated into office. As such he had access to the presidential communications system, including secure and non-secure telephone lines.

There was small and unnoticed changes in the telephones on the desk of the new president, as well as what happened to the call device that became known as Trump's "Diet Coke Button".

The telephones on the President’s desk

On the first day as president, the Oval Office of the White House By then, this famous room had already been redecorated with new paintings, busts and photographs, while Trump's beige rug had been replaced by the deep blue one from Bill Clinton's Oval Office. The flags of the five branches of the US Armed Forces have also been removed.

A close look at the photos shows that there was also a small change in the telephone equipment. On Biden's presidential desk there are now two identical phone sets, which can be identified as the high-end Cisco IP 8851 Phone:

 Former president Donald Trump in the Oval Office, December 3, 2020.

> See also: Trump's "beautiful" Oval Office phones and what was changed on them

Both phones are not the standard commercially available model, however, as they have been modified by a small communications security company called Advanced Programs, Inc. (API). This can be recognized by the dark gray metal box at the back side of the phone's color display and an additional red button on the front panel of the phone:

The purpose of these modifications is to provide on-hook security for the handset and the speakerphone and probably also for TEMPEST protection - to make sure that the phone cannot, either accidentally or deliberately, pick up and transmit audio when the handset is on-hook.

Comparing the two phones on Biden's desk with the ones used by President Trump, we see that under Trump only one of the Cisco 8851 IP phones had the aforementioned modifications. The other phone was the standard model:

Unclassified phone calls

The modified Cisco 8851 IP phone was placed on the president's desk by the end of 2016, replacing an old Avaya/Lucent 8520T of the internal White House telephone network which is used for all kinds of unclassified phone calls.

This telephone connects to the regular White House switchboard in the basement of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where operators can set up calls to whoever the president wants to speak with.

Classified phone calls

The standard, unmodified Cisco 8851 IP phone on Trump's desk was for the highly secure Executive Voice over Secure IP-network which is part of the Crisis Management System (CMS) and connects the President, the National Security Council, Cabinet members, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, various intelligence agency headquarters and watch centers, as well as Continuity of Operations (COOP) sites.

This telephone replaced an old Cisco 7975 IP phone in September 2017 and connects to the so-called Signal switchboard of the White House Communications Agency (WHCA). The WHCA is a joint military unit that provides the president with secure and non-secure communications in Washington as well as during presidential travels. The Signal board also connects to the White House Situation Room.

Despite being used for classified conversations, the Cisco 8851 IP phone for secure calls wasn't equipped with the additional security features like the non-secure telephone - probably because secure calls travel over a separate, encrypted network, which mitigates the risk that adversaries can abuse the phone's microphones for eavesdropping.

But now, under president Biden, the phone for secure calls also has the modifications for on-hook security. Maybe this was considered safer, or maybe it's just to make both phone sets look the same, so outsiders cannot see whether the president is making a classified or an unclassified phone call based upon which telephone he is using.

Usually, the phones for the secure top-level telephone network can be recognized by a bright yellow faceplate, as can be seen at the modified Cisco IP phone that is used when the president is outside the White House, for example.

Yellow is the color code for the highest classification category: Top Secret/SCI, but in the Oval Office this would probably stand out too much, so here this phone just has the presidential seal in the bottom left corner of the black display section:

Close-up of the presidential seal on a Cisco 8851 IP phone

Update #1:

Around the first of February 2021, there was another small change in the phone on Biden's desk in the Oval Office: as can be seen in the picture below, the Cisco IP phone on the left, probably the one for unclassified conversations, now has an Key Expansion Module attached to it, which provides 14 additional programmable direct line buttons.

President Biden's desk in the Oval Office. One of the Cisco 8851 IP phones

having an additional Key Expansion Module, February 2, 2021

Under Obama, the old Cisco 7975 IP Phone for secure calls had a similar expansion module, but under President Trump that module was removed. Apparently he saw no need for having the extra direct line buttons, probably because he could always make calls via the White House switchboard operator, but it also symbolized that there was only a very small group of people he was in contact with.

Update #2:

On February 18, 2021, the White House released a photo in which we see president Biden in the office of his secretary, just outside the Oval Office. On the desk in front of him are the same modified Cisco 8851 IP phone sets as on his own desk, although here, both have an additional Key Expansion Module.

In the Oval Office, the phones have brown network cables to blend in with the furniture, but in the secretary's office the cables are color-coded: green for the Unclassified network and yellow for the Top Secret/SCI telephone network:

The president's call button

While the small change in phones wasn't noticed, there was quite some media attention for something that appeared missing on the desk of president Biden: the wooden box with the presidential seal and a red push-button, which became known as Trump's "Diet Coke Button".

The removal of this box was just temporarily though, because meanwhile it has been placed back on the president's desk, as can be seen in this photo from January 25:

President Joe Biden at his desk in the Oval Office, January 25, 2021

Trump's "Diet Coke Button"

There are a lot of stories about how President Trump used the button. Former White House communications aide Cliff Sims, for example, wrote in his 2019 book Team of Vipers that Trump would prank visitors by hitting the button and suggesting it was related to the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

"Out of nowhere, he'd suddenly press the button," Sims wrote. "Not sure what to do, guests would look at one another with raised eyebrows" he added. "Moments later, a steward would enter the room carrying a glass filled with Diet Coke on a silver platter, and Trump would burst out laughing."

Trump's glass of Diet Coke in front of the Cisco 8851 IP phone for secure calls

On Twitter, Times Radio political commentator Newton Dunn recalled a similar situation: "When Tim Shipman and I interviewed Donald Trump in 2019, we became fascinated by what the little red button did. Eventually Trump pressed it, and a butler swiftly brought in a Diet Coke on a silver platter."

President George W. Bush in the small dining room near the Oval Office

                              On the table is the wooden box with the call button. 

Earlier usage of the call button

The fancy walnut box used by the President to call his Valet for services goes back to the Nixon Administration. WHCA technicians were pretty crafty at fabricating things after going to Radio Shack and purchasing a bag of components. The original "Valet Call System" was locally fabricated by purchasing the mechanism for a "Sears Garage Door Opener" and then remounting the electronics inside a wooden housing. That proved to be the quick and easy way, they actually had to buy a complete garage door opener, motor, chain, mounting rails, and the works, only to keep the guts for the call box. Push the button, and it would trigger a relay in the nearby kitchen or other nearby room for the Valet's to respond. I am sure they have advanced to a off the shelf product after 50+ years. Both the Western White House in San Clemente and Key Biscayne as well as Camp David had WHCA fabricated Call systems.

The box with the call button is in the Oval Office  not only on the president's desk, but also on a side table in the seating area and in the small presidential dining room nearby the Oval Office.

The button has nothing to do with nuclear command and control, but can be used by the president to summon assistance. According to earlier sources, it was meant to alert the Secret Service, while others say that pushing the button makes an aide come in for whatever the president may need.

President Nixon makes this small island Village his second home (1968-1974)

 

Village of Key Biscayne
500 Bay Lane (1972)
Type of Activity	Visiting the Florida White House
Location
Location	Key Biscayne Florida
Date of Activity	1968 thru 1974
Coordinates	25°41′25″N 80°9′54″W / 25.69028°N 80.165°W / 25.69028; -80.165

Father Bob Libby shares stories of "Nixon on the Key" 

Top of Form

 

Bottom of Form

The decades-long friendship between former U.S. President Richard Nixon and banker Bebe Rebozo would influence a presidency and change a tiny island enclave off the coast of Miami – but their beginning was an inauspicious one.

President Nixon and Bebe Rebozo return from a cruise on the Coco Lobo

The story of Nixon on the Key, as told by Father Bob Libby in a presentation sponsored by the Key Biscayne Community Foundation and Key Biscayne Historical and Heritage Society, it all began in Coral Gables, when Rebozo and George Smathers were students together. After Smathers became a U.S. Senator, Rebozo, by then a business leader in Key Biscayne, decided to invite his former classmate and a group of friends to the island to go fishing.

“Among the senators who went fishing on Key Biscayne that day were three future presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy and LBJ,” Libby recounted.

But for Nixon and Rebozo, it was not friendship at first sight, Libby said.

Rebozo reportedly told Smathers, “Don’t bring that guy back again – he doesn’t drink whiskey, he doesn’t chase women, and he doesn’t even play golf.”

In the years to come, Nixon may not have started chasing women – several of the stories Libby shared highlighted the President’s devotion to wife Pat – but he most certainly learned to play golf (a famous photo shows a smiling Rebozo and Nixon out for a round) and to enjoy a stiff drink: During one of Rebozo’s last conversations with Nixon, when Nixon said his doctor told him to “cut out the martinis,” Rebozo reportedly replied, “I’d get a second opinion.”

 The friendship between the two men would last through failed and successful campaigns, a presidency and, of course, the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s downfall. Throughout, the island of Key Biscayne served as a backdrop, and itself was transformed by its most famous inhabitant.

When Nixon first visited Key Biscayne, Libby said, it was a tiny community of some 100 homes.

Key Biscayne Lighthouse

It was 1950, and Nixon was a newly elected U.S. Senator from California.

He continued to visit the island throughout his term, staying in a rented home and later at the Key Biscayne Hotel. By 1953, Nixon, just 39, saw his political star rise even further: he became Vice President of the United States, serving with President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Key Biscayne Hotel and Villas

He continued spending time on the island in both bad times – after his defeat to JFK in the 1960 presidential election and losing the California Governor’s race two years later – and good: After he was elected President in 1968, he established his Winter White House on the Key at a Bay Lane Complex. It remained his southern home through the high point of a massive reelection win to the low point of Watergate.

Entrance to the Nixon Compound on Bay Lane

As Libby told it, “He was reelected in 1972 in a landslide with the greatest electoral majority of over 500 electoral votes, and he also had the highest popular vote majority. And yet, in 1974, he resigned the Presidency of the United States.”

Many of the events behind those ups and downs have Key Biscayne links, according to Libby.

Inside the Miami Beach Convention Center awaiting 
President Nixon's acceptance speech

Libby, noting Nixon appeared on the cover of Time magazine over 50 times, is still researching how many times “Key Biscayne” was the dateline of a national or international news story.

For starters, there was the 1960 election, when Nixon lost to Kennedy.

Libby showed photos of the two men greeting each other by a villa at the Key Biscayne Hotel, standing outside the hotel surrounded by reporters, and behind a lectern with a Key Biscayne Hotel placard. Nixon had come to the Key after the loss and was having dinner at the Jamaica Inn when he received a series of phone calls.

President elect Kennedy talks to reports at the Key Biscayne Hotel

“One was from Eisenhower, one was from J. Edgar Hoover, one was from the attorney general, and one was from JFK,” Libby said. “The first three were encouraging Nixon to contest the election, because there had been some hanky-panky in Illinois and in Texas. But Nixon said that would take a year, and whoever was in the White House would be powerless. And because they were at the top of the Cold War, Nixon said, ‘I don’t want to put the country in danger.’”

He decided to concede, and Kennedy traveled to the Key to meet with him.

There are also plenty of events with a local link after Nixon did become President, Libby said.

The Jamaica Inn was the site of Nixon’s first interview with Henry Kissinger, his Secretary of State, and Kissinger was a crucial figure in a couple of events that had ties to the Village.

“One of the amazing things that happened on Key Biscayne that changed world history involved the Yom Kippur War,” Libby said.

Egypt and Syria had attacked destroyed the Israeli Air Force, and Nixon, on the Key at the time, got to work and re equipped the Israelis with American planes. It turned the war around and, as it was revealed some years later, potentially mitigated a nuclear threat, Libby said.

Also, Libby added, “Probably the most exciting, wonderful week of Nixon’s life occurred in January of 1973. He was newly re elected as President of the United States. Henry Kissinger had just gone to Paris and signed what he thought was a peace treaty to end the Vietnam War.”

President Nixon with Henry Kissinger upon his return from

 the Paris Peace talks

While peace would prove to be elusive, at the time the treaty was heralded, and Nixon flew to the Key. Libby said there was a big celebration at the Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church, and Nixon rang a bell – which is still on church grounds – to mark the end of the war.

Nixon’s downfall also had Key Biscayne ties.

Watergate hearings

Toward the end of his presidency, Libby said, Nixon called his old friend Rebozo and beckoned him to Washington D.C. Rebozo traveled from Key Biscayne to the White House, and when he got there, Nixon walked out and joined him in the limousine that had met him at the airport.

“Nixon directed the driver to go to the Potomac,” Libby said. “There, he directed the captain to take them way out of range. They sat over the engine and talked into each other’s ear. Nixon told him where things stood, and Bebe told him, ‘You’ve got a choice. You can resign and leave in honor, or you can be impeached. It’s up to you.’ They went back to the White House, Bebe spent the night and went back to Key Biscayne the next day.

“Three days later, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency of the United States.”

The President's farewell speech

President leaves the White House for his final flight

The stories that made headlines were not the only ones Libby shared.

He also told of the more personal moments that occur when a president makes a small island Village his part-time home: how Nixon heard Reverend Billy Graham was at the Key Biscayne Hotel pool, so he donned his swimsuit and went down to meet him; how a bellhop at the hotel was impressed that Nixon always remembered his name; how the Key Biscayne Yacht Club would open early to serve Nixon and Rebozo breakfast; how Nixon asked the Chowder Chompers to play Oh Tannenbaum when the German Chancellor visited him on the Key in 1971.

There were also stories about Nixon’s devotion to Pat.

Captain Jim O’Neil remembers Nixon asking him to take Pat and the girls around the island on his boat; many people can still envision them traveling down the canals and waving to people on shore. An island barber recalled the parking lot he shared with a florist being roped off by the Secret Service when Nixon wanted to buy yellow roses for his wife.

President and the First Lady on the Coco Lobo

Libby added, “Nixon attended the [Key Biscayne] Community Church regularly, and when Pat Nixon died, he planted a yellow rose bush in the garden there at the church.”

Church is where many residents encountered the former president.

The Presbyterian Church was the island’s biggest at the time, Libby said, and Nixon attended with his cabinet, including Kissinger. The late Dick Cromartie, who helped found the Village of Key Biscayne and for whom the local American Legion chapter is named, was no fan of the President’s politics, but was impressed when Nixon approached him at the church after hearing of his heroics in World War II. “Nixon thanked him,” Libby said.

Nixon also went to the Community Church often, and one day the pastor saw him walking the beach with his pants rolled up and coat over his head.

The pastor introduced himself, Libby said, and Nixon told him, “I appreciate the fact that you keep the door of the church open. When I come back from campaigning, I’m usually all strung out, and I go and sit in the church for an hour or two to calm down.”

Walking the beach was something Nixon loved, and that drew him so strongly to the Key.

But the Secret Service didn’t think the Atlantic Ocean shoreline was a safe place for Nixon’s strolls, so, when he set up his presidential compound at the end of Bay Lane, “They bought a beach,” Libby said. “They bought the Nixon Beach, and he and his family walked there.”

Beach at the 516 House

Neighbors remember being told to tread carefully:

 “The Secret Service told them, ‘The minute the water splashes, the lights and the sirens are going to come on, so you’re going to have to behave,” Libby said. 

USSS Command Post at the Nixon Compound

The Secret Service were behind several humorous stories told by Libby.

He said the late Jean Ferris used to talk about how she always knew when Nixon was coming by the arrival of a tribe of Secret Service agents, clad in wild tropical shirts. She remembered, “When I saw the shirts and the grass on Crandon being trimmed, I called my hippie friends in Coconut Grove and they got out here with their protest signs.”

Mike Ruben, whose father owned and managed Burns Men’s shop, recalls the President coming in the store surrounded by a bunch of men in tropical shirts. One time, Ruben’s father was making a shirt for the President, and when he reached in his pocket for a measuring tape he was grabbed by two Secret Service bodyguards.

 The Secret Service may have seemed omnipresent on the Key while Nixon visited as President, but after his resignation, everything changed.

 Nixon continued to spend plenty of time in the Island Paradise, Libby said, but he declined to keep his Secret Service protection, and spent his time on the island in relative quiet.

Those years ultimately became the final chapter of the story of Nixon on the Key.

“After the resignation, Nixon lived another 20 years,” and, having stepped away from work, he did what so many do, albeit under much different circumstances.

As Libby put it, “He became a snowbird.”