Telephone Support for President Reagan (1985) by Ken Barbi

 

Telephone Support for President Reagan
President Reagan in the Oval Office
Type Of Activity	Presidential Travel Support
Location
Location	Travel communications support
Date of Activity	1985
Coordinates

Telephone Support for President Reagan                                                                                                                by Kenneth W. Barbi KC3OYM kenbarbi@verizon.net                                                                                                                   (WHCA Trip Officer 1983 - 1986)

SECURE VOICE

The White House Communications Agency (WHCA) provided secure voice telephone support on the 18 Acre White House Grounds, and at all Trip Sites for President Reagan.  Our secure switchboard was called Cartwheel - - a water tower (Figure 1) - - located in Ft. Reno Park, Washington, DC.  When we visited the site, we could not wear uniforms nor could we have a military-base sticker on our car.  The STU-I (Figures 2 and 3) we used in 1984 was cumbersome.  A STU-I used data transfer speeds of 2400 to 4800 BPS over standard dial-up telephone lines, cost $35,000 per set, and had a weight of 250 pounds.

Washington secure phones and trip site secure phones would connect directly through standard analog telephone lines to Cartwheel for calls.  We did not have multiple trip site STU-I phones because there was only one unit deployed on each trip.

                                        Cartwheel Water Tower- The WHCA Secure Switchboard Facility                                                 Photo from John Cross' whcacannonball.blogspot.com

Figure 2. STU - I Instrument   

Photo from the Crypto Museum

Figure 3. STU - I Hardware with Instrument On Top of Cabinet

Photo from the Crypto Museum

By 1986, we were using the new STU-III phones (Figures 4 and 5). They came in two colors - white and black. WHCA personnel had them in their homes with a White House security key for their work.  Both styles encoded voice into analog signals for transmission over copper wire on standard dial-up telephone lines. The STU-III was very easy to install anywhere where there was a standard telephone line.

                                                                                           Figure 4. STU - III Phone                                                                                       Photo from the Crypto Museum

                                                                   Figure 5. President Reagan on a STU - III                                                            Phone Official White House Photo

CELLULAR PHONES

The only cellular phones at WHCA in the 1980's were the Motorola "Get Smart shoe size" DynaTAC 8000X phones (Figure 6) used as part of the original cellular feasibility study.  There was only service in Washington, and WHCA participated in that feasibility study  They never had a Presidential support role.  At the time, it was believed cellular phones were not reliable (having a 30 minute talk time and 10 hour recharge time), and not secure.  Cellular phones remained that way for some time, but thankfully are now secure and reliable. 

Figure 6. Original Motorola DynaTAC 8000X Cell Phone 

PAGING SYSTEM

In town and on the road, WHCA had a Motorola Paging System located at the Old Executive Office Building (EOB) Switchboard and at the Trip Site Hotel Command Post.  Both White House and WHCA Staff members were assigned a Motorola Pageboy II Pager (Figure 7).  The system worked very well although women had difficulty wearing the devices, as their clothing styles generally had no belts to clip them on, and they often fell from where they were clipped.

Figure 7. Motorola Pageboy II Pager

NON-SECURE VOICE

In the 1980's, our primary voice communications was non-secure analog voice over the same copper wire standard dial-up telephone lines we used for secure voice.

At the White House, there were two switchboards.  One was run by White House civilian staff operators for the public to call.  The other was the WHCA "Signal Board" for official use and for foreign governments to use to get in touch with the principals.  This latter facility (referred to as CROWN) was also the White House VHF, UHF, Nationwide, and the Motorola Paging System main control.  Nationwide was a UHF CONUS full duplex Air/Ground radio connection to Air Force One operated by WHCA, and supported by AT&T ground radios throughout the United States.  It operated on 415.7/407.85 MHz and was code named "Echo Foxtrot".  The Chesapeake & Potomac (C&P) Telephone company had a Number 5 Crossbar Switch (Figure 8) in the basement of the Old EOB next to the WHCA switchboard operator's room which provided phone service to all offices on the 18 Acre White House Complex - - our personal Centrex.  The Signal Board was a bank of "cord boards" where our operators knew at all times where the President was (and what phone to forward calls to) after they VETTED the caller.

Figure 8. C&P Number 5 Crossbar Switch

President Reagan never dialed a single number.  If he picked up the phone to call someone, our operators always answered by saying "yes please" because he might have been on a different phone or it might have been someone else, so they always wanted to be polite.  He might ask to speak to an old college buddy - John Smith - who he had never called before.  Through some sort of magic, our operators would figure out who John Smith was, where he was, his phone number, and get him on the line! 

When wife, Nancy, called, it went right through.  If any foreign leader or head of state called, it went right through, albeit, a bit slower, because those kind of calls got allot of senior staff attention.  An interesting event occurred once when I was out of town. My wife called the Signal Board and asked to talk to me because our cat was stuck atop a tree in Annapolis, Maryland, where I lived.  The Signal Board operator immediately found me in Santa Barbara, California, and routed the call to me to help her - - WHCA is a family!

At Trip Sites, before the AT&T divestiture, things were easy because our AT&T representative would deal with all the individual companies.  We had an AT&T Washington Headquarters representative travel with us on trips.  Our central command post hub was a portable leased Dimension PBX (Figure 9) that was set up in a bedroom at the hotel where the White House Staff, Secret Service, WHCA, and the President stayed.

Figure 9. AT&T Dimension PBX

Setting up voice communications became trickier after the divestiture or if we were overseas.   US Telephone Company (Telco) contacts were identified to us in Washington before we left. The regional Telcos were used to our needs, but foreign telephone providers (often official government entities) were amazed at what we required.

In our hotel bedroom Command Post next to our Secure Communications Center, we had the trip city VHF radio command console, connected by Telco dry-pair copper to all the repeaters our radio teams had set up.  Dry-pairs are just wires with no battery and ground applied from the Telco central office. By 1985, everybody carried a Motorola Digital Encryption Standard (DES) secure VHF radio connected to their appropriate functional network. Prior to that, our radio nets were not secure which the press loved.  The press was really upset when we added the DES.

The Dimension Trip Site Switchboard would have one local published number with multiple central office trunk lines, one non-published number for emergency use (which Trip Officers could connect remotely from any phone such as a public coin-operated or private phone by dialing our access code to get full telephone connectivity for the President), trunk tie lines to other Trip Sites if it was a regional swing, and numerous trunk tie lines back to Washington.  To call a Trip Site Extension, you would dial the three digit number.  To call a Washington Extension you would dial 45 - wait for a dial tone - then dial your number.  To call the White House Signal Switchboard, you would dial 8. To call a local number, you would dial 9 - wait for a dial tone - then dial.  For long distance or the Trip Site Switchboard, you would dial 0.

Beyond that, Telephone Companies had their hands full.  We ordered dedicated analog dry-pair circuits from the Dimension Trip Site Switchboard to every phone we wanted in town.  Most trips had over 100 lines.  The Dimension provided the battery and ground to operate these instruments.  There were many phone lines to the airport for Air Force One's arrival, emergency medical facilities where the President might have to be taken, event sites, holding rooms, under bleacher seats at sports venues, Marine One landing locations, White House Staff/Secret Service Agent/WHCA Personnel hotel rooms, event halls, and McDonald's Restaurants (if the President planned to eat a Big Mac).

Western Electric 500 Series phones (Figure 10) were installed.  It was a large grid of copper connected spoke and hub, which usually took a week or more to set up. Every line had to tested, and have a phone plugged into it.  After the trip, we had to go out and reclaim every one of the phones.  Woe to someone who absconded with a WHCA phone.

 Figure 10. Western Electric 500 Series WHCA Telephone with Appropriate 

Labels shown in Figure 12 at a Parsippany, NJ, Trip Site

Occasionally, we would have to commandeer a public coin-operated or private phone to establish a connection to the Dimension Trip Site Switchboard for the President should he stop somewhere unexpectedly.  We placed this label (Figure 11) on the phone to protect it from getting hung up, and left it off-hook lying there ready for use.

Figure 11. DO NOT HANG UP LABEL from a Trip Officer Trip Book

We carried roles of labels (Figure 12) to affix to phones.

Figure 12. Roles of Labels for Any Occasion

We had what many called a Bluff Label (shown in a role at the bottom right of the above stack) (Figure 13) to discourage theft which did reduce our losses!

Figure 13. Bluff Label

AIR FORCE ONE TELEPHONE SERVICE

Air Force One is operated by the 89th Airlift Wing of the United States Air Force at Joint Base Andrews.  Whenever Air Force One landed, the plane - then a VC-137C Boeing 707-353B tail number 27000 - was met by a WHCA Trip Officer.  The Trip Officer would plug two land lines (always Extension 201 and 202 connected to the Dimension Trip Site Switchboard) into a small compartment under the cockpit in front of the wheel well of the plane.  This was a job I did many times as depicted in Figure 14.  The President's pilot, USAF Col Robert Ruddick, never wanted a "follow me" truck to meet him at airports.  He was pre-briefed and knew exactly where to taxi to his precise parking spot.  That's where a Trip Officer would stand (the target perhaps) with the plane coming straight at them ready to plug it into the Dimension Trip Site Switchboard.  No one ever got run over!

                      Figure 14. Major Barbi Plugging AF One Immediately After Landing in Cincinnati, Ohio,                                     in Oct 1985 Official White House Photo

The Telco responsible for the lines had to use a then standard Four-Prong Connector (Figure 15) that fit the planes.  The Trip Officer had to make sure it was wired correctly (with no tip/ring reversal) and the lines were in the correct order on the pins.  We always carried spare Four-Prong Connectors just in case the Telco didn't have the correct plug.  It was especially important on overseas trips where they didn't exist.

Figure 15. Four-Prong Two Circuit Phone Plug

The two phone lines would be connected to the on-board communications center (Figure 16) operated by Air Force personnel and made available to everyone on the plane. CMSgt Jimmy Bull and SMSgt Jerry Rankin were President Reagan's operators. Those local "land lines" were a real savior on many occasions for Air Force One according to crew members.

                                     Figure 16. President Reagan Visiting the AF One Communications Center                                                                                with Operators CMSgt Jimmy Bull (left) and SMSgt Jerry Rankin (right)                                               Official White House Photo

CONCLUSION

The telephone element of a Trip Site puzzle was a small piece of the action.  Our gear load filled a C-141 aircraft and took 50 or more WHCA troops to implement.  It still does today and is a marvel to see.  I hope more WHCA personnel will write about their experiences in future postings.

Ken Barbi is an Electrical Engineer and radio amateur KC3OYM who graduated from the City College of New York in 1968.  He received his commission in the Air Force in 1968 and came to WHCA in 1983 as an Air Force Major.  He served as a Plans Officer while in town, and as a Trip Officer on the road.  In the Plans Office, he acquired new Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) Satellite Terminals and was the first to establish commercial Ku-Band satellite support for the President.  He retired after 26 years in the Air Force as a Colonel from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), and now (as when assigned to WHCA) lives in Annapolis, Maryland.