Carl Allen's Podcast with Donald Cammel (2024)

Carl Allen’s Podcast Featuring Donald Cammel
https://youtu.be/dQfcNBSugbw
Type Of Activity	Podcast
Location
Location	Walkers Cay Bahama Islands
Date of Activity	Oct 2023
Coordinates	27°15′27.8″N 78°23′40.7″W

I wish to thank John Cross for keeping his blog current and creating an archive of what I refer to as the “Old WHCA”. Many of us that were assigned in that era were homesteaders and had a very rewarding career. I know that my 2nd career with Digital Microwave Corp and later Spectalink were a result of my interface with them while in WHCA. Now 50 years later, another special recognition and invitation by Carl Allen to visit Walkers Cay after almost 50 years is indeed a gift that keeps on giving. All my success in WHCA was a team effort and I have lifetime friendships that go back to 1967. .

I have become almost a folk hero in my small hometown in Kansas, and never intended to be in the spotlight. Unfortunately, the label for a podcast created in October 2023 during my return visit to Walkers Cay shows me as a USSS agent, and YouTube is very unforgiving once something is posted’ .

Think of the challenges with salt air corrosion, and hot weather. We didn’t have a Radio Shack, Home Depot or Lowes down the street. Lots of creative repairs until we could get parts sent to the island. .

Thank-you, Enjoy the video.

President Clinton's White House Fund Raisers (1995)

 

WHCA A/V Support - The Clinton Coffees
President Clinton at one of the White House Fund Raisers
Type Of Activity	Presidential Activities - WHCA A/V Support
Location
Location	Washington DC
Date of Activity	Jan. 1, 1995 and Aug. 23, 1996
Coordinates	38°53′52″N 77°02′11″W

When Alexander Butterfield disclosed to the Watergate Congressional Committee that Richard Nixon had sanctioned the installation of secret tape recording devices by the White House Communications Agency (WHCA) in the Oval Office, and other sensitive locations to secretly capture his private conversations, I can still vividly remember the storm of news articles that ensued. These articles fervently called for WHCA to surrender of all of these tapes to the Justice Department and the Special Prosecutor for use during the ongoing impeachment hearings. 

Casting an unwanted spotlight on the typically discreet WHCA, Previously accustomed to operating quietly, the organization now found itself under intense scrutiny, With no room for its members to be implicated with wrongdoing while carrying out their assigned tasks. WHCA always displayed zero tolerance towards any individual implicated in misconduct. Yet now, the entire organization found itself under intense scrutiny for simply carrying out the instructions it had been given.

On October 4 1997, Time magazine is credited with breaking this story, deep into the Senate hearings on campaign finance reform, the Clinton administration turned over to investigators “belatedly discovered” videotapes of the infamous White House coffees and contribution's received to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom. Within days, the White House Communications Agency, the unfortunate maker, and keeper of the tapes, just as was the case with the Watergate tapes found itself under siege again from all sides. Why hadn’t the agency responded to previous committee inquiries regarding taped events? Why had WHCA ignored a memo from the White House requesting all videos of coffees and political events?

Attorney General Janet Reno was furious. President Clinton said he was even more furious. And Senate Committee Chairman Fred Thompson and his Republican cohorts were downright apoplectic. Having requested all pertinent information on the events months earlier, GOP lawmakers charged that this delay in producing the tapes was another example of the administration’s obstructionist “foot-dragging.

 ” Between Jan. 1, 1995 and Aug. 23, 1996, some 1,500 people were invited to the White House for coffee sessions and with the right political contribution and overnight stays in the Lincoln bedroom as guests of President Clinton, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Vice President Al Gore. The coffees were a fundraising scheme hatched by Clinton’s longtime political adviser Dick Morris, and may have raised more than $3.5 million for the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton/Gore re-election effort. But now the questions are, who were the donors invited to these gatherings and what promises did they receive from the administration in exchange for their political contributions?

 As the news media detailed the furious finger-pointing, what emerged read more like a comedy of errors than a grand conspiracy: The White House had sent a memo to WHCA in April, but part of the memo hadn’t gotten distributed by the White House Military Office, so WHCA officials didn’t know the White House wanted the database searched specifically for coffee footage, and certainly nobody at WHCA had thought to query the database using the keywords “coffee or Lincoln bedroom.”

But an even more basic question is likely to remain unexplored: What were WHCA camera crews doing at those coffees to begin with?

 The agency’s stated reason for attending the events sounds benign enough: The duties of the White House Communications Agency include videotaping “key” moments in the presidency for posterity. But while this may be a valid explanation for WHCA crews’ tailing the president to peace conferences and their presence around him during state dinners, it still leaves the question of why they were on hand for DNC fund-raisers and White House love-ins with big-money donors. The agency is, after all, under operational control of the White House, and senior White House aides are, in fact, the folks who arrange for WHCA coverage of an event.

Didn’t the president or someone on his staff ever question the wisdom of having Bill Clinton’s years in office memorialized as a never-ending kiss-up to checkbook-swinging fat cats? Granted, fund-raising is fast becoming the primary activity of America’s elected officials. But to preserve in Technicolor detail the pathetic realities of today’s political money-grub is hardly a shrewd move for a guy supposedly obsessed with his presidential “legacy.”

A handful of explanations for WHCA’s videotaping the coffees comes to mind. One, President Clinton wanted them there. After five years in the Oval Office, Clinton’s judgment may have been so eroded by all of the bowing and scraping that accompany the job, that he came to assume any move he made merited video documentation. (Footage of at least 44 coffees and more than 200 fundraisers were turned over to congressional investigator's.)

A plausible scenario is that Clinton never thought twice about the cameras being there—that he is so accustomed to being shadowed by the video crews that he no longer notices when they’re around. This, at least, was the impression given by former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes in his October testimony before Congress concerning the WHCA incident. When asked about the agency’s function, Ickes responded: “I’m fortunate, I think, that I know little about it. They were around a great deal of time to the extent that those of us traveling with, or with the president in meetings or otherwise, came not to even notice them, quite frankly…. My understanding [is] that they were a unit of the United States military and that their function is to record … certain events and certain statements by the president. I don’t know when they are called. I don’t know what the criteria is for what they film and what they take on audio. All I know is they were there, and they were there quite frequently, but not all the time.” Ickes’ offered similar insight into the workings of WHCA’s operational overseer, the White House Military Office: 

One might get the impression from Ickes’ statement that, despite its size, WHCA has never been very important to anyone in the White House. One would be wrong. If anything, the agency’s low profile was once a sign of the exact opposite. As a part of the even lower-profile White House Military Office, WHCA has long been among  one of the least understood government agencies.

From the Eisenhower administration up through Reagan, WHCA’s overseer, the White House Military Office, is known to have controlled a multimillion-dollar secret fund (maintained ostensibly for the construction of presidential bomb shelters) into which the president could dip any time and for any purpose he so desired. The various abuses of this fund—including JFK’s upgrading family properties, President Johnson’s spending millions to improve the wiring and plumbing at his Texas ranch, Nixon’s using half a million for a swimming pool at Camp David—are outlined in the 1980 book Breaking Cover, by former WHMO Director Bill Gulley. The White House Military Office simply hid any expenditure the president did not want examined by “classifying” it as a matter of “presidential security,” said Gulley, who noted that WHCA personnel were frequently employed for these “classified” projects. For example, from the time he left office until six months after his death, LBJ had a dozen WHCA staffers down at his ranch, compliments of the WHMO fund.

The book also includes memos documenting WHCAs setting up of LBJ’s secret taping system. Wrote Gulley, “It’s no exaggeration to say [the Military Office is] the President’s Aladdin’s lamp: there’s nothing that can’t be done, and there’s a bottomless pit of money, ingenuity, and resources to do it with.” When Breaking Cover was released in 1980, the Reagan White House admitted to the existence of the secret fund, which had survived undetected throughout the uproar and paranoid aftermath of Watergate, but vowed that the Gipper would never dream of misusing it. WHMO and the White House Counsel’s Office have been unavailable for comment on the current status of the fund.

Today, the administration remains very protective where WHCA and WHMO are concerned. In March of 1994, Congress asked the General Accounting Office to look into the agency’s management and finances. Although the GAO’s preliminary inquiries raised concerns about, among other issues, WHCA’s budgeting policies, investigators were barred from pursuing the matter by the White House. As the GAO’s Assistant Comptroller Henry L. Hinton Jr. later told the House subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice “On three occasions in May, June, and August 1994, DoD representatives advised us that the White House had prohibited DoD contact with GAO or release of DoD data.” The GAO pursued the matter, said Hinton, and “during a January 1995 meeting with DoD and White House staff, White House Counsel staff indicated that we would not be provided the information needed to further pursue these issues.” The White House explained that its denial of the GAO’s request was because WHCA operations involved matters of “presidential protection.”

In February 1995, an agreement was finally reached whereby the Defense Department’s Inspector General would conduct an audit of WHCA. But even then, the White House kept an eye on the proceedings. In the 1996 follow-up hearings, the House Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice requested testimony from the head of WHMO, presidential appointee Alan Sullivan. The White House Counsel’s office wrote a letter seeking to block Sullivan’s appearance. In Sullivan’s place they sent WHCA Commander Col. Joseph Simmons.

But even Simmons’ testimony proved controversial. Simmons first submitted a prepared statement indicating that “WHMO provides operational direction and control to the WHCA. Simmons then submitted a second statement from which this reference to the White House’s oversight role had been deleted. The change had been made upon recommendation from someone who had reviewed the document, Simmons told the subcommittee, although he could not say precisely whom. Democrats chalked the incident up to a simple editing decision. Republicans saw it as the White House’s attempts to distance itself from the agency.

The administration’s apparent evasions on WHCA, along with the nature and history of the agency, bring up the very real possibility that the White House is not at all ignorant of the agency’s operations.

Congressional Republicans certainly suspect as much, and the recent videotape fiasco has spurred a movement to launch hearings by early spring into the perceived abuses of WHCA. But the public shouldn’t expect too much from a congressional inquiry. WHCA has made a career of operating under the radar, and Congress will be hard-pressed to breach the walls of “presidential security” surrounding the agency. As Congressman Souder admits, right around the time last year that House members were hearing testimony on the appropriateness of WHCA’s oversight and operations, WHCA video crews were—unbeknownst to the subcommittee—busy working the coffee/fund-raiser circuit.

Transcripts of the DOD IG Audit of WHCA (1995) and Congressional Hearings of Oversight of the White House Communications Agency (1996)

 

 

 

 

DOD IG Audit of WHCA (1995)

 

DOD IG Audit of WHCA
Type Of Activity	DOD IG Audit
Location
Location	Washington DC
Date of Activity	Dec 1995
Coordinates	38°53′52″N 77°02′11″W

Despite WHCA’s considerable size, WHCA has operated with little attention from either its Defense Department or White House masters. The agency’s basic tasks have been reviewed only three times since its inception, and it escaped formal audit until a DOD IG audit was completed in  November 1995. This report on phase one of the audit cited “no evidence of significant theft or significant waste” in WHCA, but noted several areas in need of “management attention.” Among these:

The initial attempts to conduct oversight of this 900-person, $100 million-a-year White House-directed agency were made by Congress 2 years ago in 1994. Those attempts were met with repeated  delays  and White House stonewalling. Early last year, after meetings with the White House Counsel's office, GAO, and the Department of Defense IG's office, Congress finally received the approval to have an IG's investigation done going back 5 years.

WHCA was annually performing $7.8 million worth of tasks beyond the scope of its mission; it was unable to account for more than half a million dollars’ worth of agency property; and it was paying close to $800,000 to lease superfluous equipment. The April 1996 phase-two report concluded that WHCA was receiving “little or no oversight of budgeting, acquisition planning, and organizational effectiveness,” and recommended that the DoD’s oversight role be strengthened.

WHCA has been a deep, dark hole over at the White House into which there has been spending nearly $100 million annually without any executive branch oversight. It  has  also become  a  pot of money devoted to many things-kind of a miscellaneous pot of money-that have nothing to do with telecommunications or the President. 

The White House Communications Agency has had a totally unique mission, and the staff who serves there perform their duties exceptionally well and have done so for more than 50 years and for 11 Presidents, both Democrats and Republicans.

The DOD IG’s report concluded that WHCA's budgets have gone largely unreviewed. Its annual performance plan has failed to meet DOD standards. Its acquisition planning has violated DOD  regulations and resulted in wasteful purchases.

Finally, the DOD IG concluded that WHCA is providing the White House with services and equipment which are outside way, out­side of the scope of its mission of telecommunications support to the President of the United States.

The executive summary is copied below with complete report available at Audit Report on White House Communications Agency. (Report No. 96-033) and Audit Report on White House Communications Agency Phase II. (Report No. 96-100)    

Transcript of Congressional hearings conducted on May 16 and June 13, 1996 Oversight of theWhite House Communications Agency

INSPECTOR GENERAL

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

400 ARMY NAVY DRIVE

ARLINGTON. VIRGINIA 22202·2884

November 29, 1995

MEMORANDUM FOR DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE MILITARY OFFICE

UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (COMPTROLLER)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (COMMAND,CONTROL, COMMUNICATIONS AND INTELLIGENCE)

DIRECTOR, DEFENSE INFORMATION SYSTEMS AGENCY

COMMANDER, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS AGENCY

SUBJECT: Audit Report on White House Communications Agency

(Report No. 96-033)

We are providing this report for review and comment. We performed the audit in response to a request from Congress and the Deputy Secretary of Defense. We considered management comments on a draft of this report in preparing the final report.

The recommendations in Findings A and B relate to a reallocation of funding between parts of the DoD budget and the budget for the Executive Office of the President. Finding A questions the appropriateness of DoD, through the White House Communications Agency, funding audiovisual, stenographic and news wire services and photographic equipment for the White House. Finding B covers the provision of .White House Communications Agency support and equipment to the Secret Service. Although the Secret Service is required by law to reimburse an agency providing the support, the Secret Service has not done so. Several DoD appropriations and Secret Service appropriations would be affected by the recommendations. Thus, we suggest early consultation with the Office of Management and Budget and the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) so those changes, if agreed to, could be implemented in the President's FY 1997 budget.                     

DoD Directive 7650.3 requires that all recommendations be resolved promptly. Management comments were responsive to all recommendations except the recommendation to specify services to be provided by the White House Communications Agency and to transfer funding, managing, contracting, and purchasing of audiovisual, news wire, and stenographic services and camera equipment to the Executive Office of the President. We request that the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence) reconsider his position and provide additional comments by January 12, 1996.

We have not completed our audit of all aspects of White House Communications Agency activities. We started work on the final phase of the audit and expect to provide a draft report in early 1996. The issues we plan to review during the final phase include the organization and staffing of the White House Communications Agency, acquisition planning, management of telecommunications equipment and services, and controls over selected financial activities.

Office of the Inspector General, DoD

November 29, 1995

Report No. 96-033

(project No. 5RD-5027)

White House Communications Agency

Executive Summary

Introduction. The Chairman,  House Committee on Government Reform and  Oversight; the Chairman, House Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice, Committee on Government Reform and Oversight; and the Deputy Secretary of Defense requested the audit. The Deputy Secretary of Defense emphasized that this review should be as thorough as possible of all White House Communications Agency (WHCA) activities in the last 5 years.

Audit Objectives. The audit objective was to review all activities at the WHCA, the authorities and management controls under which the activities are conducted, and various nonspecific allegations of mismanagement and waste. The adequacy of the management control program will be discussed in a subsequent report.

Audit Results. We found no evidence of theft or significant waste of resources in this phase of the audit. However, the following areas need management attention.

o During FY 1995, WHCA and DoD funded about $7.8 million for services and equipment that are not within the scope of the WHCA telecommunications mission as presently defined and should be funded by the Executive Office of the President (Finding A).

o WHCA was not reimbursed for permanent support to the Secret Service, as required by law, and understated support costs reported to Congress by $3.2 million. The Secret Service did not reimburse about $4.3 million for support and, because DoD absorbed support costs, the. The Secret Service budget was augmented by that amount. WHCA is expected to provide permanent support valued at $7.0 million during FYs 1996 through FY 2001 for which DoD should be reimbursed by the Secret Service (Finding B)..

o WHCA managers did not maintain control over repair parts inventories, and contracting officer's representatives did not document maintenance data. Therefore, WHCA can neither ensure the adequacy or accountability of repair parts inventories nor determine the cost-effectiveness of maintenance contracts (Finding C).

o WHCA lacked accountability for nonexpendable property on hand and had excess expendable supplies valued at about $226,000. Property valued at about $577,000 was not accounted for and is at risk for potential waste or loss. Further, by reducing the requisition objective for expendable items and by eliminating excess expendable items with no demand histories, $226,000 could be put to better use during FY 1996 (Finding D).

o The inventory of base communications equipment and services is neither complete nor accurate. Consequently, the inventory could not be audited, and WHCA could neither review and revalidate communications requirements nor assess the cost effectiveness of configurations for equipment and services. Further, WHCA is at risk of paying for unneeded equipment and services (Finding E).

o WHCA paid for leased, long-haul telecommunications circuits and equipment that were no longer required. If the circuits are terminated, about $759,000 can be put to better use during FYs 1996 through 2001 (Finding F).

o WHCA did not validate bills for long-haul telecommunications equipment and services before verifying that the bills were accurate. As a result, WHCA had no assurance that payments ceased for terminated services or that payments would not be initiated for services ordered but not installed. If effective procedures are implemented, about $294,000 could be put to better use during FYs 1996 through 2001(Finding G).

Summary of Recommendations. We recommend that management take the following corrective actions.

o Specify the services. that WHCA is to provide to the Executive Office of the President.              Transfer responsibility for funding, managing, contracting, and purchasing of audiovisual, news wire, and stenographic services and camera equipment to the Executive Office of the President.

o Specify the permanent and temporary support provided to the Secret Service and determine which is reimbursable or non-reimbursable, specify billing procedures, and bill the Secret Service for reimbursable support provided during FY 1995 and continue to bill for all future reimbursable support.

o Fully implement the existing maintenance management system, turn in excess. repair parts, update lists of equipment under maintenance contracts, and use vendor service reports to assess the cost-effectiveness of maintenance contracts.

o Record identified property in the property book, establish the control point for receiving all property, perform monthly reconciliations of the document register, annually review requisition objectives, and turn in excess property.

o Establish a complete and accurate inventory of short-haul equipment and services, and maintain required inventory records.

o Initiate action to terminate unneeded long-haul circuits and equipment, establish the required review and revalidation program for equipment and services and establish a complete inventory of equipment and services.

o Establish procedures to verify the accuracy of Customer Cost and Obligation Reports on a monthly basis.

Management Comments. The Assistant Secretary of Defense (Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence) submitted joint comments for himself; the Director, DISA; and the Commander, WHCA. The Assistant Secretary concurred in all recommendations except for the recommendation to specify the services that WHCA is to provide to the White House and to transfer responsibility for funding, managing, contracting, and purchasing of audiovisual, news wire, and stenographic services and camera equipment to the Executive Office of the President. See Part I for a summary of management comments and Part III for the complete text of management comments.

Audit Response. As a result of information from management, we deleted one recommendation (Finding D) regarding property accountability. The Assistant Secretary's comments are not responsive regarding the recommendation related to specifying WHCA services and transferring these responsibilities. We maintain that WHCA should not fund the costs of audiovisual, news wire, and stenographic services and photographic equipment for the White House absent clearer direction to do so. We do not question the President's need for the services, contracts, or equipment provided by WHCA, and we recognize the legal authority of the President to issue an Executive  Order to specify the services WHCA is to provide. However, as a DoD organization, WHCA is governed by DoD Directive 4640.13 in providing telecommunications services and the functions now performed and funded by WHCA go beyond telecommunications services as defined in that Directive. We request that the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence) reconsider his position and provide additional comments in response to the final report by January 12, 1996.