President Nixon's Private Retreat in the Bahamas (Grand Cay 1973)

   

Big Grand Cay, Bahamas Past History
Type of Activity	Communications Support Trips
Location
Location	Bahama Islands
Date of Activity	Various
Coordinates	27°15′27.8″N 78°23′40.7″W

Bahamas Big Grand Cay

President Nixon stayed on Big Grand Cay (aka Grand Cay), Mr. Abplanalp's private 125-acre island in the Bahamas, complete with a house that Mr. Abplanalp had refurbished for the Presidents use, and for relaxation a 55-foot yacht the Sea Lion was always available for their use. President Nixon would cruise the waters in the Sea Lion a sportfishing boat that was sculpted by the talented, skilled, and prideful builders who worked for Whiticar Boatworks under the direction of the late master builder Curt Whiticar. When it first splashed in 1963, it bore the classic lines of a Whiticar — elegant, sleek, and unmistakable.

The Sea Lion was built of wood originally and designed to handle the sharp choppy seas off Florida and the Bahamas as it pursued sailfish, blue marlin, mahi mahi, tuna and wahoo. Inventor and engineer Robert Abplanalp of New Jersey owned the Sea Lion for many years and owned the island of Walker's Cay in the Bahamas as well as Grand Cay.President Nixon always stayed on Grand Cay. 

The Sea Lion near Grand Cay

The "Big House on Grand Cay is a 4 bedroom and 5 bathroom vacation home with saltwater swimming pool, expansive decks overlooking tropical beaches, a deep water dock,

Besides the Main House there was also two guest ocean villas. The lead USSS agent, Military Aide and President’s Doctor stayed in one villa, and if David and Julie Eisenhower or Ed and Trisha Cox came out, they would stay in the other villa on the beach, the caretaker’s quarters, sea plane ramp, helicopter landing pad, and various other storage and utility structures.

The main feature was the setting of being on a beautiful, isolated island with a great beach. It was rare for the First Lady to accompany the President, it was normally President Nixon, Bebe Rebozo, and Bob Abplanalp in the Main House.  

The Main House, Boat Dock and USSS CP on Grand Cay

There was a small house by the boat dock for the caretaker and a small bunk house for necessary support personnel during the trip.  The USSS CP and WHCA radio room was in the same building near the front entrance of the main residence.

Main House Living Room

Main House Dining Room

Game Room in Main House

Support Staff Bunk House

VIP Beach House Grand Cay

Looking at the Big House from the boat dock

The bunk house was two small to house everyone, so the Secret Service would stay on Grand Bahama Island (GBI) near Freeport, and they would be choppered in to change shifts. Golf carts were the normal mode of transportation.

The Air Force at Homestead AFB provided an 11-man Civil Engineering Presidential support team, and it was responsible for the Ground Power Production on all trips the President made to Grand Cay. The team supported The White House Communications Agency (WHCA) and the United States Secret Service (USSS) with backup ground power on the island.

The advance team usually had 2 ground power and 2 EOD men and 3 Firemen to setup and man the helicopter pad as well as 4 Secret Service men for a total of 11 . This support team were always the first on the island. WHCA usually followed bringing the radio equipment, and the shifts of Secret Service agents would be choppered back and forth from Grand Bahama Island (GBI).

Grand Cay Island (Guest villa behind main residence on other side of the island)

The logistics to support this effort relied on helicopter support from Homestead AFB, and the US Coast Guard to bring large items aboard barges or other watercraft. The USSS always wanted to "gold plate" everything and their Grand Cay observation post near the beautiful beach was a small 14-foot Camper style trailer with a long table down the wall, and signs on the door NOT to use the toilet. Of course someone would always use it, and then the task of emptying it after a visit. The USSS decided to upgrade, and they purchased a larger trailer, maybe 18 feet. They took this to Opa-Locka, and the fabrication shop installed an extended "Bay Window" that protruded about 18-24 inches out from the normal wall. This was to allow for a better field of vision from inside this beach Command Post. We installed the appropriate radio base stations, and had a terminal to connect phone lines from Grand Cay to the small hotel style switchboard at Walkers Cay. We tested everything, the USSS signed off that it was exactly what they needed. Next step was to remove all the electronic equipment, furniture, and any weight we could remove so this trailer could be placed in a sling under a Helicopter. The USCG delivered the trailer to Grand Bahama Island, and the chopper was needed for the last 40 miles. Everyone at GBI watched as the chopper took off, we boarded a Huey to fly in formation to Grand Cay.

About 5 minutes into the flight, we saw the door fly open and break off the trailer. Soon after, the new "Bay Window" broke loose and dropped in the drink. That allowed the side to start caving in, and within another 10 miles, the only thing left was the axle hanging in the sling.

The pilot headed out to the deep ocean and dropped the load. Cost of the trailer, the fabrication, purchasing in DC and driving to Florida, meetings, and all the effort must have cost a fortune! The USSS, WHCA, and the USAF all had a big argument on the budget for this fiasco. I cannot tell you what the outcome was of these discussions.

The trip to Grand Cay was about a 25min. boat ride southeast of Walkers Cay, however in bad weather it was not safe to travel the 7 miles back to Walkers Cay. One such incident, where the weather conditions were actually bad. I found myself on Grand Cay with a Commcenter tech and we requested to be picked up. We waited quite some time and thought the hotel had forgotten us, but a little later that evening we heard a vessel arriving at the dock.  To our surprise they sent the Sea Lion to pick us up and not the 13 ft whaler.  

We were given instructions on the route between the various coral rocks and 7 mile trip to Grand Cay via a small 13 ft Boston Whaler, 2-3 of us headed out for a maintenance trip was very common, but the Commcenter had to go solo with TTY message delivery during Presidential visits. It was a major short coming because the Commcenter was located at Walkers Cay, and the President located across open water about 7 miles and sometime as much as 45 minutes away. There were plans that we could just call the Military Aide and request a helicopter for URGENT deliveries, but the few times we tested that we were forced to use our dedicated 13 ft Whaler.

Whenever the Commcenter was summoned by the Military Aid during a visit to come pick up an outgoing message from the President, Dr. Kissinger, or any other Senior Staff member. Once a message was received the WHCA Comm Center tech had to take the boat ride to Grand Cay Because of rough water, it took them over 50 minutes to arrive. They went into the living room of the "Big House" as we call it, and here were the President, Mr Abplanalp, Bebe Rebozo, and Dr. Kissinger sitting around a pool table all in swimming suits, and probably feeling no pain, had a lot of top shelf alcohol available. They were given a 7 pages of yellow legal pad written with a sharpie, arrows and paragraph numbers, and corrections, and then a couple additional pages from other documents.

It took another 50 minutes to return to Walkers Cay, and then we had to type the message for transmission to Key Biscayne who would resend to the Situation Room. From the original call until this message cleared Walkers Cay was close to 4 hours total, it was a very long message, and important, going to General Westmoreland. When the WH Situation Room received the message, they didn't have any warning, and need to verify with the Military Aide that it was real.

The Military Aid and the President were out on the beach at Grand Cay, and took another 30 minutes to get them connected. wait and see if there was a response and then return to Walkers Cay, type the message on tape, send to Key Biscayne, and then they relayed it to the White House, who then made distribution and sent it worldwide via the AUTODIN network. Author to recipient times when you add the boat trip, typing times, and relay times were awfully slow.

On Monday morning, they wanted to "hang the messenger" rather that address the real reason for the delay, the message contained immediate bombing instructions which arrived very late to implement on the suggested schedule. Still never did fix the moving of the Commcenter from Walkers Cay to Grand Cay which should have been done from day one, but WHMO had some maximum numbers for support folks on Grand Cay, weather, fire crew, Navy divers, and WHCA.

When President Nixon would travel to Grand Cay, WHCA frequently transmitted messages to all levels of the Staff. The President issued the order for the Tet Offensive effort in Viet Nam while at Grand Cay in the Bahamas. There were also many messages giving guidance for Watergate issues, once again, all on Post-It notes attached to a TTY message reply with the simple initials "RN" somewhere on the page.

The Commcenter would sometimes have to transmit long TTY messages multiple times, and then piece together to get all the garble out. Nothing worse than having the last page have a few characters missing! At 100 wpm, a very slow process. I can remember also when it was 60 wpm.

The President was actually staying on the island the day of the Watergate break-in, but there had been no communication until the President called upon his return to his Key Biscayne home on Sunday morning June 18,1972, and even then, they did not discuss the breaking news of the weekend. (Watergate break-in was Saturday, June 17)

The Attorney General John Mitchell eventually went to jail, once it was discovered he was one of the ring leaders of the entire operation.

Today, I am not sure with cellphones, emails, instant messages how Watergate would have unfolded. Seeing lots of messages in the Commcenter, and the 3M Post-It notes that were attached and sent back are very difficult to track once the reader pulls the Post-It off the document. 

In 1973 we expanded the radio system I remember building and installing a new system between Walkers Cay and Grand Cay. The final leg of the was a GRC 103 UHF radio system, with a TD 660 multiplexer providing 24 voice circuits between Walkers Cay and terminating on Grand Cay.

Telephones were installed in the Main residence and both villas, as well as the bunkhouse on the island.  The Secret Service CP/WHCA radio room also had phones installed and FM Radio Consoles on Baker and Charlie frequencies. 

The GRC-104 UHF Radio system used from Walkers Cay and Grand Cay Islands

26 May 73 to Grand Cay to support President Nixon during Visit

The President was visiting his close friend Bob Abplanalp on Grand Cay. I was assigned as the only radioman on the island during the President’s visit. It was also during a midnight shift change of Secret Service Agents when Army One crashed in the ocean while landing There were fifteen survivors, agents, and crew, they were all on the underside of the chopper which had flipped over when it crashed tragically one Secret Service Agent drowned.

Looking toward the Main Residence from the Army One crash site

This was the last time I was on Grand Cay!

I still think the undertaking of installing permanent Communications to support Grand Cay in the Bahamas was one of the most challenging efforts of WHCA over the years. It was a very elaborate set up and at the same time a Rube Goldberg design.

President Nixon made many visits to Grand Cay between 1969 and 1974 when he resigned from office, After his resignation all of the Communications equipment was removed from GBI, Walkers Cay and Grand Cay.

The Renovated Grand Cay

After the death of Robert Abplanalp in 2003, the fortunes of Grand Cay took a further turn for the worse when it was hit by two hurricanes in 2004, (Frances and Jeanne), which caused extensive damage. The Big House, CP/radio room, bunk house and both of the villas survived because they were all concrete structures. The boat dock and care takers house suffered moderate damage.

However, in 2005, the Abplanalp family decided to sell the island, marking the end of a 50 year era. In 2015 the island was purchased by coal magnet Chris Cline from Illinois who was the largest producer of coal in the US, with mines in both Illinois and West Virginia had a vision to turn Grand Cay into a private retreat for his family and friends. Cline died in a crash with six others while taking off from the island under an emergency medical situation for a family member via helicopter around 2019. During the evacuation, the helicopter crashed very near the previous site where the Presidential Helicopter Army One crashed in 1973, again under the hours of darkness and it was not discovered for a couple days, no one checked to see if it had reached their destination for 24 hours. The most recent owner of the island is a Soccer Team owner who has already greatly expanded the island. and uses it as a reward to provide a place for his soccer team players to come after tournaments.

Today Grand Cay is beyond recognition from what it was in the 70’s. The Island now features seven houses, including a 1950’s coral stone home, contemporary-style villas, staff homes and a dormitory-style building for workers that can accommodate dozens of guests as well as a large professional kitchen, also a feature swimming pool, two marinas, a gym, tennis, pickleball and basketball courts. For transportation, there is a fleet of dune buggies and golf carts are available.

Grand Cay 2023

All of the construction force used to renovate the island is made up of the local labor pool of Bahamian natives from nearby Little Grand Cay.

The “Big House” survived the hurricanes and remains on the hill, and it remains intact, the house has been remodeled, but the outside still looks run down, with outside mildew, and bad need of repairs to the steps and path leading to the main entrance. The 1970’s paneling in the game room has all been replaced, and the pool off the patio has been restored.

The Big House on Grand Cay

The pool at the Big House

The old two hexagonal homes where the USSS and Military Aides stayed are still there and they have built additional cabins.  

A restored and remodeled VIP villa

VIP villas beach entrance shower

Several new contemporary-style villas have been built on the far side of the island to accommodate Guests.

 One of the islands private beaches

The New Guest Villas

The restored USSS Cp/WHCA radio room

The old Radio Room/USSS CP building has been given a metal roof and an extreme makeover. The radio room is now an office and laundry room, The concrete pad for the GRC-103 antenna is still on the side of the building, but expanded to a larger pad to accommodate trash cans on the outside of the building.

A view of the USSS CP/ WHCA radio room 

The expanded concrete pad where the GRC-103 antenna stood

The new floating dock

The caretakers home is gone, and an upscale floating dock has been installed in its place.

I don’t think anything on Grand Cay is designed to be revenue generating, only there to give the soccer teams a place for R&R in off season and between tournaments. There are “First Class” accommodations built for the support staff.

The recreation hall, and dormitory

The recreation hall, dormitory, pool, pickleball, and tennis courts

The large Recreation Hall is equipped with shuffleboard, roulette wheel, poker tables, pool tables, ping pong, a very large bar, outdoor waterfall jacuzzi overlooking boat dock, tennis courts, basketball court, and pickleball court. Outside grills, and hammocks are plentiful.

Great hotel like rooms, four to a room for lower level workers, then some two person rooms, and four larger single rooms for supervisors. There was a first class Mess Hall style kitchen to serve 80 people. and don’t forget the pool and gym, as well as the tennis, pickleball and basketball courts.

The Recreation Building

I would like to thank CWO Donald Cammel, US Army Ret. for his narrative and photos that I used in this article about Grand Cay as it is today.