The White House’s New Telephone System (1994)

 

The White House’s New Telephone System
Type Of Activity	New Telephone System
Location
Location	Washington DC
Date of Activity	Jan. 1, 1995 and Aug. 23, 1996
Coordinates

When President Clinton came into office, his aides groaned about the antiquated White House phone system, dismissing it as a "tin can and a string." Early in the Clinton Administration there was an uproar over the outdated White House telephone system? President Clinton garnered attention early by sharing anecdotes about the antiquated "plug-and-play" switchboard from the 1960s. It was a comical image, unfit for a president striving to be on the cutting edge. Thus, a change was in order. As the Clinton administration took the reins, they found themselves lacking an instruction manual left by the departing Bush administration. While Clinton received briefings on matters like foreign policy, the intricacies of the phone system were left unaddressed. The system had been pieced together over the years, resulting in a convoluted setup that even those within past Administrations struggled to comprehend.

Contrary to popular belief, the White House telephone system wasn't solely reliant on a relic from the '60s. Each agency within the Executive Office of the President had its own voice mail system, with modern features like speed-dial phones and call transfer. However, these systems operated in isolation, rendering interagency communication cumbersome or impossible.

Additionally, the public comment lines, usually staffed by volunteers, were left unattended due to a lack of coordination during the transition. This left the outdated switchboard overwhelmed, leading to tens of thousands of unanswered calls and the declaration of a "failure" in the telephone system. In Clinton's early weeks the White House switchboard was deluged with about 65,000 calls a day, compared to about 5,500 on a busy day during the Reagan and Bush years. The main number - 202-456-1414 - stayed busy.

At the time, White House officials acknowledged part of the problem was inexperience: new staffers and volunteers manning the phones. But they also complained that the system itself was a technical hodgepodge, a relic of past administrations.

They were astonished to see how relatively primitive the White House communications system was," Vice President Al Gore recalled recently. "President Clinton and I took a tour and found operators actually having to pull cords for each call and plug them into jacks."

In fact, the old Admin phone system was set to handle 100,000 calls an hour but could have handled up to 200,000 calls an hour, according to the congressional report written by Republicans on the House Government Operations Committee who was investigating the cost of the purchase of the new system.

The White House declared that the phone system had "failed," and immediately began its hunt for a new one. In an attempt to rush through the order for the system, the White House claimed there was a dire need for the upgrade. The final straw? According to documents obtained under the FOIA, the phone system "on a single day in February" reached a "saturation point" of 65,000 calls, which jammed the entire telephone network.

"The system problem, which led to thousands of unanswered calls and busy signals was not inadequate equipment, but rather a lack of personnel to properly man the public comment lines and inadequate management procedures," the report said.

In response, the White House Military Office expedited the procurement of the new system, citing an urgent need. Under the guise of national security, they sidestepped standard procurement procedures, opting to solicit bids from only two hardware providers.

What really transpired behind the scenes reveals more about chaotic transition and mismanagement than technological failure. Through a thorough examination of procurement documents,

The resulting $25 million system boasted improvements like expanded voice mail forwarding capabilities and enhanced conference calling, but fell short of expectations for a high-tech overhaul.

White House memos obtained via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and materials from a Congressional investigation  which found that the existing system worked just fine and wasn't even being used fully. In addition, the costly new system, selected without competitive bidding, offers only minimal improvements over the old one, the congressional report says.

An investigation by the House Government Operations Committee revealed that the American public may have been shortchanged in the deal. Contracts were awarded in potential violation of federal law, raising questions about the handling of taxpayer funds.

Then, in April, a full two months after the "February Surprise," C&P Telephone sent in a team of engineers and, with $600,000 of its own money, 'voluntarily" upgraded the DMS-100 switch, White House documents show. Previously shielded from any publicity surrounding its dealings with the White House, C&P saw a public relations fiasco in the making and took the initiative to upgrade the switch, a move that should have been made years ago, according to other telephone engineers familiar with the improvements. "Before Clinton began complaining [about the phone system), there was never really any need to put all that money into the switch," quoting a C&P official  The upgrade consisted of reconfiguring the call-handling capability of the switch.

Despite these revelations, the contract for the new system was signed, with costs extending beyond the initial $25 million price tag. While touted as a cost-saving measure, the intricacies of the 12,000-page contract reveal additional expenses for wiring, staffing, and structural renovations.

"The administration appears more concerned about getting what it wants when it wants it than in saving the taxpayers money," said Rep. William Clinger of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the House Government Operations Committee.

White House officials defend the new phone system, saying it will save money by centralizing telecommunications management and will include features such as a voice mail system. They say they had to bypass competitive-bidding procedures to protect national security and "urgent telecommunications requirements."

"The new system will be able to provide more in-depth statistical information of calls received and hang-up calls," White House aide Patsy Thomasson told the committee.

 The White House Staff  didn't know how to make the phone system work. The taxpayers got taken for a ride because the staff didn't know what they were doing," said Monty Tripp, the principal congressional investigator. 

Instead of seeking bids from a number of companies, the White House limited competition to three vendors - American Telephone and Telegraph, Northern Telecom Inc. and the local phone company, Chesapeake and Potomac. It ended up signing contracts, worth $25 million over 10 years, with AT&T and C&P.

"... Only the three vendors allowed to compete for the award could meet the Executive Office of the President's delivery and security requirements," Thomasson wrote.

The congressional report disputes that, saying the White House could have delayed the purchase to allow other vendors to obtain White House security passes.

Thomasson said bids were limited because "it is impossible for President Clinton to carry on truly private telephone conversations since the White House operators have access to all phone lines," the report says. This is also not true, if the President wanted a private line all he had to do is ask for it and it would have been provided within 24 hrs.

In the end, while the White House may have a shiny new phone system, the saga exposes deeper issues of mismanagement and bureaucratic inefficiency. And as investigations continue, the true cost of this technological upgrade remains to be seen.

The White House Admin Switchboard

The new system upgraded both the White House Admin Switchboard and WHCA’s Signal Switchboard which consisted of 4,000 leased Centrex lines that will feed three AT&T Definity G3R PBX switches with digital consoles (to do away with that 608D Cord Switchboard from1960s plug ­and-play front end).

The White House bought three in order to insure the “survivability" of the system. What did they do before for survivabil­ity there was no backup hardware for the White House Admin Board in case the system failed. The system’s purchased isn't backed up either, though the administration at first claimed it was and used that excuse in attempts to deny FOIA requests. (The Secret Service later told the administration that the system isn't classified, hence the success of retrieving the FOIA documents.) That doesn't mean President Clinton couldn't make calls during a crisis. Fact is, the WHCA Signal Board had been upgraded and for secure calls, he would use another system ran by WHCA, which is classified.

In 1988 the WHCA Signal switchboard, a modified Western Electric 608D Cord Switchboard (pictured below) was replaced by an AT&T System 85 which utilized the MAPP terminal to make changes using individual procedure codes. The System 85 was the precursor to the Definity G3R with Dual Port Networks connected via multimode fiber and was called the White House Switched Network (WHSN) during the Clinton Administration.

The WHCA Signal Switchboard

The new system was adequate, but it's no monster central office switch like the Northern Telecom DMS-100. This was a mid-1970s switch. Although more than 40 percent of the nation's central office switches were in this class, no telephone company has bought an analog central switch since the late 1970s. They've all turned to digital switches, like the AT&T flagship 5ESS. Now, stuffing a 5ESS in the White House basement would have been impressive and it would have given the Clinton administration the telecommunications power of a city roughly the size of New York. Sensing overkill: the Clinton administration went with the cheaper Definity G3R PBXs.

Here's the sum total of the improvements added for President Clinton's vaunted high-tech cyberelite:

1.  A voice mail system that can be forwarded throughout the entire Executive Office of the President, an improvement over the current voice mail system that has only limited message forwarding capabilities.

2. End users can now set up six-way conference calls from their desks without operator assistance. 2he current system permits only three-way conference calling without operator assistance.

3. Moves and changes as well as rerouting the phone number can be done via a computer terminal; the current method entails having a C&P technician come out and rewire the telephone junction box for the end users phone.

This is why a subsequent Congressional investigation by the House Government Operations Committee, which has oversight of the White House budget, determined that the American public was being ripped off in the deal. The House Gov Ops investigation found that it "appears" new contracts were given "in clear violation of the federal Competition in Contracting Act." The House Gov Ops committee ranking minority member, Rep. Bill Clinger said: "In reality, busy signals and unanswered calls during the early days of the Clinton administration were caused by inadequate management and a failure to adequately staff the public comment lines. It's hard to understand how limiting competition and saddling the taxpayers with a $25 million bill solves the problem of mismanagement:'

Upon completion of the House Gov Ops committee investigation in November of 1995 did turn up some interesting facts the public hadn’t previously known. The old setup, which uses a Northern Telecom DMS-100 central office switch, is currently configured to handle 100,000 calls per hour and can technically handle twice that capacity. But back in February when the system burped and went belly up - on a mere 65,000 calls in an entire day - the switch was set up to handle only 1,000 calls per hour.

It sounds like a typical government-contractor snafu, but at least there's a cost savings with the new system, right? Well, it depends on how you look at it. The White House argues that the present old system is more expensive, and would cost approximately $27 million over the next ten years. On the face of it, the new contract is a deal, saving the taxpayer about $200,000 a year. But look again. And you'll have to look closely, because the contract for the new system is 12,000 pages long.

The $25 million didn't even include such essentials as, wiring, construction, round-the-clock staffing of a brand new White House department called the Telephone Service Office, cabling and installation of new PBXs, and structural renovations to the White House for the new equipment. Of the $25 million, C&P gets $10 million for handling the local service; AT&T gets $15 million for the PBXs, which includes maintenance.

But at least now, if you want to call into the White House and complain, you shouldn't get a busy signal. .

Memories from the Signal Board

Richard LePere, I'm not sure if the "Signal Board" still does this or if it had stopped. Back in '84 to '92, during Desert Storm/Shield. Oper18, especially during the holidays, we would randomly pick the worst remote military sites in the Autovon directory. We'd call the site, announce that it was the White House performing a holiday call for person on duty.

I remember one kid, a private, stuck pulling guard duty on Christmas Day in South Korea. I asked him if he would like to speak to someone, anyone in his family. He said he would like to talk to his Mom. So I dialed his mom's telephone number and explained to her the same thing. When I connected the Mom & Son, her son couldn't speak, he so emotional, crying, I had to step into the call, and said, "Son, you can take as long as you want, to talk to your Mom, tonight, this is our present to you both. Merry Christmas."

The private finally stopped crying and said he hadn't spoken to his mom, since the day he left for basic training. His only way to reach her was by writing letters home.

They talked for over an hour. Of all the things I still miss from my time in WHCA, it's placing calls like that to the troops stuck halfway around the world, stuck in a shit hole spot pulling guard duty.

 Chris Morgan put through a call like this at Christmas time with an E-3. His call had only been up for a couple of minutes, then terminated. The call was made via the EUCOM drop. The EUCOM operator said there was a Major General who wanted to call his family, and he pulled rank.

I said, "no problem", put the general through. When I got him on the line I asked if the call was for official White House business. He said no and I told him this line was only for official business. He started cussing and asking my rank, etc. I told him he could submit a complaint to the President the next day. He hung up, but was NOT happy.

I called EUCOM back, got the E-3 back on the line and let him complete his call.

The good old days of the Western Electric 608D Cord Swbd, and "Official White House Business" Old Signal Oper 10