Motorola FM VHF Radio Training (1971)

Motorola Radio Training
Motorola’s Manufacturing Plant Schaumburg IL
Type Of Activity	Technical Training
Location
Location		Schaumburg IL
Date of Activity		Sep 19 1971 to Sep 25 1971
Coordinates		42° 4'5.20"N  88° 2'44.47"W

19 Sep 71 to Chicago IL-Motorola Radio  

I had been working on Motorola FM equipment for a number of years, all of my training had been on the job until 1971 when I was sent to Schaumburg IL to Motorola’s manufacturing plant to be trained on hand held FM radios and radio pagers.

Motorola’s Headquarters Schaumburg IL

WHCA used the Motorola brand exclusively for communications between the Secret Service, the White House Staff and WHCA our frequency spectrum was in the VHF range for these units.

We would use the P-33’s in all motorcade setups and all vehicles used by advance and staff. If the vehicle was assigned to the Secret Service they would receive a unit with Baker/Charlie frequency. The Staff would receive a P-33 radio on Sierra frequency.  

Motorola P-33 5w FM transceiver

The Secret Service Agents were all issued HT-220's on Baker/Charlie Frequency and certain Staff members would be issued HT-220's on Sierra. 

HT-220 1.5w FM Transceiver

The Staff frequency would also be set up with a Radio Paging system.  The Paging encoder would be set up at the switchboard at all trip locations or permanent installations. Any of the Staff and WHCA personnel authorized would receive a voice pager.

Paging system Encoder

Motorola  Page Boy radio paging unit

The San Clemente Detachment and CCT had hundreds of units that were used during Presidential visits or support on side trips for the Secret Service and the White House Staff.  This training would help us tremendously in our efforts to maintain our assigned equipment.

Since I had met and married my wife (Joanne)  while I was stationed in Chicago, I was pretty familiar with the area.  I was sent to this training with Bill Eadie who was also a CCT member.  We arrived at O’Hare and departed to check into our hotel.

The Motorola Plant was only two miles away from our hotel, so the next morning we started the week long class. We wrapped up training on Friday morning and was given a tour of the manufacturing plant after which we were released to return home. 

Bill and I departed O’Hare on Saturday to return to San Clemente

The Return of the Vietnam POW's (1973)

Operation Homecoming
Type of Activity	Return of our POW’s from Vietnam
Location
Location	Clark AFB PI
Date of Activity	12 February 1973
Coordinates	15°11'31.16"N 120°33'33.95"E

  

The End of the Vietnam War

It was early 1973, many years since the War in Vietnam started but two more years before the conflict fully ended, President Richard Nixon announced that ‘peace with honor’ had been achieved.

The Paris Peace talks with North Vietnam had been going on for a long time when the talks concluded on January 13, 1973 with the final agreement. The peace agreement was formally signed on January 27, 1973.  America's longest war was finally over!

This was great news for all of us in the Military as this unpopular conflict was coming to an end!  Ever since my first trip with President Johnson to Dallastown PA in 1966 there were always anti-war protesters present at every event that WHCA would support! Bomb threats at speech sites became so frequent that the US Secret Service would have Explosive Ordnance (EOD) teams sweep all locations where the President, Vice President or other VIP’s were scheduled to speak. I personally sat through many threats and demonstrations while working in the USSS command post.

This was not a pleasant time for anyone remaining in the Military and the POW’s that first returned were not welcomed home by all Americans, it would take many months before our nation forgot this controversial conflict.

America’s POW’s are finally on there way home!

Inside the C-141A, later known as the "Hanoi Taxi"

 

Operation Homecoming was a series of diplomatic negotiations that in January 1973 made possible the return of 591 American prisoners of war held by North Vietnam. On Feb. 12, 1973, three C-141 transports flew to Hanoi, North Vietnam, and one C-9A aircraft was sent to Saigon, South Vietnam to pick up released prisoners of war. The first flight of 40 U.S. prisoners of war left Hanoi in a C-141A, later known as the "Hanoi Taxi" and now in a museum.

From February 12 to April 4, there were 54 C-141 missions flying out of Hanoi, bringing the former POW's home. Each plane brought back 40 POW's. During the early part of Operation Homecoming, groups of POW's released were selected on the basis of longest length of time in prison. The first group had spent 6-8 years as prisoners of war.

The first of the POW’s arrive at Clark AFB, PI. 

POW's return home

After Operation Homecoming, the U.S. still listed about 1,350 Americans as prisoners of war or missing in action and sought the return of roughly 1,200 Americans reported killed in action and body not recovered.  These missing personnel would become the subject of the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue.

Dr Henry Kissinger chief negotiator in the Paris Peace talks 

President Nixon welcomes John McCain upon his return from Vietnam

The American commitment to defend South Vietnam, described as unequivocal by President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger, had been weakened by the Watergate scandal and Nixon's subsequent resignation. By that time, the Paris Accords seemed memorable only as the vehicle on which the United States rode out of Southeast Asia.

On April 30, 1975, a little over two years after the final agreement was signed by the United States of America, the North Vietnamese Army took over Saigon with little resistance, and Peace in Vietnam was restored!

The Vice President Resigns (1973)-revised

Vice President Agnew Resigns
Vice President Agnew at one of his many fundraisers
Type of Activity	Political Resignation
Location
Location	Washington DC
Date of Activity	11 Oct 1973
Coordinates	38°53'51.2"N 77°02'20.9"W

Vice President Agnew Resigns from Office 11 Oct 1973

The announcement that the Vice President resigned from office came as a shock to me and I was saddened because I had worked with his staff and protection detail on many support trips and got to know everyone quite well! I first worked with them right after his nomination at the 1968 Republication Convention spending many days covering various, fund raisers, special events and even several vacation trips to Palm Springs.  My last involvement was at the 1972 National Republican Convention in Miami when I was with the Key Biscayne Communications Detachment. The NIXON/Agnew ticket achieved a resounding victory in the November 1972 election with a land slide defeat of Senator George McGovern.

Re-election victory for the President and Vice President in 1972

Vice President Agnew is sworn in at 1973 Inaugural Ceremony

In just 11 years, Spiro Agnew rose from being an attorney for a Union and serving on the Zoning Board of Appeals, to being elected Baltimore County Executive, and after taking advantage of a feud within the Democratic Party, finding himself elected Governor of the State of Maryland. Richard Nixon in need of a running mate that did not drag down his poll numbers, turned to the unknown Agnew to be his running mate in 1968 for Vice President of the United States. 

 An amazing rise for anyone to have come so far so fast.  

The State of Maryland had a very unusual way of doing business that apparently everyone was aware of and no one really talked about. It involved people looking to do work with various local governments subsidizing the decision-making office holders income.  Now today that would be considered illegal, and it is rather shocking to me that it was not considered illegal then, but the  truth is it wasn't. That basic fact is a part of the story rarely if ever discussed and it is about the only defense available for not only a Vice President forced to give up his office but for the rather large list of other public figures this scandal involved in the state of Maryland. 

Then we listen in on CBS News coverage of the events of October 10, 1973 as Spiro Agnew showed up at a Baltimore Courthouse to plead Nolo Contendere to one count of Federal Income tax evasion after resigning the Vice Presidency. Then he exits the stage only to return for a brief moment to sell his Memoirs in which he claimed he feared for his life after a visit from Nixon Chief of Staff Alexander Haig who had been tasked with pushing the Vice President to resign by the Administration. 

The Vice President had very little time to enjoy his landslide victory, as a scandal was brewing in the summer of 1973, involving the Vice President. The United States Attorney's Office in Baltimore, Maryland, was investigating allegations that Vice President Agnew, while Baltimore County executive in 1966, had solicited payoffs from contractors doing county business and that as governor of Maryland and later as Vice President he had accepted kickbacks from engineers whose firms had received state contracts, even accepting several $2,000 payments in the Executive Office Building next to the White House.

On July 31, 1973 Agnew's lawyers were handed a letter written by George Beall, United States attorney for Baltimore, informing them that the Vice President was under investigation for conspiracy, extortion, and bribery. At a meeting with Attorney General Elliot Richardson, Agnew denied all the charges, and on August 6, 1973 as the story broke in the newspapers, the Vice President released a statement saying, "I am innocent of any wrongdoing."

Vice President Agnew meets with reporters in front of the
Federal Courthouse in Baltimore MD

Although President Nixon called Vice President Agnew into the Oval Office and assured him of his support, the White House chief of staff, Alexander Haig, immediately dropped over to Vice President Agnew's office after that conference and suggested to the Vice President that if he were indicted he should consider how it would affect his performance as Vice President—a not so subtle hint to consider resignation.

The Vice President exits the  Federal Courthouse in Baltimore MD

 after pleading "No Contest"

In September of 1973, Vice President Agnew began to plea-bargain with the prosecutors, but negotiations dragged on for more than a month as he sought a deal that would not involve any admission on his part of wrongdoing. He tried desperately to get out of the corner: he made an issue of leaks to the press by the prosecutors; he had a meeting with President Nixon, desperately trying to get the President to put pressure on Richardson to agree to a compromise; he asked the House of Representatives to impeach him so that Congress could conduct an investigation. White House aides refused to pressure Richardson, and the Democratic majority in the House refused to impeach Agnew until judicial proceedings had run their course.

The delay was not to Agnew's advantage. He antagonized Nixon by attacking the Justice Department. His standing in the polls was dropping, a sure sign that he was a political liability. An exhaustive investigation of his finances was completed by the Internal Revenue Service, and the prosecutors now had details about his personal life that conceivably could prove embarrassing if they were revealed.

Vice President Agnew’s letter of resignation to the President

Between October 5 and October 9, 1973 Vice President Agnew's lawyers and justice department lawyers cut a deal, which on October 8, 1973 was agreed to by a federal judge. 

Vice President Agnew’s letter of resignation

New York Times Headlines on Oct 11, 1973

With Vice President Agnew out of the way, President Nixon named Congressman Gerald R. Ford (R-MI) as his nominee for Vice President. Congressman’s Fords nomination was received by Congress with great enthusiasm and strong bipartisan support. 

The appointment to the Vice Presidency sailed through the Senate with a 97 - 3 vote to make Gerald R. Ford the 40th Vice President of the United States. Two days before the Presidents announcement, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned his office after being convicted of tax evasion charges unrelated to Watergate. On October 10, 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew officially resigned. 

In his acceptance speech Vice President Ford very humbly said to the nation "I am a Ford not a Lincoln". It is this humbleness that will serve Ford well over the next year as it becomes increasingly certain that he will end up as the President of the United States.

Gerald Ford is sworn in as the new Vice President

With the resignation and succession crises resolved, attention once again turned to the long-simmering Watergate crisis. It would only take another eight months of intense scrutiny for Watergate to bring down the entire Nixon administration leading to President Nixon’s Resignation in 1974.

Spiro and Judy Agnew

Spiro, Judy Agnew, and Family (1973)

After he resigned, Vice President Agnew and his wife Judy moved to a winter home at the Springs Country Club in Rancho Mirage. By then, the Agnew’s had visited the Coachella Valley numerous times and had become friends with Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra. They avoided publicity and lived a quiet, reserved country-club style life. He played tennis and golf. Neighbors recall seeing him bicycle around Rancho Mirage, dine at local restaurants and party, often at the Sinatra compound.

The Vice President’s resignation and Gerald Fords swearing in as the new Vice President would be the last major event that I would be a member of WHCA. I was discharged at Andrews AFB on December 10, 1973.

I had experienced so much history of the 1960’s and 1970’s, from the escalation of the war in Vietnam, and the antiwar protests, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the ensuing civil unrest at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, the San Clemente Western White House, the historic trip To China, the Florida White House in Key Biscayne, the end of the Vietnam war including the return of the POW/MIA’s, the Watergate break in, the cover up and the resignation of the Vice President! There are so many details that I have forgotten, but so much that I can remember to say that I was very proud to have served as a member of the White House Communications Agency for over nine years.

The President's Trip to Santa Catalina Island (1971)

The President's Trip to Santa Catalina Island
The Casino in Avalon on Catalina Island
Type of Activity	Boat Excursion to Santa Catalina Island
Location
Location		Santa Catalina Island CA
Date of Activity		August 28 and 29 1971
Coordinates		33° 23′ 0″ N, 118° 25′ 0″ W

28 and 29Aug 1971 to Santa Catalina Island CA   

Santa Catalina Island, often called Catalina Island, is a rocky island off the coast of California. The island is 22 miles (35 km) long and 8 miles (13 km) across at its greatest width. Catalina Island is located about 22 miles (35 km) south-southwest of Los Angeles, California.

The total population as of the 2010 census was 4,096 people, 90 percent of whom live in the island's only incorporated city, Avalon. There are only two ways that you can travel to the Island, by boat or by flying into the Airport in the Sky. When WHCA made their radio survey of southern California and Orange County it was discovered that a site on Catalina Island would line of sight to cover all of the beach areas from San Clemente, Laguna Beach, and north to Newport Beach. Most of the Senior Staff, Staff, and representatives of the Press would stay in these beach cities while they visited the Western White House.

We installed radios on Blackjack Mountain which is the second highest point on the island, at 2,010 feet, inside a fenced-off AT&T communications installation. Over the period of time that I spent working in San Clemente we made numerous trips by helicopter to Catalina island to perform preventive maintenance on the radio base stations and make sure that we had sufficient coverage should the President visit Avalon.

  Black Jack Mt. radio site

.WHCA radio site overlooking Catalina Airport

To the best of my recollection the President and Mrs. Nixon choppered on Marine One to Catalina Island on Jan 8 1971 and they were greeted by the Mayor of Santa Catalina, Harvey Cowells. The President toured the Island and then after only a few hours departed on Marine One and returned to San Clemente.

Approaching Catalina Island's Airport in the Sky

Airport in the Sky Main Terminal

On Aug 28, 1971 the President accompanied by Mr. C.G. (BEBE) Rebozo departed the Western White House on Army One in route to Newport Beach CA. Landing at the Newporter Inn helipad. The President, and Mr. Rebozo, motored from the Newporter Inn to the Balboa Bay Club, also in Newport Beach. This is where the Mojo was docked.

The Newporter Inn in Newport Beach CA

Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach CA

For twenty plus years the “Mojo” was berthed at the Balboa Bay Club. Prior to and during the Presidency of Richard Nixon enjoyed cruising the harbor aboard the “Mojo.” It was amusing to watch the Secret Service follow along in much smaller boats to ensure the President’s security. The President was greeted by Frank Muller, retired Los Angeles businessman and owner of the yacht Mojo. Also on board were the Presidents Dr., his personal staff and the Military Aide.

The President on board the Mojo enroute to Santa Catalina Island

 The Presidential party cruised from the Balboa Bay Club Newport Beach, California via Avalon Bay, Santa Catalina Island, California, to Jew Fish Point, Santa Catalina Island, California.

The President, and Mr. Rebozo, went ashore to swim from the beach at Jew Fish Point, When the President and Mr. Rebozo returned to the Mojo they were joined by television writer and producer Paul, W. Keyes. 

Once aboard they cruised along the eastern coast of Catalina Island, and finally the Mojo anchored for the night at White Cove, Santa Catalina Island, California. The Secret Service agents guarding the President followed him everywhere never losing sight of him.

Avalon Bay at Catalina Island

         One of the secluded beaches along the Catalina coast

 The next morning the Presidential party cruised along the northwest shore line of Santa Catalina Island aboard the Mojo they then cruised to San Pedro Harbor, California where they had lunch. They then cruised to the Newport Beach Coast Guard dock, Newport Beach, California.

The President shook hands and chatted with people in the crowd which included Coast Guard personnel, press reporters and photographers and got into the Limo and motored back to the Newporter Inn and immediately departed on Army One for the Western White House.

Radio Coverage tor the two days that the President was flawless, the installation of radios on Catalina Island really paid off on this trip!

The Presidents visit to the Ocean Reef Club (1972-1973)

President Nixon’s visit to the Ocean Reef Club
Entrance to the Ocean Reef Club on Key Largo FL
Type Of Activity	Boat Cruise
Location
Location	Key Largo FL
Date of Activity	11 November 1972
Coordinates	25°19'13.0"N 80°16'42.0"W

Multiple visits 1972/1973 to Key Largo FL to support President Nixon

Whenever the President came to the Florida White House for the weekend, they would always relax with the Presidents friends, Bebe Rebozo and Robert Abplanalp. They would go usually go to the Grand Cay in the Bahamas, play Golf locally, or take a boat ride on Mr. Robozo’s houseboat the Coco Lobo III!  This weekend would be no exception the Presidential party would go by boat to the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, which was approximately thirty miles south of the Key Biscayne Compound. The First Lady seemed content staying with the kids in the compound at Key Biscayne as she usually did not accompany them. Even when they would plan dinner at Joe's Stone Crab on Biscayne Blvd in Miami, it was always just the boys!

We were very familiar with the Ocean Reef Club because Mr. Rebozo owned a villa at the club and we did quite a bit of work installing the stereo equipment and ceiling speakers in the house and the outdoor speakers’ poolside.  We were always sent down to the villa in advance of the President arrival to make sure that the TV and Stereo equipment was fully functional. We would check the pool heater and other mechanical equipment in the house.

"Wolf Hound" Volga 70 Hydrofoil (2008)

The President and Mr. Rebozo first went boating on the Volga 70 Hydrofoil (which was given to the President by Russian Premier Brezhnev after his trip to Russia).  We had un-officially assigned the hydrofoil the codename of Wolf Hound.  After about an Hour cruising in Biscayne Bay the President and Mr. Rebozo returned to the dock and then boarded the Coco Lobo III.

The President and Mr. Rebozo on the Coco Lobo III

Departing the dock at Key Biscayne on a cruise to North Key Largo, FL

The President would then cruise to North Key Largo Docking at the Ocean Reef Club where they motored to Mr. Robozo’s villa. The Coco Lobo III then returned to Key Biscayne. The President and Mr. Rebozo were greeted by Robert H. Abplanalp when they arrived at the villa. They then watched a college football game and ate dinner.  After dinner the President, Mr. Rebozo and Mr. Abplanalp motored from the Ocean Reef Club to the North Key Largo helipad and returned to the Key Biscayne Compound on Marine One.  

Returning to Key Biscayne from Key Largo

Cruising and fishing on the Coco Lobo III was a common occurrence every time the President visited the Florida White House.