tn07+@andrew.cmu.edu (Thomas Neudecker) (08/26/90)
From the {Pittsburgh Press}, Sunday 8/26/90
WIRE EXPERTS KEEP VACATIONING BUSH ON SPY-PROOF LINE
A extra large contingent of about four dozen WHCA (Wah-cah) staffers
are in Kennebunkport so that President Bush can reach out and anyone
in the world from his speed boat or golf cart.
Presidential phone calls require special lines that encode their
signals, beam them to a satellite and recode them to be understood by
the receiver. There are probably as many WHCA staffers here as Secret
Service agents and a total staff of 700, all specially recruited from
the military services.
They wired an aircraft carrier in Norfolk (reportedly troublesome
because of the sealed hatches), ran secure lines into the middle of no
where out side of Jackson Hole, Wyo., and spent a month in Warsaw,
Poland piggybacking onto a phone system that was modern in the 1950Us
Truth is, even WHCA has its limits - like when the president of the
United States uses a cellular from the boat of golf cart. Its just
like all cellular phones - annoying because of the static, said a WHCA
staffer. But the president usually only uses it to call his grandkids
as he is headed into shore.