anyone in Tennessee or in Washington or, for that matter, anyplace on earth. And Senator Baker’s ordinary telephone service was deemed grossly inadequate.
“They sent a technical crew in there, days ahead of time, and askedfor fifty-six telephone circuits into my guesthouse,” Senator Baker recalled with a mixture of amusement and irritation. “And the poor little old telephone company out there, which is an independent telephone company, I don’t imagine had fifty-six telephone circuits or trunk lines for the whole community. But they dutifully put them in, and they drilled holes in my floor where they ran telephone cables up and which, to this day, are a matter of aggravation to my wife. They brought in a voice encoding machine, you know, one of these secure-line jobs, and put it in the room adjacent to the President’s. They set up a tie line, not one, but several direct tie lines to the White House switchboard. They had a direct tie-in to the airport, direct tie-in to the hospital, direct tie-in to the highway patrol.”
“The phone people really had nightmares,” echoed Larry Crowley, chief of the Huntsville Volunteer Fire Department. “For a little town like us, a small company like us, this was out of the ordinary,” said Charlie Welch, who put in the lines for the Highland Telephone Cooperative. “There were phones in places you’d never dream of putting phones, like outside the church.” 3
Then there was a debate over where to put the portable switchboard. The Army Signal Corps, which operates the president’s military communications network, arrived with a whole switchboard packed into a communications van, which they wanted to park beside the guesthouse. But Senator Baker, sensing his hospitality about to be desecrated, was adamant against scarring the pastoral setting. “I don’t want it there,” he declared. So the trailer was duly dispatched to a less prominent site near the senator’s dog pens, setting up howls from Mr. Baker’s beagle and his Saint Bernard. “The dogs were terribly perplexed by all this,” the senator recalled.
Although the Baker home seemed a particularly secluded spot in sparsely settled Huntsville, the Secret Service began throwing its security cloak over a large region about ten days ahead of time. Its agents lined up the Scott County sheriff and his deputies, plus the thirty volunteer firemen, to reinforce sizable detachments brought in from outside. Police dogs were sent to sniff for explosives in the Huntsville Presbyterian Church, where the Reagans were to attend Sunday services. Metal detectors were set up for the congregation. The president’s bulletproof limousine was flown to Knoxville and driven up to Huntsville for the short Sunday morning ride from the Baker home to the church. Secure space was set aside for a figure out of
Dr. Strangelove
: the military aide who carries what White House aides call the “football,” a briefcase full of secret codes available for ordering a launch ofnuclear weapons, kept near the president twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. 4
On the bluff outside the guesthouse, the Secret Service mounted high-intensity floodlights to shine down onto the woods and river below. As May 1, the day of the Reagan’s visit, approached, the woods on both sides of the river and all around the Baker property were seeded with heavily armed federal and military security teams. “They had SWAT teams on the mountain, which is more than a mile from the guesthouse,” Senator Baker reported. “They had SWAT teams on the road. They had SWAT teams down below the bluff. I never saw so many people.”
By the time Saturday May 1 dawned, security barriers had been erected on all approaching roads. The fire department’s “attack pumper” truck took a position on the far edge of the Bakers’ lawn, the local volunteers flanked by a clutch of Secret Service agents. Some, according to the daily paper in Oneida, were clad in camouflage fatigues
“They sent a technical crew in there, days ahead of time, and askedfor fifty-six telephone circuits into my guesthouse,” Senator Baker recalled with a mixture of amusement and irritation. “And the poor little old telephone company out there, which is an independent telephone company, I don’t imagine had fifty-six telephone circuits or trunk lines for the whole community. But they dutifully put them in, and they drilled holes in my floor where they ran telephone cables up and which, to this day, are a matter of aggravation to my wife. They brought in a voice encoding machine, you know, one of these secure-line jobs, and put it in the room adjacent to the President’s. They set up a tie line, not one, but several direct tie lines to the White House switchboard. They had a direct tie-in to the airport, direct tie-in to the hospital, direct tie-in to the highway patrol.”
“The phone people really had nightmares,” echoed Larry Crowley, chief of the Huntsville Volunteer Fire Department. “For a little town like us, a small company like us, this was out of the ordinary,” said Charlie Welch, who put in the lines for the Highland Telephone Cooperative. “There were phones in places you’d never dream of putting phones, like outside the church.” 3
Then there was a debate over where to put the portable switchboard. The Army Signal Corps, which operates the president’s military communications network, arrived with a whole switchboard packed into a communications van, which they wanted to park beside the guesthouse. But Senator Baker, sensing his hospitality about to be desecrated, was adamant against scarring the pastoral setting. “I don’t want it there,” he declared. So the trailer was duly dispatched to a less prominent site near the senator’s dog pens, setting up howls from Mr. Baker’s beagle and his Saint Bernard. “The dogs were terribly perplexed by all this,” the senator recalled.
Although the Baker home seemed a particularly secluded spot in sparsely settled Huntsville, the Secret Service began throwing its security cloak over a large region about ten days ahead of time. Its agents lined up the Scott County sheriff and his deputies, plus the thirty volunteer firemen, to reinforce sizable detachments brought in from outside. Police dogs were sent to sniff for explosives in the Huntsville Presbyterian Church, where the Reagans were to attend Sunday services. Metal detectors were set up for the congregation. The president’s bulletproof limousine was flown to Knoxville and driven up to Huntsville for the short Sunday morning ride from the Baker home to the church. Secure space was set aside for a figure out of
Dr. Strangelove
: the military aide who carries what White House aides call the “football,” a briefcase full of secret codes available for ordering a launch ofnuclear weapons, kept near the president twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. 4
On the bluff outside the guesthouse, the Secret Service mounted high-intensity floodlights to shine down onto the woods and river below. As May 1, the day of the Reagan’s visit, approached, the woods on both sides of the river and all around the Baker property were seeded with heavily armed federal and military security teams. “They had SWAT teams on the mountain, which is more than a mile from the guesthouse,” Senator Baker reported. “They had SWAT teams on the road. They had SWAT teams down below the bluff. I never saw so many people.”
By the time Saturday May 1 dawned, security barriers had been erected on all approaching roads. The fire department’s “attack pumper” truck took a position on the far edge of the Bakers’ lawn, the local volunteers flanked by a clutch of Secret Service agents. Some, according to the daily paper in Oneida, were clad in camouflage fatigues
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