Word: switchboard
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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That is only one of the thousands of memories that Burns has taken with her into retirement after 30 years as a White House switchboard operator, the last three as chief operator. Part technician, part diplomat and security officer, Burns and the others like her live at the vortex of the White House nervous system. Without them, Presidents can be rendered blind and dumb...
When Burns first went to work under Truman, the world was in turmoil. Once she worked at her switchboard for 40 days without a break. But it was worth it when Truman called one night, feeling lonely. Bess was away. Margaret had sailed for Europe. "Get me Margie," Truman ordered. Burns affirmed the request but was not sure just how quickly she could comply, since the President's daughter was two days out to sea. Margaret Truman was raised on a ship-to-shore connection in ten minutes. When the conversation ended, the President rang Burns back...
Burns could gauge the intensity of presidential concern from her headset, but she kept it all to herself. The phones hummed with hushed anxiety during the Cuban missile crisis, kept secret for six days. The Kennedy assassination strained the White House switchboard more than any other single event. Calls came in from all over the world, but the lines were so busy that only a fraction got through. People would call in distress and just sob, "Get me the East Room," which was where Kennedy's body...
Campaign headquarters for Francis W. Hatch Jr. '46--the quiet gentleman from Beverly Farms who wants to be governor of Massachusetts--are not what you would expect. The walls are yellow and peeling--just a little hole in the wall on 14 Beacon Street. One switchboard, six telephones, no hold buttons, no cotton ribbed turtlenecks--just a bunch of kids, sitting around stuffing envelopes. There is one sign on the wall. "Make the King the Ruler of Massachusetts for the next four years, and you'll think Henry the VIII was a nice...
...sensitive and a little ambivalent about his SQ. He knows with the intuitive self-consciousness of the upwardly mobile that occupation, education, ethnic background and the concepts of social identity and life-style also count. Of course money talks. Indeed it whistles, hums and croons through the tangled switchboard of class lines that bind the conflicting emotions most Americans have about their place in an open, competitive society. What money says is "This way to the good life," not good as in Plato, but good as in "a good house in a good neighborhood." Beyond that basic aspiration lies...