White House
| "The Agency evolved over the past 60 years from a small team of 32 personnel working out of the basement of the White House to a self-supporting joint service command. Headquarters for WHCA is at Anacostia Navy Yard." Just like military school I pioneered the White House for Jews. I was the only one in the detachment. There were no blacks there at all and only one other Jew in the secret service. |
I went to Ida M Fisher Elementary School in Miami Beach. Then Nautilus Middle School and high school at Riverside Military Acadamy. I finished high school in Miami Beach at Beach High. Then I went into the army. I took college courses in the army during the 60s and in 1970 I received an LL.B degree from LaSalle Ext University.
In 1956 I left for Ft Jackson, S.C., where I was to be stationed twice, once for basic training and years later again while awaiting my orders there I was assigned to a training company as a drill instructor.
After my basic training I was assigned to Ft. Monmouth in New Jersey for almost two years of schooling in microwave communication and cryptology. In 1959 I was assigned to the White House and attended more schools for communications, crypto and security. I received a civilian allotment for clothing and put my uniforms away for a couple of years.
I was now working with leading-edge technologies and providing state of art communications and security to the president of the United States and to his staff. We were the premier communications, army security and crypto services for the president. We had all the very best Defense Department capabilities.
In the most technologically advanced country in the world we had the most advanced technology. It was a hoot. If life can't be an adventure, what is it?
My mission was to provide reliable, redundant, robust, secure and on-secure voice communications, data and video connectivity. We had leading edge packet radio and pulse modulation multiplexing, microwave and high frequency communications. We did not yet have satellites.
My unit was established in the 40s (March 25, 1942) following the bombing of Pearl Harbor and began with just 30 people, two of them officers and 28 of them enlisted soldiers. When I was there it was still a small detachment with about 300 personnel and everyone wore civilian cloths. The job was then as it was when it was installed to operate and maintain radio communications and provide cryptographic services at the White House.
The unit was established first as the White House Signal Detachment by orders of the War Department during the Roosevelt Administration. We worked out of the White House. We had a special communications bunker in the basement and equipment in all of the offices. We provided communications support to the president with mobile radios, teletype, secure telephones, crypto text and crypto voice security and during the Eisenhower Administration when I was there we reorganized and was renamed the White House Army Signal Agency.
Our role continued to expand and support included wide-band communications and television and some additional security services and eventually satellite systems, etc.
In 1962, WHASA disbanded by order of the secretary of defense under President John F. Kennedy and was transferred to the Defense Communications Agency. There have been many organizational realignments pursuant to need.
I then worked at USREAR in Orleans, France for three years and then was reassigned to the Pentagon to work for the Chiefs of Staff in the War Room providing secure communications and cryptology.
During that time I attended helicopter school but washed out because of the requirment for uncorrected vision, which probably saved my life. I was there for the beginning of the Vietnam War but decided not to do another tour and resigned from the military. I was however requested to go to the Middle East in 1973 during the Yom Kipper War, which I did and was in the Negev when the IDF surrounded the Egyptian 3rd army.
"We animals are the most complicated things in the known universe. The universe that we know, of course, is a tiny fragment of the actual universe." (Richard Dawkins, "The Blind Watchmaker")
"The detachment was activated under the Military District of Washington to provide normal and emergency communications requirements in support of the President of the United States. WHSD provided mobile radio, teletype, telephone, and cryptographic aids in the White House and at Shangri-La, now known as Camp David... In 1954, during the Eisenhower Administration, WHSD was reorganized under the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, Army Signal Corps as a Class II unit and renamed the White House Army Signal Agency (WHASA)."
The Agency evolved over the past 60 years from a small team of 32 personnel working out of the basement of the White House to a self-supporting joint service command. Headquarters for WHCA is at Anacostia Navy Yard." Just like military school I pioneered the White House for Jews. I was the only one in the detachment. There were no blacks there at all and only one other Jew in the secret service.
While I was still with WHASA at the White House, I was also temporarily assigned to the Naval Security Agency (or group, as it is called now) and that was one of the times when I had to wear my uniform. There were other branches of the service there also but only two of us were from the White House. There is where I became proficient with some other aspects of voice security and the KY1 machine. I was there not only with other members of other branches of the military but also agents from various intelligence agencies. My duty at the White House also brought me in contact with secret service on a regular basis, and I performed some support functions for other security agencies and helped in the engineering and development of wide-band communications at the White House.
It became part of my job to change the codes in the machine ever morning and sometimes I would change them when the president was there. And Ike always said hello.
I really enjoyed working for Ike. It was a very special time. I imagine all that has changed a lot since then. Most of my friends who worked with me are gone now but we were family and we stayed in touch with each other. I miss them and the good times we had also.
During one of my enlistments, I served a tour in Orleans, France [ComzRear] while there with NATO Forces.
I also worked for the Chiefs of Staff in the "War Room" at the Pentagon.
The timing was particularly propitious. While there at JCS a war got started in an out-of-the-way place called Vietnam. I established secure voice crypto communications between the Chiefs of Staff and the commanders on the ground.
|
"The detachment was
activated under the Military District of
Washington to provide normal and emergency communications requirements
in support of the President of the United States. WHSD provided mobile
radio, teletype, telephone, and cryptographic aids in the White House
and at Shangri-La, now known as Camp David... In 1954, during the
Eisenhower Administration, WHSD was reorganized under the Office of the
Chief Signal Officer, Army Signal Corps as a Class II unit and renamed
the White House Army Signal Agency (WHASA)." |
Jane and me in front of a destroyed tank in Israel |
 That's Jane in the middle. I'm on the right in the western hat. Taken in 1999. |
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Hank Roth (on the Internet since 1982)