Switchboard
Lipez, Richard
SWITCHBOARD RICHARD LIPEZ News reports that Henry Kissinger was spying on Melvin Laird, that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were spying on Kissinger, and that Kissinger had John Ehrlichman's White...
...CBS has installed a unified system with hidden listening devices in all major Government offices and taps on all main phones...
...I'll bet no government anywhere in the world bugs itself as effectively as the Nixon Administration does...
...I'm afraid it was not a scene to inspire the people's confidence in their national leaders...
...It sounds as though you're finally on top of a situation that was getting woefully out of hand," I said...
...One time a plumber from John Ehrlichman's office was installing a microphone in Melvin Laird's swivel chair when Laird came back from lunch early, and the plumber leaped behind the couch just in time...
...All those wires running this way and that way kept getting crossed...
...No doubt...
...Another time Kissinger called up his dry cleaner to explain what he wanted done...
...That was close...
...To alleviate that confusion the Administration has established a new agency called CBS—the Central Bugging Switchboard...
...Richard Lipez is a columnist for the Amherst Record in Massachusetts...
...They got into a furious wrestling match...
...The old system was screwing up the Government's phone lines something awful," the new electronic spying chief told me in his cozy White House cubicle...
...Each booth has a tape recorder—we found some old Sonys in the basement—and bilingual stenographers can be requisitioned from my office...
...Once, President Nixon was trying to call up Secretary Laird but instead he got Kissinger's apartment, where one of Henry's Hollywood girl friends answered the phone...
...There were just too many separate systems," Czar Penobscot said ruefully...
...Laird got the cooperation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were ticked off at Kissinger anyway because the only information he ever sent them was a brochure on the White House historical tour...
...During the attempt a five-star general slipped on Kissinger's freshly-waxed floor, and the rear admiral who was standing on the general's shoulders fell and broke his collarbone...
...This Administration has been fighting government waste and inefficiency for five years," Bugging Czar Penobscot said proudly...
...We've set up a room equipped with thirty-five listening booths in which a government official can simply twist a dial and eavesdrop on any conversation in Washington...
...Naturally, there was a lot of bureaucratic resistance to trimming and centralizing inter-agency spy operations, but it had to be done...
...And how will the Central Bugging Switchboard correct all that, Czar Penobscot...
...Congratulations," I said...
...It was around this time that he decided to set up his own counter-spy operation...
...The incident made Laird suspicious...
...He can't carry out his programs under conditions like that," I agreed...
...We wondered at the time why all those lie detector tests we gave at the State Department didn't lead us to where the blabbermouths were...
...That's why Russia will always be Number Two...
...Which only made matters more complicated...
...I happen to know that the Kremlin still uses the system we've abandoned," the Bugging Czar confided...
...Then one time when the plumbers were trying to find out who was leaking Government secrets to Jack Anderson some of the spy wires got crossed, and every time Anderson picked up his phone he could hear Defense Secretary Laird sending orders to Yahya Kahn in Pakistan...
...I can sure see why the intragovernmental bugging system had to be revamped in a hurry...
...It's like at the United Nations...
...Technicians kept bumping into each other in broom closets and under desks...
...Federal Bugging Czar "Tippytoe" Tapley Penobscot explained why the new agency was set up...
...That's actually how most of the leaks got out...
...Gee, I would have thought the Government's spying systems were too sophisticated for gaffes like that," I said...
...The red phone in the Pentagon war room rang at the same time, and when Kissinger gave instructions to 'replace the buttons and press the suits,' the guys in the war room thought he said, 'press the button and erase the gooks.' Luckily, they had the good sense to double-check, and World War III was narrowly averted...
...SWITCHBOARD RICHARD LIPEZ News reports that Henry Kissinger was spying on Melvin Laird, that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were spying on Kissinger, and that Kissinger had John Ehrlichman's White House plumbers spying on his own staff whenever they weren't off spying on Daniel Ellsberg, have created a lot of confusion in Washington...
...She said, 'You sound cute, but I think you have a wrong number.' The President was mortified...
...But he landed on a Kissinger spy who had been crouching back there stuffing a microphone into a cushion...
...Now we know...
...They felt left out, so they tried to plant a microphone in Kissinger's office chandelier while Kissinger was in China...
Vol. 38 • March 1974 • No. 3
