$72,000 for Phone Bills : Ex-Presidents Talk Away, as Public Pays

Ex-Presidents like to keep in touch. During the 1984 fiscal year, the nation’s three former chief executives ran up telephone bills of more than $72,000 and spent another $28,000 for postage, a congressional investigative agency said today.

A General Accounting Office report to the Senate Appropriations Committee found that, in all, the government paid nearly $26 million for services associated with former Presidents and the presidential library program.

Gerald R. Ford had the largest phone bill, $30,281. Jimmy Carter’s bill was $21,589 and Richard M. Nixon’s was $20,704. Each of the former Presidents spent more than $9,000 for postage. In addition, the government paid $2,600 for postage for Lady Bird Johnson, widow of Lyndon B. Johnson.

One declining cost is Secret Service protection, which reached $11.7 million three years ago and had dropped to $10.5 million during the fiscal year that ended Monday. During that period, the number of people entitled to protection dropped due to the death of Bess Truman and the fact that Amy Carter turned 16.

That figure is likely to continue to decline because Nixon notified the government last spring that he no longer wishes protection.

Each former President receives a pension of $82,438 and more than $100,000 for staff.

The government paid $21,075 for Ford’s travel last year, $11,470 in travel expenses for Nixon and $1,187 for Carter.

The amounts spent for pensions, staff, supplies and travel by each of the ex-Presidents was $363,504 by Carter, $360,807 by Ford and $327,066 by Nixon.

More than $14 million was spent last year for the seven operating presidential libraries and the Nixon and Carter projects, which have not yet been built.

It has been estimated that President Reagan’s library, to be built at Stanford University, will cost $45 million.