Unit Taping White House Events Has Seen Job Grow

The Pentagon office that produced videotapes of White House coffees and receptions presumably would have remained in happy obscurity had it stuck to its original mission: providing safe communications between the president and his military commanders.

But since 1941, when the White House Communications Agency was organized to serve President Franklin D. Roosevelt, it has gradually expanded the scope of its mission. And today--to the displeasure of some in Congress--the unit handles all White House audiovisual services, produces transcripts, operates a news wire and the presidential TelePrompTer and even staffs political events carried on far from White House grounds.

Even before the recent publicity surrounding tapes of coffees attended by Democratic campaign contributors raised questions about the agency’s operations, the Pentagon inspector general had reported that the unit was suffering “mission creep” and needed tighter management oversight.

With a budget of $120 million and a staff of 851 paid mostly by the Defense Department, the office reports to both White House and Pentagon officials and is under the complete control of neither.

To carry out its original mission, the unit follows Clinton on all trips, carrying equipment and setting up secure phone lines for him to every military command. Members of the unit, called “Wocka” by presidential aides, follow him from stop to stop toting bulletproof presidential lecterns and the familiar round presidential seal.

At the White House, the unit also provides the sound for all public presidential events, generates transcripts from briefings and maintains wire services so aides can follow distant news and learn how the news media are playing their announcements. The agency also maintains a closed-circuit television system within the White House.

(It did not set up President Nixon’s secret taping system that came to light during the Watergate scandal; nor was it responsible for the earlier systems of Presidents Johnson and Kennedy, officials said.)

One portion of the video unit’s 120-member staff videotapes all public events involving Clinton, including some in which he meets with relatively small groups. Members of the unit would tape, for example, a meeting between Clinton and local or state officials.

The unit does not tape Clinton’s closed-door staff meetings, nor does it make videos of public events at the White House that involve aides but not the president.

One of the agency’s responsibilities is to record important presidential events for the National Archives and presidential libraries, which ultimately take possession of the tapes. At these events, the camera runs full time.

But for events of lesser importance, such as the coffees, crews typically film only the opening few minutes, then turn off the camera and leave the room.

Just how much the crews should tape has sometimes been in dispute. In earlier administrations, as in the Clinton years, officials of the unit occasionally have sought to film gatherings that they considered important but that White House aides thought should be closed.

“They take their job very seriously,” said one Clinton administration official.

A White House aide from the George Bush years said that “sometimes they can be under foot.”

The Pentagon inspector general’s report, issued in November 1995, questioned why the communications unit was carrying out duties--such as the videotaping--that were not within its original mission. The report also concluded that the unit did not have paperwork to corroborate all its claims for reimbursement, one of the reasons it recommended improved supervision.

A congressional subcommittee expressed similar concerns about the agency and its expanded activities, and even Democratic members agreed that there had been lax oversight of the agency. As a consequence, the White House agreed to start paying for some of the agency’s activities, including the videotaping, from its own budget.

The unit’s staff comes from all military services. Those who serve in the White House unit have advanced training in a range of communications skills, from coding to electronics to combat videotaping. Most sign on for a two-year stint, and the assignment generally is viewed within military ranks as exciting and fairly comfortable.

Their equipment tends to be far simpler than some gear available commercially. The video cameras, for instance, produced relatively low quality images and sound.

Aides of the unit had an unfortunate brush with fame in September 1993, when one worker mistakenly put the wrong speech into the TelePrompTer as Clinton delivered a major speech before Congress on his new health care program.

Fortunately, Clinton was well-briefed and delivered the first few lines from memory until the technicians figured out the mix-up and substituted the right text.