Communicating with the World

Communicating with the World. Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park. The LBJ Ranch had but a single telephone line when Lyndon Johnson purchased the property in 1951. By the time he became vice president in 1960 the array of technology had grown to 15 local and long-distance phone lines as well as a fifty-foot-tall antenna to supply reception for three televisions, one for each network. , , Despite these upgrades, Johnson’s rise to the presidency in November 1963 demanded a modern system allowing secure communications throughout the United States and the world. Within four weeks the LBJ Ranch had enough equipment for a small city: microwave towers providing 120 channels to Austin, underground phone cables, 72 telephones, two-way radios, teleprinters, and cryptographic machines. The green buildings in front of you housed a fifty-thousand-kilowatt emergency generator and switchboard. , , (Bottom Left Photos Caption) , Lyndon Johnson could spend 18 hours a day on the phone: (clockwise from top right) White House Oval Office; reconstructed birthplace; Texas White House living room. , , (Upper Right Photo Caption) , Working the switchboard, 1965. , , (Right Photo Caption) , The TV antenna as it stood behind the ranch house in 1965. Lady Bird Johnson remembered it as “the bane of my life, aesthetically.”