The first Oval Office telephone is installed - March 29th, 1929

On this day in 1929, President Herbert Hoover had the first telephone installed in the Oval Office. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a
show that answers the call of history every day of
the week. I'm Gab Blusier, and in this episode, we're

(00:21):
looking at the day when the telephone finally made its
way onto the desk of a US president. The day
was March twenty ninth, nineteen twenty nine. President Herbert Hoover
had the first telephone installed in the Oval Office. Phones

(00:43):
had already been around for more than half a century
by that point, but no commander in chief had ever
had one at his desk prior to Hoover. Previous presidents
had believed the new technology would spoil the sanctity of
the Oval Office, but Hoover felt the added convenience was
worth the risk. The White House had been slow to

(01:04):
adopt many of the technological breakthroughs of the nineteenth century.
For example, it didn't have gas lighting until the eighteen fifties,
well after many Americans, and it didn't get its first
typewriter until eighteen eighty, ten years after the invention hit
the market. However, that's not to say that Hoover's predecessors
were total Luddites. In fact, Rutherford B. Hayes had been

(01:28):
an early adopter of the telephone. He had one installed
in the White House telegraph room way back in eighteen
seventy seven. In those days, phone service was still in
its infancy, as evidenced by the White House phone number,
which was just one. The country's first telephone exchange wouldn't
be set up in Connecticut until one year later, so

(01:50):
when the White House phone was first installed, it was
directly connected to just one other early user, the Treasury Department.
It's no surprise then, that President Hayes didn't receive many
phone calls and continued to use the telegram as his
primary communication tool. Later administrations added more phones to the

(02:11):
Executive mansion, as well as a switchboard to connect them all,
but until Hoover came along, the closest any phone got
to the Oval Office was the foyer just outside it.
That setup had worked perfectly well for Hoover's predecessor, Calvin Coolidge.
His reserved nature had earned him the nickname Silent Cow,
and true to that name, he refused to use the

(02:33):
telephone during his entire term. But Hoover was much more
hands on than Coolidge. And some historians believe he had
the phone installed in his office as a way to
signal that difference. Silent Cow had avoided calls altogether, but
the new president would stay in constant contact with his government.

(02:54):
The only problem was Hoover had to leave the Oval
Office every time he wanted to make or receive a call.
He grew tired of the arrangement just a few weeks
into his term and insisted that a phone be installed
at his desk as soon as possible. It took a
good deal of trial and error to get the line
working properly, and even when the installation was complete, Hoover

(03:16):
complained that his son still couldn't get through to the
Oval Office from an outside line. Growing pains aside, the
desk phone proved a worthy addition to the Oval Office
and quickly cemented its place there. The location of the
Oval Office was moved by Hoover's successor, FDR in order
to make it wheelchair accessible, but the Presidential phone survived

(03:38):
the move and has stayed there in some form ever since.
Having a phone close in hand gave Hoover a new
level of autonomy compared to previous presidents, but his communications
powers weren't absolute, as he was still reliant on the
original White House switchboard to connect his calls. Surprisingly, that
dependence remained true for many future presidents. In fact, the

(04:02):
White House phone system wouldn't be truly modernized until the
nineteen nineties, when President Bill Clinton ordered a complete overhaul. Apparently,
when he first took office, Clinton was taken aback at
the antiquated system, which was essentially a nineteen sixties plug
in place switchboard manned by more than a dozen operators.

(04:22):
President Clinton is also the reason why the Oval Office
now has a private line. He pointed out that anyone
in the White House could listen in on his calls
just by picking up an extension and dialing in. It
was a fair concern and as surprising that no one
else had voiced it sooner. As for why Clinton in
particular would be worried about someone overhearing his phone calls,

(04:45):
I'll leave that for you to decide. These days, calling
the President isn't as simple as just dialing one. The
number of the Oval Office phone is a closely guarded secret,
and all of its incoming calls are routed through a
private switchboard. As for the original Oval Office telephone. It
now resides at the Hoover Library and Hoover's hometown of

(05:06):
West Branch, Iowa. So while you probably won't ever talk
to a president's on the Oval Office phone, you can
at least go look at an Oval Office phone that
a president once talked on. In my book, that's almost
just as good, and depending on the current president, it
might even be preferable. I'm Gay Bluesier and hopefully you

(05:29):
now know a little more about history today than you
did yesterday. You can learn even more about history by
following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show,
and if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free
to send them my way by writing to this Day
at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing

(05:51):
the show, and thanks to you for listening. I'll see
you back here again tomorrow for another day in History class.