PEOPLE OF INTEREST
The COMMUNICATOR
Longtime Treasure Coast newsman Ted Burrows had
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a front row seat to mid-20th century history as it was
happening while serving in the White House as a
communications technician during the administrations
of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.
Burrows enlisted in the Army in the mid-1960s, and while
he was doing basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C., met up with
recruiters from a military unit called the White House Communications
$genc\. 7Ke\ were looNing for soldiers TualiÀed
for top-secret military clearances to work as sound technicians
for the president. Burrows accepted the assignment and
for the next four years recorded presidential speeches and
news conferences in tKe 2Yal 2ce and around tKe world
both for the media and the National Archives.
“We were technicians,” he said. “We were background
guys. It was our job to provide every kind of communications
service the president would need.”
The familiar looking lectern displaying the presidential seal
was a vital part of the gear that the technicians set up wherever
the president was speaking. The Secret Service allowed
only two microphones at the lectern and both had to be provided
by the military unit, Burrows said.
The late 1960s in the United States were tumultuous, with
rising discontent about American involvement in the Vietnam
war and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert
F. Kennedy. Burrows had no problem remembering where
he was the night of March 31, 1968, when Johnson shocked
the nation by announcing at the end of a speech in the Oval
2ce tKat Ke would not run for anotKer term. %urrows was
working in a studio in the West Wing basement when a coworker
walked in. He had set up the president’s speech on
the teleprompter.
“He was very quiet,” he said. “We knew something unusual
was up, but he was sworn to secrecy.”
When Burrows heard Johnson’s announcement, he said he
“almost fell over.”
Burrows said he had little interaction with Johnson, but
once, when the president was greeting some White House
visitors, he reached and grabbed hold of his hand.
“I think he was saying, OK kid, I’ve seen you around here. I
don·t Nnow \our name but , aSSreciate \our eͿorts. , tKinN it
was that kind of gesture.”
Not long after Nixon was inaugurated in 1969, Burrows
accompanied him on a European trip that included an arrival
ceremony outside the West Berlin airport on a particularly
cold winter da\. %urrows· Àngers nearl\ froe as Ke tried to
adjust the knobs on the sound equipment. Foreign trips were
alwa\s more dicult for tKe sound crew tKan eYents in tKe
White House, Burrows said.
“The jobs around the White House were fairly easy,” he
said. “There we knew where everything was.”
After a grueling trip around the world with Nixon, Burrows
was selected to serve the Nixon family during their
monthlong respite at their home in San Clemente, Calif. One
night, he and another technician screened a movie for the >>
ED DRONDOSKI
History is a favorite subject for Ted Burrows, a volunteer at the St. Lucie
County Regional History Center. The retired newspaperman saw it happen
firsthand when he worked at the White House as a communications technician
for Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.
BY JANIE GOULD