How A Presidential Phone Call Is Really Made
Ever since the phone was invented some decades ago, the United States President has had done in the Oval Office. Obviously phones are now outfitted around the entire White House, but the special Oval Office line to the President is of major importance. When one gets a phone call from the President from this area it is considered potentially one of the biggest honors one can be given.
While it is cool to get or hear of, have you ever wondered about how it is all done? Obviously the Presidential phone call is a big deal, and you don’t want to make any mistakes by calling the wrong person. Think however, how many of us would get a call from a sitting President and say, “sorry sir, but you have the wrong number”?
When calling Vlaimer Putin this past Saturday, Barack Obama set a record for the longest Presidential phone call at around 90 minutes. This is about as long as a college class. While President Obama did have a long call, the average is far shorter. The thing is though, these types of phone calls are by no means easy to make for the President. There is a big process in it all.
We as normal Americans may just pick up a phone and call, but not our nation’s leader.
This is how a Presidential Phone Call is really made.
An aide brings the President a specific National Security Council dossier on the person the call is going out to. The package includes a closely held American intelligence portrait of the person. This will include highly personal information about their personality, their health, and even their loved ones. So basically, the NSA finds everything out that they can about the person. They will search high and low, from talking to people associated with them to checking their Internet history.
One source who knew the contents of the documents said that little things such as: “Are they cool-headed? Or the opposite? Do they like to joke?” will all be looked into.
Entire personality checks are done well in advance.
Another official close to the situation also said:
“The world leader profiles include basic intel, idiosyncrasies, personal political pressures, whether any close relatives are seriously ill, girl- or boyfriend problems, or personal health issues.”
So when Obama called Putin, he clearly knew everything the Intelligence Department could gather. Of course, let’s not be unrealistic and think that Putin did not have similar information on President Obama.
As we know, the call to Putin despite all the information in the world clearly did not work out. The Russians seem ready to star a new World War, but whether they do or not is up in the air.
The reason intelligence is gathered before phone calls and talking points are laid out is mainly for communication reasons. You do not want to anger someone like Putin or any other leader of a country. Due to this, phone calls must be done well. The phone calls have to be, not only successful at times, but more so. We of course want to see something out of these Presidential phone calls, so angering someone would be horrific.
Whether the President is calling an American or someone from another country, the same formula is done. Clearly, mistakes are bad. Everything must be done with pure accuracy. A Presidential phone call can be huge in negotiations or a major reason as to why something bad happens. In the end, it comes down to how well communication between two parties can be made. No amount of information can help at some points though…as President Obama has recently seen.
