---
alias:
- The White House
- Executive Office of the President
category: Landmark
created: 2026-09-22
location: Washington, D.C.
summary: The presidential residence and executive office in Washington, the point
  where the vault's intelligence, arms and money stories reach the president's staff,
  and the source of many of their authorizations.
tags:
- Place
- WhiteHouse
- Presidency
- NationalSecurityCouncil
- WashingtonDC
updated: 2026-09-22
---

The White House is the residence and office of the President of the [United States](/places/united-states/) at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in [Washington, D.C.](/places/washington-dc/), and the seat of the Executive Office of the President, including the [National Security Council](/organizations/national-security-council/) staff. The vault's pages reach it from several directions: as the recipient of intelligence, as the giver of covert orders, as an office whose staff ran operations of their own, and as a social venue.

### Covert Orders

At a White House meeting on March 17, 1960, [J.C. King](/people/jc-king/), [Allen Dulles](/people/allen-dulles/) and [Richard Bissell](/people/richard-bissell/) presented "A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime" to President [Eisenhower](/people/dwight-d-eisenhower/); as Vice President that year [Richard Nixon](/people/richard-nixon/) "served as the White House's liaison to the CIA's Cuban operations." On October 7, 1963, a White House tape records [Kennedy](/people/john-f-kennedy/) asking Ambassador [Lincoln Gordon](/people/lincoln-gordon/) about [Brazil](/places/brazil/): "Do you see a situation where we might be, find it desirable to intervene militarily ourselves?"; on March 31, 1964, another tape and a memorandum of April 1 record the authorizations for Operation Brother Sam as [Joao Goulart](/people/joao-goulart/) fell. On September 15, 1970, [Richard Helms](/people/richard-helms/)'s handwritten notes of a White House meeting record Nixon ordering the CIA to "make the economy scream" in [Chile](/places/chile/); on October 15 [Henry A. Kissinger](/people/henry-a-kissinger/), Alexander Haig and [Thomas Karamessines](/people/thomas-karamessines/) met there on the plotting of General [Roberto Viaux](/people/roberto-viaux/), and Karamessines described the pressure from the White House as "constant, constant, just constant." [ITT Corporation](/organizations/itt-corporation/), under [Harold Geneen](/people/harold-geneen/), "offered money to the CIA and the White House to keep [Salvador Allende](/people/salvador-allende/) from taking office" and submitted "an eighteen-point plan" to the White House. On June 23, 1972, Helms and [Vernon Walters](/people/vernon-walters/) were called to a meeting with H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman and told to "stay the hell out of" the [Watergate](/events/watergate/) investigation, the "smoking gun" tape; [Howard Hunt](/people/howard-hunt/) had told his cover employer in July 1971 "that he had been assigned to the White House."[^1]

### Intelligence Received

[Arthur C. Lundahl](/people/arthur-c-lundahl/) "rushed early raw photographs of the [Dimona](/places/dimona/) construction to the White House" in late 1958 or early 1959, and [John Foster Dulles](/people/john-foster-dulles/) "was regularly present at White House briefings where intelligence from U-2 flights, including early information on Dimona, was presented"; [Dino A. Brugioni](/people/dino-a-brugioni/) "never understood whether the White House wanted [Israel](/places/israel/) to have the bomb or not," and [Floyd L. Culler, Jr.](/people/floyd-l-culler-jr/) reported that the reactor he inspected "was nothing more than a 'standard reactor.'" In the Kennedy years [Myer Feldman](/people/myer-feldman/) "was authorized to monitor all State Department and White House cable traffic on the [Middle East](/places/middle-east/)," while [McGeorge Bundy](/people/mcgeorge-bundy/) "sought to cut Myer Feldman out"; [Jerome B. Wiesner](/people/jerome-b-wiesner/) "was totally cut out of the intelligence about Dimona." After the Vela satellite recorded two flashes over the South Indian Ocean on September 22, 1979, [Zbigniew Brzezinski](/people/zbigniew-brzezinski/) and [Gerald G. Oplinger](/people/gerald-g-oplinger/) sat in "an urgent meeting in the White House situation room where the CIA and DIA stated that the odds were at least ninety percent that it had been a nuclear explosion," and members of the [Nuclear Intelligence Panel](/organizations/nuclear-intelligence-panel/) "were dismayed by the extent of White House interference in the investigation." [John Gittinger](/people/john-gittinger/) of the CIA "was summoned to the White House to advise on how Khrushchev would react" during the [Cuban Missile Crisis](/events/cuban-missile-crisis/); the [Geschickter Fund for Medical Research](/organizations/geschickter-fund-for-medical-research/) episode "was the only time in a quarter-century of behavioral control activities when documents show CIA officials went to the White House for approval." [Richard Ober](/people/richard-ober/) of Operation CHAOS "maintained a covert office inside the White House" known to Nixon and Haldeman, and six of his reports were "compiled directly for the White House." [William Sullivan](/people/william-sullivan/) disseminated derogatory information on Martin Luther King Jr. "to news organizations and government officials including the White House."[^2]

### Operations from the Building

"Under the Reagan administration, the NSC became an operational intelligence agency based inside the White House"; [Oliver North](/people/oliver-north/) "ran the Central Intelligence Agency's illegal Contra resupply operation from the White House," [Robert Owen](/people/robert-owen/) "carrying messages and funds between the White House and the Contra commanders," and when the DEA's Nicaragua sting was refused, "the story was leaked by the White House to the right-wing Washington Times." [Eugene Hasenfus](/people/eugene-hasenfus/)'s capture in October 1986 was "living proof that the CIA and the White House had been lying about U.S. involvement with the Contras." In the Bush years [Henry B. Gonzalez](/people/henry-b-gonzalez/) found that "the White House and NSC, armed with National Security Directive 26, sprang into action in order to save the CCC Program for Iraq," and the [Banca Nazionale del Lavoro](/organizations/banca-nazionale-del-lavoro/) affair records that "less than ten days after one such request the White House telephoned the prosecutor in Atlanta"; [Brent Scowcroft](/people/brent-scowcroft/)'s cabinet meeting did not discuss Matrix Churchill "even though the CIA had reported its activities to both the White House and the State Department in November 1989." In 1990 "over the department's objection, the White House of George H.W. Bush" freed [Orlando Bosch](/people/orlando-bosch/). [Barbara Honegger](/people/barbara-honegger/) "worked in the White House Office of Policy Development during the early Reagan years" and "began investigating the [October Surprise](/events/october-surprise/) allegations while still at the White House"; [Michael A. McManus](/people/michael-a-mcmanus/), Assistant to the President, wrote to [FIDCO](/organizations/first-intercontinental-development-corporation/) "on White House letterhead" on the rebuilding of Lebanon.[^3]

### Suppression and Editing

The Ford White House "suppressed" the Rockefeller Commission's assassination material: Deputy Chief of Staff Richard Cheney "made handwritten edits throughout the draft on or around June 1, 1975, altering language describing CIA activities from 'unlawful' to merely 'improper,'" with Counsel Philip Buchen coordinating, and recommendations were "added to the report without a Commission vote, under White House direction." President Ford "acknowledged the episode and the [Frank Olson](/people/frank-olson/) family was invited to the White House." Arnold Burns and William Weld resigned in March 1988 "after separately meeting with White House Chief of Staff Howard Baker to raise concerns about [Edwin Meese](/people/edwin-meese/)'s conduct."[^4]

### Access and Favor

[Craig Spence](/people/craig-spence/), the Washington lobbyist, "arranged late-night White House tours for associates," one on July 3, 1988, "at which two male prostitutes were present," according to the Washington Times reporting of 1989 that [Paul Bonacci](/people/paul-bonacci/)'s and [Lawrence King Jr.](/people/lawrence-king-jr/)'s cases later cited. [Donald Regan](/people/donald-regan/) wrote that "virtually every major move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House chief of staff was cleared by" the astrologer [Joan Quigley](/people/joan-quigley/), which [Marlin Fitzwater](/people/marlin-fitzwater/) confirmed. President Reagan wrote to [Roger Pearson](/people/roger-pearson/) of the Pioneer Fund "on White House stationery" on April 14, 1982. [H.L. Hunt](/people/hl-hunt/)'s man in Washington carried "a snowstorm of memoranda to the Johnson White House at a rate of four or five a week"; [Ray Hunt](/people/ray-hunt/) was appointed to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board by the White House in 2001 and 2005. [Jeffrey Epstein](/people/jeffrey-epstein/) and [Ghislaine Maxwell](/people/ghislaine-maxwell/) "were recorded as visitors during Clinton's presidency and were photographed at White House events," and a "former senior White House official" told Vicky Ward that [Alexander Acosta](/people/alexander-acosta/) had said Epstein "belonged to intelligence." [Mack McLarty](/people/mack-mclarty/), [Bill Clinton](/people/bill-clinton/)'s first chief of staff, "telephoned Hubbell about once a week, telling him he still had friends in the White House." [Schmidt Futures](/organizations/schmidt-futures/) "had quietly paid the salaries of staff working inside the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy"; [Mark Zuckerberg](/people/mark-zuckerberg/) and [Peter Thiel](/people/peter-thiel/) dined with Trump "in the Blue Room of the White House on October 22, 2019"; [Steve Bannon](/people/steve-bannon/) served as White House Chief Strategist from January 20 to August 18, 2017, and [David Sacks](/organizations/paypal-mafia/) as "the White House AI and cryptocurrency czar" in the second Trump administration. The Oslo Accords were signed on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993.[^5]

[^1]: As cited on the linked pages: NSA Electronic Briefing Book No. 465, Document 9 (White House tape, October 7, 1963) and No. 118 (March 31, 1964); Kornbluh, Peter, *The Pinochet File,* New Press, 2003; Hersh, Seymour M., *The Price of Power,* Summit, 1983; Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, *Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973;* White House tape of June 23, 1972, Conversation No. 741-002; CIA Reading Room, "E. Howard Hunt: Utilization by Central Cover Staff," 1970; Seymour, Cheri, *The Last Circle,* TrineDay.
[^2]: Hersh, Seymour M., *The Samson Option,* Random House, 1991; Marks, John D., *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate,* chapters 1, 10 and 12; Church Committee, Book III, "CIA Intelligence Collection About Americans: CHAOS and the Office of Security"; Garrow, David, *The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.,* Norton, 1981.
[^3]: Webb, Gary, *Dark Alliance,* Seven Stories Press, 1998, chapters 1, 6 and 15; Gonzalez, Henry B., *Congressional Record,* House, May 18 and July 21, 1992; Friedman, Alan, *Spider's Web,* Bantam, 1993; U.S. Department of Justice, *In the Matter of Orlando Bosch-Avila,* 1989, and National Security Archive EBB 202; Honegger, Barbara, *October Surprise,* Tudor, 1989; Seymour, *The Last Circle.*
[^4]: National Security Archive EBB 543, "Gerald Ford White House Altered Rockefeller Commission Report"; Colby, Gerard, and Charlotte Dennett, *Thy Will Be Done,* ch. 44; Seymour, *The Last Circle.*
[^5]: Hedges, Michael, and Jerry Seper, "Power Broker Served Drugs, Sex at Parties Bugged for Blackmail," *Washington Times,* June 29, 1989; Jacobsen, Annie, *Phenomena,* Little, Brown, 2017; Bellant, Russ, *Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party,* South End Press, 1991; FBI headquarters file on H.L. Hunt; The White House, "Nominations and Appointments," October 5, 2001; "Timeline: Bill Clinton's interactions with Jeffrey Epstein," ABC News, 2025; Ward, Vicky, *The Daily Beast,* July 9, 2019; Office of the Independent Counsel, *Final Report In Re: Madison Guaranty;* Thompson, Alex, "How Eric Schmidt built an expansive AI influence operation," *Politico,* March 28, 2022; NBC News, November 20, 2019; Green, Joshua, *Devil's Bargain,* Penguin, 2017; Rubin, Barry, and Judith Colp Rubin, *Yasser Arafat,* Oxford, 2003.