Nation: The Last Calls

By the time he got to San Francisco, Bill Scranton's machine was in full gear. In 48 rooms on three floors of the Mark Hopkins Hotel, scores of eager workers performed their appointed tasks—from drafting speeches to ordering cookie and fruit between-meals snacks for the candidate. A complex communications network had been in stalled—including a 15-circuit phone switchboard, and a special "hot line" system linking hotel headquarters to the Cow Palace convention floor and to two communications trailers parked outside. Code words were used in tele phone conversations to confuse possible eavesdroppers, and the whole headquarters area had been combed for...

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