Radio Shack on U.S.S. Hickory
Detailed Involvements
Events with rich location context
The cramped radio shack aboard the USS Hickory is the literal source of the President's connection: salt‑streaked, heat‑affected, filled with static and a single lamp over patch panels. Harold transmits from this claustrophobic node, making the global crisis intimate and tying national command decisions to a single human voice in a confined space.
Claustrophobic, crackling with static, smelling of diesel and salt; intimate and raw.
Onboard communications node and the cutter's last lifeline to fleet and shore.
Represents the narrowing of national crisis into one vulnerable human throat — the microcosm of institutional failure.
Restricted to ship's crew and rescue personnel; not open to outsiders.
The Hickory's radio shack is the immediate physical origin of Harold's transmission: cramped, salt-scorched and claustrophobic, it frames his voice as intimate and strained, concentrating the fleet-wide catastrophe into one injured operator's perspective.
Claustrophobic, noisy with static, tense and febrile.
The communication hub on the distressed ship — the literal point of contact with shore command.
Represents the fragile human node that connects institutional power to frontline reality.
Restricted to ship's crew and essential personnel only.
Events at This Location
Everything that happens here
Leo reports that nearly the entire fleet has gone silent and only a small maintenance ship, the USS Hickory, remains reachable. In the Formal Dining Room-turned-briefing room, President Bartlet places …
When the fleet's radios fail and only the little maintenance cutter Hickory can be reached, President Bartlet personally takes a crackling patch-phone call from Signalman Harold Lewis. Harold, injured and …