Object
USS Hickory Shipboard Radio (Patch-Phone)
A weather-beaten shipboard radio/patch-phone aboard the maintenance cutter Hickory: a cramped, salt-smeared communications console that emits crackle, static and a halting human voice. The device functions as a fragile audio lifeline — Harold Lewis speaks into it through wind-whipped interference while President Bartlet kneels, listening as transmissions fade and reappear under storm conditions.
0 appearances
Purpose
To provide short- and long-range shipboard communications — a patch-phone style radio used to relay status, request assistance, and connect a ship at sea with other vessels or shore command.
Significance
Serves as the single remaining human link in a wider communication blackout: it converts an operational catastrophe into an intimate moral crisis. The radio's crackle frames life-and-death information, anchors the emotional appeal between Harold Lewis and the President, and dramatizes the administration's limits under duress.
Appearances in the Narrative
When this object appears and how it's used
No events recorded for this object