Air Force One: A History of the Presidents and Their Planes
by Kenneth T. Walsh
From FDR’s prop-driven Pan Am to the glimmering blue-and-white jumbo 747 on which George W. Bush travels, the president’s plane has captured the public’s awe and imagination and is recognized around the world as a symbol of American power. In this unique book, Air Force One is revealed as a very special habitat that functions as an invaluable window on each of the presidents who occupy it.
Based on interviews with five living presidents, scores of past and present government officials, and staff and crew members of Air Force One, Walsh’s book features countless fascinating and often outrageous stories of life aboard the “flying White House.”
Hyperion Books
Publish date: May 2004
ISBN: 1401300049
AIR FORCE ONE
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Reviews
David Gergen
“For modern presidents, Air Force One has become far more than a magic carpet: It is a symbol of national pride, a central command post, and a personal sanctuary…Walsh captures both the men and their most memorable moments aboard. This is a first-class seat for a whale of a ride.”
–David Gergen
Publishers Weekly
This peek inside the "flying Oval Office" comes courtesy of U.S. News and World Report's award-winning White House correspondent, who has logged more than 200 trips aboard Air Force One. To document the history and evolution of the "flying White House," Walsh (Feeding the Beast: The White House Versus the Press) interviewed more than 120 people, including the plane's crews and staff, plus past presidents and White House officials. Americans once thought presidents should "never stray from the United States," but FDR "changed the whole dynamic," becoming the first airborne chief executive when he flew to a secret 1943 meeting with Churchill in Casablanca. Truman, who used "the plane itself as a power tool," was the first to fly routinely, and Eisenhower was the first to travel by jet. The code name Air Force One was introduced in Ike's era after air traffic controllers confused Eastern 610 with the president's Air Force 610. JFK made the code name public, and his sleek new 707 "seemed to embody modernity itself" after Jackie Kennedy and industrial designer Raymond Loewy devised the now-familiar blue-and-white exterior. Focusing on the mystique and prestige of Air Force One and its ascendancy as a symbol of world power, Walsh describes key decisions made in the air, leaving a contrail of anecdotes about presidential behavior aloft, and concludes by detailing the dramatic events aboard the presidential jet on September 11 when the controversial decision was made not to return to Washington. 8 pages of color, 8 pages of b&w photos.
by PW. Agent, Jillian Manus.
(May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Walsh, the White House correspondent for U.S. News & World Report and author of Feeding the Beast: The White House and the Press, presents a narrative account of life on Air Force One that is part history and part journalistic profile. Beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt, the first President to fly while in office, through George W. Bush, Walsh highlights the decisions made and crises that happened aboard this "flying White House." The author's hypothesis is that the plane's close quarters and relaxed atmosphere allow each President to bring his own distinct personality to the activities and decisions. Because of these conditions, those decisions may be different than if made in the White House. For example, President Johnson and others before and after him have used the plane as a lobbying tool to gain favor for their programs by giving rides to members of Congress. Presidents Nixon and Clinton, on the other hand, used it as a refuge from "hostile crowds at home." Walsh interviewed four former Presidents, White House officials, and staffs of Air Force One for anecdotes, while also drawing on his own experience in flying with the chief executive. Recommended for public libraries to accompany Robert F. Dorr's Air Force One.
-Joyce M. Cox, Nevada State Lib. and Archives, Carson City, NV Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Marlin Fitzwater
“Walsh brings a journalist's eye and a historian's sense of scholarship…Walsh takes you behind the scenes, and into the inner sanctums of power aboard the president's plane. It's a fascinating history.”
–Marlin Fitzwater
Kirkus Reviews
Longtime White House correspondent Walsh (Feeding the Beast, 1996, etc.) cracks few eggs in his soufflé-light account of the world's most famous airplanes and their VIP passengers. Presidents behave on Air Force One much as they behave elsewhere, only more so, states the author. This unremarkable thesis does little to buttress Walsh's insistence that the Chief Executive's plane is in the same symbolic league as the Statue of Liberty and the White House. He notes there are now two identical 747s (just in case), as well as a little-known "doomsday plane" that carries even more sophisticated electronics. Walsh begins with the first president to fly, FDR, who made three flights. Truman was the first to fly routinely (his DC-6 was called Independence), and those who liked Ike will remember his Columbines I and II. It was during Eisenhower's presidency that the plane became known as Air Force One. JFK ordered "United States of America" painted on the fuselage, and LBJ, who memorably took the oath of office on board in Dallas, on later flights drank heavily, belched, ogled women, and "saw the plane as a private reserve and all-around locker room." Nixon, who preferred to be alone, received a new 707 in December 1972 and rechristened it The Spirit of '76, a name that failed to catch on. (Walsh reveals that Syrian MIGs once flew so close to the craft that Nixon's alarmed pilot took evasive maneuvers.) Ford, the most popular of all with the flight crews, restored the name Air Force One. Carter liked to give out leather-bound autographed Bibles. Reagan used the plane as a powerful political prop. Bush I outlawed broccoli on board. Clinton stayed up all night. And Walsh's extremely uncritical andcredulous account follows Bush II from Louisiana to Nebraska on 9/11 before returning to Washington. Good enough to pass the time on a long flight, but easily left onboard afterwards. (8 pp. b&w photos, not seen) Agent: Jillian Manus/Manus & Associates.
Published by Hyperion Books
READ EXCERPT
Air Force One:
A History of the Presidents and Their Planes
by Kenneth T. Walsh
Chapter One
