Walsh is careful to weave basic information about the presidents into the book. If you already know a good deal about the modern U.S. presidents, you will find much of this information either simplistic or repetitive. If you don't know very much about the modern presidents, however, but you want to know more about Air Force One, then you won't get lost here.
Walsh usually introduces each president with a brief history, and then shows convincingly that the planes they flew had a way of revealing the character of that president in a way that other places - the Oval Office, for example - did not. Reporters and staff, if they are fortunate enough to be allowed on board the jet, have access to a president that they do not have anywhere else. Presidents also seem to open up more when they fly Air Force One. Both of these circumstances allow a unique opportunity to see the usually powerful and distant man unfiltered.
While the historical moments that took place on Air Force One are all here (LBJ's swearing in as president just after the assassination of JFK; George W. Bush's long flight around the country after the terror attacks on 9-11, etc.), I personally found the trivial or less famous information more interesting. I had never heard, for example, that Nixon's Air Force One had to take evasive maneuvers during a trip to the Middle East after it appeared Syrian fighter jets might attack it (they were mistakenly sent up to welcome the Presidential jet). I also had no idea that secure communications on the president's hi-tech plane are often disrupted while it is in flight.
This is a light book that can be finished in an evening of reading. My only disappointment with it was the lack of basic drawings of the interior setup of Air Force One or drawings of the insides of previous presidential jets. I don't think the information is classified (since Walsh describes it in words), so it would have been interesting to see the various layouts.
The theme of the book is that Air Force One is more than a plane. It's a symbol of the US and of presidential power. Most important, AF One offers presidents a chance to be alone -- and a chance to take off their suits and reveal themselves in jeans, sweats and Boxer shorts.
Some presidents come alive more than others in this account. We get a feel for Nixon, Clinton and Ford, but less for Kennedy and the present Bush. The Carter chapter surprised me: the public persona contrasts with the private man and Amy turns out to be a spoiled brat. Ford was the most decent and caring of all past presidents. And we learn that Reagan was far more disciplined than most of us realized.
We begin to realize that Bill Clinton, the first Baby Boomer president, brought a new era to the Presidency as well as the plane: he was actually comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt, and his open expressions of emotion are contemporary. His predecessors seem stiff by comparison. Wisely, the author remains carefully neutral when writing about the current president.
I'd have liked to learn more about the crew who serve AF One. How are they chosen? Do they get special training? What's it like to be a flight attendant or a steward? And I'd like to hear more about some of the notable reporters, such as Barbara Walters, who gets mentioned only for her dismay at being served a spam sandwich.
And Walsh's journalistic role has a downside. I'd have liked to see a chapter with some insights that cut across individual presidents rather than straight reporting. As a reader, I found myself astonished at the ordinary qualities of the leaders of the free world. Some were not accustomed to being served. Others seemed so ill-suited to the presidency that I wondered how they got so far.
Overall, they're downhome, at least a little chauvinistic, insulated from much of the rest of the world because they're too busy with the president to develop a broad exposure. They play cards and watch light movies. Most have a roving eye: Kennedy, Johnson and Clinton are well-known but apparently Nixon liked to look, too.
Reading this book is like going to Epcot: you feel as though you're getting educated when you're really being entertained, and you can't help enjoying the experience. For an eerie contrast, read The Ship Who Sang, a classic sci fi novel by Anne McCaffrey.
Good stuff.
1. Page 44 contains a description of the Presidential Cabin on the Sacred Cow, saying that, "the room contained a single chair for the commander in chief, a small desk and a two seat couch. Across the narrow aisle were seats for seven..." Comment: The desk was a small table, I don't remember a two-seat couch, and the seven seats did not exist.
2. Page 44 further describes the trip made by FDR to Yalta, "Roosevelt flew on the Sacred Cow from Yalta to Cairo, where he boarded the Quincy." Comment: the flight was from Russia to Deversoir, an airport near the Suez Canal. The cruiser Quincy was in the Suez Canal, not at Cairo.
3. Page 50: Walsh says this about President Truman: "...and he brought guests with him whenever possible so they could spread the word about the rare honor of flying with the commander-in-chief." Comment: Truman had no such practice, as confirmed by flight log records that listed passengers.
4. Page 51: Walsh says that Truman asked to be told when Independence crossed over Ohio. He then made use of the bathroom and ordered the pilot to dump waste overboard-a "tribute" to his political enemy Senator Robert Taft of Ohio. Comment: This story is a fabrication. The President never said anything like this, and it was not possible to dump waste overboard while airborne.
5. Page 51: Walsh describes a mythical "buzz" of the White House by the Sacred Cow. Comment: This story was recently told on the radio by Paul Harvey ("the rest of the story"). It never happened. On one occasion, President Truman asked that the Sacred Cow pass over the White House during its climb to cruising altitude after taking off from National Airport. As with all Presidential flights this takeoff was sedate, and did not include "buzzing" or any other form of acrobatics. Bess and Margaret never stood on the White House lawn waving and laughing as the Sacred Cow "dive-bombed" and "swooped."
6. Comment: The book does not describe the original aircraft built for use by President Roosevelt, which was named the "Guess Where II." The Secret Service decided that this aircraft was not safe enough to be used by FDR, although it was used extensively by Eleanor Roosevelt, by senior members of the Roosevelt Administration, and members of Congress.
7. Comment: This section of Mr. Walsh's book reveals the problems with reliance upon secondary sources. When Colonel Hank Myers (the other of the first two Presidential pilots) retired, he made extra money by writing fictional accounts of his experiences. Frequently, he took in-air emergencies that occurred on other aircraft piloted by other aviators and used them as the basis for alleged incidents on the Sacred Cow and Independence. Journalists have been confused for years by these stories, which turn up in one form or another in newspapers, books and magazines-described as if they actually happened.
8. Comment: Mr. Walsh unfortunately did not tell most of the interesting stories about the Sacred Cow and the Independence. Readers looking for "the rest of the story" should consult the Air Force Historical Research Center, Maxwell AFB Montgomery, Alabama.
