The Presidency: On The Road

THE PRESIDENCY

President Kennedy had another of those busy, busy weeks. Traveling westward, he watched massive demonstrations of nuclear weaponry in the broiling heat of desert missile ranges and from the breezy decks of aircraft carriers. He made speeches on subjects ranging from the bright future of the U.S. Air Force to the nation's earthier civil rights dilemma. He politicked with Democratic officeholders and made a chatty appearance at another of those $1,000-a-couple fund-raising dinners.

"No Way to Stop Them." At Maryland's Andrews Air Force Base, young John Kennedy Jr. was on hand with a family nurse to bid the President farewell. He burst into loud bawls as his father left aboard Air Force No. 1 with a cluster of escorting Congressmen. The first presidential stop was at Colorado Springs to deliver a commencement address at the U.S. Air Force

Academy. Air Forcemen are deeply worried about the Kennedy Administration defense policy; they fear, with considerable cause, that Defense Secretary McNamara is phasing out the manned bomber. But Kennedy told the cadets that more than ever before, their futures will be "changing and challenging." Then he announced an Administration decision to spend federal millions to develop a supersonic commercial-transport aircraft (see U.S. BUSINESS).

Next stop was the Colorado Springs headquarters of the North American Air Defense Command, where Kennedy sat hunched forward in the glass control booth from which NORAD's commander would direct defenses against enemy nuclear attack. In an 18-minute electrically simulated surprise attack, he watched the screen trace a pattern of bomber fleets and missile waves from the Soviet Union. The bombers were stopped, but the intercontinental missiles came on and erupted in eerie white ovals as they struck American cities. Muttered one Air Force officer: "We have no way to stop them." The President emerged from the demonstration in a remarkably solemn mood.

On Target. Shielded from the sun's glare by a special awning at the White Sands Missile Range, he saw an Army Honest John missile land directly on target in a burst of phosphorescence 71/2 miles away and a Nike Hercules intercept a sister missile overhead. Then off to the Navy's show-sub hunters firing rocket-launched torpedoes and Phantom fighters screaming above the carrier Kitty Hawk at the speed of sound to fire their Sparrow III missiles with deadly accuracy.

So much for the military. Next came rounds of political motorcading in El Paso and San Diego and handshaking with Texas' Democratic Governor John

Connally and California's Democratic Governor Pat Brown. At San Diego State College, Kennedy accepted an honorary doctor of laws degree. Under heavy pressure to deliver a ringing civil rights declaration, the President's San Diego speech had been billed as just that. But it fell far short. Carefully skirting mention of the Negro revolt in the South, Kennedy told his audience that "American children today do not enjoy equal educational opportunities for two reasons: One is economic and the other is racial." Concluded the President: "We must move ahead swiftly in both areas."