The Presidency: The Loftiest Chariot

In the final days of Rome, the historian Ammianus Marcellinus noted, "The modern nobles measure their rank and consequence according to the loftiness of their chariots." If old Marcellinus were around today he might be fretting about the future of the U.S., because we are about to put the President in the loftiest chariot that man has yet devised.

Already the Boeing Co. is shaping the spars and wing ribs in its Everett, Wash., plant for a new Air Force One, a 747-200B that will course the heavens with more range, communication, self-sufficiency and practical elegance than anything else in the sky. The contract let last week for the principal plane and a backup totaled $249.8 million -- a mind-boggling sum when one considers that Teddy Roosevelt, the first President to fly (19 months out of office), strapped himself into a spruce-and-wire rig down in St. Louis in 1910 and chugged over a field at 50 ft., waving his fedora. You could pick up a couple of those planes from Orville and Wilbur Wright in Dayton for about $10,000. The price of the 747s, which ultimately will come close to $300 < million including crew training, support units and spare parts, is gargantuan even when compared with the famous Boeing 707s introduced by Ike and raised to sad splendor by Kennedy and Nixon. A pair cost about $15 million.

How, then, did we get such a tab for toting around a President? Unlike a Roman noble, Ronald Reagan didn't even ask for the new plane. He loves the one he's got ("better than any office I have"). But by 1990 the 707s will become almost extinct by factory decree. Spare parts will be scarce, the engines too noisy for flight rules. Reagan's 707 has 1,024,897 miles and 42 countries on it. A lobbying effort for this big bird was mounted back in Lyndon Johnson's time by the Air Force, the Secret Service, the White House aides, the media and the aviation experts. Said a Boeing enthusiast: "I want to see our President land around this world in the biggest and best America has." Added a former Air Force One pilot: "The President should be able to take off in Washington and turn right or left and get there on one tank of gas -- Moscow or Peking." Security agents want every protection they can devise for these power nomads they must shepherd with increasing frequency through the globe's twilight zones.

How lovely the going will be in the new plane for the 70 passengers and 23 crew. The President and his wife will be tucked up in a spacious bedroom in the nose, complete with vanity, closets, lavatory and shower-tub. There will be a commodious presidential office, conference room, staff lounge, working stations with computers, guest area and a ward for the media, with telex terminals, in the tail. A tiny hospital will be wedged in and maybe even a meeting room for the First Lady. Upstairs will be communications gear and crew quarters.

There will, of course, be all those delicious small perks that go with power: fresh flowers, current color photographs on the walls, embossed memo pads, napkins, playing cards, cigarette packages and matches with the presidential seal and inscriptions like "Aboard Air Force One." The new plane will be hardened against electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear explosion. When it lands at a distant airport, it can become a complete communications hub for the presidential party.