The Presidency: Bush's Flight Into the Sunset

NOT AIR FORCE ONE NOW, BUT AIR FORCE 28000. MISSION 1443. Presidential authority stripped, code changed for the last flight. Yet the same 747 jumbo jet that had taken George Bush more than half a million miles around the globe. The power wand of the Oval Office. So much the same but everything different.

Bush sat at the plane's window last Wednesday afternoon and watched the placid fields of Texas rise to claim him again. "Feels good," he said. No argument from his companions, many of whom had joined him when he began his presidential quest in 1978.

The pain of electoral defeat had eased. He wore his old, dark-blue Air Force One windbreaker. He held a new biography of his hero Theodore Roosevelt, given to him by Vic Gold, an aide and companion in his political struggles. No presidential briefing papers. No tense parley waiting. Heading home.

"We are going to have a small, simple home," Bush said. "Bar is going to do a book. But I have made no firm plans." Then his eyes drifted off over the long horizon, back toward Washington. "I've done what I could," he said. "Time to get out of town. I intend to do everything I can to honor the office of the presidency . . . I feel good that I have handed over the office so that Iraq is no problem for President Clinton now . . . He was very gracious to us all day. I really wish him well."

And Bill Clinton had paid tribute in his Inaugural Address to Bush's "half- century of service to America." Bush was touched. "I wrote ((down)) my thoughts on the privilege of serving this nation," he said. "What an honor it has been." At least some of those thoughts he sealed inside an envelope and laid on top of the desk in the Oval Office.

It could have been a tough day, Bush said. But it wasn't, thanks to the Clintons and to the American people. He was awake at 5 a.m., long before first light. He and Barbara walked with the dogs, Ranger and Millie, listening to city sounds. "We love you, Mr. President . . . You did a great job," shouted a burly fellow at the fence. Bush was startled, then delighted.

He made his way to the office to clean up the last business. When he entered, he thought, "Nothing happening. Nobody there." But somebody had been there, his devoted assistant Patty Presock. She had the papers declaring 10 flooded Arizona counties to be a disaster area. Left-handed signature. Business done.

Bush wandered around the South Lawn, looking, absorbing the beauty and the meaning. The Washington Monument shone with the eager sunlight. Farther on, the Jefferson Memorial glowed warmly.

He thought he could handle the farewell to the White House switchboard operators. But, as he put it, "I overflowed." They had been for so long so diligent, so patient. John Kennedy had said, "They could raise Lazarus." They had hooked Bush up to the far world's leaders like no other President.

His toughest test was with the housekeeping staff. Ron Jones, assistant housekeeper, who had rounded up a horseshoe team and beaten the Bushes, father and sons, presented the President with two wooden horseshoes. Everybody cried and hugged.