Spy Plane Finale: Safe Landing

It was not the kind of good morning that Laura Bush is used to. At 5:40 a.m. last Wednesday, the phone rang in the presidential bedroom. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was on the line. Chinese diplomats had finally accepted a U.S. letter of regret about the South China Sea air crash that had locked the two countries in 11 days of tense confrontation. The standoff was safely over, the American air crew heading home. The President, still in bed, rolled over to his wife and dryly delivered the news. "Looks like the matter is going to be resolved," he said, according to aides.

"I'll be in in a little bit," Bush told Rice.

"I'll meet you there," Rice replied.

By 6:15, as he strolled into the Oval Office, Bush was concentrating on the logistics of getting the crew home. The difficult diplomacy of selling the Chinese on an artfully limited U.S. apology was, thankfully, behind him. He could begin chewing over simpler problems. How long would it take to refuel the pickup plane in China? What would be the flight path? How long would the plane be on the ground? "He was very aware that we had to be careful in what we said while the crew was still on the ground," says senior aide Dan Bartlett.

Care and caution were the Administration watchwords last week as it navigated through its first foreign policy challenge. "Let's avoid making this a crisis," Bush said all week long. "Let's not let this turn into something bigger than it has to be." To keep the posture relaxed, Bush and his team kept his schedule filled with non-China events. He would spend Easter weekend at his Texas ranch. Regular order was the rule.

And control. While the Administration worked to construct a diplomatic solution, it was also careful to stage-manage how it all looked from the outside, how it would play in the big daily papers and on the evening news. The projected image: Bush at the helm but smartly hands-off, setting the tone but letting his team of professionals do their job. CEO-style corporate diplomacy--smooth, unhurried, competent, straight down from the top. And no leaks about big decisions by anyone but the boss. Thursday Bush was eating his regular lunch with Vice President Dick Cheney--the Veep eating salad, Bush a taco--when the crew landed on American soil. "Good news," Bush said, as the landing was broadcast on a television the two were watching. "Welcome home."

The true welcome, when it came on Saturday, was loud, sweet and a great relief to everyone. At Whidbey Island in Washington State, home base for the squadron, thousands gathered on a crisp spring afternoon to welcome the crew. It was one of those unblemished moments of American patriotism. Navy bands let loose. Under a budding tree, three little girls bedded down for a nap beneath an unfurled American flag. Lieut. Shane Osborn, the pilot who brought the crippled plane safely down, touched a tear from his eye as he walked off the plane and into a heroic cacophony of cheers and music. But he was all smiles as he wrapped his arms around his girlfriend Roxanne Faustino and spun her around in a gesture as old as combat itself.