Original Air Force One Returns To Its Roots In Seattle -- Airplane `Shrunk The World'

During the height of the Cold War, a Boeing 707 made history as Air Force One, the president's personal jet.

Today the original Air Force One rests at Boeing Field, off duty after 37 years of serving some of the most important figures of the century.

Yesterday at Boeing Field, the Air Force officially retired the plane that "shrunk the world" and launched a new era of shuttle diplomacy.

Presidents flew in the Boeing 707 as Air Force One from 1959 to 1962, before it was replaced with a newer model - a Boeing 707-320B. The plane was then passed on to the vice president, officials said.

President Clinton uses a Boeing 747 as Air Force One today.

The original Air Force One flew President John F. Kennedy to meet Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev in Vienna in 1961. As the vice president's plane, in November 1963, it carried Lyndon B. Johnson to Love Field in Dallas the day Kennedy was assassinated. And in 1974 the plane ferried Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to the Middle East for negotiations between Egypt and Israel that coined the term "shuttle diplomacy."

"This airplane is a piece of American history," said Ralph Bufano, executive director of the Museum of Flight, where the plane will be on display. "It shrunk the world."

Boeing assembled the original Air Force One in 1959 in Renton.

The plane will be restored over the summer. Visitors can see the plane outside the museum's main entrance now, but it will not be

opened to the public until this fall.

"Like so many airplanes in the world, this airplane began its career in Seattle," said James Curtis, chairman of the Museum of Flight Foundation Board.

Air Force One brought together some of the key players of the Cold War.

Boeing delivered the plane to President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1959, who called his first experience flying the jet "exhilarating," officials said. Air Force One was then the largest and fastest jet in the world. Its three hour, 45 minute flight from Seattle to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland set a speed record.

Eisenhower's first flight on Air Force One took him to Europe to meet with German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, Queen Elizabeth II and French President Charles de Gaulle. Kennedy flew on it in 1961 to meet with Macmillan in Key West, Fla., about the crisis in Laos, and in 1962, he flew on it to meet Krushchev in Vienna.

"For Eisenhower and his successors, this new mode of transportation made it possible to be face-to-face with world leaders in a matter of hours," Curtis said. "It's exciting that we can offer a view of history to the public that used to be reserved only for heads of state."

In 1970, Kissinger flew the plane to secret peace talks in Paris with the North Vietnamese. The following year he flew to China to arrange President Richard M. Nixon's groundbreaking trip, and in 1974 he used it in his globe-trotting peace talks in the Middle East.

The former Air Force One's most recent international trip flew a U.S. congressional delegation to the funeral of slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, said Air Force Brig. Gen. Charles Wax. The plane has logged 21,000 flying hours and flown 11 million miles.

Each of the plane's chief passengers modified it in some way, officials said. Eisenhower built a small stateroom in the middle of the plane, complete with the most advanced communications system in existence, Air Force Master Sgt. Michael Browning said. With the sophisticated equipment on board, Eisenhower could transmit secure messages in code.

First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy made less-strategic changes. She had the Air Force adjust the lighting in the lavatory so she could put on her makeup, Browning said.

Visitors to Air Force One can still see some of the commanders-in-chief's personal touches, such as Kennedy's pipe holder and a wire rack for Johnson's 10-gallon hats, Browning said. Johnson also created a small door in the presidential conference room to allow his pet beagles to leave.

But not even Eisenhower knew about all of Air Force One's high-tech features and cloak-and-dagger contraptions.

Without Eisenhower's knowledge, the Central Intelligence Agency installed a hidden spy camera on the bottom of the aircraft, Browning said. The CIA designed the camera, which during flight tests could read license plate numbers from the air, to take pictures of Communist bloc countries.

"None of the other (presidential) planes were as covert as this one," Browning said.

"The fresh-air valve, called the gasper, above the co-pilot's head controlled the camera, so the co-pilot could pretend he was getting some fresh air and manipulate the camera lens" without being detected by Soviet spies posing as Russian-language interpreters, Browning said. "The magnetic compass above his head was a position indicator for the camera."

The CIA never got a chance to use the spy camera, Browning said. The Soviet Union banned all U.S. flights over its air space after a U.S. pilot was shot down over Russia. Kennedy ordered that all espionage equipment be removed from Air Force One when he took office, Browning said.