he was no longer in office, his actions sparked a debate about what was safe for a president to do and what was not. Consequently, Roosevelt’s successors for years to come, including William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, would all refrain from air travel during their terms in office. In fact, it would be more than three decades before a sitting presi- dent would travel by air, and the occasion would be brought about by the demands of a world at war.
Victor Parachin
in the story of presidential air travel.
Although no longer president when he took his first flight in an airplane, Theodore Roosevelt was still the first presidential figure to take to the air,
and even in the airplane’s infancy, he believed that air travel had “a great future.” Interested in the new science of the airplane, Roosevelt became friends with Orville and Wilbur Wright and encouraged their work
Theodore Roosevelt was the first
presidential figure to take to the air, and even in the airplane’s infancy, he believed that air travel had “a great future.”
r
In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt (left), after his two terms as president, took a short flight with pilot Arch Hoxsey (right). No sitting president flew in an airplane until 1943.
T H E E L K S M A G A Z I N E 29
with the airplane. Then, on October 11, 1910, while he was in St. Louis, Missouri, participating in the Missouri state Republican campaign, Roosevelt visited a local airfield in order to attend an air show and took an impromptu flight in a Wright Model B airplane.
Roosevelt’s trip in the shaking wood and fabric biplane was brief; nonethe- less, his flight immediately became a topic of public interest. At the time, critics said Roosevelt was too much of a risk taker, and despite the fact that
First Presidential Flights Coincidentally, it was another President Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who actually became the first president to travel by air while in office. The year was 1943, and FDR’s first flight was a lengthy one that took him all the way from the United States to North Africa, where he met with Winston Churchill and other Allied leaders who were gathering in Morocco, in the city of Casablanca, to discuss the war. Two means of travel were open to FDR. He could either take a ship across the Atlantic Ocean to Morocco or he could fly. Fearing a torpedo attack from German subma- rines, the Secret Service ruled out travel by sea. The Secret Service had concerns about air travel as well, but with little other choice left except not to attend the conference, the president decided to fly across the Atlantic.
PHOTO: ©BETTMANN/CORBIS
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