Into the night: Covert travel with President Obama
By Kevin Lamarque
First there is the phone call. It’s a quiet Sunday afternoon in Washington when the phone rings. “Can you be at the White House for a meeting in four hours? I can’t tell you why, but we need you to be there.”
Hmmm … I’ve seen this show before, and I pretty much know what the deal is. President Obama is going to be traveling somewhere unsavory and everything about it will be Top Secret until he lands at his mystery destination.
A beautiful weekend here in the D.C. area is instantly transformed from worrying about my son’s soccer games to worrying about where I am going, how long I will be gone and what preparations must I make before departure? The wheels are already churning before the White House meeting that evening.
As soon as we walk into the meeting, we are told: our destination is Afghanistan. Purpose: to sign a strategic partnership agreement. Coincidentally, or not, it is the one year anniversary of the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
After hearing warnings about the need for secrecy we are given the details. We are to meet at a rarely used entrance to Joint Base Andrews (where Air Force One is kept) Monday evening after dark. Wheels up will be near midnight. Before going to the plane, all of our communication devices are to be confiscated. Our iPhones, Blackberrys and laptops will be returned once we are well into the flight and communication is impossible. This measure is taken to preserve the secrecy of the departure.
We are driven to the remote hangar where Air Force One sits out front, completely blacked out. We board the plane in darkness and inside the cabin, the shades are all down. We will not do the customary photo of Obama boarding the plane as we do on every other scheduled departure. Instead, at some point, we feel the plane begin to move and we know President Obama is on board and we are headed to Afghanistan.
Can you keep a secret?
Want to hear a secret?
“U.S. President Barack Obama will make an unannounced visit to Afghanistan but you cannot tell anyone.” Those seemed like simple enough guidelines, but it certainly wouldn’t end up that way.
It started with a call from Washington Editor in Charge Jim Bourg during my shift at the White House on Wednesday afternoon. “I never know how to start these kind of conversations…” he said. “You know when we have these trips where we really can’t talk about it?” I had a feeling I knew where this was headed. He kind of paused a bit trying to find the words to say it, without really saying it. But I stopped him and said, “I know where you are going with this and you don’t have to go any further.” Obama would make a surprise visit to Afghanistan. I was careful not to answer his questions out loud, so that anyone standing by wouldn’t figure out the questions or the subject matter, but we were on the same page. He just said it was tomorrow night. The trip would be about 30 hours there and back, with 25 of those hours in the air. I would finish my shift as usual and go to see him in the office to get more details.
We went through the rough details, it was almost the same as Obama’s last announced trip to Afghanistan when I went with him back in late March this year. This would be my fourth such Presidential trip, three times to Afghanistan and once to Iraq. There is always a huge veil of secrecy, rightfully so.
I went home to install some new global aircards to file in Afghanistan and to test the BGAN Satphone in the parking lot next to my house. I didn’t think we would have time to set it up since we move around so fast when we go on these trips. But you have to be prepared for any scenario, especially after the communication nightmares from our last trip to Afghanistan.
I finally got to bed at 2am after making sure all my equipment was working and all my gear was packed and ready to go. I would be up again after four hours of sleep. I received an email Wednesday night to attend a meeting at the White House at 1pm the next day with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and the other journalists asked to go on this trip. It was brief with many of the same details as the last secret visit. We of course could not tell anyone. So I headed home to grab my things, we had to meet at Andrews Air Force Base in just a few hours.
Destination: Afghanistan
It all started out with a phone call from Reuters News Pictures Washington Editor In Charge Jim Bourg on Thursday night informing me there was a secret Presidential trip leaving on Saturday to an undisclosed destination which Reuters would like me to travel with the president on. I was told that this was very secretive and that I was not to mention it to anyone and that no details were available yet. I had been with President Obama on his secret trip to Baghdad last year, so it was pretty easy to figure out that the destination this time might be Afghanistan, a trip which had been highly anticipated since Obama became president 15 months ago. I was to expect to be contacted directly by the White House for a meeting to discuss the details. But I was to “open” the White House as the first Reuters photographer arriving there on Friday morning at 7am, my scheduled shift, and to go about my day as planned acting as if everything was normal. Nothing could be further from the truth.
That afternoon I was called in to meet with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in his office at 4pm, along with some of the other members of the 14 person media travel pool who would be going on the secret trip aboard Air Force One.
We were given a schedule of events and were sworn to secrecy. I headed home to pack and test out the BGAN satellite phone I had been provided by Reuters for the trip.
On Saturday night, I met up with the 2 other wire service photographers who were in the travel pool at a gate at Andrews Air Force Base at 7pm, an hour before our call time. But after sitting in the cars for an hour outside the Air Force base gate, and when no one else showed up, we figured that we better make a protective phone call to the White House staff. It seemed we were a half-mile from the correct entry point to the base. Whoops! The details we had been given were a little too secretive even for us!
Our names were checked off a list at the gate and we drove into a parking lot. We unloaded all of our gear and it was all turned over to the U.S. Secret Service. All electronics, cameras, and blackberries were to be loaded on to the plane by them and we would get not them back until we were in flight.
The full media pool then waited on a bus for about an hour until we were driven inside the aircraft hanger where Air Force One was parked. Normally we board Air Force One in broad daylight in the middle of an open air force base tarmac and climb up the rear stairs of the aircraft. But in this case, we were asked to board the plane after dark, inside a hangar, entering the plane from the front where the president does, which we never do, and we got to see a lot of the plane that I had never seen before.
Gosh, I read the whole thing in a gulp!! How very exciting. I am coming back as you in my next life……
Welcome aboard Air Force One
Larry Downing is a Reuters senior staff photographer assigned to the White House. He shares that duty with three other staff photographers. He has lived in Washington since 1977 and has been assigned to cover the White House , including flying aboard Air Force One, since 1978. President Barack Obama is the sixth president Larry has photographed.
Only two identical aircraft exist in the world which both share the same high-level function. They mirror one another precisely except for the numeric identifier on the tail. One reads 28000, the other 29000. They’re as sleek as they are majestic. Anticipation runs high when either travels and both are red carpet worthy. They are concealed around-the-clock in a protective cocoon while being constantly pampered at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
“Use of Deadly Force is Authorized” inside the security perimeter ringing around the outermost tips of their wings, and absolutely no one is allowed to enter without permission.
However, the moment the President of the United States, or POTUS, steps aboard, the aircraft immediately transforms from a mild-mannered Boeing 747 passenger jet into an aviation ambassador for the might of the United States, carrying one of the most powerful men in the world to any destination he chooses; all the while in complete luxury.
Welcome aboard Air Force One.
I have worked as a Security Officer for Boeing for 30yrs. It is an Honor to have worked on this Air Force One program for the last 22yrs.
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The Wall
What an amazing experience! Saw some pics from this trip on Business Insider from AP and these were so much better – really captured the gravity of the moment. Well done on so many levels.