My book has been released and several people have given initial reviews. Here's two so far:
By John Penny, VHPA Life Member:
INSIDE THE PRESIDENT'S HELICOPTER by VHPA member LTC Gene Boyer with Jackie Boor is an interesting and well written account of the days when "Army One" was often the call sign of the presidential helicopter. The book presents a comprehensive history of the use of presidential helicopters, from Eisenhower's first flight in an Air Force UH-13J in 1957 to the present day. Interwoven throughout the book are the details of Boyer's amazing career as an Army Aviator which spans much of the history of Army Aviation. Boyer's unique perspective from the cockpit of "Army One" provides us his personal observations of LBJ, Nixon, Ford and many national and international leaders which he shares with his readers.
Boyer states that he "was drafted in the nick of time" after college. Boot camp, OCS, and MSC training at Ft. Sam Houston was followed by helicopter flight school at Ft. Sill. At his flight school briefing the dangers of his new job was reinforced by a newly smashed "Killer Hiller" being trucked by and the words of an instructor: "If you don't pay attention, this is how you will end up." He obviously followed that advice throughout his aviation career that included: a MASH unit in Korea, a flying tour in France with SHAEF, a tour in Vietnam with B/228 AVN, 1st Cav, and two tours with the Executive Flight Detachment. Boyer notes that being selected for the Executive Flight Detachment is a high honor, one that must be earned on every flight. The pressure to perform perfectly in the glare of the presidential "spotlight" is intense and every flight is planned in the smallest detail including alternatives.
Boyer's close proximity to LBJ, Nixon, and Ford gave him a close perspective of these men. He makes no bones about his distaste for LBJ who referred to the EFD as "my helicopters" and based the Army portion of the EFD near his Texas ranch, where he and his cronies could use them as a personal taxi service. However, he notes that some of his best flying skills were not learned in Vietnam but "flying around the Texas Hill Country scrounging for cow pastures to land in." Though Nixon was viewed as a schemer by many, Boyer found him and his family to be considerate and respectful. When Nixon was forced to resign Boyer and CW4 Carl Burhanan, VHPA member, had the somber duty of flying the Nixons to Andrews AFB. As for Ford, Boyer felt he trusted too much in his staff that was constantly fighting among themselves. Ford's Chief of Staff, Donald Rumsfeld, and advisor Dick Cheney soon gave the Marine Corps complete control of the EFD.
I highly recommend this very readable book that LTC Boyer wrote as a tribute to those who serve to protect this nation and to explain to his children where he was all those years when they hardly saw him. LTC Boyer is a living legacy of the history of Army Aviation. To put this in perspective, of the over 49,000 of us on the VHPA Class Index, LTC Boyer would be about #350. He is still very active and was instrumental in restoring the helicopter used to fly Nixon into forced retirement which is now at the Nixon Library. In 2009 he weighed in against the Lockheed-Martin contract to build a ridiculously costly replacement for the current White House Fleet. -- Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association Magazine (Nov-Dec 2010)
Joyce Faulkner
Author of "In the Shadow of Suribachi"
Co-Author of "Sunchon Tunnel Massacre Survivors"
President of Military Writers Society of America
In August, 1974, I was busy watching over an active toddler and pregnant with our second child. The preceding twelve years had been chaotic - for me personally and for our country. Frustrated, angry, confused and scared, I was no different than anyone else. I remember sitting on the couch, dry-mouthed, watching the first family troop out to a helicopter on the White House lawn. The President's wife and daughters were stoic, but I knew they'd been crying and would cry again. Nixon paused in the doorway of Army One and flung his arms into the air in his signature "victory" gesture, but his over-shiny eyes betrayed him. I wanted to curse at him, but only a sob came out. What the heck was going on in the world?
LTC Gene Boyer was also a witness to this event - not from the perspective of a prying-eye television set, but from the cockpit of the helicopter waiting for the Nixons and their entourage to board. His description of the sad tableaux inside the craft as it carried the first family to Andrews AFB where Air Force One waited is both sensitive and revealing--as is the rest of Colonel Boyer's book. This intriguing memoir is filled with many familiar images in American History told from the perspective of a publicly invisible but crucial participant - the President's helicopter pilot.
Gene Boyer was already an accomplished pilot with thousands of hours in the air, when he was assigned to the Army's Executive Flight Detachment in October 1963. He was no stranger to carrying VIPs at that point, but this job was special - it was to ferry the President and his guests to official and unofficial events. Boyer was excited about the new position and honored by the opportunity. However, he had not yet arrived at his new duty station when John Kennedy was assassinated. He only worked a short time when new President Lyndon Johnson split the group - sending half to Austin and the other half to Vietnam. Boyer went to Nam.
Helicopters were useful in Korea, but in Vietnam, they became a ubiquitous tool of combat - used to insert and extract troops, rescue the trapped and provide medical assistance to the wounded. Boyer's time in-country built his love for rotary aircraft and enhanced his already impressive abilities. Those skills were to come in handy when he returned from Southeast Asia to fly Presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Ford.
The sheer breadth of Boyer's experiences makes this a terrific read. There was the time that he flew Dwight Eisenhower and Walter Cronkite over Omaha Beach while filming a documentary for the Twentieth Anniversary of D-day. There was the struggle to dump Agent Orange out of the back of a Chinook in Vietnam, which turned out to have dire consequences for the health of American troops on the ground and for the pilots charged with dispersing the poison, as well. There's the story about flying a mile ahead of a motorcade carrying LBJ and Mexican President Diaz Ortez. With a secret service agent strapped to one side of the helicopter and his Mexican counterpart on the other side, they saw a sniper on top of a building overlooking the route. They radioed ahead and the man was arrested. The presidents had no sooner arrived at their destination in Juarez than security had to subdue and arrest a young woman with a pistol.
There's also many neat things that only an insider would know--like the time LBJ loaned a helicopter with pilot to ailing ex-President Eisenhower. When then Major Boyer arrived, Ike asked him to take a covey of pretty girls for a ride...and when he returned, before landing, to hover near his hospital window so that he could take their picture. Then there's the story about taking off from St. Peter's square with Nixon and a load of presents from the Pope--and the one about a harrowing trip to Peru with Pat Nixon after a catastrophic earthquake.
However, in the end, this book spoke to me more than other accounts of the Watergate travesty. Boyer doesn't see the political side of Nixon--or the desperate or criminal one. He describes a human being under incredible pressure--a man who was unfailingly polite and appreciative of the service Boyer provided. Along with Colonel Boyer, I had to imagine what the world would have remembered of Nixon had Watergate not happened...certainly history would have shown a productive and successful presidency. I was struck again by the tragedy of it all.
This is a book that made me want to meet the author - to ask him about Julie and Tricia, to talk about the wild party at his home after the Frost/Nixon interviews, to chat about choppers and bloopers - and a host of cultural happenings that we both lived through...he on the edge of reality, me from afar peering through my TV.
A FATHER’S DAY STORY
Marine son traces Army father to presidential helicopter
YORBA LINDA, CA -- Marine Colonel Gregory Woodward wanted to know more about the devoted father who died too soon.
An Iraqi War veteran, Greg Woodward, 50, was twelve years old when his father, Army Chief Warrant Officer Edward B. Woodward joined the Army’s White House Executive Flight Detachment in 1971. One of the Vietnam War’s most highly decorated helicopter pilots, the senior Woodward was among the best of the best flying the President of the United States. He retired from the Army in 1977, but tragically, in 1991, suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 51. His sudden death devastated the young Marine son who would proudly carry on his father’s dedication to serving his country.
In 2008, about to retire himself, Woodward’s quest to learn more about his father led him and his mother to the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. There they discovered the restored helicopter used to fly President Nixon from the White House the day he resigned the presidency in 1974. The younger Woodward couldn’t help but wonder if his father had ever been at the controls of that particular helicopter. After a few inquiries, he made contact with retired Army Lt. Col. Gene Boyer, the pilot on that historical day. Boyer was also the man who had located and coordinated the restoration of the world’s most recognizable helicopter.
A White House pilot for ten years and Nixon’s senior pilot for five, Boyer, 79, had a copy of the executive unit’s flight log. Woodward was thrilled to learn his father had indeed co-piloted that very helicopter. A few weeks later, he and his wife, Paige, met Boyer for lunch, along with retired CW4 Carl Burhanan, another White House pilot who had known “Woody.” Over lunch, Boyer surprised Woodward with a color photo of his father sitting in the cockpit of a presidential helicopter at Crissy Field in San Francisco, California. President Nixon and his family were disembarking, and the tip of the Golden Gate Bridge was barely visible through the fog.
Both Boyer and Woodward had a tough time holding back tears, but Boyer had one more surprise for the younger Marine. On March 6, 2009, the two men met at the Nixon Library where a representative from the National Archives and Records Administration opened the helicopter for Woodward to climb aboard and sit in the very seat his father had occupied nearly four decades earlier. Boyer sat in the right seat and recalls, “I don’t think he ever stopped smiling. It was very emotional.”
Introductory comments from Lt. Col. Gene Boyer regarding developments related to the now cancelled Lockheed-Martin White House Helicopter Fleet contract.
OVERVIEW
By Lt. Col. (retired) Gene T. Boyer
May 30, 2009
In early February of 2009, I contacted Peter Baker at the New York Times to share the following insights regarding the Lockheed-Martin contract to build a new White House helicopter fleet. As a result, an article titled, “Obama Confronts a Choice on Copters” was published on February 15, 2009, and helped to set into motion the cancellation of the contract on May 15, 2009.
The fundamental mission of the White House helicopter fleet has not changed since 1957 – the emergency evacuation and short distance transportation for the President of the United States, the Vice President, and key Cabinet and other government officials.
Then as now, the unit must be able to maintain constant communication with the White House and the Pentagon, fly day and night through most any weather, in any climate or locale around the world and always be prepared for the unexpected – from an iced engine to zero visibility. When, where and how we fly is as important as what helicopter we use. We are steadily assessing safety issues related to routes, altitude, landing sites and maintenance support facilities.
I believed too many people were not asking probing questions and are assuming “more is better” with the VH-71 contract.
Question 1. Doesn’t the president need to be able – for reasons of his own safety and efficiency – to fly to destinations near Washington or, when overseas or in certain locations far from Washington but in the United States, to fly in his own helicopter wherever he is? In other words, why is 28 too many?
Yes, for reasons of safety and efficiency, the president must travel in a secure helicopter with at least one back-up, whether he is flying to Camp David or landing in St. Peter’s Square to visit the Pope. However, since we have only one president, there are only so many places he can be at any one time.
The President doesn’t need 28 flying oval offices. It is overkill. The expense is excessive and not cost-efficient. For the life of me, I don’t understand how communications equipment, in this age of smaller, faster systems, is adding so much weight.
Security is paramount. Placing the president in a foreign made helicopter is asking for complications and trouble as illustrated by the recent discovery of White House helicopter information on an Iranian computer.
I see no reason to completely swap out the existing fleet. The chronological age of a certain model is not an accurate reflection of its condition. These helicopters should be kept in the fleet and used as back-up rather than farmed out to generals, admirals and other VIPs like was done in 1977.
To follow is a good example of how to be resourceful with existing inventory. A VH-3A Sikorsky Sea King helicopter first put into White House service in 1961 was gifted to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1974 by President Richard Nixon. Still in use 48 years later as President Hosni Mubarak’s personal helicopter in what we know to be a hostile region of the world, recently completed refurbishment at Clayton International in Georgia. I keynoted the rollout ceremony recertifying that helicopter before it is returned to Egypt during a black-tie event at the White Water Country Club near Fayetteville, Georgia on May 14, 2009.
Recommendations: Assemble an independent body of experts to: 1) fully examine the existing fleet of helicopters and determine remaining flight time for each; 2) review and assess the precise hard and fast mission requirements for a White House fleet; 3) develop a criteria and identify what truly needs to be replaced and what can be upgraded; and 4) reopen the procurement process to include Sikorsky and Boeing Vertol.
Note that unlike Lockheed-Martin, Sikorsky employees have long-standing top level security clearances and has funded its own tests and evaluation of their competing helicopter. They have also indicated that for $1.25 million, they could safely extend the service life and enhance the performance of the VH-3D. This needs to be looked at as an option for decreasing the acquisition costs.
Finally, additional cost savings are possible by restructuring the White House helicopter program and share the service between multiple branches of the military rather then pitting them against each other to compete for contracts or mission assignments. Joint military operations, as was in place at the White House with the Army and Marines between 1958 and 1976, can also provide a valuable check and balance system.
Question 2. How many helicopters did you have in your squadron in the Nixon years?
We had about a dozen White House helicopters during the Nixon years. Few presidents traveled as much as Nixon and our combined Army-Marine units were able to support his trips throughout the world with eight Sikorsky VH-3As and three semi-plush Hueys. If we needed more helicopters, for other dignitaries or the press as an example, we had the authority to call upon any number of military organizations around the world and take command of their helicopter assets to temporarily supplement our mission. This happened frequently within the States and overseas.
From 1969 to 1975, I personally had over 570 missions with a president or head-of-state on board. Many of those trips required us to disassemble, reassemble and test fly the aircraft for five hours before allowing the president on board. My largest flight was with Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon in Vietnam. We had about 45 helicopters supporting that trip in a combat zone. None of those helicopters, including those we used to fly the Nixon’s, were from the White House fleet. The design of the mission, not the design of a helicopter, is often the critical factor in keeping the President safe and secure.
I believe the current fleet includes 18 VH-3Ds and an unknown number of smaller rapid deployment UH-60 Blackhawks. More fleet helicopters increase the potential for misuse and will naturally demand a greater operating budget. I’d rather not highlight incidents of misuse, but it happens more than any of us would like to think. We need a White House Military Office that understands how to judiciously and appropriately use helicopter assets.
3. Back then, at any one time, were most of the presidential helicopters deployed to forward locations for mission rehearsals? Do you know if that’s the case today?
Yes, I do recall a few times we had to rehearse a landing, but normally we did so with only one helicopter and would then brief other pilots regarding any hazards or site specifics. Of the almost 3,000 flights I had for the White House, a majority were repeat visits to familiar sites. A seasoned advance man knows how to evaluate from the ground or the air how best to perform a mission. I don’t know what requirements are in place today.
4. Has the use of the presidential helicopter by VIPs other than the president grown?
I suppose that depends on who can be considered a VIP. Johnson regularly used helicopters to taxi relatives and personal friends, and I would hope no president since then has replicated his abuse of public assets. That said, I can only assume the use of the presidential helicopter has grown based on the number of helicopters in use and being requested.
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS
In closing, it is important to know this is not the first time a helicopter fleet contract has hit the skids because it was not well thought out. In late 1972, the Navy and Marines along with Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld were pushing a contract to replace the Sikorsky VH-3A with the VH-53, a helicopter I knew to be the wrong fit for the White House. After six months of me heckling then Lt. General Brent Scowcroft and HMX-1 to do a test landing at the White House, they agreed. When we put down on the lawn in the CH-53, the rotor wash destroyed the South Portico awning and broke off three truckloads of tree limbs. The contract was cancelled the next day, but not after it had cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
It has been excruciating to watch a replay of the fiasco from 1972. To my knowledge, the proposed helicopter with a half-billion dollar price tag has yet to fully land, shut down and take-off at an operational gross weight from the White House lawn. I imagine you would agree that no trees at the White House, many of which were planted by former presidents, should be removed to accommodate a helicopter.
RELATED NEWS
CQ WEEKLY – VANTAGE POINT
March 16, 2009 – Page 579
Does the President Need 23 Helicopters?
By John M. Donnelly, CQ Staff
The controversy over the high cost of new presidential helicopters — on average about $464 million apiece, which has led the Defense Department to put a hold on most of the project — also highlights the expanding size of the presidential air force, which in the next decade could expand to 26 aircraft.
Nineteen choppers are now at President Obama’s disposal and are designated “Marine One” when he’s aboard, along with two 747 airliners called “Air Force One” when he travels. The Air Force would like to replace the big jets with three new ones starting in 2017, and the Navy plans to put a total of 28 new presidential helicopters in the air, although five would be interim vehicles. The net result is the Marine One fleet, with its distinctive white tops, would grow to 23 helicopters.
Why does one president need 23 helicopters? Good question, said the Congressional Research Service in a report this month on the Navy’s program to buy the specially fitted VH-71 helicopters from Lockheed Martin Corp. The Navy doesn’t give reasons for needing more choppers in the inventory, the report says, adding: “It appears reasonable to ask whether an operational force of 19 new and more-capable helicopters couldn’t replace an operational force of 19 old and less-capable helicopters.”
Indeed, Gene T. Boyer, a retired Army officer who flew helicopters for Dwight D. Eisenhower and three other presidents, says the 12 helicopters they had then would be enough now. Anything more, he says, “is overkill.”
Some other former members of the presidential helicopter squadron — the Marines took over the job in 1976 — say the White House needs at least as many as it has now.
Sure there is only one president, they say, but the squadron is available to carry the vice president, Cabinet members, the secretary of the Navy, the Marine Corps commandant and visiting heads of state. Also, security requires at least two aircraft on every mission. Then there is the highly classified “continuity of government” task that keeps several helicopters near the Capitol to evacuate top officials in the event of attack or catastrophe.
There also are presidential journeys. About 10 days before a trip, domestic or foreign, helicopters are sent to the location to rehearse. On average, Obama has flown on Marine One about once every couple of days.
In addition, some aircraft must be used for training. Marine pilots can get time flying these choppers only one place, and that is in the presidential squadron. Besides those demands, a third of the squadron will be off the line at any one time for maintenance or other purposes — parts on a presidential helicopter are replaced halfway through their projected lives. One chopper is used for testing upgrades. And one is for “attrition,” meaning just in case.
One Marine One pilot from the 1980s, Bob Sherwell, said the 19 helicopters they had were not sufficient. “Twenty-three sounds perfectly reasonable,” he said. “We didn’t have enough.”
Source: CQ Weekly
The definitive source for news about Congress.
© 2009 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved.
HUFFINGTON POST
“Helicopters, Cover-ups and War Crimes”
By Jeffrey Klein and Paolo Pontoniere
Posted February 19, 2009
"Obama Confronts a Choice on Copters" read this week's New York Times . The President soon "will have to decide whether to proceed with some of the priciest aircraft in the world -- a new fleet of 28 Marine One helicopters that will each cost more than the last Air Force One....The choice confronting Mr. Obama encapsulates the tension between two imperatives of his nascent presidency, the need to meet the continuing threats of an age of terrorism and the demand for austerity in a period of economic hardship."
This is a gross misrepresentation of the choice Obama faces. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn) and others have alleged that the contract for 28 Marine One helicopters was awarded to the Italian firm Finmeccanica as a thank you for Italy's participation in the Iraq War. The evidence, however, indicates that the contract was more specifically a payoff to the Italian government for supplying the forged documents showing Saddam had obtained weapons grade uranium from Niger. President Bush famously used this fraudulent "yellowcake" intelligence to justify launching the war.
When reviewing the helicopter contract, President Obama can either be actively complicit by continuing with Finmeccanica; he can duck and cover by simply switching to the proper supplier, Sikorsky; or he can use the mandated review of this purchase decision to root out those in military, the aerospace industry and Congress who were willing to compromise the security of all subsequent American presidents so that Bush could cover up his core war crime.
Officials up and down the chain who awarded the contract knew that they were doing something extraordinarily wrong. The rigged bidding process bypassed, for example, Marine One pilots who repeatedly sought to give input. They had many safety concerns. At the time of the bid, the helicopter chosen was not certified to fly in the U.S. It was an old model made of heavy materials; this flew in the face of why the President supposedly needed a new fleet: i.e., so many extra security devices had been added to Marine One after 9/11, it was struggling to lift off. In its losing bid, the Connecticut-based Sikorsky, which had manufactured virtually all presidential helicopters since Eisenhower first ordered one, proposed a new model made of much lighter, composite materials.
But the Marine One pilots' prime objection, which was raised repeatedly by many other officials in private, was national security. Finmeccanica was doing business with Iran, China and Libya. Why outsource so sensitive a project? At the time of the bid, the security clearance necessary to manufacture and maintain Marine One required U.S. citizenship and prohibited Marine One team members from being married to citizens of another country.
After the bid was awarded, John Pike, head of GlobalSecurity.org, told us: "Analyzing the defense industry for nearly 30 years, I try to stay calm and nonpartisan. But the Finmeccanica deal raised every hair on my neck. Apparently no one else sees the irony in a foreign military contractor building Marine One and Ayatollah One."
Many others did see the irony but were intimidated or paid off. For example, right after Finmeccanica won the contract, Kim Weldon, the daughter of then-Congressman Curt Weldon (R - Pa), landed a full-time job with the company. Previously she'd been a social worker. Finmeccanica also paid consulting money to Weldon's real estate agent, who subsequently pled guilty for attempting to destroy bribery evidence sought by the FBI. Weldon's chief of staff, his wife and other Weldon aides were given free trips to Italy. The chief of staff subsequently pled guilty for failing to disclose income funneled to his wife. Like many other Congressmen, however, Weldon looks as if he will escape unscathed.
At Finmeccanica promotional events, Weldon was accompanied by Giovanni Castellaneta, the Italian ambassador to United States and simultaneously a Finmeccanica vice president. Today Castellaneta sits on Finmeccanica's Board of Directors on behalf of the Italian Government. Ambassador Castellaneta is the key figure in Italy's exchange of forged intelligence for U.S. defense dollars.
According to Italy's La Repubblica, Nicola Pollari, the head of the Italian spy agency SISMI, had failed to dispel the CIA's misgivings about the authenticity of the yellowcake papers. Giovanni Castellaneta then arranged for Pollari to bypass the CIA and meet directly with then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, Rice's chief deputy at the time. The meeting took place on Sept. 9, 2002, in the White House, and was confirmed by White House officials.
"It is completely out of protocol for the head of a foreign intelligence service to circumvent the C.I.A.," former C.I.A. officer Philip Giraldi told Vanity Fair's Craig Ungar. "It is uniquely unusual. In spite of lots of people having seen these documents, and having said they were not right, they went around them."
"To me there is no benign interpretation of this," Melvin Goodman, a former C.I.A. and State Department analyst said to Ungar. "At the highest level it was known the documents were forgeries. Stephen Hadley knew it. Condi Rice knew it. Everyone at the highest level knew."
Nonetheless, after the White House meeting that Castellaneta arranged for Pollari, the story of the yellowcake shipments to Saddam was treated as hard proof despite multiple attempts by America's top spies to discredit it.
Especially when no WMDs were found, President Bush needed to find a way he could control to repay the Italians for their help. Bush pressed for a new fleet of Marine Ones. He demanded the contract be awarded through an expedited bidding process because of heightened security concerns. A senior Finmeccanica executive told us that long before the Navy announced the award in January 2005, he and other company executives were told that the fix was in.
Finmeccanica hid the payoff by cutting U.S. companies Bell Helicopter and Lockheed Martin into the deal. Although Lockheed doesn't make helicopters, it acted as the ostensible lead partner.
"Lockheed pimped itself out," says Lt. Col. Gene T. Boyer, a retired Army pilot who flew three presidents in Marine One for 10 years. Boyer thinks the mushrooming of the Marine One fleet is a disgrace. "Many of the Marine Ones are used just to ferry around Washington VIPs who brag afterwards that they've flown in the same chopper used by the president."
Boyer believes that the Pentagon officials and members of Congress who pushed this contract through should be investigated not just because of the massive cost overruns, but "because they didn't cover the country's back."
The ballooning of Finmeccanica's contract from $6.1 billion to $11.2 billion ($400 million per chopper) was predictable given Bush's push to bypass procedures and sign a deal with Finmeccanica. The massive cost overruns now compel the Secretary of Defense to re-certify to Congress that this acquisition program is essential to national security. It isn't. President Obama needs to appoint an independent, public commission to examine who drove the Marine One procurement process, which many officials say (off the record) was the most secretive, rigged award they've ever seen. Put all officials involved on the record, and under oath. Rarely does one bloated contract connect both to military fraud and to the corruption of our intelligence agencies. Fiscal austerity and our future safety demand a full accounting.
NEW YORK TIMES
“Obama Confronts a Choice on Copters”
By Peter Baker
February 15, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Obama has slammed high-flying executives traveling in cushy jets at a time of economic turmoil. But soon he will have to decide whether to proceed with some of the priciest aircraft in the world — a new fleet of 28 Marine One helicopters that will each cost more than the last Air Force One.
The latest on President Obama, the new administration and other news from Washington and around the nation.
Associated Press
Dwight D. Eisenhower, pictured in 1957, was the first president to have a helicopter.
Associated Press
President Richard M. Nixon after resigning in 1974.
A six-year-old project to build state-of-the-art presidential helicopters has bogged down in a contracting quagmire that will challenge Mr. Obama’s desire to rein in military contracting expenses. The price tag has nearly doubled, production has fallen years behind schedule and much of the program has been frozen until the new administration figures out what to do about it.
The choice confronting Mr. Obama encapsulates the tension between two imperatives of his nascent presidency, the need to meet the continuing threats of an age of terrorism and the demand for austerity in a period of economic hardship.
Equipped to deflect missile attacks and capable of waging war from the air, the new VH-71 helicopters would fly farther, faster and more safely than the current decades-old craft. But each improvement pushes up the cost. The program’s original $6.1 billion contract has ballooned to $11.2 billion, and the Pentagon notified Congress last month that it was so far over budget that the law required a review. The Obama administration now must determine if the project is essential to national security and if there are alternatives that would cost less.
For Mr. Obama, the program is one more inheritance from the Bush administration, which began the effort after the Sept. 11 attacks generated concern about whether presidential helicopters from the 1970s were up to the challenge of terrorist threats. President George W. Bush spent Sept. 11 aboard Air Force One, reinforcing the need for up-to-date communications and security for a president at all times.
“If the office of the presidency is vulnerable, then the country is vulnerable,” said Representative Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, a Democrat and a retired Navy vice admiral. “However, the nation is crying for accountability, from Wall Street to Congress to Iraq.”
Asked about it in last year’s campaign, Mr. Obama promised to “take a close look” at the program, adding that it was “a lot of money, even in Washington.” The White House had no comment last week, but Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was rethinking the VH-71 and other projects that were “having execution problems.”
“We’re prepared to make some hard choices,” Mr. Morrell said.
At stake is the future of the iconic white-topped helicopters that take off from the South Lawn of the White House. Those helicopters have become a symbol of presidential power, etched in the public mind, perhaps most indelibly on the day President Richard M. Nixon resigned in 1974 and flashed a double-V salute before retreating aboard one of the choppers to begin his long exile.
Presidents have had helicopters at their disposal since 1957, when Dwight D. Eisenhower grew irritated at how long it took in a crisis to get from a New England vacation to an airport. The current fleet of 19 aircraft includes 11 Sikorsky VH-3D Sea Kings and 8 VH-60N Black Hawks, some of which have been flying presidents for up to 35 years.
When a president is aboard one of the helicopters it goes by the radio call sign Marine One. The helicopters typically ferry a president from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base or Camp David, usually accompanied by one or two helicopters carrying staff members and serving as decoys. Helicopters are also sometimes airlifted to the president’s stops around the world for shorter-range flights.
Andrew H. Card Jr., Mr. Bush’s White House chief of staff, grew exasperated in 2002 by helicopter mechanical problems and instigated the development of an ultramodern replacement. The Pentagon awarded a contract in 2005 to Lockheed Martin, even though it had never built helicopters, reasoning that a three-engine model produced by its British-Italian partner, called the EH-101, provided a useful foundation.
In doing so, the Pentagon bypassed Sikorsky Aircraft, the contractor since the Eisenhower era. Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut, where Sikorsky is based, said she believed the Bush administration wanted to reward Britain and Italy for support in Iraq. “I think this was a way of saying, ‘We understand what you did for us; now we’re trying to do something for you,’ ” she said.
The Bush administration denied that. But as the White House tried to effectively replicate Air Force One in helicopter form, it soon became clear that modifying the EH-101 was much more complicated than anticipated. The new armored 64-foot-long presidential helicopter had to carry 14 passengers and thousands of pounds of secure communications equipment and be able to jam seeking devices, fend off missiles and resist some of the electromagnetic effects of a nuclear blast.
The VH-71 project was divided into two increments, a quick first batch of five new helicopters with the same or better equipment as the current fleet, to be followed by 23 much more sophisticated craft that would ultimately take over flying the president, the vice president and the defense secretary, among others.
Lockheed has made progress on the first increment, having built four test models and three of the helicopters that will eventually be used. Those aircraft are supposed to be delivered by the end of 2010. But the Pentagon issued a stop-work order at the end of 2007 on the second increment as costs continued to rocket upward. Divided by 28 helicopters, the overall cost works out to $400 million per aircraft, roughly the same as the $410 million that the government paid in 1990 for the latest two Air Force One jetliners plus a hangar.
“What you had here was a collision between the urgency of the White House and the rules of the Navy’s acquisition,” said Loren B. Thompson, the head of the Lexington Institute, a research organization that provides advice to Lockheed and other defense contractors. “The White House wanted to field a helicopter much faster, and the Navy wanted to make sure it met all of the rules for a safe helicopter.
“It doesn’t sound irreconcilable,” he continued, “but in the end, it caused a lot of cost growth.”
The notice to Congress last month means the program must now be recertified by Mr. Gates to proceed. Ms. DeLauro and other members of the Connecticut delegation wrote the Navy last week asking it to consider reopening the bidding on the contract or turning part of it over to Sikorsky. Critics said Mr. Obama should pull the plug. “The VH-71 is a waste of time, money and resources,” said Lt. Col. Gene T. Boyer, a retired Army pilot who flew three presidents, including Nixon on the flight after his resignation.
Mr. Sestak said the project underscored the larger failure to accurately assess the cost of military projects in advance and urged Mr. Obama to tackle the problem.
“If he puts the right accountability system in there — not monitoring but enforcement — then I think he can say rightly that the fleet is not for Mr. Obama, it is for the presidency,” Mr. Sestak said.
