POLITICO
By ANDREW GLASS
On this day in 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived in Morocco to join British Prime Minister Winston Churchill for a 10-day conference in Casablanca that mapped the course the allies would pursue in fighting World War II and that demanded the “unconditional surrender” of their enemies.
In crossing the Atlantic in a Boeing 314 Flying Boat dubbed the Dixie Clipper, Roosevelt became the first president to travel on official business by airplane. At the time, FDR was a frail 60 years old, with little more than two more years to live. He was persuaded to make the arduous 17,000-mile round trip by air because Nazi U-boats still remained on the prowl.
The secret presidential flight took more than four days to allow for refueling and rest stops. Although transferred to the U.S. Navy and designated C-143, the huge sea plane was piloted by a civilian Pan American Airways crew. It departed by water off Miami, touched down in the Caribbean and continued down the east coast of South America to Belém, Brazil, before arriving in Bathurst in British Gambia and then proceeding up the African coast to Casablanca.
After the meeting, FDR visited with U.S. troops and did some sightseeing before retracing the same route back to the United States. He celebrated his 61st birthday while flying over Haiti.
In January 1942, Churchill returned to Britain in a similar Pan Am flying boat after delivering his “What kind of people do they think we are?” speech to Congress.
While Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to fly, taking a four-minute flight in a Wright Brothers-built plane in October 1910, he did so nearly a year after leaving office. Every president since FDR’s path-breaking journey has used air transportation.
SOURCE: WWW.HISTORY.COM
.
