Symbols of War and Peace

By Hugh Sidey

After the sea and the land, the air and outer space became America's frontiers. And so they remain. What happens in future international struggles in politics and economics will depend in an important way on U.S. ascendancy in air and space, the vigor of the industry that produces new machines and the vision of a President in regulating peaceful transport, nurturing exploration and employing new weapons.

During the past two weeks the 34th Paris Air Show, sponsored by French industry, has been a fascinating arena of benign contention: symbols of war and peace mixed together in display and in flight. In spirit, the competition suggested the jousts held on the same French fields by knights centuries ago.

France's triangular Mirage 4000, a powerful combat plane, was the most dazzling of the fighters on display, the U.S.'s F-16 the most nimble--as the Israelis helped prove during their daring raid on Iraq's nuclear reactor--and Britain's vertical-takeoff Sea Harrier the most provocative. While America still is nearly 60% of the air business, competition from our allies is stunningly evident. From gliders to missiles, a dozen nations are seriously challenging U.S. technology and salesmanship. Yet the men from Lockheed, Boeing, Martin-Marietta and scores of other U.S. firms were upbeat. The Soviets were quiet, their stodgy aircraft, like the Il-86 transport, displaying a technological lag. And Ronald Reagan's new defense plans and action in lifting Jimmy Carter's "leprosy" policy (U.S. embassies were ordered not to help arms sellers) were a tonic that may nudge the $57 billion industry off a plateau, providing thousands of new jobs. America's air and space exports now amount to $18 billion a year, second only to agriculture at $41 billion.

President Reagan, still basking in Columbia's memorable success, sent his good wishes. The industrial adventurers of the aerospace industry are his kind of guys; some, like Northrop's chairman Tom Jones, are friends. Platoons of members of the U.S. Congress and their aides went to the show as if they sensed that the sizing-up in Paris will be an excellent indicator of how the U.S. under Reagan will fare in the world and at home these next few months.

Presidents have been intrigued and sustained by events in the air since the nation's birth. From Philadelphia in 1793, George Washington wrote out a note in English for Jean Pierre Blanchard so that the French balloonist, on his pioneering flight over the Delaware River, would not panic the New Jersey natives. Thomas Jefferson benefited from early airmail in 1803: a carrier pigeon flew from New York to Washington bearing the good news that Napoleon had agreed to the Louisiana Purchase. Teddy Roosevelt was the first occupant of the White House to fly, even though he was no longer President when he did so. After some difficulty getting through the wires supporting the wings, he boarded a Wright biplane in St. Louis in 1910, flew at 200 ft. for three minutes without a seat belt, waving his hat. "Bully!" he declared.

Franklin Roosevelt's understanding of airplanes changed the world. Although others scoffed, F.D.R. predicted that the U.S. could produce 50,000 planes a year for World War II. The industry was up to 100,000 by V-J day.

Harry Truman buzzed the White House in a DC-4 called the Sacred Cow, which by 1945 had become a symbol of presidential power. Dwight Eisenhower, the only President to hold a pilot's license, moved us into the missile age and got a jet, a Boeing 707. John Kennedy got a newer one ("It's magnificent. I'll take it"), and the tradition of Air Force One was born at the same time Kennedy headed America for the moon.

Now there is yet another chapter beginning in the air and space adventure. The engineers, pilots and salesmen in Paris last week were doing what President Reagan urged them to do--"dreaming again."

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