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Inside the Pentagon Chief�s Jet

Written by Administrator

Monday, 03 December 2007

Editors’ Note: Thom Shanker, a Washington correspondent of The New York Times, is traveling with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates during one of his many trips abroad. CAMP LEMONIER, Djibouti, Dec. 3 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates hopped onto one of the military’s more unusual flying command posts for a 13 hour voyage from Andrews Air Force Base (just outside of Washington) to a desolate runway in the Horn of Africa. The aircraft once was known as the “Doomsday Plane,” because it was built as an airborne bunker for commanders to use when they needed, say, to launch retaliatory strikes in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Today, the E4B has been reworked and rewired to allow the defense secretary to carry out any business at all, just as if he were sitting comfortably in his executive suite back at the Pentagon.

From a conference room just aft of his private sitting area, Mr. Gates can conduct secure video teleconference meetings back to Washington or to any of the military’s global combatant command headquarters.

Even the more traditional technology aboard the National Airborne Operations Center, as the modified Boeing 747 is called, has been updated: Senior leaders, commanders and battle staff have secure, global telephone links, as well as classified high-speed internet connections.

Gone is any vestige of ‘’The Big Red Phone'’ or vacuum tube consoles or other grim cold war icons that once filled each of the four jets built for the surviving American leaders to manage nuclear war, and its aftermath. Flying aboard those older versions of the E4B felt like touring Hollywood set for “Fail Safe” or “Seven Days in May” or “Dr. Strangelove.”

The plane is one of the few civilian-designed jets that can be refueled in the air, shaving several hours off trips like this.

Because correspondents aboard the plane are cheek to jowl with senior Pentagon and military officials conducting classified work, those who fly with the defense secretary aboard the E4B agree that everything on-board is off-the-record unless other arrangements are negotiated.

This means globe-trotting with Mr. Gates is governed by the airborne equivalent of “Vegas Rules”: What happens on the plane, stays on the plane.

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Last Updated ( Monday, 03 December 2007 )

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