Abstract
No upgrade needed
Im the author of Air Force One, a book about President George W. Bushs aircraft and presidential air travel.
An In Brief item (Keep in Touch, January/February 2003) tells readers there are four presidential aircraft.
While the air force operates many executive transports, some of which are occasionally used by the president and acquire the callsign Air Force One when he is aboard, there are just two presidential airplanes. They are VC-25As (Boeing 747-200s) delivered in the late 1980s and first used by the first President Bush in 1990. Contrary to an assertion in Bob Woodwards Bush at War, and repeated in the Business Week article quoted by the Bulletin, the aircraft have always been capable of receiving the Cable News Network on television.
The Bulletin might want to look further, however, into the three C-20C (Gulfstream III) war readiness aircraft that are used to shadow Air Force One and provide a backup in the event of nuclear war. Though they are covered in my book, the air force has never acknowledged their existence or their role in assuring continuity of government during a nuclear attack.
Oakton, Virginia
Robert Dorr is correct.
Ever since the original Air Force One, a modified Boeing 707-353B (VC-137), was retired in 1990 after 444 missions and more than a million miles of travel, there has been some confusion over the number of new Air Force Ones in existence.
This may come from confusing the four E-4Bs stationed at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, with the two VC-25As used as Air Force Ones. All six planes are modified 747-200s, have similar color schemes, and are at the presidents disposal. However, the E-4Bs at Of-futt would function as airborne command posts for controlling U.S. forces during a nuclear conflict, not as primary transports for the chief executive.
Palestinian refugees
Aid under Fire, by Nabil Handal (November/December 2002 Bulletin) is long on myth but short on the factual basis for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem.
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U.N. Resolution 181 in 1947 proposed a two-state solution to the problem between the Jews and the Arabs. The division of the land of the British Mandate for Palestine was 82 percent for an indigenous Palestinian state, and 17.3 percent for Israel. The Jews accepted the plan, but five Arab armies went to war against the nascent state of Israel on May 19, 1948. The refugees were created by the Arab governments, who encouraged them to leave the new state of Israel, saying they could return after it had been defeated.
With the exception of Jordan, not a single Arab state offered citizenship to those who fled, creating a festering sore that exists to this day. No Arab state has tried to mitigate the plight of the refugees. They have left it to the United Nations to pay the cost of humanitarian aid.
At the same time, Israel has absorbed every Jew who was driven out of Arab countries during this tumul-tous period. They are granted citizenship, given food, shelter, and medical care, and fully integrated into the only democracy in the Middle East.
San Rafael, California
Two minute warning
So many sabers are rattling you cant hear yourself think. With the current level of tensions, the clock should be moved to five and perhaps four minutes till midnight.
Having worked as an engineer at the Nuclear Test Site qualifies me, I think, to recommend the clock change. As John von Neumann said long ago–but which proliferation has made even more apt today–Now we are all sonsabitches.
These are very scary times indeed.
Greensboro, North Carolina
Art critics
Your cover artist for January/February 2003 captured the real mood and faces of our fearless leaders. Lets hope their mood changes, and the hands of the clock, too.
Richton Park, Illinois
In order for the Bulletin to be ef-fective, it has to appeal to political moderates as a magazine/journal with integrity, scholarship, and even-handedness. While I agree with many of the points noted in the article on bioweapons (Back to Bioweapons? January/February 2003), the artwork was so outlandish that it severely damaged the message the authors were trying to transmit.
University of North Texas
Denton, Texas
Update
Japans long-troubled plutonium-based nuclear industry was hit by two setbacks in late January. On January 27, a Japanese high court blocked efforts to reopen the Monju experimental breeder reactor, shut down since a 1995 coolant leak. According to the judge, the plants safety assessment was inadequate.
The courts ruling nullified a 1983 government order approving the reactor, effectively quashing plans to reactivate it, which were described by Shaun Burnie and Aileen Mioko Smith in Japans Nuclear Twilight Zone (May/June 2001 Bulletin).
On the same day as the Monju ruling, the Japanese government revealed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that some 200 kilograms of plutonium from the Tokaimura nuclear reprocessing plant were missing. The government said that since 1977, only 6,890 kilograms of plutonium had been extracted, much less than initially projected. The IAEA accepted Japans explanation that the shortfall resulted from measuring errors and the dilution of some plutonium into waste water (Sydney Morning Herald, January 30).
In their article Accident Prone (March/April 2000), Edwin Lyman and Steven Dolley described the September 30, 1999 accident at Tokaimuras fuel production plant that killed two workers. They argued that the accident underscored systemic problems in Japans bureaucracy-driven plutonium program, which produces ever-increasing pressures to cut costs and minimize safety measures.