May 9, 2009
Official Quits Over Jet Flight That Alarmed New Yorkers
By JEFF ZELENY
WASHINGTON — The photo shoot of Air Force One soaring above the Statue of Liberty cost taxpayers $328,835. Now the incident, which incited panic among scores of people in New York City, has cost the director of the White House Military Office his job.
The director, Louis Caldera, who was appointed by President Obama to the White House post and had been a secretary of the Army in the Clinton administration, resigned on Friday for his role in approving the April 27 flyover. In a brief letter to Mr. Obama, Mr. Caldera said that the matter “has become a distraction for the important work you are doing as president.”
The White House released the resignation letter and a seven-page review of how the flyover was planned by several government agencies without anyone raising caution flags that the flight could spark fears of another terrorist attack in Lower Manhattan. A photograph of the plane, flying low above New York Harbor, also was released on Friday by the White House.
The president, who did not know about the flight before it took place and was described by aides as infuriated by it, directed his deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates “to make recommendations to him to ensure that such an incident never occurs again,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary.
The photo shoot of the Boeing 747 was intended to update the official picture of Air Force One, which is what the plane is called when the president is aboard. The last photograph was taken against the backdrop of Mount Rushmore, but in March military officials began planning for a new shot with the Statue of Liberty in the background.
The Air Force estimated the flight cost taxpayers $328,835, including $35,000 in fuel for the plane and the two fighter-jet escorts.
The internal White House review, conducted for the president by the White House counsel’s office, found that a series of bureaucratic missteps kept the public in the dark about the flight. Senior advisers to the president, including Mr. Gibbs and Mr. Messina, also said they were not notified.
“Will probably receive some local press, but W. H. shouldn’t catch any questions about it,” said an internal e-mail message that Mr. Caldera received from his deputy three days before the flight took place.
The White House report states that while some officials decided on “public outreach efforts” to notify people in advance about the flight, the commander of the Presidential Airlift Group, Col. Scott Turner of the Air Force, decided that the memo warning New York-area officials of the flyover would be marked “official use only,” and that it would tell government agencies not to disclose the event. Information would be provided, the report said, “only if asked.”
Through bureaucratic fumbling, the discrepancy over whether the public should or should not be alerted went unnoticed until after the flight.
In the review, officials wrote that Mr. Caldera said he “had no idea that the plan called for the aircraft to fly at 1,000 feet.” They added, “He feels terrible that the flight caused harm.”
The review concluded that “structural and organizational ambiguities” among officials in the White House and the Air Force led to the series of miscommunications that resulted in the most embarrassing act of the new Obama administration.
“The breakdown was the lack of public notification,” the report states, adding that Mr. Caldera believed others had been notified about the flight. He also conceded that he did not know the final details about the flyover mission, in part, because he had not checked his e-mail. He said he had gone home early for a few days because he was suffering from muscle spasms in his back when he returned from a presidential trip to Mexico last month.
Mr. Obama appointed Mr. Caldera to lead the White House Military Office in December, citing his 30-year career as a soldier, lawyer, legislator and law professor. It was a rare political appointment for a position that is usually held by a ranking officer in the military.
“His pedigree is second to none,” Mr. Obama said on Dec. 2. “I know he’ll bring to the White House the same dedication and integrity that have earned him the highest praise in every post.”
