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Trump plane collects Bush casket for days-long homage
HOUSTON, Dec 3, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Solemn preparations were underway Sunday
for America’s national farewell to George H.W. Bush, whose casket will be
flown from Texas to Washington aboard a presidential aircraft to lie in state
at the start of a days-long state homage.
The 41st president died Friday, aged 94, at his home in Texas — “a very
gentle and peaceful passing,” his lifelong friend and advisor James Baker
said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
To commemorate the first former president to die since Gerald Ford in 2006,
officials have announced a detailed, four-day schedule of celebratory
services and tribute, organized with military precision by the Pentagon task
force charged with protecting the US capital.
Its culmination will be a state funeral at Washington National Cathedral on
Wednesday, which President Donald Trump — who had often clashed with the
more staid and centrist Bush family — has declared a national day of
mourning.
– Lying in state –
The week’s events begin at 1630 GMT Monday, when Bush’s remains are to be
flown aboard the presidential Boeing 747 plane known as Air Force One — made
available at Trump’s direction — from Houston to Joint Base Andrews,
Maryland.
Bush spokesman Jim McGrath said the presidential aircraft’s flights to
carry the 41st American president are being dubbed “Special Air Mission 41,”
as he announced the plane’s arrival in Houston.
“A beautiful day In Texas — ‘ceiling and visibility unlimited,’ Mr.
President,” he wrote, in reference to the aviation code phrase for a
desirable situation, one used by Bush’s family and friends to spread the news
of his death.
Bush will lie in state in the Rotunda of the US Capitol from Monday evening
Wednesday morning, under the watchful gaze of an around-the-clock honors
guard.
The casket will then be transported to the cathedral for the funeral
service — the fourth there of a former president.
Trump has said he and wife Melania will attend. Dozens of foreign leaders
and US luminaries are expected. Former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney
told Politico he will deliver one of several eulogies at the service, at
Bush’s request.
Former US first lady Michelle Obama said she was canceling book tour visits
to Paris and Berlin to attend the “important” funeral and honor Bush’s
“tremendous contributions to our world.”
The casket will then be flown back on the presidential plane to Houston,
where the former head of state will lie in repose at St Martin’s Episcopal
Church — where the Bushes worshiped for decades — until a funeral service
at 1700 GMT Thursday.
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The remains will then be transported by train for interment on the grounds
of the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas. Bush will
be buried next to his wife Barbara, who died in April, and their daughter
Robin, who died of leukemia aged three.
– Tributes from friends –
Baker, who served Bush as secretary of state, joined others in paying warm
tribute on Sunday television talk shows.
Baker called him “far and away the best one-term president we have ever
had,” alluding to Bush’s single biggest political failure — his loss in the
1992 election to then-governor Bill Clinton.
Baker instead emphasized his friend’s foreign policy successes: navigating
the end of the Cold War, negotiating two nuclear arms reduction treaties, and
summoning a varied global coalition to eject Iraqi troops from Kuwait in the
first Gulf War.
Colin Powell, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during that
war, said he was confident in Bush’s leadership because, as a World War II
veteran, “he knew what combat was all about. He knew it meant the death of
people… He wanted to avoid a war.”
– Lifelong partnership –
Baker was a young lawyer in Houston grieving his wife’s untimely death when
Bush, his tennis partner, persuaded him to try something new: help Bush run
for office.
That partnership eventually took Baker to a career as secretary of state
and secretary of the Treasury — and Bush to the White House.
Baker saw his friend several times in his final days.
The former president had struggled for years with Parkinson’s disease,
which left him wheelchair-bound and often hospitalized — including after
Barbara’s death. After each time “he would bounce back,” Baker said on ABC.
But by Friday, “he began to go downhill… He hadn’t eaten for three or
four days.”
Still, when an aide told Bush his friend was visiting that day, “he perked
up. He opened his eyes. He looked at me, he says, ‘Hey, Bake. Where we
going?'”
“We’re going to heaven,” Baker said.
Bush replied: “Good, that’s where I want to go.”
Baker said Bush’s last words, in a phone conversation with son George W.
Bush, were these: “I love you, too.”
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