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CHAPTER 1
FLIGHT OF THE "TURKEY BIRD"
Governor Reagan once declared to a group of visitors in his Capitol office, when Merv Amerine dropped by.
During WWII Mervin Amerine flew B-29 Superfortress bombers. He and his fellow airmen of the 3 Photo-Reconnaissance Squadron took some of the original photos before and after the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
Twenty-some years later, during Ronald Reagan's 1966 Campaign for Governor of California, Amerine with his wife, Nancy as stewardess, flew the actor who had refused to fly — Ron Reagan — to previously unreachable campaign stops in as many out-of-the-way towns and hamlets in the boonies of the huge state as possible — with Reagan seated in the co-pilot's seat at the controls, in what has been described as Donald Douglas's greatest aeronautical achievement — a lumbering DC-3 — # N-63440! A refinement of the DC-2 — the DC-3 was originally designed and built in 1935, and was the first commercial airliner to fly passengers and make a profit. The Reagan 1966 Campaign transport plane, N-63440 was not built in the 1950's as an airliner as we were originally told, but was constructed, as our research later proved, at Douglas Aircraft Co. in Long Beach, California in 1943 for the U.S. Army Air Corps as a C-47, for troop and cargo transport, and was easily interchangeable.
This tail-dragging, shiny classic with the huge, twin, radial engines, however, had one more unique feature: Normally, it was used to haul up to forty-eight thousand live baby turkeys at a time, all over the country.
These pioneers in the breeding, raising and mass-delivery of turkeys in North America decided, 'out of the blue', cold-turkey, that they wanted to help this uncommon man whom they had never met, Ronald Reagan, run for Governor of California. Merv had been watching RR for some time as he grew into a dynamic speaker.
"We had just come back from the midwest after delivering another load of baby turkeys." Merv then mused, I thought, 'What am I going to do to help Mr. Reagan get elected governor?' "This was the Winter of 1965 / '66." "I had heard parts of a speech or two that he had made. I was a life-long Republican and I was tired of Democrats." "I thought, I'll take one of these three DC-3's of mine. I had all of these seats, twenty-eight, put away in a hangar at our little airport in Oakdale (CA Central Valley) and we'll fly Mr. Reagan wherever he needs to go for his campaign." " So I told Nancy about it when I got back." And she said, 'Yeah, and you're going to go to the moon, huh?'
Then Nancy chimed in to confirm she had also said, 'Oh, you are, huh?'
Merv said he didn't know anybody connected with the campaign — anybody!
"I just took my Airline Pilot's credentials and license, went up to San Francisco to the Reagan for Governor Campaign Committee headquarters" (at that time it may have been the Northern CA offices of Spencer-Roberts & Associates, frequented by Northern CA Chairman Tom Reed who would have thought this was a most fortuitous gift from the heavens). The words: 'Airline Transport Pilot DC-3' were written across the license.' Merv said, "I presented these, told the staff about my airplanes down at Oakdale, California, and told them I'd like to help them out flying Mr. Reagan, wherever he needed to go." Nita Wentner Ashcraft, former Vice Chairman of Finance for the Northern California Campaign, confirmed this in 2006. "Now Ronald Reagan didn't like to fly. He refused to fly — until this campaign started!" "Then he realized he had to fly (due to the size and shape of California) with San Francisco up here so far from Los Angeles." "Amerine not only presented his credentials but also mentioned his county Reagan chairman where he had come from and he knew a number of people who were easily checked out and who knew Reagan people. We accepted him right after his visit," Wentner said. "I remember the jokes about how Merv would have to clean out the turkey poop to get ready for the next campaign flight."
Wentner spent many hours with Reagan driving him around northern California. "We decided to go up the coast one time, and I had a 1964 Lincoln Town Car and Ron loved it. This was before he announced as a candidate for governor. We'd go to little towns and GOP Central Committee meetings — when he said that he wanted to make a tour of the state to see whether people would accept an actor. That was his big problem! He was putting his 'toe-in-the-water.'
I asked Nita how he was received.
"Oh!" "Curtis!" "Like a movie star — with the aura." "People knew him — he had name recognition. It was immediate; with everyone. His days in television helped."
I probed deeper: Without trying to think of the exact words which you and he used, how did he treat you — how did he respond to you?
"He was an absolute gentleman with a great sense of humor! Never as a boss to an employee. No, no, no! Just a genuinely nice person. He had an heroic aura about him! Therefore, when Mervin Amerine came into the office and presented his "Turkey Bird" — We accepted!"
"It wasn't just Amerine and his airplane who were in awe of RR, Paul Haerle, an attorney, Marin County Reagan Chairman and later to become Appointments Secretary, following Tom Reed, and still later, an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeals, came to his first meeting, along with other business people, with a check in his hand to help give the fledgling campaign a 'jump-start,'" Nita said. (See Paul's chapter in Vol.2.)
* * *
The "Turkey-Bird" takes off: filled with press, media crews, advance- staff and candidate Reagan; sometimes at the controls.
"Well, I can remember the first place that I picked candidate Reagan up was in a little town called Calistoga up in the heart of the Napa Valley. We met — walked around the airplane, talked about the airplane, where we were goin' that day, got in, cranked her up and away we went! I knew that the runway at Calistoga was short (about 1,000 feet long / modern jet airliners need eight to ten thousand feet of runway) gravel and asphalt and used mainly by people who were flying gliders and sail-planes. And to this day they still hook their little gliders to 'tug' planes and tow them into the air to catch the thermals coming up from the ridges ringing the manicured, verdant vineyards of the Napa Valley."
I asked Merv how he got permission to land and takeoff on that short little field.
Merv said, "I called the glider clubs and told them, 'Hey, I plan to come in there with a DC-3.'" And they said, 'Hey, you're crazy!' I said, 'No I'm not, I fly in and out of Oakdale all the time and we've only got a little over a thousand feet of runway here so I'm not concerned about your airport.' "All I can remember is; at the end of the runway was the main street in Calistoga! So, when I got ready to take off, I remember looking back and — Boy! — I really had that dust roiling up — (clouds of dust from the props on those thundering, thousand-horsepower, radial engines which sounded like a dozen crop- dusting bi-planes all revving their engines at the same time) — but I never heard anything (adverse or negative) so I got away with it! I had pulled my gas load way down so the airplane was lighter than normal, so that I could get airborne quicker."
I asked Merv how he thought the candidate's advisors and campaign consultants had been able to talk Ronald Reagan into agreeing to do this; because he didn't want to fly in anything. He wanted to drive, take a bus or the train. The only thing that we could come up with was the fact that Merv had impeccable flying credentials, with years of experience in all types of multi-engine aircraft and that the DC-3's had a reputation for being some of the toughest planes in the air; both as cargo-transports and commercial passenger liners. The military loved them, i.e., The C-47's flying over the 'Hump' in Indochina in WWII.
Pertaining to the 'stamp-of-approval,' Merv, the handsome, no- nonsense, quintessential pilot found an affinity with Reagan from their first encounter in the California Wine Country.
He said, "We got along just great from the moment we met. I don't remember anything special." Referring to the reason he, Nancy Amerine and the "Turkey Bird" were accepted almost immediately.
It may have been Reagan's optimism, after meeting the Amerines.
Merv said, "I can remember, Mr. Reagan rode in the co-pilot's seat — he wondered about this and that on the control panel — we just chatted and talked like we're talkin' right now."
* * *
"After he was elected governor, we were at a meeting in his office in the Capitol one day — I happened to be there and I don't know why he happened to say this but when he saw me he said, 'Mr. Amerine has done more to ease my concerns about flying than anybody!' "He really got a kick out of it!" "We'd be comin' in to land and we were just like — seasoned pilots and old friends — I mean — there he was just sitting right up there in the cockpit with me — he was only three feet away from me on the other side of the cockpit — watching everything that went on — all the procedures." I'd say, 'Now, we're going to make a power change — I'd tell him why — that we're going to go back to level flight, to a cruise speed and I'm going to reduce my power.' "I'd pull the throttles back slowly — change the RPM, and that didn't bother Mr. R. a bit. And that old DC-3 would just be pluggin' along — like a Caterpillar tractor. There has never been another plane built like it — and there never will be, again!"
I reminded Merv that he carried numerous members of the media and the working press along with three or four members of the candidate's staff, including myself; on most flights. Sometimes the plane was full.
Merv said, "You remember, Curtis, it got to be kind of a joke — but it was just part of the process, too: If I happened to make a landing that was a little better than the normal bounce — why, everybody aboard would gobble (shrill) like turkeys and clap and then go 'gobble — gobble — gobble!'"
Yes! It was wild, I recalled; a live turkey call from twenty-eight people in unison.
"Unfortunately, I never got a recording of that — but I should have," Merv said. He went on, "But I sure remember the gobbling that came forward from the back end of the plane; if I made a nice, smooth landing."
It was priceless and loud and put everyone in a jovial mood. I questioned Merv about landing in those little towns all over the back-country of California, since a lot of folks came out to the airports and landing strips to see us when we would arrive or depart.
"Oh, Yeah!" "There'd be people who'd come out to see the landing and takeoff operations — and get a chance to get a little closer to the candidate — or maybe chat with him for a second. Going back for a moment, after this takeoff from Calistoga, we went to San Andreas (the heart of the Mother Lode Gold Country on the Western slope of the High Sierra) where RR had an evening speech to make at the fairgrounds. Almost any place you could go with a (smaller) general aviation airplane; you could go with that DC-3."
"It was night by the time the speech was over — it was dark when we took off — it may have been one of the few times I took him back to Los Angeles, where he went home to rest for a few days from the rigors of the campaign trail. We'd land as close as we could to where he wanted to go — home, of course — so we would land at Santa Monica Airport by the old Douglas plant."
Then, the Amerines would have to fly the "Turkey Bird" back to their home base in Oakdale, CA, way to the north. They would work 24 / 7 usually at NO charge — it was their donation to the campaign — and they never complained!
* * *
I asked how he and Reagan got along, throughout their relationship.
"We hit it off right away! Right from the very first we liked each other. Of course, he had an outgoing personality and I have too: I've got a little Irish in me. That helped a lot about easing any tension. I was comfortable and felt confident with my airplane — it's ability and my ability."
* * *
"The DC-3 we actually flew the campaign in, I had purchased from an airline that was re-tooling with more modern equipment and it was retiring it's DC-3,'s. The purpose of the whole thing was to make it possible for us to place our product, day old baby turkeys, into the national market and you could not hatch them in California and truck them any distance; so the airplane just fit in perfectly. These turkeys were relatively light and I can remember several times I had almost fifty-thousand baby turkeys on board. I could go from a people-hauling configuration to cargo configuration in about half an hour."
It was still an amazing twist of fate, for our transportation plans, when the Amerines came along — thinking back over our thirty-nine year friendship: We on the Reagan staff found it fascinating and a vital link to our success! We just found it was a wonderful way to get the entire press corp, their bags, typewriters, cameras and other paraphernalia, the candidate, staff and our necessary equipment around California. It was certainly unique. I thought it was important to tell Merv and Nancy, after a thirty-year hiatus, 'We in the advance and scheduling staff spent a great deal of time, in 1965 and early 1966, discussing how we were going to get the candidate around the state. Then you came along and I thought, This man is never going to fly in that plane. And you two made it happen!' 'Thanks!'
Merv grinned and said, "And — after it was all over — I think he really enjoyed it!
After that Calistoga to San Andreas flight, he got out of the plane, we shook hands and that was it!" 'It was obvious, RR was hooked, sold and confident,' I recalled to Merv.
* * *
"We were in Eureka (the wet north coast of CA) The schedule called for an evening speech, at a men's club, in Eureka — then after that we were going to take Mr. Reagan back to his home in L.A.; about a three and a half hour trip in the DC-3. One of the fellas on board that time was with one of the liberal newspapers or magazines and he was a little negative about this whole operation — so I let him fly the airplane a little bit —'chewed the fat' with him — and made a friend out of him. I put him right up there in the co- pilot's seat. The reporter loved it, and could go back and tell the folks at home he had flown a DC-3!"
* * *
Governor Reagan depended on Merv Amerine over the years, as a friend and an expert in his field, having learned of his history in aviation beginning in their days in the cockpit aboard the "Turkey Bird.," and he recognized that Amerine had managed airports in the Central Valley, in addition to running his four-ship, turkey transport, airline.
Shortly after taking office, the governor appointed Amerine to the California Aeronautics Board, where he served for nearly eight years and became its chairman.
The Reagans invited the Amerines to both the 1980 and 1984 Presidential Inaugurations and they were even guests at the White House at some of the Thanksgiving Day "Save the Turkey" ceremonies, replete with live turkeys receiving Presidential Pardons.
CHAPTER 2
A PILLAR OF STRENGTH & THE VOICE OF REASON
"As an example, if he heard that a staff meeting was running late at the end of the day, and it was time for him to go (home) to 45 St.; he'd stick his head in the door and tell us, "Alright, you guys and gals, get home to your spouses and your kids; the day is over." And we'd laugh and say, 'Yes, Governor, just give us five more minutes!'
And he'd say, "You promise only five?" And we'd say, 'Sure!' "And we'd normally be there an hour or two more, after he left for home. He always worried that we were, maybe, spending too much time in the office and not enough time in our home life."
"It was a marvelous partnership, as he called it, teamwork, that lead to saving at least some aspects of our culture; both in this country and worldwide, as we look back today (2006)."
* * *
"From our very first day together, I was drawn to this great citizen by his loyalty, integrity and discretion — all revealed in both minor moments and in crises." Bill Clark appeared to have been born on a horse from the first day I met him. I grew up on a ranch and Bill reminded me of the many down-to-earth, no-nonsense cattle ranchers, farmers and grass roots Americans whom I had met over the years in this great country; outside of the large, heavily-populated, mainstream cities. Bill rose like an eagle to a mountain top to accept a number of top jobs and special assignments in his private and public life.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Reagan"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Curtis Patrick.
Excerpted by permission of Morgan James Publishing.
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