Talk about Entourage—Obama Does the UK
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Obama inside The Beast
President Barack Obama arrives in Great Britain today, bringing with him the customary—and gargantuan—entourage that recent U.S. presidents have been known to tow along on overseas junkets. No less than 500 officials and staff are accompanying Obama, including 200 Secret Service agents and many others from the White House’s military office and transportation agency; surgeons, nurses and other medical personnel; and White House kitchen staff, as well as officials from the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
Along with the phalanxes of personnel, the president will be accompanied by sophisticated aircraft, helicopters and ground vehicles: Air Force One, a Boeing 747-200B that comes with its own gym, electronic defenses and shielding to protect communications from nuclear blasts; Marine One, the military helicopter that ferries the president across short distances; decoy helicopters; and “the Beast,” a $300,000 presidential limousine sealed to withstand chemical and biological attacks and fitted with night-vision cameras, reinforced steel plating, tear-gas cannon and oxygen tanks.
As massive as Obama’s entourage may seem, it is not the largest of its kind by recent presidents. In September 2007 President Bush, during a typical, unremarkable visit to Australia, brought along not one, not two, but three Jumbo jets (Air Force One plus two C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft), and 700 personnel, including 250 Secret Service agents, 50 political aides, 150 national security advisers, 200 specialists from other government departments, a chef and four cooks.
And then there was the 1,302-strong entourage that accompanied President Bill Clinton on his 1998 journey to Africa, at a cost of $42.8 million.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Prospect of Barack Obama Show Causes UK to Clear its Decks (by Paul Harris and Robin McKie, The Guardian)
Bush has a Back-up or Two for His Jumbo ( by Doug Conway, New Zealand Herald)
Bill Clinton: America's Best-Traveled President -- A Study of Presidential Travel: 1953-2001 (by John Berthoud and Demian Brady, National Taxpayers Union)
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