On the Road a Way of Life for Bush : Traveling President Is Away From White House 1 Day in 3

A hundred years ago, it was nothing like this. When a President left Washington, D.C., to take the White House to the people, he and a small group of aides traveled in a private railroad car hooked on to a regularly scheduled train. The excursions were rare, and could last for days.

On Sunday, President Bush, spending a cloudy Columbus Day weekend at Camp David in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains, left the presidential retreat at 11 a.m. and flew by Marine Corps helicopter to the biennial convention of the National Federation of Republican Women in Baltimore, where he delivered a low-key speech summing up the first 8 1/2 months of his Administration. Within a little more than two hours, he was back at Camp David.

And on Thursday, he’s planning a one-day journey for more Republican politicking, in Mississippi and New York City.

Visited 74 Countries

For Bush, who visited 74 countries during his eight years as vice president, getting on a helicopter or airplane and going someplace--anyplace, it would seem--is more than just a means of getting from here to there.

It is a way of life.

“He’s probably our most peripatetic President,” said Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution scholar on the presidency and a White House aide during the tenure of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Consider, for instance, Bush’s recent travel schedule:

--On Sept. 18, he flew to South Dakota, Montana and Washington state--to speak about conservation and to plant trees as each state celebrated its centennial. He was back in Washington about 34 hours after he left.

--On Sept. 22 he was on the road again, this time to speak at a Republican Party fund-raising luncheon in New Jersey. Then, he headed for his vacation home in Maine.

--On Sept. 23, it was Boston, for a luncheon of Roman Catholic lawyers.

--On Sept. 25, he addressed the U.N. General Assembly, and returned to Washington at midnight after a diplomatic dinner in New York.

--On Sept. 27, he flew to Charlottesville, Va., to take part in a two-day national education conference.

--Barely 12 hours after returning to the White House, he was on his way again, an hour before sunup, to inspect the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina. Later he flew to Annapolis, Md., for a farewell to Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

His daily travel entourage: several dozen aides, Secret Service agents, medical personnel, reporters, television and radio crews, photographers, stenographers and military communications experts--all transported in a fleet of jet aircraft, helicopters or buses.

Bush’s assistants insist that such journeys satisfy more than a presidential wanderlust.

By traveling throughout the nation, “the President gets a good feeling for issues people are concerned about, and reaction to his initiatives,” said a senior White House official.

“You really do have to get out of the (White House) complex to understand what Americans are thinking about. This place can become too enclosed to give you a good feel for how people outside are really thinking, and he likes to do it,” said the aide.

There is another side to such travel: Bush makes big news locally whenever he does it.

When Bush spoke in Sioux Falls a couple of weeks ago at the Joe Foss Arena, a cavernous home for rodeos and basketball games, there too were the ABC and CBS affiliates and the South Dakota public broadcasting network, to carry the President’s speech west across the state.

And the people turn out. In Helena, Mont., population 29,938, hundreds of residents lined his motorcade route on a crisp afternoon when the temperature barely reached 48 degrees and hundreds more--perhaps several thousand--flocked to the lawn of the state Capitol for the President’s address on the need for “a sound ecology and a strong economy.”

The ultimate value of such appearances “isn’t lost on the first-term President who wants to run for reelection,” Hess said. “To be out with the people--that never hurts a politician.”

‘With the People’

So far, Bush has been “out with the people” on 40 days since taking office. In addition, he’s been to Europe twice, to Asia and to Canada, and has spent vacation days at his summer home in Kennebunkport, Me., all of which adds up to approximately 90 days outside the nation’s capital. That is an average of more than one day out of three.

The pace has been torrid, compared with his recent predecessors:

--Ronald Reagan, injured by a would-be assassin barely two months into his first term, didn’t get to Europe until midway into his second year in office. Much of his domestic travel ended up in Santa Barbara, for lengthy vacations, and he spent approximately one day out of seven during his presidency in California.

--Jimmy Carter spent nine days overseas during his first year in office, and 18 days on the road in domestic presidential activities, according to a record compiled for the 1982 study, “The President & The Public,” edited by Doris A. Graber and published by the Institute for the Study of Human Issues, in Philadelphia.

Indeed, Bush has even outpaced Lyndon B. Johnson, who appeared to be constantly on the move, especially during the election year of 1964, when he was on the road 69 days.

Although presidential travel overseas is now fairly common, it was not until Woodrow Wilson sailed aboard the steamship George Washington in December, 1918, just after World War I drew to a close, that a President crossed the Atlantic.

The arrival of the jet aircraft, of course, produced a dramatic change in not only the pace, but the frequency, of presidential travel, making possible “simultaneous extensive use of the White House and U.S. appearances,” the 1982 study noted.

It is not unusual for Bush to hold White House meetings in the morning, duck out of town for a speech a few hundred miles away, and be back in time for dinner.

Jimmy Carter managed a trip from Washington to Fresno and Los Angeles, and back to Washington, in one day.

Air Force One, the presidential jet, can also be turned around in the midst of a routine trip to wing the President back to Washington at a moment’s notice to deal with a sudden crisis.

Bush hastily canceled a Midwest trip in midstream two months ago to return to Washington and meet with advisers on developments in Lebanon, when he received word that an American hostage, Col. William R. Higgins, had been killed. Similarly, Reagan cut short a Santa Barbara vacation when a Soviet jet fighter shot down a Korean Airlines 747 in 1983.

Dramatic Flights

Such dramatic flights back to Washington are just that: dramatic. But they are not always necessary.

With the extensive communications network that travels with a President, Hess said, “he can function very efficiently somewhere else. But people start to question that. If you’re up in Kennebunkport and a crisis happens and you rush back to Washington, you don’t have to, but it’s symbolic.”

For Bush, the frequent travel allows him to set himself apart from Reagan--if not by the pace itself, then by his effort to reach the American people through a more hands-on approach.

“He follows the oldest President in American history and a President who was so good at speaking from the Oval Office,” said Hess. So instead of staying home and addressing the American public via television--he gave his first nationwide Oval Office address just a month ago--Bush has taken to the road.

So far, Bush has visited 28 states, including Alaska, as President. There have been lively rumors that he will try to hit all 50 by Jan. 20, the first anniversary of his inauguration. White House officials won’t confirm the goal, and privately question its wisdom.

“This isn’t the campaign,” one said. But, he added: “We’ve got four months to go.”

Researcher Pat Welch contributed to this story.