Clinton Shares Spotlight With C-17

Mostly, they wanted to talk about the plane, their plane.

The workers at the McDonnell Douglas plant in Long Beach, thousands of them, stood in the sun Friday waiting for President Clinton to arrive. And in front of them, serving as a backdrop to the podium, stood the two huge C-17 Globemasters.

They were painted a dull gray, these great hulking pieces of machinery. Clinton himself had flown on one when he visited the troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina, turning a C-17 into Air Force One for the day. At the end of the trip, he had dubbed it “the world’s best moving van.” The reputation of the plane, while still new to the Air Force fleet, was growing already.

And word was out Friday that Clinton was going to ask Congress to approve the purchase of 80 more C-17s, ensuring thousands of jobs for years to come in a city that has been racked by economic hardship.

“I think it’s good that he’s coming,” said Abiel Zepeda, a mechanic who specializes in the aircraft nose.

“He helped a lot,” said his friend Larry Martinez.

But that was enough about Clinton. The thing that made them, and others, want to talk was the airplane itself. “I think it’s awesome,” Martinez said. “All that hard work, suffering through layoffs, cutting costs. There’s a lot of pride here. I think it’s a major accomplishment.”

A short distance away Al Ross, a planning manager, was standing with two of his friends waiting for the speeches to begin. He had been with McDonnell Douglas for 40 years, working on the construction of eight different aircraft. But the C-17, he said, was in a class by itself.

“This is the best military aircraft built yet,” he said. “People haven’t seen what this aircraft can do. What it’s done in Bosnia is mind-boggling.”

What it did was do more with fewer missions. In a one-week period, the C-17s carried a third of the troops and half the cargo while flying only 29% of the missions in the NATO-sponsored peacekeeping effort. Because of its enormous size, it was the only aircraft capable of carrying heavy equipment into the military headquarters at Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Air Force One touched down at the Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center about 10 a.m. Lt. Gov. Gray Davis and a handful of local officials greeted Clinton, who waved to the media and shook hands with a few military personnel before he was taken by motorcade to the McDonnell Douglas plant in Long Beach.

Fifteen minutes after the ceremony was scheduled to begin there, the Lakewood High School band struck up “Hail to the Chief” as Clinton strode up and took his place on the podium with McDonnell Douglas brass and state politicos.

Also on the podium was Betty Cavanagh, a line worker whose career with the company began 44 years ago. In introducing Clinton, she let it drop that she was a loyal Republican. But she said her heart skipped a beat when she saw Clinton deplaning from the C-17 on the trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

“I have never been more proud . . . seeing you walk out the back end of an airplane I helped to build,” she said.

Clinton gave her a hug at the end of the introduction.

“I’ve never had more fun hugging a Republican,” he quipped.

In his speech, Clinton reflected on his trip, including his not-so-fond memory of the hard, molded plastic seats in the plane. And he said that because of the plane’s ability to land almost anywhere, it was now “the savior from the sky.”

It was all a prelude to the announcement that he was asking Congress to approve an order for 80 more C-17s over seven years, which he said would make the deal the nation’s longest and largest Defense Department contract. The current contract calls for 40 C-17s at a cost of $1.87 billion.

The crowd roared with approval, clapping and whooping at the announcement.

Then it was over, as Clinton went off to a visit with Long Beach officials before heading off for a round of golf and an evening meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto.

The crowd began to file out, with some lingering to catch one last glimpse of the president.

“It’s a bunch of mixed feelings inside the plant about his visit,” said Rip Nevels, who specializes in wing building. “We know it’s an election year, but we give him credit for pushing the C-17. He could have voted against it.”

A security guard at the gate who had not been able to watch the speech spotted a woman in the crowd he knew.

“Well, how was it?” he asked.

“It was great,” she replied. “We’ll be working for a while.”