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American Morning

George W. Bush Continues Presidential Tradition of Traveling Abroad

Aired June 14, 2001 - 09:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, as we continue our coverage of President Bush's first overseas trip as president. This may be his first trip, but it continues a long tradition of presidents traveling abroad.

And our Garrick Utley takes a look at some of the sights and the challenges of a president on the road.

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GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): How often we have seen this: presidents and first ladies maintaining dignity and balance while descending the steep stairs of Air Force One arriving in a distant land. They've been doing it for some time.

Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to travel outside the United States when he visited the Panama Canal in 1906. Woodrow Wilson was the first president to visit Europe for the peace conference following World War I. He spent a total of six months there, the longest a president has stayed outside the United States.

Franklin Roosevelt was the first president to travel abroad by plane, to North Africa in World War II. But the flight took two days and was so uncomfortable that Mr. Roosevelt took the boat for his other trips overseas.

(on camera): Clearly, presidents would not get the itch to travel the world until something faster and smoother came along. It was the 707. In 1959, Dwight Eisenhower flew off in it to visit 11 nations in 18 days, a presidential record that still stands.

(voice-over): Presidential trips have been about symbols and rhetoric. The trips have also been about substance. There was no way Richard Nixon could make the historic open into China without going to China.

As important as the trips are for leaders to get to know each other, they have lost some of their old grandeur. What they have not lost is their cost. When Bill Clinton visited six African nations in 1998, it took 10 advance teams to prepare for the visit, 98 military airlifts to fly in 13 helicopters, five emergency medical facilities, as well as assorted limousines and other equipment. Thirteen hundred federal officials went along on the trip. And that does not include Secret Service personnel.

The government's General Accounting Office put the cost of the visit at over $48 million.

(on camera): But, then, neither the president nor anyone else on Air Force One gets frequent flyer miles. And despite all the comforts of their own 747 today, presidents still face some of the same problems of any global traveler.

(voice-over): There is the fatigue of jet lag, as Ronald Reagan discovered on his trips. There can be tummy troubles, as George Bush found at a dinner table in Japan.

And if George Bush was the second most traveling president ever, who was the first? No surprise: Bill Clinton, who made 122 visits to 74 countries. George W. Bush, after this trip, will be at six countries and counting.

Garrick Utley, CNN, New York.

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