I am an eye witness to it. President Eisenhower who had recently returned from Paris after attending the NATO conference there was holding his usual “1st of the Month Meet the Press” conference on December 1st, 1955. A lady reporter, whose name I do not remember, known for her caustically biting questions asked the President, “Mr. President, is it correct that the presidential plane Air Force One on its return voyage from Paris first went to Gettysburg to off load Nancy Eisenhower there before returning to Washington DC?” There was a hush in the hall. The TV cameras zoomed in and the TV screens just showed the full face of the president, where as if from nowhere had suddenly appeared big perspiration beads on his huge broad forehead despite the cold of December. His mouth went dry and rolling his tongue over the dry lips the president of the mightiest nation could just stutter, “I... I am prepared to reimburse to the exchequer the extra expenditure for this detour.”
“No, no, Mr. President, I am sure Uncle Sam can afford such a luxury to the First Lady, I just wanted to be sure if it was correct that the plane did go to the Gettysburg before landing at Washington DC”, retorted the reporter.
And here in our land of the pure Mr. Yousaf Raza Gilani on merely being elected the Leader of the House, took the Presidential plane to Karachi along with his family and a big entourage to attend the wedding of his son and returned the next evening by the same plane to be sworn in as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. No one reporter could dare ask him that in what capacity he had used the plane? Was the Leader of the House entitled to use the official plane and that too for a purely private event? Mind you, he was not the PM then, only an elected leader of the house.
Could someone – say the Chief Justice of Pakistan take suomoto notice of such a flagrant misuse of government property, to serve as a deterrent to others?
COL. RIAZ JAFRI (RETD),
Rawalpindi, September 7.