My latest article, “Angel is Airborne,” is out in the new November Washingtonian, recreating the most famous Air Force One flight of all time—LBJ’s trip back from Dallas on November 22, 1963, and all of the drama, history, and personal conflict that played out on the 132-minute flight back. (“Angel,” as you may know, is the codename for Air Force One.)
It’s a mammoth article, the biggest we’ve published in fifteen years—over 18,000 words split across two parts—and it’s got a special fancy treatment online from our web team, which is worth checking out even if you’re not going to read the piece.
The story also includes rarely seen documents and photos, like the photos of JFK’s casket being loaded onto Air Force One in Dallas, LBJ’s handwritten to-do list upon becoming president, and the original flight manifest, hurriedly written by an Air Force steward on board that day. When I first found the manifest in the archives at the LBJ Library this summer, which begins with LBJ and Lady Bird and continues through the 40-some passengers the steward recorded, my heart stopped at his final notation scrawled across the bottom: “Body of Pres K—.”
This piece marks a new experiment for Washingtonian: We published only the first part of the article in the print magazine—to read the whole article, including “Part II: In the Air,” readers can either download the Washingtonian tablet edition or go online.
We’ve also released the whole piece as Washingtonian’s first ebook, “Angel is Airborne: JFK’s Final Flight from Dallas,” available on the Amazon Kindle or the B&N Nook. Download it now!
UPDATES: Some nice mentions for the piece in Smithsonian’s “Air & Space” and by the journalism site The Millions, which calls “Angel” some of the best long-form journalism of the year.
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