In the late 1960s and early '70s, now-retired Air Force colonel Ralph Albertazzie was commander and pilot of Air Force One. Jerry terHorst (whose name, as Garry Trudeau once observed, looks like a typo) was a decades-long member of the White House press corps and first press secretary for President Gerald Ford. Between them, they had the skills and experience to produce a serviceable, and entertainingly personal, history of Air Force One. Although the book is now more than a little out of date, it's nevertheless a good overview of the first four decades of presidential air travel.

Most interesting, given Albertazzie's personal insights, are the authors' stories of Henry Kissinger's secret trips to Europe for peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese, his equally clandestine trip to China to prepare for President Nixon's public one in 1972 (Albertazzie piloted both trips), and -- in the chapter that opens the book -- Citizen Nixon's post-resignation flight back home to California.

The Air Force One of today is almost incomprehensibly advanced relative to the one Albertazzie flew. Nevertheless, for readers interested in the accoutrements of presidential power, tracking down a copy of this book is worth a little effort.