''The President's Plane Is Missing'' is a 1967 novel by

Robert J. Serling Robert Jerome Serling (born Jerome Robert Serling; March 28, 1918 – May 6, 2010) was an American novelist and aviation writer. Biography Born in Cortland, New York and raised in Binghamton, Serling graduated from Antioch College in 1942. He ...

. The book was made into a made-for-TV film by the same name, which aired on 23 October 1973 in the United States. The book tells the story of a crash of

Air Force One Air Force One is the official air traffic control designated call sign for a United States Air Force aircraft carrying the president of the United States. In common parlance, the term is used to denote U.S. Air Force aircraft modified and used ...

in remote terrain and the uncertainty stemming from the lack of confirmation whether the president of the United States is alive or dead. The vice president, an unpopular figure, pressures the

cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

to declare him acting president under the terms of the

25th Amendment The Twenty-fifth Amendment (Amendment XXV) to the United States Constitution deals with presidential succession and disability. It clarifies that the vice president becomes president if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office, a ...

so he can address a growing crisis with China with a pre-emptive nuclear strike. ''The President's Plane Is Missing'' spent multiple weeks on ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list, and its success enabled Serling to become a full-time writer. Serling later penned a sequel to the novel entitled ''Air Force One Is Haunted'', in which the ghost of President

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

haunts the incumbent president whenever he boards Air Force One.

Synopsis

Air Force One crashes in a storm in a remote area and the badly-burned and scattered bodies cannot be definitively identified, making it impossible to confirm that President Jeremy Haines has been killed, which would allow his vice president, Fred Madigan, to automatically assume the presidency. In this uncertainty, and amid a growing crisis with China that threatens to lead to war, Madigan (a weak character, pushed along by his ambitious wife) contemplates invoking Article Three the 25th Amendment to become acting president, though he needs majority support from the cabinet to do so. He was not privy to Haines's plans, and receives contradictory advice from the

national security advisor A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils. National sec ...

(who claims Haines was ready to declare war) and the secretary of state (who insists Haines was planning a more peaceful way of containing the threat). The cabinet is split on the issue and tensions increase when Madigan declares that once acting president, he will launch a pre-emptive strike on China. The novel's climax is the sudden appearance of Haines, alive and well. He'd never been on Air Force One (and had sent a look-alike to board the plane in his place), but instead had secretly traveled to

Camp David Camp David is the country retreat for the president of the United States of America. It is located in the wooded hills of Catoctin Mountain Park, in Frederick County, Maryland, near the towns of Thurmont and Emmitsburg, about north-northwe ...

for highly-sensitive treaty negotiations with the leader of the Soviet Union to contain China. Only the secretary of state knew of the plan but had been sworn to secrecy lest the treaty negotiation fail.

Film

In 1973 a film adaptation of the book was aired on television, starring Peter Graves and Buddy Ebsen. Filming for ''The President's Plane Is Missing'' had been completed in 1971, but Graves reported that the film did not air until 1973 due to the film's villains being Chinese and President Richard Nixon's then negotiations with China.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:President's Plane is Missing, The (novel) 1967 American novels American novels adapted into films American political novels American thriller novels Aviation novels Doubleday (publisher) books Political thriller novels