Pandemonium

THE KAMIKAZE

OUTSIDE DENVER, COLORADO, 1955

A plane roared up from behind them, so low it blew off the president’s ball cap. Eisenhower was in midswing. He sliced badly, sending the ball into the trees, and jerked his head up to stare at the underbelly of the aircraft. He could make out rivets.

The plane zoomed away, disappeared over the next hill. The president cursed, something he rarely did. He turned to his golfing partner that day, George E. Allen, and said, “What the hell do those boys think they’re doing?”

“Those boys” referred to the pilots of nearby Lowry Air Force Base, where Eisenhower kept his summer White House. Planes were frequently overhead, but they’d never buzzed the golf course. Allen laughed. “You ought to say something to their commander-inchief.” Even though Allen was a former secretary of the Democratic National Committee and an advisor to Truman, the two men rarely talked politics. Eisenhower valued their friendship, as well as the fact that Allen’s handicap was larger than Eisenhower’s fourteen.

The president placed another ball on the tee, and grunted as he stood