Bring Back Reagan
The future of an airport.

By John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
September 17, 2001 2:50 p.m.

fter a 1983 terrorist attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon left 241 soldiers dead and 105 injured, President Reagan insisted that the United States wouldn't back down: "We must be more determined than ever that [terrorists] cannot take over that vital and strategic part of the earth or, for that matter, any other part of the earth."

What a shame if the airport named after that president were to shut down in the wake of last Tuesday's attacks. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport remains closed today; it looks like a 21st-century ghost town. There are some suggestions that it may not open for commercial air travel ever again.

The reason is its proximity to Washington, D.C. As anybody who has taken off to the north knows, some of the most spectacular views of the national capital may be had by people sitting in window seats on the side of the plane facing eastward. Just as it probably won't be possible for a long time to look at jumbo jets and not think of aerial terrorism, it may not be possible to take in that city scene and not think about Osama bin Laden's wish list of destruction.

Yet there are some practical points to be made here. None of the hijacked planes left from Reagan National. The one that crashed into the Pentagon departed from Washington Dulles International Airport, which lies outside the Beltway in Virginia and serves the D.C. metropolitan area. The plane that was reportedly intended to slam into the Capitol, before plunging into the Pennsylvania countryside, left from Newark, N.J. For some reason, these terrorists skipped over Reagan National.

If an airport in D.C. deserves to be boarded up, why not Dulles — the one that's close enough to pose a significant threat but far enough to let a plane gain some deadly speed and altitude? From right across the Potomac, a plane flying from Reagan National may not have enough momentum to inflict maximum damage or enough space to maneuver with much precision. Besides, hijackers presumably need some time to do their hijacking, which they prefer to do airborne. A takeoff from Washington, D.C., would be out of sight before that could happen.

If proximity really is the problem, though, how many other cities have airports near prime terrorist targets? New York's LaGuardia certainly comes to mind. Perhaps Washington, D.C., is uniquely vulnerable because it is the seat of our government. And so perhaps it should become the most secure airport in the country — armed guards patrolling the concourses, marshals on the flights, and every employee a U.S. citizen.

The most compelling reason to re-open Reagan National, though, concerns symbolism. Following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the Secret Service convinced President Clinton to block off Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House. That decision undermined the spirit of democracy by turning the executive mansion into more of a bunker than it already was. It also seemed possible to reverse: In an interview with NR last year, candidate Bush said he favored re-opening it.

Now everything shifts to Reagan National — the Pennsylvania Avenue of this latest terrorist attack. The irony of President Reagan's words in 1983 — "We must be more determined than ever that [terrorists] cannot take over that vital and strategic part of the earth or, for that matter, any other part of the earth" — is that they turned out not to be true: The United States soon pulled out of Lebanon entirely.

The terrorists already have taken too much from us. Let's not abandon Reagan National Airport, too.

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Fiamma Nirenstein writes in Commentary on "How Suicide Bombers are Made".