I was a television script writer for Bob Hope during the 1970s and 1980s and was witness to many exciting and unbelievable events during my years on the road with him.   This is just one of them.

In May 1987, Hope's production crew was airlifted from Van Nuys Airport to Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville, North Carolina aboard the personal plane of Gen. Dwayne Cassidy, the chief of the Air Force’s Military Airlift Command.  There we would tape a 90-minute special celebrating both Hope’s eighty-fifth birthday and the seventy-fifth anniversary of the outfit that had transported him from base-to-base during his overseas Christmas tours during World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Our guest stars, Glen Campbell, Barbara Mandrell, Don Johnson, Emanuel Lewis, Brooke Shields and Phylicia
Rashad, were waiting to go to work. Over the next several days, we rehearsed the show that would be taped before a crowd of four thousand servicemen and their families — as well as soldiers from nearby Ft. Bragg.

Mere hours before taping was to begin, Hope noticed in the morning paper that Reagan was delivering the commencement address at the University of Georgia.  He put a call through to Air Force One already airborne and prevailed upon the president to make a detour and do a cameo on our show.  In this excerpt, from THE LAUGH MAKERS: A Behind-the-Scenes Tribute to Bob Hope's Incredible Gag Writers, you'll hear how he pulled it off.

An audio version of the book will soon be available from Bear Manor Media.  www.bearmanormedia.com