JACKIE
In May 1953, a pilot named Jacqueline Cochran set a new world speed record of 652 mph on a one-hundred-kilometer course at Edwards, flying a Canadian-built Sabre. Jackie's record was my project. I was her teacher and chase pilot.
I first met her in 1947, not long after I broke the sound barrier, in Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington's office. She was a tall, blonde woman in her forties. "I'm Jackie Cochran," she said, pumping my hand. "Great job, Captain Yeager. We're all proud of you." She invited me to lunch, acting as if I should know exactly who she was, and caused an uproar just entering the posh Washington restaurant. The owner began bowing and scraping, and the waiters went flying. During the meal she sent back every other course, complaining loudly, and even marched into the kitchen to give the chef hell.
In between pumping me for all the details of my X-1 flights, I learned a little about who she was. She was a honcho on several important aviation boards and committees and was a famous aviatrix before the war, winner of the Bendix air races, she had been a close friend of Amelia Earhart's. During the war she was a colonel, in charge of the WASPs, the Women's Air Force Service Pilots, who ferried B-17 bombers to England. Hell, she knew everybody and bounced all over the world: on VE Day, she was one of the first Americans to get down inside Hitler's bunker in Berlin, and came away with a gold doorknob off his bathroom by trading for it with a Russian soldier for a pack of Lucky Strikes. On VJ Day she was in Tokyo, playing poker with a couple of generals on MacArthur's staff and conned her way on board the battleship Missouri to watch the surrender ceremonies. As I would learn more than once over the next couple of decades, when Jackie Cochran set her mind to do something, she was a damned Sherman tank at full steam.
Hap Arnold loved her scrambled eggs and Tooev Spaatz was a drinking buddy. She was as nuts about flying as I was. "If I were a man," she said, "I would've been a war ace like you. I'm a damned good pilot. All these generals would be pounding on my door instead of the other way around. Being a woman I need all the clout I can get." But clout was no problem for Jackie. Her husband was Floyd Odlum, who owned General Dynamics, the Atlas Corporation, RKO, and a bunch of other companies.
We liked each other right off the bat. I could talk flying with her as if she were a regular at Pancho's. She knew airplanes and said flat out that flying was the most important thing in her life. She was tough and bossy and used to getting her own way, but I figured that's how rich people behaved. When we parted that day she said, "Let's stay in touch." We sure did that. Glennis and I became Jackie and Floyd's closest friends. It was a friendship that lasted more than twenty-five years, until their deaths. I was the executor of Floyd's estate. They treated me like an adopted son. I flew around the world with Jackie, and she was right-she was a damned good pilot one of the best. And I'm sure the reason she latched onto me was because for Jackie, nothing but the best would do, and she thought I was the best pilot in the Air Force. Hell, she'd say that to anybody, anytime. She grabbed Bud Anderson on the golf course one day and said, "Andy, isn't Chuck the best pilot you've ever seen?" And Andy said, "Yeah, except when I shave."
Jackie played a big role in my life, and I in hers. It was Jackie who got the Air Force to send that two-star general to examine Glennis when she was so sick. She did it by marching on General Vandenberg the Chief of Staff, and telling him what a disgrace it was that the wife of his X-1A pilot was desperately ill and being neglected. Floyd, who was crippled from arthritis, heard that the doctors thought Glennis had rheumatoid arthritis, and made arrangements for her to receive an exotic drug from the pituitary glands of hogs that cost three thousand dollars a shot, but it was contra-indicated during pregnancy. It was Jackie who decided that I deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor and went to work lobbying everyone from the President on down until I got it. Jackie usually got what she wanted, and she wanted those high speed records. I helped her get them.
I've heard people claim that Jackie got me my general's star. That just isn't so, but I have no doubt that she tried. I met two sitting presidents in her living room, Eisenhower and Johnson. Any Air Force brass that Jackie didn't know on a first-name basis just wasn't worth knowing. Wherever she traveled overseas, she was treated like a visiting head of state. Between her powerful personality and Floyd's power as an industrialist, doors flew open for her. His name and connections were all Jackie needed to blast her way in where she wanted to go, whether it was wild boar hunting in Spain with General Franco or having tea with the queen of Holland or a private audience with the pope. She was always roaring off somewhere, often flying herself in her own Lodestar, with her retinue of private secretary, maid, and hairdresser. If it was a long trip and she needed a good copilot, she'd pull the right strings and get me to go with her. She even got me excused from classes at the War College, something that had never been done before, so that I could attend an international aviation conference and help negotiate some rules regarding world speed and altitude records with the Russians.
There weren't many like Jackie back in Hamlin, for sure. I never met anyone like her, man or woman. She came on like a human steamroller, and she'd take over your life if you let her. She was forever telling me how to talk and act, what tie to wear, what pants and jacket, what speeches to give and which to refuse. Hell, she would do that with presidents. She'd read something in the papers about the Air Force or space program that she didn't like and pick up the telephone to call the White House. One time she didn't get through to Johnson. He called her back, but she told Floyd to tell LBJ she was washing her hair and call back later. Floyd wanted to strangle her, but LBJ did call back.
He also paid a visit to her ranch at Indio. Jackie fed the President lunch; General Eisenhower and myself were also invited. Johnson said to her, "Hey, Jackie, when are you gonna show me that golf course you're always bragging on?" She said, "Right now. Come on, we don t need dessert, we're both fat enough." And she grabbed him and hustled him into her car and took off. Man, General Eisenhower was furious at her. When she got back, he took her aside and blasted her. "Damn it, Jackie, you should know better than that. A civilian never drives a President. My God, what if there was an accident?" Jackie said, "Well, then Lyndon should've said something."
General Eisenhower was almost like family. Floyd and Jackie were his earliest supporters for the presidency, and he used their guest cottage as his office to write his memoirs. The first time she had him over for dinner as President, the White House called to say that Mamie Eisenhower expected to be asked to bring along some guests of her own. Jackie said, "Why, of course." But she turned purple when Mamie's guest list arrived showing thirty names.
For Glennis and me, Jackie's world was something we could never have even imagined. The first time we were invited down to the Cochran-Odlum Ranch was in 1950; it was a three-hour drive from Edwards, about twenty-five miles from Palm Springs driving desert all the way, but the minute we drove through those big gates, it was like entering the Garden of Eden. Thick groves of tangerine and grapefruit trees lined both sides of the driveway, and the perfume from those blossoms made your head swim. Jackie bragged that during spring, she could fly over her ranch at night and smell those blossoms a mile up. I don't doubt it. They owned a thousand acres, and it was all green grass, shade trees, a manmade pond, date-bearing palm trees, oleander and jacaranda, a private nine-hole golf course, a skeet range, stables for a dozen Arabian horses, tennis courts and an Olympic-size swimming pool. That first visit we two desert rats were in a state of shock. We stayed in guest house number one right next to the main house, a six-room cottage, which was always reserved for General Eisenhower. I said to Glennis, "This ain't no cabin up a holler."