How Kerry turned the corner
WASHINGTON – As the single-engine Beechcraft plunged down, picking up speed, John Kerry said, "Give it to me." It was the late 1960s and Kerry and two Navy buddies had rented the plane for an off-duty jaunt from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. One of the friends was a military pilot, who perhaps hadn't realized that puddle jumpers don't barrel roll quite like F-4s.
The plane fell out of the maneuver, and Kerry - who'd earned his pilot wings while at Yale - worried aloud that the wings would pull off. He insisted on taking control.
"He slowly pulled it out ... not that far off the ground," remembers the third man in the plane, longtime Kerry confidante David Thorne.
Some 35 years later, it is John Kerry's candidacy for President of the United States that has recovered to zoom skyward. In one of the most stunning turnabouts in recent US political history Senator Kerry has gone from laggard to a likely nominee in under four weeks.
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How Kerry turned the corner