Diary Entry - 07/14/1988
Key Facts
President Reagan flies to Illinois to personally inspect the drought conditions.
President Reagan flies to Iowa and addresses the WOC Radio and Chamber of Commerce members at Palmer College.
Iran's foreign minister, Ali-Akbar Velayati, denounces the U.S. downing of an Iranian jetliner as "a barbaric massacre."
Up & off by Marine 1 to Andrews at 8:45 A.M. Then A.F.1 to Marion Ill. & Davenport Iowa. This is a drought examination trip. A.F.1 took off at 9 A.M. We had 2 Sens. Dems. Alan Dixon & Paul Simon, Cong. Ken Geary (D), Jim Leach (R) & Lynn Martin(R), Sec. Dick Lyng & Dean Kleckner Pres. Am. Farm Bureau Fed.
We arrived at Marion Ill. 9:40 Central Time. Gov. Thompson & others met us & Jim stayed with us the whole trip.
We boarded Marine 1 & went down over farms & fields affected by the drought. Then we went to the Herman Krone 2800 acre farm & saw 1st hand Corn & Soybean fields only half what they should be & getting worse. The heat was terrible. Then I spoke briefly to about 200 farmers under the cottonwood trees. We stopped at the Krone farm house—3 generation family & had lemonade & cookies.
Then it was back to A.F.1 and off to Moline Ill.—one of the Quad-cities. We had lunch on the way. Gov. Terry Branstead joined us there. We crossed the Mississippi to Davenport Iowa and radio station WOC where I became a sports announcer. Met by Vickie Palmer Miller—grand daughter of B.J. Palmer father of Chiropractic. A brief ceremony of Dedication of new WOC bldg. Then I went in a studio & was interviewed for 10 min’s. From there we went to the Palmer College where I addressed about 2000 C. of C. & W.O.C. people following their lunch. Then it was back to the airport & on our way to Andrews A.F. base in Wash. Arrived at W.H. around 6 P.M.—Shower, dinner & so to bed.
