THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 7, 1996 TAG: 9609070179
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: 74 lines
One president will be missing, but the ghost of another will be present when the Navy christens its newest aircraft carrier this morning.
President Clinton was to be the main speaker at today's ceremony at Newport News Shipbuilding. He canceled at the last minute Thursday night - a change so sudden that Clinton's picture and biography still appear in the christening's 28-page, full-color program.
But another famous Democrat - Harry S. Truman, whose presidency was defined by the end of World War II and the start of the Korean War - will take front and center.
The new carrier is named for Truman and will be christened by a friend of the Truman family, Drucie Snyder Horton of Seabrook Island, S.C.
Horton is the daughter of Truman's treasury secretary, John W. Snyder, and was the maid of honor to Margaret Truman, Harry Truman's daughter, at the christening of the battleship Missouri in 1944.
Horton will be the matron of honor today for Margaret Truman Daniel, who is ill and cannot attend. Horton will smash a special, thin champagne bottle from Missouri over the carrier's bow.
Other speakers include Navy Secretary John Dalton, who will read the speech that Clinton had intended to deliver; Sens. Charles Robb and John Warner and U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, a Democrat from Truman's home state of Missouri.
The ceremony is open to the public; no tickets are required. It is scheduled to start at 10 a.m., but gates will open two hours earlier.
Several thousand people are expected to jam the pier, but many probably will be blocked from directly seeing the speakers and the breaking of the bottle. For them, two huge TV screens will be set up at each end of the visitors' area along Dry Dock 12.
Although the carrier will be christened today, it will not be ready for service for another two years.
The Truman will move out of drydock next Saturday, but only to travel a few hundred yards to an outfitting berth, where the Navy and the shipyard will finish its insides.
On Friday, dozens of shipyard workers got ready for the christening by hanging flags and red-white-and-blue bunting around the ship and pier. Much of it was ripped down by winds overnight. That, however, was the only damage from Hurricane Fran.
``We were lucky. We were real lucky,'' said construction manager Harold Paxton Jr.
Actually, the Truman was pretty safe, even if the hurricane had come closer to Newport News. The carrier still sits in its drydock, which is only partly flooded. The carrier won't be floated until next week.
``Not much could have happened'' in the storm, said Capt. Thomas G. Otterbein, the Truman's commanding officer. ``One hundred knots of wind wouldn't have moved this ship.''
On Friday, as workers prepared a barge alongside the carrier for visiting dignitaries, heavy winds and choppy water still plagued the shipyard. Flags atop the carrier blew horizontal. River water occasionally sprayed visitors and employees.
When the Truman is ready, it will join 12 carriers already in service, including five others named for presidents (Kennedy, Eisenhower, Theodore Roosevelt, Lincoln and Washington). The previous nine were built at Newport News Shipbuilding. MEMO: SHIP FACTS
The Truman is a typical Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carrier.
Length 1,096 feet - nearly as long as the Empire State Building is
tall.
Height 20 stories above the water line.
Planes about 80.
Speed up to 30 knots.
Crew about 6,000.
To build 5 years.
Life expectancy about 50 years.
Sea trials 1998. ILLUSTRATION: Map by CNB