Obama and Bush Share a Ride on Air Force One

“There’s no telling what might happen now that Barack Obama and George W. Bush find themselves taking a long Air Force One flight from Washington to Johannesburg to attend the funeral of Nelson Mandela. But history suggests something will,” Time reports.

“When Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower shared a limo back from Arlington cemetery in November 1963, following the burial of John F. Kennedy, the two men, bitter enemies for more than a decade, finally found a way to set their animosity aside… The two men got to talking and all the years of difficulty and pain melted away as the hours ticked by and the cocktails were refilled.”

“Defenses came crashing down again in 1981, when Ronald Reagan sent Richard Nixon, Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter to Cairo to attend the funeral of Anwar Sadat…The ride over on the old Boeing 707 was long, crowded and awkward. But on the way home, Nixon peeled away on a different trip and Carter and Ford dropped a half decade of resentment and realized they had more in common than either imagined. They both hated raising money, they both dreaded 25 years of unexpected retirement; they both disliked Reagan. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship: over the next 25 years, Ford and Carter joined forces on two dozen projects.”