An aide for President Richard Nixon once attempted to redecorate the tan chairs in the office of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau with blue sofas — because he thought the colour would better flatter his boss on television.
In 1995, while prepping for a visit by President Bill Clinton, the Secret Service decided that a certain building next door to the U.S. embassy, then located across from Parliament Hill, would have to be shut down.
"But that's the Prime Minister's Office," they were told.
"So?" they said.
Needless to say, the Langevin Block stayed in business for the duration of the visit, and while the many dozens of people finalizing President Barack Obama's trip to Ottawa this Thursday are unlikely to be testing fabric swatches in Centre Block, there is perhaps no operation more finely choreographed than a foreign visit by a U.S. president.
The advance team — having followed the pre-advance team and joined by a massive security detail — will even now be racing around the nation's capital, finalizing scripts and scenic touches like a movie crew. This will be the most meticulously planned seven hours ever: from stripping the travel route along the airport of garbage cans and mailboxes to arranging the flags at the afternoon news conference.
"It will be planned within an inch of its life," said Norman Hillmer, professor of history and international affairs at Carleton University, who recalled how during one visit the Secret Service even brought toy cars to map out the motorcade for the RCMP.
The care and anxiety has been ratcheted as high as it can go for this President in particular, whose history-making election and shining celebrity has reportedly earned him a lifetime detail of Secret Service agents, rather than the 10 years typically afforded his more conventional predecessors.
AN EVENTFUL DAY
Canada is usually the first foreign stop for a new president, and Mr. Obama is making strictly a working trip of it — without the black-tie balls and ceremonial tree-plantings of a state visit, and no sampling of the President's rousing oratory skills in the House of Commons. But that won't deter crowds from gathering on the Hill for a brief glimpse of Mr. Obama heading inside, where he will have his first closed-door meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
On Thursday morning, the President will land in Air Force One at the VIP hangar of the Ottawa Airport, where he will be greeted by Governor-General Michaëlle Jean and then travel downtown. Several alternative routes will have been mapped out by security officials and be closely monitored by police. The city's Winterlude festival may make the presidential route busier, and therefore more complicated than normal for security.
Mr. Obama will be driven in one of the fortress-like presidential limousines that will be airlifted to Ottawa for the visit. Called Cadillac One, and nicknamed the Beast by the Secret Service, the vehicle has armour almost 13 centimetres thick, run-flat tires and a high-tech communications system, and can be sealed off in the event of a chemical attack. The Secret Service brings its own gas and the motorcade usually contains several similar-looking cars to disguise the one in which the president is travelling.
