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SOLID CLUES THAT WASHINGTON DULLES International Airport is entering its heyday showed up earlier this year during a political skirmish over, of all things, the airport's name.
Senator Robert Dole decided it was time that the nation paid its proper respects to fellow Kansas Republican Dwight Eisenhower by naming a building in honor of the 34th president. Dole's choice for Ike's memorial: renaming Dulles airport, which, ironically, is already named for Eisenhower's secretary of state, John Foster Dulles.
Dole should've learned long ago that in politics, as in comedy, timing is everything. Ten years ago, few people would have noticed, much less protested, had Dole attempted to switch the airports name. Back then, Dulles's name would've been more apt two letters shorter. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress saw more action on a Saturday night than did Dulles's main passenger terminal. On top of that, travelers were always confusing the place with "Dallas." Dole could've had the airport named after himself and few would have cared.
But that was 10 years ago.
Today, Dulles's name is closely protected, not so much out of reverence for Eisenhower's globe-trotting secretary of state as for its role in a local success story.
Over the past decade Dulles has developed an image as a gateway to Western Europe and Asia. Many foreign visitors think of the airport as the foyer to the economic, political, and tourism center of the United States-Washington, DC. Many local businesses, hoping to associate themselves with the airport's success, have gone so far as to incorporate "Dulles" into their names. And the area around the airport has blossomed into a vibrant amalgam of hotels, meeting places, trade associations, and ancillary services.
For years there's been talk of an evolving "Chesapeake Crescent," a 11,650-square-mile swath that extends from Pennsylvania to North Carohna. The Crescent cuts through four important metropolitan areas -- Baltimore, Washington, Richmond-Petersburg, and Norfolk-Newport News -- which renders it solid competition for the nation's most affluent megametropolises: New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Dulles airport, smack in the center of the Crescent, attracts travelers and the economic activity that follows the travel industry.
Dole may like Ike, but apparently that hasn't been enough to...