It was a revered President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who made Washington National possible. Fitting, then, that the airport now bears the name of a famous successor Ronald Reagan.
National was opened in 1941 as a replacement for Washington-Hoover which is now the site of the Pentagon. The nation's capital badly needed the new facility but 12 years of various studies had come to nothing until Roosevelt took a hand in 1938 and found a way through the legislative maze. Somehow he found money from federal budgets to get the ambitious project off the ground. It was built on mud flats and involved massive engineering works to reclaim land from the Potomac River. The only snag was the capital's airport was now in the hands of the politicians and they are notorious for never wanting to let go.
By 1979 National was in trouble with politicians and passengers alike describing it as 'a dump.' A new airport policy was produced but, with echoes of the Roosevelt era, nothing happened until the arrival in the 1980's of Elizabeth Hanford Dole as Secretary for Transportation. She inherited an airport overwhelmed by increasing traffic whose revenue could not be used for expansion as it went straight into federal budgets. National, along with Dulles Airport, were the only two airports in the United States under government control.
Elizabeth Dole, wife of Senator Robert Dole, decided the way forward was to take that control away from Capitol Hill, a policy others had tried but failed to deliver. It was a massive battle which many suspected she could not win. A regional commission was appointed to report to Congress but that was just the start. Mrs Dole had to steer a path between local rivalries, make deals behind closed doors and even guarantee politicians their free parking perks at National and Dulles. In the end she got what she wanted. Congress let go, a new airport authority was put in place and a multi-million dollar building program started. The benefits of a thirteen-year battle are reflected in the new USD$450 million terminal opened in 1997.
However, the political connections will never quite disappear. The airport was officially renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National in February 1998.
