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Flown in by Air Force Globemaster, the two women beat their husbands to Washington. Captains Olmstead and McKone were forced to delay overnight in Goose Bay, Labrador, while weather cleared along their route. It was a convenient layover. It gave the two men time to outfit themselves with Air Force uniforms at the base post exchange; it gave Air Force doctors a chance to convince themselves that both men were in good mental and physical health. But there was no need to worry about what either man might say to the press. Newsmen were kept far out of reach all week.
No Complaint. The Air Force Constellation carrying Olmstead and McKone landed at Washington in weather that surely reminded the men of their Moscow winter. But once they walked down the steps from their plane, tossed a brisk salute to President Kennedy and located their wives, snow and the cutting wind were of no concern. Oblivious to Air Force brass and Government dignitaries turned out to do them honor, both officers kissed their wives with unabashed enthusiasm. The McKones held a long, long embrace. The first kiss left a great smear of lipstick around the flyer's mouth. Connie McKone clasped her husband's face in her gloved hands, pulled back to look at him, then moved close to kiss him once more. In the excitement of this moment, conversation was almost incoherent. Every few sentences Bruce Olmstead repeated: "I'm sure glad to be back. I can hardly believe it!" His wife answered steadily: "I'm so happy to have you home." Only as they drove out to their VIP quarters on the base did the two women finally get a chance to talk about their children.
Late that same afternoon, both couples drove to the White House, where Jack Kennedy waited for them on the snow-swept north portico. Coffee in the Red Room with Jacqueline Kennedy, Vice President and Mrs. Johnson, Air Force Secretary Eugene Zuckert and Kansas Representative J. Floyd Breeding was a time of relaxed small talk. The President advised the two officers to head south for a vacation. "You had lipstick all over you," he told McKone, remembering the captain's airport reception. But nothing could fluster the man who had stood up to seven months of solitary confinement. "I don't think either one of us has anything to complain about one bit," said McKone.
Deeper Significance. For the two Air Force captains, the reunion with their families was an unqualified blessing. But even as the flyers left for Kansas at week's end, pundits around the world were already debating the deeper significance of their adventure. DETENTE. THE HORIZON CLEARS, cheered headlines in Paris' L'Humanité. "We welcome this action as removing one obstacle to Soviet-American relations," said a British Foreign Office spokesman. The London Daily Telegraph was more skeptical, and more realistic: "We should not forget that it has for many years been the practice of Soviet diplomacy to take up indefensible positions, and then to expect gratitude when some small retreat is made from them."