The White House has selected Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson for Friday’s meeting of President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, multiple media outlets are reporting. The reports don’t mention what time the leaders will meet.
The Trump administration has announced few details so far, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that the meeting will be a “listening exercise” for Trump and that the two presidents are expected to meet one on one to discuss Russia’s war with Ukraine.
“Only one party that's involved in this war is going to be present,” Leavitt said. “And so this is for the president to go and to get, again, a more firm and better understanding of how we can hopefully bring this war to an end.”
Meanwhile, progressives in Anchorage are planning demonstrations. Stand UP Alaska and Alaska March On, among other groups, announced they plan to demonstrate Thursday at 4:30 in Midtown and Friday at noon outside the Anchorage offices of Alaska’s U.S. senators.
JBER, in its prior incarnation as Elmendorf Air Force Base, hosted many visits from presidents and world leaders, often because it was a convenient refueling stop for flights between Washington, D.C. and Asia, or between Europe and Asia.
President Nixon and Emperor Hirohito met at the base in 1971, the first time the reigning monarch of Japan set foot on foreign soil. The next year, on his way home after his historic trip to China, Nixon spent the night at the home of Elmendorf’s top general.
President Reagan stopped briefly at Elmendorf in 1983, enroute to Japan and Korea. His more substantial Alaska visit was to Fairbanks, where he met Pope John Paul II in 1984.
Elmendorf was founded in 1940 but saw substantial growth during the Cold War, when it was a major installation in the defense of North America, holding the line against a feared Soviet intrusion.
