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KF5JRV > TECH 15.07.16 13:46l 39 Lines 2012 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 6089_KF5JRV
Read: GUEST
Subj: First Presidental Email
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<N0KFQ<KF5JRV
Sent: 160715/1126Z 6089@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQK1.4.65
President Clinton Sends the First Ever Presidential Email
On November 6, 1998 President Bill Clinton sent the first ever presidential
email to senator and astronaut John Glenn aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.
Clinton sent the email from the home of a friend in Arkansas using a Toshiba
Satellite laptop computer that belonged to White House physician Robert Darling.
"Glenn, a US senator who in 1962 became the first American astronaut to orbit
the Earth, was completing a nine-day mission on Discovery in November 1998
when he sent word that he wanted to email Clinton, who was at the time was
visiting friends in his home state of Arkansas.
" 'This is certainly a first for me, writing to a president from space, and it
may be a first for you in receiving an email direct from an orbiting
spacecraft,' wrote Glenn, then 77.
"Clinton was keen to get the message, but when his staff couldn't readily find
him a computer to do so, Darling stepped forward with his trusty Toshiba and
his personal AOL email address.
" 'Hillary and I had a great time at the launch,' emailed Clinton, referring
to Discovery's liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center a few days earlier.
" 'We are very proud of you and the entire crew, and a little jealous.'
"In an interview in 2000, Clinton said he never used email due to security
concerns, but acknowledged emailing Glenn in space as well as some US marines
and sailors at sea at Christmas.
"Prior to selling the laptop in 2000, Darling took care to keep the historic
email exchange on its hard drive, and made a copy on its internal floppy
drive, while deleting all other data. He also typed up a memo about the
landmark email, saying Clinton 'seemed to really enjoy himself particularly
when he pressed the 'send' key and realized that at that instant his message
was traveling through cyberspace and into real space' "
On April 17, 2014 the laptop that Clinton used to send the first presidential
email sold for $60,667 at RR Auction in Boston.
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