I just finished the most breathtaking book.
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The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents In Crisis… George Stephanopoulos (2024)
When my friend Joanne first recommended it, I shrugged since it didn’t sound like something I’d like.
But as she read, her enthusiasm increased, finally piquing my interest.
Joanne I owe you an apology because like you, couldn’t put it down.
It begins with John F. Kennedy’s administration right up to President Biden’s. You at once become the fly on the wall that never wants to leave. The different attitude of each commander in chief is fascinating.
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How LBJ practically lived in the Situation Room during the height of the Vietnam War, while Nixon barely entered.
Barack Obama’s decisiveness during Osama bin Laden’s capture is most impressive. ![]()
But the part that stirred me to my core, was during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
All White House workers were instructed to evacuate, including the Sit Room, as it’s called, but none of them moved from their chairs.
They knew it was the only source of communication the country had, refusing to desert her at her most crucial time of need.
Not since Pearl Harbor had a crisis been so dire.
During 9/11, just like “the firefighters in New York rushed toward the burning towers, Sit Room staffers raced toward the White House. When the White House was given evacuation orders, because of concerns that terrorists were targeting the building, the staff declined to leave.
Frank Miller, the senior director for defense policy, asked everybody to write down their names and Social Security numbers. “We want to know what bodies to look for,” he explained. Even that chilling request wasn’t enough to get staffers to leave their posts.
George Stephanopoulos
They marched up one by one, before returning to their desks.
They knew there was a very good chance after watching the Twin Towers burn and what happened at the Pentagon, that they’d never come out alive if a plane hit the White House, yet they stayed.
The attack on the Pentagon aftermath.
Let me also add if the courageous group on Flight 93 just twenty minutes from Washington that went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania hadn’t stormed the cockpit, that plane was more than likely headed for the White House.
How’s that for patriotism?
We sure could use a little of that now.
A must read and then some.
SB