The last stop on the itinerary before returning home to Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, was a place of such innocence. At the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, President George W. Bush was promoting his education agenda, perched on a plastic classroom chair listening to second graders run through their vocabulary drills. Outside the classroom, chaos. The senior staff waiting in the next room had alerted the president of a possible small plane crash in New York City. Then came the shock.
9:07 A.M. ET AMERICA IS UNDER ATTACK America was watching in horror as live television coverage showed both World Trade Center towers in flames. White
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House Chief of Staff Andrew Card slipped into the classroom, leaned down, and whispered in the president’s right ear. I watched, stunned, at the back of the classroom. I wrote down in my reporter’s notebook: “9:07 a.m. Andy whispers.” No one interrupts a president, not even in front of second graders. The look on the president’s face was striking, grave. It was months later that Andy Card revealed he chose a chilling economy of words that could be delivered in one breath: “A second plane has hit the second tower. America is under attack.” That horrifying second strike was being replayed over and over again on the screen of a TV wheeled into the staff holding room where the president grabbed a secure White House phone to reach Washington. That would not prove easy. At the other end, in the West
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above and opposite
President George W. Bush participates in a reading program at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, September 11, 2001 (above). Moments after the photograph was taken, the president’s expression turns grave as Chief of Staff Andrew Card interrupts the program to whisper “America is under attack” in the president’s ear (opposite top). With the intention of returning directly to Washington, D.C., President Bush quickly concludes his visit to Sarasota with a oneminute address from the school cafeteria (opposite bottom).
NATIONA L A RC HIVES AND RECORD S A DMINISTRATION
8:50 A.M. ET A PLACE OF INNOCENCE