COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
Dodge Caravan. It was followed by an armored Humvee with a gun turret. The president of the United States had now been out of public view for hours. He decided to make a statement assuring the nation, and the world, that the U.S. government had not been crippled by the attacks. The military conference room where our travel pool was waiting was so dark we asked the base personnel to bring in some desk lamps from nearby offices. The White House staff found a podium to make the scene look more official. At 12:36 p.m. President Bush spoke for several minutes, calm, but tense: “Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward and freedom will be defended.” He might have thought the nation heard him but, once again, the television travel crew was not hooked up to any outside lines. The videotape had to be hand carried out to the local media, where it would in turn try to be uplinked to the networks in New York. It was broadcast at 1:00 p.m. When a president is under threat the Secret Service tries to keep the “secure package” of staff and vehicles as small as possible. I feared the 12-person press pool would be kicked off the plane since it was clear that returning to Washington was not an option. I urged the White House staff to remember how important it is for Americans to be confident they know their president is all right and in charge. Many staff, guest passengers including two congressmen, and most of the reporters were told they would be remaining on the ground at Barksdale. Andy Card did allow me as the senior broadcaster and the senior print reporter Sonya Ross of the Associated Press to reboard Air Force One, along with the CBS camera team George Christian and Erick Washington, and New York Times veteran photographer Doug Mills. It was up to the five of us to document the important hours to come. white house history quarterly
19