36
remember agents telling them to kick off their heels so that they could sprint. At the time, we believed that a few extra seconds could mean the difference between life and death.
OEOB STAFF Across the street at the OEOB, there are varying accounts of how people were told to evacuate. Some were told by Secret Service agents, but the evacuation order traveled mostly by word of mouth. John McConnell, the speechwriter who had been meeting with the vice president when they saw the second plane hit, had returned to his office and called his mother in Wisconsin to say he was all right. His mother told him, “The TV says the White House is being evacuated.” McConnell went into the hallway and saw people walking out the building, and he left his office without his keys, pager, or phone. On West Executive Avenue he saw Mrs. Cheney arrive with her agent Mike Coleman. “John, everyone has to get out of here,” Coleman said. McConnell joined those running out the gates. Just one floor up from McConnell in the OEOB sat Karen Keller, special assistant to OMB Director Mitch Daniels, a member of the president’s cabinet
white house history quarterly
“If you want to live, run.” NATIONAL ARCHIV ES AND R EC OR DS ADMINISTRATION
office was located on the first floor of the OEOB, facing Pennsylvania Avenue. That morning, I was in the White House Mess having breakfast with my colleague Linda Gambatesa, director of Oval Office operations. Bob Marsh, special assistant to the president for legislative affairs, came into the dining room to tell us that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. Linda remembers being “calm about it.” Like most others, we both thought it was a terrible accident. We left the Mess shortly thereafter, not knowing that the second plane had hit the second tower. We both have vivid memories of the rush of activity and being told by the Secret Service Uniformed Division (UD) officers to get West Wing staff out of their offices and move them to the Mess. Linda went up the back stairs to alert staff on the first floor, never stopping in her own office to get her phone or purse. I went up to the second floor. The agents also were commanding people to leave their offices. We all gathered in the Mess as ordered, but our time there was brief. The agents, with their weapons drawn, soon ordered everyone to “get out now,” and staffers raced through the large iron gates that had been opened at both ends of West Executive Avenue. Many women staff members