Back at the White House on 9/11, editing my address to the nation with (from left) Al Gonzales, Condi Rice, Karen Hughes, Ari Fleischer, and Andy Card. White House/Paul Morse
I went back upstairs, practiced my speech, and then headed to the Oval Office.
“Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom, came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts,” I began. I described the brutality of the attack and the heroism of those who had responded. I continued: “I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”
I closed with Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” I felt the speech was much better than the statements I made in Florida and Louisiana. Still, I knew I would have to do more to rally the nation in the days ahead.
After the speech, I returned to the PEOC to meet with my national security team. I wanted to catch up on the latest developments and plan the next day’s response. I told them we had been given a mission that none of us had sought or expected, but the country would rise to meet it. “Freedom and justice will prevail,” I said.
The meeting ended around 10:00 p.m. I had been up since before dawn and going full speed all day. Carl Truscott, the head of the Presidential Protective Division, told us we would be sleeping in a small room off the PEOC conference room. Against the wall was an old couch with a fold-out bed inside. It looked like Harry Truman himself had put it there. I could envision a restless night battling the cramped mattress and the steel supporting rods. The next day would bring important decisions, and I needed sleep to think clearly. “There is no way I’m sleeping there,” I told Carl.
He knew I was not budging. “Sleep in the residence,” he said. “We will come get you if there are any problems.”
Sleep did not come easily. My mind replayed the images of the day: the planes hitting the buildings, the towers crumbling, the Pentagon in flames. I thought of the grief so many families must be feeling. I also thought about the heroism—the flight attendants on the hijacked planes who calmly called supervisors to report their status and the first responders who raced toward the flames at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Just as I was about to doze off, I saw a figure silhouetted at the bedroom door. He was breathing heavily and shouting: “Mr. President, Mr. President, the White House is under attack! Let’s go!”
I told Laura we needed to move fast. She didn’t have time to put in her contact lenses, so she held on to me. I grabbed her robe and guided her with one arm while I scooped up Barney, our Scottish terrier, with the other. I called Spot, our English springer spaniel, to follow. I was barefoot and wearing running shorts and a T-shirt. We must have made quite a sight.
The Secret Service hustled us out of the residence and down to the underground shelter. I heard the slam of a heavy door and the sound of a pressurized lock as we entered the tunnel. The agents rushed us through another door. Bang, hiss. We hustled down the final corridor, past the staff seated outside, and into the PEOC.
After a few minutes, an enlisted man walked into the conference room. “Mr. President,” he said matter-of-factly, “it was one of ours.” An F-16 fighter had flown down the Potomac squawking the wrong transponder signal. A day that started with a run on a golf course had ended with a scramble to the bunker to escape a possible attack on the White House.
When I woke up on September 12, America was a different place. Commercial aircraft were grounded. Armed vehicles patrolled the streets of Washington. A wing of the Pentagon had been reduced to rubble. The New York Stock Exchange was closed. New York’s Twin Towers were gone. The focus of my presidency, which I had expected to be domestic policy, was now war. The transformation showed how quickly fate can shift, and how sometimes the most demanding tasks a president faces are unexpected.
The psyche of the nation had been shaken. Families stocked up on gas masks and bottled water. Some fled cities for the countryside, fearing that downtown buildings could be targets. Others who worked in skyscrapers couldn’t bring themselves to go back to work. Many refused to board a plane for weeks or months. It seemed almost certain that there would be another attack.
There is no textbook on how to steady a nation rattled by a faceless enemy. I relied on instincts and background. My West Texas optimism helped me project confidence. Occasionally, I spoke a little too bluntly, such as when I said I wanted bin Laden “dead or alive.” The people around me helped a lot during those trying days. The team at the White House was steady and a source of inspiration. Laura was a rock of stability and love. My brother Marvin and sister Doro, both of whom lived in the Washington area, stopped by frequently for meals. Mother and Dad offered constant support. My family gave me comfort and helped me clear my mind.
I also drew strength from my faith, and from history. I found solace in reading the Bible, which Abraham Lincoln called “the best gift God has given to man.” I admired Lincoln’s moral clarity and resolve. The clash between freedom and tyranny, he said, was “an issue which can only be tried by war, and decided by victory.” The war on terror would be the same.
I set three goals for the days immediately following the attacks. First, keep the terrorists from striking again. Second, make clear to the country and the world that we had embarked on a new kind of war. Third, help the affected areas recover and make sure the terrorists did not succeed in shutting down our economy or dividing our society.
I went to the Oval Office on September 12 at my usual time, around 7:00 a.m. The first order of the day was to return phone calls from the many world leaders who had offered their sympathy. My first call was with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain. Tony began by saying he was “in a state of shock” and that he would stand with America “one hundred percent” in fighting terror. There was no equivocation in his voice. The conversation helped cement the closest friendship I would form with any foreign leader. As the years passed and the wartime decisions grew tougher, some of our allies wavered. Tony Blair never did.
Every leader who called expressed support. Jean Chrétien of Canada said simply, “We are there,” a promise that had been upheld by Canadian citizens who welcomed thousands of stranded Americans after their flights were diverted. Silvio Berlusconi of Italy told me he had “cried like a little boy and could not stop,” and pledged his cooperation. Jiang Zemin of China, Gerhard Schroeder of Germany, and Jacques Chirac of France promised to help in any way they could. Junichiro Koizumi, prime minister of the nation that struck America at Pearl Harbor, called the events of September 11 “not an attack against just the United States but an attack against freedom and democracy.” For the first time in NATO’s fifty-two-year history, the members of the alliance voted to invoke Article 5 of the charter: An attack on one is an attack on all.
The coalition of the willing in the war against terror was forming, and—for the time being—everyone wanted to join.