WASHINGTON — In the minutes and hours after hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the president's whereabouts were kept secret, his words short and his movements seemingly erratic.
Vice President Dick Cheney was in a command bunker underneath the White House within 15 minutes of the attacks. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in his office when the plane hit on the opposite side of the Pentagon, helped load casualties onto stretchers before hunkering down with top aides in the National Command Center, a secure section below his office that serves as the nerve center of the Defense Department.
Focus Was on Keeping the President Hidden
With chaos reigning outside, government leaders at the White House and federal agencies were focused on running the country--and on keeping the leader of the free world hidden. After leaving Sarasota, Fla., President Bush spent much of the day in the air, Air Force One shuttling him, with military escort, between military installations in Louisiana and Nebraska, his route secret, before flying to Washington in the early evening.
Former President Clinton said the feint was part of a Secret Service and military plan to keep the president safe.
"He needs to take every conceivable precaution in the event there are more attacks planned and there is a plan to attack the leadership of the United States," Clinton said in an interview with Associated Press.
For a few minutes, however, before the enormity of the attack was clearly known, the president tried to stick to his schedule.
"Really good readers, hoo!" Bush said in praise of a class of 18 second-graders at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota. "Must be sixth-graders," he joked. At another point, he posed an oft-asked question to schoolchildren, asking how many of them read more than they watch television.
But when the small-group event ended at 9:12 a.m., Bush returned to a "holding room" at the school, where he called the vice president, New York Gov. George Pataki and FBI Director Robert Mueller.
In the same room, meanwhile, White House deputy counselor Dan Bartlett was on another phone talking to his boss, presidential counselor Karen P. Hughes. They were discussing what Bush would say in his public remarks in the school's library, where 200 or more children, parents and teachers were awaiting him.
