PENTAGON

there that is the World Trade Center. And we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. American Airlines Flight eleven crashes into the World Trade Center's North Tower. Minutes later, United Airlines Flight one slams into the Trade Centers South Tower. We're gonna take a look at videotape just moments ago of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center. That is spectacular pictures. Met two was a

passenger plane. Perhaps some type of navigating sister M or some type of electronics would have put two planes into the World Trade Center within it looks like about eighteen minutes of each other. Meanwhile, here in Los Angeles, a plane crash into a New York landmark. Good morning, this is the six o'clock news Here on k f I, I'm Ken Gallagher. Smoke is pouring from the upper floors of the north building of the Twin Towers of the

World Trade Center in New York. Right now. C NBC is reporting a witnesses a plane hit the building and that evacuations have been ordered. CNN is reporting the plane appears to be a commercial jet, perhaps a seven thirty. The Build Handle show on k if I AM six forty was already into its second hour. The popular morning host had learned of the attacks during a commercial break. Good morning, everybody, six o nine caf I AM six forty.

More stimulating talk radio, Bill Handle, and a pleasure to have you with this if you have not yet heard. A few minutes ago, a airplane crashed into one of the World Trade Centers, followed by a second plane that crashed into the second World Trade Center. We now have both buildings on fire, and it it's hard to say at this point but that that cannot be an accident.

This is out of a movie. The airplane was aimed for and was timed to do the maximum amount of damage and to hurt and kill and maim the most number of people. Bill, we do have a bulletin from Associated Press that says a plane has now crashed into the Pentagon. This is the worst nightmare for American security forces and the people of the United States. We it's this is war. Uh. It appears some group or another

has declared full scale war in the United States. At this point, we're just sitting back and wondering when the next one is going to happen. One of the World Trade Center buildings just collapsed. The entire building collapsed. There is nothing left of it. The whole thing just came down. The whole building is now down. The second building now collapsing. This is unbelievable. We do know that Somerset County Airport outside of Pittsburgh, a plane did go down just north

of the airport. We are in it together. We have been attacked. As a people. All we know, we can safely say that today war has been declared on the United States of America. You can't even imagine the number of people that have died. Probably the worst day, one of the worst days in our collective history. This will be one of the days you remember for the rest of your life. One thing I promise you, it will never be the same in this country again. Within the hour,

in American Airlines flight would also strike the Pentagon. A United Airlines slight would also crash near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and both World Trade Center towers would collapse to the ground. In just under two hours, two thousand nine nine people were killed, in some twenty five thousand more injured. President George dub You Bush was at an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida. When he heard the news. He meet his first public

comments from a classroom. Today, We've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country. I have spoken to the Vice President, to the Governor of New York, to the director of the FBI, and I've ordered that the full resources of the federal government go to help the victims and their families, and and to conduct a full scale investigation to hunt down and to find those

folks who committed this act terrorism against our nation. Will not stand it. I'm Steve Gregory in Los Angeles, and this is nine eleven, two decades later. The attacks of

nine eleven forever changed America. It also marked the beginning of the War on Terror, with it the creation of new agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, which implemented sweeping changes to how Americans would travel nine eleven, two decades later, we'll go behind the scenes with those who were in the inner sanctum of agencies that made life changing decisions on our behalf, and we asked the question, is America safer today than

twenty years ago? Thanks very much you all. Um, it's got a brief statement and then a few people who've got some important information we want to get out today. I'd just like to say a couple of things. Um. First and foremost, the Department of Defense is open for business.

We're here, we're operating, and we're functioning very well. Our priorities this morning today are to care for the injured and the dead and their family lease, to work closely with the President and the National Security team, to ensure the safety of the American people and our men and women in uniform around the world, and to determine who was responsible and what the course of action will be a couple of things I want to say up front.

Victoria Clark was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs at the Pentagon on nine eleven. She worked for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and says she remembers the davividly. The first thing in the morning, the thing that struck all of us before anything had happened, was what a beautiful day it was. September in the DC area can be really muggy and hot and cloudy and just terrible, and it was a stunningly beautiful, crystal clear blue sky morning.

And that's what everybody was talking about when we first came to work, and most people would show up at six maybe six thirty in the morning. And prior to the first plane hitting the World Trade Tower in New York, we were getting ready for a regular briefing later that morning, which was going to be on a weapons collection program and the Balkans uh some missile defense tests that will becoming up pretty standard stuff, and it was not expected to be an extraordinary day in any way. So then

when did you know something was wrong? When something something wasn't right and there was an emergency. The first plane hit the World trade towers and and most offices in the Pentagon, like a lot of places in d C, have multiple televisions. In my office, big briefing table, multiple TVs, and we were we could see the news and the when the first plane hit the first tower, and if some people thought something was up, but most of us thought, oh, it was a traffic plane or maybe a commuter plane

that accidentally had hit the building. When this and I got up on my phone and called the Secretary of Defense as chief of staff kind named Larry Grita, and said, hey, you guys watching this, and he goes, yeah, we are. We're checking in. And then as we're both talking and we're watching the TVs and respective offices, the second plane hits the second tower, and then you instantly knew it was not an accident. You instantly knew it was a

terrorist attack. And equally instantly, the apparatus in the building that spins up around crises started to spin up, so key people went to what they call the Executive Support Center in the middle of the building. The Secretary of Defense was at the time getting his regular CIA briefing that morning, and he wanted to get some more information from her before he came into the support center where some of us were, and so he was in his office.

We were in that center when we felt the plane hit the Pentagon, and that the Pentagon is a very large building, but even in the center of the building, on the third floor, you could feel this enormous thump in the building actually moved a little and it was muffled but incredibly loud noise. Did you know something was wrong? Yes, absolutely, you knew something was wrong. We knew the building had

been attacked. Despite the fact is this still strikes me as crazy, even twenty years later, despite the fact that we were there working on the crisis management, if you will, of two commercial airliners hitting the World Trade Towers and we felt this enormous thump and heard that noise. My first thought was not that it was a plane, because prior to nine eleven you just don't think of large

planes slide into buildings. My first thought was that must have been a car bonb because there had been rumors of different things going on around Washington, d C. At the time. After the two planes hit the World Trade Towers, so my first thought was it must have been a car bomb or something like that, and it actually was the Secretary of Defense himself, who was our first eyewitness outside when it happened, when it hit, when the building was hit, he asked people didn't know what had happened.

He went outside the building himself and he was on the scene very early, helped some injured people get away from the wreckage, helped get some of them to ambulances, and then he came back in and joined us. And he was the first one who was our eyewitness of the fact that it was a plane. And we're talking about Donald Use. Was that typical for someone like him to I mean, when you got someone in that Yes, very typical of him, not typical of most people at

that level. And uh, I talked about this the other day at his service um over at Arlington. We're in the building and we're trying to figure out what happened, and all the communications apparatus are are spinning up, and he couldn't get an answer from anyone, so he went outside the building to find out for himself. Very common sense. So what happens to Nixon? How on earth? Because this was this was new for modern day America, this was

new for us. It was They like to say that America for two hundred years plus was blessed by unique geography and really good neighbors, and in conventional warfare, we were pretty well positioned. Um asymmetrical warfare, which is something that the Secretary and the rest of us have been talking about for months and months and months, is a very different thing. And this was the first real life

example of asymmetrical warfare on our on our turf. How on earth do you take a message of what had just happened, And you said yourself you were you were working on a response to what had happened in York. Now it's in your backyard, per se. Where do you even begin to craft a message like that? Well, the I was about to say the good news, and I was trying to be careful with words I use because

they sounding disrespectful. But if you're work in a place like the Pentagon, you always are working on crisis plans, You're working on contingency plans. You work in a place like the Pentagon, you know bad things can happen, and so you can't always predict exactly what they will be. But you want to have plans in place for how will we make sure we perform the functions were tasked

with performing. So to your point, my department, the Department of Public Affairs, was tasked with helping to craft the messages, make sure they get communicated and as timely a fashion as possible. Make sure the media covering the Pentagon have as much access as possible. Make sure we're coordinating with other key agencies in the administration, So the White House,

State Department, Cia, etcetera. And I had a wonderful My senior military assistant was a wonderful Army colonel named George Ryan Dance, and weeks and weeks and weeks before and I eleven, he had developed a crisis management plan for us.

He had had us exercise it and practice it. And one of the many things he focused on was we had all, even twenty years ago, had gotten very reliant on our computers and our and our phones and things like that, and doing everything electronically, and he was worried that there might something might happen where we might not have access to our cell phones, it might be harder to communicate. He made us all carry around with us hard copies, paper copies of all the key people we

would want to reach in case of emergency. People, we worked with, people of the other agencies, the media, and we carry them on us when we walked around. We had them in our cars and we had them at home. So sure enough, when it happened, and there was so much going on everywhere, of course, including Washington, cell phones weren't working, some commns lines were down, but we had those pieces of paper with key numbers on it, so we were able to coordinate with the people with whom

we really needed to be coordinating. And there's the same in the military. First reports are always wrong, So in terms of what we talked about and when we communicated via the media, we tried very very hard to say, this is what we know right now. Things can change, but this is what we know now. Here's what we're thinking in terms of where these attacks may have come from. Here's what we're doing right now, to try to get all the planes that are in the air at the

time on the ground, those kinds of things. We kept it as factual as possible. But the thing that was so so important to us, it's important to the Secretary and all of us, was making sure everybody knew the American people, publics around the world, and the terrorists knew they weren't successful. They never stopped the Department of Defense that key people in the building continue to operate NonStop. We were able to function and prevent further attacks and

plan a response despite their best efforts. So going forward, and it sound like you, guys, whether it's fortuitous or not, you already had your your template in place, and you've already gone through this rehearsal. So do you think that was probably a big help for you, then you could imagine tremendously helpful, tremendously helpful. And again George Ryan Dance, former Army colonel, brilliant guy, such so well organized. The thing he really emphasized to all of us was, I

know what your core responsibility is. So we had a couple of deputies who did most of the day to day liaison and logistics with the Pentagon Press Corps. Pentagon Presscore was a hundred people or so whose offices were literally in the Pentagon building itself. Uh, And they got evacuated like most people did, from the building. And so the two deputies, Tim and Brian Whitman got about a quarter mile away from the building and essentially took over a gas station and set up a briefing area there

set up a media center, if you will. It was outdoors, and that's this place from which the media could operate. That was the place where I went at least once or twice during the day just to do very brief readouts to them about what we knew at the time and what we were planning on. And my core function very much was staying close to the Secretary offense, working with him and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Vice Chairman at the time on what is it we want to say, how do we want to say it,

Who's going to be saying it? I did some of the preliminary briefings during the day, and then we decided that we wanted the Secretary and the Vice Chairman and Senator Warner and Senator Levin to brief the media. We got them back into the building, and my other main responsibility was coordinating with my counterparts at the White House, State and c I, A and so, and then there were others who were focused on ascertaining who on our staff might have been injured or missing. So everybody in

the department had a key function. It was made very clear to them that they understood it, and so because of that planning on nine eleven, when that happened, they were able to execute really well. And here's the thing, though, you didn't know if this was the beginning of something bigger or if this was it. I think that's also got to be very daunting, is that. I mean, are the attackers done or is this going to keep going

on all day long or all night long? Yeah, And it was maybe halfway through the day, and we were working in a we we had to move a couple times during the day because despite how huge that building is and despite where we were was relatively protected, there was a lot of smoke in the building. The plane itself from the wreckage continued to burn for a few days, and there was a lot of smoke in the building, and we would try to move from one place or

another to get to a place with better ventilation. And at one point Secretary of Defense frum Spelled and the then vice chairman then became later became chairman, Dick Myers, were working on a few things and there were maybe a couple of dozen people in that room who had stayed with them throughout the day, and the Secretary looks up to General Meyers, to your point, we didn't know if they were going to be more attacks. We didn't

know what else might happen. The Secretary looked up and he says, there are a lot of people here and they should they should all get out if they want to. And General Myers looked at him and said, sir, they're gonna stay here as long as you're here, and if the building goes down, they'll go down with you. When did you get a sense that the attacks we're going to change policy and that things moving forward we're going

to forever be different. Oh? Immediately, absolutely, immediately, And by that I mean constant communication with policymakers on Capitol Hill, other people in Washington, d C. And the National Security apparatus, and again for months and months and months prior to nine eleven, even before became secretary Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld and others and those of us who worked with them were saying, Hey, we know it doesn't seem like there's much going on out there in the world, but things

are changing, and we're not facing conventional threats like the Soviet Union. We're facing these unconventional threats and they are growing, They are growing in capacity, they are growing in desire to do something back to the United States, and so we need to transform this military, which was set up for twenties twi century warfare. We need to change it and transform it to face these twenty one century threats. And prior to nine eleven, not a lot of people

wanted to hear that and was understandable. Nineties were relatively quiet and relatively safe for us, So it was hard to imagine unless you really knew what was going on. It was hard to imagine something terrible could happened. It was hard to imagine asymmetrical warfare terrorism on our shores because it was something that we had just never experienced before in a big way. So I've been talking about it for months. Nine eleven really drove home the point.

And so immediately, for instance, conversations with Congress, Okay, here's what we have to do in terms of modernizing the army, the Navy, giving special forces, give special forces more of them, more actually in special forces, special operators, give them the resources and the time and the support they need. Things like that started to be put in place pretty quickly. When was the talk underway that the Department of Homeland

Security was something that was needed. When did that come about? Well, I knew and this is just me speaking to personally, I knew that there would be increased procedures airports, TSA immediately. Knew that was great, happen immediately. And then when the country one of the when investigations were done there, if there was intel out there that said this was going to happen, why wasn't there further investigation? Could we have

prevented it? Those sorts of things. People said there was a breakdown of communication and a lack of sharing of information around from some of the agencies and so, and I disagree with this. The answer to failures in some of these government agencies was to create a new one. And I, personally, this is Tory Clark, not anybody else personally, don't think that's necessarily a good idea. I seldom think that the answer to poorly executed government is more government.

So but fairly quickly, the changes in safety procedures almost immediately, and then creating homeland Security, which intellectually makes sense, I get it. Probably within months. I was talking to somebody else to he's a military analyst, and his characterization was that homeland security wasn't necessarily something we needed, but that we as a country tend to create bureaucracy on top of bureaucracy, and sometimes too much is is too you know?

Too much in this case. Um So, in terms of looking back now twenty years later, Homeland Security, was it the agency that we needed where there are people far smarter than I am, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think what we needed was better co ordination among the existing agencies, and I think that probably was going to happen anyhow. And I think you add another bureaucracy, you add more layers, you tend to slow things down, tend to water things down. So I don't

think so, but I'm not an expert. Do you think the t s A was something that was necessary for us as opposed to adopting the Israeli security model? Yeah? I think it probably was because things had to be done quickly. It's always easy to look in the rear view mirror. Oh that happened, Let's make sure that doesn't happen again anymore. But I think it was necessary, and I think they had to stand it up fairly quickly, So I think so when you look back at this tory.

Is there something in your head that you observed or thought or did yourself that you wish you could go back and have a do over. Yes, it's a little amorphous. And by that I mean, well, I'll just I'll just say it and then maybe you can help me figure out how to say it more articulately. But I wish I could have done a better job of helping people think outside the box and not be hampered by their their frames of reference from previous things that had happened.

And so, for instance, you know, we had never really thought of planes being used as weapons, commercial planes full of filled with passengers, um being used as weapons. Well, what are we not thinking about now? What are we not thinking about in terms of dangerous to this country and different kinds of dangerous? Think about cyber warfare, think about what China and Russia are have been trying to do to mess us up. To put it bluntly, um,

so try to say it again. So I wish people would not be hampered, would not be hamstrung by frames of reference that are always looking in the rear view mirror, and instead could say, Okay, we we think we know about this, and we think we know about these threats, what else are we not thinking about? And I guess the only thing that surprises me is that we continue to be surprised when these things happen. I am not an expert. I'm not steeped in what is going on

right now in Afghanistan. I know it's a tragedy, but I think a lot of people who have been on the ground over there have been saying for quite some time, this can get bad, very very quickly. But people didn't want to hear that. They didn't want to hear that. I think we have to force ourselves to hear things we don't want to hear, and force ourselves to think outside the box and really consider what else are we not focusing on that we should be What are we missing?

Just when we think we have a grasp of of all the threats that are out there and what we have to be doing about them, we got to stop our else and Okay, what else? What are we missing? Because we're probably missing something? Segueing into you as a communications professional, Oh, how would you rate the job you did? I'll leave it to others to give it a grade. I think, given the circumstances at the time, and for months and months afterwards. I think we did a pretty

good job. And I say we because I had a fantastic team, best staff I've ever had anywhere, fantastic team. I had a boss, Sectary Rumsfeld and his his partner Dick General Myers, who were smart and enlightened and understood that we needed to be very forward leading and engage with the media and Congress in the public as much as possible. So I was enormously benefited by having a great staff and having enlightened leadership above me. Toy, I

leave you with this last question. Are we safer today than we were twenty years ago than we were yesterday? I don't think so. I wish I could answer differently, but I don't think so. I think we've gotten a little complacent. You've got a little complacent. I think, as I said earlier, people aren't willing to really think outside conventional wisdom to say, what else are we dealing with out there? And it might require sacrifice on our part, it might require changing the way we do things, but

we need to do it. And I think there are probably threats out there that you and I have never heard of, and I think those in charge these days, need to spend more time communicating what's going on. You might not want to hear it, but you need to know that these things are going on and we have to make changes to address them. Coming up in episode two, Very Spooky, I mean it felt like the in the world,

to be honest with you. Finding a place for thousands of planes to land nine eleven, Two Decades Later is produced by Steve Gregory and Jacob Gonzalez and is a production of the Cafie News department for I Heart Media Los Angeles and the I Heart podcast network. The views expressed are strictly those of the guests and not necessarily the hosts or employees of Iheartmediah