Director of Communications Dan Bartlett points to news footage of the World Trade Center Towers burning, September 11, 2001, as President George W. Bush gathers information about the attack from Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida. Photo: George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum
First thing in the morning on September 11, 2001 President George W. Bush said to his chief of staff Andy Card "It should be an easy day". Things changed quickly at 8.45am and then 9.03am when two planes hit the World Trade Centre in New York. Andy Card was charged with telling the president about the second plane as the president read to a group of schoolchildren at Emma E Booker Elementary School in Sarasota Florida. The words he chose and what else was said that day by the people in the president's inner circle has been collected and shared for the first time in an incredible longform article on the website Politico.
The man who did all the research and has presented these memories and conversations in public for the first time is Garrett M Graff. He's also the author of the forthcoming book Raven Rock, which will detail the history of the US government's nuclear Doomsday plans during the Cold War.
