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The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis
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Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Right Side of History”
George H.W. Bush became president in 1989 amidst extraordinary changes in the world. The empire of the Soviet Union was rapidly dissolving as revolutions were taking place across the Eastern Bloc. The most memorable moment in this “democratic tidal wave” took place on November 9th (149), when crowds on both sides of the Berlin Wall began tearing it down. Stephanopoulos argues that one of Bush’s triumphs was his handling of the Berlin Wall, which “was at some level the art of doing nothing” (150). While uprisings in favor of democracy were successful in Eastern Europe, the communist Chinese government held on to power through violence, starting with the Tiananmen Square massacre that took place on June 4th, 1989.
Additionally, an attempted military coup took place in the Philippines late in the year, in which the democratically-elected president was nearly overthrown. According to Stephanopoulos, the attempted coup in the Philippines allowed the NSC and Situation Room a “first glimpse of how useful video technology could be” (157). Less than a year later, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, “video conferencing became a crucial tool in formulating the U.S. response” (158). The invasion of Kuwait led to the Gulf War, a six-month conflict that culminated in January and February 1991 with the aerial bombing campaign known as Desert Storm.
During the war, the use of a Secure Video Teleconferencing System (SVTS) was beneficial in two regards: hours were saved by having Sit Room meetings via SVTS rather than having everyone present, and it helped to keep a lid on crisis events. Stephanopoulos argues that during these crises, Bush’s team worked together incredibly well, and “the Situation Room functioned at peak performance” (165).
Chapter 8 Summary: “Please Hold for the President”
Stephanopoulos discusses the Situation Room during the presidency of Bill Clinton, whom he served as White House communications director and a senior advisor. He argues that all foreign policy issues were a balancing act, but the one that bedeviled Clinton the most was whether to commit American troops to the Bosnian War.
Clinton’s UN ambassador, Madeleine Albright, pushed for the United States to bolster NATO air strikes, but such action was opposed by General Colin Powell and other top military officials. Following a bout of ethnic cleansing in 1995, in which over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed and another 20,000 were expelled, Clinton acted. With American military support, a NATO bombing campaign finally brought the war to an end. Pointing out that this intervention was precisely what Albright had fought for two years earlier, Stephanopoulos argues that it was “an all-too-common experience for women in the Situation Room” (185).
Throughout the second half of the chapter, Stephanopoulos discusses “one of the most important tasks the Sit Room staff takes on:” Setting up calls for heads of state, which he points out is “much more complicated, and more diplomatically fraught, than most outside the room realize” (189). He discusses some of the technical and communicative issues that have been involved in connecting the president with other heads of state. He also describes some of the technological advances that have helped to make such calls possible, including more recent secure video technology.
Stemming either from the belief that it is improper to record another leader’s phone call or from the fact that presidents want to have plausible deniability for what they have said, no calls between heads of state are recorded to this day. Rather, three Sit Room staffers are tasked with listening in on the call and creating a memcon—the memorandum of a conversation.
Chapter 9 Summary: “This Is Where We Fight From”
On September 11th, 2001, the White House itself was the target of a terrorist attack. Although the rest of the staff was evacuated, the Situation Room staff refused to leave. With so many staffers there, however, there were two main concerns: there would be no staffers available to relieve them, and if they were killed, there would be no one to reconstitute the Sit Room somewhere else.
As most of President Bush’s closest advisors were rushed to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), the bunker-like shelter below the West Wing, and the president himself was aboard Air Force One, staffers of the Sit Room knew that there would be no direct line between them if The Situation Room shut down. When they all refused to evacuate, a senior director of the Defense Department demanded that they provide their names and Social Security numbers in what was termed a “dead list,” in the event the White House was hit.
At the time of the attack, President Bush was at an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida reading a book to students. The video of Bush’s Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, leaning in to tell him that the nation was under attack is now famous, but what most do not realize is that the message originated in the Situation Room. Stephanopoulos argues that as chaos ensued outside on 9/11, “the Sit Room staff stayed at their posts” (211). For cabinet members and top advisors in the PEOC, two primary problems emerged that day: the shelter was not configured to provide oxygen to so many people, and the communications were very bad. Communications with the Situation Room were spotty and communicating with Air Force One was nearly impossible, which caused immense frustration because Vice President Cheney was in the PEOC and unable to reach Bush.
One of the primary Sit Room functions in the weeks after 9/11 was to field incoming calls from other governments and leaders. There was also the threat of further attacks. US Senators and news networks received letters containing anthrax spores, killing five people. According to Stephanopoulos, the NSC met every day, either in the Sit Room or the Oval Office, so the staff would sanitize the room daily.
Fundamental changes in American life were common after 9/11, and because of the communication failures of that day, the Sit Room changed drastically as well. In 2006, the Sit Room was finally renovated, with upgraded communications capability being a key component. The renovation was so detailed that the entire complex had to be gutted and built back. Stephanopoulos argues that “for the first time, the Situation Room began to resemble—at least a little bit—the futuristic setups in Hollywood productions” (232).
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
In these chapters, Stephanopoulos examines the presidencies of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, covering the years 1989-2009. Throughout these years, many significant events took place, both domestically and internationally, and the Situation Room played a major role in how presidents responded. During the presidency of George H.W. Bush, revolutions took place in several Eastern Bloc countries and brought an end to communism. Clinton faced the Bosnian War, while under George W. Bush, the terrorist attacks on 9/11 changed how the Situation Room operated.
Whereas the early sections of the book compared and contrasted how various presidents used the Situation Room, Chapters 7 through 9 instead focus primarily on The Role of Technology in Governance, Stephanopoulos explains that paper maps, CNN broadcasts, hard copies of reports, and new devices called pagers were the “linchpins of Sit Room technology in the late 1980s” (153). At the start of the 1990s, however, secure video teleconferencing became standard in the Sit Room as well. According to the author, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, “video conferencing became a crucial tool in formulating the U.S. response” (158).
In Chapter 8 on the presidency of Bill Clinton, the theme of The Nature of Presidential Decision-Making strongly emerges. Stephanopoulos discusses one of Clinton’s most bedeviling international crises: the Bosnian War, which resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia. He discusses a 1993 Sit Room meeting, in which UN ambassador Madeleine Albright pushed for the United States to become more involved and support NATO airstrikes to help end the war. Many top military officials, especially Colin Powell, opposed such involvement. While Clinton’s top campaign promise in 1992 was to “focus like a laser on the economy” (178), a July 1995 atrocity in which 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed and another 20,000 were ethnically cleansed from the region led him to act. With the support of the US, a fierce NATO bombing campaign brought the war to an end within weeks.
The Evolution of National Security Practices, another major theme, emerges in Chapter 9. Stephanopoulos focuses on the Situation Room on the morning of September 11th, 2001, when America was attacked by terrorists and the White House itself became a target. He argues that “for all the planning that went into the White House’s sophisticated communications networks, the terror attacks created a problem that no one had foreseen” (206). While communications were good between the Sit Room and Air Force One and the Sit Room and the PEOC shelter underneath the East Wing, “they didn’t have good comms links between the shelter and the aircraft” (206). The communication issues were the catalyst for major Sit Room renovations, which finally came about in 2006. These changes demonstrate how major national security events can sometimes influence how The Situation Room functions in times of crisis.
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