Dick Cheney - In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir

Meeting President Nixon for the first time, with Don Rumsfeld, in the Oval Office in 1970. I had seen President Johnson at his last address to a joint session of Congress in January 1969. I'd also seen President Kennedy when he visited the University of Wyoming in 1963, and President Harry Truman in 1948, when he'd done a whistle-stop tour campaigning through Nebraska,but Nixon was the first president I'd ever actually met. (Official White House Photo)

In the Oval Office on April 28, 1975, with President Ford andDon Rumsfeld, two men who changed my life. (Official White House Photo/DavidKenner)

With President Bush in the White House residence on Sunday, February 24, 1 991, the morning after we launched ground operations in Operation Desert Storm. I'm briefing the president on our progress in the first hours of the ground war. (Official White House Photo/Dave Valdez)

With President Bush in rhe Oval Office. In 2000, George W. Bush told me he wanted a vice president who would play an important role in helping to govern the nation, and he was true to his word for the entire eight years we served together. (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)

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Copyright 2011 by Richard B. Cheney

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To Lynne, who helped me write my life

IN MY TIME

S pecial Agent Jimmy Scott burst through the door. Mr. Vice President, weve got to leave now. Before I could reply he moved behind my desk, put one hand on my belt and another on my shoulder, and propelled me out of my office. He rushed me through narrow West Wing hallways and down a stairway toward the PEOC, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, located underneath the White House.

Being evacuated from my office in the West Wing by Secret Service Agent Jim Scott. September 11, 2001 (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)

We stopped at the bottom of the stairs in a tunnel outside the PEOC. I watched as Secret Service agents positioned themselves at the top, middle, and bottom of the staircase, creating layers of defense in case the White House itself should be invaded. Agent Scott handed out additional firearms, flashlights, and gas masks. Hed evacuated me from my office, he said, because hed gotten word over his radio that an inbound, unidentified aircraft was headed for Crown, code name for the White House.

Within moments another report came in. Sir, Scott said, the plane headed for us just hit the Pentagon. Now I knew for certain that Washington as well as New York was under attack, and that meant that President Bush, who had been at an elementary school in Florida, had to stay away. I turned to one of the agents in the tunnel. Get me the president. He picked up the handset of a phone on the wall to patch through a call.

This was the second call I had made to President Bush since hijacked airliners flew into the World Trade towers, and hed been trying to reach me as well. A communications glitch had cut us off earlier, and as I waited to talk to him now, I watched images of the burning towers on an old television set that had been set up in the tunnel. When the president came on the line, I told him that the Pentagon had been hit and urged him to stay away from Washington. The city was under attack, and the White House was a target. I understood that he didnt want to appear to be on the run, but he shouldnt be here until we knew more about what was going on.

My wife, Lynne, had been in downtown D.C. when the planes hit, and her Secret Service detail brought her to the White House. She arrived in the tunnel , and when I finished talking to the president, she went with me into the PEOC. I took a seat at the large conference table that occupied most of the wood-paneled room.

Watching the collapse of the World Trade Towers in the presidential emergency operations center at the White House on September 11, 2001, with the deputy chief of staff, Josh Bolten; Transportation Secretary, Norm Mineta; my chief of staff, Scooter Libby; my director of communications, Mary Matalin; and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)

Underneath the table telephones rested in drawers. On the wall across from me were two large television screens and a camera for video-conferencing. A side wall contained another video camera and two more TV screens. The wall behind me was blank except for a large presidential seal.

We hadnt been in the PEOC long when the television sets showed the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsing. Both Lynne and I knew we had just watched hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocent people die.

Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta, whod been one of the first in the PEOC, was making lists of airline flight numbers, trying to figure out which planes were confirmed hijacked and crashed, and which might still be threatening us in the air. Norm was working two telephones, with the FAA on one and his chief of staff on the other, trying to get the skies cleared until we knew just what we were dealing with. A commercial airline pilot usually has wide discretion to handle his aircraft in an emergency, and apparently someone said something to Norm about pilots deciding when and if to bring their planes down. I heard him say in no uncertain terms that pilot discretion would not be the rule today. Get those planes down now, he ordered.