September 11, 2001: Mr. George Stephanopoulos, former assistant to President Clinton, on ABC TV with Peter Jennings in mid afternoon talked about the two situation rooms in the White House.
Stephanopoulos: "There are facilities in the White House, not the normal situation room, which everyone has seen in the past, has seen pictures of. There is a second situation room, behind the primary situation room, which has video conferencing capabilities. The director of the Pentagon, the defense chief, can speak from a national military command center at the Pentagon. The Secretary of State can speak from the State Department, the President from wherever he is, and they'll have this capability for video conferencing throughout this crisis." "In my time at the White House it was used in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, in the aftermath of the TWA Flight 800 bombing, and that would be the way they would stay in contact through the afternoon."
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http://www.twa800.com/news/on-air.htmCNN LARRY KING LIVE 21:00 September 11, 2001 Tuesday
KING: Senator Kerry did your -- did you committee on international opertions and terrorism ever actually fear something like this?
SEN. JOHN KERRY (R), MASSACHUSETTS: Absolutely. Absolutely. But let me join John and I know all my colleagues in just expressing -- I think all of us here in Washington are feeling in very personal ways the loss of what's happened here. I know that I had one friend I know of already on that plane from Boston, and I dread the learning of perhaps others. But for thousands of families tonight, there is just a huge loss, and I think in every American there's a sense -- there's a fury, an intense, burning fury about this and a determination to do what is right about it.
We have always known this could happen. We've warned about it. We've talked about it. I regret to say, as -- I served on the Intelligence Committee up until last year. I can remember after the bombings of the embassies, after TWA 800, we went through this flurry of activity, talking about it, but not really doing hard work of responding.