How do you piece together Gibson saying he was told not to launch, and Bristol saying he gave permission to launch if necessary?
Bristol must have given the “launch if necessary” for the original team that went from Tripoli to Benghazi is my guess. That’s the team that lost at least one man when they arrived. Hicks (deputy chief of mission in Libya the night of the attacks) told Gibson to go to Benghazi to bring everybody home. At that point, Bristol must not have given the second launch or permission to Gibson to do the withdrawals. At least that’s my guess based on what I’ve read.
They were lucky there weren’t more attacks at the airport.