4:21 pm / 10:21 pm —The White House Situation Room convenes a meeting.
After seeking refuge, one of the agents in Villa B then contacted the TOC in Tripoli and the other agent contacted the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Command Center[DSCC] in Washington D.C. at 9:49 p.m. Benghazi time[3:49 p.m. in Washington, DC].
Although the Embassy in Tripoli and the Diplomatic Command Center at the State Department in Washington received word almost immediately that the Benghazi Mission compound was under attack, that notice did not make its way to the National Military Command Center, the operations center at the Pentagon, until 4:32 p.m. local time in Washington D.C.
Just minutes after word of the attack reached the Secretary, he and General Martin E.Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, departed the Pentagon to attend a previously scheduled 5:00 p.m. meeting at the White House with President Obama and National Security Advisor Thomas E. Donilon. The Secretary recalled two details about the attack on the U.S. facility in Benghazi: a building was on fire and Stevens was missing. As the Secretary and Dempsey briefed the President on the evolving situation in Benghazi, Libya, the Secretary recalls the following guidance: The President made clear that we ought to use all of the resources at our disposal to try to make sure we did everything possible to try to save lives there.