This 44-part series began running in WCT Nov. 8. Readers can read all the installments to date at www.windycitymediagroup.com .
From the journal of John 'Jack' Quincy Adams, Chief Secret Service Special Agent in Charge, The White House. Code Name: One.
Part 18. They're Back
Jack Adams, the Secret Service agent charged with assassinating President George W. Bush and being held for psychiatric evaluation, is telling the psychiatrist about political strategizing in the Oval Office. ( Note: POTUS= President of The United States ) .
Beginning in the summer of 2005, 'events'—the word that strikes terror in the hearts of White House staffers—took control of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Events that altered lives and ultimately changed the course of history and revealed to me beyond a doubt the kind of people I was working for.
The prelude to these events came when Sandra Day O'Connor resigned from the Supreme Court. The politicos had been gearing up for Rehnquist to resign as a result of his cancer, but anyone who knew Rehnquist knew that the challenge of making the most of whatever time he had left was going to be his number one priority.
The first event, the one that brought everyone, even those at 1600 and Capitol Hill to their knees was named Katrina. It showed how vulnerable we all are in the end to Mother Nature.
The next 'event' didn't happen for another year, but it couldn't have been more effective if the Democratic National Committee had planned it. It occurred in two waves: two simultaneous terrorist events. A truck filled with explosives on the Golden Gate Bridge and a dirty bomb in Los Angeles. And on the other side of the planet the Iraqi insurgents were going at it full tilt and our troop casualties had topped 2,000. Every day saw more and more deaths; not only U.S. soldiers, but also contractors working for Halliburton and their subsidiaries and international relief volunteers. Everybody in the West Wing was running in all directions at once trying to do damage control.
The Golden Gate Bridge incident was a near miss. The truck was on the bridge and its detonator didn't work. The terrorists in the truck were stopped on the bridge near the north tower trying to make it work when a maintenance crew, thinking the truck was stalled out, stopped to see if they could help. When they approached the truck's cab the driver started shooting and then all hell broke loose.
One of the maintenance men radioed for help and the two terrorists fidgeted with their detonator for another minute or two and then for some unknown reason jumped off the bridge. They were dead in the water when the Coast Guard arrived. The bridge was closed down for over twelve hours while the military de-activated the bomb and swept the bridge for explosives. Then the name-calling started. Schwarzenegger was called on the carpet along with Homeland Security and the president.
In many ways this was just a single thread in the blanket of events that Al Qaeda was wrapping around the world beginning with the July 2005 London bombings. America paid attention to that but not enough to see the handwriting on the wall and realize that it was just the beginning of a new surge of attacks. London was an appetizer compared to the main course they were about to serve up.
Everyone remembers where he was at the moment of a national disaster, a 'sea change' in the national life: John Kennedy's assassination, the Columbia space shuttle explosion, the first step on the moon, the World Trade Center attack ( the one in 2001 ) , even Hurricane Katrina. And then there was the dirty bomb.
I was in the White House Vault. Well, I started out in The Vault. The Vault is an old storage closet off the Oval Office. It was enlarged to be a private office for President Kennedy and under Bush I it was made into a kind of safe room—safe from outside directional bugging devices. This is where POTUS goes for spur of the moment political strategy meetings. They were about to 'talk dirty' so I was sent to fetch snacks.
Trying to take my time ( since that was the whole purpose of sending me out ) I filled a cup with Dr. Pepper, grabbed him a bran muffin and was meandering out of the Mess when suddenly every television monitor in sight began showing the same picture: a reporter standing on a hilltop in a fierce wind, the city of Los Angeles behind her in the distance. Her hair was flying every which way and she kept trying to gather it with her free hand, the one not holding the mike. Dust and sand and scraps of debris swirled around her and then out of camera range. Later, she would die a horribly painful death for staying there and filing that report and I always wondered if she knew it at the time, wondered if she remained in order to keep her commitment to a profession she loved.
See www.WindycityMediaGroup.com for past columns.
Follow this 44-part serialized book in Windy City Times for the next several months. See www.WindycityMediaGroup.com for past columns.
