Some people at the school also heard of the news before Bush arrived. Around 8:50, Tampa Bay's Channel 8 reporter Jackie Barron was on the phone with her mother, who mentioned the first news reports. At almost the same time, Brian Goff, a Fox reporter from Tampa, heard the same thing on his cell phone. [Sarasota Magazine, 11/01] Associated Press reporter Sonia Ross was also told of the crash by phone from a colleague. [AP, 9/12/01 (D)] Florida Congressman Dan Miller, waiting in front of the school as part of the official greeting party, was told by an aide about the crash at 8:55, before Bush arrived. [Sarasota Magazine, 11/01]
Given all this, how could Bush have remained ignorant? Could he have been out of the loop because he was in a car? No. The previous night, Colony Resort manager Katie Klauber Moulon toured the presidential limousine and marveled "at all the phones and electronic equipment." [Sarasota Magazine, 11/01] Karl Rove, Bush's "chief political strategist," who presumably was riding with Bush, used a wireless e-mail device on 9/11 as well. [Newsweek, 10/14/02] There seems to have been ample opportunity and the means to alert Bush.
If Bush wasn't told while in his limousine, he certainly was told immediately after he got out of it. US Navy Captain Deborah Loewer, the director of the White House Situation Room, was traveling in the motorcade when she received a message from an assistant back in Washington about the first crash. Loewer said that as soon as the car arrived at Booker, she ran quickly over to Bush. "It's a very good thing the Secret Service knows who I am," Loewer later said. She told Bush that an aircraft had "impacted the World Trade Center. This is all we know." [Catholic Telegraph, 12/7/01, AP, 11/26/01]
An Interesting Day:
at The Center for Cooperative Research May 9, 2003
