‘We Were All in It Together’

The late Sen. Edward Kennedy’s former press secretary, Jim Manley, had an inside view on how the attacks immediately diminished the importance of politics on the Hill. Then-first lady Laura Bush was scheduled to testify in front of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that morning. It was one of her first policy-related appearances, and preparation for the event had consumed her in recent weeks.

“I spent most of the morning going over the briefing I was supposed to give,” she said in a Smithsonian Channel documentary. “It was about nine months into George being president, and I was really just hitting my stride as first lady.”

An equal amount of preparation went into the event on the Democratic side.

“We had an ongoing skirmish with the White House about what to call it,” Manley said. “They didn’t want us to call it a hearing, so there was a lot of back-and-forth before we agreed to call it a roundtable discussion. Regardless, it was going to be a high-profile thing.”

The second plane struck the World Trade Center just before the first lady arrived, and she was escorted into Kennedy’s inner office as the chaos around them unfolded.

“It was just me, Sen. Kennedy, the first lady and Kennedy’s Portuguese water dog, Splash,” Manley said. “It was this calm space in contrast to what was going on with the staff in the conference room next door. Outside the office there were televisions blaring, the chief of staff was trying to get everyone on the phone, people were shouting and running around. But in there it was quiet. I will never forget it.”

The emotional intensity of that day, and sharing it in such a personal setting, created an unlikely but lasting connection between the first lady and the Senator.

“She was in there with Sen. Kennedy, amidst all of the Senator’s stuff — his dog tags, his personal memorabilia, the pictures on the wall,” Manley said. “She later praised the Senator for his calm demeanor and level head. It probably bonded them for the rest of their lives.”

Jeff Donahue
“The news reported that there had been explosions down at the Mall.”

There have been so many changes in disaster response on the Hill in the 10 years since the attacks that the pre-9/11 Capitol would scarcely be recognizable to an incoming Member today. Jeff Donahue was an electrician working for the Architect of the Capitol, and he remembered how quaint the response systems were back then.

“When news came that the Pentagon had been hit, there was a big rush to evacuate,” he said. “But the fire alarm system wasn’t set to go off for something like that, and the emergency broadcast system wasn’t prepared for something of that scale either — all of that came later. We just knew that we had to get out of the building, so that’s what we did.”

The confusion surrounding the evacuation continued on the streets outside.

“The news reported that there had been explosions down at the Mall,” Donahue said. “As soon as I hit the parking lot I heard it, too — there was this loud boom, and I saw the Capitol Hill police hit the deck, that’s how loud it was. Turns out it was just a sonic boom from the jets overhead.”

Despite the panic and uncertainty, Donahue said the masses of people evacuating the District acted selflessly throughout.

“I live in Maryland about 30 miles south of the Potomac, and I remember thinking about what a long drive it was going to be,” he said. “I thought for sure it would be every man for himself on the roads — at the time we thought Washington was under attack. But I’ll never forget how people were letting others into the traffic; all the way out of town people were letting people in or letting them across lanes so they could exit. People had their windows open and everyone had the news on, and even though everyone wanted out of the city as quickly as possible, everyone was calm and there was this feeling that we were all in it together.”

This is perhaps even more remarkable considering that the devastation at the Pentagon was visible from the Capitol.

“I was going down [Interstate] 295 south of Washington,” Donahue said. “When you cross over the hill you can see the Pentagon off in the distance. There was smoke coming across, and it was really low, going from the west to the east. You had to drive through that smoke, smelling the debris from the plane crash and knowing in your mind that people had died in it.”