The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis

The Situation Room was constructed in 1961, shortly after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. The CIA-backed invasion by Cuban exiles was an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro’s communist government in Cuba. Just over a year after the Bay of Pigs invasion, a US Air Force pilot flying reconnaissance in the Caribbean photographed missile launch sites in Cuba, less than 300 miles from Miami. This led to nearly two weeks of a tense standoff between the US and the Soviet Union before the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, finally decided to remove the missiles, thereby averting the threat of nuclear war.

The Vietnam War was another critical historical event that was often dealt with in the Situation Room. The war was a civil conflict between North and South Vietnam, breaking out in 1955 and lasting until 1975. The conflict also eventually became a proxy war between the Soviet Union and the USA, as both superpowers regarded Vietnam as part of a wider geopolitical and ideological conflict between capitalist democracy and communism. The US’s involvement became especially explicit during the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, with US troops deployed into active combat in 1965. President Nixon began withdrawals of American troops in 1969, but American combat activity did not end until 1973.     

The Iran Hostage Crisis began in 1979, when 53 Americans were taken from the US embassy in Tehran and held hostage by militant Iranian students. In response, President Jimy Carter decided to launch the rescue mission that became known as Desert One. Ultimately, the Desert One rescue mission was aborted when the fleet of eight helicopters was reduced to five due to mechanical failures, killing several servicemen. The hostages were later released after an agreement was reached in 1981.

More recently, the Situation Room played a critical role in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. As The Situation Room suggests, the Room has witnessed many key moments in US presidential history and continues to do so to this day.