The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis

Born in 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy was a member of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate before being elected as the 35th President of the United States in 1960. In his Inaugural Speech, Kennedy outlined his vision for the United States’s future. Kennedy plays a central role in The Situation Room as the president who, acting upon a recommendation from military researchers in 1961, ordered the Situation Room to be constructed. The recommendation came just days before the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, the “CIA-backed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro’s communist government in Cuba” (10). The invasion turned into a disaster largely because of poor communications and a failure to get adequate information to the president beforehand. In response to these failures, Kennedy decided to act upon the recommendation.

Lyndon B. Johnson was born in Texas in 1908. He served in the US House of Representatives for 12 years and in the US Senate for another 12 before being elected as the 37th Vice President of the United States under John F. Kennedy. Upon Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Johnson became the 36th President of the United States and won a landslide re-election in 1964. Among all the presidents who have served after the creation of the Situation Room, none used it more than Johnson did during the Vietnam War. According to Stephanopoulos, “LBJ was desperate for any piece of information from Vietnam, day or night, no matter how minor” (31). Due to his fear of missing any detail that might help save American lives in Vietnam, “LBJ was there all the time” (36).

Born in Yorba Linda, California in 1913, Richard Nixon served in the US House of Representatives and the US Senate before being elected as the 36th Vice President of the United States under President Dwight Eisenhower from 1953-1961. Nixon was elected president in 1968 and elected to a second term in 1972. Stephanopoulos begins Chapter 3 writing, “Richard Nixon hated the Situation Room. During five and a half years as president, he almost never set foot in there” (51). Despite the war raging in Vietnam, Nixon rarely ever used the Situation Room because of his paranoia and his fixation on domestic scandals involving Spiro Agnew, his vice president, and Watergate. In 1974, Nixon resigned from the presidency rather than face an impeachment trial over his involvement in the Watergate scandal.

Henry Kissinger was born in Germany in 1923 and emigrated to the United States in 1938. After serving in the US Army during World War II, he worked in academia for several years before being appointed National Security Advisor to Richard Nixon in 1969 and Secretary of State in 1973. He served in both positions under both Nixon and Gerald Ford. Kissinger plays a critical role in the history of the Situation Room because he led meetings there rather than Nixon and charted the United States’s course of action during several crises, including the Yom Kippur War and Watergate. In his books like Diplomacy (1994) and Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy (2022), Kissinger outlines what he learned while playing this pivotal role in US government.

Born in Nebraska in 1913, Gerald Ford served as the 40th Vice President of the United States and the 37th President of the United States. Uniquely, Ford is the only man to ever serve as president despite not being elected to that office or the office of Vice President. He was appointed vice president by Richard Nixon upon the resignation of Spiro Agnew, and then ascended to the presidency when Nixon himself resigned during the Watergate scandal. While his time in office was short, Ford dealt with a major crisis during the Mayaguez incident, in which a US cargo ship was captured by the Khmer Rouge regime of Cambodia just after the fall of Saigon. He utilized the Situation Room to communicate directly with American fighter pilots and to make critical decisions during their mission to recapture the ship and its crewmembers.

Jimmy Carter was born in Plains, Georgia in 1924 and graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1946. He served as governor of Georgia from 1971-1975 and was elected as the 39th President of the United States in 1976. Carter’s one presidential term was marked by a major crisis in which a group of radical students and supporters of the Islamic Iranian Revolution took over the US embassy in Tehran in 1979. They took 53 Americans hostage and held them for 444 days. Carter’s desperation to get the hostages out of Iran led to one of the most unique moments in the history of the Situation Room when he met with an NSC staffer who had been involved in the government’s top-secret parapsychology program. It also led to one of the Sit Room’s most disastrous moments, when the Desert One rescue mission resulted in failure and the deaths of eight servicemembers. Carter’s memoir, Keeping Faith (1982), delves into this and other crises he dealt with during his presidency.

Born in Illinois in 1911, Ronald Reagan worked as a sports broadcaster before becoming an actor in California in 1937. During his acting career, he also became the president of the Screen Actors Guild two different times. Reagan was elected governor of California in 1966 and 14 years later was elected as the 40th President. The Reagan presidency plays a major role in The Situation Room in that the 1981 assassination attempt on his life, which he survived, led to one of the most confusing moments in White House history. While Reagan was undergoing surgery, his vice president, George H.W. Bush, was in flight from Texas back to Washington. This led the Secretary of State to incorrectly and unconstitutionally state to others in the Sit Room and the press that he was the one in control. The Reagan presidency is also notable in that the Situation Room was used for document destruction by Oliver North in the Iran-Contra Affair, the scandal that nearly led to an impeachment.

George H.W. Bush served as the 41st President after winning the 1988 Presidential Election. He was born in Massachusetts in 1924 and served as a pilot during World War II. Before becoming vice president in 1980, Bush served as ambassador to the United Nations and as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Situation Room played a crucial role during the Bush administration because of the highly significant changes going on in the world during Bush’s term. These included several democratic revolutions that took place across the USSR in the late 1980s and the Tiananmen Square massacre in China that squashed the attempt for democratic reforms. According to Stephanopoulos, “Bush’s team worked together incredibly well. The Situation Room functioned at peak performance. The decision-making process was efficient and professional” (165).

Born in Hope, Arkansas in 1946, Bill Clinton was elected as America’s 42nd president after serving two non-consecutive terms as the governor of Arkansas. While Clinton dealt with several major domestic crises, including his sex scandal and impeachment in the House of Representatives, the international crisis in the Situation Room was the war in Bosnia. Clinton used the complex to hold meetings with national security advisors and military officials to make the decision of whether to support NATO airstrikes. Clinton initially decided against any strikes, until an act of ethnic cleansing a couple of years later changed his mind. Ultimately, National Security Advisor Tony Lake saw the Sit Room as “part of the problem of why no consensus had yet been reached” (179). This was because he thought that some were unwilling to put forth bold policy concepts there. Instead, he began holding smaller meetings, and together with Clinton, they reached a consensus. A few weeks later, a US-supported NATO bombing campaign ended the war.

The 43rd President and son of former president George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush was elected in 2000 after serving as the governor of Texas. The Bush presidency plays a critical role in The Situation Room because of the national security crisis the administration faced after the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. One of the key elements of the crisis was communication issues involving The Situation Room. President Bush was in Florida at the time of the attacks and was then purposely kept in flight because the White House was a target. Bush’s closest advisors and cabinet members were also hurried to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), “the bunker-like shelter underneath the East Wing” (206). While communications were fine between the Sit Room and Air Force One and between the Sit Room and the PEOC, communications between Air Force One and the PEOC were not. Staff at The Situation Room refused to evacuate to help keep communications open.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1961, Barack Obama became the nation’s 44th president in 2009 after serving as a Senator from Illinois. In Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995), Obama traces his childhood and his eventual entry into politics. As the nation’s first African American president, security was a key factor in the Obama presidency, as was counterterrorism and the continued hunt for Osama bin Laden, the terrorist who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. Obama’s decision and planning for the raid that killed bin Laden is a key moment in the book. Obama carefully weighed his options and solicited input from everyone in the Sit Room meetings, even the non-principals who were there as aides to the principals. When the raid took place on May 1st, 2011, White House photographer Pete Souza snapped one of the most famous White House photos of all time, the shot of Obama and his team watching a live feed of the raid. In his memoir, A Promised Land (2020), Obama offers an inside perspective of this pivotal event in US history.

The son of wealthy real estate developer Fred Trump, Donald Trump was born in New York City in 1946. After starring in his reality television show, The Apprentice, from 2004-2015, Trump became the 45th President of the United States in 2017. Due to his unorthodox style and insistence on shattering long-held norms and protocols expected of presidents, Trump’s presidency was challenging for national security professionals and Sit Room personnel. Stephanopoulos writes about the Trump administration that “almost nothing about it was normal” and that “the president was the crisis to be managed” (274). Stephanopoulos also includes an anecdote in which a Homeland Security advisor explained that Trump rarely came to the Situation Room because “he didn’t like the idea that he had to go to it. He wanted everybody to come to him” (275).