43 pages • 1 hour read
George StephanopoulosThe Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Chapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary: “Center of the Storm”
In the Prologue, Stephanopoulos introduces the secret command center of the White House known as the Situation Room. Located in the basement of the White House and consisting of four separate conference rooms, it was created in 1961 to serve as a crisis center during America’s catastrophes.
Stephanopoulos describes the events of January 6th, 2021, when President Donald Trump implored thousands of his supporters to come to Washington, D.C. to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential win. Stephanopoulos explains that during national crises, the Situation Room staff would usually monitor events, gather information, and report to the president, but this was different because “the president was the cause of the crisis” (2).
According to Stephanopoulos, the staff of the “Sit Room” had dealt with many crises during the previous decades, such as nuclear scares, the assassination of a president, and assassination attempts on two others. They even stayed at their posts on 9/11, when the White House itself was the target of terrorists. They had never before dealt with an insurrection against the American government, “inspired by the president of the United States” (4). Stephanopoulos also explains that volumes have been written about the 12 presidents who have been elected since the Situation Room was created in 1961, but few accounts have chronicled the history and inner workings of the site itself, “despite its vital place in America’s story” (5).
Chapter 1 Summary: “At the Creation”
Stephanopoulos describes the creation of the Situation Room in 1961. Military researchers recommended a National Daily Situation Room to President John F. Kennedy as a way to assist in the review and direction of Cold War matters. The recommendation suggested that 80 specialists be assigned to operate it and that it be equipped with the most up-to-date communication systems. The recommendation came only 10 days before the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, the CIA-backed invasion of Cuba by exiled opponents of Fidel Castro. Since President Kennedy and others blamed the failed Bay of Pigs invasion on communication deficiencies, the Situation Room was designed and built within two months.
Stephanopoulos explains that many of the 34 presidents prior to Kennedy used something resembling a situation room during their terms. These included Abraham Lincoln, who spent hours every day in the telegraph office at the War Department during the Civil War; William McKinley, who set up a “War Room” in the White House during the Spanish-American War; and Franklin Roosevelt, who converted a White House billiards room into his information headquarters during World War II.
Sit Room duty officers were originally drawn exclusively from the CIA, but by the 1980s they were coming from the State Department, National Security Agency, and Defense Intelligence Agency as well. The author argues that the biggest change in the Sit Room’s six decades has been “the rise of computers and the internet” (22), which replaced the previous rudimentary methods of communication.
Chapter 2 Summary: “All Through the Night”
Stephanopoulos examines the usage of the Situation Room during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. He argues that during the Vietnam War, “LBJ was desperate for any piece of information” (31), day or night and regardless of importance. Johnson constantly called and visited the Sit Room as a way to remain informed about every aspect of the war.
Johnson was “the undisputed master of domestic politics” (34), having pushed through countless pieces of landmark legislation in the latter half of the 1960s, but his handling of the Vietnam War was muddling and tentative. Stephanopoulos argues that Johnson “essentially used the Situation Room in Vietnam like Franklin Roosevelt used the Map Room during World War II” (37). The Sit Room was used even more steadily in June 1967, when the Six-Day War between Israel and its neighboring Arab states broke out, which Johnson feared would spiral into nuclear war.
Chapter 3 Summary: “All Hell Has Broken Loose”
Stephanopoulos explains that “Richard Nixon hated the Situation Room” and that in more than five years as president, “he almost never set foot in there” (51). He details the events of October 1973, when Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate scandal. Nixon was increasingly secluded in the White House while one of the most dangerous moments of the Cold War was taking place. While Nixon was missing, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger took on the central role in the administration, leading Sit Room meetings during the Yom Kippur War, fought between Israel and Egypt and Syria. Two weeks into the war, Kissinger negotiated a cease-fire while Nixon simultaneously “blew up his own government” through the chain of administration firings and resignations that became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre” (59).
International tensions were heightened when Israel violated the cease-fire and the Soviet Union threatened retaliation. According to Stephanopoulos, this led to an extraordinary series of directives coming from the Situation Room, and “President Nixon didn’t even know this was happening” (61). The response was to raise the Defense Readiness Condition scale to DEFCON 3, its highest level since the Cuban Missile Crisis more than a decade earlier. Kissinger’s DEFCON 3 gambit worked, causing the Soviets to back down and the Yom Kippur War to end. Less than a year later, Nixon resigned from office rather than face an impeachment trial stemming from the Watergate scandal, and Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn in as the 38th President of the United States.
Prologue-Chapter 3 Analysis
In the Prologue and first three chapters of The Situation Room, Stephanopoulos provides a historical overview of the creation of the Situation Room and its role during the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon. He begins with an anecdote describing the assault on the Capitol that unfolded on January 6th, 2021, arguing that the event was a milestone in the history of The Situation Room. In explaining that the staff of the Sit Room did not follow their normal procedure and contact the president that day, he argues that “never before had they dealt with an insurrection against our own government, inspired by the president of the United States” (4). The author also uses his Prologue to provide a physical description of the Situation Room, noting that the reality of a “cramped conference room” (5) and three smaller ones off to the side is nothing like what has been portrayed in movies and television.
In Chapter 1, Stephanopoulos explains that military researchers recommended creating the Situation Room due to concerns over the threat of communism and the Cold War, introducing the theme of The Evolution of National Security Practices. Only days after the White House received the recommendation to create the Room in 1961, the CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion failed due to flawed communication. President John F. Kennedy then decided to act on the recommendation and the Sit Room was constructed and staffed only weeks later. Kennedy’s willingness to construct the Room as quickly as possible reveals how Cold War tensions influenced his approach to national security.
Stephanopoulos also introduces another key theme, The Role of Technology in Governance. In Chapter 2, Stephanopoulos describes the history of the Moscow Link “hotline,” or MOLINK, explaining that this piece of technology “outranked all others in terms of cachet and importance” (41). MOLINK is a direct phone line linking the Pentagon to the Kremlin in Russia; the line was instituted in 1963 in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The introduction of MOLINK demonstrates how technological developments reflected shifting political realities, with Kennedy’s desire for a direct line to the Kremlin reflecting the fears of nuclear warfare between the two superpowers. Similarly, in Chapter 3, Stephanopoulos describes the history of the nation’s Defense Readiness Condition scale, or DEFCON, which was raised to stage 3 in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East.
Stephanopoulos also compares and contrasts the ways that Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon used, or failed to use, the Situation Room to explore The Nature of Presidential Decision-Making. Kennedy was assassinated only two years after the Sit Room’s creation, but it “worked as [he] had intended” during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 (23), allowing him to get the information he needed faster. While Kennedy rarely used the Sit Room, Johnson was there all the time while American troops were fighting in the Vietnam War. The author argues that Johnson “was desperate for any piece of information from Vietnam” (31), and he viewed the Situation Room as the best place to stay informed. Nixon, on the other hand, “hated the Situation Room” and “almost never set foot in there” because of his preoccupation with the domestic Watergate scandal and his increasing paranoia (51). Stephanopoulos thus implies that how presidents use (or do not use) the Situation Room reflects their wider priorities and their personal leadership style.
