The Pentagon: A History (81 page)

Boredom and hunger
Mailer,
The Armies of the Night,
268.

Ayers celebrated
Ayers,
Fugitive Days,
11; Ayers, author interview; MDW investigation, 30 Oct, 1967, Anti-War Demonstrations, March on the Pentagon, CMH;
NYT,
22 Oct. 1967.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”
Graves, author interview.

Swept away

As the night wore on
Army AAR draft, 61–62, CMH.

Trouble flared
Ibid.,
64–5; Jackson, “The Battle of the Pentagon” Mailer,
The Armies of the Night,
272–8; Kash, author interview; Wilson, “Chronology of Pentagon’s Biggest, Strangest Siege”
NYT,
McShane obituary, 24 Dec. 1968; OUSA journal, 21–22 Oct. 1967, CMH.

By dawn
Wilson, “Chronology of Pentagon’s Biggest, Strangest Siege” Army AAR draft, 69–70, CMH.

Within minutes, crews
Ibid.,
71;
WP,
24 Oct. 1967; Wells,
The War Within,
203. The 82nd Airborne brigade, which never left Andrews, flew back to Fort Bragg Sunday afternoon. Ironically, given the Pentagon’s priority on image, some reports incorrectly stated—and many demonstrators believed—that 82nd Airborne paratroopers defended the building. Some accounts have the first marchers arriving at the Pentagon to find it ringed by the bayonet-wielding troops of the 82nd.

O’Malley was seething
OUSA journal, 22 Oct. 1967, CMH; Bush, memo to McGiffert, “Lessons Learned October 20–22 Demonstration,” 26 Oct. 1967, Anti-War Demonstrations, March on the Pentagon, CMH; McGiffert, after-action evaluation, 26 Oct. 1967, Anti-War Demonstrations, March on the Pentagon, CMH.

The antiwar movement
Wells,
The War Within,
203.

A full load

Robert McNamara was waiting
Will Sparks, “Memorandum for the Record Concerning Secretary McNamara’s Departure Ceremony,” 29 Feb. 1968, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, copy courtesy of Paul Hendrickson (hereafter Sparks elevator memo); Hendrickson,
The Living and the Dead,
345–6; McNamara,
In Retrospect,
380; David Halberstam,
The Best and the Brightest,
645; OSD memo about elevator malfunction, 1 Mar. 1968, copy courtesy Ed Drea.

Out on the River terrace
Star,
29 Feb. 1969;
NYT,
1 Mar. 1968.

Johnson and McNamara, accompanied
Sparks elevator memo; Deborah Shapley,
Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert McNamara,
vii.

McNamara, as always
Sparks elevator memo.

Waiting outside
Star,
29 Feb. 1969;
NYT,
29 Feb. 1968.

Watching McNamara’s
Trewhitt,
McNamara,
271; Joseph A. Califano, Jr.,
The Triumph & Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years,
249; McNamara,
In Retrospect,
313; Shapley,
Promise and Power,
415; Clifford,
Counsel to the President,
487.

Inside the Pentagon elevator
Sparks elevator memo.

“At least this didn’t happen”
Clifford,
Counsel to the President,
487.

The ordeal was not
Time,
8 Mar. 1968; Sparks elevator memo;
NYT,
1 Mar. 1968; Hendrickson, “McNamara: Specters of Vietnam” McNamara,
In Retrospect,
316.

McNamara had served
Clifford,
Counsel to the President,
459–60; Trask and Goldberg,
The Department of Defense,
78, 83; Hendrickson, “McNamara: Specters of Vietnam.”

“God, it was symbolic”
Ibid.

The bastards were going to get it

Much had happened
Ayers,
Fugitive Days,
262–3; Dinitia Smith, “No Regrets for a Love of Explosives,”
NYT,
11 Sept. 2001.

The Weatherman
WP,
20 May 1972; Smith, “No Regrets for a Love of Explosives.”

“The Pentagon was ground zero”
Ayers,
Fugitive Days,
256.

A team of three Weathermen
Ibid.,
259–60; Michael Getler, “The Pentagon: Huge Building Is No Fortress,”
WP,
20 May 1972.

Ayers awaited
Ayers,
Fugitive Days,
256.

Rita Campbell and her cleaning ladies
Rita Campbell, author interview, 8 Dec. 2005.

At 12:42
A.M.
WP,
19 May 1972;
Star,
19 May 1972; Ayers,
Fugitive Days,
260–1.

In her office
Campbell, author interview; Adde, “Solving the Puzzle Palace.”

The explosion had blown
WP,
20 May 1972;
Star,
19 May 1972.

Campbell was frantic
Campbell, author interview.

Later that day
AP, 19 May 1972;
WP,
20 May 1972; Campbell, author interview.

At his safe house
Ayers,
Fugitive Days,
257, 262; Ayers, author interview.

Terrorism had struck
Ayers,
Fugitive Days,
263; Campbell, author interview.

Does anyone know what really exists down here?

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Alan Renshaw
Alan Renshaw, author interview;
WP,
20 May 1972;
WP,
27 Mar. 1981.

Clarence Renshaw had gone on
Assembly,
Mar. 1981; Alan Renshaw, author interview. Clarence Renshaw died in 1980 at the age of seventy-three.

The Pentagon was aging
OSD, “A Status Report to Congress on the Renovation of the Pentagon,” 1 Mar. 1994 OSD HO (hereafter 1994 Pentagon renovation report); Goldberg,
The Pentagon,
137.

The great office bays
Gurney,
The Pentagon,
117; Walt Freeman, interview with Charles W. Hall, 1992. Dick Groves, living in retirement in an apartment on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, considered it “very stupid to chop it all up, because it screwed up the heating and air-conditioning and all that,” according to his son, Richard Groves. Until his death on July 13, 1970, Groves retained an intense proprietary interest in the Pentagon.

Soon after taking office
Donald Rumsfeld, author interview, 19 Apr. 2006;
WP,
10 Jan. 1981;
Star,
1 Apr. 1964; Goldberg,
The Pentagon,
125;
WP,
5 Sept. 1977; David O. Cooke, oral history with Goldberg, 20 Nov. 1989, oral history collection, OSD HO.

The corridors
General Accounting Office, report to Congress, “Actions Needed to Prevent Further Deterioration and Obsolescence,” May 1991 (hereafter GAO buildings report, 1991); Freeman, Hall interview.

In 1984, Steve Carter
Steve Carter, author interview, 18 Nov. 2005.

The basement was worse
“The History of the Pentagon Building Condition,” Pentagon Renovation Program Web site,
http://renovation.pentagon.mil/history-condition.htm
(hereafter PENREN Web site); Carter, author interview;
WP,
26 June 1992. Stanley “Joe” Nance Allan, who had worked as a carpenter on the original Pentagon construction, returned to the site in 1967 to oversee architectural design at the Pentagon Metro Station as project manager for Harry Weese Associates. “At the beginning, strangely enough, we discovered that the original pile foundation drawings for the Pentagon were nowhere to be found,” he said (Allan, “Building the Pentagon”).

CHAPTER 19: THE REMAKING OF THE PENTAGON

If we’re lucky the floods will be shallow

It was C-Day
Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor,
The Generals’ War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf,
54–55; H. Norman Schwarzkopf with Peter Petre,
It Doesn’t Take a Hero,
310. Colin Powell with Joseph E. Persico,
My American Journey,
467.

The Army and Air Force
Carter, author interview; Weisberg, “Edifice Wrecked.”

“speed bumps”
Colin Powell, author interview, 3 Feb. 2006.

The coffee
Carter, author interview; Freeman, Hall interview;
WP,
8 Aug. 1990; GAO buildings report, 1991, 23.

Electricians Bobby McCloud
Bobby McCloud, author interview, 29 Nov. 2005; Reimund Schuster, author interview, 16 Feb. 2006.

The smoky fire
WP,
8 Aug. 1990; “The History of the Pentagon Building Condition,” PENREN Web site; GAO buildings report, 1991, 23.

Mechanical engineers
Freeman, Hall interview; Weisberg, “Edifice Wrecked.”

The horror board

Doc Cooke would later say
WP,
27 June 2002;
Army Times,
20 Mar. 1990; Carter, author interview.

David O. Cooke had many
Cooke, Goldberg oral history, 11 Jan. 1990.

Colin Powell had learned early
Powell,
My American Journey,
299–300; Powell, author interview.

Defense secretaries and their staffs
Paul Haselbush, author interview, 16 June 2003; Bob Woodward,
The Commanders,
71; Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, Cooke award presentation, 21 Jan. 1999, on Pentagon Web site,
www.defenselink.mil/speeches
; Carter, author interview.

The Pentagon did not meet any
OSD, “A Report to Congress on the Pentagon Renovation Program,” 1 March 1993, 10–13, box 1304, OSD HO (hereafter 1993 Pentagon renovation report); Lee Evey, DoD news briefing on Pentagon renovation, 15 Sept. 2001 (hereafter Evey briefing 15 Sept. 2001; this and all DoD news briefings dating after October 1994 are available at
www.defenselink.mil/transcripts
); “Fixer Upper,”
Government Executive,
Aug. 2000;
USA Today,
28 Jan. 2000. The few passenger elevators that had been added to the building over the years were restricted to the executive suites.

The asbestos used
WP,
29 Jan. 1985; 1993 Pentagon renovation report, 9.

Throughout the building
Ken Ringle, “Five-Sided Home of Megathink Blithely Ignores 40th Birthday,”
WP,
15 Jan. 1983;
WP,
18 Jan. 1985; Charles W. Hall, “The Rat Patrol; Ever-Growing Rodent Population Gains Ground at the Pentagon,” 15 Dec. 1991.

The General Services Administration
Freeman, Hall interview; GAO buildings report, 1991, 34; Judith Havemann, “Pentagon’s Maintenance Woes: A Boiling Issue for GSA,”
WP,
27 Mar. 1990; Weisberg, “Edifice Wrecked.”

With GSA showing little
Haselbush, author interview; A. L. Singleton, “Mayor of the Pentagon,”
Government Executive,
Sept. 1995; GAO buildings report, 1991, 2, 4, 15. The other one was the Department of Agriculture South Building.

Cooke requested that Congress
J. B. Hudson, author interview, 2003; “Miserable Offices,” Government Executive, May 1990; “Pentagon Transfer and Renovation Chronology,” David O. Cooke papers, OSD HO; 1994 Pentagon renovation report, 33, OSD HO.

The timing turned out
Freeman, Hall interview; David Hackworth, “The Pentagon’s $2 Billion Face Lift,”
San Francisco Examiner,
15 July 1994.

Several months before
Cooke, statement before the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Readiness and Defense Infrastructure, 20 May 1993, box 1304, OSD HO; Singleton, “Mayor of the Pentagon.”

A certain respectability

“one of the most complex”
Myron P. Curzan, “Report on Pentagon Renovation Project,” 14 May 1996, Cooke papers, OSD HO.

The plan began with
Sherrie Winston, “Pentagon Contractors Divide and Conquer,”
ENR,
4 Sept. 2000; 1994 Pentagon renovation report, 22, OSD HO; Cooke letter to Rep. Patricia Schroeder, 17 Apr. 1990, box 1304, OSD HO;
Pentagram,
18 Oct. 1990.

Later, when it
Pentagon Renovation briefing, “Getting Back to Basics,” 22 Oct. 1999, Cooke papers, OSD HO; Evey briefing, 15 Sept. 2001, DoD.

The fiftieth anniversary
Charles W. Hall, “Pentagon Fetes Five Decades in Five Sides,”
WP,
13 May 1993; minutes of the Pentagon fiftieth-anniversary steering group, 26 Oct. 1992 and 23 Apr. 1993, box 1303, OSD HO; Glenn Flood, author interview, Feb. 2006.

The Eiffel tower
AP, “Pentagon Celebrates 50th Birthday, 12 May 1993.

The building so reviled
National Register of Historic Places Inventory, 19, 23, 27, OSD HO.