The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis

“In the six decades since the creation of the Situation Room, it has been the crisis center during America’s catastrophes. The men and women of the Sit Room have dealt with nuclear scares, the assassination of a president and attempts on two others. They stayed at their posts on 9/11, when the White House itself was the target of terrorists. And they tracked and analyzed American wars that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and billions upon billions of dollars. But never before had they dealt with an insurrection against our own government, inspired by the president of the United States.”

Stephanopoulos describes the events of January 6th, 2021, in which thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump stormed and vandalized the Capitol Building to protest his recent loss in the 2020 Presidential Election. The rioters were invited there by Trump himself, who wanted to block the congressional certification of the election. Unlike virtually every other major event over the previous six decades, the staff of the Situation Room did not contact or report to the president on this day because “the president himself was the cause of the crisis” (2).

“The Cold War with the Soviet Union was a different kind of struggle from World Wars I and II. But Kennedy understood that it would require just as much attention, planning, monitoring, and strategizing as the hot wars of years gone by.”

In Chapter 1, Stephanopoulos describes the creation of the Situation Room in 1961. He explains that it came from a recommendation made by military researchers who were concerned about the threat of communism, reflecting The Evolution of National Security Practices. The Situation Room’s creation thus reflected the changing geopolitical situation of the time.

“A good Sit Room officer must be focused, organized, intelligent, judicious, apolitical, a fast reader, a critical thinker and cool under pressure. These skills are as disparate as they are valuable, and it’s the rare person who possesses them all.”

Originally, Situation Room duty officers were drawn exclusively from the CIA, but by the 1980s, more began coming from the State Department, National Security Agency, and Defense Intelligence Agency. In describing the qualities necessary for a Sit Room officer, Stephanopoulos emphasizes the responsibility and pressures faced by those who are involved in