Andrew Card delivered the bad news to the president

For Holbrook native Andrew Card, it doesn’t seem like 10 years since he whispered, “America is under attack” to President George W. Bush at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla., the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

“Time has flown by so quickly, but the memories of 9/11 are seared in my mind,” Card said.

Card, Bush’s chief of staff from 2001 to 2006, said he would never forget either the day of the terrorist attacks or visiting ground zero at the World Trade Center site three days later to meet the police and firefighters.

“I hope I never forget,” he said. “I’m proud to talk about it because I want to pay tribute to people who were innocent victims and the police and firefighters who answered the call to be first-responders and who themselves were killed.”

As Bush and his entourage arrived at Booker the morning of Sept. 11, Card said it was a beautiful day, and he thought it would be an easy one.

“There wasn’t a cloud in the sky anywhere in the Lower 48,” he said.

Before the event started, Card heard from the White House Situation Room staffer on the scene that a small, twin-engine prop plane hit one of the World Trade Center towers.

“Our reaction was ‘a horrible accident. The pilot must have had a heart attack or something,’” he said.

It was only after the event began that Card learned the plane was actually a commercial jet, and that a second one had hit the World Trade Center, as well.

“That’s when I knew it was a terrorist attack,” he said.

After telling Bush the news, Card said he stepped away so the president wouldn’t respond, and then went to the command center set up in the school to make arrangements.

“I was kind of all business,” he said. “I wanted (Bush) to be comfortable enough to make very tough decisions. It was not a message I ever expected to have to deliver to a president, and it’s one I don’t think President Bush ever expected to receive.”

Making it stranger, Card said, is that he had to deliver the message in a classroom of second-graders, not the private place where that information would usually be conveyed.

The decisions made right after the attack included not going back to the White House right away, which Card said he, the Secret Service and the pilot of Air Force One agreed on, even though he said Bush wanted to. Instead, they flew first to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and then U.S. Strategic Command in Nebraska before returning to Washington, D.C., later.

Card didn’t get home until after 11 that night.

“It ended up being a very long night for me,” he said.

Card said he had no regrets about how he handled the situation.

“I think I did the job that had to be done,” he said. “I tried to offer very clear counsel to the president.”

Shortly after the attacks, Bush called Russian President Vladimir Putin to reassure him, but Card said he wished there had been better communication from Air Force One, even though it has the best communication of any plane in the world. In particular, Card said they had trouble reaching Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, although that may have been because the Pentagon had been hit, as well.

In the days right after Sept. 11, Card said the country was unified.

“We were all chanting ‘USA, USA,’ and we were rallying to support our fallen citizens,” he said, adding that such unity has given way to “political give and take.”

Card also said the attacks led to a feeling of paranoia.

“We saw threats in places we didn’t expect to see them,” he said.

According to Card, the attacks led to changes in government: the FBI changing its mission to preventing the next attack, the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security and changes to airport security. But security has also extended to the population, as Card said most attempted attacks since 9/11 have been thwarted by citizens.

“We are still very vigilant as a people,” he said.

Card said he talks to the first President Bush – who he served as deputy chief of staff and transportation secretary – more often than the second President Bush, although he and George W. Bush communicate regularly by email.

Card is currently acting dean of the George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.

However, Card said he and his wife, fellow Holbrook native the Rev. Kathleene Card, miss New England.

Card owns the house in Holbrook where his father was born, and his father-in-law and sister-in-law live there now.