Bush in the Crucible

By ERIC POOLEY AND KAREN TUMULTY

It was the most wrenching decision of the most wrenching day of George W. Bush's life. The Twin Towers had crashed to the ground, and the Pentagon had gone up in flames. The President was aloft in Air Force One, staying out of harm's way and dealing with the crisis. He spoke with Vice President Dick Cheney every 30 minutes. The two men were concerned that passenger flights still heading toward Washington might be part of the terrorist plot. Bush, sources tell TIME, had to decide whether to authorize the military to shoot down the planes, loaded with civilians, if they proved to be threats. Bush ordered the pilots "to do whatever was necessary with planes that refused to respond to commands to divert [from] the city," according to a top Cheney aide.

What felt very necessary to the outraged President was a military response, so he asked the Pentagon his options for immediate air strikes. But with intelligence offering nothing more than a pinprick--"We could have only made the rocks bounce," a military source says--Bush started working the phones. He called Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who refused to leave the burning Pentagon, and said they would hunt down and punish those responsible. He turned to a CIA officer and passed on a message for CIA Director George Tenet. "If Tenet has something"--such as news of another attack--"I want to hear it directly from him, not from you," Bush said. After dividing the work among his closest aides, Bush instructed a military operator to place a call from Air Force One to the last American who had had to grapple with the decision of whether and how to go to war. When his father came on the line, Bush cleared the cabin so they could confer privately.

The job of calming and reassuring the American people, however, was not going so well. The President's first brief statements from Florida and Louisiana were shaky, and when he finally got back to the White House that night, his speech was uninspiring. Afterward, in the White House bunker built to withstand nuclear attack, he leaned forward in his blue chair and began the first meeting of his war council. Around the oblong table sat Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft and chief of staff Andrew Card. "Make no mistake," Bush said, stabbing his finger into the table. "Understand my resolve, and all of your people need to understand this."

Bush was focused on one simple point: persuading his staff that he was resolute in the face of this horror. He had made the point to Cheney from Air Force One that day. He had made it again during a video conference with advisers, and during conversations with lawmakers. He returned to the theme so often, in fact, that he seemed to be trying to reassure himself--repeating the words over and over again to help summon the strength he needed so badly.

The crisis demands a level of engagement and leadership Bush has not had to show before. The early coalition building has been relatively smooth for him, in part because of the barbarity of the crime and in part because Bush is making the easy calls to allies while Powell deals with the difficult countries. But now, in briefings, aides say, the President is more curious and hungry for information than ever. He takes the time to understand the processes of airport security and intelligence gathering instead of racing to the decision line of the memos set before him. In meetings with legislators, he is relaxed enough to crack the occasional joke. On Thursday, when New York Senator Charles Schumer pressed him to add an extra $20 billion in emergency aid for the state, Bush did not hesitate. "You got it," he said, though it meant squelching the objections of conservative G.O.P. Senators Don Nickles, Phil Gramm and Pete Domenici.

The 24-hour news cycle gives Bush nowhere to hide. It amplified his uncertainties in the first hours of the crisis. But it also let everyone hear his perfect pitch in the Washington National Cathedral on Friday, as he evoked "a kinship of grief and a steadfast resolve to prevail against our enemies." His smallest decisions are now freighted with history and symbolism. As aides debated whether he should return to the White House on Tuesday in a customary helicopter or in a more secure motorcade, the President made the call: "We're going back the way we normally go back." This time, though, there were three identical choppers to serve as decoys.

In the first 48 hours, the White House staff had spent precious capital reflexively protecting the President's image. To quiet grumbling about the 10 hours it took for Bush to return to the White House, officials belatedly leaked an account that Air Force One had been targeted. Cheney vouched for the report. "I got the data, and it was real and credible," he told an aide. Law-enforcement sources say the White House exaggerated the threat and put the Secret Service and other agencies in the position of having to back up a hyped story. Still, the people were rallying around their President. Close to 90% approve of his handling of the crisis. The Air Force One story was just a sideshow.

Bush had responded like a CEO trying to get back to business. He dispatched top adviser Karl Rove on a mission to tell Major League Baseball and the National Football League to start playing again as soon as possible and to improve their security at stadiums. He resisted the aides who wanted him to state bluntly in his address on Tuesday night that the nation was at war. But by Wednesday Bush was embracing the enormity of the moment. It was not going to be like everyday life in America, not for a while, and he knew it was time to say so.

When he called adviser Karen Hughes to the Oval Office on Wednesday morning, she came armed with logistical advice about the morning photo-op. Bush did not want to hear it. "We need to talk about the big picture," he told her. "We need to tell the people that an act of war has been committed. This is a different kind of enemy than we have ever faced, and they need to know that." That day, he also moved quickly to pre-empt any possibility of a replay of the fractious congressional debate before the Persian Gulf War, though such a debate was wholly unlikely, given the galvanic effect of the terrorist acts. He demanded authorization of war powers before Congress could demand the right to supply one. Within two days, both houses had given it to him. On Thursday Bush fell into terse, effective cadences as he briefed lawmakers at a private session. "It's a war," he said. "And we've only had one battle. There are going to be more."

By Friday Bush was getting bigger. He gave a speech at the Washington National Cathedral prayer service that impressed even Democrats who can't stand him. Al Gore--at Bush's invitation--was sitting two rows behind him during the service, silently making the point that the once vast differences did not matter anymore. (The attack even brought a reconciliation between Gore and Bill Clinton. The two sat up till dawn talking about it at Clinton's New York home before sharing a military transport plane to D.C.) Bush then traveled to ground zero in downtown Manhattan. He picked up a bullhorn, slung his arm around one rescue worker and spoke to the others--and to the world--with a grace that was both convincing and, somehow, unmistakably American. "The people who knocked down these buildings," he said, "are going to hear all of us soon." He didn't insist that he was resolute. He didn't have to.

--Reported by James Carney, John F. Dickerson and Douglas Waller/Washington

With reporting by James Carney, John F. Dickerson and Douglas Waller/Washington