Inside the Pentagon on 9/11 | Ambassador Matthew Klimow

Ambassador Matthew Klimow recounts his path from West Point and a 30-year Army career to the highest levels of U.S. national security, including his firsthand experience inside the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. We also discuss the chaos of that day, the early War on Terror, working for Vice President Dick Cheney, and his later diplomatic career as U.S. ambassador to Turkmenistan.
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00:00 – Start
00:57 – Growing Up in Upstate New York & His Father’s WWII Service
04:31 – West Point in the Turbulent 1970s
05:36 – Serving in Cold War Germany
10:00 – The Old Guard, Reagan’s Inauguration & Washington
12:20 – The Career Decision That Changed Everything
15:06 – Traveling With the Secretary of State & the Balkan Wars
16:55 – Madeleine Albright & the NATO-Russia Brigade Disaster
23:02 – Working With General Richard Myers on the Joint Staff
23:50 – Commanding at Fort Bragg & Returning to Washington
30:39 – Inside the Pentagon Before 9/11
33:32 – Watching the World Trade Center Burn From His Pentagon Office
35:00 – NORAD Calls the Pentagon’s Red Phone
36:27 – The White House Emergency Conference Begins
38:46 – “The Building Moved”: The Pentagon Is Hit
40:23 – General Myers Returns to the Burning Pentagon
42:28 – Could U.S. Fighters Shoot Down a Hijacked Airliner?
43:42 – The Chaos Between NORAD, the FAA & Secret Service
48:47 – Watching the South Tower Collapse From the Command Center
50:49 – Rumsfeld Returns & the Pentagon’s Command Crisis
52:33 – Cheney Is Rushed Into the White House Bunker
54:42 – President Bush: “Find Out Who Did This”
55:36 – Running Out of Oxygen Inside the Pentagon
58:30 – Rumsfeld Refuses to Evacuate
59:38 – “What Haven’t We Thought of Yet?” & Raising DEFCON
1:02:02 – Walking the Flight 77 Crash Site
1:03:15 – Soldiers Try to Reenter the Burning Pentagon
1:04:39 – Continuity of Government & Raven Rock
1:07:05 – The Human Toll of the Pentagon Attack
1:10:20 – General Shelton Returns to Washington
1:13:40 – “We’re Going to War”
1:19:38 – Going Home After 9/11 & Returning the Next Morning
1:22:38 – Planning the Afghanistan War & Discovering Turkmenistan
1:24:43 – Helping the Kabul Evacuation 20 Years Later
1:26:44 – Anthrax, the DC Snipers & Fear After 9/11
1:33:25 – Afghanistan, Iraq & the First Year of the War on Terror
1:35:04 – Working for Vice President Dick Cheney
1:36:47 – A Credible Terror Plot Against the New York Subway
1:38:32 – The Threat of Terrorists Shooting Down Airliners
1:40:34 – What 9/11 Exposed About Government Bureaucracy
1:42:59 – Retiring From the Army & Joining the State Department
1:46:20 – How You Actually Become a U.S. Ambassador
1:49:29 – Becoming Ambassador to Turkmenistan
1:51:30 – Turkmenistan, Russia & “Positive Neutrality”
1:55:17 – Natural Gas, Europe & Reducing Dependence on Russia
1:58:15 – How Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Changed Central Asia
2:00:00 – Diplomacy, Political Prisoners & the Carrot and Stick
2:01:22 – Fighting for Women’s Rights in Turkmenistan
2:05:59 – Turkmenistan’s Future, China & the Caspian
2:07:39 – What It’s Actually Like to Visit Turkmenistan
2:10:25 – The Case for American Soft Power
2:12:42 – Retirement & Trying to Be More Like His Father
2:17:59 – Final Thoughts

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