Present at 9/11 Destruction

Iwas supposed to be in Manhattan on 9/11, but on the previous day my plane at Reagan National Airport was delayed so many times that my reason for going there — a political dinner invitation — was null and void. So I canceled my flight and returned to my Washington apartment for the night. To the best of my knowledge, that hitherto unexplained cancellation has never become part of any conspiracy theory. But it would be hard to make anything sinister of it because my D.C. apartment was even nearer to the White House than my New York apartment was to the Twin Towers.

What it did mean, however, was that I was between drinking coffee, making notes on morning papers that were about to become yesterday’s news metaphorically as well as actually, and shaving when my wife, watching television at home, rang about 8:47 a.m. to say that she thought she had seen a plane striking one of the towers. That was Flight 11 of American Airlines; at 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 flew into the South Tower. Not long afterward I was sprinting down Vermont Avenue — where are the cabs when you really need them? — to the offices of United Press International on H Street. As I approached Lafayette Park in front of the White House, the park suddenly came alive and started sprinting toward me. White House staffers had all been sent home, and for a few minutes I was The Man Who Knew Too Little in a Charles Addams cartoon going toward the fire rather than from it.

About the Author

John O’Sullivan

John O’Sullivan is a senior fellow at National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.

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Iwas supposed to be in Manhattan on 9/11, but on the previous day my plane at Reagan National Airport was delayed so many times that my reason for going there — a political dinner invitation — was null and void. So I canceled my flight and returned to my Washington apartment for the night. To the best of my knowledge, that hitherto unexplained cancellation has never become part of any conspiracy theory. But it would be hard to make anything sinister of it because my D.C. apartment was even nearer to the White House than my New York apartment was to the Twin Towers.

What it did mean, however, was that I was between drinking coffee, making notes on morning papers that were about to become yesterday’s news metaphorically as well as actually, and shaving when my wife, watching television at home, rang about 8:47 a.m. to say that she thought she had seen a plane striking one of the towers. That was Flight 11 of American Airlines; at 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 flew into the South Tower. Not long afterward I was sprinting down Vermont Avenue — where are the cabs when you really need them? — to the offices of United Press International on H Street. As I approached Lafayette Park in front of the White House, the park suddenly came alive and started sprinting toward me. White House staffers had all been sent home, and for a few minutes I was The Man Who Knew Too Little in a Charles Addams cartoon going toward the fire rather than from it.