Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

World Service,30 Oct 2020,9 mins

With the president on 9/11

Witness History

Available for over a year

On September 11 2001, President George W. Bush was visiting an elementary school in Florida as two planes hit the World Trade Center. In an image that would become iconic, the White House chief of staff, Andrew Card, broke the news to the president by whispering in his ear as he listened to schoolchildren practising their reading. In interviews from 2011, Andrew Card recalls the moment that transformed President Bush’s presidency and the course of recent history. PHOTO: President George W. Bush shortly after learning of the 9/11 attacks (AFP/Getty Images)

Programme Website
More episodes