SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
The United States and the world were very different at the end of September 11, 2001, than when that Tuesday started. And so was Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney died Monday at the age of 84. He was widely considered to be the most influential vice president in American history. And in the wake of 9/11, he used that power to make the case for two wars, for the creation of a vast and sweeping intelligence and military infrastructure, and for an aggressive approach to terrorism threats, forever changing the U.S. and the world.
As we look back at Cheney's life, we want to focus in on 9/11 itself. And to do that, we called historian Garrett Graff, who wrote the definitive oral history of the terrorist attacks, "The Only Plane In The Sky." Garrett, welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
GARRETT GRAFF: Thanks very much for having me today.
DETROW: It's around 9 in the morning. President Bush is reading to school children in Florida. Tell us where the vice president is and what happens next.
GRAFF: The vice president on 9/11 was really the only major senior U.S. official in Washington, D.C., that Tuesday morning in 2001. And he is picked up - literally - by secret service agents and carried - his feet off the ground - into the Presidential Emergency Operation Center, the bunker underneath the East Wing of the White House that was built for the nuclear era of the Cold War. And in that bunker, across the day of 9/11, Dick Cheney is really the official making the biggest and most consequential decisions about how America reacts in those initial hours after the attacks.
DETROW: So Cheney's whisked into the bunker. President Bush is up in the air on Air Force One, where it's not always a clear line of communication. And then this pressing immediate concern comes in that there is at least one plane headed toward Washington, D.C., and this gets to this key moment where Cheney is presented with a question of should the U.S. military shoot these planes down?
GRAFF: So this is one of the murkiest times of all of the official U.S. government response on 9/11. It's a period that takes place probably from 10:12 a.m. to 10:18 a.m., where Dick Cheney and the others who are in the White House bunker are presented with information that the airline we now understand was United Airlines Flight 93 was on its way towards Washington. And Dick Cheney gives a very clear order to shoot it down. I spoke with the Navy commander, Anthony Barnes, who was on duty that morning, and he recalls looking around and talking to Cheney about this. And he asked the question several times because he wanted to be very, very clear. Are we prepared to shoot down a commercial airliner full of American passengers and crew? And Dick Cheney finally ran out of patience. And he's like, yes, absolutely. Take it down, no question.
And what we now understand from the subsequent investigations by the 9/11 Commission is that Dick Cheney most likely gave that order without ever speaking to President Bush that morning. And, of course, the vice president of the United States is not supposed to be in the military chain of command. But that morning, he gave that order, and the military responded as if he had the authority to give that order. Now, sometime around 10:18, 10:20 that morning, Dick Cheney did speak to President Bush aboard Air Force One and communicated about this, and President Bush immediately concurred that that was the right decision. But it has been very hazy throughout history.
DETROW: Yeah.
GRAFF: Both men have made it particularly hazy about whether they spoke before or after Dick Cheney gave that order.
DETROW: What's your sense of how that day changed Dick Cheney's outlook on the world and his outlook on what the role of the federal government is?
GRAFF: So Dick Cheney had always had an expansive view of presidential authority. He had worked, even before 9/11, as vice president to maximize the authority of the U.S. president, sort of, you know, what was known as the unitary executive theory. But really, it turbocharged after 9/11, and that by the end of Dick Cheney's time as vice president, you know, many of his closest friends and allies said that they did not find him recognizable anymore.
I think what you can say about Dick Cheney in the end is that in defending against one foreign enemy, an enemy he viewed as existential for democracy but who, in the end, turned out not to be, Dick Cheney enabled and laid the groundwork for a domestic enemy who is very much existential for democracy in the Trump administration and the MAGA movement.
DETROW: That is Garrett Graff. He authored an oral history of 9/11 called "The Only Plane In The Sky." Thank you so much.
GRAFF: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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