(Shortly After 9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Myers Learns of Pentagon Attack; Heads Back to Pentagon

According to his own account, acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers was in a meeting on Capitol Hill with Senator Max Cleland (D-GA) since just before 9:00 a.m. (see Shortly Before 9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001). [MSNBC, 9/11/2002] It is unclear exactly when this meeting ended. But Myers says he first learns of the Pentagon attack (which occurs at 9:37) around the time he is leaving the building for the drive back to the Pentagon. In an early interview, he says he hears somebody say the Pentagon has been hit just after he comes out of his meeting with Cleland. [Armed Forces Radio And Television Service, 10/17/2001] In some accounts, he says he hears that the Pentagon has been hit just as he is leaving Capitol Hill. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004 ] In a meeting in 2006, he says, “my security guy got the call the Pentagon had been hit,” as he is making his way out of the building. [Council on Foreign Relations, 6/29/2006] Myers says that, as his car crosses the 14th Street Bridge across the Potomac River, he can see all the black smoke rising up out of the Pentagon. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 463; American Forces Press Service, 9/8/2006] Max Cleland later confirms that Myers meets with him on this morning, and is with him until the time of the Pentagon attack, or slightly before. [US Congress, 9/13/2001; CNN, 11/20/2001; Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6/16/2003] However, counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke gives a contradictory account. He claims that Myers is back at the Pentagon, speaking to him over a video conference, around ten minutes before the Pentagon is struck (see 9:28 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Clarke, 2004, pp. 5]