(8:25 a.m.-8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Speaks with Cheney Neither Can Later Recall What They Discuss

Sean O’Keefe. [Source: Bill Ingalls / NASA]Sean O’Keefe, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, stops by Vice President Dick Cheney’s White House office for an unscheduled visit. According to journalist and author Stephen Hayes, Cheney’s colleagues have learned to keep any impromptu sessions with him short and succinct. Yet O’Keefe spends more than 20 minutes with the vice president. Cheney is scheduled to meet John McConnell, his chief speechwriter, at 8:30 a.m. Yet McConnell is left waiting outside the office while the vice president is deep in discussion with O’Keefe. According to Hayes, while the topic of O’Keefe and Cheney’s conversation seems urgent at present, “In time, neither man would be able to recall what it was that had been so important.” [Hayes, 2007, pp. 328-330] O’Keefe is a former Pentagon comptroller, and had been a close confidant of Dick Cheney’s when he was the secretary of defense, in the early 1990s. He was also secretary of the navy from 1992 to 1993. [New York Times, 7/7/1992; New York Times, 2/3/2003]