Ted Olsons 1st hand account of wife Fl 77 phone call here,
KING: The next time you hear from her is on the plane?
OLSON: Actually, I heard from her before that. Before she boarded the plane -- this plane was scheduled to leave, and I guess did leave, at 8:10 in the morning.
She called me -- we always did this with one another. We always called one another a lot during the day, sometimes very briefly. But she called me around -- it must have been around 7:30 or 7:40, before she got on the plane. We just talked to one another and how anxious I was for her to come back and how anxious she was to return. But then I did not hear from her again until after she was in the air.
KING: And the plane is now -- she is flying. She calls you, you're at the Justice Department, right? Solicitor General's office is at the Justice?
OLSON: Yes.
KING: She calls you and what?
OLSON: I had heard a few moments before -- a few minutes before -- of the disaster occurring at the World Trade Center. There is a television set in the back of my office. I turned it on and watched with horror the film being replayed of the airplanes crashing in to the World Trade Center.
KING: Both crashes?
OLSON: Both. The second one had just occurred, I think, when I had turned it on, but they occurred in such a fashion they had film of it, which as this station -- I think I was watching CNN. And I was relieved because at the moment that I heard there was hijacked planes, I was both terrified and fearful for everything that was going on. But I made a mental calculation, because the first thing that comes in to your mind is that Barbara's plane, could that be one of those planes? And I thought oh, thank goodness, it can't be her plane. I'm sounding rather selfish here. That just went through my mind because there wasn't enough time for that airplane to have gotten to New York.
Then one of the secretaries rushed in and said, "Barbara is on the phone." And I jumped for the phone, so glad to hear Barbara's voice. And then she told me, "Our plane has been hijacked." This was some time -- must have been 9:15 or 9:30. Someone would have to reconstruct the time for me.
KING: So the television is on. You've see the buildings, both in disaster mode, and you are talking to your wife who has just been hijacked.
OLSON: Yes.
KING: And she says?
OLSON: She says we have just been hijacked. I had two conversations, Larry, and my memory is -- tends to mix the two of them up because of the emotion of the events. We spoke for a minute or two, then the phone was cut off. Then we she got through again, and we spoke for another two or three or four minutes. She told me that the plane had been hijacked, that she had been -- she told me that they did not know she was making this phone call.
She told me that she had been herded to the back of the plane. She mentioned that they had used knives and box cutters to hijack the plane. She mentioned that the pilot had announced that the plane had been hijacked. I believe she said that. And she -- I had to tell her about the two airplanes that had hit the World Trade Center.
KING: Why?
OLSON: I just felt that I had to. I had to tell her. I will look back at that and wonder about that same question myself, but I had to tell her.
KING: You're the kind of couple, knowing you guys, you tell each other everything.
OLSON: We are extraordinary close.
KING: This was a mad love affair?
OLSON: Yes, it was. I could not have kept that from her.
KING: What did she say when you told her?
OLSON: I think she must have been partially in shock from the fact that she was on a hijacked plane. She absorbed the information. We then both reassured one another this plane was still up in the air. This plane was still flying, and this was going to come out OK. I told her, "It's going to come out OK." She told me it was going to come out OK. She said, I love you.
KING: Didn't she ask about the pilot? Was the pilot in the back with her then?
OLSON: I don't know. But she told me at one point in this conversation: "What shall I tell the pilot? What can I tell the pilot to do?"
KING: Implying he must have been back there with her.
OLSON: Either the pilot or possibly the copilot or part of the crew. That was the implication, but I didn't really think to ask that specific question.
KING: Did she sound terrified, anxious, nervous, scared?
OLSON: No, she didn't. She sounded very, very calm.
KING: Typical Barbara.
OLSON: In retrospect, enormously, remarkably, incredibly calm. But she was calculating -- I mean, she was wondering "What can I do to help solve this problem?" Barbara was like that. Barbara could not have not done something.
KING: What's going through you?
OLSON: My -- I am in -- I guess I'm in shock. And I'm horrified because I really -- while I had reassured her that I thought everything was going to be OK, I was pretty sure everything was not going to be OK. I by this time, had made the calculation that these were suicide persons, bent on destroying as much of America as they could.
KING: Did you hear other noises on the plane?
OLSON: No, I did not. At one point, when she asked me what to say to the pilot, I asked her if she had any sense for where she was. I had, after the first conversation, called our command center at the Department of Justice to alert them to the fact that there was another hijacked plane and that my wife was on it and that she was capable of communicating, even though this first phone call had been cut off.
So I wanted to find out where the plane was. She said the plane had been high hijacked shortly after takeoff and they had been circling around, I think were the words she used. She reported to me that she could see houses. I asked her which direction the plane was going. She paused -- there was a pause there. I think she must have asked someone else. She said I think it's going northeast.
KING: Which would have been toward the Pentagon?
OLSON: Depending upon where the plane was, .
KING: Dulles...
OLSON: Dulles is west of the Pentagon. So east of Dulles is the Pentagon. And this plane had been in the air for, I think, over an hour. So I don't know where she was when she called.
KING: They didn't do any direct flight right to the Pentagon.
OLSON: No, no. Her plane took off at 8:10. Its impact with the Pentagon must have been around 9:30 or so. You will probably be able to reconstruct that or have that information as to the time of the impact.
KING: How does the second conversation end?
OLSON: We are -- we segued back and forth between expressions of feeling for one another and this effort to exchange information. And then the phone went dead. I don't know whether it just got cut off again, because the signals from cell phones coming from airplanes don't work that well, or whether that was the impact with the Pentagon.
It was not -- I stayed glued to my television. I did call the command center again. Someone came down so I can impart this information and also to be there in case she called again. But it was very shortly thereafter that news reports on the television indicated that there had been an explosion of some sort at the Pentagon.
KING: Did you immediately know then that's what it was?
OLSON: I did. I mean I didn't want to. I did and I didn't want to, but I knew. But it was a long time before what had happened at the Pentagon -- or it seemed like a long time -- before it was identified as an airplane. Then the first report that I heard was that it was a commuter plane, and then I heard it was an American Airlines plane.
I called some people, I guess maybe just because I had to share the dread that was living with me. I called my mother and I called my son. I said I didn't think -- I thought that -- I was hoping that it wasn't true, but I was very worried. I did not want them to see something on television and hear her name.
KING: Your son was Barbara's stepson, right?
OLSON: Yes. I also tried to call my daughter, who was her stepdaughter.
KING: Did you hear from the president or the attorney general?
OLSON: Oh, yes, I did. I heard from the president. Well, he was in the air. I can't tell you exactly what time of day that was on the 11th. I also heard from the attorney general. I also heard from the vice president and many other of our officials of government. And of course, scores of other people, including you and your wife and...
KING: How are you -- as you look at yourself, and looking at you now, how were you able -- and everybody, I'm sure, is saying this -- to handle this so well?
OLSON: I think that nature protects us by putting us in some sort of shock.
KING: That you might still be in?
OLSON: I think -- I haven't talked to people that they call grief counselors or anything like that. But I think that people are in shock for a considerable period of time. That's why you're advised, I mean, not to make important decisions, not to do things that don't make sense. That's why people gather around. That's why friends show up at your home. That's why people go with you wherever you go just to be able to talk to you and insulate you from the emotions that are so -- packed so strongly in your body.
KING: By the way, was the president comforting?
OLSON: I thought the president was wonderfully comforting.
KING: To you on the phone?
OLSON: Yes, he was, enormously. We couldn't speak long. This was during the day of the crisis. And I didn't -- I hadn't expected him to call, because he is the president of the United States. We know now -- he knew then there were thousands of victims and terrible devastation and crisis and the potential of further dangers to the structure of our government, meaning the institutions of our government and the leadership of our government. I am deeply indebted to him that he had the time to call. He was very comforting. He is a very compassionate man.
KING: The audience of the show knows her so well. But a lot of the time they saw Barbara as harsh, Barbara very strongly opinionated, very conservative, maybe even more conservative than you, Ted.
OLSON: I don't know about that. But I think that's, it's interesting that you use that word opinionated, because Barbara mentioned once that she thought she was opinionated. And I said, "Barbara, you're not opinionated, you just have opinions."
But she said she thought it was a compliment to be opinionated. She thought that, and I mean that in a gentle way, that she thought that she wanted to be involved. She wanted to have opinions. She wanted to know what was going on. She turned down a number of offers to be with prestigious law firms to come to Washington because she wanted to be involved in politics and political life.
And she wanted -- she felt that people should express their opinions. Barbara was a very, very gentle person, but she was not bashful about expressing her point of view.
KING: One would imagine if she were on and here tonight, she would be calling for immediate retaliation, a slam dunk.
OLSON: I don't know.
KING: You don't?
OLSON: What those of us, and I think that other people who are, had loved ones that were devastated by this event, I don't think we're thinking about revenge or thinking about that sort of thing. I think that we expect the government will do what it can to bring those things about. But my feeling is of love for my wife, Barbara, and the feelings -- and for my family and for all of the other people.
KING: A couple other things. You told us on the phone, and I think it was printed in the press, she never identified what the nationality was or what the hijackers were like?
OLSON: No, she not. And I -- we just didn't, that didn't come up.
KING: That wonderful smile. Boy, she changed the room, didn't she?
OLSON: Yes, she could light up a room. We did everything together. And I could never get over the fact if we were sitting at a dinner table together with six or seven people at these banquets that we'd go to in Washington, that the entire table would be transfixed by Barbara, the conversation that Barbara would somehow initiate and light up the room. And everything would become animated and spirited and in good will.
I mean that in the best possible way. And people would be having fun. Being around Barbara was to have fun.
KING: You told me about one thing last night, which just tore Shawn and my heart out. When you finally went to bed on Tuesday night, the end of this harrowing day, you find a note.
OLSON: Yes.
KING: What was it?
OLSON: Barb -- I left the home a little before 6:00, as I said. And Barbara left not long thereafter to catch the plane. And it was my birthday. And when I finally went to bed, it was after 1:00 on -- now it was September 12. There was a note that Barbara had written to me on the pillow, saying, "I love you. When you read this, I will be thinking of you and I will be back on -- I will be back Friday."
There were a few more words than that, but I just, that was a -- extraordinarily special and very much like Barbara. And I'm grateful that she did that.
KING: Thank you, Ted, our hearts are with you.
OLSON: Thank you, Larry.
KING: Ted Olson, solicitor general of the United States.
He did that earlier for broadcast tonight.
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