Decision Points

the World Trade Center attack.
    After several false alarms, we believed this could be the real deal. Dick Cheney and I agreed that he should move to a safe place outside Washington—the famous undisclosed location—to ensure continuity of government. The Secret Service recommended that I leave, too. I told them I was staying put. Maybe this was a little bravado on my part. Mostly it was fatalism. I had made my peace. If it was God’s will that I die in the White House, I would accept it. Laura felt the same way. We were confident the government would survive an attack, even if we didn’t.
    I did have one good reason to leave Washington for a few hours. The New York Yankees had invited me to throw out the first pitch at Game Three of the World Series. Seven weeks after 9/11, it would send a powerful signal for the president to show up in Yankee Stadium. I hoped my visit would help lift the spirits of New Yorkers.
    We flew to New York on Air Force One and choppered into a field next to the ballpark. I went to a batting cage to loosen up my arm. A Secret Service agent strapped a bulletproof vest to my chest. After a few warm-up pitches, the great Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter dropped in to take some swings. We talked a little. Then he asked, “Hey President, are you going to throw from the mound or from in front of it?”
    I asked what he thought. “Throw from the mound,” Derek said. “Orelse they’ll boo you.” I agreed to do it. On his way out, he looked over his shoulder and said, “But don’t bounce it. They’ll boo you.”
    Nine months into the presidency, I was used to being introduced to a crowd. But I’d never had a feeling like I did when Bob Sheppard , the Yankees legendary public address announcer, belted out, “Please welcome the president of the United States.” I climbed the mound, gave a wave and a thumbs-up, and peered in at the catcher, Todd Greene . He looked a lot farther away than sixty feet, six inches. My adrenaline was surging. The ball felt like a shot put. I wound up and let it fly.

    Opening Game Three of the 2001 World Series at Yankee Stadium.
White House/Eric Draper
    The noise in the stadium was like a sonic boom. “USA, USA, USA!” I thought back to the workers at Ground Zero. I shook hands with Todd Greene, posed for a photo with the managers, Joe Torre of the Yankees and Bob Brenly of the Arizona Diamondbacks, and made my way to George Steinbrenner’s box. I was the definition of a relieved pitcher. I was thrilled to see Laura and our daughter Barbara. She gave me a big hug and said, “Dad, you threw a strike!”
    We flew back to Washington late that night and waited out the next day. October 31 passed without an attack.

    Putting the country on a war footing required more than just tightening our physical defenses. We needed better legal, financial, and intelligence tools to find the terrorists and stop them before it was too late.
    One major gap in our counterterrorism capabilities was what many called “the wall.” Over time, the government had adopted a set of procedures that prevented law enforcement and intelligence personnel from sharing key information.
    “How can we possibly assure our citizens we are protecting them if our own people can’t even talk to each other?” I said in one meeting shortly after the attacks. “We’ve got to fix the problem.”
    Attorney General John Ashcroft took the lead in writing a legislative proposal. The result was the USA PATRIOT Act . ** The bill eliminated thewall and allowed law enforcement and intelligence personnel to share information. It modernized our counterterrorism capabilities by giving investigators access to tools like roving wiretaps, which allowed them to track suspects who changed cell phone numbers—an authority that had long been used to catch drug traffickers and mob bosses. It authorized aggressive financial measures to freeze terrorist assets. And it included judicial and congressional oversight to protect civil liberties.
    One provision created a little discomfort at home. The PATRIOT Act allowed the government to seek warrants to examine the business records of suspected terrorists, such as credit card receipts, apartment leases, and library records. As a former librarian, Laura didn’t like the idea of federal agents snooping around libraries. I didn’t, either. But the intelligence community had serious concerns about terrorists using library computers to communicate. Library records had