A Better Screenplay Than Reality

The ever humble Richard Clarke decribes himself as, "the nation's crisis manager." But, as you might easily imagine, he was not alone.

The man who shared that job with Clarke has some very different memorlies of the events of 9/11. Clarke's tales make for great reading that they make him (Clarke) appear as the only person keeping his head.

In Mr. Clarke's telling, he gathered the staff around and told them to leave for their own safety, particularly those with young children. They declined, and according to Mr. Clarke, Mr. Miller then "grabbed a legal pad and said, `All right. If you're staying, sign your name here,' " so that a list could be e-mailed out of the building. The purpose, he recalled Mr. Miller saying, was "so the rescue teams will know how many bodies to look for."

Very dramatic eh? But the Mr. Miller in the story, Franklin Miller, says it didn't happen. And according to Miller, there was never any question that everyone would stay and work.

"That paragraph was a complete fiction," Mr. Miller said.

I predict that there will be a lot of people coming out to give different versions of events.