Deep inside the West Wing, across from the serving hatch for the White House cafeteria is a dark-paneled door that only the truly secure can enter.
It opens into the Situation Room, where presidents plan wars, run top-secret operations and brainstorm crises at home and abroad.
The basement hideaway was created during President John Kennedy’s administration to gather and coordinate real-time information.
The Situation Room is constantly staffed by duty officers who monitor world events and keep senior White House staff up to date.
Reporters were given a rare tour of the secure site in the White House, under renovation since August and due to open around the turn of the year.
The cost is classified, like the information that flows through the offices. ”It’s ahead of schedule and under budget,” said Joe Hagin, deputy White House chief of staff.
In the renovated space, duty officers will receive intelligence reports on three-screen computers at curved stations next to the ”surge” room where officials can gather quickly to review breaking security incidents.
The president’s main conference room has six flat wall video screens, microphones and speakers set unobtrusively in the ceiling and a long wooden table where he can conduct secure videoconferences with world leaders and talk with his national security team.
Classified communications can come and go, including to Air Force One when the president travels.
Across from the reception desk are two cylindrical booths with curved glass doors to house secure telephones yet to be installed.
”We literally took it down to the bare bricks and the dirt floor,” Hagin said.
White House staff have had to deal with the inconveniences of the renovation that is right under White House chief of staff Josh Bolten’s office.
Nothing historic was lost and the old conference room was dismantled ”piece-by-piece” and archived, Hagin said.
Outside the door, a couple of young White House staffers await their orders at the serving hatch as a cart loaded with lettuce passes by a glass-cased model of the US navy frigate USS Constitution, launched in 1798 and still in service. – Reuters