The Foreign Service Journal, September 2004

n retrospect, Sept. 10, 2001, has an idyllic glow. It was Foreign Affairs Day, and the Dean Acheson Auditorium was filled with people eager to see Secretary of State Colin Powell preside at the opening ceremony. Children of award recipients in the front row leaned over their parents and fidgeted. The FBI agents to my left discussed four new hires. Active-duty officers slipped in to listen. The tides of diplomacy were rhythmic. The sky was clear. At the end of the day I stopped by the coatroom, where I spoke with a tall volunteer of advanced years. She inquired as to where I was post- ed. I told her that my office was at the World Trade Center in New York. “I didn’t know we had an office there,” she said, peering at me through thick glasses. I took the evening bus back to New York, arriving just after mid- night on Sept. 11. As I always did when returning to the city, I looked at the Twin Towers, not knowing it would be the last time I’d see them. I slept later than usual the next morning. When I woke I called a friend who worked downtown. In the middle of our conversation there was a commotion. He told me that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Towers. “Oh, some kid in a Piper Cub,” I sighed. “No, no,” he replied. “This is something else. Everybody is by the window. I’ve got to go. I’ve got to go.” And he was gone. My routine upon awakening is to turn on the radio while in the kitchen. Soon after I tuned in, another plane hit the second tower. I continued to listen, frozen in place, as the news came that the Pentagon had been hit, followed by a report (inaccurate, thank God) that a car bomb had gone off at the State Department. I immedi- ately went to the phone and called every number I had for Main State, but no one answered. “You Will Remember This Day” My old roommate was posted to Tel Aviv as an eco- nomic officer, so I called his parents to tell them I was well. When his father asked me how we were taking it, I assured him I was in a safe area. That was when I real- ized that I did not want to remain safe in my apartment. So I went to a nearby hospital to help, passing people clustered around window displays of flat televisions. As I crossed Lexington Avenue I heard a woman say to her trailing daughter, “You will remem- ber this day; you will remember this day.” The hospital had closed off the street, but a security guard moving barricades into place said they were receiving injury cases. He expected it to get worse. I told him I was going to push on, so he filled me in. The trains were down. The phones were dead. The bridges and tunnels were sealed. There was no way into Manhattan and the city was empty- ing out. For the first time in my life I saw American refugees. They were streaming north in overwhelming numbers. The buses were so full that people hung on for dear life as I had seen them do in Pakistan and Kenya. Yuppies bearing portable computers poured north. Tourists queried helpful locals who directed them off the island. Nine blocks further south was Hunter College. Classes had adjourned. Everyone was trying to figure out how to get away. One student sitting on a huge concrete flower container said to someone on the other end of a cell phone, “There are no Twin Towers anymore.” I passed the China Institute. Two employees were standing outside. A man, moustachioed, large-bellied, S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 63 F O C U S O N C O U N T E R T E R R O R I S M R EMEMBERING 9/11 IN M ANHATTAN A N EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF WHAT S EPT . 11, 2001, WAS LIKE IN N EW Y ORK C ITY REMINDS US OF HOW PROFOUNDLY THE WORLD CHANGED THAT DAY . B Y D AVID C ASAVIS I