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Home / Complete 9/11 Timeline / 8:48 a.m.-9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: Vice President’s Wife Lynne Cheney Learns of Crashes at the WTC While at Hair Salon, but Is Not Evacuated

8:48 a.m.-9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: Vice President’s Wife Lynne Cheney Learns of Crashes at the WTC While at Hair Salon, but Is Not Evacuated

Entity Tags: Lynne Cheney, Michael Seremetis, US Secret Service
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events

Lynne Cheney, the wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, learns of the two plane crashes at the World Trade Center while she is at a hair salon just a short distance from the White House, but the Secret Service agents accompanying her do not evacuate her from there at this time. Cheney is at the Nantucket Hair Salon in Washington, DC, when the attacks in New York occur. She arrived there at 8:40 a.m., according to Secret Service Special Agent Michael Seremetis, who is accompanying her this morning. [United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001] However, according to a Secret Service timeline, she arrived there at 8:25 a.m. [United States Secret Service, 11/17/2001 pdf file]
Cheney Only Thinks Crashes Seem ‘Odd’ – A television is on in the hair salon, showing reports about the plane crashes at the WTC. Seremetis, or possibly another Secret Service agent with him, informs Cheney of the crashes as they are being reported on TV. [United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001; White House, 11/9/2001] (The first crash occurred at 8:46 a.m. (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001) and is reported on TV beginning at 8:48 a.m. (see 8:48 a.m. September 11, 2001), while the second crash is broadcast live at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Fox News, 9/11/2003; Bamford, 2004, pp. 16] ) Cheney will later say she does not initially realize the crashes are terrorist attacks. “I was so naive,” she will recall. “At the first one I thought, ‘Gee, that’s odd.’ And then the second one—now this is really naive—I thought, ‘That’s really odd.’” It is only “a few minutes” later, she will say, that “it just set in that this can’t happen.” [Associated Press, 11/29/2001]
Cheney Remains at Hair Salon – However, the Secret Service does not evacuate Cheney from the hair salon at this time. Cheney will only be evacuated after the Secret Service Joint Operations Center starts reporting that an aircraft is flying toward the White House, which would be at some time after 9:33 a.m. (see (Shortly After 9:33 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001] Cheney will say the reason she remains at the hair salon, despite the crashes at the WTC, is that the crisis is not currently “a Washington event,” and “the Secret Service people who were with me had no knowledge of a plane headed toward Washington.” [White House, 11/9/2001]