Inside Bush's Bunker

For any second-term president—as the pressure grows to cement his legacy, and with many of his best aides gone—the physical bunker of an electronically sealed, sniper-patrolled White House, which restricts his access to old friends and new ideas, can lead to psychological isolation. Talking to administration insiders, the author learns why George W. Bush's disconnect is even more extreme, from the "Churchillian riff" he goes into when Iraq is discussed, to his eerie optimism, to his increasing reliance on a dwindling band of diehards.

by Todd S. Purdum | October 2007

Sometime early on the morning of January 20, 2009, if recent history is a reliable guide, George W. Bush will sit down at the carved oak desk in the Oval Office and compose a note wishing his successor Godspeed. The desk is made from timbers of H.M.S. Resolute, a British bark that was abandoned to the ice but later salvaged by an American whaling vessel and presented to Queen Victoria in 1856 as a token of friendship. When the ship was finally decommissioned, the Queen sent a desk made from its best wood to President Rutherford B. Hayes. Since then almost every president has used the desk in one way or another. John F. Kennedy Jr. played behind the hinged door in its front, which Franklin D. Roosevelt installed to hide his leg braces and wheelchair.