Jason English
10 Headlines from 9/11/01
by Jason English - September 11, 2010 - 8:46 AM

firsttimenews.jpg

We spent the summer of 2001 chastising Gary Condit, mourning Mr. Belvedere, and pardoning Microsoft. But on the second Tuesday of September, a mere twenty months after widespread wisecracks about the world ending on Y2K, it felt like the world did. I’ve been reading through the online archives of The New York Times from September 11, 2001, to see what was in the news the morning of the attacks. Here are some of the headlines:

1. Taliban Suicide Bombers Target Deposed Afghan Leaders

“If the would-be assassins were indeed Arabs, as the United Front asserted, the fact would lend credibility to those who contend that foreigners, including Osama bin Laden, are playing an ever bigger decision-making role among the Taliban.”

2. Washington: Rumsfeld Attacks Bureaucracy

“Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that he was declaring war on bureaucracy in the Pentagon and that he wanted to combine some civilian and military staffs, cut duplication in the military services and shift some jobs to the private sector.”

3. Senator Joe Biden attacks President Bush on Missile Defense

“Mr. Biden has fastened onto missile defense as the centerpiece of his critique of Bush foreign policy. In part, that is because the system is almost the sole focus of the administration’s foreign policy… ‘Are we willing to end four decades of arms control agreements, and go it alone, a kind of bully nation, sometimes a little wrongheaded, but ready to make unilateral decisions in what we perceive to be our self-interest?’ Mr. Biden said in his speech at the National Press Club.”

4. Michael Jordan to Unretire (Again)?

“Jordan is either getting ready to return to the N.B.A. at the age of 38 or he is setting up the sports world for a letdown of legendary proportion. Either way, the drama builds. Speaking with three reporters, Jordan said he was less than 10 days away from a news conference in Washington announcing his decision.”

5. Grand Jury Declines Request For Inquiry into Condit Matter

“A grand jury has rejected a flight attendant’s request that it investigate her complaint that Representative Gary A. Condit obstructed justice by asking her to sign an affidavit falsely stating that they did not have an affair….Anne Marie Smith, 40, said that she and Mr. Condit had a 10-month romance and that his intermediaries tried to get her to sign an affidavit denying the affair….Ms. Smith’s link with Mr. Condit became public after the disappearance in Washington of Chandra Ann Levy, a 24-year-old government intern from Modesto, on May 1. Mr. Condit, 53, is not considered a suspect in the disappearance, but he acknowledged having had a relationship with Ms. Levy.”

6. Mayoral Candidates Crisscross City Seeking Last Few Votes

“The six major candidates running to succeed Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani ranged across the city yesterday in the final burst of politicking before the polls open today. Dodging late summer downpours, the candidates hit neighborhoods where they thought they might be able to eek out just a few more votes. Crossing and crisscrossing the boroughs — sometimes missing one anothers’ campaigns by just minutes — it seemed as though the six candidates were out to shake every hand in the city.”

7. Broncos Win Game, Lose Receiver

“The New York Giants did not upset the festive Denver atmosphere as the Broncos christened their noisy new home with a loud and thorough 31-20 rout. The game’s outcome seem to hinge on a gruesome injury to Denver’s Pro Bowl wide receiver Ed McCaffrey, who broke his lower left leg early in the third quarter.”

8. Disco Near Auschwitz to Close

“The owner of a building now used as a disco but once a tannery where Nazis sorted the luggage and clothes of Jews at Auschwitz said he would not renew the club’s lease when it expires in November.”

9. U.S. Blacklists Paramilitaries in Colombia

“Being put on the State Department list of terrorist groups means that financial support for the organization is illegal. The action also makes it easier for the United States to seize assets, an important factor because investigators here estimate that the paramilitary groups have hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bank accounts.”

10. Thomas Friedman on Terror in Israel

“You drive south…and there is another long concrete wall blocking snipers from hitting Gilo, but also sealing in Gilo. There are Hebrew posters all over this wall that read: ‘The New Middle East.’ Some Israeli coffee shops now have security guards at the door to deter suicide bombers.”

See previous installments of ‘The First Time News Was Fit To Print.’

« Previous Post   -   Next Post »
Click here to get a Risk-Free issue of mental_floss magazine
Comments (15)

  1. “The owner said a shopping center, and a plaque memorializing the victims, would be built in place of the disco.”

    So booty shaking is verboten, but a shopping center is ok? Oh, there’s a plaque? Oh, well that makes it all better.
    I wonder if you can get an ashtray in the shopping center?

    posted by Boggy Creek Creature on 9-11-2008 at 2:24 pm

  2. I was at the courthouse near b’way and worth st on 9/11 responding to a summons for drinking a beer in public(case dismissed! hehe) and I had just bought a new york post and was walking downtown next to the federal bldg when the first plane hit…

    the headline in the post had read something about having captured an ex black panther

    posted by brian on 9-11-2008 at 2:48 pm

  3. I worked at my university’s student paper and on 9/11/2001 we ran a column headlined “Have you hugged an international student today?”

    posted by Lindsey on 9-13-2008 at 5:57 am

  4. Am surprised that there was no mention of Chandra Levy’s disappearance, which seemed to be all over the news before 9/11. Almost equally sad is that she was barely back page news after the attacks.

    posted by Marty on 9-11-2010 at 11:23 am

  5. @Marty–If you read #5 about Gary Condit, you will see Chandra Levy mentioned toward the bottom. I think the situation had progressed enough by then that they were taking a more detailed look at Condit instead of just reporting Levy’s disappearance as a whole.

    posted by Jessica on 9-11-2010 at 11:33 am

  6. re: Chandra Levy. Ms. Levy’s body had been found in Rock Creek Park in DC. An El Salvadoran national, Ingmar Guandique, was arrested and indicted last year (2009) for her murder. Mr. Guandique had been convicted for the assault in May and July 2001 of two other females in Rock Creek Park after confessing to these incidents in July 2008. In both instances a knife was displayed/brandished; Ms. Levy was found stabbed to death.

    It might also be noted that while serving time for these assaults, Guandique allegedly told a prison informant that he had stabbed and killed Levy, leaving the knife at the scene, and had done so after receiving $25K from a man he later identified, after seeing him on TV, as Condit. However, by the time Ms. Levy’s skeletal remains were found they were in such a condition that they medical examiner was unable to determine how she died, and no knife was ever found.

    There is also at least one site out there — and you can take it for whatever it’s worth; I won’t waste time linking to it — that claims the 9/11 attacks were premeditated and orchestrated by factions within the US Government. The site goes on to claim that Ms. Levy had connections to Israel’s Mossad and had ferreted out details giving her knowledge of the plan, so she was killed to ensure her silence.

    -”BB”-

    posted by Bicycle Bill on 9-11-2010 at 2:01 pm

  7. My bad; I should have deleted (in the first paragraph) that Ms. Levy had been stabbed, as the ME was unable to determine cause of death by the time Ms. Levy’s remains were discovered. I was going on the reported confession to the jailhouse informant.

    Too bad there isn’t an edit (or at least a preview) feature on these comments……

    -”BB”-

    posted by Bicycle Bill on 9-11-2010 at 2:04 pm

  8. Alot of people in NY stayed up late to watch that Giants monday night football game. Some WTC workers were running late to work that morning, or slept in.

    posted by alex on 9-11-2010 at 3:53 pm

  9. I was in charge of the events calendar for my floor in the dorm where I lived, so I was always up on little-known holidays and whether it was National Cheese Month and that sort of thing.

    I didn’t read the paper that day, because I’d read on-line that September 11th was “No News is Good News” day.

    posted by Jill on 9-11-2010 at 7:02 pm

  10. Weren’t there a lot of shark attacks that summer?

    posted by Alanna on 9-11-2010 at 7:28 pm

  11. An interesting collection of news we suddenly forgot all about at that moment. Thanks!

    Thanks to BB as well, for the info on Chandra. I grew up in NoVA, but had moved away during that time. Though I seem to recall her body was found, I didn’t know who had ultimately been charged with her murder. The conspiracy theory connecting her to 9/11 is ALMOST as crazy as most of the others!

    Thanks again everyone.

    posted by MyKinKStar on 9-11-2010 at 7:48 pm

  12. I remember listening to the first story on NPR on my way to work. It caught my ear because I know a Massoud, probably a common name in that area, but not too common in Ohio.

    posted by Larry on 9-12-2010 at 7:54 am

  13. I work at a high school that had televisions in the classrooms and our lockerroom area. I tuned in one to sportscenter to see the replay of McCaffrey’s injury when the head coach came in and said put it on CNN a plane had hit tower one. Just as I did I saw tower 2 get hit. That tv stayed on all day. Not much teaching or coaching got done that day.

    posted by Dave on 9-13-2010 at 10:42 am

  14. Wow, Dave, I remember that injury on MNF… it was ugly. You knew his career was probably over after breaking his ankle at that spot. I clearly remember seeing it, but had no idea it was the night before 9/11 occurred.

    posted by Sandy Wood on 9-13-2010 at 10:56 am

  15. One thing I always remember..
    The Sunday before 9/11, there was a brief, paragraph-long statement in Parade Magazine about how they were using matchbooks dropped from plans to notify people of the reward for Osama bin Laden, but that too many people were reluctant to turn him in for various reasons.

    And then two days later…

    posted by Lola on 9-13-2010 at 12:33 pm

Comment

commenting policy