Originally published on Turnstylenews.com, a digital information service surfacing emerging stories in news, entertainment, art and culture; powered by award-winning journalists.
By: Nishat Kurwa and Robyn Gee
President George W. Bush during his interview with National Geographic Channel.READ TURNSTYLE'S INTERVIEW WITH NAT GEO PRODUCER PETER SCHNALL IN ITS ENTIRETY>>
The National Geographic Channel is airing an exclusive interview with George W. Bush, in which he recounts the first moments after the 9/11 attacks and the decisions he made in the days immediately following. It is the first time the former president has given such a personal account of that fateful day. The interview will air this Saturday in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of 9/11.
Journalist and documentarian Peter Schnall conducted the interview over two days, and tried to get at the heart of what former President Bush experienced. Turnstyle spoke with Schnall about his conversations with the former president.
Turnstyle: How did the interview come to pass, and were there were any conditions that were imposed in terms of your access to George W. Bush?
Peter Schnall: The idea behind the interview was to offer former President George Bush the opportunity to sit down in a very informal way and talk about the events of 9/11 as they unfolded for him in a very personal, in-depth way. It took several months of negotiations between myself, and National Geographic, and his office. They very much agreed to everything we asked - I asked for at least four hours of time spread out over two days, which is unusual for the former president- or for anyone to sit down.
We agreed that we would not give the president the questions beforehand. As long as we stayed on the subject of 9/11, then the questions were open to anything we wanted. He answered all the questions. We sat down for two hours each day. He had no notes, he never got up. It was a very interesting journey.
Turnstyle: He's come out with a memoir that talks about some of these moments. After reading it, what were the aspects of the story that you felt that he hadn't covered, or felt that you could further uncover in your interview?
Schnall: The interview that we focused on is only about the days around 9/11. In his book, oddly enough, [9/11] is a very small chapter. I was kind of surprised. We go into much more depth, and [take] much more of a reflective look back at the 11th all the way to the 14th-almost by an hour-by-hour basis. I wanted to really understand what it was like for him as a president, as a commander in chief, and also as a father and a husband. ... He seemed to say in the very beginning, they didn't really know what was going on. In the very first few hours of September 11, there was great confusion-Were there more terrorist attacks? Were there more targets? Who was the enemy? The President said to us several times in the interview that he felt like he was living through the fog of war. I thought that was a very interesting and revealing thing for a former president to say.
Turnstyle: Could you elaborate on that a little bit?
Schnall: Remember now, he's in Florida, he's not in Washington, not in the capital, he's not surrounded by all his staff and cabinet members, and secretary of defense, and things like that. They whisk him on a plane, Air Force 1, and he's flying around the country and the communication systems between the plane and the ground were not great at the time - matter of fact, they couldn't even see the T.V. They couldn't get reception as we were seeing the events unfold down here.
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