MR. RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI: Maybe it would be helpful if I just outlined quickly what I did in the first hour or two that morning, why I did it, and then you know, whatever questions that you have.The morning of September 11, 2001 was a primary day in the city of New York. The Democratic party and the Republican party were voting to select the next mayor of the city. And I was having breakfast that morning at the Peninsula hotel on 55th Street with two old friends and colleagues, Dennison Young who was my counsel, and Bill Simon who was an Assistant United States attorney who had worked with me.As we finished breakfast, the police notified Denny, the two police officers that were on my detail that morning, were notified and then they notified Denny Young, my counsel, and Denny walked up to me and he said the following. That it's been reported that a twin engine plane has crashed into the North Tower and there's a terrible fire there. So I left immediately, walked out into the street, and as I walked out into the street, Denny and I looked up in the sky, and what we saw was a beautiful clear day, about as clear as we had had in a long time, and came to the immediate conclusion that it could not have been an accident, that it had to have been an attack.But we weren't sure whether it was a planned terrorist attack, or maybe some kind of act of individual anger or insanity or some person angry at some business in the building or whatever. But we knew it was an attack...I tried to reach all the people the mayor would generally be in contact with at that point including, we attempted to reach the White House and the Governor's office...I was not able to reach the head of emergency services, Mr. Sheirer, we were not able to make a call outside the city, to the White House, which led me to believe that we had to have hard lines available in order to do that.As we were coming down very, very close to this building, just a few blocks from this building on 6th, we passed St. Vincent's Hospital...A little below St. Vincent's hospital, we could see the fire in the tower, but we saw a big explosion, and we didn't know what it was. We probably concluded that it was just an after effect of the original attack. But within seconds of seeing it, we received a phone call from the police, and were notified that a second plane had hit, and realized at that point that obviously it was a terrorist attack." - 9/11 Commission (05/19/04)
(See also: September 1972 - Mayor Giuliani is on a high-level government panel which developed plans against an airline missile terrorist attack; 9/11 - Giuliani says he was told the WTC was going to collapse)
(See also: September 1972 - Mayor Giuliani is on a high-level government panel which developed plans against an airline missile terrorist attack; 9/11 - Giuliani says he was told the WTC was going to collapse)
