CAMPBELL BROWN: Let's start at the beginning. You were traveling with the President that day, and you, unlike a lot of other people, were taking notes throughout the day. Describe what was going on in the room and what your feelings were when the first plane hit.

KARL ROVE, WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: Well, when the first plane hit, we were standing outside Eba Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida. The President was literally shaking hands in the receiving line, the principal, superintendent, and so forth and myself, and it was my assistant, Susan Ralston and this was about literally 8:49, 8:50, and she said that a plane hit, struck the World Trade Center, and it was unclear whether it was a military, a commercial, whether it was a prop or a jet. So I went over and told the President.

BROWN: So you're the one who informed him.

ROVE: Yes. And then just a few moments later, 2 or 3 minutes later, Condi Rice called, but, again, there was at that point no knowledge of what it was and so forth.

And we went around the corner. The President met some more people and then went into a reading drill, and those -- some of the staff went next door. Wherever the President travels, there is a staff room, and so we went into the staff room next to this, I guess, first or second grade classroom in which he was.

And there were telephones, secure telephones. So we began trying to get some information. We also scurried around and found a television set, plugged it into the outlet in the wall, and found a cable link and brought it in and watched the footage and then horrified watched the second plane fly in.

BROWN: Let's stop right there for a second. When the first having -- you know, you're watching just as only the first plane has just hit.

ROVE: Right.

BROWN: I guess at that point, everyone is still thinking it is an accident.

ROVE: Yes, absolutely. In fact, someone remarked on the -- you know, there was the incident in which a barber at the end of World War II flew into the Empire State Building, but then a few minutes went on and it got a little bit more ominous. Then when the second plane flew in, it was clear that this was an act of war.

What was interesting is Andy Card walked in to tell the President, and you can remember the famous photograph of him whispering in the President's ear. And the President was a little -- you know, he didn't want to alarm the children. He knew the drill was coming to a close. So he waited for a few moments just too literally -- not very long at all before he came to the close, and he came into the staff room which was literally located a short walk from the classroom. And he walked in.

When he walked in, I was standing. He came into the right-hand side of the room, and I was standing over at the telephones looking at the television. And he came in sort of between me and the television and looked at the television as the second plane -- they had replayed the footage of the second plane flying in. And he said in a very firm -- you know, it was sort of quiet, his voice, but it was very firm and very solid, and you could hear the steel in it. He said, "We're at war. Give me the Vice President. Get me the director of the FBI," and tried to get people on the telephone.

We got the director of the FBI, but the Vice President, we didn't get because at this moment, the Vice President was being moved literally, grabbed by his belt, lifted off the floor and grabbed by a Secret Service agent and moved to the bunker because the plane was approaching the White House.

But it was steel and he was quiet, but it was very firm and it was very resolved and there was clarity. There was no confusion in his mind. He knew we were at war.

BROWN: What about you?

ROVE: Well, yes. I mean, it is sort of awesome to sit there, you know. It's awe. It's awe-inspiring -- no, it's not awe-inspiring. It is awe and dread to look at the seed and see, you know, this act of war committed against the United States, after having read about the beginnings of other wars and to have seen the footage of Pearl Harbor and to, you know, read about Fort Sumter and to see this act of war in front of you. It is pretty amazing, particularly when you realize that more people were killed in the ensuing couple of hours on that first day of the war that died on the opening battle of every conflict in which this country has been involved combined.

From Lexington Concord to the beginning of the Gulf War and add up the deaths and every battle that opened those conflicts with the United States from Lexington to Concord to Pearl Harbor to Fort Sumter to the first battle of the Mexican-American War, the first battle of the Spanish-American War, the first battle in Korea and the first battle in Vietnam and the first battle in Panama and Desert Storm and add up all those deaths. They are less than died the next several hours.

BROWN: Wow. Move onto what happened next because it got fascinating.

ROVE: Yeah.

BROWN: Because there was so much uncertainty.

ROVE: Yeah. Well, the President was on the phone, and there was a fog of war. I mean, I've turned to people who have been in combat talk about the fog of war, and it really does exist. It was not real clarity as to what was going on. The President knew we had been attacked. The question is by whom and what other attacks were underway.

And the President said, "I need to make a statement." So he went into the classroom where he was supposed to make remarks on education and made his first remarks. The Secret Service was very eager to get the President airborne because there was all kinds of rumors floating around.

So we got in the limousine and headed for the airport. Normally, when the President travels anywhere, the motorcade moves pretty quickly, but we moved far more quickly than normal.

We got to the airplane, and there are great traditions connected with everything with the Presidency, and one of them is that the President mounts the stairs to Air Force One by himself, turns and waves to the camera and the crowds and goes on into the airplane, and only then do the rest of the staff board by those same stairs. They can board by the back stairs at any time.

But we got to the airport and we just barreled onto the plane, and we were outside. The President has an office there on the plane where he normally sits, and we got -- we were outside the door to the office, and the head of the Secret Service detail said, "Mr. President, we need to get you seated and to get the plane north under fighter cover as quickly as possible." It is not exactly what you expect to hear on Air Force One.

And the President went to sit behind his desk and strap himself in. He motioned for me to sit in the chair across from him, and before we could get strapped in, they were moving that airplane. And they got it to the end of the runway and got the engines and pedal to the medal and lifted that 747 off and then went about vertical and got that plane to as high as they could at about as fast as you could get a plane that way.

BROWN: What was the atmosphere like aboard the plane in those few minutes?

ROVE: Well, really amazing because all day long, there was a sense of calmness. There really was -- I mean, you knew we were in the middle of a storm, but the President's demeanor was such that it sort of set the tone and that was just sort of quiet, firm, resolved, but you sensed the great actions that were happening around you.

The Secret Service said to the President -- well, the President said, "We're going to Washington," and the Secret Service said, "Mr. President, there are 6,000 planes in the air. We can't guarantee the air space over Washington." He said, "I want to go to Washington."

But there were no raised voices, no, you know -- it was just -- it was clear, and at one point in the early on, he went forward about 10:20. He went forward.

BROWN: And you were taking notes --

ROVE: Yeah.

BROWN: -- throughout this entire time.

ROVE: Right. Then I tacked them up. At times during the day, my handwriting wasn't easy to read, but at about 10:20, he went forward from his office into the private cabin in front of it and took a phone call and came back in and said that he had talked to the Vice President and to the Secretary of Defense and gave the authorization that military could shoot down any planes not under control of their crews that were gearing critical targets.

Just the horror of having to make that decision, yet he was calm and even, you know. You do with a great -- it was a great, tough call, but it was one that had to be made and he made it.

BROWN: What did you think? Because you're right. That -- when as President you have to make a decision like that --

ROVE: Yeah.

BROWN: -- it is a proud moment.

ROVE: Right.

BROWN: You are observing him, having known him for so long. Did that hit you in your gut?

ROVE: Well, it did. There were a lot of moments during the day in which you just sort of saw that intrude, but the evenness throughout the day. The only time I saw sort of a variation in him was when he would have these periodic discussions on going back to Washington because he would periodically say how soon could we go to Washington, and they'd say, "Mr. President, there are 4,000 planes in the air. There are 600 planes still left in the plane or whatever." It was just his voice didn't get higher. It got lower, but it got a little bit more threatening and angry because he wanted to get back to Washington.

Finally, he just gave the order, "I'm going," and --

BROWN: There was a little bit of criticism --

ROVE: Oh, sure.

BROWN: -- that he had stayed away for too long. Was that unfair?

ROVE: Well, no. It's unfair. But I can understand. I can understand people, and he wanted to be back in Washington, but I can also understand what the Secret Service and the military were saying.

I remember 3 o'clock in the afternoon, we were in Omaha. We had gone first to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, but they said -- the President said we're going -- that is at the point in which he said, "We're going to Washington. I don't care what the -- I have confidence that you will be able to secure the air space," but they said, "Mr. President, we can get you to Omaha quicker for -- where you could be linked with all of the national security apparatus, which was now dispersed on a secure video link, quicker than we could get you to Washington and a similar facility there." So we went to Omaha.

But when we got into Omaha -- and remember, it is 3 o'clock Eastern. In Omaha at the bunkers underneath the base is a giant wall, information wall with screens, giant screens. It is like three stories tall. Up in one corner of the screen was a status, and this is 3 o'clock in the afternoon and this is the center of one of the greatest intelligence-gathering apparatus in the world. And they had airline plane on the ground in the northern territories of Canada that was supposedly hijacked. They had six or seven planes unaccounted for, including three planes that were ostensibly en route over the Atlantic with no contact, the emergency beacons on. So there was a fog of war.

So, literally, they did have 6,000 planes and 4,000 planes and then a couple thousand planes and then several hundred planes in the air that they were still trying to get down with no knowledge of who was actually controlling those planes. So they were worrying about a strike against the President, and I can understand why they were reluctant to do it, but finally there just came a moment where he said, "I'm going."

BROWN: What was that like in the bunker when, as you said, you are watching a status report on where the various airplanes were, who had been unaccounted for, who hadn't made contact? And I assume also you are watching the news and seeing the horrible, incredible --

ROVE: Right.

BROWN: -- images from New York.

ROVE: Right.

BROWN: What was that like?

ROVE: Well, in one way, surreal. Let me go back to an earlier point in the day. To be sort of one of the moments where it all got set in, what the day was all about, was we were on the plane and watching the destruction in New York, and we were landing in Barksdale. They wanted to bring us down and refuel us in Barksdale, and to slim down -- they call "slim down the package"; that is to say, get people off the plane.

And so we came into Barksdale, and I remember nobody supposedly knows where the President is. And when we came into final approach to Barksdale, which is at Shreveport, we turned on the local TV station on Air Force One and watched footage of us as we came in on final approach. So, I mean, this was how, you know --

BROWN: Quite a secret.

ROVE: Quite a secret. When you go to a military base with the President, it is a pretty extraordinary thing. You walk off and everybody is in their best uniforms and there are flags flying and banners waving and bands playing and people smartly saluting and it is spit and polish.

When we got to Barksdale, we walked off the plane to be greeted by the commander of the Eighth Air Force and his command officers in combat uniforms, every one of them with a side arm. And there were no bands and no banners. There were airmen with automatic weapons, rounds in the chamber looking out, not looking at the plane, but looking out to protect it. And the President rode from the plane to the headquarters in the Eighth Air Force in an armed Humvee with a 50-caliber machine gun on top with a trooper manning it in rounds of the chamber.

So, if you hadn't gotten it before then, that was it. I mean, it was just -- it was, you know, just the raw power being displayed there, and when you got the commander of the Eighth Air Force wearing a side arm, you know that the country is on a different footing.

So, when we got to -- so, when we got to SAC and saw this -- these very high-tech briefing, it really was surreal, but we had been prepared for it by this sort of shock of going to -- into Barksdale and realizing we were at war. We were on war footing. I mean, these guys were armed like it was a war, and the reason was it was.

But, you know, we got out of the briefing. The President finished the briefing in Omaha, and we got in the plane, but, you know, he was -- he left the communications center there and said to the military aide, "I'm going to Washington," just sort of like, in essence, don't have this conversation with me again, this plane is heading to Washington and don't try and talk me out of it one last time. You know, at this point, everybody got the message.

BROWN: You have a wife and a young son.

ROVE: Right.

BROWN: Were you able to talk to them?

ROVE: I was. I called in the morning. I got a hold of my wife and reassured her, and she collected our boy.

Some of the members of the staff were not so lucky. Dan Bartlett could not get a hold of his wife. So, finally, we took my Blackberry. At that time, I was the only person in the White House with a Blackberry, and I took my Blackberry and e-mailed Dan's wife from my Blackberry.

BROWN: To say you guys were okay.

ROVE: Yeah, because she couldn't get -- we couldn't get through on the phone, and she obviously couldn't get us.

BROWN: Well, you had the foresight to take notes as all of this is happening. Looking back over them now, are there any moments that strike you as especially profound during the day?

ROVE: Well, you know, the -- there are lots of moments that if you read them, I mean the threat against Air Force One, but really I don't even need to look at the notes. It is one of those sort of periods that everything seems to happen in slow motion, and the constant confusion impressed me.

Remember there were reports that the State Department had been hit by a bomb. We received reports that there was a plane circling over Kentucky. The plane, Flight 93, was thought to be heading to Camp David. There was a report that there were planes or objects en route to Crawford.

I really became -- you know, you really know that in a moment like that, you know, you sort of see people as they really are, but you also see that steadiness becomes important because it really is -- there is a fog of war. There is a, you know --

I remember when the President talked to Giuliani and Pataki that he came away -- I mean, he was just so clear right from the start that both these men just were on top of it and they were just focused.

The President, you know -- I remember him getting off the phone with Rudy Giuliani and just saying he's there. I mean he knew these guys were on top of it.

He talked to Shuber. I remember he said, "Sad day. This is a sad day for America. My condolences go to everyone in New York." He said, "We'll come together. God bless," and, you know, you could just sense even from one side of the conversation. You could just feel the pain on the other end of it when he was talking to people like Giuliani.

When he talked with Giuliani and Pataki in the afternoon, he said, "Our sympathies are with you and the people of New York. I know your heart is broken and your city is stranded. Anything we can do to help, let me know," and then he talked with Pataki and said, "I've seen you on TV, George, and you handled yourself very well." And you could just tell that it meant something for these guys who were just in the heat of it to have to hear from the President.

BROWN: Anything else I have forgotten? I want to move a little bit more into how this changed your role.

ROVE: Well, let me -- there are two other things that might be interesting. One is there is a moment we are flying back from Washington. During most of the day, from the time that we got to Northern Florida, we've got fighter cover, but it is invisible because the planes -- the fighter planes are behind us or below us and, you know, sort of out of sight, hidden by the shadow of the plane.

We make the transfer for the Midwest to Washington, D.C., fighter cover, and two fighters took a position on the wingtips. You could literally look out the window and make out the features of the pilot, they were that close to the wingtip. And suddenly, the relaxation was that this was not a show. This was, you know, sort of if there was anything that happened, there was one last desperate thing that these guys could do, and it was really sort of, you know -- sort of, you know, sobering.

We got into Andrews and got in the chopper, Marine One, and to come back into the White House. We came up low. Normally, the chopper comes up pretty high, but we came up low out of Andrews and came up over the Maryland hills. And there was still a plume of smoke out of the Pentagon, and the wind was blowing from the west to the east. So we came up from the east.

And the chopper was very quiet, and the President was on the left-hand side of the chopper. And he said, "Take a close look. You are looking at the face of war in the 21st century," and I thought about that later because, right from the beginning, he knew it was a different kind of war. This was not one that was fought like our parents or grandparents fought or observed with, you know, a map on the front page of your newspaper and you could mark… and the armies that cross France or tout up how many divisions each one had or how many tanks, that this was a much more dangerous and difficult kind of a war fought against an enemy who hides in shadows and lurks in caves. It was clear right from the beginning that to him, this was that kind of war.

BROWN: Let's shift a little bit to the big picture. When did you realize that your role as the overseer of the political landscape in a sense was changing dramatically because of these events?

ROVE: Well, you know, when you realize you are at war, politics sort of recedes, and it recedes for a time. There is always a democracy and necessity of party and politics, but it dramatically receded.

The support that he drew in the days after 9/11 from Democrat and Republican in this town was pretty extraordinary.

I remember being particularly impressed at the early meetings by Dick Gephardt who said, "Mr. President, you know, the country stands with you," and it was clear the message was all the old battles, all the old furor, forget about it, we're with you. And it was really a remarkable moment because he was so clear and straightforward about it.

BROWN: But that message was short-lived.

ROVE: Well, I don't think so. I think -- you know, I've seen these people interact a lot since then, and I think that the kind of relationship that people have had in this town before 9/11 is gone for the most part.

Sure, there is still going to be partisanship and there will be disagreements, and some of it will be unfair and some of it will be wrong, but a lot of of the old way, you know, a lot of the old -- after you have gone through this kind of experience, these people can't look at each other in exactly the same way.

With some, it is more sustained, and with others, it is less. With others, it is more authentic, and others, it is more superficial, but with all of them, it is different. And I think people realize that there are times when the country comes far ahead of anybody's personal or partisan agenda.

Some of that may be receding from the scene, but a lot of it still remains.

BROWN: But your job is still to make political calculations. Is it harder to do in this environment because you are facing sort of inevitable accusations that you are using the war for political gain?

ROVE: Well, my job is to advocate the President's agenda, first and foremost. It is not as you described it. It is to advocate the President's agenda and to help find ways to advance it.

And yes, in the aftermath of 9/11, particularly on the domestic side, there is just not enough time and energy and focus on it. So our -- the President has made it clear, he doesn't want to lose the focus on his domestic agenda in the aftermath of 9/11. He said, "I am going to be spending more time running the war, and international events are going to take more of my time and energy, but I want the staff and my Cabinet to spend time on the domestic front and don't let it -- don't let it dissipate, disappear," and I think that's happened.

The President has passed the education bill. His faith-based initiative has been progressing. He has passed a trade promotion authority. The domestic economic stimulus package in January, the elements of his domestic agenda continue to progress.

BROWN: The domestic agenda, those issues, though, progress has slowed from where it was. Is it frustrating when you are trying to keep attention on those issues, given that you just can't get the President's attention, you can't get Congress' attention?

ROVE: Well, we can get the President's attention. It is just we can't -- we got to be far more economical on our use of his time.

I mean, the one thing that since 9/11 that has become more apparent is that his time has become more valuable. His day has become longer and demands on it have become far more extreme, and there are some things you simply can't avoid. When there is a necessity of talking to a foreign leader, you can't bump off a significant foreign leader for an hour or two. You've got to talk to them.

But -- and the President has become far more economical, too, on the use of his time. Actually, he is a person who lets people have their say, who lets the meeting go, who asks the right question, to keep going in the right direction, and then finally near the end of the meeting ask the right question and bring it to conclusion. And what he's done since 9/11 is he's moved that process along, and he's done it sort of effortlessly.

Once we had a meeting in December on a subject, and at the end of the meeting, I had to stick around. The meeting ended 10 minutes early. I said, "Mr. President, I caught what you were doing. You were moving that to closure more quickly," and he said, "Don't tell anybody." So he himself sort of understood this, but you do not get detached or disengaged from the domestic side. But he has insisted that we all spent -- you know, be a little bit quicker in coming to closer and that we all -- that his domestic team take more time, pick up some of the slack that he can't now spend the time on.

BROWN: In Austin, Texas, back in January, before an audience of Republicans, it has been reported that you told them that Republicans should make the President's, quote, "handling of the war on terrorism the centerpiece of his campaign to win" --

ROVE: Yeah… Well, you are quoting Time magazine. That is incorrect, and they are running a correction next week. And I will be happy to give you the entire transcript of the speech.

BROWN: Well, let me ask you then. You said that these remarks were taken out of context. What is --

ROVE: Well, I'd be happy to give you the remarks. The context was as follows, that the Republican Party had a responsibility of laying out its priorities to the American people, that we ought to talk about those priorities which were winning the war, securing the homeland, strengthening the economy, and in pursuing our compassionate agenda.

It is up to each political party to talk about what it is about. The time for American politics for trashing the other party and focusing your agenda on tearing them down is over, and my message to the Republican Party was focused on what our priorities are. Explain to the country with clarity what it is they can expect us to make as our priorities. That is our responsibility to tell the American people what we are about, what we are going to do, what we are for.

Now, that doesn't say Democrat can't be for these things. In fact, one of the great things has been for the most part, when it comes to the war, there has been a lot of unity, not all the time and not complete unity, but a lot of the time, Democrats, Republicans have agreed. Sometimes we haven't. Sometimes some Democrats agree with most Republicans, and sometimes all Democrats agree with all Republicans.

But my message in January -- and I'd be happy to give you the speech, and as I say, Time magazine is literally running a correction saying that quote never appears in my speech nor is it the import of it. My message was we have a responsibility in this election year not to focus on tearing down the other guy, but explaining what our party's priorities are.

BROWN: Why do you think it was interpreted then by many Republicans who said Carl Rove came down and he is selling the war on terrorism as the way for us to win the next round of elections?

ROVE: They didn't read the speech. They just re-listed Terry McCullough's comments about it.

But, look, I feel fervently about this. I think it is the responsibility of a party. In World War II, it was the responsibility of Franklin Roosevelt and the Democrats to explain what they were trying to achieve. During the Vietnam War, it was the responsibility of Lyndon Johnson and, before him, John Kennedy to explain -- and after him, Richard Nixon to explain what they were attempting to achieve. That is the responsibility of political leadership of this country.

And my point, a very emphatic point, was focus on a positive agenda. Tell the people what we are attempting to do, and don't spend so much time trashing the other party.

BROWN: I just got a couple of quick more things. Can we talk -- and I really -- I don't want to talk about Iraq, per se, but I do want to talk about the next phase of the war because that is what we are all focused on, and to kind of put it, because you are a history buff, in a historical perspective. How do you compare this Presidency, this administration to previous administrations during wartime, say Roosevelt or Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis? Do you make those connections?

ROVE: No, no, I don't think so because, again, it's a different kind of war. We are facing a threat that we've never faced before, which is this threat of trans-national global terrorism. Before, we've always faced nation states, and facing a nation state is actually in a way better because there are constraints on a national leadership.

If you are a country and you attack the United States, you got to worry about being attacked in return. If you are a terrorist network, you are simply using a country as a sanctuary and you don't care about it as long as you've got another place to go to. So it makes global terrorism a different kind of a threat, and as a result makes it difficult to compare it to other kinds of conflicts which we've been.

It is a conflict. It is a war. It is a particularly dangerous kind of war because the adversary we face has fewer constraints.

Can you imagine somebody who could get their hands on a biological, radiological, nuclear, or chemical weapon and didn't need to worry about retaliation against a homeland? That would be a pretty dangerous adversary, and that is exactly what we face.

BROWN: Do you see similarities in the President himself to past leaders? For example, Rumsfeld has made the comparison between Churchill being initially the sole voice warning that Hitler was a danger --

ROVE: Right.

BROWN: -- to the President now being the sole voice, almost the sole voice, warning Saddam is a danger.

ROVE: Well, I don't know. I think history -- we need a little bit greater distance to make those kind of judgments.

I do think the President was right in talking about -- as he did in the 2000 campaign about the need for a transformation of the military and about the change from a cold-war mentality to a new approach to defense and international affairs and recognize the emerging threats like al Qaida, like global terrorism, but I'll leave it to others to define that, after the past too many years.