Former New York governor George Pataki recounts his experience of 11 September 2001 and the state’s response, describing the shift from initial disbelief after the first plane hit to certainty “as soon as the second plane hit”. He says state police urged him to evacuate to an underground emergency command centre in Albany, but he refused, arguing he could not “flee New York” in the crisis. Pataki outlines practical measures he says were taken that day, including closing bridges and tunnels, coordinating with Mayor Rudy Giuliani once communications were restored, and signing large numbers of emergency executive orders. He also recalls the post-attack atmosphere, including the anthrax scare, saying anthrax was found in his office and he took ciprofloxacin, though he says it was brought in from elsewhere.
The conversation then turns to intelligence failures and political aftershocks. Pataki calls pre-9/11 information silos between the CIA and FBI a “complete failure” and says New York created an Albany counterterrorism centre to support routine information-sharing. In a wide-ranging discussion about contemporary politics and media, he criticises reported CBC guidance cautioning against calling 9/11 a “terror attack”, calling it a refusal to tell the truth. He also weighs in on a dispute over whether New York City’s mayor (named in the interview as “Mamdani”) should attend 9/11 anniversary events, arguing attendance is inappropriate if the mayor will not condemn the phrase “globalise the intifada”.
George Pataki says that in the days after 9/11, during the anthrax scare, anthrax ended up in his office and he took ciprofloxacin as a precaution. He adds it was brought in inadvertently by a trooper from another location, rather than being a direct attack on his office.
Read this moment →George Pataki says pre-9/11 policies that limited information-sharing between the CIA and FBI were a “complete failure”. He says New York later set up a counterterrorism centre in Albany to improve day-to-day coordination and intelligence sharing between agencies.
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