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Unwilling to let Speakes off the hook, Stahl said, “Larry, his brother has been called by the White House and has been told that the president is in surgery right now, that he already has blood transfusions. Is your information going to be that far behind what we are getting from other sources?”

Speakes gave her another nonanswer, and a flood of questions from other reporters followed.

“Could you confirm the surgery report with a phone call or something?”

“Larry, can you give us an understanding of how serious the chest wound is?”

“Do you have any idea? There are reports that it punctured the lung.”

To each question, Speakes offered a variation of the same response: I can neither confirm nor deny anything.

He was digging a deeper and deeper hole, not only for himself but for the administration. By now, anyone watching Speakes might well conclude that instead of intentionally holding back information, White House officials actually knew little or nothing about what was really happening. Being secretive was sometimes forgivable; being ignorant or incompetent was not.

Watching this disastrous encounter with the media, Haig became incensed. He wanted to yank Speakes from the podium. The CIA director, William Casey, who had joined the others in the Situation Room within the past hour, thought the spokesman was in “over his head” and his answers were scaring the public. David Gergen, who had struggled during his own attempt to handle the press, was anxious. “What’s he doing up there?”

“I don’t know,” replied Frank Ursomarso. “I thought he was at the hospital.”

“Go up there and pull him off,” Gergen said.

Ursomarso scribbled a note asking Speakes to leave the podium and raced to the press room.

But even as Ursomarso ran upstairs, the journalists kept pushing Speakes for answers.

“Who’s running the government right now?” called out one reporter.

Before Speakes could answer, another asked, “If the president goes into surgery and goes under anesthesia, would Vice President Bush become the acting president at that moment or under what circumstances does he?”

“I cannot answer that question at this time,” he replied.

“Larry, who’ll be determining the status of the president and whether the vice president should, in fact, become the acting president?”

“Pardon?”

“Who will be determining the status of the president?”

“I don’t know the details on that.”

For Haig, this was the final straw. He had worked diligently to reassure the country; now, that work was unraveling—and on national television, no less. Leaping from his chair and charging out of the conference room, he declared that he had to “repair” this catastrophe. Passing through the communications area, he spotted Allen, who was just hanging up after taking another call from Meese at the hospital.

“Why don’t you come with me,” Haig said, grabbing Allen’s elbow. “How do you get to the press room?”

“Up here,” Allen said, pointing to a set of narrow stairs that led from the basement to the briefing room.

“Yeah,” Haig said. “He’s just turning this into a goddamn disaster.”

“Who has?” Allen asked.

“Speakes.”

“Did he walk in up here?”

“He’s up there now.”

“Christ almighty, why is he doing that?” Allen asked.

Haig jogged up the steps with Allen at his heels. A female staff member saw Haig as he emerged from the stairwell. “They want to know who is running the government,” she told him.

“Wait,” Allen said, trying to grab the secretary of state before he walked into the room. Gergen and Ursomarso also tried to stop Haig; seeing that he was upset, they wanted to give him a chance to calm down before he stepped into the glare of the television lights.

But Haig would not be denied.

* * *

SHORTLY AFTER LARRY Speakes received Frank Ursomarso’s note, he made his escape. But before the journalists could even leave the briefing area to call their editors with updates, they heard a female voice yell, “They’re coming back, they’re coming back. The secretary of state! The secretary of state!”

Haig entered the press room a moment later. Standing