The Pentagon: A History
TLDR: “Interesting, but nothing valuable”
I think I got this book because it was mentioned in How Big Things Get Done. I like books about infrastructure and construction of large projects, so I picked it up.
I don’t know that I got anything valuable about it. I learned some history about The Pentagon, clearly: it was astonishingly expensive for its time, and the subject of a lot of disagreement. The guy who really wanted it – General Somervell – was a little duplicitous about the size and budget. He low-balled at $35 million which sparked outrage. Then it ended up costing somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 million, in 1940 dollars.
It was built to consolidate the War Department, which was otherwise spread all over Washington. Roosevelt had a plan to use it for record storage after the war, but he died and no one else wanted to do that.
It was built in a huge rush, because right after they started building it, Pearl Harbor was attacked and World War II heated up quite a bit. They started building without plans – occasionally, the draftsmen would finished a plan for a section, rush them over to the worksite, and find that the construction crews just winged it and had already completely that section.
A big part of the budget was for the road system around the building. Lots of roads had to get rerouted, and entire interchanges were built. And, of course, the parking lots were absolutely immense.
Security was lax for a long time, and this caused two major incidents.
In 1967 there was a Vietnam protest March to The Pentagon. This is the source of the famous picture of protesters putting flowers in the barrels of soldier’s rifles. There were several scuffles right outside the doors to the building.
In 1972, the Weather Underground planted a bomb in a bathroom. Anyone could walk around the building, so one of their members just spent a lot of time there, until she found a place to hide a bomb, then they built it specifically for that purpose.
Later in the book, they spend a lot of time on the 9/11 attacks. I had also read about this in The Only Plane in the Sky, so there wasn’t much new information on the actual attacks. The Pentagon was undergoing a huge renovation at the time, and most people had not moved back into the area that the plane struck, which thankfully limited casualties. The book did go into detail on the repairs, which were rushed to be completed in a year so they could be completely rebuilt by the first anniversary of the attacks.
It was an interesting book, and I enjoyed reading it. But I can’t say I learned much that will stick with me.
Book Data
- Author
- Steve Vogel
- Year
- Pages
- 656
- Acquired
- Not recorded
- Open Library
- OL15862195W
- I have read this book. According to my records, I completed it on .
- A hardcover copy of this book is currently in my home library.