Effective immediately, the Motorcycle Riders Foundation office inWashington, DC will be closed until further notice. In light of thenational emergency that is taking place, and in keeping with thegovernment’s request to keep the phone lines clear, please do not try tocontact the office. Preparations for the upcoming Meeting of the Minds willcontinue, but the DC office will be closed for the time being.Beverly Waters and Tom Wyld are fine. They both made it into the officethis morning, but have since left and, for safety’s sake, will not returnfor an indefinite period of time.Please join us in keeping the family members and friends of the thousandsof victims of this senseless tragedy in your thoughts and prayers.Teri Hobbs, Assistant Director of Communications, MRF
THE FOLLOWING IS A NOTE FROM TOM WYLD REGARDING HIS OBSERVATIONS INWASHINGTON:
Capitol Hill has been evacuated, with Members and their staffs having leftfor home. Stores and restaurants on Pennsylvania Avenue are closed, and Iget the feeling we are on some enormous sound stage for a movie.
Sadly, with 10,000 dead in New York City, this is no movie.
At about 9 this morning, I walked over to Pennsylvania Avenue hoping tocatch a few staffers as I had heard some offices were closing. I heardwrong. Instead, I watched oceans of people pour from federal buildingshere, as the Mayor had declared a state of emergency and the Sergeant atArms had ordered the evacuation of the Congress of the United States. Bynoon, the streets around the Capitol Hill were all but deserted save forreporters and law enforcement officers.
Police cordoned off a one-block area around the House and Senate buildings,the Supreme Court and the Capitol Building. The barricade is one block fromthe MRF office, on East Capitol Street, N.E., and Second Street wheresome12 reporters spent most of the day. There, the reality begins to sinkin when you hear reporters drop the words “Pearl Harbor”
At this time (4 p.m.), there are still about 6 video cameras sitting in themiddle of East Capitol Street, all trained eerily on the dome of theCapitol Building. Still another camera and crew are atop the LutheranChurch of the Reformation, MRF’s neighbor a few doors down, similarlytrained on the dome.Customarily a friendly lot, the Capitol Policestationed at the entrances to the Supreme Court are stern-faced today, allarmed with fully-automatic rifles and short-barrelled pump-action shotguns.
As the networks covered a Pentagon aflame, the billowing smoke was visiblefor miles. One network camera positioned near the White House was trainedacross the river on the smoke from the Pentagon; in the foreground of thatshot was the Eisenhower Executive Office Building where MRF took ABATE ofIllinois to visit the President’s domestic policy staff.Times have changedso radically, so swiftly, it’s difficult to view that building in the sameway.
Perhaps the strangest part of the scene today, though, is sound —particularly the sound of fighter aircraft patrolling the skies above thenation’s capitol. Other than the occasional police chopper, you just don’thear aircraft of any kind in the skies over D.C., as the air space over theWhite House and Capitol Hill is restricted. About 10 a.m. I heard what Ithought was the sound of an explosion that seemed to emanate from the areadown toward the Rayburn House Office Building. Several others on the streetheard it, too; we soon dismissed it as a sonic boom, but it gets youlooking, listening. Anytime a plane was heard somewhere overhead, crews atSecond and East Capitol would hurriedly man their cameras, look through thelenses at the Capitol Building, and wait. Then a cameraman would say, “It’sone of ours,” and the crews would stand down.
Two AP reporters were walking down our street hoping to use someone’sland-line phone to call their office. (The cell phone system in D.C. hasgone crazy, I’m told; landlines are not much better.) I invited them to ouroffice; turns out I had worked for years with one of the reporters while atNRA. While walking around the block to grab lunch from the onlyestablishment on Pennsylvania Avenue that remained opened, she and Ihappened upon several Members of Congress, and she asked for theircomments. Florida’s Curt Weldon was on fire as he said that the first dutyof the Federal Government is the defense of the United States. “Politicianshave been bull-shitting the American people,” he said repeatedly (exactquote). Weldon was sharply critical of the intelligence establishment. Hehad just come from a security briefing by the U.S. Capitol Police,conducted at an undisclosed location. Weldon was outraged that the CapitolPolice received no intelligence heads-up whatsoever. Members of Congress(and the Capitol Police as well) learned that the United States was underattack by watching CNN. “Outrageous,” he said, “and it will not stand.”
The AP reporter also interviewed Senator and Mrs. Grassley of Iowa on 3rdStreet, a few doors down from MRF. The Senator used the phrase “act of war,but it was Mrs. Grassley who provided the reporter her favorite quote. I’llparaphrase: these people think that by killing other people along withthemselves, they will meet God. Today, they will realize they are wrong.
Even if we’ve seen the last of the attacks, things will change radically inWashington. Agendas are being rewritten and debated in the nearby homes ofstaffers and Members. Before Congress returns, every inch of House andSenate office buildings will be thoroughly searched for bombs. New securityprecautions will be instituted.Thus, it will be days before Capitol Hillresumes business as usual. And, judging from what we heard today, businessas usual in Washington is certain to be a thing of the past.
I have several letters going out, hopefully tomorrow, to various officialswithin the Administration urging new action on the issues of EPA, healthcare and traffic safety — issues where there is considerable distancebetween us and the Administration. I expect to close each letter with thesewords: “I hope we can work together to eradicate the distance between us onthese issues. Despite our distance, however, the bikers of America love ournation and support our President in this time of crisis, and we ask thatyou assure him of our prayers as he leads America through this dark hour.”
Tom Wyld
