Pictures or Ashes — Bartlet Hangs Up
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Bartlet hangs up the phone, signaling the end of the intense negotiation, and shifts focus back to the poker game.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Neutral and procedural outwardly; professionally focused on accurate transmission of heated content.
Peter functions as translator/interlocutor in the Oval, receiving Leo and Bartlet's lines and relaying Chigorin's responses; he is the linguistic conduit who enables the blunt exchange and Bartlet's direct admission to reach the Russian leader.
- • Ensure accurate, measured translation of both sides to prevent miscommunication
- • Maintain diplomatic channel integrity so negotiation can continue
- • Clear translation prevents unintended escalation
- • The channel must remain open even under personal or national stress
Calm, authoritative surface that contains moral unease — resolute and purposeful, masking the ethical cost of the act.
President Bartlet takes the phone, drops the diplomatic pretense, delivers a blunt confession that the UAV was photographing Kaliningrad's illicit nuclear transfers, offers the photos as a bargaining chip, threatens destruction of the drone/technology, then hangs up and returns to poker with a wry command.
- • Contain diplomatic fallout by converting an espionage exposure into shared anti-proliferation interest
- • Protect proprietary technology by threatening its destruction if Russia exploits the wreckage
- • Mutual self-interest (U.S. and Russia share a stake in preventing nuclear proliferation)
- • Presidential responsibility requires decisive, even unilateral, measures to deny adversaries sensitive technology
Practical urgency laced with anxiety; he wants to neutralize the technical risk and control escalation.
Leo provides operational context on the phone: explains UAV low‑altitude design, attempts a cover story (coastal erosion), reports S&R deployment, and brusquely suggests destroying the UAV to prevent capture, pushing the President toward immediate denial-of-technology action.
- • Prevent sensitive U.S. technology and intelligence from being recovered by Russia
- • Keep a lid on diplomatic exposure by providing plausible cover and fast operational solutions
- • Technical assets must be denied to adversaries at almost any cost
- • Operational decisions should be prioritized over rhetorical niceties during a crisis
Angry and distrustful; he reads the U.S. action as violation and responds from a position of sovereign indignation.
Chigorin, through the translator, responds angrily to U.S. assertions and invites the U.S. to attempt destruction of the wreckage; his tone is confrontational, pressing the U.S. to justify its actions in Russian airspace.
- • Protect Russian sovereignty and assert control over incidents in its airspace
- • Extract political or material concession from the U.S. rather than accept unilateral explanations
- • Any U.S. presence near Kaliningrad is hostile and requires censure
- • Russia must not appear weak by acceding to U.S. unilateral framing of events
Impartial; its data injects cold technical fact that raises diplomatic tension.
The National Radar Service is cited as reporting no detected U.S. UAVs in the Kaliningrad sector, a technical denial that fuels Russian skepticism and challenges U.S. cover stories in the negotiation.
- • Provide accurate radar intelligence to assert airspace control
- • Support Russian diplomatic posture by supplying detectable evidence
- • Objective sensor data should guide diplomatic and military responses
- • Radar silence is a strong evidentiary claim in disputes over airspace violations
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Bartlet's desk phone is the instrument of the negotiation: it carries the presidential confession, the ultimatum, and the final hang‑up. The device materializes diplomatic distance and allows Bartlet to pivot instantly from international crisis to the domestic informality of poker.
Bartlet invokes and offers the UAV photographs of black‑market nuclear trafficking as the central bargaining chip—proof of shared security interest. The pictures shift the argument from jurisdictional accusation to mutual threat mitigation and are promised (but not the means of collection).
The crashed U.S. reconnaissance UAV is the material pivot of the crisis: its location in Kaliningrad threatens exposure of proprietary technology and the intelligence collected. Bartlet explicitly threatens to destroy it to deny Russian access, making the physical wreck central to leverage and escalation risk.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Kaliningrad is the concrete locus of the incident—where the UAV crashed and where illicit nuclear shipments are being photographed. Its status as a Russian exclave gives jurisdictional complexity and symbolic weight, transforming a physical crash site into a geopolitical flashpoint.
The Baltic Sea is invoked as a possible cover — an environmental mission over Finnish parts of the Baltic was the suggested ruse. It provides geographic plausibility and is used rhetorically to contest flight paths and intent.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
The United States is the initiating actor that deployed the UAV and is now managing the political and operational fallout. The White House, through Bartlet and Leo, balances disclosure, asset denial, and intelligence-sharing to minimize international incident while protecting technology.
The Russian Government is the counterparty in the negotiation, represented by Chigorin and his translator. Its denial of UAV detection and insistence on sovereignty escalates the stakes, and it must decide how to respond to U.S. evidence and ultimatums.
The National Radar Service's detection report (no U.S. UAVs in the sector) is quoted in the Oval and functions as hard evidence backing Russian skepticism and challenging U.S. explanations, thereby shaping the diplomatic exchange.
The Search and Rescue Team is described as dispatched ten kilometres west of the crash site to locate the UAV; their deployment situationally anchors the U.S. response and creates the window in which the wreckage might be secured—or denied.
Rogue Engineers are mentioned by Bartlet as part of the illicit network moving nuclear materials—character actors in the problem the photos purport to expose. Their existence justifies U.S. surveillance as a common security interest.
Military Scientists are named by Bartlet as participants in the illicit movement of nuclear materiel; their mention heightens the stakes by suggesting technical maturity behind the trafficking and underlines why the U.S. collected imagery.
The Ex-KGB Network is invoked as part of the trafficking pipeline captured in the UAV images; referenced to indicate the sophistication and danger of the proliferation channel Bartlet wants Russia to accept and address.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Leo's initial interruption with news of the crashed drone leads to Bartlet's eventual admission of its true mission to Chigorin."
"Leo's initial interruption with news of the crashed drone leads to Bartlet's eventual admission of its true mission to Chigorin."
"The initial flimsy cover story for the drone incident escalates to Bartlet's direct admission of its true purpose."
Key Dialogue
"BARTLET: "We were taking pictures of Kaliningrad.""
"BARTLET: "We take pictures of black market nuclear materials being moved out the back doors of suppositories and into trucks. ... We're going to have to trust each other a little Peter. So we're going to share the pictures we got. Not the technology we used to get them. Otherwise I'm detonating it and neither of us see the pictures.""
"BARTLET: "If he calls back we'll have a deal. In the mean time, one hand. Bring your wallet.""