Reluctant Launch — Pericles One Authorized
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Bartlet enters the Situation Room, dismissing formalities with a sarcastic comment about visiting cardiologists, signaling his impatience and focus on the military briefing.
Admiral Fitzwallace presents a stark assessment of a proposed aggressive strike on Hassan airport, highlighting catastrophic civilian casualties and international backlash, framing it as an overreaction.
Bartlet abruptly cuts off Fitzwallace, requesting a cigarette, a gesture reflecting his stress and the weight of the decision before him.
Bartlet, after lighting a cigarette, turns his attention to 'Pericles One,' probing for assurances about civilian casualties and military effectiveness, showing his strategic calculus.
Bartlet orders the execution of Pericles One, a moment marked by resignation and silent acknowledgment of the gravity of his command.
Fitzwallace commends Bartlet's decision, but Bartlet, extinguishing his cigarette, expresses profound doubt about the moral and strategic justification of their actions.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Professionally composed with underlying relief at measured choice
Delivers unflinching proportionality warning on Hassan strike—citing casualties, aid disruption, and backlash—then briefs Pericles One details, awaits and relays the go order via phone to initiate the clock, praises 'Well done' post-launch.
- • Steer toward viable, restrained military option
- • Execute order with chain-of-command precision
- • Disproportionate response invites isolation and failure
- • Pericles One balances justice with sustainability
Calmly operational, detached from moral weight
Swiftly provides cigarette pack and lighter to Bartlet, later as OFFICER 2ND briefs military impacts of Pericles One, and confirms 'We're underway' post-order, embodying procedural dispatch.
- • Facilitate leadership's immediate needs
- • Relay accurate operational updates
- • Routine action sustains crisis machinery
- • Clarity accelerates command decisions
Alert and ready, tension coiled in readiness
Moves promptly to the phone in anticipation of the go order, positioning as the operational bridge for execution.
- • Enable seamless order transmission
- • Maintain perimeter security during activation
- • Swift execution honors authority
- • Discretion amplifies effectiveness
Grief-stricken fury clashing with ethical torment, masked by procedural resolve
Sits commandingly at the table, waves off the disproportionate strike briefing with impatience, requests and lights a cigarette for composure, rigorously questions Pericles One's civilian risks and military gains, pauses with a sigh before nodding approval, discards the cigarette in water, rises to doorway voicing raw doubt to Leo.
- • Secure a measured yet effective retaliation
- • Minimize innocent lives while projecting strength
- • Proportional force deters without endless war
- • Presidential duty demands action despite personal agony
Quietly attentive, absorbing the President's vulnerability
Seated silently among principals, receives direct post-authorization address from Bartlet in the doorway expressing profound uncertainty over the decision's morality.
- • Bolster Bartlet's resolve amid fallout
- • Contain internal crisis ripple effects
- • Leader's doubt humanizes wise governance
- • Procedural fidelity outlasts momentary regret
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Pericles One appears as the specific retaliatory strike package under discussion and the operational object that crystallizes the President's decision; Fitzwallace names it, requests the 'go' order, and, when granted, instructs staff to start the clock and stand by for a confirmation code, turning plan into imminent action.
The President's pack of cigarettes is produced by an officer and slid to Bartlet; it enables a brief humanizing, private gesture (he smokes to steady himself) that punctuates the gravitational weight of the decision and dramatizes his conflicted state.
A small officer's lighter is slid with the cigarette pack so the President can light a cigarette—a practical prop that facilitates the moment of private composure amid public crisis and underscores the human cost behind the decision.
The Pericles One confirmation code is referenced as the operational identifier that will formalize the strike; Fitzwallace instructs staff to 'stand by for confirmation code,' making the code the next procedural step that converts the President's verbal go into authenticated orders.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Hassan Airport is the named military target discussed in the briefing; Fitzwallace describes its terminals and runways and warns that an attack would cause thousands of civilian casualties and disrupt humanitarian access, turning the airport into the moral and tactical fulcrum of the decision.
The Situation Room is the confined, high-stakes command center where the moral and operational debate transpires; its physical concentration of maps, secure phones, and briefers frames the President's decision and accelerates private grief into public action.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Bartlet's demand for a disproportional response (in beat_0776413780209e6e) escalates to Fitzwallace presenting the catastrophic Hassan airport strike option (in beat_529b901bffc3ca71), showing the progression of military considerations."
"Bartlet's demand for a disproportional response (in beat_0776413780209e6e) escalates to Fitzwallace presenting the catastrophic Hassan airport strike option (in beat_529b901bffc3ca71), showing the progression of military considerations."
Key Dialogue
"FITZWALLACE: Yes, sir. Mr. President we put together a scenario by which we attack Hassan airport. Its three main terminals and two runway. In addition to the civilian causalities, which could register in the thousands, the strike would temporally cripple the region's ability to receive medical supplies and bottled water. I think Mr. Cashmen and Secretary Hutchinson would each tell you what I'm sure you already know sir. That this strike would be seen at home and abroad as a staggering overreaction by a first time Commander in Chief. That without the support of our allies, without a Western Coalition, without Great Britain and Japan and without Congress, you'll have doled out a five thousand dollar punishment for a fifty buck crime sir. Mr. President, the proportional response doesn't empty the options box for the future, the way an all out assault--"
"BARTLET: Pericles One. No civilian causalities? FITZWALLACE: We can't promise that. BARTLET: But you're as certain as you can be? FITZWALLACE: Yes sir."
"BARTLET: Fifty buck crime. I honestly don't know what the hell we're doing here."