Pentagon
Detailed Involvements
Events with rich location context
The Pentagon is the origin point for Baker and Lennox; evoked as the institutional source of military authority and the place from which liaison officers are dispatched to the White House.
Procedural, operationally ready — a distant but authoritative nerve center.
Military command origin and source of DoD liaisons.
Embodies the organized, institutional muscle the President will call upon.
Pentagon queued via announcer as Chris Eisen's post, expanding broadcast scope beyond education to security, though deferred.
Sterile military hum
Remote contributor site
Secure federal facility
The Pentagon is designated as the retrieval target for General Barrie, with Carol dispatched incognito to extract him amid its granite-walled security; it looms as the fortified source of the brewing media mutiny.
Off-screen but implied fortified tension
Origin point for military antagonist retrieval
Symbolizes clashing civil-military power structures
Heavily secured military installation
Pentagon invoked as Barrie's fortress and Carol's mission target, its granite halls and classified lairs framed for incognito breach to yank the general amid chain-of-command defiance, heightening stakes of White House intrusion into military domain.
Fortified opacity clashing with impending invasion
Retrieval site for defiant brass
Bastion of military autonomy under siege
Heavily secured, demands incognito evasion
The Pentagon looms as General Barrie's stronghold and Buckley's mandated return destination, invoked by C.J. to route her scorching cowardice message through chain-of-command channels, heightening civil-military friction as White House resolve pierces defense walls.
Implied fortified and strategic, heavy with unspoken policy clashes
Target base for message delivery and general's evasion hub
Bastion of military autonomy challenged by executive command
Highly secure, chain-of-command governed
Teased by C.J. as Tuesday DOD briefing site for Qumar lease renewal, her sarcasm amplifying geopolitical bind where misogynist allies gain U.S. foothold, fueling episode's ethical core.
Classified tension thick with policy friction.
Defense announcement arena for arms deal confirmation.
Bastion of strategic compromise over principle.
Pentagon-secured, press pooled entry.
C.J. pre-announces Tuesday briefings there on Qumar lease renewal, framing the Pentagon as the fortress of strategic realpolitik where moral contortions over airbase concessions will unfold publicly.
Classified tension with bureaucratic friction
Site of impending DOD policy disclosure
Bastion of military necessity over ethics
Secure federal venue for briefed press
The Pentagon is invoked by C.J. as the appropriate locus for detailed answers about Commander Hilton's disciplinary matter, serving narratively as the institutional buffer the White House relies on to avoid entanglement in military justice issues.
Not physically present in the scene; atmospherically implied as formal, hierarchical, and procedural — the place for technical answers.
Off-stage authority and deflection destination; where reporters are instructed to seek comment on military matters.
Represents chain-of-command responsibility and institutional separation between civilian messaging and military justice.
Operational and procedural: reporters can receive comment but only through Pentagon channels and spokespeople, not the White House press secretary.
The Pentagon is repeatedly referenced as the proper institutional home for the Navy disciplinary question and as the place where chain-of-command and military judgments properly reside.
Invoked as formal, procedural, institutional authority.
The deferral point Bartlet and staff identify for military expertise and protocol.
Represents military authority and the boundary between civilian political judgment and service discipline.
The Pentagon functions as the operational origin of the event: a night command center where analysts parse e-lint and assemble a tactical picture. It is the place where raw intelligence hardens into an action: the decision to brief COs and call the White House is taken here.
Tension‑filled and procedural — clipped exchanges, low voices, brisk movement, and a sense of immediate, contained urgency.
Meeting and decision point for military-to-executive escalation; staging ground for operational notifications.
Embodies institutional authority and the military's role as the first responder in national security crises.
Restricted to authorized personnel and staff on duty; not open to the public.
The Pentagon functions as the operational origin of the intelligence assessment: a compact, procedural command space where analysts parse e‑lint, resolve divisional IDs, and implement chain‑of‑command actions. The building's command center is where raw data becomes actionable policy and where military actors initiate political notification.
Terse, clinical, and urgency‑charged — voices are efficient, movements economical, and the mood calibrated to procedure rather than panic.
Operational command center and immediate decision point for escalating battlefield intelligence into higher‑level briefings and notifications.
Embodies institutional competence and the military's duty to translate technical intelligence into policy action.
Restricted to authorized personnel and officers; an internal space where information is controlled and chain‑of‑command protocols govern who is briefed.
The Pentagon serves as the remote institutional receiver of Charlie's call; through its operators and Colonel Wolf, it becomes the mechanism that can translate the letter into military action or personnel follow-up. It stands in for the military's bureaucratic and chain-of-command processes.
Formal and procedural over the phone — curt greetings, hold transfers, and prompt chain-of-command acknowledgements.
Institutional recipient and adjudicator of military personnel welfare issues raised by the White House.
Embodies centralized military authority and the bureaucracy that must be navigated to solve individual service-member problems.
Restricted — direct access requires official identification and routing through operators or established channels.
The Outer Oval Office is the small, semi-public workspace where junior staff like Charlie and Ginger handle day-to-day paperwork and sensitive handoffs. It functions as the intermediary zone between the formal Oval and broader West Wing operations, making it the natural place for a misrouted memo to surface and be triaged.
Quietly procedural with a sudden prick of tension—the normal hum of staff work interrupted by an unexpected, important document.
Neutral triage space where junior staff receive, inspect, and contain potentially sensitive inter-agency materials before escalation.
Represents the liminal space between executive authority and staff labor; a place where institutional mistakes surface and are either contained or escalated.
Generally accessible to junior and mid-level staff but not public; entry effectively restricted to West Wing personnel at the discretion of senior staff.
The Pentagon is invoked as the analytical and operational hub where Jack Reese will produce the forced-depletion casualty estimate; it functions as the practical source of military modeling and risk assessment.
Procedural and bureaucratic in implication—capable of precise analysis but sensitive to chain-of-command politics.
Analytical resource and execution site for the requested military casualty modeling.
Represents institutional expertise and the bureaucratic friction that can frustrate White House urgency.
Working channels controlled by military liaisons and senior defense officials; selective distribution of sensitive analyses.
Pentagon cited by C.J. as venue for deeper Haiti coverage, channeling its granite halls and analyst hum into Press Room authority, bridging White House spin to defense epicenter while deflecting immediate scrutiny onto five-sided machinery.
Fluorescent urgency echoing off walls
Deferred briefing hub for military details
Bastion of national security resolve
Restricted to cleared personnel
Events at This Location
Everything that happens here
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In a tense hallway showdown, C.J. intercepts her assistant Carol and Lt. Buckley, General Barrie's evasive aide. Piercing his deflections with razor-sharp intuition, she exposes the retiring general's scheme to …
C.J. enters the press room with commanding presence, seating reporters as she opens with lighthearted birthday cake pleasantries before rattling off schedule updates: the President's Smithsonian visit, Labor Secretary briefing, …
During her press briefing, C.J. announces the Qumar airbase lease renewal with biting sarcasm about 'new carpet,' drawing reporter laughter that masks her moral outrage. Glancing up, she spots Toby …
In a tightly controlled press-room exchange C.J. forcefully squashes any suggestion the White House is softening on greenhouse-gas policy. When a reporter asks whether recent talks signal a shift away …
During a fraught Oval Office exchange about whether the White House should intervene in a Navy disciplinary case, a UN call interrupts. Bartlet deliberately takes the line and launches into …
In a terse, clinical Pentagon exchange, analysts confirm that Indian ground forces from the Northern, Central and Western commands — identified as front‑line divisions — are operating across multiple fronts. …
At the Pentagon a terse intelligence exchange turns a worrying picture into an official escalation. Analysts confirm front-line divisions from Northern, Central and Western commands and spot a naval task …
Charlie reads a blue envelope handed to him in the West Wing: a frantic letter from an enlisted woman whose family may lose food stamps. Rather than tuck it away, …
Ginger delivers a terse, misaddressed Pentagon memo to Charlie, triggering immediate diplomatic and bureaucratic questions. Charlie reacts with disbelief — he has no authority to request Pentagon documents and no …
In the Oval Office Bartlet gets a terse national-security briefing from Bob Slattery: U.S. intelligence outside Bitanga is almost non-existent, the Archbishop's clerical network is the best source, and civilian …
In the packed White House Press Room, C.J. succinctly outlines Pentagon military preparations—including J-Socs from McDill and a Battalion Landing Team—for the Haiti crisis, signaling escalation. She deftly deflects a …