Fabula
Location
Location

Adjacent Staff Office

Staffers occupy desks in this generic workplace until President Bartlet directs them to leave, opening space for his private briefing with Leo McGarry and Admiral Fitzwallace. Positioned next to the meeting room, the office yields routine tasks to classified talks on a Delta Force raid for captured Marines near Bitanga. Tension rises as staff exit, phones fall silent, and military options demand presidential focus amid 70% success odds and execution risks.
3 events
3 rich involvements

Detailed Involvements

Events with rich location context

S4E17 · Red Haven's On Fire
Closed Briefing — The Delta Force Decision

The meeting room (adjacent staff office canonical entry) is the initial physical space where Nancy summons the President and staffers clear out; it becomes the threshold into confidential command-level decision making and the site where Bartlet takes the private line.

Atmosphere

Tense and hushed as staff depart, then intimate and concentrated once principals remain.

Functional Role

Meeting place for private presidential briefing and decision authorization.

Symbolic Significance

A threshold from public administration to sole executive responsibility — where the President bears weight alone.

Access Restrictions

De facto restricted to senior principals for the classified briefing; staff exit to preserve secrecy.

Staff rising and leaving; chairs pushed back Phone on table serving as conduit Sudden quiet punctuated by the President's voice into the receiver
S4E17 · Red Haven's On Fire
Private Briefing — The Rescue Decision and Its Cost

The meeting room (represented by the adjacent staff office canonical entry) serves as the private locus where staff are cleared out and the President receives the Situation Room's findings. It is the theatrical interior where political authority meets operational fact, and where the moral decision is vocalized.

Atmosphere

Hushed, tightly controlled, and urgent — privacy enforced by staff departing to allow candid conversation.

Functional Role

Meeting place for a classified presidential briefing and the site where the decision to authorize action is verbalized.

Symbolic Significance

Embodies the presidency's isolated responsibility — a small room that becomes the crucible for life-or-death choices.

Access Restrictions

Cleared for senior principals only during the briefing; staff are asked to leave.

Quiet after staffers exit Phone connection to Situation Room creates an auditory bridge Intense focus on a single table or phone receiver
S4E17 · Red Haven's On Fire
Authorize Delta Extraction — 'We Got to Go Get Them'

The meeting room (represented by the adjacent staff office canonical entry) is the intimate, cleared space where Bartlet withdraws to privately receive the Situation Room's report and render judgment; it serves as the president's private seat of moral responsibility.

Atmosphere

Quiet, tense and constrained—staff have just left, creating a charged hush that foregrounds the President's decision.

Functional Role

Private decision chamber for the President to receive classified briefing and issue orders.

Symbolic Significance

Represents the solitary burden of command and the ethical isolation of making life‑and‑death choices.

Access Restrictions

Cleared to senior principals only; staff exit on request.

Room is emptied of staff; low ambient noise. Phone at hand provides the only direct aural connection to the Situation Room.

Events at This Location

Everything that happens here

3