Location

Secretary of Defense's Office

Tucked within the Pentagon's corridors of power, the Secretary of Defense's office holds classified maps, secure phones, and stacks of intelligence reports under harsh fluorescent lights. Bartlet sidesteps it entirely, directing Slattery to channel requests through Jack Reese to evade the prickly Secretary's scrutiny. This space looms as a nexus of bureaucratic resistance and political friction, where defense policy clashes with White House directives on missions like the Khundu peacekeeping estimate, amplifying risks amid an inauguration.

1 events

1 rich involvements

Detailed Involvements

Events with rich location context

S4E14 · Inauguration Part I

Ordering the Forced-Depletion Estimate for Khundu

The Secretary of Defense's office is named as the authority Bartlet wishes to exclude; its invocation creates a political constraint and identifies a potential source of public leaks and institutional obstruction.

Atmosphere

Implied defensiveness and political calculation; a place where sensitive items invite scrutiny and potential politicization.

Functional Role

A political/administrative actor to be intentionally kept out of this clandestine analytic loop.

Symbolic Significance

Represents bureaucratic power that can both enable and endanger discreet executive action.

Access Restrictions

Institutional control by the Secretary and staff; typically receives high-level reports but in this event must be bypassed.

Harsh fluorescent-lit corridors implied (Pentagon office description) Stacks of intelligence and secure phones as typical features

Events at This Location

Everything that happens here

S4E14 · Inauguration Part I

Ordering the Forced-Depletion Estimate for Khundu

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 …