The Situation Room photograph
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 5 August 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Pete Souza was Chief Official White House Photographer during Barack Obama's presidency. His photo from when Bin Laden was killed by US soldiers in 2011 has become one of his most famous.
He tells Uma Doraiswamy what that day was like leading up to the moment when he took the photo.
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.
Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.
(Photo: President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and members of the national security team receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden. Credit: Getty Images / Pete Souza, White House)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was in a impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | One of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.4 | I'm Carlo Gableer, and I'll be navigating a path through the disturbing inside story |
| 0:21.5 | of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.0 | Hello and thanks for downloading this edition of the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service |
| 0:45.0 | with me Uma Dore Swami. |
| 0:47.7 | This week marks 50 years since Richard Nixon became the first and only US president to resign in office. |
| 0:54.0 | And we're bringing you that and other key moments in US presidential history. |
| 0:58.6 | I'm taking you back to May 1st, 2011, and to what was to become one of the most publicized photos of the Obama |
| 1:05.6 | administration. I'll never forget that feeling. Part of it is that you've got |
| 1:11.4 | essentially the most powerful people in the executive branch of our |
| 1:16.8 | government all in that room. But while they're in that room, there's not a damn thing they can do to affect the outcome of what's taking place. |
| 1:26.0 | And I think that's what accounts for the look that you see on their faces, the anxiety tension I could feel it and I was just |
| 1:36.4 | an observer that's Pete Souza he was the chief official White House photographer |
| 1:41.1 | from 2009 to 2017. President Obama says of him |
| 1:45.8 | that over the course of the eight years in the White House he spent more time with |
| 1:50.0 | Pete than anybody else other than his family. It was Pete's job to document every |
| 1:55.6 | moment big or small for history, and it was in late 2011 that he was given the heads up by a security |
... |
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