'The Pentagon': the shape of power

From its inception on Sept. 11, 1941, to the attack upon it on Sept. 11, 2001, the Pentagon has served as the ultimate symbol of US military might.

By Chuck Leddy

from the July 10, 2007 edition

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While World War II raged in Europe in early 1941, the United States military high command occupied 17 separate buildings in Washington, D.C. With US intervention looking more certain every day, Brehon Somervell decided that consolidating military headquarters into one building was essential.

General Somervell was chief of the Army's Construction Division and a man of such determination that what he wanted got done, whatever the obstacles.

Somervell ordered the building to be designed immediately, giving the architects a single weekend to develop a blueprint. The pentagonal shape of the building was designed to adapt to the chosen site, Arlington Farm in Virginia.

The project moved forward speedily, and soon ground was broken. The exact date: Sept. 11, 1941.

On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists wanting to attack "the great Satan" chose the Pentagon as a symbol of America's global military power.

In Pentagon: A History, Steve Vogel, a military reporter for The Washington Post, meticulously describes the construction of the Pentagon over the course of 17 frenetic months, then concludes his account with its rebuilding in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, after terrorists had crashed a plane into the building, killing 184 people.

It's the story of the construction of one of the most recognizable buildings in the world.

Its original estimated cost was $35 million, a figure that would prove wildly optimistic. Due to objections from President Franklin Roosevelt and others, the site had been moved to nearby Hell's Bottom, but Somervell kept the initial pentagonal design. Vogel shows how Somervell demanded speedy construction above all, even if it meant troubling trade-offs in quality and safety.

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