The Pentagon, looking northeast with the Potomac River and Washington Monument in the distance (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It is the epicenter of America's military operations... a five-sided fortress with a single purpose--to defend the United States and its citizens. But behind the concrete walls and re-enforced windows are secrets. Enter the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense and explore the complex operations and top-secret business conducted at the largest low-rise office building in the world. How did the Pentagon get its unusual shape? How many people work at the Pentagon? What covert intelligence gathering organizations operate within the military compound--and how are their secrets protected? What top-secret information was compromised from the attack on September 11th? How quickly did the building and its tenants get back to business as usual? For seven decades, the Pentagon has been an icon of American strength and military excellence. But more impressive than the building itself are the secrets held there...until now.
View of the southwest side of the Pentagon, with the skyscrapers of Rosslyn, Virginia beyond. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Pentagon is the world's largest office building by floor area, with about 6,500,000 sq ft (600,000 m2), of which 3,700,000 sq ft (340,000 m2) are used as offices. Approximately 28,000 military and civilian employees[3] and about 3,000 non-defense support personnel work in the Pentagon. It has five sides, five floors above ground, two basement levels, and five ring corridors per floor with a total of 17.5 mi (28.2 km)of corridors. The Pentagon includes a five-acre (20,000 m2) central plaza, which is shaped like a pentagon and informally known as "ground zero," a nickname originating during the Cold War and based on the presumption that the Soviet Union would target one or more nuclear missiles at this central location in the outbreak of a nuclear war.
The Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, taken from an airplane in January 2008 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
