Incident near sorority not related

Today's column is a new feature that welcomes readers' inquiries about anything and everything. E-mail questions to factorfiction@ semissourian.com or call Speak Out (334-5111) and identify the call as a question for "Fact or fiction?"

Q: My daughter lives in the Alpha Chi Omega sorority house at Southeast. You reported recently that an employee at the university was charged with misdemeanor sexual assault. After that, there was a man walking through the Alpha Chi house who was identified as the same man. That's the rumor. Was it the same man, and did he have keys to the buildings at the university?

A: A similar question is posted on the university's Web site, the Rumor Mill, indicating no connection between the two incidents. Ann Hayes, director of the university's news bureau and editor of the Rumor Mill, said the second incident occurred April 15. "The individual found in the vicinity of the Alpha Chi Omega house is not an employee of Southeast Missouri State University and, therefore, does not have keys to university buildings," she said.

Q: After the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center were attacked, is it true that, upon hearing of those events, George Bush returned to a grade school classroom and continued to read stories for the next hour?

A: According to numerous news reports and a videotape, President Bush was in the classroom at Emma T. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla., when he was informed that a second plane struck the World Trade Center. It is not clear what the president was told concerning the first crash several minutes before he entered the room, but eyewitness accounts indicate he was told the cause was unclear. "What a horrible accident," one photographer reported him saying. Informed of the second airliner, the president waited for the schoolchildren to finish their reading. He praised and thanked them, instructed the media to hold their questions until he was in another room and then left the classroom. The elapsed time from being informed by his chief of staff until he was in discussion with other government officials was approximately 10 minutes. Less than 45 minutes after the first plane crash, the president was on TV delivering a statement to the nation.

Q: Is it true that U.S. fighter planes are scrambled over the U.S. Capitol or over New York City within five to seven minutes upon hearing that an aircraft has deviated from its normal course and that protocol for some reason was broken on Sept. 11?

A: According to Sean McCormack, press spokesman for the National Security Council, anti-terrorism protocol concerning U.S. fighter alert times is kept confidential by the military. "NORAD is stingy about this type of information," he said. Regarding Sept. 11, 2001, though, it was widely reported that fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the planes after it became clear they were hijacked. The first airliner struck the World Trade Center before one set of fighters was off the ground, and they arrived too late to intercept the second plane. Another set of fighters was scrambled for the Washington, D.C., area but were in the air less than two minutes when the third aircraft slammed into the Pentagon. It was after the Pentagon crash that the president ordered the military to shoot down hijacked commercial airliners if necessary. The fourth hijacked airliner was brought down by passengers struggling against the terrorists.

Jon K. Rust is co-president of Rust Communications.