George Stephanopoulos is currently (2024) the co-host of Good Morning America and the host of This Week, both on ABC. Before his career as a journalist, he served as White House Communications Director under Bill Clinton in 1993 and as a senior advisor to the president for policy and strategy from 1993 to 1996. In 2024, Stephanopoulos authored The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis, drawing heavily from his own experiences working in the White House and from connections with those who have worked in other administrations.

Born in 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy was a member of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate before being elected as the 35th President of the United States in 1960. In his Inaugural Speech, Kennedy outlined his vision for the United States’s future. Kennedy plays a central role in The Situation Room as the president who, acting upon a recommendation from military researchers in 1961, ordered the Situation Room to be constructed. The recommendation came just days before the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, the “CIA-backed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro’s communist government in Cuba” (10).