The biggest and proudest moment in Greg Jenkins's career came in the black of night on a tarmac at Baghdad International Airport. Jenkins, the White House's chief advance man, was entrusted with setting up President Bush's secret trip to visit the troops on Thanksgiving Day, 2003.
He managed to keep it a secret from most of the media, the troops and even other White House staff with a cover story that it was a USO trip. A surprise drop into the war zone was such an improbable trip to pull off that Jenkins worried that some soldiers might think that the president was an impersonator.
But when Bush stepped out from behind camouflage netting in a chow hall near the airport, stunned soldiers immediately stood and applauded. Some cried. "It was an overwhelming, overwhelming tidal wave of emotion," Jenkins said.
When it came time to pick someone to put his second inauguration together, Bush chose Jenkins, appointing him executive director of the Presidential Inaugural Committee. The surprise visit to Baghdad was one of the most memorable events of the president's first term, projecting him in a light of strength and authority — giving up his Thanksgiving holiday to boost the morale of his troops.
Turning chaos into music
Now Jenkins is working on the first big moment of the president's second term. Next month, Jenkins will try to turn more than 25 events spread over three days into one seamless inauguration. The goal is to maintain a common theme and tone so that the celebrations are not seen "as a series of events, but as one thing that we're trying to tie together," he said.
He compared producing the inauguration to creating a home movie for the nation. "We want people to laugh," he said in an interview in his office in the Department of Health and Human Services building in Southwest. "We want people to think. We want people to be moved. We expect this inaugural to be very familiar to everybody, whether they are here or not."
The challenge, he said, is to hit all the right notes without overproducing. "We don't contrive," he said. "It's a delicate balance."
There was a time in his life when he worked out every day, said Jenkins, whose tall frame still looks fit, but he has no time for that now. He joked that his lean look is the result of a constant diet of stress.
Or maybe it is because Jenkins, 41, never stops moving.
"He does seem to be in constant motion," said Karen Hughes, a longtime adviser to Bush. "You could put Greg anywhere in the world and within an hour he would have plans and he would have done everything he needed to do to hold an event."
Whirling dervish with purpose
Even while sitting in a chair at a conference table in his office, Jenkins has an aura of perpetual motion. From behind him, almost constantly, comes the sound of a cell phone or Blackberry — maybe both — vibrating. Someone's always trying to reach him. His office door flies open regularly. He has people waiting, a line of them.
Jenkins said he is perfectly comfortable in this whirlwind. He has been in motion his whole life, first as a Navy brat, moving 20 times before graduating from high school, and then as White House advance man for two presidents named Bush.
When Brian Montgomery left his job as the White House's director of advance about two years ago, Jenkins took his place.
Montgomery, now a deputy assistant to Bush, recalls hiring Jenkins into the advance world in 1999 when Jenkins was a producer at Fox Television.
"I'm pretty sure he was in Kosovo or one of those countries. We ended up talking over a satellite phone. I said, 'I've been hired to set up the advance operation, and you're going to be one of my first hires,' " Montgomery recalled. Jenkins replied that he was happy where he was. "And I said, 'You don't understand. You don't have a choice. You're moving to Austin.' " Both had done advance work for the first President Bush.
"He had a good eye for the camera that was largely from his involvement with television. He had a good demeanor about himself, very confident. He has a good humor streak, tells a good story, and that's part of this business," Montgomery said.
Leading from behind the curtain
The story Jenkins is working on now is of a self-described wartime president about to begin his second term.
"Greg has that experience managing large groups of people coupled with very good advance skills," Montgomery said. "He reports to the chairs, but in the executive director position, you're essentially over everything — invitations and events and operations and budget and fundraising. You're the executive director of a short-lived corporation with a budget of $40 to $50 million. It's a Herculean effort."
Jenkins said his television experience has helped him immeasurably.
"Where the creativity kind of comes into it," he said, "is where we have the message match the visuals that surround the event to assist the person who is watching the event to get a better understanding of what the message is. That comes into play almost everywhere."
Hughes said that Jenkins has always been calm, even when the administration dispatched him to Afghanistan a few months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to set up a media operation to counter "outrageous" claims being made by the Taliban.
"I remember him being on conference calls," Hughes said, "and he would be standing outside talking on his phone in the middle of the night in the middle of a war zone, and he would be incredibly upbeat, completely unflappable with great ideas and always with a great sense of humor. He has a real dash for life."
Staff writer Mike Allen contributed to this report.
