How Lloyd Austin’s Deputy Ended Up Running the Pentagon From the Beach

For four days in January, most of Washington, including President Biden, didn’t know who was running the Pentagon.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was secretly rushed to Walter Reed Military Medical Center on New Year’s Day, suffering from nausea and severe pain. It would be eight days before the president learned why. 

So began a series of events without modern precedent. Austin—sixth in the line of presidential succession and second in the line of military command after the president—was hospitalized and his deputy required to step in from a beach in Puerto Rico where she was on vacation, days before President Biden was informed.

Only a small cadre of aides was aware that Austin was hospitalized. Most others in the Pentagon, including Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, who was carrying out his duties, were kept in the dark, according to the Pentagon’s current version of events. Sasha Baker, the Defense Department’s top policy official and the most senior official present at the Pentagon during that time, attended a meeting at the White House on Jan. 3, unaware that Austin was hospitalized.