A globe tied to Dwight D. Eisenhower was damaged inside the Pentagon after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked for it to be moved into his office and his own staff dropped it in the process. The spherical portion separated from its mounting and the shell tore open with a gash several inches wide, according to officials familiar with the incident. The globe was never relocated and remains out of commission while it undergoes repair.
The attempted move happened on February 3, 2026, according to HuffPost, though the episode did not become public until this week. As NBC News reported, Hegseth had requested that the globe, normally kept in a senior Army office inside the Pentagon, be brought to his own office. Rather than wait for Army historians or the U.S. Army Center of Military History, which catalogs and keeps the globe, Hegseth's staffers decided to move it themselves.
That decision proved costly. According to The Guardian, the staffers dropped the globe after deciding to transport it on their own, and the spherical portion detached from its metal mounting as the shell was gashed. The globe had been mounted in a wooden frame and carried green pen or marker notations said to show areas in Europe that Eisenhower marked during the war.
Replica or Relic? Accounts Diverge
Exactly what was damaged remains in dispute. A Pentagon official described the object as a replica of the Eisenhower globe, per The Guardian's reporting, while NBC News reported it had verified through three officials and a photo that the globe was the original one used by Eisenhower. Separately, Local 12 noted that the globe's own plaque describes its tie to Eisenhower as a “popular theory” rather than settled fact.
What is clear is that two floor globes said to have been used by Eisenhower during World War II are housed at the Pentagon, with plaques dating them to the 1930s, according to the Washington Post, which first reported the incident Thursday. Eisenhower served as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces during the war and gave final approval for the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, part of Operation Overlord, which led to the liberation of Western Europe and the end of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. He was later elected the 34th president in November 1952 and sworn in that January 1953.
No Trained Movers, No Historians on Hand
Part of what went wrong traces back to staffing. According to Snopes, Army history staffers who would normally help with such a move were furloughed during a partial government shutdown, leaving Hegseth's team to attempt the transfer without trained curators. The Pentagon has not detailed when the damage will be fully repaired or what it will cost, and it did not immediately respond to a further request for information about the globe, per NBC News.
USA Today reported that Pentagon officials said no one was harmed in the mishap and that the globe is being repaired. Parade reported that the Pentagon's statement struck a measured tone, saying “Accidents happen” and that officials were grateful no one was harmed.
How a Similar Globe Was Moved Safely in 2022
The contrast with past practice is notable. In 2022, the Army Center of Military History contracted specialist moving company Craters & Freighters to relocate a similar Eisenhower globe between facilities in Alabama, transporting it from Anniston to the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. The firm said on its website that it created precise packaging and crating designs specifically to protect the globe before the move.
That comparable globe stood about four feet high with a diameter of around 40 inches, according to Craters & Freighters. The successful 2022 move, cited in The Guardian's reporting, underscores how such artifacts are typically handled with custom equipment rather than carried by hand.
