of role are you going to play in the future talking to these people? organizations, young people, how are you going to -- the united is serious about pursuing this kind of policy that president obama has promised. ..

>> it's an important priority. >> will have her back in the future. >> thank you.

>> this is the american enterprise institute in washington. they are hosting a discussion this morning on an american presidential succession in the event of a terrorist attack. new reports coming out looking at potential vulnerabilities and the succession process. speakers of the event will include fran townsend. it should get underway and a couple of minutes live here on c-span2. other live coverage today includes over on c-span beginning at 11:30. an fcc meeting looking at national broadband policy. they will hear from the fcc staff about the transition to digital television and how that's going. that is 11:30 live on c-span.

stories on inside the white house. domestic policy advisers under presidents. from richard nixon to george w. bush. honoring president ronald reagan. ken burns on his career and upcoming series on american national parks, a tribute to the late writer john updike, two-time winner of the few enterprise and a reunion of the apollo eight astronauts. there are more books and authors of this holiday weekend starting friday morning on c-span2 book tv.

>> these places remind me of a modern cathedral that donors would build wings on hoping they would go to heaven. >> i think for example princeton philosophy i think that these wonderfully concentrated islands of talent and wealth and erudition, be opened up to the larger society, not kept separate which they still are and i can't understand why. >> lost in a meritocracy.

>> after the vice president allowed the congress to create a line of succession. we've had three separate pieces of legislation, acts that were done. the most recent in 1947, and as the report suggests it was designed not to deal with the kinds of threats that we have in the modern-day world. we are going to explore this issue from a variety of perspectives. we are going to start with a keynote by franzen townsend. fran has a stronger background is anybody possibly could to engage the public and the commission and the rest of us in these issues. she served as assistant to president bush for homeland security and counterterrorism, and also chairs the homeland security council for almost four years from 2004 through 2008.

she also has a long career in government. she was with the coast guard. she served in the justice department for many years, and as a prosecutor, and she is now with baker botts doing a strategic consulting on risk and engagement abroad. so, frank, thank you for joining us. >> norm, thank you for inviting me. i would warm folks on sort of the warm-up act and i thought it would be useful, it's a very serious subject but i hope to get you to chuckle a little this morning with some of the sword of honest, you know, stories about behind all the policy and all the initiatives. this is hard and it was hard in the executive branch. you know, when you think about the history and there have been some very i think useful reports by the congressional research

service looking at some of the history here, and while norms introduction was very kind, he is the person who i would love to and read his stuff when i was thinking about the policy initiatives in this area. you know, there was a great attention to the subject as we know going back to the cold war. but between that period of time between the end of the cold war and september the 11th, there wasn't a lot of attention here. because we thought the greatest threat from a state on state perspective was well behind us. and we didn't really believe in a fundamental way that other threats, nonstate actors, posed sort of a real strategic threat to our existence until september the 11th and that tragedy. even then, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 people said we need to turn our attention back to this. we realized the paradigm of cold where contingency planning

still, even that didn't quite fit because of course that presumes intelligence and warning capabilities that you can begin to go as we say in the continuity world to warm and a hot actor off-site facilities. and so even that would be helpful, but not dispositive of how we approached the whole area of continuity. it's interesting, and not i suspect an accident, if you look at the prior presidential directive, i'll talk a little bit about the presidential directive that president bush signed an continuity but if you look at the one seimei president clinton in october of 1998, of course you will recall that's only months after the stafford embassy bombing in august of 1998. i at that point in time, dick clarke was chairing the interagency committee group at the nsc. i was participating in that from the justice department. and it was back up to form a

basis of the thinking for the policy behind pbc 67. president bush, reviewed the data again and added to that. remember now, when president bush signed the new presidential directive, 51, of course now we have a new department. we have the department of homeland security and things have changed. things have progressed. you can imagine him after september the 11th the president was incredibly frustrated by his inability to connect it with the american people, the difficulty of communications even within his own cabinet. and so there was an immediate turn to the issue of continuity of the presidency and supporting of the immediate courson and staff of the president of the united states. and that was the first real priority in the aftermath of september the 11th. of course, while people here will understand it, it's worth my saying i obviously can't talk about the details of the

continuity of the presidency because all that is classified. i will tell you that there are millions upon millions of dollars, and lots of time and attention that was turned to that, and president obama inherited a far superior, not just far superior, but superior by almost any standard of anything else we understand about our allies around the world, a far superior system for his long term and not just his, but left a legacy in terms of the continuity of the presidency that is much stronger than anything i think anybody would have contemplated. as you begin to look at the continuity of the presidency, you immediately realize that will only be as effective as the plans that are nested beneath it. continuity of the government, continuity of operations across the federal government. because of course you may have provided the continuity of the presidents and the staff, but who are they going to talk to. who is going to provide them sort of staff support, policy

support and operational support that they need to be effective. funny story on the continuity of the presidency. you can imagine while i was one of the people who was charged with the responsibility of thinking about this everyday, most of my colleagues, very smart, very focused, very disciplined people did not think about this at all, as it were not required to. but you can imagine, just like most things, if you don't practice it you don't do it very well when there is a crisis. so we would have been briefed. i asked working with the white house budget office to have been briefed. we were taken to an offsite, we walked into what to expect. and i could always help but chuckle. one of the sinner scenarios we walked into his imagine a biological or chemical attack. and imagine having to go through decontamination procedure. so we literally lie to folks up at a facility and walked them through exactly what it would look like. and as you can imagine, imagine what you think decontamination

facility looks like. this is not the four seasons bathroom. this is not luxurious. it's not pretty. and it's, by the way, you're not having an individual shower stall. so you line folks up and they get in, and this one happened to be a three-person facility. walked in. they were explained, there's a little counter that starts here, you rip your clothes off, you're going to be naked. you walk and three at a time, one of the women turned around and said which way is the women's shower. [laughter] >> again, there is no women's shower. you're going to be in there together. oh, she says. i'm glad i brought you know we told them you have to have this back at your desk in case you have to be whisked off. i will have my close. no, that won't apply to decontamination unit. she said well, are their clothes on the other side? yak, no designer duds but we will put you in something. so it was very funny because you

realize people who don't like your panel, like the commission, like me, people don't have to think about this every day really don't have any concepti conception. now that's okay as as long as they are prepared. and i'll tell you the funny story because part of the planning is walking people through psychologically what to expect. otherwise, they are going to of that mental bandwidth in the prices to be dealing with this unfamiliar situation. they haven't been prepared for when the president of the united states or the country needs some folks very specifically in the area of their expertise. i'll tell you what we did was, it's funny. one of the things in this presidential directive signed by president bush, i was appointed the national continuity court nader, congressional research pointed out it was not by what authority i had because i couldn't direct federal agencies. having read that i feel compelled to explain to you that that was really a function if

you understand the white house is in the wake of iran-contra. white house staffs have made very clear from white house counsel are not operational. that means they don't direct operations out of the west wing of the white house. and so the idea was i would coordinate policy, and i would assess performance here but i was not directing operations inside of federal agencies. for those of you who haven't worked in the white house, i should tell you that that's a little bit term of art because when you report directly to the president and you are in proximity to the president, cabinet secretary will understand that once policy has been agreed upon and it has been signed by the president as being implemented, you have a good deal of moral suasion to be able to say you're playing is inadequate or it's insufficient in this way and you need to redirect resources. in addition, as you well know, the power of the purse is important and you will find in the directive the director of omb working with the person in

my position were to accept on annual basis budgeting, funding and performance for these continuity programs. so while you couldn't actually direct it, there was a good deal of authority that allowed you to be pretty influential in being able to do that. we had a series of meetings among the inner agency, each cabinet secretary did appoint one individual in their department responsible. we talked about what the standards, the requirement for. we did practice it. we would have eventually they had to go to their off-site facilities. you can imagine, you know, almost every major national event was a good opportunity for an exercise to practice. almost always if you saw the state of the union, a political convention, the inoculation. all of those are national security events that trigger continuity exercises and

capability where you go. each time he do that you learn something if you didn't think a. you learn some way to strengthen as you learn much or vulnerabilities are. i will tell you, as we get further from september the 11th, i do worry about people's time and attention to this issue. i've always said one of this country's great strength is its optimism. and we don't want people to be constantly worried or fearful about another attack. that said, we have to be cognizant of the fact that our enemies continue to plan every day. and so we need to be ready and their need to be people inside the government who are devoted to this topic and constantly refining. continuity, i remember telling my cabinet colleagues, the issue with continuity is i never got to a point where i felt really good about it. and that was because it's always a work in progress. it's always a work in progress.

you know, you can't ever rest on the fact that, okay, we've got that. we get that done now and we can move onto the next policy issue. its constant refinement. and in the pdb 51 there are timelines requires the dni to provide a biannual threats to continuity of government. it requires omb as i mentioned annual assessment of continuity funding and performance. it requires the office of science and technology policy to set minimum continuity communications standards. i think we've got to be asking the current administration how are they doing, and are they doing that, and when are they doing that and what is the performance of those federal agencies. president obama has made very clear his commitment to transparency. there is no greater issue on which we require some answers to be sure that when the citizenry really needs its government to be able to work in a crisis for our safety, for our security,

that they are ready to do that job. it is not the time to ask it in the midst of the crisis and its by the way not terribly perspective to be asking any in the aftermath. let me close by saying, you know, i left the white house. it was january 2008, and i had started, i was already one year into planning for the transition of presidential power that was going to happen a year later. this was an issue that tremendously concerned me. i believe president bush had a unique and all are his responsibility because it was the first transition of presidential power. i will tell you there was more communication between the outgoing and incoming administration on this issue. it is a model that's not to say it can't be improved upon, but i think even the new administration would say to you it was incredibly important what we did. in terms of planning for that. two points that i think their

continued discussion, attention and frankly were. one was in the context of continuity of government. as you can imagine i was responsible in terms of planning for the executive branch, but understood well that it required continuity planning on the part of the judicial branch and the legislative branch. we incorporated sort of provisions for their continuity plans. we didn't have visibility into it. we didn't have input into it. we tried to make sure we had a dialogue, in particular another one of these typical washington stories. in the interagency project, frequently people will want to own, own turf but not occupy. that is, this is my area, i'm responsible, stay away. but then they don't do anything with it. and nothing used to frustrate me more in government if there's any comfort, it doesn't, that phenomenon doesn't just reside

in the executive branch. because when i tried to engage congress on this issue, there was a terse push back and forth. the villains in this will ring name anonymous to protect their own, but there was a push back and forth, no, this is mine, know this is mine. and then of course we heard nothing from anybody about what they were doing. and so i do worry about the adequacy, particularly at the legislative branch. we have some greater dialogue particularly with the supreme court and were able to incorporate them. this was not about trying to dictate what the plans were, i hasten to add that we were not suggesting that we knew better or they should do certain things. things. we decide if we are a all going to plan for continuity we have to be able to communicate. we have to understand least a broad outlines of each other's plans, and there is a good deal more work that needs to be done there. and then lastly, and it's really the lead-in to what the current report and panel is about today. the single thing that i was most

gravely concerned about in the transition before i left the white house was the actual transition of presidential power. and that was because i could imagine, it seemed to me not unfathomable that our enemies understood, because we publicly debate about when is the formal transfer of power, what if there is an attack on an inauguration day before president obama took the oath. and i was a deeply concerned. i like many and i think is a reference to in the report today believed the presidential succession act of 47 as regards the speaker and the presidential pro tem of the senate in a line of succession is unconstitutional. and so given that, given that you didn't have cabinet secretaries sworn in for the new administration, given everybody in the governmental power structure was there, you can imagine even out of government a year later, i watched the inauguration with pride, but

holding my breath waiting for everybody to get off that day. that shouldn't be. people, the national continuity coordinator should be able to have greater confidence in holding one's breath and hoping everybody gets off there safely. and so i think really, your section seven of this report is very important. there have got to be priorities, cut to the action, got to be dialogue, and we cannot wait to do this until there is a threat. so thank you, norm, for inviting me. i really applaud your effort, and hope that they listen and do something about it. [applause] >> thank you so much, fran. i want to say first that the work she did to make the transition the first one since 9/11 the best we have ever had because it went into directions, which rarely happens.

including focusing on the inaugural and getting somebody in the line of succession away from washington was unsung heroism. the second is a point that she may. we are now two months from the eighth anniversary of 9/11. and there is a lot of complacency out there. it is stunning that we have not seen the kind of action, especially in congress, and frankly in the judicial branch. much less attention to the presidential succession act that needs to be there, eight years after the fact, and we in the commission hoped to wrap up our efforts to overcome the inertia that we've had. we now have two panels that will be led successively by my colleague, john fortier, at aei who is also the executive director of the continuity of government commission on the theory of presidential succession, or theories of presidential succession. and then by tom mann of brookings who joins me as the

senior advisor to the continuity of government commission. sullenly turned over to john fortier. >> great, thank you. that was a great lead-in to a couple interesting discussions we hope to have today. we had a distinguished panel today with three panelists. you see two of them. i will introduce them all, but there's a third panelist, and because we are working in the world of continuity and contingency, we had in an emergency up yesterday where akhil arnar is not going to be with us on the panel but being with us by phone. i want to say from an on under an undisclosed location. is a professor at yellow school so you might guess what state he is in. but it also shows our succession plan because of course this current government is essentially harvard law school. we have you lost cool as the successor just in case things go wrong.

this panel is going to be more about this theory of presidential succession. i do think it is worthwhile for me to make a few points about the report. our second panel will be much more focused about the report. it will have a number of our commissioners and people who serve in government that dealt with these issues on the ground. but i want to put a couple points on the table from our report and then we'll have our three panels discussed them from three very interesting perspectives in academia, industry of constitutional law, as well as a working journalist who has looked at these issues as well. this report makes several recommendations. fran townsend referred to one of them and i won't say too much about that, how we deal with the question of inauguration day. that's a very important question. i know that jim, commissioner of our is going to say something particular about that on the panel coming up on the second panel. but our two big recommendations really are, one, everyone in

washington, everyone in the line of succession that we can all, they are all in washington. they all work here and they all live theater while we think it is a remote possibility, it is still a possibility that is something truly catastrophic happened here in washington, and as a precaution against that we advocate that there are, should be several offices created for people to sit outside of washington. those offices would be filled by the president of the united states with confirmation by the senate and they might be held by people who were former secretaries of state, former senators, former homeland security advisers. we have people who although you live in washington so that wouldn't work, but the idea is to have a backstop behind the key people in the line of succession is the worst were to happen and we were to have to turn to people outside of washington. the second again has been referred to by fran townsend, and that is a very difficult question and i know akhil amar

will refer to does much more directly, but we think it is not wise to have congressional leaders in the line of succession. not only is it not wise, we agreed with the constitutional judgments of both akhil amar and james madison, who both believe and others in between, that the constitution was set, the particular clause but also the structure of the constitution is such that a cabinet succession or executive branch of succession is not only more appropriate but feels better with unusual circumstances. one example is in the case of a president having to take over for a president who is disabled or incapacitated. the vice president very easily might take over for the president, but if we are to go down the line, the speaker of the house, the speaker of the house has to lead the congress, leave his position as position of speaker and come to the executive branch never to go back. would've speaker choose to do

that in an emergency with a president who is perhaps out of commission for or five hours or several days, could there be a change in party without an election. of course there could be. we have had a number of circumstances where ronald reagan might have been succeeded by tip o'neill, bill clinton by newt gingrich, or george w. bush by nancy pelosi. so we think there are a number of reasons why it is unwise to have congressional leaders and the line of succession, and i would say those two plus the in migration center are big recommendations. you can read the others in our report. for those of you reading to read it on line is continuity government.org. and with that, with those facts on the table, what i would like to do is then do a more general discussion of the issue of presidential succession. our panelist will say something about the report, their reaction to it. but mostly they have come to this issue by thinking about it for a long time regarding the 25th amendment, regarding the

question of congressional leaders in the line of succession. in the case of jim may and looking at the planning for continuity of government operations that surround these issues. so let me introduce our panelist. i will start with our panelist in absentia and i want to make sure he is year. is akhil amar here. >> good morning, john. >> thank you. he is a professor of law and political science at yellow and her university. he teaches both at yale law school and at the college and was a clerk for stephen breyer at the first circuit before coming to yale. is also the author of several important books, constitutional text books but also two very important books, one of the bill of rights and one on the constitution. the first the bill of rights creation and reconstruction, and most recently americas constitution and biography. is also an author of numerous articles and has