>> he did not one to that.

he said he established this and first ast if he could stay on than felt he could not and they went over with the allied commander in europe and asked me to come in. i said i would not do it if it could not be done and the model designed could not working and he said i know that now. but i have to get to where i want to be and give me some slack while we've navigate over to a rational white house chief of staff systems. >> but dick cheney said surveying has chief of staff as a successor so many times president -- presidents were constrained in the congress was moving him and when he became vice president he hoped to expand presidential power and a move that the

other way. did you feel that? >> when you have the embattled president functioning in a white house at that point* was deemed illegitimate, watergate had drained the reservoir from our country for the first time a president of the united states had to resign. it was a stunning events. in our country, and the world and we don't govern by a command but by persuasion and through leadership and if you have to persuade people don't respond and the white house was in a terrible terrible terrible circumstance. of should we go for

continuity to reassure the american people that he, a total unknown who has never been elected no platform, no campaign staff, and no knowledge about the country have been campaigned, no base of support, he felt the need to reassure the country there would be continuity. the alternative the alternative is to favor a change but the alternative if that institution was deemed legitimate more not trustworthy, then president ford had to create sufficient change to be seen not as a continuum of the ford white house instead of the nixon for white house

and making enough changes that people would see him stepping forward with a new team. he opted for the continuity and paid appellate -- penalties. >> you don't say he should have? >> no. he was a decent and kind man i don't want to let anybody go to appear that they did something wrong. there were a handful that did something wrong. not all large number and a truly wonderful people pat moynihan, alan greenspan, george shultz and dr. stein and so many people of wonderful reputation and gerald ford could not bring himself to fire anybody. he did not want to do with because he felt it would be a tarnish. >> host: you talk about a story how the older

president bush went to the cia in 1975. tell us briefly the story and what you feel the real story was. >> what do you mean what i feel the real story was? [laughter] the real story? >> host: then the god's truth. >> guest: now you are talking. [laughter] george herbert walker bush came to congress with a wonderful group of people and by a new him and at assembly ended up running for the senate and lost and then went to china as our representative. he wanted to come back. that he wanted the executive position. i was chief of staff of the white house and periodically i would be asked to send in a group of names to the

director of the cia your attorney general or some other cabinet office like housing and urban development. the staff would produce these documents of here are six or eight names or the pros and cons and the people that favor and where there rank and the president would look and ask the fbi to look for sniff them out. that went with the president said the director wanted to leave the cia. bush's name was on the list. and for whatever reason, of this was created in and to be considered for vice president when rockefeller. >> addison george herbert

walker bush were competitive so the myth came out when he was sent to to the cia the senate said we will not confirm you of less you agree will not be vice president. they ruled him out. i told president ford he should not do that and definitely not allow the senate to tell him who the country should have a vice presidential nominee. and the facts are that george herbert walker bush day the president to tell him he would not be vice president he wanted to be the director of the cia and his wife wrote a book and said he was thrilled to be nominated for that. but somehow i came around i was the only one to be masterminded for him not to be vice president. >> host: and you write in

the books that he believes that? >> i don't know if he believes that but i was tired of it and i wrote president ford and said give me a letter that tells me the facts and said it you are right. he begged to be head of the at the cia and was delighted to be the head of the cia and you have nothing to do with it. that is a long and short. >> theories vestron now until they are shipped in stone and based in mid air. >> host: we do not have a lot of time hotbed when bush is elected president day do you have any thought he would be asked to go into the cabinet? and no. >> guest: i was an old

man. [laughter] george and i went to our 50th high school reunion in the year 2000 september and joyce with her perception and wisdom and foresight announced this is the beginning of our world period. september 2000. we had no more idea in the world i would end up back there and had no desire and we were happy and life was good and i was very successful and served on commissions one on the ballistic missiles and another on space and felt i was contributing in some of volunteer way. >> host: when you became secretary of defense how did things change at the pentagon nor washington in general since 19707? >> i wish i knew the actual

numbers, but congressional staff had ballooned and had grown by a multiple of two or three or four. the defense authorization bill, the legislation congress passes each house than a conference and a piece of paper, papers, that represent the authorization bill telling the department of defense what it can do for the next year. when i left secretary of defense, 1976, the bill had 74 pages. when i came back 2000, 2001, the defense authorization bill had 574 pages for coke that could be off by a few but good enough for the government work. [laughter] you get a sense of what it change. it changed the department of

defense and there is no way it can be efficiently run. government is inherently inefficient because it cannot die or go way i'd like a business. few drive down any street in philadelphia with a retail operation there one day and gone the next. it fails. government stays there so the efficiencies compound. to the extent something is not efficient than the congress concerned about representing their constituents, feeling a responsibility for oversight see something wrong and decide it is to require another report or to hire more people so what you see is how many people are old enough to remember goal of

wrote -- delivers travels? the great big guy and sell the locations for this big and finally they put so many threads over him he could not move. and the thousands of threads that is where we have arrived and government with so many pages of micro requirements and so many reports to be filed that it consumes an enormous amount of time and there are over 10,000 lawyers and the department of defense. imagine. [laughter] i have nothing against lawyers, but i don't know. >> host: they are going out of the room right now. >> out is any organization function with 10,000 lawyers? [laughter] just kidding.

[laughter] >> host: i will push you to skip through the rest of this i want to get to the other things but, 9/11. in retrospect do you think it could have been averted if you would rewind the tape and earlier presidents be caved differently? is that a result of what presidents did or did not do? >> i am not one who can answer a question like that. logically use say there must have been things that could have been done differently but on the of their hand the task of the intelligence community is truly difficult and a very, very tough job. the world is a big place.

said terrorist networks and the closed societies in many countries make enormously difficult to gather intelligence that could be actionable and in my adult life, i have seen literally dozens of instances where our intelligence community has failed to predict something. and there was a very funny book carl -- called pearl harbor and the forward to the book was written by adam mann at harvard by the name of dr. thomas schelling and wrote the foreword and he characterized pearl harbor as a figure of the imagination. and of course, there were so many herrings after pearl harbor, what might have been

done was the right to have a concentration of battleships immobilized at and vulnerable with all of the planes on the ground? i look back on 9/11 and i am aware of the reappraisals and the lessons learned and studies done and there is no question but the fact that the united states of america in the case of somalia after being attacked, a pullback and in an instance in haiti was attacked and ships pulled away i think it was bosnia folks went across the line and recaptured a and we pulled back several kilometers. lebanon. after the marines were killed in the barracks at the airport divided states withdrew forces. after the uss cole was

attacked by terrorists to the reaction of the united states was minimal with some cruise missiles launched on a couple of locations but if you think about it said terrace that organize these activities don't have countries to defender populations to defend or real estate or infrastructure. they operate in the shadows. you can launch a lot of cruise missiles and drop a lot of bombs and do precious little damage to a terrorist network. they came away and have said as much osama bin laden said when many locations on video that the united states was a paper tiger and if it is hit

it will react and withdraw it. it will not reach out to do damage of those imposing damage. someone could make a case that that pattern that weakness is provocative to the extent that we be paid in a manner that is weak and allows those kinds of things and provokes people into doing things they otherwise may not do and felt if they would have instantaneous punishment. but the last thing i would do is to say something somebody could have done to prevent september 11. i would say like pearl harbor, a failure of the imagination and probably relatively understandable. >> maybe a couple of questions from the audience. one is from iraq and

vietnam. is that a fair comparison? >> there are similarities and notable differences between the two. said vietnamese were not likely to come and attack the united states of america. the terrorist threat to, the dangers in iraq was on the terrorist list, that was a very real threat to our country and al qaeda had demonstrated that it would attack america. now there was no direct link between al qaeda and iraq certainly between afghanistan and iraq and iraq was on the terrorist list and had a pattern of having developed weapons of mass destruction so there were these things that

affected it. but i would say that the differences were greater than the similarities but there were certainly similarities. >> host: in the case of johnson we both know people who worked for johnson and one thing they say the tough thing is when somebody says i lost my son in vietnam. why did he die? what do you say for iraq? >> it is the hardest thing if you are in a position of responsibility when a conflict occurs. says we would go to the hospital to meet with the wound did your lives are changed forever to meet with the family of those who have been killed, we think to ourselves we go wind. what is it that we could say

lowered due to help them understand the appreciation that we and america have for the sacrifice? the individual sacrifices of families as well. and we would come out of those meetings almost inspired fielding not that we had helped them but they had helped us. the pride that they have in their service, the cohesion they feel with the unit they were and and the desire to get back, you just could not fail to come out of those meetings inspired by the on men and women. the big difference history

in the vietnam war and the conflicts today is thanks to milton friedman and richard nixon and congress we have the all volunteer military. every single one of those people who serve the country serves because they want to and consciously decide they want to raise their hand to go help protect our country. that dedication and patriotism and pride is so powerful. how does one answer that? i guess. >> host: like the johnson people said don't push us to tell what the sacrifice is made for. does anybody do that? >> sure. >> host: world were to i assume that is not hard but

they were like iraq or a vietnam that it is not full throttle, what do you say? >> armies against navy's and air force against their forces, that is clear and understandable it starts and it ends and ended world war ii month the uss missouri signing ceremony. what we went through with the cold war was quite different many decades long the ideological competition of ideas and there will never be a signing ceremony today is much more like that. it is a longer period of time it is a marathon, not this brand and the competition of ideas but for whatever reason we're not skillful but the majority of the muslims it stop talking

eight hof's what -- they are not radicals are terrorists there is a small minority of muslims that have the engaged in terrorist acts that have organized to do those things and we are reluctant as americans to take up the debate to compete with those ideas. they are not reluctant they are out recruiting and raising money and organizing and planning attacks against the nation state concept because they have a conviction that it is they're calling to do that. the fact we're not willing to engage in that debate or reluctant to do it leaves people with a vague mess as

why people have to do things. the wonderful thing i found from the armed forces they are there whether serving in korea or bosnia or iraq or afghanistan, they know what they're doing, they understand it, proud of what they're doing and thanks to modern communication and e-mails, they can communicate with their families and they end up having a sense of what they're doing and why they do it. when there is a loss of life it is heartbreaking. a loss of limb, it is heartbreaking but yet you talk to those families and they don't ask why was i there? they know why they were there and they are proud that they are there and we're very fortunate country. >> for sure. >> you are also a leader yourself.

[applause] and you have seen a lot of leaders and i guess what i was the game of. >> and the leading scholar as presidential leadership he will ask me a question on leadership. [laughter] >> i feel like i am back in school. >> when people write about george w. bush, what do think is the shortcoming? >> i am 78 years old. i have lived one-third of our country's history. almost every republican president was considered not very swift and eisenhower played too much golf and gerald ford they said played

too much football without a helmet. [laughter] did it matter he went to yale law school or one of the world's leading experts serving on the appropriations committee. >> the best athlete in the white house. >> one to another, ronald reagan characterized by a clifford as the amiable dunce. then people read his letters and saw that this man was thoughtful, knowledgeable, a nd while not a micromanage year, a strategic leader and a superb and highly successful strategic leader, george to be bush was described as not curious, not knowledgeable, he had gone to harvard business school, yale, and clearly was an intelligent human being. i did not know the man.

i worked with his father in congress but did not know george w. bush. i watched him as a president and he asked penetrating questions and worked his way with foreign leaders in a skillful and engaging manner that develop relationships that were constructed for our country. but yet people made fun of it. i don't know quite what it is about our society that does that. i must say i have watched a lot of presidents and george w. bush, if you think what he did with the surge in iraq. >> host: would you have supported that if you stayed on the? >> what he did was

interesting, a lot of things combine to make it work. the on bar awakening took place, and the equipping of the military came to the advanced point* where iraqis were ready to participate. the iraqi government had matured and was beginning to provide more skillful political leadership but what he did, added 25,000 additional troops, it was not the additional troops, he galvanized the situation and i wracked by his boldness when congress was ready to cut off the funds, he made a decision to increase the troops and because the people in iraq to say oh my goodness he means business. he is not looking for a way out but a way to win. that cause people to gel and

coalesce and the malachi government took some of the dissidents this so-called army, it is a group of people to get out of the street for demonstrations went quiet. they did not know what would have been. but the center shifted to the united states the locus of the problem was the united states that congress was about ready to cancel funding. and the boldness of what george w. bush did galvanize the situation. >> and made it more successful. >> they deserve a lot of credit. >> how much should they be judged by success? if lyndon johnson the vietnam war and did? would we look added great war leader? haq who heads ecap taka. >> guest: it seems to me

that wars are a series of catastrophe ended by success or victory. they're untidy, difficult, hard, the enemy has a brain and eisenhower said the plan is worth less. planning is everything and the plan is worthless. >> host: that is rumsfeld roles, it is a rule that i quote from someone who is more intelligent than i am. >> but it is true. every time you try to do something every offense has a defense and a defense has an offense. i think we are unlikely for a period of time to end up

with a clarity of world war ii because of the nature of the world we are living in. it is asymmetric, and ever-changing and it is a challenge for our leadership and challenge for our country. with a growing finality of the weapons, what bush was faced with, when he made his decision, there was a study called dark winter by johns hopkins. with a series of experts that got together to say what if we took smallpox and put it in three locations in the united states of america and in a relatively short period of months, the dark winter exercise done by johns hopkins concluded concluded, something in the

neighborhood of 800,000 americans would be dead. some one here knows the exact number. where is keith? that is close enough. and a multiple of that would be infected with smallpox. imagine and our country if that happens. think of martial law and the inability to move from state to state. free people. that is what we are. we want to get up and say what we want and think what we want the purpose of terrorism is not to kill people but to terrorize. and to alter your behavior. imagine this country 800,000 dead from smallpox and martial law imposed and it

is that concern that cause george w. bush and his administration to step up you could not wait to be attacked again. the only thing you can do is to put pressure on a terrorist state and on terrorist networks to make every single same they do harder. harder to raise money, move, communicate, to keep the pressure up to the point* where they could engage. >> host: we have just a couple more minutes. one, what should the historian write about rumsfeld at the pentagon? >> give it 10 or 20 years. the perspective is good.

it is like riding the first draft of history. i don't know if i use the word history with that first draft. i served a lot of years in government and have been out for four i don't know if i should use the short book or digitize the incredible archive i have accumulated over my lifetime and start inviting people and to discuss the phases of my life and the events i have been involved and and if you look at the acknowledgments section i don't know how many are listed but many, many dozens. we would talk and transcribe then go back to the record then i said if i have that archived, why shouldn't we digitize that? to see if we can make it available to "the reader." i am told me before the

first time we now will have available as the electronic book i am told it is called the e-book. [laughter] they did not have those when i was a kid but then you can go to the website to see the entire document whether or not the context that i have provided, which i work like the dickens to make it accurate and fair and correct, you can look at the entire document to say either i would have done it this way or that way but there are thousands of pages of documents, many of which were declassified available on the website. >> host: but what should

read right in 20 years? >> i will be 98 years old. you can write what everyone to. [laughter] [applause] >> host: a final question it has very detailed accounts from secretary rumsfeld encounters with all sorts of public figures and world leaders those or influential but maybe one of the most intriguing is your encounter with elvis. [laughter] >> guest: elvis presley? a lot of his songs were not my sang. [laughter] >> host: why does that not surprise me? [laughter] >> guest: but on any given

sunday if we cannot get to church we have that elvis presley tapes singing gospel and they are wonderful. we will play those sunday after sunday. when i was running the war on poverty sammy davis, jr. was on the advisory board and he cared about the country and the poor and i was out in las vegas giving a speech that coincided with one of his 100th performance -- performance at the casino, the sans. we went to see the show. he performed and he was spectacular. not an accident he was called the world's greatest entertainer. he was superb. he said to joyce and b, the next night i am off i will

take you to see the best entertainer and las vegas. he did not tell us who it was. the next night we went to another casino and we got fed dinner table it was up front. we sat down and it was elvis presley and sammy believed he was the best performer in town. he was in his later years and he was large. [laughter] and wearing a sequined jumpsuits. >> host: not the uniform of the next white house. of course, i had never seen or heard of them may end. what color? chartreuse? read? peake? scarlett? scarlet scars and would wipe his face and it was

fantastic and saying the most ridiculous thing and people would cheer and yell. [laughter] and i would sit there like this. then he would sing a valid and it was absolutely beautiful. this man had a voice that was spectacular. i love country music and balance and you would be carried away. then he would take the scarf and wipe his face and throw it and the crowd and everybody would scream. [laughter] he threw one to us how joyce got it. it is framed. [laughter] but afterwards sammy said we will go back to the dressing room. i am not the type who hangs around las vegas dressing rooms. [laughter] you go into this place and it is large and all of these people and the cme is

getting dressed all of the showgirls. very attractive women with trade selling the cigarettes and jewelry and turquoise and all of the staff and a all are around dan joyce gets carried away talking to somebody and could not find me. she finally looked around the room way off in the corner of elvis presley had me cornered he is big and like this and i was hidden behind him. he was talking about the united states army. if you remember, there was a draft during that period and some people did not go in the draft they went to canada but he went in and served in the united states are many -- army and in germany and wanted to talk about it. he loved the army and valued

his time serving and was sitting there going back and forth with me and i found it fascinating here was a man who one minute ago was up there with white being the sweat off his face and everybody screaming and these gorgeous women walking around and he was standing there asking the question after question about the united states army and says a lot about the man. >> host: what can i do after that but to say thank-you mr. secretary? [applause]

>> my book a couple of aggressive operations to be part of the combat operations also talks about the bravery and dedication, the ninth division concentrated on and obtaining results. logistics' and administration and tactics so the ratio of the input to the of plan were measurable

or quantifiable and we use those to measure how effective we would be. the war in vietnam was always about land and people. the north vietnamese and all of their papers say we want to have land. the government of if and south vietnam wanted people to maintain sovereignty. if that was the case, there was the focus of the north vietnamese the primary focus was on the delta up. that is a flat bit of land where we were covered with rice and water everywhere you could not walk 400 yards and inundated completely. 1965 the government said things are going bad in the delta up. we one to an american unit there. that was approved by the government and said we have

to stipulations. you have to locate the unit deepen vietcong territory and it has to be on the water because they heard the french had a great results with the river operations. some 1966 the ninth division was formed under general george eckhardt and one year later came to vietnam at the same time the u.s. navy came up the river. the ninth division closes vietnam's february 1st 1967 they are located at barakat which was 15 miles east of saigon they were located here and the camp was built they have responsibility for eight provinces and a lot of static requirements to protect communications so

that held back the ability to patrol. also the second brigade, i bring that out because caterwaul is where the national liberation front came from the heart of the vietnamese movement. in june of that year, the navy arrives this is their assault craft and recall the untangle boats the second brigade was preparing for this. they had fantastic results. why? the vietcong's had always made their defense attack by land they use the water to escape. here they did not know what to do for six months they cleaned up the delta of. about that time the north vietnamese said we have a change of tactics we will go on the offensive ample it into effect the general offensive in general uprising they thought the

people would rise up the first phase of that was 102-1968 or they attacked all the cities in vietnam many were in the delta of all those in saigon had their work cut out for them. the first brigade had to clean up the military installations to get the enemy out of their. the second went south so at the end of the month they had driven them out and survey defeated the north vietnamese and viet cong and done it by land and air and water over 200 kilometers. to me that was a major piece of what went on. there was no uprising. it was a big defeat from

that time on there was no problem with the infrastructure. third, the people were unhappy. what you give us arms to protect ourselves? that started the people self-defense force. 14 people comment leaders, you will not believe in a year and have they had 2 million of these people under arms. this helped because at the same time the government said we have to upgrade the force this so not only could the west's security area but these people could maintain the security and the community development people came to help. this is the second phase of what happens to the general offensive uprising. i was up one night as early as 11:00 the at 23 manager says the radar picked up the

huge movement of enemy south the saigon we were ordered to go south they had strict orders to secure the only entrance to the south we arrived at dawn they captured the papers and that started the battle of saigon. that was the second phase. the enemy was defeated -- defeated phase one and phase do but decided they were no longer on the offensive but to go on the defensive. they would not come down and you had to find them. that was difficult for us with only 1,000 men in the field but 4500 casualty is. mostly we did not have the means to do with because the organization was not right we need for company battalion we had three but everything changed in june

but then downtown was ready and we got rid of the static defenses and had responsibility for four provinces so weaver able to build up the troops and told the company you have to have 120 men in the field every day. 15% overhead 73% in the field so we had a huge number of people when we went from 27 to 39. that is 44% increase the next thing we had to do was get rid of the overhead in the division headquarters we had barakat and dog town and were surprised to find the overhead was not support troops but infantry troops that had debilitating foot problems.

that was the biggest problem everybody had them the french when they were there had 500,000 hospital admissions for foot problems they called it emersion flew. we had to sell that it took two months. the solution was simple whenever eighth troupe was in the field over 48 hours it went up exponentially so no troops in the field unless you are in hot pursuit over 48 hours. this is a sign you could not even take a rest. want to show the water. if you wanted to go after the enemy you had to cross the river immersion foot was a major problem also wanted to increase the tigers count the two that had surrendered then the government said we

will find new job and found a job with the military we wanted one per squad and said now we have the troops in the field we have to support them what is the best support? have made all sorts of support. i will see how this works we could respond within 1213 minutes with called the people's never they would fly over and if there was people hiding out to dinner reading the other thought we had was the action program. what was that? requiring all medics to go out every day to speak to friendly village years.

this was so well received, we get a lot of intelligence. we didn't get any. the reason was the do not talk to the soldiers. and then i got them down there we gave them the best information the other way we can support is through aircraft you cannot do a thing in the delta without aircraft. they worked night and day you could see for miles people could not move during the day time.

next three look at tactics. what about airborne tactics? they have to have the artillery threat. although we must it met we'll raise -- always had artillery coverage. a stable platform for broke the next thing it is you cannot in suits it -- to insert the troops within 500 yards of the anime. we lost a lot. i hate to tell you view this july and august ways lost a lot but then said you have to have 10-- that would carry seven troops. 170 troops and we said we would have five troops the laughter the target. if it was hot if not they go to the next target. we call that jitterbug.

we have the area covered by air but night was a problem everything moves and there was a lot of an emmy. ammunition replaced, could not talk on the radio. they had runners instead of talking on the radio and people were hiding out but could not stay in the same place because they would find them with the people sniffer. we had had a tactic one of our brigade commanders said we would pick out three platoons ambush sites when nighttime came they went out to the ambush site. that would cover 400 square yards.

we would have nine squads the last thing that we did was our most famous event for the snipers. we got a 44 sniper rifles and trained our troops we had one sniper that raise the whole elevation of things that were going on and the rest said we can do the same thing so now have the night coverage and said how can you cover the whole area? we decided we would go with our aviation and that puts night-vision device into a helicopter and have a man

looking down. then they come into zap them. we approve that over time. i have a whole army come out to and came back all excited and said we killed 18. but the most interesting tactical operation was the night raid one capt. said if the men are not in the village during the day they come in at night and then let's get them at night. we worked out a plan we would send a and two heelys how they would land in the middle of the night and that was a tactic that we had. we had it covered by night on monday, this is the type of thing that you would see. i had my a company a total

of 350072 operations 1120 may contact. at least 2400 did not in one year we had to 200500 operations made no contact 85 point* 5%. seven out of eight. people said the reason you had such results is you had pressure with results oriented to come up with something. that is not true. we had great results because we had a lot of army -- and me. innovative tactics, and of good plan so when general abrams came down april 1969 as a change of command, he said the performance had been magnificent in the last three events there is the

unparalleled and medical performance. i was talking about the soldiers but every man helped the cooks and bakers go out on the perimeter all the transport people every day would ambush all the people had a lot to do and the medics were wonderful. the idea at talking about how we maintain security with the end game we have the land and the people and if you do that had to mention pacification? this survey took care of 165 questions they wanted to find out who was on the

government control? so here the first of january 31st this is before and after i want you to see we have 1.7 million people before there was 662 people after 653 they did not have the uprising. they took a terrible beating. saying that you lost 24,000 people. it is true. we did but keep your eye on the 662,000. that is what the war was about to. these are the people who wanted to get into the government and the people you wanted to keep. how did they get into the government? they went into joint operations and we talk to the -- taught them basic