bipartisan. this was actually a recommendation, i believe that senator mcconnell and i think it was an adapt one. pages on the executive calendar. when the senate receives a nomination from the president, it'll be placed on a new section on the executive calendar called "privilege nomination information requested" while the nominee submitted paperwork to the committee of jurisdiction. when the chair of that committee certifies all committee questionnaires have been received from the nominee, the nomination will be placed on the privileged nominee information received section of the executive calendar and as senator alexander mentioned, after ten session days, the nomination is on the full executive calendar and will wait the full senate with the presumption that these will be passed by unanimous consent. so any single senator can 0 object, although we doubt in

almost every case that any will. from the beginning of the process until the expiration of ten session days, any member can request on his or her own behalf or on behalf of my identified member that the nomination be thier that the nomination be identified member that the nomination be referred to committee. we think that incorporating thed safeguard is in line with our eh elimination of secret holds in the earlier this year. the presumption for these posito positions are as i've said unanimous consentan and not be held up as part of other battleb or leverage or whatever else.thr the resolution would come before this resolution would comewould before the rules committee where senator alexander and i lead ann we ought to take action on a very soon. we are confident this package te will eliminate many of the delays in the current confirmation process that detrimental to the efficient operations of government and the efforts to recruit the mosthese qualified people to these federal jobs. theto package we propose today s the first step in protection ans

americans people's interest of the newly elected president movd quickly and efficiently to of ad government and bbefefore i yied the floor i would note that your mr. president, in your impetus to reform the senate has claimed some credit for this role as well. the i yield the floor and will be introducing the legislation senr senator alexander, myself, senor senator reid, senator mcconnell, collins, lieberman, and i thinkt about eight or nine other co-sponsors as well, bipartisan, this afternoon. thank you. >> the former chairs of the bipartisan 9/11 commission said today the u.s.

former 9/11 commission chairman thomas kane and lee hamilton spoke earlier about the threat of homegrown terrorism. they also talk about the need to set aside a broadband spectrum for emergency responders. the senate homeland security committee is chaired by senator joe lieberman of connecticut. this hearing is two hours.

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> good morning. thank you all for being here. the attacks on america by

islamist terrorists on 9/11 took place almost a decade ago, but the memories of that day are still searing. the attacks and did thousands of lives, changed families forever and forced the country into another world wide war. we all remember that morning. i know we will want to the moment we leave earth. the nation watched on television as those extraordinary might be the twin towers of the world trade center collapsed into a pile of smoking rebel taking so many innocent lives with them. american airlines, 70,000 smashed into the pentagon and set it ablaze and in the fields near shanks bill pennsylvania we solve the smoldering crash of united flight 93 whose brief

passengers fought to retake the plan from the terrorists who had targeted washington, d.c., probably targeted this very place where we are, capitol hill, and by their heroism saved hundreds if not thousands of additional lives. but even as we mourn, we began to ask -- when i say we i mean not just those of us privileged to serve your but people throughout the country and particularly the families of those who were lost on 9/11. we began to ask how those attacks could have happened and what could we do to make sure to the best of our ability that nothing like that ever happened again. and so we have created the 9/11 commission to investigate did happen on 9/11. what were the flaws in the homeland security and what could we do to protect the nation

against another such attack from islamist terrorists or anyone else who would want to carry out such a dreadful act. coming to the leadership of that commission were to extraordinary americans, gifted, able and extremely patriotic, governor tom kean and congressman lee hamilton. we are privileged to have them with us as our witnesses today. the commission they lead and the staff would you two and a half pages -- to end a half-million pages and individuals in countries including every relevant senior officials of both the clinton and bush administration held 19 days of public hearings across the country with 160 witnesses testifying. the commission's recommendations were sweeping and they were

definitive, they were not just a general conclusions, but they were specific recommendations for both immediate actions venetian needed to take to defend our selves against further attack but also long-term actions we could take to blunt the terrorist message and dry up the recruitment. in response to the commission's recommendations, this committee author -- and i am honored to see not only senator collins is here but senator mccain and three of the four original sponsors of the legislation, the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act of 2004 that adopted most common of all, but most of the recommendations of the 9/11 commission and putting the director of national intelligence and the national counterterrorism center, which i

fought and i believe the commission thought were the two most substantial and significant recommendations for the change that was making. that act was the most sweeping reform of our government's intelligence apparatus and together with the adoption of homeland security act a couple of years before represented the most significant changes in our national security framework, governmental framework since the end of the second world war. this committee was privileged to be deeply involved in drafting these and other pieces of counterterrorism legislation to implement the commission's recommendations and further strengthen our security against. but a lot of hard work in identifying, recommending and then adopting the specific reform was done by the two

gentlemen who were testifying before us today. the vice chairman of the 9/11 commission now the co-chair of its successor, the bipartisan policy center's national security preparedness group. i thank, and we today for being here for their hard work and dedication to public service throughout their lives and for providing our nation with the most compelling reminder of how much we can accomplish in public life when we put party labels aside and work together for the national good. today in the exercise of the committee's responsibility to constantly evaluate and investigate our homeland defenses and also mindful of the approaching tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we are beginning a series of oversight hearings all that we have

attempted to accomplish after 9/11. today we are privileged to have governor kean and thomas hamilton to help begin the review with their opinion of the state of america's homeland security. we've already scheduled for more subject matter hearings for may, june and july will work among other things that the office of the director of national intelligence, the effectiveness of the aviation security reforms, what we've done to keep terrorists out of the united states and how we are progressing on the goal that we all said we have to improved emergency communications among law enforcement and associated personnel. i do want to say how grateful i am for the prepared testimony that the two of you submitted to the committee which will be included in the record. you've touched on some of the

concerns that the committee has and will deal with in the coming hearings. one of the most significant is with regard to the director of national intelligence and how that office has done and whether it needs further support to help achieve the goals that you have to have a strong deck of national intelligence who can marshal the full capabilities of the intelligence committee. i'm encouraged by some of the recent changes that the current dni general jim has carried out for further integration but i must say i am also concerned about some of the continuing bureaucratic resistance from other components of the intelligence community which under our vision and i believe yours were supposed to be under

the supervision of the dni and i know from your testimony to you both share some of those concerns and i'm interested in hearing your comments on those and i note with appreciation that he also talked about the importance of moving rapidly towards better interoperable communications systems and that one of your recommendations is the we set aside the so-called deep lot of the spectrum for the funding of the public safety improvements. senator mccain and i sponsored legislation to accomplish that in the last session and we are working to introduce it a similar bill in this session. so, to summarize an awful lot very briefly i would say since the 9/11 commission reforms were adopted we've seen a very significant improvement in our

homeland security. we had many victories in our battles with terrorists, many plots broken and attacks planned against america thwarted. we've also had close calls that is the case of the christmas the bomber and the other case of the times square bomber and some tragic failures like the home run radical islamist major speech of who murdered 13 americans at fort hood. so, we want to continue to learn from our success and our failures and that is the intention of the hearings the we are beginning today. let me say finally that we are very proud and grateful to be joined this morning by some family members of 9/11 victims who went on to become leading advocates for the creation of the 9/11 commission, the implementation of its

recommendations and have continued to play a wonderful oversight role in that work. they are two of the most likable tests we have around capitol hill. [laughter] really i would say lovable and committed. the commission would not have been created without their advocacy. we wouldn't have passed its legislative recommendations without the most effective lobbying and its implementation would not be as good as all of us want it to be if they had not stayed on duty as they have. so why can't think you enough to read i know i can't speak for anybody on the committee when i express my gratitude for an admiration for your personal strength, for your skill and continuing commitment to

america's homeland security. senator collins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this year we will commemorate the worst attack ever on the united states. in doing so, we must ask ourselves are we safer or are we just safer from the tactics that terrorists already have tried. is our intelligence community better at fitting together these complex pieces or have we just been lucky? are we anticipating the next threat such as the cyberattack or the use of poison? or are we just looking backwards reacting to previous plots? undoubtably, compared to where we were on 9/10, 2001, we have

greatly improved the framework for information sharing among our intelligence and law enforcement agencies. but sometimes, it has been and in that bond maker or faulty fuse this spirit american life. once again, the to extraordinary leaders of the landmark 9/11 commission lee hamilton and tom kean are appearing before the committee as we evaluate our progress in securing the nation. in september of last year, they were assessing the terrorist threat reports warned of an increasingly wide range of u.s. based militants who do not fit any particular ethnic, economic,

educational or social profile. the american melting pot reports that it has not provided a fire wall against the radicalization and recruitment of american citizens and residents though it has arguably more bus into a sense of complacency that homegrown terrorism couldn't have been in the united states. this report correctly called 2009 a watershed year in u.s. based terrorist plots with 43 american citizens residence aligned with violent islamic extremists charged or convicted of terrorist crimes in that year alone. this committee first sounded the alarm about home-based to order the some five years ago and has held 15 hearings on this topic.

we found the individuals within our country and with our prison system and in our communities are being inspired by al qaeda's violent ideology to plan and execute a tax often acting as the lone wolf without direct orders or ties to al qaeda. as senator lieberman has indicated, the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act of 2004, which we offered, did do much to improve the management and performance of our intelligence homeland security and law enforcement agency. this most sweeping reform of the nation's intelligence community suggests after world war ii would not have happened without the leadership of our witnesses and the efficacy of the families

of victims. the resulting increased collaboration and information sharing has helped our nation prevent numerous attacks, and there have been on told successes, and many cases the intelligence community and law enforcement have quietly connected the botts and thwarted plots. in other cases, alert citizens have reported suspicious behavior to the authorities just in time. challenges still remain, however. we continue to see troubling examples of the pre-september 11 stovepiped combined set from some of our intelligence and law and for some officers. for example, as documented in the kennedy's recent report, on

the fort hood attacked, the army and the fbi collectively had ample information to major hasan's connection to a radical lawyer extremism but they failed to act on the red flags signaling that he had become a potential threat. major hasan and others seemed to find motivation and ideas on the line. technology is transforming the culture, the economy and our world in many beneficial ways. yet we must also be alert to the fact that terrorists are seeking to exploit the internet's potential as well. we have witnessed recently that the internet can serve as a platform for extremist

propaganda on the one hand and peaceful revolution on the other. other commission recommendations have not yet come to fruition. and of course the most obvious example of that is, chris's failure to reform itself. but there are others as well we must make more progress as the chairman has indicated in enhancing first responders communications. gap also remain at the borders and in our inspection system. as the news today indicates the potential to plant an explosive somewhere within the millions of pieces ship around the world to each day is a real vulnerability. it is also troubling that the border patrol does not have the ability to detect illegal activity across approximately

three-quarters of our northern border we must continue to work to find a balance that opens the border to our friends while closing to those who would do less harm. nevertheless, they're has been real accomplishments. the biometric system for screening foreign nationals seeking to enter the united states, the creation of a consolidated terrorist watch list, the dedicated dhs and steve and local law enforcement employees all to surf recognition. but even in these areas of progress, improvements are needed. biometric screening must be expanded to include foreign nationals leaving the the united states. screening technology must be improved to keep up with changing threats and to ensure

that the safest possible effective screening equipment is deployed. i hope this year we can expand protection against lawsuits for citizens to report suspicious behavior indicating potential terrorist activities. we must also pass legislation to ensure that the key u.s. intelligence officials are consulted falling a foreign interest detention in the united states that did not happen in the case of farruca of tumult followed. finally, i continue to have deep concern that this administration refuses to acknowledge that violent islamists ideologies is the ideologies that fuels' these attacks. the administration should have an overarching national strategy

to counter this growing threat within our own country. ten years ago, nearly 3,000 lives were lost on that terrible day. we cannot become complacent or let our guard down when every single intelligence briefing that i have ever had always warns that the enemy remains determined to attack our country. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you for the excellent statement. normally we limit opening statements to the chairman and ranking member on the committee but senator mccain, as you know, the original sponsor of the legislation that created the 9/11 commission senator mccain, i would invite you to make an opening statement if you like. >> i would like to thank the witnesses. i think what they did was one of

the reasons why this country hasn't been intact since 9/11. the dedicated public servants in example of bipartisan shipment -- by partisanship and it's appropriate on the ten year anniversary we get their continued input. thank you again for your service to the country. >> thank you, senator mccain. before we go to the witnesses i want to introduce charles doud who is here, deputy chief of the new york police department for communications. he's been a very strong proponent of allocating the d-block public safety and we appreciate the fact that he's committed enough that he's in the room today. governor kean, welcome and we look forward to your testimony now. >> mr. chairman, ranking members of the committee, we are pleased to have the opportunity to be here with you once again today.

nobody -- nobody has been more important than you all have been at the center of defending this country from the terrorist threat that we face. we are deeply grateful we've made in support of the 9/11 commission recommendations and your leadership continuing to reform the national security institutions. over the last decade we've done much to ensure we are taking a difficult step necessary to confront this enemy, protect americans from our allies and for that matter people throughout the world. today, we are appearing in the capacity as the co-chairman of the bipartisan center is national security preparedness group. now it's a successor organization to the 9/11 commission. a growing and a strong roster of national security professionals who work as an independent bipartisan group to monitor the implementation of the 9/11 commission recommendations and

to address the emerging national security issues. let me begin by describing the changes of the governments since 9/11, the current threat and perhaps updating you and some of the commission recommendations. lee hamilton will continue assessing the status of the implementation with a number of the recommendations. so now nearly ten years after the tragic 9/11 attacks and seven years since we finished our report, it really is as the committee decided a very appropriate time to see just where we are on the national security and how we are doing. the terrorist attack as everybody knows, have a profoundly dramatic impact on our government and private-sector. for that matter on our daily lives. the suddenness of that attack on american soil and the loss of so many lives i think made a lot of us feel vulnerable in our homes

and caused us to question whether or not our government is properly organized to protect us from this kind of lethal threat. the economic damage resulting from the attack was severe. businesses in all sectors have adapted in one way or another to this new reality. over the past ten years the government response for the challenge of the transnational terrorism has been equally dramatic. we've created a major new institutions from the department of homeland security, cyber command and the 2004 leadership of senator collins and lieberman, congress created the office of the director of intelligence, national counterterrorism center, what to make sure we had a unity of effort among the intelligence community. now despite all this progress, some major 9/11 commission recommendations still remain unfulfilled. and we would suggest today that these require urgent action because the threat from al qaeda

and related terrorist groups and individual tenants to violent islamist extremism assists to this day. al qaeda and related terrorist groups continue to pose a serious threat to all of us. al qaeda central has been diminished with its leadership, osama bin laden and al-zawahiri are at large. it would leave us less likely the threat is more complex and it's more diverse than any time in the last decade. al qaeda and its allies continue to have the intent and the reach to kill dozens of americans and do so in a single attack. there is a high risk of attacks we believe they will likely be small. the change in recent years is the increasing role of the number of u.s. citizens and

residents have taken and the leadership of al qaeda and allied groups. another development is increasing diversification of the types of u.s.-based jihadists militants. some individuals inspired to engage in a tax on their own weigel others have been actively recruited by overseas terrorist groups. indeed these would be the do not fit any progress toward ethnic, economic, educational or social profile. the questions the amount or attempt range from shootings to car bombs, suicide attacks through in-flight bombings of passenger aircraft. we've seen a pattern of increasing terrorist recruitment of american citizens. in 2000 mine there were two actual terrorist attacks on our soil. you're referenced the fort hood shootings and explained the

lives of the 15 people and one u.s. military recruiter killed, another wounded in little rock arkansas. many counterterrorism experts talk about 2010 and named it the year of the homegrown terrorist. self radicalization is an alarming development. our group issued a report as you mentioned last fall and radicalization and we are going to follow up this spring with a set of recommendations to deal with this important and very, very sensitive problem. we also face new threats like the discovery in october, 2010 of explosives in toner cartridges addressed and synagogues in chicago and shipped on fedex and ups cargo flights. the cyber threat is also increasingly severe. they pose a danger to our critical infrastructure. defending the u.s. against such attacks would be an urgent

priority. so we would like to offer our assessment today where the government is implementing a 9/11 commission recommendations. an emergency preparedness we have made some progress to establishing the unity of command in other words, one person responsible for coordinating efforts and disasters. but having said that, our recommendations are still a long way from being fully implemented. we found too many community leaders and first responders have mentioned to us that many metropolitan areas still haven't solved the problem of having unified command structure. moreover, an acceptable that the government still is not allocated additional 10 megahertz of radio spectrum, d-block as you mentioned to public safety, so that the first responders can communicate the disaster. now, i recognize that the efforts and the leadership as

you have shown through your bill and i believe the president supports such a recommendation and congress needs to act. there's been improvements in the transportation security but technology still lags for the weapons concealed in their bodies and for detecting explosives contained in bags. the gao continues to find holtz and virtually every single security later that we establish. for the security remains the top national security priority. as the terrorists continue to exploit the vulnerability is to get entry into the united states several let him the tax over the past two years have been by terrorists who could have been detected by the u.s. immigration system. we require a more streamlined harvest watchlist capability and better sharing of information between intelligence agencies and immigration authorities.

one area of progress is the deployment of the bi letcher gentry system known as the u.s. visit. we still lack of water in a comprehensive exit system we don't know in other words when people leave the country. the commission recommends the government standardize the secure ratification and federal government should set standards for the issuance of this difference and drivers' licenses. the real on the act established these standards by statute about one-third of the states complete with this first tier benchmark. the deadlines for compliance have been pushed back now twice. they lay in compliance creates vulnerability and makes us less safe. i would ask no further delays should be authorized right now i ask my friend and partner who i admire almost anybody in this country, lee hamilton, to continue. >> thank you, tom, good morning.

am i to begin by endorsing what tom has said with regard to the leadership. not only has this committee but specifically of the three centers in front of me i can remember coming to your offices shortly after the 9/11 commission was made tom and i spoke to each one of you and you were very courteous and receptive, but beyond that, you acted with a genuine political leadership, and the country is very grateful to you. i think there are a lot of reasons why the 9/11 commission had a favorable response, but two of them come first the families who gave sustained sophisticated support for our recommendations but suddenly specifically the political leadership embodied by the three

of you just really quite extraordinary, and tom and i are the very grateful to you for what you have done and when the chairman and moment ago outlined your continuing hearings and investigations i was immensely pleased to hear that because i think having been on the inside and on the outside, you have the powers that we don't have in terms of getting people before you to provide tough oversight, and that continuing effort by this committee is just a hugely important. because people say often this morning how much more needs to be done. with respect to intelligence reform, the dni has made progress in several areas, increased information sharing, the improvement of cooperation among agencies and of analysis of intelligence and sharpening the collection genuine progress,

no doubt about it. still it isn't clear to us that the dni is the driving force for intelligence community integration and the commission envisioned. some ambiguity probably remains with respect to the dni's authority over budget and personnel although that can be disputed i guess. strengthening the dni position would advance the unity of intelligence effort that we think is still a very much needed. i don't anticipate new legislation. you would know more about that than on this subject in the near future. so we have to live with that statute we have for an extended period of time. it might very well be that in the future some legislation can fortify the offers. repeated in the kitchen from the president of the dni is the unequivocal leader in the intelligence community i think

would be greatly helpful. the fbi has gone through a dramatic change. i think it is moving in a positive direction but in some sense in complete. it's that i believe strong leadership from the director mueller to collect and analyze intelligence to prevent terrorism. that's an enormous cultural change as you all know away from its former focus strictly on a law enforcement. it's progress has been significant but uneven. the fort hood shootings highlight the lingering problems your report which i looked over quickly has spelled that out in a very persuasive and compelling way. analysts do not appear in the fbi to be driving intelligence within the organization. nor have they achieved status on the cover with the special

agents who traditionally a rise to the management of the bureau. fbi headquarters components didn't play the role in analyzing the threat posed by the person who leader allegedly did the shootings. there were miscommunications as senator collins indicated in her opening statement that in the field offices so the shift taking place within the fbi is still very much a work in progress and the congress needs to keep up to help the fbi with its difficult transformation. the cia has improved its intelligence analysis and remove barriers between its analysts and operations offices. our sense is that there has been more talk than action with respect to improvement in the cia's human operations. it is very difficult business particularly in closed societies and among close-knit terrorist

cells. more money and more personnel do not necessarily result in better agents. while the cia has attempted to recruit officers qualified in the languages of the greatest interest that too is very hard part of the problem is that young people in our country with some exceptions of course don't gain proficiency in foreign languages. congress can help on that. they then must continue to rebuild the will require strong support from congress and the excessive branch. we want the agency to take calculated risks to protect the country, congressional oversight must be the politicized so that when the agency fails as it occasionally well it is not an appropriately to blame for taking the necessary risks. in pershing information sharing across the federal government and the state and local authorities was a major recommendation. in some ways i think the

government is doing better. the joint terrorism task force's infusion centers across the country have improved information sharing, the national counterterrorism center as analysts and other officers from all agencies of the intelligence community working side by side sharing information with their home organizations. there have been some failures as there's already been indicated. there is no question that wikileaks, a novelist publication of sensitive documents, is very sentiment and real concern. those are legitimate. but the need to share information we think is still remains highly important, and we should not backslide on that. congress has to stop the government strike the right balance between the need to protect unauthorized disclosures and the need to share information to defend ourselves against the threats we face.

among our major disappointment has been the administration has not in paneled the privacy and civil liberties oversight board. this is a major recommendation very strongly supported by all of the commissioners. i am informed and i'm not sure that i'm quite up-to-date on this, that the administration is nominated to individuals for the panel. i know one of them personally and as far as we know they have not yet been confirmed and the panel certainly hasn't met the administration i believe needs to push this on a priority basis because the board has a lot to do and i think this committee can be helpful in pushing the administration. we are equally disappointed the congress hasn't reformed itself along the lines we recommended. we recommended that congress create a joint committee for intelligence or create house and senate committees with combined authorizing appropriation powers those recommendations may be a bridge too far.

last week the chairman of the house intelligence committee announced the decision to include three members of the house appropriations committee to participate in the house intelligence committee hearings and briefings. that appears to us to be a positive step will obviously there is more to do. oversight of the department of homeland security is fractured. the massive department will be better integrated if there's better integrated oversight. i know the concerns expressed about that. it is in our country's security interest that congress make security reform a priority. preventing the spread of nuclear weapons must be a national priority. the administration hosted a major nonproliferation summit last year announced the new initiative to secure all nuclear materials by 2013. it plans to spend $14.2 billion

over the next five years to secure the nuclear and radiological materials. may i say outside of my statement that i -- because of other responsibilities that i have dealing with nuclear power, that i have recently had the occasion to listen to some highly qualified people within our government, and i believe the access to nuclear materials and the ability to use those materials and explode them is much greater than people generally think. and so, i hope the congress will keep a hard and too sharp focus on the proliferation and i know there's some suggestions they want to cut some of these important programs. money is not everything here, but we must not weaken or underfunded one of what

president bush and president obama both said is the highest priority security need. at the outset of his administration president obama issued executive orders that brought the united states into line with international norms for the treatment of detainees. that fulfilled part of our recommendations. we believe there is a conflict between the role of law and holding detainees indefinitely without resolving their cases. both presidents bush and obama have wrestled with this problem. it's a tough one. president obama took the step forward by requiring periodic reviews in the status of detainees there is an awful lot more to do. the congress and the executive branch simply have to agree on a statutory base to give us a comprehensive approach to dealing with the detainees. the congress and the executive branch need to agree on the rules of evidence and the procedures that should be

applied in determining how to deal with these detainees. i don't think this is a problem that can simply go on and on and on. you need a statutory base and i don't suggest it's easy to reach it to how to deal with these potentially very dangerous detainees. we had a number of foreign policy recommendations in the report, the events today in the middle east and north africa are clearly indicate the region is in a state of the people and it's quite unclear to many of us how it will emerge. we will address the role the u.s. policy plays on counterterrorism, but we didn't come to be honest about it with considerable modesty. we believe that although the countries share a common religion people have many cultural national ethnic and tribal differences, and therefore we have to deal with them on a country by country

basis. we want our country ways to advance its core values but a pragmatic approach for each country, one that supports the agenda of opportunity for the islamic world we think is necessary. sukkah to conclude, significant progress has been made since 9/11 and the country is undoubtedly more secure. yet important 9/11 commission recommendations remain to be implemented. and over the next two years a lot of heavy lifting still needs to be done. as tom mentioned a moment ago the fact we have resolved the radio spectrum problem and have not resolved the unity of the demand is just really distressing to us. it is a no-brainer with regard to the safety and security of the country. some progress lead in both areas but not nearly enough. congress has resisted reorganizing its own institutions and streamlining

the oversight of the intelligence and the department of homeland security would go far towards advancing unity of effort in at the intelligence community and within the dhs. always the dni needs a clear eye appraisal. i think it is functional functioning reasonably well and likewise the fbi but i think they both need -- we have concerns about each and the goal should be to strengthen both the dni and the fbi. the terrorist threat will be with us far into the future demanding that we be ever vigilant. our national security department require strong leadership, management at every level to ensure that all parts are working well together and that there's innovation and imagination. our agencies and their dedicated work forces have gone through much change and we commend them for their achievements in protecting the american people but there's a tendency towards all bureaucracies and vigorous

congressional oversight is just imperative to ensure that the remain vigilant and continue to pursue the needed reforms. so our task is challenging and difficult we constantly have to assess our work will the devotees and anticipate new and evolving lines of attack. we've done a lot and we can look back with some satisfaction that there is an awful lot more to do. we are very grateful to you for the opportunity to testify before this committee on which has had longstanding leadership on these issues and we will do our best now to respond to your questions. >> thank you for those fought for opening statements. i think that you've really helped us get some perspective on where we have come in the last several years certainly since 2004 when the 9/11 commission act was enacted. you've also given us a clear statement of unfinished business and priorities for the future

and i appreciate that. before i begin my question i want to note that since we began with abraham space who is with was taken at the pentagon on 9/11 and is another one of those family members who have continued in the battle to everything they can to make sure nothing like this happens again. i thought both of you summarized well where we have come and also noted the steps we've taken to improve our homeland security including those very significant steps to work part of your recommendations that we adopted have strengthened our security but the the nature of the threat has changed and that we can never say never but certainly in our defense is against the sophisticated 9/11 type of attack but there for the

presence of that happening are down, thank god, but there is a higher risk right now what smaller attacks than 9/11 and particularly of attacks that come from within the country because that has become the focus of al qaeda and all the other international islamist terrorist groups. i wanted to begin by asking you, governor, just to talk a little bit more about the inadequacy of the unity of command at this point and what you think we can do about. >> well, this is one of the problems of 9/11. the question is who was in charge. so our recommendation is strongly to all communities there's got to be one leader, new york city made a lot of

progress in that regard by putting everything on to the police department. other cities some of which follow the pattern and some haven't. and so there is still a member of communities some of them fairly sizable and people tell us there is still that question if something really happens who is in charge? businesses have made more progress. i think almost all major businesses i know have somebody who's in charge of something happens they know what to do and all that is in place. but communities not yet, and we think it's a very, very serious problem and one that we have to address make the best we can requirement that somebody be in charge. >> i'm really interested that you focus on the local or metropolitan level and i think we've got to do some thinking about to see whether we can

create some requirement or incentive to bring about that unity of command at the local level perhaps by making it a condition of some of the homeland security or other grants. let me take you to the national level. of the commission report on the unity of effort across before in domestic divided and the section of the report notes specifically that during the commission's hearings members of the commission often ask and i quote who is the quarterback. the other players are in their positions doing their jobs but who is calling the play that assigns the role to help them execute as a team to respond to this need my interpretation of the commission's report recommended creating a national counterterrorism center with the

responsibility to develop counterterrorism plans to integrate all the instruments of national power and i think that is one of the most significant recommendations and one of the most significant components of our legislation. so as you look back nationally now are you satisfied that there is clarity and unity of command at the national level and we have a quarterback and is it the national counterterrorism center? as committed as the national counterterrorism center and of course the dni. >> right. >> a combination. now whether they are being implemented as a quarterback, whether or not they really have the power that you intended when he rode the law and we intend to the we have recommendations i don't know because the signals sometimes are mixed, and we have

to have unity of effort in that regard, we have to have the quarterback. and i would suggest that you would approach the that area. whether one of the quarterback is in place and whether or not the quarterback has the power that you intended it to have in the legislation. >> there is no question the national counterterrorism center has created unprecedented cooperation between components of our security intelligence community's. in that sense they are all on the same board now and one of the problems i say in passing we ordered some of our earlier hearings and was a cause of some of the cases the we've study that were not as we would want is that there is -- the problem now is there are so many dhaka on the same board that it's hard in real time to separate out

from handan to connect the ones that ought to be connected, but they are not on separate boards anymore. >> mr. chairman may i say a word about this? you got two problems here. one is the scene of the disaster and there it is a no-brainer for me any way that someone has to be in charge. now that creates difficult political problems because the government wants to be in charge, the mayor wants to be in charge, the county officials want to be in charge, and there's a reason that it hasn't been resolved because the politicians are unwilling to address the question because it's a tough one to say who's in charge. now i don't know whether that barrier can be overcome or not, but in terms of saving lives it is an easy question to answer. you've got to have one person making decisions with regard to sanitation, public health, food, housing, transportation -- they

have to make thousands of decisions within a matter of a few hours really at the seams, and if you have confusion of command at that locale, you lose additional lives. so that's why we think it's an important matter. i really don't know about different metropolitan areas around the country and how well they have addressed this problem, but i'm very uneasy about it, and i don't really think it's been solved. ..

>> he is an extremely dedicated and important, capable man. but he is right in the center of the policy world at the white house. he is not removed from it, like i want generally intelligence officials to be. so am not sure whether he is the right person to do it, but if he is then it seems to me there ought to be a very clear designation that he is in charge of homeland security and counter terrorism. today, quite frankly, from where i said it looks to me like a number of different people are involved in it, including mr. brennan, the director of national intelligence and several others, d.h. as secretary and others. i don't know who the quarterback is.

i can identify the commissioners that raise that question. >> that's right. >> my guess is the same commissioners would be raising the same questions today. >> that is very helpful commentary. i agree with you that we have got the combination, and i'm simplifying your the, the critical role of intelligence and counter terrorism and, and security, but also then the other roles which are different of preparedness and prevention and response. i agree with you the that the top person today in our government is john burnett. assistant to the national security adviser for counter-terrorism. and, again, i have great respect for him. whether that is the right place for that to be, that will to the

is an important question or whether -- >> presidents have the right to organize the white house of the want to. >> right. >> they should have. maybe the president is comfortable with this. as an outsider who looks at it fairly carefully it's not clear the lines of authority a precise. >> yakima and i think you have quite accurately identify the key players. it is the secretary of homeland security, the director of national intelligence, the national counter-terrorism center. others at the fbi, but more than anyone else john brennan seems to be coordinating that effort. there are different roles, although you could pick one of the other players and make that person the coordinator. might be the secretary of homeland security who has both operating and intelligence

authority. you have given us a good charge for our review during this. my time is up. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me pick up on this very issue of who is in charge. to me it was very clear when we passed the reform act in 2004 that we wanted the deal and i to be in charge. that is why we created this new quarterback position. yet i completely agree with congressman hamilton that in this particular administration the person who is in charge is john brennan at the white house. putting aside his enormous debilities, which we all agree to, one of the problems with that is there is no accountability to congress. it is a member of the president's staff. there is no, we cannot call john

brennan to testify before us. we cannot hold him accountable for a decision. i think that is another very big problem. the other area of confusion of command as the congressman has said, when disaster strikes and we saw this with of two but allowed. there was tremendous confusion over who was in charge and who should make decisions. in that case it ended up being the attorney general who made the decision on how to treat abdul battelle up without any consultation whatsoever with the p and i, the head of the

counter-terrorism center, the secretary of homeland security or any top intelligence official on whether or not of bill michelob should be questioned about whether to -- there were for the plots and information gotten from him. my questions are these, however, i these problems that we can fix through legislation? on their problems that depend on an individual president setting that up who is truly going to be in power? the reason ask this question is when i go back and review the language creating the dni, it is pretty strong language. now, we tried to get it to be even stronger in the area of

personnel, but, in fact, the dni has strong the party to set priorities for the intelligence community to oversee the budget, formulation, make some personnel decisions. my point is, is this really a case where we need to strengthen the law? is it a case where the president needs to empower the person we intended to be in power? and i would like to hear from both of you in either order on this question. >> i think the latter, the president has to step in here. in the law as we all the can be strengthened. as i suggested, this law is not going to be changed in the immediate future. it took us several years to get

this on the statute books. they be down the future it will be clarified, but center collins, i basically agree with your comment that there is sufficient authority than present law we envisioned, of course, that the dni would be the central powerful driver of the intelligence community. i don't think he has been. now, i want to say here, as you know, i've known all of these men that have held that position. a very tough position. we've had good men in that position. they have been quite strong. that line of authority is not as clear as it should be, and so i think given the circumstances that you now have your second choice, that is the president has to step in and make it very clear with regard to its authority in the intelligence community over budget and over

personnel and over transfer of funds within the budget, and so far as i can see that really has not been done. now having said that the dni deals with some pretty powerful players. the secretary of defense, cia director. if they get a decision within the bureaucracy that they don't like they will go directly to the president. there enough. so the dni may have authority, and he may try to exercise it, but he is going to -- he has to exercise that authority with extraordinary skill and discretion these are all major players within the administration. so that power has to be very skillfully exercised. but i personally think the system is going to work out a lot better if you have someone at the top of it who is the

driving force who is recognized as the center of power who has the authority and obviously has to have the support of the president to do the things that need to be done to give unity of effort. >> i remember when the bill was going through. that is weakened a bit in the house. i remember talking to lee about it at the time. don't worry. in the end it's the president. if the president gives the dni the authority did the and i will use it the way you want it. if not the law isn't going to help. that is where we are. my own belief is the law says that the and i ought to be the top intelligence operative. at think a lot better that way. this president wants somebody else. my only recommendation would be that he make that clear both publicly within the public and within the administration.

everyone knows. if somebody else will be in full charge let's say who that person is. that way everybody knows. the worst thing of all is a vacuum or confusion warrant lines that are not clear. the president is the only one who can make those lines clear, and the president is the only one who can make that happen. >> i agree that the president's response is absolutely clear and needs to be clear. if the president is not in powering the dni weekend by it all the language in the world. the dni is not pulling to truly be in charge. i also remain very concerned about the lack of accountability to congress and the public when it is a member of the president's staff who is running the intelligence community. >> i just want to support what you said. a think that is terribly

important. >> right. >> very, very important to be the person who is in charge, leverage is hot to be accountable to you people at all times. that is just fundamental, it seems to me, in the way that this place ought to operate. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, senator collins. of course i agree with you. it strikes me about both the importance of presidential and support your belts merely have the dni have ample authority, not as much as any of us wanted, but ample authority requiring the president to make clear that dni is the person in charge of the intelligence community. we all expected that coming and as a new position to oversee existing agencies which have a real life of their own and a

constituency of their own would be difficult. it is interesting to really just amplify what i said in my opening statement. i think because of his background in the military and credibility at the pentagon he is actually negotiating an agreement with secretary gates which will enable the dni to have much more authority with regard to a intelligence budgeting appropriations then was the case at the beginning of the office. that is dead. the question of who is on top over all and the counter-terrorism, it's a complicated one. there is not only the intelligence community, but all the others, operators, printers, responders. i, again, i agree that it has to be somebody at the top. nothing-about john brennan is

accountable to congress. we have to think about whether, how to deal with the problem. very important. when we first talked about the position what we envisioned was a man of woman stepping into that position to stay five or six years and developed a position, strengthen it and all of that. that has been one of the problems. hopefully we have one now that will stay for awhile. >> i hope. thank you. next in order of arrival senator akaka and then senator carper. >> thank you very much. hal, would like to welcome governor came and congressman lee hamilton. thank you for being here today. although many of the information

sharing and intelligence shortfalls at the 9/11 commission and identified have been addressed, critical work remains to ensure that we have an agile and well coordinated response to various threats. you have been discussing this. starting off federal workers will be addressing the intelligence community and other agencies in make daily sacrifices to keep a safe. it's essential to this effort. additionally we must never lose sight of the privacy and civil liberties, implications of our efforts to protect the nation and particularly i agree with you and your witnesses, comments that the privacy and civil liberties, oversight board must

be set up immediately. congressman hamilton, as you know, i believe that the gao could assist our efforts to strengthen oversight of the intelligence community. in response to my questioning in 2007 he stated that gm should have the same authorities within the intelligence community as it has in other agencies a key principle of my intelligence community audit act were included in the intelligence authorization act last year. under this legislation the director of national intelligence must issue a directive to facility, facilitate g.a.o. audits and evaluations of the intelligence

community. my question to you is, what element should be included in the de in i directive to promote the effective oversight? >> senator, i'm not sure i'd understand the question. what elements should the deal and i insist upon? >> include in the directive to promote effective oversight. >> the dni oversight of the intelligence community or your oversight? >> well, either one. yap. >> well, i'm not sure. i am deeply impressed that only

you folks in the congress can effectively oversee the intelligence community. the press does not know what is going on. those of us outside the congress don't have the information that you have in your staff to what is calling on. unlike most other areas of our government the only really effective oversight of the intelligence community and upended can come from the congress. now, you don't have another it -- you have other agencies. you have the president's advisory board. they are all appointed by the president and are not an independent group. and all of the recommendations that we made we thought that the strengthening and persistence of

the congressional oversight were just absolutely critical. but his i know that there is off internal of shiny within each agency. i think within the dni office as well. that can be important to oversee. that is not an independent oversight. that can only come from the congress. i do want to pick up on your observations about the privacy and civil liberties board because this has been a source of enormous frustration to tom and myself. i cannot figure out. i just cannot figure out. i don't know what president bush and president obama think. they just have not put an

effective board in place, and i can't understand why. this is greatly needed because in homeland security and intelligence matters you have had greatly accelerated the surveillance, all kinds of provisions are written into the law which expands the powers of the fbi and the intelligence agencies. understandably in most cases i think to check on what the american people are doing. i think somebody needs to be out there to keep their eye on these folks. a very aggressive way because the security people within an agency almost always when the arguments. you need an independent source to really keep your eye on them.

so we favored a strong, robust oversight of civil liberties and privacy with the power to issue subpoenas and the power to call people in front of them. keep an eye because i think there has not been enough attention to the question of civil liberties and privacy in general with regard to komen security. >> nothing has frustrated me more. >> almost all our recommendation is a lack of progress on civil liberties. i don't know what problems the administration has with the bill that you passed, but if there is a problem with it, something wrong with the structure, i think it's intrusiveness something, tell us and maybe you'll change it. but it's just not to appoint

members. two years ago and administration having not even nominated enough to make a quorum, it's frustrating and makes no sense and leaves a big hole and what we should be doing. i don't understand it, and frustrated by it. if there's a problem of which there would tell us what it is. >> thank you for the observations. i really agree with you that we need to set that up immediately. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. >> you know what, quickly we can -- senator collins and i were talking, we can address a letter to the white house but john brennan. >> ask what is going on here. i don't think there is any policy or ideological opposition to the board. i suppose it's always possible that there are elements within the intelligence community the don't like the idea, but i have

not heard that either. i don't know. it just could be that it's down at the bottom of somebody's in box. they never quite get to it. okay. we will address a letter right away. >> thank you very much. >> next is senator corporate. >> thank you. we have gathered before they number two of my favorite people a great governor of our neighbor. lee hamilton, vice president of one of my, i'm privileged to think of him as one of my mentors. still active and vibrant and contributing. about once a month and asked what is wrong in washington. one of the things i always talk

about is a lack of trust, sometimes between parties, sometimes executive and legislative branches, sometimes committee chairs and ranking members. this committee is an example of what you can get and when you have a trusting relationship. every month i talk about the trust. u.s. interpositions as leaders of the 9/11 commission and how you provide it an example through that trust to the other members and achievd extraordinary consensus and came to us and enabled us with the to reflect and follow that example. i just wanted to lead off by saying. we are fortunate to a share the subcommittee. the federal financial management. we focus on the ways that we can -- it lets me poke into every

nook and cranny of the third government to see if there are ways we can get better results for less money. in this room yesterday we had among others the department of defense, gao, and we were looking at the gao report the cannot yesterday setting major weapon systems for 2010, $402 billion, up from $42 billion a decade earlier. in this room we had hearings in the last month on something called improper payments to be not fraud, but mistakes and overpayments. and in number for last year, 1,205,000,000,000. not counting department of defense, prescription drug program. we had hearings on surplus property, thousands of pieces of surplus property we don't use. they are a burden on us, 300 billion plus tax money not being collected. that is the kind of step we focus on in this room. i think with that spirit of

trying to change the culture around here the department of the defense legislative or executive branch, to go from a culture of what i call spendthrift to a culture of thrift and to ask, would you join with us today maybe just to think about it and come back, but just that i no there are things we are doing. a whole bunch of hearings on those. domestic discretionary spending programs and defense programs that we can get a better result for less money or a better result for not of a lot more money. with that spirit can you think out loud with us for a minute or two here today about some way we can get a better result in this area of national security, homeland security, maybe a better result without spending more money or even spending a little bit less. >> next question. >> well, my impression, senator, is in this area of common

security and intelligence, i know this is not the intelligence committee. in this area the whole question of cost effectiveness rarely rises. >> that's true. >> we have been set on a course for understandable reasons since 9/11 to create enormous increases in intelligence budgets creating a whole new department, massive new department. everybody has said full speed ahead. i don't have the specific figures, but in intelligence you have had an enormous increase in the total amount of money spent just over the last few years, for reasons we all understand. so, when you began your comments on cost-effective now is getting better results from less money

my response was bravo. i think you need a hard-headed business attitude in this area which has been totally absent for tenures. probably a little exaggeration. , but i think cost effectiveness here would be important. eight these fellows come and who had these agencies and not only hold their feet to the fire with regard to homeland security and stopping terrorist attacks, but make sure that this money is being wisely spent. it makes a lot of sense to me. i think you perform an enormously important service as you push the whole business of cost effectiveness. >> public or private sector, if you wrap up to the extent and as fast as we felt we had to after 9/11 you are going to problem to

fester going to have problems. your going to have to overspend and waste money. i'm sure that has been done spending on non military intelligence, that number is now public. military intelligence spending is not public debt. i assume combined it is around $80 billion. that is a lot of money to be a lot of it wrapped up in a great hurry. at think what you are doing is very important. you need to not only do this well, but efficiently. >> and just calling to ask you to think about this for awhile and maybe respond on the record. one last question if i may. going back to the early 1990's we have seen a couple of countries come back and forth across our radar screen including somalia and yemen. both countries have been in almost perpetual decline for what seemed like a couple of decades. as a result we seem to have

different interest groups proving a clear and present danger to our country. they are somalia and al qaeda from the human. both hired directly and indirectly responsible for december 205th christmas day bombing attempt at fort hood and alabama and minnesota terrorism cells. it is clear that if these two countries implode they will impose a more serious threat to us and the rest of the world. could either of you please describe your thoughts on the threat that these groups opposed to the united states and if our federal and government is doing enough to prevent these two specific terrorist group from going into a more powerful global entity? >> you are right. obviously it is interesting how this business has evolved. years ago we used to worry about

urban areas and powerful countries. now it is the un govern areas of the world, the wild areas, the areas where there does not seem to be any authority. these organizations develop. beyond even yemen and somalia we don't know what is happening now in that area of the world. we don't know what's going to happen if and when quadhafi falls and what that land, how tribal that will become. we don't know what will happen in some of these other areas that may or may not disintegrate -- disintegrate. said this is -- this has got to continue to be our priority with the government collapsing it is going to be worse before it's better. are we doing enough? we are never doing enough. i know we are concentrating. i know the intelligence communities are working hard to learn what they can learn. we still don't have enough

people and boots on the ground. we are depending on other intelligence agencies in that part of the world which now may not be able to give us that information any more. so it is a continuing and a very, very serious problem. we have to be ready to address not only those two areas but other areas that may develop. >> thank you. congressman hamilton. >> well, i think you put your finger on maybe the most difficult problem with regard to protecting ourselves from threats from abroad. you have got governments in these countries that really do not cover in throughout the country. you have all kinds of trouble ethnic differences. very, very hard problem. i think we have to work as a nation on developing the capabilities that deal with these countries.

i must say i'm not quite sure how how would spell out those capabilities. supporting the government is often done to try to insure stability, but we have surely seen the limits of that in recent years. i think we just have to develop the expertise for these countries and figure out on an ad hoc basis with each one of them what kind of capabilities exist within the country to counter the extremist groups. if you have a government that is reasonably stable, reasonably competent, you have to work with that government for sure. if you do not have then you may have to insert capabilities our

cells. you can't generalize too much. the kind of plots we had with fedex and ups packages that were sent into the united states that originated in yemen indicate test the challenges that we confront. you have to have a multi layer approach, obviously, to deal with these, not just in country, but tried to stop it when it's in transport whenever the threat may be. we said in our report about the evolving nature of the threat. this is a mind of the fangs exactly what we meant. it is a formidable challenge. >> i would suggest, you can't do it at a public cheering, but when you have private hearings with members of the intelligence community, i would ask, have our

source of the information's been compromised? how much? where did we find out the information we used to stop plots? we get information from various governments. was it the egyptian government? can we still depend on the? did we get stuff out of even libya? a lot of those people are working with us. probably not on an inability to day. if we are losing those sources of information, what will we do about it? >> thank you. >> the afghanistan experience should tell us not to ignore these countries. as difficult as it may be, if we had intelligence, in groups that are plotting against the united states in some way or our allies, i think we have to get our brains together and figure out the best way to do it.

depending on the strength of the intelligence you may want to use drones, you may want to use special operation forces. your preference would be to have the local government deal with it, but if the local government doesn't deal with the then we have to take a position that it is a threat to our national security and deal with it. >> thank you for those comments. i just want to say again to both of you, thank you so much for being an inspiration to us all. >> thank you. governor, i have a few more. the be the last one here. we talked about the evolving nature of the threat, and i know that we agree that one of the most significant developments in terms of the terrorist threat has been the home run radicalization and self

radicalization. it may have existed in some way before, but not really in an observable or consequential way, and we have seen it over and over again in cases that have existed, including the two that you mentioned, a gunner, in 2009 in which a successful terrorist attacks were carried out both in arkansas and at fort hood. those are both on grounds of radicalization cases. it's not totally clear who he connected with in yemen, but he was radicalized. by coincidence just this morning i was informed by my staff the last night the most recent addition of a magazine called inspire, the fifth edition which is published by al qaeda on the arabian peninsula appeared.

quite remarkable. very slick. printed in english, published in english, aimed at an english-speaking audience, including here in america. i think increasingly and perhaps we should take this as some kind of compliment, if you will, that we have built up our perimeter defenses, you might say. protecting the homeland such that our foreign enemies are now trying to develop within our country people who can carry out terrorist attacks. anyway, we have done a number of hearings and made recommendations about this. it is obviously a complicated problem because the most difficult, unlike 9/11 which we should have detected and stopped , very often these are people operating as so-called lone wolves.

i note that international security prepared this has focused on this problem. i wanted to, first, thank you for that. i know you have described the problem. as you mentioned, the recommendations will come the spring. i just wanted to give you the opportunity to comment on this new element in recent years, very significant threat element, attempts to protect the homeland i don't want you to preempt your recommendations, but anything you would like to say about what more you think the government ought to be doing to stop the problem? >> extraordinarily difficult because, as you say, our defenses based on our recommendations, many cases on your work have been to stop people like the 9/11 co-conspirators' from coming in from other countries and u.s. arm. those defenses are not adequate when the dangers come from somebody who is an american

citizen. they are inspired, a lot of these people, from the internet. one of the missing pieces that we never quite nail down and the 9/11 report was whether or not it was anyone in this country that supported or helped the terrorists in any way. we had a suspicion that this guy we mentioned his report. we have not got the staff for time to dig into it further, but his contacts were suspicious. he is now gone and has become one of the people that is recruiting overseas. he has a definite connection to even the 9/11 hijackers.

we don't believe there is an enormous radicalization taking place. a very small number of people. these people, many of them don't look like a traditional terrorists, american passports, present the greatest danger. we think there ought to be a real effort and a real dedication by our intelligence community's to implement a strategy to deal with it. i'm not sure that is in place as yet. >> senator. >> yes, sir. >> obviously it is a lot better to stop a terrorist attack before it happens and prevent people from being injured. i think we are now in our group working on a radicalization report which we hope will have some recommendations for you before too many weeks go by. one thing -- two or three things come to mind. one is, this is a good

illustration of how important it is to work with state and local officials. in my own experience and my state have seen communities that have out reach to the islamic community and those that don't. community of makes a difference. that committee knows the community better than anybody else. i think it is very important for the federal officials then, and it's not easy because there are so many communities, but they have got to strengthen the state and local contacts in order to better prevent radicalization. secondly, i think there has to be a peer out reach to the islamic community.

i no there is some controversial aspects, but most of the islamic leaders with whom i have had any contact want to help. believe you me, they know their communities pretty well, not perfectly, but pretty well. and so did liaison with those people is very, very important. we have a representative today from the nypd. i have been -- he would not much more about this than i, but i am impressed with the way the nypd has -- i'm not sure the quite -- the right word to use,d various communities within the new york city region and have reached out to try to understand those communities better.

the people that cause you trouble our young men for the most part. they are the key. now, maybe not exclusively, but for the most part. the community bidders have to understand their own young people. i think that the new york pd, the nypd has set an example of contacts that other metropolitan areas to follow. the other thing we talked about earlier is the coordination or effort within the federal government, if you ask the question today, who is in charge of dealing with homeland radicalization in our government i don't think i could answer that. maybe someone from the government can. it's not very clear to me who it

is. there ought to be somebody in charge. >> i agreed to be we have asked that question. the answer we got was the director of the national counter-terrorism center is in charge. that surprised us, frankly. there is an attempt to try to organize this better and a recognition that this is a real problem. we will benefit from your recommendations greatly, and a look forward to them. >> they need operational responsibility. >> that is the problem. interestingly enough, and this now goes back a while, we had a hearing here maybe two years ago now. it's somewhat dated, but a hearing with some leaders of the muslim american community. we asked, is there any agency of the federal government that has gone out reach to your community which has done the most?

to me the surprising answer we got was, yes, the fbi through its state offices had been reaching out quite a lot and had some communication the nypd sets the standard. it has committed -- not inexpensive, labor intensive. they have committed a lot, maybe because they were so struck, traumatized by 9/11 they have committed a lot of resources and excellent communication with the muslim american community. the lapd does a great job, but there are some places and the country with significant muslim american communities where my impression is that the outreach and communication from local law-enforcement is slim to none. that is a dangerous situation.

we look forward to your recommendations. senator calls mentioned something at the beginning. i'll do it quickly because i know we are both concerned about this. to come back to your report, you do a great service by identifying the enemy here and saying, yes, it was al qaeda. more broadly it is an ideology which is violent islamist to extremism. that is what inspired the attacks of 9/11 and has continued to inspire this myriad of attacks large and small since then. at that you made a substantial contribution when you said, ', we are not fighting terrorism, some generic evil we are fighting an ideology, a corruption of theology.

our strategy must match our means to to ms, dismantling the al qaeda network and prevailing in the longer term over the ideology that gives rise to islam and terrorism. it has been so frustrating that the administration continues to resist identifying the ideology preferring instead to say that we are in a conflict with violent extremism. it is by no the extremism, but a particular kind. in our report on the fort hood attack we pointed out that the defense department has even tried at one point to characterize the threat represented by the fort hood attack as workplace violence. of course it was a lot more than that. you know, i guess i understand what's going on. i think somebody thinks that if

we use the term is longest extremism it is offensive to muslims. i think it is quite the opposite. we are talking about, as you said, a very small group within a larger community in america. people who are followers of islam, not islamist extremism. anyway, i invite a response. >> look, we've worked on that one. how to characterize it. debates on the commission and did research. >> right. >> for instance, some people suggested jihadist, some good connotations in the muslim world. we rejected a lot of these terms. islamist doesn't. as llamas to extremism is what it is. i think words are important and language is important. naming the enemy is important. islamist extremism is as good a time as we have been able to

find for actually identify what the problem is into the people are. i think everything from our research shows that the community itself accepts that term. >> i appreciate that answer. i continue to use the term that you use because islamist makes the point that this -- that a political ideology really has exploited their religion. not islam. that me ask the last question. the commission made it, a series of recommendations. successful on almost every one of them. convincing both and wrestling the bureaucracy to except what you were recommending and also our colleagues. this was very disappointing.

center collins and i, very stubborn people. normally we don't yield, bob the reaction has been so overwhelming that we pull back a bit. i think that mary and carry are ready to take up this battle again. it is worth trying to do it. the truth is the oversight and congress is much too diffuse and overlapping. the consequence of that is that we are taking much too much time of the executives, particularly in the department of homeland security. i wanted to ask you if you have any thoughts about how to go at this. some sense about whether there is a way in which we can prioritize. at think we try to do a lot at the outset. we get totally defeated.

this give me your thoughts about whether you think it still is a problem. they have a tactical suggestions about how we might take this up knowing that these too irresistible forces focus on this. >> you know, lee mentioned why congressional oversight is so important. the rest of us can know the information that you know when you are doing your oversight. only you can say how effective it is. if the administration is really forthcoming in the way it has to be when they talk to you and if you really feel that you get every answer you want and the oversight is effective, that's great. we thought it would be much more effective to be interesting

enough every time, now it is the third, director of homeland security. everyone has said what can we do for you? number one, do something about congressional oversight. that's important. between 80 and 90 committees. they all say they are spending as much time testifying when they should be protecting it. preparing congressional testimony takes time. it takes time testifying. they are doing a lot of it to be that is extraordinarily important. giving the intelligence committee some fiscal responsibility. if they are not paying attention they will. also we think very, very important. it was a top priority. we think it still is. anything that increases your ability to oversee these intelligence agencies and make them perform is a step for protecting the country.

the you have any thoughts? >> two points. one going back to your earlier question. how to deal with islamist extremism. your comments are well taken. know your enemy is the first goal of finding anybody. i sometimes think we have a good bit of confusion on hit the enemy is. on the positive side of want to say that in the war of ideas i think we have made some progress. the progress is that al qaeda is having a hard time. they have identified themselves as of violent organization. i think we are making some progress there. it is important progress because they have not rallied the masses to their support. so that needs to be said, but your basic point is very much on target. the second point on the congress

, boy, oh boy. i think things happen in the congress when the leaders don't. my perspective is a little more from the house, obviously, that from the senate. i wonder whether are not the key national security officials in the hs, secretary of intelligence officials and so for have been able to sit down in a congenial environment to discuss this problem with the leaders of both the minority and the majority party's. it is such an obvious thing and that you weekend and department like vhs when you have all the time that they have to spend that you referred to testifying.

so i think we need to focus our attention on the of the bodies. they have to understand that this is a national security problem. they are not dealing with a political problem and domestic consequences. they are dealing with trying to make the national security of the united states, putting it on a firmer basis. when the congress requires, i was told at one time that every single senator sits on some committee dealing with homeland security oversight. i don't know if that is exactly right. if it is, it is an absurdity. that is not the problem. you are undermining the effectiveness of homeland security. i don't know any way to get at

it other than impressing upon the leaders the necessity of doing this for the national security interest of the estate's. the leaders have enormous problems in both bodies, but they tend, if any be so blunt, to look at so many of these problems as an internal political problem that they have to solve in order to maintain their position in the caucus. okay. we are not naive, but this is a different quality problem. we have to get that across. >> that is very helpful, and something for us to work on. the truth is the leaders have not made an attempt at this with everything else going on, since the legislation was first considered in 2004.

the truth is they didn't make much of an attempt then, really hardly any attempt because they're working so hard on getting the rest of the legislation passed. why take on this fight? but it is also true that the people that have the most interest in seeing this kicks which is the leaders of the homeland security department, they always have of the priorities. maybe the immediate budget priority, maybe a legislative priority. make another try at this, and i agree it has to come from the leaders. thank you. when you were talking about both the reaction of the muslim community and also about al qaeda and the ideology, is struck me we should at least know that in the last few months there have been this remarkable development in the arab world.

.. in the movements, but the leaders in both cases had the opportunity with senator mccain to visit about a month ago both countries. they are very focused on political freedom, economic opportunity and essentially getting their countries into the modern a world, and they view the islamist extremism as

regressive. some of them aren't religious but that's quite a different as we were saying before, and in some sense i know this is hopeful, hopeful thinking, optimistic thinking but what is happening now i think is profound repudiation of the ideology of islamist extremism, much more widespread than any of us are capable of, so it is a final statement by me. i don't know if any of you want to comment on that. >> you articulate it much better than i did but i think that is a hugely important development. >> and i think it really cries out to us to do whatever we can to be supportive. these are very proud movements of ultimately people in tunisia, egypt and hopefully libya will determine their own destiny, but the me the coming need some technical assistance and they

may need some economic support. they are looking for investment from u.s.. i think finally you will get a kick out of the one mccain and i were on. we met with a crew of the leaders of the uprising and one of them said to us, senators, we want to ask if you can help us to get one american who we would most like to come and speak to us here and i thought to myself who is this going to be. and the answer, mark zuckerburg. [laughter] welcome because -- because they felt in some sense, first he represented the new world of telecommunications but that in some sense he had provided or facebook provided them with what we might call the weapons in their peaceful revolution. >> very remarkable.

i'm very hopeful. >> i can't think the two of you enough for what you've done in my testimony. it's very helpful, very specifically helpful to focus our review that will go on for the rest of this year. we are going to keep the record of and for 15 days for additional questions and statements. thank you again very much. the hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> defense secretary robert gates and joint chiefs chairman mike mullen on capitol hill

on march 30th 1981 president ronald reagan was shot as he left the washington hilton. next, from the newseum, a discussion on the assassination attempt. we will hear from the secret service agent who pushed the president into the limousine as the shot went off and the surgeon who operated on the president. they are joined by "washington post" reporter john quinton wilbur whose book on the shooting is entitled rawhide down. pbs news our senior correspondent judy woodruff is the moderator of this one hour discussion. >> i'm just delighted to be here tonight as charles mentioned on a trustee both of the newseum and of the freedom forum, and it just gives me great pleasure to be part of this remarkable program. as a free that he knows there's a lot going on in the world right now. it's not as if the world is quiet, so it would take something pretty extraordinary

to pull together a crowd like you to come to an event, and i can tell you that knowing what these gentlemen have to share with us tonight, you are in for an extraordinary hour to come. as of really knows, we are nearing the 30th anniversary as hard as it is to believe of the assassination attempt on president reagan and i'm going to get right to the panel and introduce and begin with the gentleman in the middle who is the former united states secret service agent jerry. during his tenure he protected for vice presidents come and was the special agent in charge for two presidents, jimmy carter and ronald reagan. before retiring from the secret service he's an assistant director and since retiring he has become an ordained minister which raises an entirely other set of questions that perhaps we will be able to touch on this evening.

please welcome jerry parr. [applause] >> next to your right is dr. joseph giordano of surgery and former chairman of the department of surgery at george washington university medical center with special-interest and vascular disease he was the founder and the director of the trauma team at george washington medical center, the team that saved president reagan's life in 1981. and all fees on president 42 years at gw, before retiring in june of last year, he spent most of his time volunteering for partners for surgery which is a non-profit group dedicated to providing medical care guatemala. please tell me in welcoming dr. joseph giordano. [applause] >> and you have already heard a

little about our author seated right here, del quentin wilber. just to share with you a little bit more, he is a reporter for "the washington post" and is the author of the book we are here tonight to talk about, "rawhide down vineyard assassination of ronald freakin'." joining the post, seven years ago, he reported for the "baltimore sun." for what his relatively brief career as a young man, he's covered manley will enforcement and, quote, sensitive security issues. he's won a number of awards including being a finalist for the pulitzer prize. please welcome a del quentin wilber. [applause] i also need to say that i was invited to moderate this discussion because like jerry parr, i was there on the afternoon of march 30, 1981 when john hinckley tried to assassinate president reagan. there was a white house correspondent that time for nbc

news, i was part of the so-called travel pool of reporters who stay with the president. we take terms among reporters, print and television reporters following the president wherever he goes. as the television network pool correspondent that day i read the washington hilton hotel early in the afternoon of monday march 30th and 1 of 2 vans that were carrying reporters, photographers and a television camera crew. i watched the president's speech inside the help him to a group of part of the afl-cio and then i rushed back outside to be in the position to watch him exit the hotel. and then i thought to try to ask a question before he would then climb into his limousine and i would then jump into the van and then we would all rushed back to the white house, but of course i never got the question in. i didn't jump into the van and

that van and the motorcade didn't go back to the white house. so to set the scene i'm going to come to you first, dr. giordano. just quickly tell us what was going on at the hospital that afternoon before this all began? >> i think was a typical day in the hospital. i have a couple cases in the morning and i went upstairs to the sixth floor to cause i had to help do a test to other diagnostic procedure which i sometimes did. it's my specialty, and nothing special was happening. i got a page over the loudspeaker -- >> i'm not going to let you go any further. you had set up the trauma team. tell what that meant that he brought the trauma team to the state of the art place that it was. >> in 1976i was hired as an attendee to get to george w. and work. the chairman of surgery said to me just as a offhanded comment by the way, it is a mess, fix

it. i didn't think it was so bad because i finished my training about four years before that, and then i started reading about it and things were happening, positions were returning from vietnam and seeing with a concentrated approach the trauma cases would result in and that wasn't happening in 99% of hospitals in the country, and having read more about at the trauma in baltimore my goal was to bring the system down gw, which i did. >> and it and some changes that would later go on to make a difference. >> jerry parr, how was your day going before all this happened? ayman -- [laughter] >> was a nice day. [laughter] >> you are with the president, as you always were. this was the only outing of the day. >> right. before i -- i wasn't supposed to have worked that day and another

agent, the assistant to me had such a routine trip so i wanted to go with him so i could get to know him a little bit better because even though i participated in the inaugural ceremonies with him in 81 the inaugural situation, i wanted to do something on the management course. in the secret service we try to take a management course, so the first two or three weeks of the administration i didn't see him very much, so we wanted to do was get a simple, ordinary trip, right with him there and then talk to him on the way back and see things there were going on at the white house, the very problems. you have to make sure everything works smoothed and the staff is all -- there's always problems and issues that have to be ironed out. well, that's the reason i

decided to replace johnny and so i go there and we arrive and of course john hinckley is in the crowd though. where we stopped 40 or 50 feet from him, i didn't notice at the time -- >> this is at a rifle. >> the rifle. so the president gets out and he goes to the vip entrance and goes down on the elevator and the agents go down the stairwell and we go to our holding room and then introduce in the presidential ballroom. >> and he makes his speech, it's fairly brief and then he comes out. and del, you talked to so many -- over 150 people -- about this. gerry mentioned john hinckley. phyllis and quickly on who he was and how he happened to be there. >> john hinckley was a troubled 25-year-old from evergreen colorado who had an obsession

with jodie foster, infamous obsession with jodie foster that he developed in 1976 after seeing the movie taxi driver where she plays a prostitute and he became fixated on her. she left hollywood to go to yale and he's going there, too, and with such an interesting experience researching the book and reading, he called foster a bunch of times trying to entice her into a relationship and he tape-recorded the calls and i read the transcript she's so bizarre, then he feels that when he hears the roommates laughing in the background and he says his life is just kind of falling apart is a time, the obsession is out of control and he believed if i shoot the president of the united states, if i kill the president of the united states i can impress this woman to knowing who i am, so he stocks jimmy carter in october, 1980. he goes to a date and a rally for carter as he's running against ronald reagan, as we all know, and he is literally an arm's reach of one point from carter and he had a long obsession with guns and had been shooting at target practice.

was a test run for him any way. he had left his gun in the lost luggage of the bus depot. so there was literally probably two or 3 feet from you. so then hinckley, his life is running on march 30th, he just arrived a day before from a cross-country trip from l.a. on a four day bus trip on a greyhound bus and come to know, it's going through cheyenne and all these other towns in the west. so i'm going to d.c. and it and i'm going to new haven where i'm going to kill foster, kill myself, kill both of us. that was in his mind. he goes out this morning, stocks and d.c. -- spectacle foster? >> to kill jodie foster. he's now stalking ronald reagan and carter and now he's decided i'm going to kill myself, foster and all these things. i'm stopping briefly tuesday march 20 from 30 than washington and i'm going to go on my way to new haven, connecticut. that morning he goes to get an egg mcmath and staying at the hotel which has been torn down,

and since then it's been torn down, and he eats his egg mcmuffin. he looks down at the schedule and sees it, doesn't think much about it, takes a shower and he starts going. and i got this from a psychological assessment of him that has never been seen before. it's fascinating to read. maybe i should take the gun i have with me and see how close i can get. he could get within 15 feet of the president of the united states. >> and so jerry, take us back to the scene. you come out the door with president reagan. >> come out the door, turned left and we walked out, some walk down the sidewalk and some walk down the road. the reason we parked the car there is it's the quickest way to get away from the hotel and go right down the street and make a right turn -- >> it's a -- >> we didn't want to get back into the cul-de-sac, that's what we did not want to do. so, when we are about eight or 10 feet from the car, tim

mccarthy, might lead agent, has opened the door. it is a rainy day, he opens the door at the last second, and when we are about five or 6 feet from the door, i hear too quick shots and then for more and it's all over. but in that split second i grabbed the president's left shoulder with my hand and i grabbed him by the head and i start pushing him down and twisting him so he can go in the car. he knows exactly what i'm doing. there's not a sound from him but we are very rough with him because we've got to move fast. that is what overtraining told us to do, cover and evacuate. there's a lot of agents out there tonight that knows exactly what cover and evacuate means. you cover him first and evacuate second. that's exactly what we did that day. >> and i can tell you i was standing about 15 or 20 feet on the other side of the limousine next to one of the press men and felt like it yell a question but then realized there was no point

because he was being hurried to the car. and i heard the pops and didn't know that that was -- you knew it was a gun that you didn't want to believe it was a gun and everything happened very quickly. you got him in the car and pulled away. and tell us what happened on the way. you were headed to the white house. >> yes. first thing i did was after we shot the door and pushed feet in we didn't open the door anymore because we didn't want to open at to make it vulnerable to anybody across the street if there had been anybody over there. so, there is much unknown stuff going on, but i did see as we pull away the three bodies on the sidewalk and mccarthy and brady and in the window, and as we are about to make the turn to go south on connecticut avenue on p street i began to examine

him. obviously a bullet in the window, three bodies on the sidewalk, assassination attempt. i wanted to chicken over, so i did run my hand under his coat and the build area of his back, armpit area, in his hips and everything and there was no blood on my hands so that's when i went to my shift leader that rawhide is okay. i assumed he was okay because i didn't find blood on my hands. he wasn't feeling too bad then. but between that location on connecticut avenue and park circle he said i think i cut the inside of my mouth and he reached in his pocket and he was covered with bright red blood and i looked at that blood and i knew from my training that was oxygenated, it had been in his lungs and it's now in his mouth and there's a lot of it, it was

abundant in front of him, on my coat and i made a quick decision i said i'm taking you to the hospital and that's when i told my driver, and that is when i made the decision i thought it was life threatening. >> over the span of just a few blocks when the decision changed about where to go. spinnaker was a quick decision. and it was all done have on one leg and half standing upright in front of him because it's a very large car and the jump seats were already against the back seat so it gave me a lot of space to look him over, and i felt -- i don't know how felt the committee felt he didn't look too good either. >> the car headed for gw. >> all we had to do is make a right turn on pennsylvania avenue. >> meanwhile what was going on at the white house? >> at the white house, they are just hearing about what's going on.

they began at this time in fact they don't even know, the officials are going about their day. and they are eventually over time they hear that the president has been shot and in fact there is a wonderful scene where b. eds russian, the top advisers that ran things work and dever, mike and jim baker and there is a great scene where increase is in his office and one of his lower aids runs in and they look and there is a computerized board that tracked the president's movement and said in a lot to gw hospital. this guy is really modest. he saved in that time period back to the hotel, in the 30 seconds and the 50 seconds that took place from the shooting, he pulled out his gun and shot six shots and 1.67 seconds. he takes out jim brady and tom delahunt the way is clear, he shoved him behind the car, the third shot goes on and the next to him, it hit the bulletproof

window and the sixth cracks across the driveway. no one knows for the sixth shot and. only later we learned went through the door. he had an effective range of 20 to 30 feet. at a stationary target speed and as a preemptive but for tens of a second, and if he doesn't think the call to go to the hospital we leader learned how dire the situation really would have been. getting that out of him took a lot. [laughter] >> by the way, when it happened it wasn't clear that there was just one shooter because it sounded like somebody got off a lot of shots and there were agents looking up and around, and i was one of the reporters wondering if there was more than one shooter. just confirm for us, dr. giordano, how much difference to make it jerry parr turned that part the hospital?

>> it was the critical decision of the day, no question about it. because the president, as he walked -- ki insisted on walking into gw, he got just past the front door and collapsed for blood pressure. even as young healthy person that's pretty serious, you can only last a few minutes before you have irreversible changes, and the president 7-years-old, albeit a very healthy seven year old. so i think -- just think it, but at the white house, pull him out of the car, looked him over, bring him to the room inside, put him in the car and realize there's a problem, taken to gw, that is five, ten, 15 minutes. that would have made a huge difference. i don't think he would have survived it. >> cingular arrived -- the timeframe the shooting happened at 2:27, approximately. six shots got off in less than two seconds. how long the for the hospital was dealing with this? it was just a matter of a few more minutes. >> that's right. he came right to the hospital. he walked and then collapsed and

they brought him into the resuscitation area or narrowly for most were notified by the communication system that take a ship is coming into the trauma team assembles the resuscitation arie waiting. there's little time to do that because he was so close but they were there. they got there and put him on the gurney and took all his clothes off started ivies, examining him and did all the right things. was a small list resuscitation. so reagan bloxham jerry parr is in the limousine and he tries to get his hand to help him out and reagan says no. jury says he wants to be a cowboy i guess. he gets down, hitches up his pants, reagan hitchens of his pants like he always does and the aid behind him says yeah, i think he's going to be okay. the other aid isn't so sure, he doesn't look so good. ronald reagan viewed his role as president as a role to play and as a long time after he wasn't going to get carried offstage to the doors. he walked in, gets about 15 feet and collapses like a rock just like that.

there's a paramedic i interviewed right there, bald hernandez, he's kind of a source, i shouldn't have said that too loud -- [laughter] -- it's not a secret one that provides information on the d.c. police beat -- bald hernandez is there and sees the seven fall to the ground and how sick he is and bader hernandez thinks my god, he is code city, and that means he's going to die. the other nurse's hands are shaking and they're having a nightmare thoughts about the president is going to die. he looked at that they didn't think he was going to make it. >> what did you think, jerry parr, when he collapsed? >> well, i really thought he was going to die, too. but the first maybe three or four minutes. because he looked so terrible, and when -- when the first nurse said -- i thought she said no blood pressure but what she said was loper of pressure and a faint heartbeat. and i didn't think he was going but he kept living on and living on and they kept doing the right things to him.

>> dr. giordano, let's go back to that page. in those days i guess it was a pager you were carrying. >> no, i had a mobile and usually they would page me, very surprised to hear a stat page over the public system, and it was unusual. so i went right downstairs and walked into the emergency room and i saw a lot of strange people. you know, young people with earphones and i didn't know quite what was going on. i went back into the resuscitation. and there he was, lying on the stretcher, totally naked, the president of the united states. >> did you know right away that the president -- how did you know? >> i just saw him, there was no question about it. i didn't have to think about it. >> you had never seen him make it i imagine. [laughter] >> i had never seen him make it. i grant you adjust looked at his face, i can promise you that. [laughter] my residence were already there and did an excellent job

resuscitating him and putting in ivies and doing things we all trained to do. they spend time in baltimore for three months and were experienced in managing patient and when i got there he was improving already. first of all law and down so that always improves blood pressure. second leaflet was going into him and he was alert. he had a concerned look on his face and we asked him how he's doing and what's going on. he says short of breath, he has some pain. we turned hammer out and saw the entrance wound in the blood and looked on the other side to see if it came out. it did not. >> and you knew it was a shot. >> we had the information, a small hole right underneath his aucilla. so things move very quickly. there were six or seven people around, the anesthesia in the front and you know, people from the outside looking at fixed is a very chaotic event but it's not. everybody has a job to do and they are moving very quickly to get the job done and in a

relatively short period of time the blood pressure is coming up and we knew because he had lost blood and no breath sound and the bullet wound went in the chest that he had bleeding into his left cavity. estimate how long before there was surgery to try to remove the bullet? >> the first thing you have to do is put a chest tube in. the way you treat most of these patients and treated with success in this way is but a test tube and. the idea is to put the tube in the cavity, draw out the blood and the air and then the longs' will expand. as long as the low pressure system, it's not like -- it is a low pressure system and won city expands then it goes against the chest for usually stops 85, 90% of the time. this time i did not. >> and so there was the preliminary that by what, 3:30 he was under -- >> he was in the emergency room about 40 minutes. they gave him four units of

blood, a bunch of saline, but the chest tube in and when you do is watch the blood come out of the tube. initially a rush of two will come out because its accumulating throughout the cavity, and then once that's out, you hope that the blood loss is starting to get less and less. and this did not happen. to the contrary, it got more and that's when i called the doctor who is the chief of surgery, an excellent surgeon, to come down. he came down and took over the care of that patient. >> that's when you knew how seriously involved the lung -- >> that's right. there was something like 3 liters of blood in the chest to in the vacuum by the time he actually had the tracheotomy petraeus mix everybody knows, this was a pre-cable news, pre-internet. so the way the information was getting around was different from what it is today. we are going to show now to clips. the first one here some of what the american people were saying.

this is part of an abc news special they broke into their regular daytime afternoon programming. but he was probably around 2:00, 3:30. we don't know what time, and the anchor was frank reynolds and sam donaldson was with him. we are going to look at this for just a second. >> once again the president of this assassination [inaudible] we now resume hour regularly scheduled program. [laughter] [inaudible] we have a report the president's adviser for political

[inaudible] [laughter] [inaudible] he is in stable condition and the information i have is that he is okay. [inaudible] [laughter] [inaudible] the president was hit today in the chest but we are told he is all right, he is at the hospital [inaudible] he has gone on to gw hospital. >> so that is a remarkable piece

of unusually remarkable piece of network television at that point because again, it was pre-cable. everything up until that point was usually packaged and prepared. this was live, and the media didn't get it right to begin with, did we, del? [laughter] >> you did, judy. [laughter] but seriously, in that situation they were the way the information was coming and they were incomplete. >> the information of the entire thing was incomplete. at the white house the didn't understand what was going on. the gindin have -- the center from at the hospital, getting reports coming back trickling in, the media was getting reports from the hospital and they cannot and said he's not in surgery yet. through my research he had been taking the operating like 50 minutes earlier and so i don't know why -- i don't know why he said he wasn't in surgery, so there is all kind of misinformation. at one point they reported that he had died and there's a

beautiful moment where jim brady's corrine surgeon is operating and people said aubrey on him, he's not going to make it, it's going to wreck your career and he said i'm going to do it any way. cities operate and jim brady and listening to speakers overhead and hear this report about jim brady died, and it's kind of a fiery speaker and she had been known for some strong language, i'm not going to say it because it will probably get sued by somebody but he says this crazy or what are we operating on, a corpse, and it's amazing that intersection of reality of the hospital, and reality people were seeing at home, and i think some of this on television is gave people the impression that it wasn't that serious because this is what people live through on this day and they heard of his jokes leader which ensure we will talk about and they were like it's not that serious and in reality you don't understand the story. you don't understand the story until you really live through this and talk to these guys and

realize there's a scene in the operating room where there's a 31 year old surgical in turn holds reagan's beating heart in his hand. that is how serious this was. meanwhile, here's lung and a bunch of other secret service agents surrounding the operating room and there is a 31-year-old, not been screened by anybody. he's normal dhaka and the operating room holding the heart to gently aside so the surgeon can try to find the bullet. but they don't know that. >> and these are -- it was a understand what you said, dr. giordano. everybody -- they know their part, but having said that, the scenario, the scene had to be something that the secret service doesn't rehearse or do you? >> no, we didn't rehearse that. we knew that the president was in the best place he could be in the condition that he was in, and so what we did is we simply

got posts outside of the room and another agent, they'll mcintosh and i were in there the whole time he was in that emergency room, he knew we were there. i was the only friendly face, and he did it is no a living soul in that hospital and i think it was a comfort for the agents and in fact at the hospital, the only change i made on the posting a sign that i said i'm not an agent at the foot of his bed every day, every night while he is here in this hospital. so for 14 days it was always at the foot of his bed. we didn't prepare for that but you have to sometimes do things on the fly and that is what we did at the hospital, and we didn't have the aged had a time like we normally would have as preparation and we just suppose that as we arrived. >> what was going through your mind when he was in surgery?

>> well, you know, i could see the monitor and blood pressure and his heartbeat i thought it was better than mine. i didn't much about the surgery, but i saw the ribs being pulled apart and all that, but i thought he was going to make it to tell you the truth. >> dr. giordano, how difficult was the surgery? >> i think the key thing was when the president left the emergency room having no blood pressure coming in, his blood pressure was 160 solid which is above normal actually, so he had a good blood pressure, the blood volume was normal, he was rushed to the operating room and we had a small procedure in his abdomen to make sure there was no interest and abdominal bleeding and then dr. air and did the surgery. as pretty standard.

open the chest and there was a point of bleeding in the lung and he felt the bullet as close to the heart only an inch away he felt the blood in the lungs itself, and usually we don't remove bullets we leave them especially if it isn't near a vital organ and stuff like that, she kept feeling it and decided to remove it and to get out and there was a good decision because it was one of the devastated the bullets that has a charge in it that didn't go off thankfully in this particular case but i can't imagine what would have happened or maybe i can imagine what would happen if the bullet was left in and then he was recovering and we find out the devastated the bullet what was he going to do about that, that would have been a tough decision. happily we didn't have to make the decision. >> that bullet had hit the door on to reinforce the door on the president's limousine before it hit him; is that right? >> the bullet hit the back of the car and i have a photograph of that evidence.

it slipped through about that big between the door right there. and if jerry parr was just a split second slower and you track the trajectory of the what it would have hit him in the head, and so this whole day came down to a matter of inches and seconds and even split seconds that he lived. >> meanwhile, i just quickly want to remind everybody that there were three other people who were wounded. jim brady, seriously, severely wounded hit in the head. i think the devotee verbal wit in his case did explode and then there was the secret service agent and the d.c. police. mr. delahunt. were they getting care of their own? how was that working -- just give us a quick sense of that. >> the resuscitation area had to

bays. brady was in the second bay and cared for very rapidly by another team. tim mccarthy had a gunshot wound to the abdomen which actually traverses as we found out later, and he was pretty stable the whole time that we had another team working on that. it's about the maximum we could have handled without straining the resources. delahunt went to the hospital and was taken care of, so it all went pretty well. brady was in the operating room right across from reagan and the doctor was operating on him in the area of entry. >> very quickly, john hinckley had been taken where? >> he been taken to the d.c. police headquarters where he was immediately questioned by grizzled homicide detective who had seen everything on d.c. streets but he'd never seen anything like john hinckley. you see hinckley he has this effect on his face that's a

boyish batch of hair and piercing blue eyes and he was just as cold as could be and there is one point that he's not talking and he wants a lawyer or something and eddie meijer is tight in his report like you to imagine a d.c. police officer would tight with two fingers and he turns to dennis mccarthy and the secret service agent and says how do you spell the word assassinate? [laughter] and hinckley still did and spelled it correctly. and so, you know, that's where he was and she takes the washington field office and the secret service agent there and the fbi agent questions and it is a wonderful moment he say he was a loner, there's another surprising thing about this book about the story is its full of surprises. he's investigating the case will not convinced hinckley was a loner, the range of a lot seven -- seven come 7:30 that night and he questions hinckley and must figure out are there other assassins in the city? is their anyone else and he pulls him aside and says john,

need to know, were you acting alone? hinckley looked at him and said mmhmm, was acting alone and he ran off and brief the brigety. meanwhile, the secret service agent who brought in the questions, very experienced and talking to people with the white house, he got called to the white house all the time to question with tinfoil hats and matter that reagan was like his third cousin twice removed to take his social security checks and stuff like that. so he had experience with people who have mental illness and peoples of the questions for hinckley and is enlisting the system from hinckley and isn't getting anywhere and eventually he realizes she remembers the wallet, hinckley's wallen and there had been pictures of a girl in his wallet and phone number written on a piece of paper as if he had gotten a phone number for a woman at a bar. and hinckley says is the swing to affect other people? you mean like a girl friend or a friend or something like that? and i'm paraphrasing it. it's a lot louder than this. and hinckley says yeah, kind of. he lives it is more. there's a woman, who is this woman? jodie foster, the actress.

when you find my hotel room you will discover the tapes i've made and phone calls and then it's kind of a one-sided relationship though. and that is when he realized that this was over a movie star. think of that, the president of the united states comes within an inch of his life for a movie star. >> with still, stunning. there was so much going on in different places in the book captures it so well. this was the report that i filed that might for the nbc nightly news. this era of 6:30 when the president was probably still in surgery, the surgery lasted about three hours. we are going to show you this and talk and then talk to you for questions. she was there when the shots were fired. to make the first speech as president the afl-cio

[inaudible] he talks for about 20 minutes on the economic renewal package. >> if nothing else in this administration we are going to convince that the power, the money and the responsibility of this country begins and ends with the people and not a center block building in d.c.. [applause] >> afterwards mr. reagan shook hands and headed to the same door he had come and half an hour earlier. about 15 or 20 feet away on the other side of his limousine when the president came out the door. it was just a matter of seconds before we heard shots fired and almost instantly he was pushed into the car and driven away. the other people shot were left lying on the sidewalk and the gunman was arrested by police and security agents. a cameraman for abc television was standing next to the gun man and he had noticed the man earlier. >> he was about 10 feet from the

president [inaudible] i think that was a little unusual [inaudible] >> the police were checking for evidence but the question they are asking is how did the gun man [inaudible] he was just a dozen feet from the president [inaudible] >> jerry -- [applause] the questions -- the question of course was how did it happen? and you had to be already thinking about that during the day. >> how much did everything

change after that? in terms of security? >> it's a good question. it probably happened for a combination of reasons. one of the things is that was the 110th time we had taken the president in a period of about nine years. that meant president nixon president carter and now reagan had been there so we had a sort of permanent kind of arrangement at the hotel because we had a number of agents posted inside and outside and we thought it was adequate where we failed and i failed to note was the fact that the crowd was building up over the times we have gone there and come back over the years it got to be a habit and not president carter what he

would do is he couldn't be seen behind the car because of his height so he would stand on the edge of the car with the door open and wave at the crowd over there and the crowd got used to the fact that the president was going to do that. and we got used to letting him do it. so it caught us by surprise when the gunfire was sounding but we also did not have a covered departure site. we have back there now if you go back there now there is an armored building and that was built later and then washington, whenever you get a major change like that to build a building you have to have a dramatic incident occur, the was the incident that made it occurred. but clearly, the preparation for the a rival site could have been better, probably should have

been better and i said that was my call to make and he did it just like he was supposed to in detail in his book, he did everything he was supposed to do just to have a safe arrival at the departure and we thought we had done it. but you know, the thing was the secret service went from a reactive posture. always protected if something happened, but we went to almost immediately like the crystallized thing that happens all over the service we decided to get pro-active after that and we did because things really changed rapidly after that and i think it paid off because we haven't had anything happened the last 30 years, not a major attempt like that up close in your face. >> not on what. >> there's so much to talk about

here and what was going on at the white house, but i want to let those of you in the audience ask a question so we do have microphones here and here so come forward if you have a question. i've got plenty more questions of my own but i want to give you all a chance as well. del, while we are waiting for somebody to ask a question in the audience, what about the white house situation? it's gotten so much attention that the statement from secretary of state, he said on in charge, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. >> i was very fortunate in her research and rawhide down i was able -- allen, national security adviser, imagine the situation room is where they all went to process reports from the government to make plans and everything and the situation room is about the most secure room in the entire country or one of the most secure. the national security adviser

goes into that room, brings a tape recorder, puts it on the table and its record and he let me listen to the four and a half hours of running to and commentary from the room that day and year that he really does want to be in control and at one point he tells the guy is in this room constitutionally, gentlemen until the vice president gets back i am in charge. he was completely kind of confused by this which al hague, bless his soul, he was a long time commander, nixon's chief of staff, he went through watergate, the transfer of power. he knew something happened and he was so intent on controlling the situation and wanting to control the situation and what amazed me the most besides the war between him and cap weinberger was the defense secretary, because at one point the russian submarines are two minutes closer than being able to have the nuclear warhead on washington than normal, if this connected they don't know, they put bombers on alert, and al

hague doesn't want that to happen because he doesn't want the soviets if it spirals out of control and then he looks up at television screen and he sees in answering questions and it's not like he was a deputy press secretary as a reporter you know this, he was growing him. you don't want to be on the other side of lesley stahl. she's going after him and larry speakes and the question is who's running the government and with ever but isn't it larry speakes it is like plucking the answer when you see a good spokesman deflect she just didn't know and you have to ask yourself what's worse? the government didn't know what was happening or he was like kind of trading to deflect the answer now al hague sees this on tv and he goes apocalyptic anti those of and there's this moment where he is mangling the constitution or in the presidential succession and his next to him and in his mind, dick allen -- and al hague justin heart surgery and looked really bad and there was sweat

pouring down, you can hear his west point ring clacking on the podium and dick allen is going, in his mind, dick allen is going all right if he collapses right now to buy carry him off, or do i kind of shovel him aside and continue the briefing? [laughter] folks, no, that's the national security adviser for the united states of america thinking this. this is a crisis, like the worst presidential crisis since. [laughter] >> question. >> i had worked for the old washington star for 20 years and you know how things sort of become legendary, the story now that i hear is the president reagan the thing that helton was going to the washington star building for lunch. is there any truth in that? >> jerry parr would know. >> we were going back to the white house. >> that is how things grow. [laughter] >> i never heard that one either.

>> thank you for an amazing discussion tonight. speak a little closer to the microphone. >> thank you for an amazing discussion tonight. i have a question to read and wondered where either from comer del come from your perspective, a research perspective were other members of the panel, can you share anything about what the first lady's life was like on that day and in the ensuing days? >> i can tell you a little bit about it and i will let del and all three of the gentleman -- i interviewed mrs. reagan last year extensively for a documentary i did about her, and she was in the white house and del writes about this, she had come back from somewhere and was about the business seeing a decorator they were about to make some changes in the white house and her agent, her secret service agent got word something had happened they didn't think the president was shot but there was a shooting so he thought we had to tell her just to let her

know and thought we will just stay here at the white house until we know more. as soon as mrs. reagan heard that there was a shooting, she said i want to go, and i guess the first word was he was coming to the white house and as soon as she heard the president was going to the hospital even though they didn't think he had been shot she said i'm going. >> and he had the way he was until her this, he knows how to control the situation and if you've ever met mrs. reagan she's not easy to control. so here's this agent thinking he's going up the ramp thinking i've got to break this news to her how to do it in a way she doesn't just run to the hospital? she basically is already booking towards the stairs trying to catch her and she says i'm going you've got to get the car i'm walking. so he says i'm leaving for the hospital and they are on the road it's only six blocks. there at the traffic at the washington circle and this is reagan grabs george off the shoulders and starts shaking him

and says georgia and getting all of the car and walking there now. i'm going to go now. because they were very close, all the people that new reagan, there is an enigma to so many people, and the one person who really knew him was nancy reagan, and there's a moment when she's walking to the hospital and mike is there, the top aide, closer than anybody come and she says mike, you have to let me see him, they don't know about us. islamic and we can talk about this in a minute but this could go on to. it could change his presidency because she would never feel safe when he was not in her sight whenever he left the building she had a completely different attitude going forward and it affected the presidency and the scheduling. what was your encounter? >> i saw it twice in the time of the resuscitation and surgery. the first time when we were taking the president of the emergency room to bring him that we brought her in and she was concerned but very composed and

very strong and that is when he looked up and said i forgot the book and week wheeled him back in -- >> still amazing. >> she went to the second floor and i went to the second floor to talk to her and a rundown on what was going on and was very positive. again, she was concerned, but very strong or composed and i can see how she was that way after. >> you mentioned i forgot to dhaka and one of the things i hope that the readers were the people watching take away is the shooting as judy will tell you we calibrated his entire presidency. and the fact people start hearing one of the aids is in there and he has a hospital record which i got to see from the hoover institution at he's jotting down all of the famous one-liners, i forgot to duck. he sees this troika and they say who is minding the store?

and this is as the chest tube is inside by the way. another moment, he skips the operating room and is in the operating room and he gets up on an elbow, takes it off and says i hope you are all republicans, to which giordano says we are all republicans. [laughter] to things quickly, when the american people heard this, you know, they liked reagan almost immediately and in researching the book i didn't realize ronald reagan had the lowest approval rating of any president at that time in his first term. it was in fact they had written a column that ran that very day that said the honeymoon is over. after the american people hear this -- remember we had a long spring, every on the successful presidents. we had jfk was killed, lyndon johnson didn't seek a full second term because to get on, richard nixon resigned over watergate, jerry ford made three years, carter underlays come here we turned a former actor, 69 years led the inauguration that is to lead the country and

carry his shot on the 70 of the day in office, the last four presidents have been shot all dhaka and here he is cracking jokes in the face of death. and what that did was it allowed the country to separate the man from his politics, and it formed this bond though his approval ratings what did and of course like every president he had his troubles but i do think it to build a bond with the american public that allowed them and allowed him to sustain a lot of problems leader and kind of also made him a mythical figure. david, the late political columnist in "the washington post," told me in an interview four months before he died this is the date made reagan a mythical figure. and i think it's important especially the one liners. >> i think it's important that the white house put those lines out. >> the media adviser to the president, longtime political strategist for the president when he was back in california knew that it was important to get that kind of detailed account not only to reassure the

public but i think frankly to humanize the situation. yes. >> i would like to ask if he has any memories of the day himself. >> no -- >> i don't and you were born. >> 5-years-old. [laughter] >> i was 6-years-old living in massachusetts and i had no recollection, my parents probably get me away from the television that day. and i did get the idea for the book because an fbi agent and i was like it got to look into this more, i'm curious. and we talked about 15 minutes over a roast beef sandwich, like while this guy is a storyteller and we have giordano talking like wow, the history of this day is full of surprises. >> thank you all for coming. i was wondering if you could talk about the secret service code name reagan has, rawhide, and also the presidential limousine being referred to as a stagecoach,