another set of tire, you were out of luck. the only way you could get a set of tires was to go before the government's tire board and prove you had an essential reason to get a set of tires. likewise bicycles, radios, clocks, each clocks a common american could no longer purchase after the spring of 1942. all of those mechanisms were use inside the war effort. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. ..

>> in the book as you were summarized, lessons you learned from a life of public service and you write about this, your experiences as secretary of state at the beginning of the iraq war. i want to begin with one of the rules, one of your 13 rules published in parade magazine, perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. reading your book, you are the most optimistic person i have read in a long time. don't you get the decline out there? >> it is very important, the summary of the 13 rules. it links to the first one also

that says things will get better in the morning. i start that description by saying that is not necessarily the case but the attitude you should have. you will make them better. it is within your life to make things better and if you go through the rules and end up with perpetual optimism is a force multiplier that is a military term. always looking for ways to enhance the power of our force weather by communications or supply lines. make the force more effective. i found working with human beings, and you as a leader or manager convey an attitude of perpetual optimism we can do it, that will in fact an entire organization and becomes a force multiplier. they can do more than they thought they could do.

coming to robert's question as i go around the country i see all the problems discussed in washington. the unemployment rate, the fact that our economy is going to come back, the problem overseas ventures that we have been involved in and other crises around the world but i also see as i go around the country people who are hard at work, business leaders and financial leaders, i still find people are optimistic about this country. they have confidence in who we are all what we are. a reagan like confidence in our people. if one thing is bugging them, they sins their leaders in washington don't understand how much confidence is out there and waiting for the leaders in washington to cut through the conflict and compromise and get

this country moving. i have always tried to be optimistic and convey an attitude of optimism and i am optimistic about the country. these are not the worst of times. people forget in my lifetime for example in your lifetime most of you would was like from 68-74. sixty-eight was bobby kennedy was assassinated. martin luther king was assassinated. buses were put around the white house that night to make sure the white house didn't get burned down. and then body, martin, vietnam war, race riots, counterculture, drug problems fleet is the racial problems and a vice president who resigned in disgrace. we came out of vietnam we didn't win that war and the president resigned in disgrace and still the soviet union and china was an communist nation that was aligned against us and yet through all of that, we never lost the conflict. jerry ford came on the scene as

our president. simple midwestern values. people looked at him and were reassured and he brought us back and president carter had difficulty with the economy but he moved along. the soviet union has fallen and china is trying to become a world power not by invading anybody but by selling to us and they have gotten pretty good at it. imagine where we are now as opposed to 30 years ago where china is selling us stuff. the money we are paying them they moaned loan us to buy more. americans have to be optimistic.

if you less and make the american. >> an important test for you is competence. the movie the hustler. what is so import about that? >> for those who are not old enough to remember the movie is about a pool hall. paul newman goes by the name of fast eddie and he is determined to be the champion. he goes into this pool hall in new york to play minnesota fats played by jackie gleason so the game starts and fastidious very good. but minnesota fats has this manager or finance sir who is sitting in a chair, george c. scott watching all of this. as the evening goes on and they are drinking and shooting pool, it is beating the devil of minnesota fats who is becoming desperate and keeps looking to george c. scott to -- what do i do and scott finally says to him stick with this kid.

he is a loser. that sins everybody and they play some more. minnesota fats keeps losing. i got him. minnesota fats excuses himself and goes into the bathroom and comes out a few minutes later and is reaching for his coat they think and he smiles and put his hands out and have talcum powder rubs on his hands and looks at fast eddie and says let's play some pool and he beat the devil out of him and fastidious crushed. minnesota fats never gave up. perpetual optimism. he thought he could win and he did win and worked against eddie's weakness. as i say in the book i love that scene. many a day when i was in trouble which was a frequent occasion during my public life i had to

testify before congress and face a hostile press -- [laughter] -- i would put my uniform on and go to my restroom and wash my hands and look in the mirror and say to myself softly fast eddie must place in full. as you mentioned i never got to the last scene because of course as the city and paul newman the start of the movie has to beat him again but i never watch it. i don't want to see that. >> you turn it off early. i want you to relate a touching story. you've visited a japanese school once. kids are being prepared. >> a private school in tokyo.

very intelligent, smart kids from well-to-do families. i gave my speech to students. i talk to them everywhere i go and when i was through questions were ready and i noticed kids were lining up with little cards with their questions. they don't like that because these are questions teachers looked at to make sure these are on a roll kids. i took a couple of them and started looking at the audience. anyone else have a question? the young lady at the back of the auditorium they used to have. general, are you ever afraid, i am afraid every day. i am afraid of something almost every day and fail at something

every day. would you have to learn, and a normal part of human existence, you have to control it but you can manage it. and the optimistic you get out of the problem they are having. it is failure to figure out what we did wrong. full role in a ball and throw it over your shoulders and see what is ahead. and everybody had that thought, and people have to be taught how to overcome fear. is the most moving moment for me. most of the book, and secretary of state. of book of stories, reflections

and memories hand kind of a fun book, an index. and give me a break. read the book. it will take three hours. the longest one is eight or nine pages. no coherence. [talking over each other] >> i gather when you were a kid you would hang around the back of the classroom, you were not the obvious qualifier who was going to do much to succeed. >> absolutely right. i know the. from an immigrant family. my parents came here in the 1920s with my other relatives and settled in new york bouncing around a little bit. they all had children so there

were a lot of cousins in the family. we all simply talk. we have expectations for you. we didn't come to this country to have children that are going to stick something up their nose or not get an education so we have expectations for you and don't ever do anything to change the family. you understand? that was the killer arguments because if any of us got in trouble, rather than have us give that shame in the family was devastating and the third thing we were taught is you don't hear much anymore. mind your teachers and your adults so embracing family expected us to go somewhere in life. my cousins became lawyers and doctors and judges and i just hung around a straight c average all the way through high school. not sure how i got in but i got

into city college in new york and graduated with a low average number of years later. the only way i got out of city college is i was great in rotc. found by calling the. i wanted to be a soldier and got a straight as and the overall grade point average. i gotta 2.0. they said good enough for government work. [laughter and applause] >> now i am considered one of the greatest sins the city of college of new york has ever had. they named a center after me. the colin powell center for leadership and serve as a. my professors are rolling over in their graves. what i say to kids when i told this story is is where we start in life. it is larry end up and what you did a long way to get one up

were you end love and your past and not your present is not your future. your past is your past. always be growing. never think that you can't make it. in my family one of the problems we are having right now is our graduation rates are not where they should be. when i tell kids i was a kid growing up, i got bored with school if i had ever gone home and told those two immigrant people, they were short people about 5 foot 3 and 5 foot 5. if i ever went home and said i was thinking of dropping out the answer is dropout and we will get another kid. it is not going to happen. there is a chapter in the book called we are mammals and ease essentially i love not only the hustler but animal planet, national geographic, wild kingdom, watching lions and

tigers raise their cubs, what i get from it is cobb finally opens its eyes and allowed to start moving to little bit away from mom and out of the then. goes so far. the code is given a box to do things and if she steps outside the box at the wrong age than grabbed behind the neck or hit upside the head with the claw and back in and as the cub grows and gained experience goes a little further. me your uncles or cousins or your daddy out there somewhere. he was a lot and make some lawyers but he doesn't do much. he is just around. the point is that i watch this and 2 years old, they set out on their own. what happened in that two year period? learned the importance of their siblings and cousins and females

and the fried and the role of the male of the pride. they passed on to them a thousand generations of what it is to be a lion and how do we think -- how can we imagine that we don't have the same requirement to pass on all the experience we have as human beings to our children? there are too many children in america who are not having an experience passed on to them and if you don't have the experience and don't see the good things in life guess what? you are going to find the bad things in life. that is one of the problems we have in our country. >> when we spoke last week, inga jamaica for the first time doing a story about jamaican sprinters and when i interviewed jamaicans it was wonderful. when we recorded jamaicans talking to each other, couldn't understand a word they were saying. you grew up bilingual.

>> all of my relatives spoke with a heavy jamaican accent. i had a few at second barely understand. never lost it. i could barely understand. never lost it. i could speak with them and understand and there certain things in the language you have to understand. how are you doing? not bad, not bad. that means he is doing good. how are you doing? not so good, that means it is bad. a chance to understand this reversal they have in the mexican. i love my upbringing, all of our school were immigrants are not immigrants have a special feeling for the family we were part of and the place we came

from or they came from and tight-knit. a story of love telling not in the book but told elsewhere in my neighborhood in south bronx was all tenements and i had ands living in every tenement building and when i walked home from school four blocks, banana kelly the neighborhood was called they were all hanging out the window leaning on a pillow on the windowsill. they never left. they didn't coat. they didn't go to the bathroom. they were always there, watching. if anyone of the cousins did anything wrong or get caught talk about the speed of the internet. nothing compared to the south bronx section of new york city. we were their greatest treasure. all of us our greatest treasure

today, they would not let us fail. too many children in inner cities. children are not raised and not fail in denver. for families to a private school or become valedictorian of his class and the first person in the family, how did it happen? never given the opportunity to fail. they felt that way about me -- i had to feel that way about me and i am first to finish high school. i have changed the history of my family and that is what we have

to focus on. >> one chapter of your book is called tell me what you know. you wrote about what you developed for your intelligence tests, tell me what you know and tell me what you don't know and tell me what you think and always distinguish which is which. this brings us to iraq. the big question in huge capital letters, specifically, someone we identify with caution and use of military force never going in life, waiting our obligations carefully in reference to environmental policies tell me about the decision that was made to go to war in iraq, and presentation to the un.

>> and george w. bush -- there were planes flying over the northern and southern portion of iraq. the regime breaks down and they are watching carefully to see whether or not they would allow the sanctions regime to breakdown the u.n. sanctions and iraq is free to do whatever it wants to or weapons of mass destruction again. they had been in the first gulf war. remember they used them against their own people to kill 5,000 iraqis and fired them against the iranians. no figment of our imagination that these people have the ability to do it and we thought they had them. they also were playing with nuclear programs that were not that far along and we had a pretty good idea they were playing with biological weapons as well which are more difficult to use never know unless they are deadly.

then along comes 9/11 and the president is faced with the challenge of bringing the country together and fighting this conflict we are now in brought to us from afghanistan by al qaeda. we go to afghanistan correctly and get what seems to be under control at the time. a terrific job although it didn't stay under control and the president's attention turned toward iraq. the legitimate concern provided by the community was could be a nexus between weapons of mass destruction that iraq has or could develop and terrorism. the president started to ask his military authorities to give plans for such contingency which they do. in august of 2002, licensed the president is receiving military information but never put it into a broader political

context. i asked to see him and went up and condoleezza rice was there and after dinner we went to a private study and i said mr. president you need to understand if you have to use military force, and take out this regime we become the government of this country. if you take out a regime, 25 or twenty-seven million people standing there, you are in charge. we talked about it for a while. what that meant and what the implications could be and what do you think we ought to do? we are trying to avoid the war and let's go to the un. they are the offended party. we get the u.n. to act and get a resolution we put the inspector is back in and see if saddam hussein wants to play by the rules and turn over everything he has and give us the

information. the president agreed and september of 2002 he went before the un and made the case for .n the u.n. to get engaged. we got a resolution in november putting saddam hussein on notice and demanding he turn over all the information on weapons he had. he flunked that test. sir saddam hussein might still be in charge that won't have weapons of mass destruction and it is necessary to use military force i would be fully supportive because you tried to avoid the war and to speed this up in late january, none of us were satisfied with the response or what the u.n. had been able to fully and cover. by the middle of january the

president decided force would be necessary. at the end of january i was with him and he said we need to present our case to the united nations and the world and i would like you to do it. do it next week. four days from the time he told me to the time i made the presentation i wasn't concerned because the case was being worked on by the national security council which most of us thought. and when i saw the case being worked on it wasn't -- won't be needed. it didn't connect to the intelligence or cross reference things. how did it get like this? he provided all the information and they took it there. i was concerned. could get a change in time because the president announced i would be there on the fifth of february. i wasn't worried because there was a national intelligence

estimate asked for by congress that have gone to the congress the previous fall and based on that national intelligence estimate congress overwhelmingly passed a joint resolution saying to the president to try to solve this diplomatically but if we can't we will support you going to war. almost four months before i was going to go to the un congress that.n. congress that we will support you. i knew i could pull it together. 54 days and four night with my staff and pulled it together with the director of national intelligence and the combined wisdom of 16 intelligence communities that came together and so we pulled it all together and i tossed a lot of it aside because there weren't enough sources for it and for things that were in the presentation i

was a short war well sourced and they could stand behind it. i went to new york and brought slides with me and had a presentation that was invented by the cia, every word was attested to and bought by the cia with the intelligence the president had he had been using it. my colleagues in the administration using it. that is what i presented and i thought it went off rather well. the british and spanish foreign ministers joined in agreeing and others such as the french and russians and others who were not in agreement. a month later the president decided to plunge the military action and within a few weeks we discovered nobody has found anything over revers. we can't find anything. and then over time it started to emerge a little bit at a time that some of the sourcing we had

been assured of, congress acted on, and some of the sourcing was not reliable. it was a single source we never met. we had been getting information from the germans and never talked to this guy. the case of the presence of weapons of mass destruction started to fall apart completely. we still felt he had the capability to develop them and if left free of sanctions he would develop them. he knew he was developing nuclear weapons and everything imaginable that would be that. it turned out not to be the case. a lot of people agreed with the case and bought into it. the cia stuck by it. six months later the cia said we

still support the judgments we made last year. and so the problem i have had for the last nine years was not withstanding all that, my presentation is seen as the defining one. the most prominent one became the symbol of the whole intelligence package we put together and answering questions about it. i am glad saddam hussein is gone and we don't have to worry about weapons of mass destruction being present or not present at the human rights violations not completely through the transition but we have given them an opportunity for a better life for the people. i will always regret the information i presented was wrong but i get offended when people say you all knew this was a lie. we accepted your considered judgment and the judgment of the director of essentials intelligence and all 16

intelligence peaces that feed into them but i am seen as the symbol of in all and that is something i have to work with and i discussed this in the book. i will never get rid of that. will be in my obituary. i have to keep moving forward. said i regretted it. i regretted that the intimation was wrong. if in fact as you told president bush if saddam hussein gives up his weapons of mass destruction he would remain in power. he would be in compliance with what we were demanding. unreality he didn't have any weapons of mass destruction. >> yes. he chose not to take the get out of jail card. we gave him an opportunity but he didn't want us to know that he didn't have them and his own people to know he didn't have them. he really thought we would not

attack. somebody would stop us. the french for the germans or somebody would keep it from happening. and president bush was determined we had to remove him and this potential threat and provide a better life for the iraqi people. so controversial to this day but that is the story. >> did you feel strongly that the u.s. was sending too few troops to iraq to occupy the country? >> you didn't know what was going to happen once baghdad fell. no question in my mind the capture of baghdad would be easy. brought the iraqi army down in size sir luann and so i had no question about that. as we developed a plan i was concerned that not enough force was going in in anticipation of what else might be a problem once we got there. i called general franks and said don't want to getting your

business but are you sure you have enough troops to deal with this? you don't know what is going to happen after you have achieved the initial objective. he was satisfied with what he did. the joint chiefs were satisfied. secretary rumsfeld was satisfied and these are the military authorities and they persuaded the president. baghdad fell quickly and what surprised me is as soon as baghdad fell you could almost see within a week or so ministries being burned down. things that saddam hussein kept suppressed popped up between shiite and sunni and kurds and the bombings started and my colleagues dismissed all of this as dead end as one of my colleagues describe it and seemed we were not dead ends. while this was emerging we were sending troops home and we

stopped the flow of additional troops that were supposed to come because we expected some sort of iraqi government to spring into place quickly and there would be no need for a large number of troops. you may remember when the chief of staff of the army and now secretary of veterans department was asked at a hearing how many troops do you think it will take? he said a couple of hundred thousand and he was immediately criticized by the leadership of the department of defense the next day as saying that can't be right. we don't agree with the general. this is a general who lost a leg in vietnam and the around 30 odd years and was involved in the balkans and knows about all this. he was immediately dismissed because we didn't expect that happen. the thing you don't expect to happen are the things you plan for and be ready for when they do happen.

>>, pounding this, you write that the decision had been made to keep the iraqi army in uniform so they could maintain order in the country wants the regime was decapitated and you were surprised when the man who was u.s. chief of the operation was suspended. >> there was a serious discussion of how are we going to keep order if we don't have enough troops to do it? we need some forces to help us keep order. the iraqi army was one of the few functioning institutions in the country. not functioning well but a bunch of institutions. ambassador bremer who was the man on the scene felt strongly the army ought to be disbanded because it was such an instrument of oppression. that was his point of view but we have studied this and received three separate

briefings from the pentagon saying that they were counting on getting rid of the really bad leaders of the iraqi army and filling it back up with individuals because the structure was still there rather than building a new army. the cia felt that was the right way to go. i did. my staff did and the president was briefed that this was what we were going to do. between the pentagon is it is not clear where it originated -- [talking over each other] >> gave jerry bremerton necessary guidance and instructions to disband the army if that is what he thought was right and he issued the order disbanding the army. i did know what was coming after. i knew senior members of the joint chiefs of staff to know. the cia didn't know what and the army was totally disbanded and you have hundreds of thousands of people who are armed and

trained in the use of arms who are set free and within a few weeks lining up wanting their pensions now that they have been fired. we had to pay something in order to keep the peace so we started to rebuild an iraqi army and it has taken some time. i think was a bad decision. if jerry bremer was here he would tell you it was the right decision but i think it was the wrong decision and most importantly it was not what we told the president we were going to do. >> given that the u.s. is now out of iraq in terms of being a combat force what ultimately -- what is the legacy within the military? what are we going to be like because of the iraq experience? >> let me start with the military. the military has remarkable capacity to learn from experience.

they are one of the most introspective organizations in american society. they look in the mirror and see the reality. they don't hide from the reality. i am absolutely confident the united states armed forces will recover and recover rather quickly. going back and forth every few months they have time to get back into training and therefore sins and they will learn a lesson. one of the lessons they are looking at, i keep in touch with our new friends and read the necessary magazines and literature in 19 years. i am retired but haven't resigned and they called me back. right after the cubs scout they called me back. we are not that desperate. but they are great. and learn from it. one of the things they are looking at right now is what is

counterinsurgency and what is the best way to go about it? what i saw in iraq and afghanistan was counterinsurgency but to an infantryman in just looks like fighting bad guys. young private or young sergeant or lieutenant you are in a fire fight with somebody and getting blown up and i think what the military is looking at now is what doctrinal concepts are appropriate to this new 20 first century world we're living in now that we are out of iraq and coming out of afghanistan in course. the good news here is there really is no fear military competitor in the united states of america. the only two nations that have the potential economic capacity

for population i challenge -- india and china. the chinese of building their forces and ask for greater transparency. we are not going to blow that. i try china with great interest, i am not of the view that china will become an enemy because they got nowhere been our enemy in the past and got very far by not being our enemy and being the second-largest economy on earth and have a hundred million people who are dirt for wanting to know when it is their turn. we have no peer competitor like the old soviet union. russia is not the soviet union. >> mitt romney says there -- >> i disagree. i don't think they are. do they get silly and say things that are troublesome? vladimir putin does it all the time. [talking over each other]

>> i said vladimir putin. [laughter] [talking over each other] >> see what happens when you work with these guys? >> wasn't sure who was speaking. in a moment we will take some questions from the audience. i want to ask you seriously if you got your calls returned and if you were in the discussion these days two quick questions. what would your key message the about? syria and iran? >> it is an extremely difficult situation. i have met with president us awed --assad. he lies constantly. you can't trust him on anything but he is in solid control even with all of the trouble he is facing and he is of a minority

group, his father went through something like this and killed 80,000 people. these are brutal folks who are not going to give up power easily and even if they were to leave power easily or otherwise it is not entirely clear what it is we would be supporting on the other side. if i was -- very careful before you start suggesting intervention is appropriate, i feel more violent. finding a political solution is the best way, is going to be very hard. the opposition will want to leave and he ought to leave. he ought to leave. he knows if he leaves the consequences to his tribe and interests more than he can bear. on the other side we need to

have a clearer idea of who would be taking over power. with respect to iran keeping the pressure on. they are really starting to hurt but they're not giving up their nuclear program easily. we have been trying to do this eight or nine years. and developing rockets and things like that. the solution may emerge that is all you want is power let's talk about do that in the most strenuous regime of inspections we can come up with an foot you in the box so you made the slightest mistake for you are lying to us and it is detectable, you will face

serious consequences. >> meaning we will attack you and on your facilities? >> in my world diplomacy is military stuff. the most serious consequences is a wonderful term because it doesn't tell you what you will do. let him worry what we might do. when you do it you do it. he will understand -- he knows what we could do to him. the other thing where i am more heretical on this than my colleague this in the academic community, i have been around nuclear-weapons and national security adviser and chairman for 50 years. i was taught how to employ nuclear weapons at age 25. i was a corps commander in germany guarding the narrowest part of the nato corps of the nato defense area from boulder

gap -- if they came through me, they were -- they would split nato in half. my work plan was to stop them the best we could waiting for reinforcements to come from the united states. we thought we could only do that for a few days because they had three armies facing my one course a we would have to call in nuclear-weapons. i still remember on the field one day we were studying this problem and the game we were playing the battle reached its third day and staff was a we need to call for the release of nuclear weapons and i said let me see the target we're going to drop these on and they were all in west germany because the russians had come through. where did all the germans go? we evacuated them. it was so surreal but it was real. weapons for their and could have been used and if we had done it for russians would have responded and i don't think it

would have stop the escalation that would take place. i learned from that experience that these things are really not usable. we can teach her somebody with them. we can feature the russians and the russians the terrace. reagan wanted to put in the strategic defense system to make some worthless because you shoot one at has and will knock it down. as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff i had under my supervision 28,000 nuclear weapons, 28,000. my russian colleague and i would talk a lot and i was talking backstage, when the cold war was ending and we talking candidly to one another one day we were talking about the security systems we had on our missiles to make sure there were no accidents and one of the systems we were talking about he had a level of security that was higher than mine. he had one more level of protection to keep them from

being used and i said how come you have this tactical error? he said we lost forty million we don't want to take that chance again. these can't be used. you know and i know it. i agree. the consequence of the existential consequences of such use are almost unimaginable. when you look at iran, eighty million people, under enormous pressure, people can say they will fire one of these just to hit israel. i find that a little difficult to internalize the cause they know they would be destroyed the next day. they may want to go to heaven and beat somebody up there but more important for them is

survive. [talking over each other] >> you believe they would buy into the logic of deterrence. >> i wouldn't rely on it totally but i would not dismiss the deterrence by saying they are crazy. they are not crazy. they may not be like us but they want to survive just like the north koreans. they want to survive and the first thing to ensure they would not survive is to use those weapons. the turns and containment plays a role in all of this but i don't want to see them get a nuclear weapons. i don't want their nuclear program to go higher towards and richmond for a nuclear weapon and create rockets that would deliver such weapons. we ought to put all the diplomatic and political and economic pressure on them that we can because sooner or later it will cause them to rethink the awful position they are putting themselves in. i once met with the iranian foreign minister and we were careful not to get in trouble talking to each other but i want

to make small talk. what is the biggest problem in iran? is real or something like that? unemployment. we have to find 600,000 jobs every year. we are not doing it. the greatest political force at work around the world, we need to understand it in the united states is creation of economic growth and development. china didn't get successful where it is now by invading anybody or attacking anybody. they did it by making things people want to buy. india is coming in the same direction. any of these countries -- they need to keep growing wealth. what caused the arabs spring? fundamentalism? no. they want jobs. they want to get rid of corrupt governments and collect their own leaders. it was a fruit seller who set himself on fire because he got in arguments with local

authorities. he set himself on fire and started the arabs spring. >> there are two mike stands. one in each aisle in the front. we have time for tough questions and we will alternate from one side to the other and let me begin with this microphone here. >> i am proud you are here tonight and i appreciate you and robert being here to talk. since you have been on both sides of the last couple decades on the military side, do you think with our military force which is in comparable to anything else in terms of doing their job but are you asking you to do a lot not just to defend

us but also to do nation-building? >> the principal reason for the existence of the military is to defend us and apply state's power against an enemy. doesn't mean we can't do other things but that has to be the principle issue and my humble view -- the way for constitution is written you raise and support armies. you don't need them you get rid of them but fundamentally they are a fight. when you look at japan and germany after world war ii they were not run by diplomats. douglas macarthur and a series of generals in germany they are doing peacemaking and peacekeeping they created constitutional governments so the military can do anything that they are asked to do. very competent, skilled group of men and women and we should be

proud of them. they exist to fight the nation's battles. >> question here? [talking over each other] [inaudible] >> little closer. >> i would like to ask you to please consider -- [inaudible] [cheers and applause] >> i did my cell long ago. as robert said and it is in the book, with an enormously difficult time because i felt this obligation being put upon me by many people and a lot of people said we don't want to see

you anywhere near politics so it was not as unanimous as you suggest. what finally pushed it over the edge is there was not a single morning i did not wake up and deep inside of me that i think it was the right thing to do. it just didn't fit me. i am not a politician. i am basically a soldier. there was never a morning when i wanted to get up and go out and do that. i am so glad we have the obamas and from thes and bushes and kerris and they have a feeling for it which i don't have and also my wife was not in favor of it. people think it was because of your wife. we have been married 50 years years. [applause]

the decision was 100% beginning with me and she shared my view and people -- she didn't marry me when i was chairman. she married me when i was a young captain heading to vietnam for a year leaving behind a baby that would be borne along the way. we are close. very close. >> there is another part of the book that says the best thing about being disappointed is you get over it. [laughter] >> everything is in this book. you got to get it. [talking over each other] >> we need her. think about it. >> a little different. some of us are good at engineering. some are good at rotc. do you think educator's allow

more choice among the younger in the first two years so they can select those careers and subjects they are interested in and they can't do their work? >> this is a fascinating question we could spend an hour on. my public school education, lifelong out of education. i know you are suggesting that. [talking over each other] >> now you are being asked to theorize about higher education. >> one of lifting of i found and i only tripped over this in recent years. only in the last few years i have gone over trying to bring up old memories, in high school i was exposed to stuff that bored me to death at the time but 30, 40 years later i remember it with such warm up vividness and it was there all

the while having an influence on me. we had appreciation and music. all of these are things our children need to be exposed to and not just how do i hazmat and science to get to the next grade. it would be a shame that in the course of the education of our children we don't expose them to lots of things and give them greater choice within want to do with their lives. most at that h.r. not sure so exposed -- give them a man you. something will turn them on just like rotc turned me on. that is what i tell kids. keep looking for the thing you'd do well and loved doing.

don't stop. it isn't fame and fortune or the amount of money maker the titles you get. it is doing that which you do well and love doing. i was talking to a group of students not long ago. i didn't come in the army to the general but to be a soldier and they could have sent me home anytime they wanted and i would have been happy and i came into being sold for as long as they wanted so we have to get kids down from this and make a zillion dollars and say i am going to be the next guy who invents facebook or something. bed and to find out -- stop seeking until they find it. >> most of iraq i was working

for nato. i had a different environments, i was the crazy american europeans were talking to about where we are doing this. i tried to play my part pretty well. one of the puzzles, there were so many leaks that shocked me so completely. there was a lot of rumor. and -- might be weapons in syria. >> i saw those reports and we looked into them thoroughly, the

weapons were there, and no evidence that either of those accounts for the absence and weapons. and judgments of the intelligence committee. >> you say, there are no piers or geopolitical rivals. why didn't we think so many politicians or american constituents feel the same level of military spending is to be maintained to the detriment of domestic spending that would benefit nation building here at home. [applause] >> a couple answers to that question. i am not sure what the right levels should be. i am not in any more. at the end of the cold war i recommended to mr. cheney who was my boss and president bush that we cut 25% and we did.

everything was going so we cut 25%. i don't know if that level of cuts is in the cards. i don't think we can make that kind of cut but the pentagon should be like any other government department analyzing to see what we don't really need. there are a lot of hardware programs that are going to be challenged and if the sequestration is anywhere close to being implemented the pentagon will have to make further reductions. we should not spend $1 more on military spending than we need to. we should not spend $1 less. we need the right balance. i have confidence in generals and admirals who understand the real strength in the country is from an economy that is working well. it is always argued and we can't agree with that defense spending is at the expense of domestic spending. we ought to spend what we can on

domestic programs as well. the things that broke the soviet union is they couldn't do both. we can do both so constrained defense spending is that which is absolutely needed and told to was by our commanders and domestic spending should be what is needed to take care of our people. ..

>> we ought to start now to figure out how to bring our government spending down which means all of us have to give up something. i could think of several things they could take away from me tomorrow, and i couldn't complain about it. so there are ways to cut spend anything a sensible way and also reform our tax code which is terrible, get rid of loopholes. so there are things we can do, but you can't quite find the right combination of political support and politicians who will move in this direction. and it isn't going to happen just because of an election. you know, neither mr. romney, more mr. obama are supermen. super people are those of us here and around the country. you'd better start examining the issues, examining what all these folks stand for, and not only if they say they'll do it, but what they're able to do because of the political strength or strength of the party. we're in charge of this right now.

not the super pacs and rich guys writing checks to people. american people have got to sort of back away from the far left and far right, back away from the television commentators commenting on other commentors, and start taking a hard look at where we are and what we're doing. [applause] >> just to stand up for the commentators for a second, were you saying that if the cuts that would take effect under the sequestration if nothing else happens, that's doable or -- >> i think the sequestration is not going to happen even though it's on the books. in my judgment, it's not going to happen, and i'm not a political handicapper in this, but i don't think it's going to happen because the consequences would be too severe not only for domestic spending, but for defense spending. that would definitely twaik the defense department down too low. they're already taking between $400 and $500 billion right now,

and the pentagon is not able to take that kind of reduction. nor do i think congress would allow it to take place. they would find exceptions. since congress put this into the law, they're just as capable of taking it out of the law. >> we have time for just two more questions, one here and one there. let's go to this microphone. >> general powell, it's an honor and privilege. thank you for being here tonight. i was wondering if you could expound on some leadership principles that you took away from your experience in the bush office, specifically president bush coming in, being seen as a relatively young and inexperienced individual but packing his cabinet with really, you know, strong veterans, but also veterans who had very strong personalities that in the prelude to the iraq war often clashed and created a -- [inaudible] in leadership. so what team leadership advice can you give to leading a team well that has such strong

personalities? >> yeah, strong personalities don't necessarily create a conflict, and bush 41, george herbert walker bush, the personalities were very strong as well. to include some of the personalities from the second bush first term, me, mr. cheney and others. and we got along well. this time around we got along well on so many issues. if you look at what we did to expand nato, what we did to support the expansion of the european union, what we did with hiv/aids investment, what we did to increase the amount of assistance we give to the rest of the world. a lot of things were done very, very well, and in total harmony and comity. principally because there weren't strong feelings about the issue. on the issue of iraq, that was the key one, we had different points of view as to how many troops were needed, different points of view about how we should resolve some of the

issues. and it finally reached a point where i said to the president in early 2004 that we weren't working as well as we should as a team and that, um, it seems like if there's somebody who was more out of frequency with the others, it's me. and so i only wanted to stay one term and, therefore, right after the election i want to step down, and the president agreed. he understood the problem. so in my view, we were not functioning as a team. so how do you function as a team? one, everybody has to to have a common purpose, a common view of what we're trying to achieve, mutual respect with each other and trust with each other. and i think we could have done a better job of that. and i will, you know, as i say, i was probably the one who was most out of sync with the others. that's why i left when i wanted -- when i said i was going to leave, and the president thought that was a good idea too. >> well, for the record, i appreciated your point of view the most personally.

so thank you. [laughter] >> thank you very much. [applause] >> one more question from the audience. >> hello, general. my question is a lot of us americans are always saying what's wrong with america. i personally happen to believe that we're still the land of prosperity and opportunity. in your opinion, what's right with america? >> oh, so much. um, we've got a wonderful democratic system that is noisy, looks like it's riven with conflict. it's always been that way, it was designed that way. but right now it's getting a little harder to resolve conflicts. but our democratic system has stood the test of time. and we've faced slavery, we've faced civil wars, we've faced all kinds of challenges, and we ultimately come out the other end in pretty good shape. it's the other guys who fell apart. i mean, the soviet union said they'd beat us to death, and

they collapsed. china realized, this isn't working, we've got to be friends with america, not their enemy. we've got to be trading partners. and so we have this resiliency in our makeup as a nation and as a people that takes us through difficult times. and i've seen difficult times. and when you look at some of the founding fathers, what they went through, these guys really argued, they fought with each other. they had duels, they used to shoot each other. never mind. [laughter] but, you know, the two documents that i love to read are jefferson's first and second inaugural addresses. in jefferson's first inaugural address, it's a beautiful, soaring address talking about america and what it means and what we're going to do for the people. beautiful. but four years later when he wrote his second inaugural address, he was mostly mad and annoyed. [laughter] and he was mostly annoyed at the

press. [laughter] there's a long section in the inaugural address where he's going on and on, the press, they ought to be thrown this jail. why don't the states lock these pele up? [laughter] i'm serious. i'm paraphrasing a little, but not much. he says they ought to be thrown in jail, they're violating the laws in what they say about me and others. but then he pauses, and in typical jeffersonian manner, he says, but given the choice between allowing people to speak freely or throwing them in jail, i choose the former. and the reason he said he could choose the former is because if everybody speaks long enough, the truth will win. the truth will always beat the lies. the truth will always overcome falsehood. and we've lived by that principle. second, we have the best economy. even with our difficulties, the it's the strongest economy in the world. we're number one and have been

and will continue to be. um, and so resilience and a strong economy, strong military where i think political and wealth processes are more important now. and above all we have a glue that holds us together as americans. we're all proud to be americans. and when i really think about this and see the waves of immigrants that come to this country and the speeches i give, i tell two little story, quick stories, and i'll end on this about what it means for americans to understand how we affect the rest of the world. even though people are complaining around us, people are lined up at all of our embassies and consular offices, and tomorrow morning they'll all say the same thing; i want to go to america. but the first story has to do with a japanese businessman. very rich, owned many

conglomerates, and he was being interviewed, and the interviewer says of all the cities you visit, which is your favorite? and he says new york. and the guy says to him, new york, why new york? why not rome, why not london? new york city is the only city where when i walk down the street people come up to me and ask for directions. [laughter] try that in paris. [laughter] it's remarkable. we're a nation of nations. we're strength, we're renewed and refreshed with every generation with immigrants coming here. and they come here, immigrants go to europe to get jobs. immigrants come here to get jobs but also to become be americans. try that in half the countries in europe, see if you can become one of their citizens. you can't. and then the final story which my assistants with me, whenever i'm in new york i love to walk

up fifth or park avenue on a beautiful day and look at the shops and the churches and the synagogues and everything. and admire all the people going by in the other direction. but i always have to stop at one of the numbered cross streets where there's a pushcart hot dog peddler. i always have to have one. and special mustard and red onion and relish. and and i've got to have one. so even when i was secretary of state, i would come out of my suite at the waldorf-astoria -- [laughter] start up park avenue and have five bodyguards around me, three police cars would roll alongside me. park avenue to make sure nobody whacked me as i was going up park avenue. [laughter] and i always would stop and order my hot dog. and the guy would look at the bodyguards and -- i've got a green card, i've got a green card! [laughter]

but now aye got no body -- i've got no bodyguards, no police cars, i the the ill do it. it kind of goes something like this, hot dog, mustard, red onion and relish. he fixes it and starts to hand it to me. i know you, i see you on television. oh, you're, you're general powell. yes, oh. oh. hands me the hot dog, and i hand him the money. it happens over and over. general, no. you can't pay me. you don't have to pay me. america has already paid me. i'll never forget where i came from, but now i'm here, and my children are here, we're americans. general, please, i've been paid. take the hot dog. and i take it, continue walking up the street, and it just washes over me, my god, this is still the same country that greeted my parents that way 90 years ago. don't ever sell this place short. we're still, we're still the top, we're still the leader of

the world that wants to be free. thank you. thank the synagogue. [applause] >> is there a nonfiction author or book you'd like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail at booktv@cspan.org or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. two day of live coverage from "the chicago tribune"'s printers row lit fest this weekend on booktv starting today at is 1 a.m. eastern -- 11 a.m. eastern. rich cohen on the banana man in latin america when the people shouted yankee go home, they had him in mind. that's at 1. and at 5, r. duane bet was convicted as an result at age 16. his memoir finds him coming off age in prison. gail collins on america's role

on politics. and at 2, thomas mallen has a story to tell in "watergate: a novel." also this weekend on "after words," madeleine albright on growing up in check czechoslova. this weekend on booktv on c-span2. what are you reading this summer? booktv wants to know. >> i'm just finishing the hillary mantel bring up the bodies. i reread the first of the trilogy that she's going to do on thomas cromwell. i know a lot about the tudors, it's an area i've always been interested in. she does a masterful job of telling a story that is oft told and yet telling it in a brand new way. and this summer i'm probably going to read, um, a new novel called "the age of wonders" that has been getting a lot of attention.