and i want to add one more to that list. there is no honor without courage. pleading with honor is the one thing that can turn this country back to the way that we think it ought to be. and that is the message we want to get out. do the right thing for the country. do the right thing for your

duty. lean into the pain and just go do it. don't be afraid to do it. just do it and we will all be proud of you. we are all hungry for that kind of leadership. tonight i want to thank you again for being here and i want to ask you to continue your efforts to spread that message. for the p.o.w.s, we know that our message was returned with honor. the story of senator mccain's return and how he didn't come home early but returned with honor has always been a great inspiration to me. thank you for that example, thank you for being here with us tonight. that message, return with honor, let's twisted just a little bit for the american society, the american culture, for all of us. lead with honor, lead with

honor. when we get that message in our mind, this country will return to honor and we will all be lest great leap by this. god bless you all and thank you for being here. [applause] >> we have several p.o.w.s here tonight. i know senator mccain has got to lead. i want to ask the p.o.w.s jim warner come down, bob hanson -- tom hanson, jerry. where's my list. [inaudible question] elected over there. who is the other one here? there is jerry. who is the other p.o.w.? sam alvarez. okay, he is gone. come on up and they will take our picture. [applause] [applause]

>> he here we go. how about one so we can see the title of the book. perfect, thank you. right here. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> thank you so much again. it was wonderful. >> thank you so much. >> thank you again.ñ [inaudible conversations]]

yes, definitely. they are the heroes. i am just a young kid. [inaudible conversations] >> enjoyed the book. >> can i give you a hug? >> thank you so much. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2. 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend.

good evening. is my pleasure to welcome you and thank you for your support. investor henry compton is the founder of crumpton group a strategic international advisory and business development form which works with global corporations including those in the infrastructure, energy and financial services industries. he advises ceos and their teams on the political, security and commercial dynamics in emerging and frontier markets. ambassador crumpton joins us in the clandestine service in 1981 as an operations officer. for most of his 24 year career he operated in the foreign field including assignments. in washington he served at the fbi's debut cheaper than international terrorism operations section. he was deputy chief of the cia's counterterrorism center and in

2001 and 2002, he led the cia's afghanistan campaign. he then became chief of the cia's national resources division and from 2005 until 2007 ambassador crumpton served as coordinator for counterterrorism at the u.s. department of state. for his service ambassador crumpton has been honored with many common nations including the distinguished intelligence medal the cia's highest award for achievement. we are delighted that ambassador henry crumpton is with us this evening to present his new book, "the art of intelligence," lessons from a life in the cia's clandestine service. would you please join me now in welcoming ambassador henry crumpton. [applause] >> charles thank you for that great introduction and for the opportunity to come and speak at this store. it is really a privilege.

tattered cover has been in the denver area for more than 40 years, providing a great service to the community and we were talking earlier and he noted that tattered cover hosted 600 events a year. that is pretty remarkable so thanks for what you and all your colleagues do for the denver community. i would like to recognize and people some people here if i may. bill owens, thank you for coming, former governor of colorado here for many years. i'm honored that you could attend. paul and marlene god bless you i love the poor -- will. my family, my wife, our son to just graduated from college and my brother-in-law, steve, thank you all for joining me tonight. it makes it very special. the topic is intelligence. why is that important? why will it be of greater

importance, and what should we do? we as citizens. i include myself in that category, private citizens. i left government service more than five years ago, and as i reflect back on my many years in the government, 24 with the cia and 18 months serving under secretary rice for counterterrorism, and follow current events, i believe that intelligence is going to be a much greater importance. why is that? primarily because of the growing complexity our nation faces and the battlefield and the marketplace, really all the aspects of life. there are three variables that i would like to underscore very briefly that i think impact on this global landscape.

the first is the asymmetry of power. 9/11, 19 guys with box cutters, did they compel us to spend may be $2 trillion? that is breathtaking he think about it. the impact of a single cameraman working for al qaeda with horrible images uploading this into cyberspace having an immediate global impact, it advanced thing the propaganda of al qaeda and their allies. one cameraman having global impact within minutes, maybe even seconds. what about that single hacker who is able to infect thousands, tens of thousands, maybe more computer systems around the world? in seconds. these are just a couple of examples but it underscores the point that the asymmetry of power is growing and it's not just in terms of threats and

risks but also opportunities. who would have thought someone like zuckerberg eight years ago would be able to build a company like facebook and think how many people individuals, small companies, entities, that facebook and other social media -- mediums have been able to empower. that is the tremendous asymmetry of power, challenging the status quo and that is growing. in fact i think it's accelerated. the second variable is the role of nonstate year's. when we used to think about war, conflict not very long ago, it was nation-state on nation-state primarily. it's always been irregular forces of course, always irregular warfare, but more often than not today when we think about threats to the united states we think about risk, we are talking about

nonstate at yours, al qaeda, hezbollah, the narcotraffickers south of our border and within the united states, these transnational cartels. they have 25 to $40 billion a year in revenue, mostly from consumers in the u.s.. and their growing influence not just in mexico, the u.s. and central america but the reach goes to central african year. and nonstate actor. there are many other examples. but also universities, nonprofits, clergy, media, private companies like the tattered cover, this bookstore. more and more when they think i think about the variables along this global landscape, we are thinking about nonstate at year's. in afghanistan, after our

efforts immediately preceding 9/11 in afghanistan, looking back on that. i realize that the most important ally we had in that fight was not a nation-state. it was not nato. it was nonstate actors, those afghan tribal leaders scattered throughout the country. they were our ally in that fight and you see that repeated in many places around the world. but they are variable is global battlefield. i talked about that single hacker or that single al qaeda operative with those horrible images uploading in cyberspace. more and more our enemies, our adversaries, they can plot and plan on one side of the world and execute on the other in days, hours or in cyberspace we are talking seconds. so if you look at these three variables, the asymmetry of power, their growing role of

nonstate actors, and this flat, complex, fragile global battlefield if you will, the emergence and convergence of those variables, we have never seen this in the history of human conflict. and so when we think about, what are the risks out there? who are our enemies? how do we define them? how do we find them? and then once we do, how do we engage them? these are questions that are meant for intelligence collectors and analysis, to inform policymakers and other consumers of intelligence so they can make that her decisions. they can launch better, more precise, more refined operations that advance the interest of not just the u.s. but also our allies. than to give you an example, in

afghanistan after 9/11, when kandahar fell december 7, 2001, the last urban stronghold of the taliban, how many americans were on the ground at that time? bear in mind that a quarter of al qaeda leadership had been killed, 10, 20, maybe 30,000 or more of the enemy al qaeda and the taliban had been killed on the battlefield. their leadership was routed and they were on the way to pakistan. how many americans were on the ground? less than 500. this was less than 90 days after 9/11. and when i hear about the u.s. invasion of afghanistan after 9/11, i grind my teeth. because it was not an invasion. and that is a key point here. it was not just a u.s. victory.

it was an afghan victory. because we, through our networks, which were informed by our intelligence collection over the years, but we knew who our enemy was. we knew who our allies were and we also understood our respective potential allies and we worked to bring them to our side. intelligence that was very granular, very specific, at a local level. the cia had over 100 sources in every province, am on every tribe, among every strata of society in afghanistan. these were networks built over the last two years. we had mapped the human terrain, not just the physical terrain. we understood not just the enemy but our friends and our potential friends and allies. that is how we were able to work

closely with central command in special operations command to forge a strategy that brought us that initial success. the late speaker of the house and great american politician, tip o'neill, he transferred all politics locally. if you look at some of the risks that we faced with this global landscape that i described, that is also true for intelligence collection. you have to understand those neighborhoods, those villages, those valleys and the people because we are destroying asymmetry of power and the role of nonstate actors on this flat, complex, complicated global arena, we have to understand. not just the threat, not just the enemy but the human terrain. more and more this type of conflict that we face, driven by

nonstate actors in some states like iran and north korea and others that support terrorist groups that sometimes direct substate at actors like the quds force in iran. they pose unique challenges but it really is more and more i believe a conflict about the people among the people and this is where human intelligence in particular is important. let me also talk about intelligence that helps inform our planning and their operations in afghanistan prior to 9/11. it wasn't just the human networks i talked about. signals intelligence, collection of information from the atmosphere, collection from cyberspace, satellite imagery and use of the predator drone. we were driven to that technical collection, that particular platform out of a degree of frustration. we had human sources in

afghanistan that were leading us to al qaeda and to bin laden for the years prior to 9/11, but policymakers in washington were unsatisfied with our reporting, did not trust their human sources. they wanted eyes on if you will, american eyes on. we offered to send cia teams deeper into enemy territory and bear in mind we started sending cia teams into afghanistan in september of 1999 to work with our afghan allies to collect intelligence and to engage in some very limited, very modest covert action. so the reporting we generated was insufficient according to the policymakers, to our master's if you will. so we look to technical means because we could not get approval to deploy our teams further into afghanistan. we looked at all kind of difference technical solutions and came up with the predator which have been proven in the

balkans so we networked and it was a reliable platform, and so with a remarkable effort which i describe in my book, a handful of policymakers and a handful of what i finally recall some bureaucrats not just in the cia's counterterrorism center, but in the military, other elements of the intelligence community. in a matter of months they put this package together, this flat warm or mend a system which we deployed into afghanistan. and sure enough, driven by intelligence collection from our sources on the ground, we were able to find bin laden and there was a 60 minutes clip that ran last sunday and there is an image of bin laden highlighted. that was taken from the video of that surveillance platform off of that predator. this was in the summer of 2000,

the year before 9/11. but, even with that intelligence, without confirmation, we did not have sufficient authorities or resources to engage with lethal force against bin laden then. and that is what led us to strap on the hellfire missiles which was another bureaucratic adventure. the technology in fact apparently was not that difficult. it would have been for me personally but for our technical staff, they said it wasn't that hard. but what was hard was figuring out, how do you strap on a hellfire weapon on an air force platform under the command of cia? that was a miracle, and again they did this in just a few months and in february 2001 the first successful test shot of the hellfire missile was spot on and that was one of the most precise, adaptable, flexible

weapons we have in our arsenal. the hellfire weighs about 20 pounds and you can direct it exactly where you want it. from a long way away. driven by necessity. what about threats we face now. [inaudible question] me just talk briefly about that. it's not just al qaeda and allies. they dominate the news and in fact in the last few months you see al qaeda affiliates surfacing in yemen, full scale war in yemen right now. and new terrorist group just claimed responsibility for the horrible attack in yemen, one of 100 people killed and 105 that last count, hundreds wounded. in syria another group just surfaced claiming responsibility for an attack. even in afghanistan, an offshoot of the taliban called the mullah

front has claimed responsibility for some horrific attacks. three nonstate actors have popped up just recently. so they dominate and of course outside and their affiliates, particularly al qaeda in the arabian peninsula based in that safe haven in southern yemen, they have tried to attack us in the homeland on three occasions. using aircraft coming our way. but there are many others. iran and the substate after quds force, their intelligence service, their proxy force hezbollah. before 9/11 hezbollah killed more americans than any other terrorist group and this is basically directed by iran. i believe in a proxy war iran is -- and i'm not sure that any of our policymakers understand that her

realize that, but that has been a long time. you have an iranian regime, one of the most corrupt on the face of the earth. seeking to develop a capability to at some point build a nuclear weapon. that is a threat. another threat not only make passing reference to this in the book but it's the espionage threat focused on the u.s.. i don't know this but i would guess there are more hostile intelligence officers inside the united states now than at the height of the cold war. and a significant part of that is focused on industrial espionage and the intellectual capital we have here in the u.s.. cyberspace, i referred to that. weapons of mass destruction, biological weapons in particular, i am particularly concerned about that. talk about intelligence challenge. how do you locate that one

biochemist whose got the ingredients and he is working in a small laboratory, maybe a kitchen that has been refitted? how do you find him? what are his capabilities and what are his plans and what are his intentions? that is a tough intelligence target. bw, that is a big problem. but what about russia and china cracks these emerging powers. what about china? i believe that china poses an espionage threat to us. they are sophisticated and they are aggressive but i'm also concerned about the stability in china. we need a strong china that increasingly adopts, embraces liberal values and liberal institutions.

they are paramount when you look at the economies of east asia. they are an important partner, of trade, commerce and battling transnational threats whether it's terrorism, other crime. we need a strong china, but one that we can trust, at least to the larger degree than we can today. russia, a powerful country and great resources. what is going to happen in this transition with putin? and his new leadership role. worry assuming that paramount title. and these great nations that are emerging so rapidly brazil, indonesia, india, what roles did they play? what will be the geopolitical impact wax many complexities and many questions. i have never seen in my adult life so many questions that intelligence must address.

and if you look at the risks, they are complex and there are many. i'm not sure if the world is more dangerous now than it was during the cold war though, when we lived under mutually assured destruction. it's pretty horrible for those adult enough to remember that. it's a different type of threat, a different type of risk. i also think there are greater opportunities out there. if you look at proliferation of liberal institutions, the media, universities, the arab spring. great opportunities but also it raises many questions that we need to address a think through intelligence to inform our policymakers and others whether the military law enforcement, diplomacy, trade. so for all of you thinking about a career in intelligence service i would encourage you -- [inaudible] let me close there.

i really do welcome a lot of questions and answers and the discussion here and again thank you for coming and i will open the floor up. [applause] >> how concerned are you about other countries or units like al qaeda getting ahold of the predator used against us, uap? >> is a great question. right now there are at least 40 questions that are engaged in the development and production of their own unmanned aerial systems including iran. we know that. there is really no way to keep that in a bottle. so much of this is unclassified. is commercially available and it poses a particular threat to the u.s.. how do we build a defensive strategy against those threats,

those airplanes? we are in the process of doing that and i think we have a long way to go. moreover it's not always the lethal threat. it's their intelligence collection capabilities against our, not just their homeland but particularly our troops and our embassies and other installations that are scattered all over the world. and it will be a growing counterintelligence problem for us. how do we defend ourselves against that type of technical collection? a big problem. a good question, thank you. >> i was wondering if you had any thoughts or concerns about the militarization of the cia like you were talking about with the way the's and whether not that will affect the cia's ability to pursue the intelligence that it needs to collect? >> that's a terrific question. i talked with the current director of the cia, general david petraeus about this not long ago. there is an imperative to

protect american forces overseas. there is just no way around that and it is a sacred mission if you will. the cia plays an important role in that, supporting the military and protecting the lives of our men and women in uniform. there is however a danger that this imperative takes us away from the more traditional, more strategic issues about geopolitical powers, russia, china, the threat coming from mexico and how do we work with our partners to do a much better job which is something we need to do. there is a stress, there is a strain in the cia's a small organization and the clandestine service of the cia's defense smaller. at handful of people really and how they are able to cover the waterfront, it's really tough and moreover if i could spend your question, i am concerned not only about the

militarization of intelligence, but the militarization of policy. when we look at the world and we think in military terms, and part of that is the success of our military. they are very adaptable. they are aggressive and they have done some terrific work. they want a leadership role. where i believe other parts of the u.s. government are less aggressive. in fact more reluctant, particularly the leadership over some of these expeditionary, high-risk environments. we do really good job of projecting military power, covert action power driven by this intelligence. the number three guy in al qaeda in south asia and the afghan and pakistan theater, the last decade, his life expectancy has been about six months. it's a job nobody wants. so if you are the number three

guy, the chief operating officer if you will, the guy that has to run operations for al qaeda and that part of the world, you have got a pretty grim future. it's because of this intelligence in this covert action of the military. we are brilliant i believe that finding, engaging and killing the enemy. it took us a decade to find bin laden but we got him. where we could do a lot more work is in nonmilitary non-covert action as part of our policy. how can the united states, how can we project this nonmilitary power all around the world, particularly in some of these expeditionary environments? what is the role of the state department and commerce and justice, of others? how can we secure those initial victor's? it pains me when i look at afghanistan, the success we had and the relative stability from zero to 205 where the afghans

were just waiting for the international community to come forward and to help them. not just in the u.s. but the community of nations, failed to protect this nonmilitary power. energy, education, health care. now we have spent billions and billions, wasting most of it i believe. we are exceedingly inefficient in doing that part of our mission. so when you talk about militarization of intelligence, it's also a policy and i don't necessarily blame the military. in fact i admire them. they are charging hard. they are going forward. i would like to see the rest of the u.s. government in this fight. when i say fight is not just talking about engaging with lethal force against the enemy. bees vintages and valleys that we have secured and we can secure, that hard power application, that is essential and it's critical because it's

stopping the enemy from killing us, stopping the enemy from attacking us in our homeland but that is only the first 10, 20%. what happens after that? how do you have an enduring victory? >> hello. i am with a major u.s. air kerry and we have multiple applications and -- and my concern is yemen and the other parts of africa and the security of our crews when they are laying over in those countries. do you see al qaeda and those other operations going throughout those regions and would you perceive them being at risk in those countries? >> i think it depends where you are in africa. it's a massive continent and we have more than 50 countries. it varies greatly.

my biggest concern right right s somalia, obviously. but the u.s. and our allies, the canyons and the ugandans and the ethiopians and some of the somali clans, they have done a pretty good job of containing al-shabaab, the al qaeda affiliate there, and it's not isolated. there were two or three years ago, a pretty serious attempt by some ethnic somalis in australia to launch terrorist attacks. they were able to uncover this plot, undermine it and to catcher -- capture those involved. there was a link back to somalia so when i talk about the global landscape, that is an example. in africa though, you have got a growing concern in northern africa. if you look at the instability in libya, there was just a coup in molly and now that has been driven more by the tribal dissatisfaction.

bears are satisfied with the government that anytime you got conflict, anytime you've got political confusion, it provides a qaeda an opportunity. that is what is happening yemen. that is what is happening in syria and i'm afraid that is what's going to happen in parts of north africa. so somalia we have been focused on for years and we are doing i think an adequate job for now and thanks in large part to our african allies there. north africa i'm a little more worried about. i'm also concerned about local nigeria. it tells you a lot about the al qaeda affiliates and our adversaries. if you look at bo koran and the local language it basically means down with western education. in other words, down with institutions. i believe that africa offers a lot of promise, a lot of opportunity if you look at the growth in some of the countries

like ghana, tanzania. enormous resources and you have this middle-class that is growing, that is really challenging the status quo. i spent 10 years in africa's indifferent countries in some respects i'm very positive about africa but acknowledging they are risk. i believe that they can be mitigated. the u.s. needs to be there. look at the chinese, the indians and russians, others that are in their competing. in these capital markets and is free enterprise opportunity. the u.s. needs to be in there. and projecting that nonmilitary power. it's not just the u.s. government, it's companies like yours, private enterprise, they goes into places like africa and affords the opportunity, the capabilities for africans to come and visit our country, to be educated here and go back home and help spread these liberal values that i think are so important in our overall strategy.

>> it seems like there has been a number of politicians and congressmen who are stepping up their vocalization and interfering in syria or intervening directly or otherwise. i'm curious what you think the united states's stance should be about that situation. hands-on, hands-off, somewhere in between? >> well, i think we should be a little bit more aggressive. i believe that the key strategic geopolitical strategic issue here when we step back and look at the middle east is that syria is really the only allied of iran and the middle east. if we pull syria out of that iranian orbit or let me rephrase that. if we help empower the syrian people to do what they want to do, and pull the assad regime down and therefore pull syria

out of the iranian orbit, that will immediately undermined the connections, the networks of hezbollah in lebanon which poses a direct threat, not just on israel but i think on the liberal institutions and the growing entrepreneurial middle-class citizens that we see throughout the middle east. so i think it's a big strategic opportunity. how we do this is important. now you have got saudi arabia and others i believe that are already supplying arms to the pre-syrian army. the united states government is supplying nonlethal aid, communication. beyond that i don't know what we are doing but i hope it's more than what i'd know or what the public knows because if we are not in there helping the syrian people, we are not competing and al qaeda is there. and other illiberal groups are there, trying to influence and drive the future of syria.

exceedingly complex? i don't argue we are putting u.s. troops on the ground there. that seems to spill over in lebanon and it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better there. but we have to engage at some point i believe. a good question, thank you. this gentleman here. >> the question in relation to terrorist activities, but social networking, enterprises and industries such as facebook that involve 700 million people and revenue of like $40 billion plus annually, what type of control factor other than an organization that i read about in "the wall street journal" called the technocrats that is being established, where the central intelligence agency plays in dealing with 700 million people and social networking? what type?

>> well i have been out of the cia for more than 70 or so i can tell you what they are doing in social networks and need even if i did know i wouldn't be able to discuss it. i will may could general comment that may address your question. i believe that this new technology, this proliferating around the world and is being manifested some social media like facebook or like others, linked in is another great example. this provides a great opportunity for individuals and liberal institutions i talk about. it empowers them and it connects them. and that advances our strategic objective in the united states. and i think that the intelligence community, not just the cia, need to understand how this will impact those communities. egypt is a prime example. they have an election there tomorrow. they can be led by these young, brave technocrats that organize through social media and

overthrew the mubarak regime. they really lead that revolution. they are increasingly sidelined and marginalized if they still have power particularly through social media. and if you look at some of the illiberal actors and groups in egypt that are now vying for power in concert with the egyptian military, how does all that play out? supposes a unique and challenging intelligence collection imperative i believe for the cia. so a very general answer but i hope that suffices. >> so you have mentioned the energy werder couple of times in her remarks. i wonder how much you see the energy issues and crises as the nexus of conflict in the 21st century and what should the u.s. be doing about our own energy security and independence in that regard? >> energy is crucial for lots of reasons. let me address your question and i'd also like to give you a microexample of how energy can be strategic in some of our

efforts. the u.s. has, through the power of private enterprise, uncovered a vast wealth of natural gas within our borders. it's breathtaking the impact this will have on our country. i think we should see that opportunity. we should do it responsibly. we should look at the environmental impact of course, that we should charge ahead and also look at solar, why oh, bland and all the others aspects of energy and i have a bias again toward local solutions whether it's in counterterrorism, counter insurgency or energy production because you build a more resilient, stronger system i believe. and right now if you look at our grid, our power grid, it's pretty fragile, given all these networks and links and i'd like to see that decentralize more and more and with natural gas and other types of energy, we can do that. sadly we don't have a national

energy strategy, at least not one that i know of. i think that should the one of the priorities for the next of administration, whoever that might be. another example of energy, talk about how you empower people through this technology, through social networks, bear in mind that many parts of the world you don't have energy. and without energy how do you connect to the rest of the global community? and this goes to understanding and the enemy strategy. if you look at large parts of south asia particularly pakistan, afghanistan on the border area what is the enemy's objective? they want to isolate those communities. they want to keep out western education, liberal values. they want to keep women disenfranchised. that is their strategy. they want to control those villages so our strategy of

belief should be just the opposite. how do we open up these communities to the world? and in 2001, less than 6% of the afghan people were on the electric grid. fast-forward today, probably six or 7% are on the electric grid in afghanistan. a complete and utter failure to provide the power to those afghan villages. and you look at the intensity of the solar radiation and all the biomass, look at the wind. it blows hard in afghanistan and that son will scorch you. there are enormous opportunities there and went to empower a village with energy, what is the first thing the villages want to do? they want to get a cell phone and they want to talk to the villages next door and they want to educate their kids. they want to get a satellite link in there. there is a great afghan entrepreneur who has got the rights for sesame street. he is translating sesame street

into local languages. how do you find a way to get back to the villages? i would love to see a broadcast of oprah, 20 years of oprah reruns. every afghan village and empower those women. [laughter] >> i have two questions that are kind of interrelated and it regards the u.s. ties. i have read that after 9/11, and my wife and i were outside the united states and we couldn't fly in. the north american airspace was closed except for one flight for saudi families, 106 families i believe that were allowed out. it was the only flight around the north american airspace. i simply don't understand that. the other side of this and for the u.s. sortie relationship,

sortie seemed to be the financial wherewithal to the education of the west and 16 of the 18 who were bombers were all sorties, and yet we seem to say that the sorties are our allies against this fight against all terrorism in the world. they seem to financially support terrorism and i really would like to hear your thoughts about the one flight that was allowed out. >> the flight you are referring to was from a saudi oil family here and their friends and i have a very imperfect secondhand knowledge of this. i'm not involved in that but that was my understanding. the saudi's, it's a very good question. the saudi's are a critical ally in the counterterrorism fight. they also i believe pose a political, competitive challenge to us. if you look at their ideology and not me talk about those of

those just very briefly. the saudis did very little to help us against al qaeda and their affiliates until may of 2003. why is that important? because that is when i'll skype -- al qaeda started attacking saudi facilities, saudi targets inside saudi arabia and the saudi's responded and did a 180 when that happened. i took a trip to saudi arabia to visit with deputy minister of interior. this was in 2006 i believe. this was when i was at the state department. the message was to do more to fight al qaeda. and i showed up and greeted very warmly. i in fact was with fran townsend who was homeland security advisers for president bush at the time. we were kept waiting two or

three hours and finally he showed up. clearly worn-out. he hadn't slept for a couple of days, big circles under his eyes. he had just lost two men in a firefight with al qaeda. we change the tenor of our discussion. and the saudi's are increasingly effective counterterrorism allies when you look at al qaeda. you look at the work they are doing in yemen. apparently they played a key role in stopping the latest al qaeda attacks. the second underwear bomber. the saudi's had an important role in that. the saudi's however are also i believe a political competitor. they are financing and directing a lot of the madrassas and pakistan that are fueling the youth to go into afghanistan and joined the taliban and seek to overthrow the karzai government. and there are other examples of that particularly in africa.

the wahhabi is not just a religion, it's a political ideology and i think it is in direct competition if you will with our liberal views of the world. and i think we should take them on. i have talked to them about it and we can do both. we can be allies against al qaeda and their affiliates but just like we compete against communism, think we can take this ideology on and i -- the muslim brotherhood and others and we haven't done that very well. again as intelligence requirement. how do you do define that threat? where's the spectrum? a terrorist enemy over here, political competitors here, those folks that might be mutual prospective allies in and how do you work along that spectrum? >> one flight was allowed to leave. >> i can. i just know that they were important saudi citizens including the royals that were here. i believe some of them may have been going to school but i just

don't know anymore than that. >> thank you. >> certainly. >> we have a relatively sheltered life compared to the rest of the world and the united states. what is your view on homegrown terrorism and how we have to combat that on the intelligence level as opposed to outside al qaeda forces we hear about that hit the news more often than not? >> paul, thanks. good question. more and more cases of this. the fort hood example from 2009, was one of the most terrific i think. i believe that first and foremost, we need to acknowledge freedom of religion, freedom of expression, legal immigration into our country is essential to who we are. that really helps us weep the strong fabric of american culture and american civic institutions.

we must always keep that in mind and we must always welcomed those who want to come hear who can contribute i believe. that is sort of my starting point. and also we must acknowledge those immigrants, recent immigrants in particular who contribute to the fight. i will give you an example. when i went into afghanistan in the fall of 2001, i had two young officers, u.s. citizens, cia officers that accompanied, muslim americans. they brought some unique cultural linguistic skills that i didn't have. they performed heroically. and when people talk about the mujahideen, the holy warriors and those waging jihad, those are the guys i think about. in fact i am pretty torqued that we have allowed al qaeda and others to define the lexicon of this war. we disparaging referred to jihadi's now in the

conversation. why do we confer upon them that title of holy warrior? i can't think of anything more unholy. let me answer your question now. here, the homegrown threat is growing and not just immigrants. you have white americans americans if you will that have been caught up in this. not just affiliated with al qaeda but all sorts. is part of this growing risk that i talk about. the first line of defense if you will is intelligence and when we think of intelligence it's important that we don't default to this concept of an orwellian, pervasive surveillance. now a lot of people do and some of the u.s. government think that's an easy answer if we have cameras everywhere and we have this unblinking eye. it is not an impact it concerns

me, given my emphasis on civil liberties here. the best intelligence solution to that is to become a local clergy, the local store owner, the teacher, parents, families, neighborhoods, communities. that is the best intelligence we have. trusted networks that can inform local law enforcement, local civic leaders, to help blunt that problem. but it takes more more than tha. it takes undercover operations, it takes sophisticated intelligence work. the best intelligence of -- a sample line know is nypd. they have done a very good job in the big and complex city. other parts of the city are far less mature and i'm concerned

about our intelligence on the homeland. i think it's fractured. i think it's far from complete. we need to do a much better job. the second part of that is education and that is one reason i wrote this book. to illustrate to the american public into our leaders and to our allies where risks are and where threats are in intelligence and the value of these trusted networks that i talk about. a good question, thank you. >> why did you decide to become a spy and not a diplomat or something else is one question in two when you talk to young people today who might be interested in going into the agency, what is your pitch? 's. >> thank you. a great question. i recount this in the book to some degree. i was raised in a small town in

georgia. my father was -- and my mother, here also, a teacher. they gave me a wonderful home environment, an environment where i was encouraged to read, to learn, to explore intellectually and also physically. we had a great time growing up hunting and fishing and trying to keep up with my dad when he was working in the forest or out hunting with him. and so, in this wonderful childhood, i was exposed to the warren county library. they didn't have a bookstore in warren. we did have a library. and fell in love with books, particularly american history and the american revolution, irregular warfare, south carolina. they had some great stories there and i was very very young when i was exploring all of

these books. and i wrote to the cia when i was 10 or 11 and got a response from some very non-bureaucrat in the cia. i can only imagine what it was, abe boies growing on some notebook paper. they sent a formal business letter, thank you and please reapply at a later date. and i did. i was rejected again at age 21 and was basically given the same answer. you need to grow up a bit more. i waited a few months and went to a different office and reapplied in that time i got an. i was driven i think by many motivations. most of all a sense of mission, and love from a country. i have a very rich history of service to our nation and in our family and in that community a

lot of men who went to war, particularly vietnam. i remember these great high school football heroes that graduated from high school and they were going to vietnam. couple of them had come back. so was this intellectual curiosity and a sense of -- sense of mission and pitcher chisholm and a sense of community. forward ever reason, wasn't just military service. it was intelligence service. i was really drawn to that with all the james bond books and all the movies of there there was this romantic aspect. that was just a way that i kept coming back to it. it was a great career and in fact it exceeded my biggest boyhood dreams, and i am forever grateful to the cia and to the u.s. government into this nation for giving me that opportunity, that privilege, that honor to serve. i hope that is central in the

book. i had a journalist a few days ago ask me if i wrote the book because -- asking me if it was the catharsis for me to write the book. i didn't know what he meant. why would i do that? this book is basically a note of thanks and my attempt to inform and educate, if i'm lucky entertain a little bit, and if i'm really lucky maybe inspire one to schoolboys that are out there that are considering serving their nation through the intelligence service. and what i tell young people now, i tell them to follow their dreams, whatever that is. if i can grow up in a small community in georgia and lead our nation in a war after something as horrible as non-11 and if i can serve my nation as

the ambassador at large representing our country, secretary of state rice, remarkable woman and president bush, then i think that dreams are important, and that is what i tell young people today. whether his government service or teaching, education and what a great honorable occupation that is. there are so many ways we can contribute, and that is what i would encourage them i guess. dreaming and educating yourself and exploring and challenging yourself. i think that's important. >> are you ever concerned about your safety cracks that is a pretty dangerous mission. how did you protect yourself? >> are you talking about when i was in the government? when i was serving the cia? personal safety?