and so that's the tack that you need to get across. more transparency and a deeper understanding of it and a recognition that it's part of our system. yes. [inaudible] you have done a wonderful job. >> thank you. >> i think the difficulty you have answering the question, i think the reason you have that problem is -- and i think that

your characterization of montreux is essentially. [inaudible] i believe there are ways to regularize the immoralities and the destructiveness. >> yeah. we didn't go into the chapter break it into the advocates for change and the war on want. i agree. this is my fifth book and i can honestly say it's the hardest i have ever attempted up any story or any book because like i said

i want to be fair but of course it's my instinct as a journali journalist. we are supposed to find out why things aren't working and why people get hurt, why there is fraud and why there is waste and why their seaman abuse. certainly in the pages of this book you walk away with a sense of collateral damage of this industry thus far and that's why the potential for the same could happen again if we use them again going into the second contractors were. but there has got to be an urgency about this and the first step in the urgency is to recognize that they exist and

for the general public to recognize that comic to get food to them, to everyone. you will want to read this and to realize what this industry is capable of and why there has to be close monitors. and yes it's true that many attempt especially if it involves industry in those meetings in geneva the montreux document which was the first stage of the swiss initiative. yes, i refer to that as a chess move in the book and went industry gets involved in regulation then you have to look at the history of regulation and in other industries like the banking industry. there are some parallels but one of the biggest steps and i've certainly learned that on the road is that many people have no association with this industry at all except the word

blackwater and the various scandals. it seems to me the first out in seeing that the government pay closer attention that there's more transparency is that people have to be aware of it. they have to know the facts so they can ask their congressman and women what are you doing about this? who is defending us whether it's in our local communities are internationally, who's defending us? where they trained in what companies do they work for? just to have the facts to ask the question. but you are right, that's always the case. there is i would say and david eisenberger who has been following me since they early

1990s i would say we are in a crossing point in terms of transparency. we have a chance going forward into a new contingency operation. this is a moment in time. historians might look back and say okay they should have learned x, y and z in iraq and the turning point across the 2014 and 2015. yeah. .. [applause]

>> this weekend on the c-span networks, saturday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern, a town hall meeting on the media coverage of events and ferguson, missouri at the state university in st. louis. sunday evening at 8:00 p.m. on q&a, saturday night on "after words", commentator jake helprin

and sunday at 2:00 p.m. eastern, the 2014 southern festival of books and saturday night at a clock, on american history tv on c-span3, the life and legacy of this author. then, readiness operations between the u.s. and iran when the two countries were allies. funner television schedule a that c-span.org. send us a tweet or a message on facebook. join the conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> journalist richard whittle on the predator drone and how the military technology has become a primary weapon on the war on terror. he spoke at the army navy club

in washington dc. this is one hour. >> the technology we will talk about today, it is done in a substantial way. who knows what these technological advances will produce. it may as well be implications for civilian use in the transportation and logistics sector and that is why we are interested to learn more about the research of richard whittle. equally important, however, is that we have been a close personal friendship for little more than 30 years. we have worked over the years together, and it's a privilege

that i can welcome our author, richard whittle, as well as you and the interest in his work product and his most recent book on the development of drones. richard whittle is a global fellow at the wilson center and a research associate at the national air and space museum where he finished writing this book is a verbal fellow. he has written about the military for more than 30 years, including a correspondent for the dallas morning news. his book that came out just two weeks ago had accumulated quite some accolades from very different and authoritative

writers and media outlets. and [inaudible] he has written books of exceptional merit, the book was called fascinating by "the wall street journal." and no small feat given the silence that the obama administration and general atomics and even the trivial part. including the final details on how the predator was used to

hunt immediately after 9/11. [inaudible] richard whittle, welcome, the floor is yours. >> ticket for that very nice introduction and we also need to point out, besides the fact that it's coincidence that they started this operation that this is not armed so far. okay, so i'm very grateful to you for your hospitality and thank you all for coming to hear about my new book.

and as we have with us today secretary of state peters and the retired lieutenant general of the air force as well. i'm honored that you're here today. and the former deputy administrative senior of nasa, we are enjoying his hospitality. since the fall of 2013, first as a research fellow and now is a research associate. thank you for being here, i appreciate it. let me add the bed neither of them bear any responsibility whatsoever for anything in my book or anything but i will say

today because they are innocent. [laughter] and also an honor to talk about being hosted by dhl. explaining now what others have been talking about books. [laughter] >> my book tells what i thought was going to be the story of an extraordinary airplane. it turned out to be a story of invention and a story of war and the story about air force and the cia and i believe the story of how it began. and at first i thought i would take a conference of look at the unmanned aerial systems or vehicles as many experts like to call them.

and then i read an article in a magazine describing 10 aircraft that changed the world and one of the 10 was the predator and that brought things into focus for me. the predator was the uav that changed the world. and it seems to me that it not only changed the world of warfare but open the door to today's unmanned civilian aviation and that was a story that i immediately knew that i wanted to write. the story of the predator and the origins of the drone revolution. and so as i found out in the five years writing this book took me, the story of this little drone that changed the world is as strange as the aircraft itself and many of those who created this revolutionary technology were just as unorthodox as a

predator. and so take this as an example. abraham carol. many people regard him as a genius. he was born in baghdad in 1937 but he grew up amid the socialist idealism that characterized israel in the late 1940s and early 1950s. but his early 30s he was director of parliamentary design and special project at israel aircraft industries from the most important or space manufacturer. but he was frustrated by the cynicism that he saw in the early 1970s and after working on a don't equal a 1973, he was inspired to strike out on his own and develop his own. he immigrated to the united states, the land of opportunity, and like all inventors he went

to work for us. he was in los angeles. as a young man in israel, he had been a preflight modeling champion and in competition the goal is to make a model airplane that can be launched by hand into the air on a rope and then stored as long as possible within a time limit without any remote or automated controls to help keep it in the air. he knew all the tricks to making it plain [inaudible] and in his los angeles crotch you build the technology demonstrated that was truly innovative. he called it the albatross, naming it after one of nature's greatest. his albatross offered this up to 48 hours without we refueling,

which is far longer than any other uav in the military. and they named the first little drone the amber. in 1989, if your official wrote a magazine article that they provided an order of magnitude increase recorded by previous uavs that had led the joint chiefs of staff to establish an endurance category and in an unmanned aircraft master-planned by congress area and this includes bureaucratic reasons that i detail in the book and thanks to some other unorthodox thinkers, the ideas and

revolutionary ideas didn't die when his company day. those ideas were rescued by a pair of brothers that had a genius for business to match a genius for aeronautics. [inaudible] or names are neil and london. they built this and while they are now in their late 70s, they are both still very active and fascinated in their own right. in 1957 when they were in their early 20s and made the cover of life magazine i find around latin america during summer vacation, they decided to make that trip before they ever took their first flying lesson. and that is because they were

not just sightseeing. they were born and bred entrepreneurs and in in latin america they hope to find business opportunities that they might pursue after college and then they established this on the east coast of nicaragua. so the bench only lasted a couple of years but it was the first of many that has been making them the tories. so if they got into the drone business after the blue brothers brought her from chevron in 1936. they had a number reasons for thinking uavs might be a good investment. but among the motives was a desire to help this in

nicaragua. they overturned one of their former business partners and the blue brothers first attempt at a uav with a kit plane and the idea was that the ally of it, i'm guessing the cia, could pass the plane's nose and use it as a poor man's cruise missile. he also.such a weapon could help in western germany to close the gap. neil wanted to call it the birdie since he said that it was going to be priced cheap cheap cheap. [laughter] and i was surprised to learn aside that into the history that demand that he had used to run this unmanned aircraft operation was a retired navy fighter pilot

named thomas cassidy. with what would later become its name, predator. this unmanned plane had absolutely nothing to do with what we know today. but tom cassidy later proved in marketing and lobbying that he liked that name predator and he chose it for both of those uavs. so as i say in my book, if necessity is the mother of invention, war is another necessity. and as with many technologies, especially aviation technology, gave birth to the predator and innovations that made it revolutionary. the war in bosnia and the difficulty of finding what was bombarding sarajevo led to the

development of the second drone called predator, which in fact was a derivative of a smaller less capable uav designed called the max 750. in 1993 the ca bought two of them from general atomics and then he went to california to seal the deal with the cia director who had known him for years. and that's about the same time after conversations, the undersecretary of defense created a program to develop an unmanned aerial vehicle for the military. he stipulated as if he fluids in

the six months of contract. to make that possible he adopted the idea that he had come up with. and in january of 1994, the defense department gave him the very first such contract. he and a team of engineers that he brought with him redesigned this and the new predator of made its debut. and so now i would like to elaborate on why i said this book is a story about the cia and this includes those that were involved in the program in some other way. the more i heard that we really

needed to talk to a civilian air force official at the pentagon, a former colonel with an unforgettable nickname and an unforgettable personality. this man knows more about it than just about anybody. what's his real name? i don't know. [laughter] as the former air force secretary indicated, his real name is james clark. and his air force job title these days is director of intelligence and surveillance and reconnaissance. but here's how we describe them in the book. in reality artworks -- [inaudible] [inaudible question] to . [laughter] >> and reality -- in reality he

work for the two top people. the four-star chief of staff in the civilian secretary of the air force. he was the a red fixer. and inside operator who relish getting things done is he like to put it, quick and dirty. this is partly why he encouraged everyone to call him by his nickname, snake or colonel snake. he created the image of a slippery operator and the reputation he found in intimidating real or potential opponents. clark wasn't acquired taste. [inaudible] and when someone got in his way he played what he called pentagon poker.

until well i first met him at the air force association during a meeting of september 2000 and he basically came out afterwards. i went back a month after that. and i began to understand that the predator was unusual not only because the pentagon had bought it but also in the capability were was improved and refined. initially the predator like the first personal computers was a new technology that some people found interesting but most were not sure how to benefit from. but over time if you interesting innovators came up with new software and hardware and communications to transform the personal computer from a novelty and much the same thing happened with the predator. at first this wasn't important,

just interesting. many were not quite sure exactly what to do. it offered phenomenal color or infrared. and so the familiar military intelligence, full motion video became available. and it was just a platform for a video camera whose image he was sent back to a ground control station and by 2001, three years after the air force to charge, it was the first in history that

operators could stop on the other side of the planet with full ability. and that transformation was largely accomplished by an air force unit in the unit that i had never heard of before even though i had written about the military and officially if the aeronautical system headquartered in dayton ohio. and since it was established in the 1950s, here is how i describe it in the book. created to help the air force and the cia and other agencies keep an eye on the soviet union and its allies, quickly evolving to the fictional british technology with sport cars and

machine guns and ejection seat. but it was staffed with clever engineering whose mission was to divide quickly. it was just more specialized beginning with its first assignment in december of 1952 with the largest aerial camera after on a cargo plane with special-purpose airfare. also usually in a hurry and especially for special missions. a director in the air force took charge of the predator was bill bryan and that is him on the right with snake clark, if you can't see it. and then another retired colonel as well.

and this includes how they work this wonder. another unorthodox or that played a pivotal role in this technology is someone whose photo i can show you. a scientist with extraordinary intellect and ability to cut interest did in the predator when it was still just a test technology. snake clark called him the man with two brains and in the book by mutual agreement i describe him in detail from a major innovation and they include figuring out this from anywhere in the world. and it had a unique satellite set up in the fall of 2000 from

a ground control station in europe. in creating a new architecture that made it possible in 2001 for cruising the united states outside the globe for the first time ever. [inaudible] and as i explained in the book am i making that link on the other side was the simplest describing a satellite tv. you can't just shoot this and bring it back down to drone on the other side of the planet. and you can't do it without the processing required along the way to make it difficult and probably impossible to aim its

missiles. but they figured out how to rig the system that holds the latency to an adjustable level in the architecture to fly within now call the first aircraft and then it came up with a split operation, as they called it, so they could fly over afghanistan in the fall of 2000 to help the cia [inaudible] and this included the air force intelligence personnel. and they found this with the cia. less than a year later he then invented what he dubbed remote split operations giving the cia

and operation to kill osama bin laden from the source. i explain in the book. [inaudible question] [inaudible] and the initiative to arm the predator had to be done by air force general in 2000, not long after the combat came in and for reasons that had nothing to do with the cia or osama bin laden. we explained in detail in the book and here's what he told me and that is listening to target instead of wanting to just do something about it. and so it's true that the project to arm this gain

substantial momentum after they found osama bin laden in the fall of 2000. acceleration was largely due to this that richard clarke, the counterterrorism director at the time, and a senior cia official had come to the conclusion that the united states needed to kill osama bin laden before he killed more americans, as al qaeda had done in the 1998 bombing in tanzania and that they could do again on october 12. the air force conducted its missile test on january 23, 2001 and in the spring and summer of that year the top cia leaders agreed to consider using this

new technology to kill osama bin laden. despite the perception that the cia used drum strikes to take out terror, there is a great deal of unease before 9/11 at the idea of espionage controlling military weapons in an operation that might lead to headlines, such as the cia using drones and even so a small intelligence group spent 2001 preparing for just such an issue. by the first week of september of that year, most of the elements were in place. it's typical to see especially from the back hair. but these are google earth photos that show the campus of the cia on september 12, 2001. it shows the double wide mobile

home that serves at the command center in that small white rectangle next to it is the first of two ground control stations [inaudible] my book describes in some detail some of the early operations that were conducted by the air force that some called it and i have described it as they were described to me by those who conducted and commanded them. that includes the escape from the taliban leader [inaudible name] who you might already know became the first target that was killed by an armed predator. and it also includes what i believe is the most accurate account to date an death of al qaeda's third ranking leader at the time of 9/11.

his trusted friend mohamed atta. and now i would like to explain today's drone revolution. they have been around a long time in a wide variety of configurations. the uav technology in the '90s was improving and given advances in the underlying technology, lightweight material, small cameras, digital communications, gps, i think it's likely that in time it will become more than just a technology in any event. as i said earlier, if necessity is the mother of invention, war is another necessity and the war

made this matter in ways that are never had before. it now hangs in the national air space museum and starting in january 2001, it was tested that spring and then targeted tanks in the desert and flying them into a building the cia had constructed to find out whether or not this would kill osama bin laden and the contractor apparently misread this and built a structure for someone's to the houses of afghanistan. so that testers are aimed at taco bell and hung up the signs. they were in a hurry at this point.

[inaudible] so instead, as you can see in this slide, they used plywood and watermelon. as people were getting prepared to say at the entrance and this after osama bin laden, richard clarke was having trouble getting leaders of both administrations to focus on al qaeda. from the first national security council held its first meeting on september 4, 2001. and neither did the cia or military take the responsibility one week to the day later, or is, everything changed.

[inaudible] and the predator 3034 had no markings at the time and wants the first on the first night, october 7, 2001. [inaudible] and three days later president bush asked that a meeting be held, and he said why can't we hold one more than one of these at a time. in december of that year, he gave a speech to the quark event in south carolina and he said before the war the predator had skeptics and now it is clear that the military does not have enough unmanned vehicles. so as i said earlier given the rapid advances and component technology, we are certain at some point that it evolved in

more than just a new technology. but the definition of a technological revolution of the scientific revolution, a breakthrough moment with unanticipated ideas that seems to be global or remote control that is just such a moment in a technological revolution. and of course all i can offer is circumstantial evidence. and the fact that the caa has come through lie heavily on this. it begins as the entire u.s. military [inaudible] the predator at that point had a small conference program and five months before 9/11 estimated by 2010 the armed

services might have as many as 290 and 12010 arrived, the military armed 14 different types and today the air force is annually training or aircraft operators including developing unmanned combat vehicles. as many as 80 nations are building their own military uavs. and it has already outstripped this and in short i think that [inaudible] including an anticipated ideas

and what followed was a drone revolution that is still unfolding. thank you for listening and it's been an honor. whatever time we have remaining, i will do my best to answer questions. [applause] >> thank you, it was great. and i am sure that there are quite a few questions. if i may, let me start with two questions to add two additional aspects to this debate. okay, so applications from an ethical point of view, a moral point of view.

none on how you look at all of this? and what about the authorization of drum strikes. who can do this and is this satisfactory? so what about boarding a united delta plane not on. [laughter] >> clearly there is a lot there. [laughter] spirit reverse question gets raised a lot about drones. and the one question is is it fair for military personnel to sit in perfect safety and kill

people on the other side of the world. my feeling is that if you accept this, the commander says the primary obligation, first as to when and i think in fairness there is a concept that is very vital to support it. but it doesn't really have a role in war. until i said nothing at all that they did something unfair about using this weapon in military operations systems and so the

whole area of drum strikes raises a different set of issues. the military operates under title 10 and i think that for me, one question i have with the better checks and balances on the executive branch and more information about how people are put on this target list, and i would be personally more comfortable if we had maybe this kind of situation that we had and at least someone has to read this evidence and that is the

general principle that i would like the executive branch have more check and balance as they inform certain members of congress and i don't know if they actually inform them before or after with what has taken place. but my understanding is that they are not free to do this with the information. so let's say also that it's not just a question of using drones. the principle is when the obama administration issued a public memo with the killing of anwar al-alwaki, the what the government had in certain circumstances. so i think the whole tangled

area, and they didn't use the word drones, the point is that you can do it with a knife as well. so we have to decide if this is what we want to do. >> richard, you have written about other aircraft and what lessons would you have dealing with revolutionary technology? [inaudible]

>> i have thought about that a lot and i wish that i had some easy answers because a lot of smart people work on these questions all the time. the interesting thing is to take this and in shorthand it turns into a swan because they had a very troubled development in the air force. but it took me five years and $22 billion before it became the aircraft that it is today. it started out as a project in which all four services were

involved in and there were 10 different missions with requirements that went on and on and the people designing it. with the predator it was actually three or four in the memo and i think that that exemplifies this degree deal. and so i think this is where a person gets bogged down a lot because there is a temptation to ask for the impossible. and i think the defense contractors have a motive say, oh, yes, i can do that. and so i think that one area that we should focus on is the whole process of the requirement

and one of his many mottos is to look to the solution and that is not a bad motto. >> all right. [inaudible question] [inaudible] >> the nsa is not bad either and [inaudible] >> it's a question that is on a lot of people's minds. and i would be lying if i said that i know the technical

answer. i am a storyteller. and i have told the story about those that are experts. but i am told, however, by people who are expert at this point that the military has encrypted the signal and that there is really no danger -- little to no danger of anyone being able to hijack or even see the data that is transmitted. and that is something the military had thought about.

>> as far as technology goes, and the ways in which we are getting around us. i'm wondering how detectable is this with commercial flights and what is the possibility in which we could actually use the same technology against civilian aircraft. >> there are countries out there trying in their summit have knockoffs called the pterodactyl . and i think that the aircraft technology is not the secret.

lots of countries may have duplicated aircraft like that. but it's very special and i think that very few countries would be able to duplicate that. also those that are fairly hard to detect [inaudible] looking for osama bin laden, the taliban scrambled and they were weaving and maneuvering the aircraft to make it as small as possible because it is roughly

an 82 miles per hour. and in afghanistan that's pretty hard to see. but if they did detective it's quite easy to shoot down. the [inaudible] and so i think that it other countries may be able to duplicate access to the technology aircraft like this. and i don't think that they're going to be able to be successful in this. i can ask the secretary about that. and i don't think that we have to worry about people trying

those kinds of drones in our territory. in the mutations architecture is such from the atlantic ocean to europe. and i think there's a pretty expensive proposition and i don't think that many countries can do that. and i think the great threat is to us in america with some small unmanned aircraft is some nefarious group wanted to put some sort of explosives on it. but that would be a terror weapon. that would not be one of any military significance. i hope i answered ur