used that analysis on two very important occasions. one to start the arms control process in terms of the salt agreement in 1972 and the abm, anti-ballistic missile treatly also in 1972 and without the cia guaranteeing the verification and monitoring of those treaties, which the cia did guarantee, something that made helms very nervous, i was working on salt at that time and he called us in and said, remember, only politicians can verify an agreement. he didn't like the idea that we were referred to as the verification panel. but basically, we were taking on the pentagon which was against arms control and arguing that these agreements could not be verified so in terms of abm and the salt agreement and very important weapons systems, it was the intelligence of the cia and the intelligence community in general that was essential to get arms control under way. and of course, when you think of

the most important strategic initiative of any president over the last 40, 50 years, it was the strategic triangle of nixon and kissinger to allow the united states to build better relations with both china and the soviet union than they had with each other. and it was cia intelligence that provided the impetus to suggest that we could do this and as a result the soviet union would have to engage us which they did in terms of the treaty of berlin and the arms control agreements and we would end up with very good bilateral relations with both of them. so, the cia can be effective as a support instrument in this area. in terms of what needs to be done, because i'm running out of my time, i think we could do ourselves a lot of good by going back to that op-ed that president truman wrote in december of 1963. the warning about covert action,

the warning that covert action is policy. and covert action, therefore, can taint clandestine collection and even taint intelligence analysis. that the cia should not be a second pentagon. it should not be a paramilitary organization. and it would be necessary to return the cia to the role of the quiet intelligence arm of the president. this would mean demilitarized the cia which needs to be done and something obama addressed over a year ago with a very important speech at the national defense university in which i thought he made it clear that he wanted the use of the drone turned over to the military. and we have reduced our drone missions but they're still being run by the central intelligence agency which is an important paramilitary activity. but we need to demilitarize. we need to decentralize. it might not be a bad idea to

have a statutory term for cia director as we do for the fbi director so that each president doesn't feel he has to have his own intelligence director which would -- we have been doing for the last 30 years. and finally, what i would like to see is separating intelligence analysis and clandestine activity into two separate organizations. they should not be under one roof. so, going back to president truman would be a good way to start. so with that i'd like to hear your comments and questions and criticisms. i think we have a lot to talk about. [ applause ] so -- oh. it's usually hard to get the first question and i usually jump to the second question. >> could you talk a little bit

about the division of responsibility between the national security agency and the cia and we have been hearing a lot about the national security agency's collection of information as though they are what -- what you seem to be referring to what the cia should be doing, that is strictly collecting information. >> yeah. the cia was created by truman openly in 1947 as part of the national security act, the national security agency was created secretly by truman in 1952 with a very specific mission. and that would be their role in communications intelligence and signals intelligence. so, they had the function to intercept all communications and all signals abroad. it was strictly a foreign mission dealing with foreign intelligence collection.

with no responsibility for domestic function anymore than the cia was going to have any jurisdiction in domestic matters. but the national security agency is essentially a collection agency. where they have gotten off the rails and it's kind of interesting that the director of nsa when they got into domestic surveillance which i think is a violation of the fourth amendment of the constitution and there's at least one federal appeals judge out there who agrees with that position, was when they started the massive surveillance. yet, when michael hayden was norm nated to be the cia director, and i went down to talk to some staffers about this issue, the question of his role at the nsa and massive surveillance and the meta data that we have seen never came up in the confirmation process which was, indeed, unfortunate.

but their focus is a very narrow focus on intelligence collection of signals and communications intelligence. and when you look at the body of law that protects intelligence, they get protection in the law that no other intelligence collection gets. so, whatever you want to think about edward snowden, of course, he is a very controversial character he recollec eer he's serious laws and makes his return to this country and how that's conducted an extremely difficult process because these laws will be pursued in terms6or violation of signals and communications intelligence. he is in a lot of trouble as we all know. >> several years after the 9/11 attack there was a reorganization of intelligence agencies where there's now one director literally supposedly

overseeing absolutely everything. how has that impacted the cia? >> well, it's clearly weakened the cia and the intention was to weaken the cia. you're talking about the intelligence reform act of 2004 that created the director of national intelligence. now, to a certain extent, you could argue that the director of cia who up to that point was tals director of central intelligence had -- wore these two hats but it was too much responsibility for any one individual. and i said at the outset one of the flaws of the 1947 national security act was it did not give the cia director who was the director of central intelligence any authority in terms of personnel or budget or tasking, moving people around as missions changed but when they created the director of national intelligence he didn't get that authority either because the pentagon would not allow it.

before he could be sworn in, donald rumsfeld who was very adroit in terms of understanding the bureaucracy, in fact, when you put rumsfeld and cheney in a room together, i mean, they could control a bureaucracy like no other pair of individuals could do. so, before the director of national intelligence, the so-called national intelligence czar, got his desk at the new building, rumsfeld had already created the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and made sure that the responsibilities stayed with the pentagon. and when you look at the entire intelligence community, 80% to 85% of the budget and personnel belong to the military whether they're civilian or military. it's a military operation. that's why it -- a cia outside of that military process was so important. and if you look at the directors of national intelligence with the exception of one individual, a retired foreign service officer, john negative uponty

and served for a while and realized he had no authority and resigned to take a position at state, all of the directors of national state have been retired generals and flag officers, admirals and i would argue that the military which does a lot of things extremely well, one of the things they do not do well is strategic intelligence and the real problem we have of intelligence analysis is strategic intelligence, long-term intelligence. that is not their thing. the military does worst-case analysis and that's another reason why truman wanted a cia. so it's not been a measure that's led to any improvement in terms of the real problems of the intelligence community. >> i recently read a book of "brothers" about the dulles -- >> good book. >> seemed to set the table for the cia and foreign policy for the rest of the century.

my question is, how influential were they on eisenhower or was eisenhower the one that was calling the shots? v(u @r(t&háhp &hc% least as to -- >> yeah, it was. when you are dealing with eisenhower and strategic concerns and the use of the military, it was eisenhower's policy. jon foster dulles and allen dulles, richard nixon as vice president did not have great influence over eisenhower. eisenhower had an uncanty sense of how to control the military. in fact, one of the -- the best warnings he did not put in writing but it was on his way out of the white house in december, january of 1960, 1961, when he was ruminating with a group of his close advisers and he said god help the united states when the person who sits in this chair after he does not

know how to deal with the military and eisenhower did so all of the efforts that allen dulles made and john foster dulles did to bail out the french, nixon was prepared to use nuclear weapons to do it. getting involved in vietnam which the dulles brothers and nixon wanted to do. baiting out the british and french and israelis in the stupid attack to prevent the nationalization of the suze canal, doing something about the soviet invasion of hungary, the criticism of obama about ukraine. look at eisenhower and hungary and 1956. eisenhower had no interest in any of that and eisenhower accepted a stalemate in korea which a lot of presidents probably would have been unable to do. so, it was his policy and the dulles brothers and nixon were not that influential. he relied on actually military

officers to a large extent who he knew from world war ii, particularly matthew ridgeway, that was a very close relationship. the one between eisenhower and ridgeway. but on covert action for some reason, because i think it can be done as he thought cheaply and not too noisy and not too visible, and because iran appeared to be a success in 1953, he did follow their lead on those issues and i think serious mistakes were made so you have ady cot my here. it's clearlyiz eisenhower's policies over the eight-year period. kept a lid on defense spending but on covert action and clandestine operations they were influenti influential. because i don't think he paid as much attention to that as he did the strategic matters. >> kind of a two-part question. on the intelligence leading up to the iraq war, you said it was flawed. my understanding was that even

saddam's own generals believed that he had wmds and that we were getting intelligence maybe from some of those people which would say to me there's nothing we could do better to make that intelligence better. you also said other people knew the intelligence was flawed. could you clarify why they didn't -- who those people were and didn't speak up or what happened with that? >> well, first of all, there were -- you know, one of the thing that is saddam hussein did extremely well and this was a great strategic deception was worked against him was convincing international communities to some extent and his own people including general officers that he had weapons of mass destruction. particularly, chemical weapons that he was willing to use against his own people. saddam hussein never thought he would use the weapons against us. he was more concerned about an internal revolt than he was anything else, particularly of iran against the 1980s and not only he had chemical weapons, he used chemical weapons.

but the cia had all sorts of collections that made it clear including from his son-in-law who defected, went to jordan and then lured back into the country and killed. in return for giving up this information. who made it clear he had no weapons of mass destruction. that they were destroyed either by his own forces or by the u.s. military during the desert storm operation or in the wake of desert storm. so you had the former foreign minister who said this and the cia ran an excellent operation in iraq that hasn't gotten a lot of attention sending iraqi americans to go back to baghdad and important areas of iraq and talk to relatives still working in important industries in iraq where they could determine what iraq had in the way of strategic weaponry and they all made it clear they did not have this weaponry. and then you had sources or reporting that was based on

single source reporting that was presented as sourcing that was -- could be supported by other sources or other reporting and even someone like colin powell who went out to the cia to write that speech he gave at the u.n. was lied to by the deputy director of cia john mclaughlin in terms of how good this sauersing was. the people that knew and wanted to learn knew there were no weapons of mass destruction. and the inspectors who went over there, people like david kay and others, they were shocked when they found out there were no weapons of mass destruction. but clearly, that was a total misuse of intelligence. it was total to litization of the intelligence product so when you look at the estimate of october 2002, that the cia did and the white paper that the cia did, which they were prevented by their charter from doing

because it was the unclassified version of the estimate that went down to capitol hill right before the vote on the authorization to use force. there were 28 allegations. all of them were wrong. and that was the very product that was used to write colin powell's speech he gave at the u.n. first week of february 2003, six or seven weeks before he went into the country. >> did the president have any better information than colin powell had or he believed the same? >> i don't think bush cared at all about the evidence. he wasn't looking for evidence. he was cowering people from the very start, richard clark and it is in his book. soon after 9/11, to find out what iraq, iraq's role was in the 9/11 attack. and not only was there no role whatsoever by saddam hussein and osama bin laden hated each other. they were rivals in terms of the islamic fundamentalist activity

in the middle east. they weren't allies at all. and this was known to bush. it was known to cheney but, you know, cheney's position was the 1% factor. if there's a 1% chance that saddam hussein has weapons of mass destruction, we have to take action. well, this is justification for what cheney wanted to do. we wanted to punish someone after 9/11. no doubt about that. there was no punishment to be dealt to afghanistan because there were no strategic targetì% because al qaeda had been routed from the country. very effectively by the cia and the military over a two-month period with 450 people. that's why this war is such a tragedy. after december 2001, we should have turned the keys back over to the country. the various ethnic groups who were so effective in getting the taliban out of kabul. and we didn't have to be there

for another 12, 13 years with all the losses that we have suffered. >> you spoke in your opening remarks about the cia not being a rogue agency and that the things that have happened is because they've been misused by the presidents. it's my perception that at least over the last few years they have gone before congress and repeatedly misled agent -- the various committees and i also feel that the committees have really -- have practiced a hear no evil, see no evil approach towards the cia. so i think in addition to the president's misusing the agency, there's also be a lack of supervision by congress and i'd like to hear what your thoughts are on that. >> there's no question in my mind that the oversight process

has been compromised. now, the shocking thing to me is that in 1947, you create a secret organization, the cia. with no oversight whatsoever. you don't have a statutory ig. you don't have an intelligence committee. it took 30 years and a series of abuses before people like senator church and congressman pike who just died in the last six months in the house, the pike commission, realizing that you needed oversight committees so for 30 years the cia was basically out there on its own hook with the support of the white house with no responsibilities to the congress. for the first first 15 years i would argue up through david born and the con if i mags of david gates i think the intelligence committee particularly in the senate was an elite group, the senate select committee on intelligence, they -- when i testified against gates in '91, they were the powerhouses within

the senate were on that committee. and it was bipartisan. and you could tell it was bipartisan. but that was the turning point. and now, under both democrats and republicans, it's been i think a cat's paw for the white house. finally, senator dianne feinstein who's done a terrible job up to now is finally exercised because of the 6,000-page report because she knows the cia as you say was lying to the congress. i'm not saying that cia didn't try to play slight of hand with the congress because they often did that to protect policies that they were given by the white house. but feinstein was in a position to know what all of these on fis cases were and she should be engaged with the white house to get that report out. it has to come out. we're entitled to see it. violations of law took place and

we have to know what they were because they were conducted in our name as the united states of america. >> on the benghazi thing, hillary clinton and the new book saying she didn't want to be involved in the to littizization of the thing and mike morel on "60 minutes" talking about how he prepared the talking points or whatever and seems like he politizing from the very beginning. >> the important thing about benghazi and i think this was a misunderstanding from the very beginning, benghazi was not really a consulate platform. i mean, we had a consulate there. it was very small. but benghazi was really an intelligence platform. the cia presence in benghazi with a very specific mission was probably four times as big at

least four times as big as the state department presence. all the other foreign communities had taken their consulates of the of benghazi because of the fighting and instability in benghazi. the cia was there to buy back weapons that were given to qua gi da if i and interesting how much times the cia has to buy weapons back that never should have been provided in the first place so when the plane flew out of benghazi with the survivors of those attacks from the work i did 24 people on the planecia ad six, i think, were state department. so to me the cia has gotten off the hook for the security problem in benghazi. no question about that. why was the ambassador, chris stephens, very popular young ambassador in the middle east in libya, why was he even in benghazi? what business could he have been doing in benghazi. to what degree was secretary of

state clinton interested in showing we were successful in libya when clearly overthrowing khadafi is a nightmare. totally counter productive. i believe there was some plitization of those briefing points. and it is interesting that susan rice, now having trouble given a description with the trade-off between the american soldier and taliban is the same one who bol oaks briefings about benghazi on the talk show because people like hillary clinton ran because they didn't want to go on television in the wake of benghazi. benghazi was indeed a nightmare. i think the p em there knew it was a terrorist attack that problem had nothing do with anti-muslim film making the round in the united states. but it is unfortunate that it is

being so politicized. i don't think anyone is really trying to look at benghazi for what really happened. it is used as a partisan weapon. in this case. and that's not good for any of us. >> i'm told i'm to be the last question per. we negotiated that i get two. [ inaudible ] >> actually, i had about ten, but we will just -- >> i agreed to settle for two. >> so we'll dot easy one first. what wo it be your position, looking at the central intelligence agency over the years, and for purpose of discussion here, assuming there are two operations, intelligence division and operations division, would it be your position there isn't an operations division. >> i think the director of

operation sets ability to collect clandestine intelligence and i would continue to support that. and i'm thinking of some assignments that i had where i benefitted from intelligence. checks that was clandestined, for example when the egyptians decide to kick out soviets in 1972 which i felt was a signal us to that they were indeed serious about an agreement with iz ral that helpry kissinger knack owned it so the intelligence was spot on. the important thing to keep on about intelligence is the united states does a tremendous job of intelligence collection. when you look at all of the failures going back it pearl harbor before the cia was created, the check was kb enough to prevent us from being wrong. the errors were made at the analytical level, lack of resourcefulness, just a lack of rigor, so 9/11 with intelligence

failure that could have been prevented. the collection was there. iraq war, collection was there. the decline of the soviet union, intel jeps was clearly there. but gates wouldn't allow the analyst to do what they needed to do with the intelligence. so the collection is quite good. and i wouldn't do away with that. that's whalts the hard question? >> the hard question i'll get to in a moment. first of all, i would like to say that i've read some of the portions of some of the books you've written and i recommend to everybody in here. they are just excellent. >> does that have anything do with you saying that. >> correct. correct. i figured i would shine you on a bit before i ask you the last question which is this -- [ inaudible ] >> oh, i don't know. i notice you commented on edward snoweden that he is in big trouble and has violated many laws. and i also notice that you made a comment somewhere along the

line that some of the things going on were violations of the fourth amendment. is that a fair statement? >> certainly. >> all right. >> it is not edward snoweden as we know it. did there need to be an edward snoweden to expose what is going on in the intelligence community? >> now, there is a contradiction between being right and being legally designed. even that interview with brian williams, which all of you should try to see, you can be right, that doesn't mean what you are doing is legal. i think snoeden knows full well he violated laws but he also knows what lapped to someone like thomas drake who i know fairly well, a whistle blower at

the cia. he was convicted of espionage act and could have been convicted by every judge through every account that judge threw snoweden out and lek tired snoweden that this is not the soviet union, there is the united states and you cannot conduct yourself this way in my court. so the sad thing about the snoweden case is he is safer in russia than he is in the united states. and that's an indictment of us. in some way there should be an excess of the intelligence community and the reason why i'm critical of obama is when he came in to office, he is very early on said, i'm not going to look back. i'm going to look ahead. well, you have to have accountability for the excess that took place, particularly under george bush for will years and this is what we don't seem to want to do. and not convinced that the reform process we put in place for the nsa and this massive

surveillance and metadata is really going to be effective. and clearly if you look at the phone intelligence surveillance court that's -- that's been essentially a candor record, a mouth piece for the administration. so a lot needs to be done. and if it weren't for snoweden, we wouldn't be having this discussion. the president wouldn't be answering the charges that he had to answer. the congress wouldn't be proposing reforms and judges wouldn't refer to this activity as orion. so we owe snoweden something. but there is a serious question. right now he has a very good lawyer representing him. in washington. who handled very big cases. >> we should note there is some

dialogue and there should be some plea bargain because we have no idea what he took with him. i've talked to people involved with damage assessment for this case. and they do not know what he has. i think it is important to sit down with snoweden at some point to find out what is going to be compromised. >> thank you very much. [ applause ] >> on news makers this weekend, michael podhorzer is our guest. political director for aflcio, he talks about important positions for the 13 million workers his groups represent. news makers, this sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. eastern on c span.

the 2015 student cam video competition is under way. taupe all middle and high school student to create a five to seven-minute documentary on the theme the three brakss and you showing how policy, law or action by the executive or judicial branch of the federal government affected you or your community. there's 200 cash prizes for student and teachers totaling $100,000 for the lift of roles on how to get started, go to student cam.org. >> in 1964 president recall campaign is officially launched as a hundred thousand people assemble in detroit hear president jopson's first bid for reelection. his speech is mainly concerned with nuclear weapons. while not mentioning gold water by name, mr. johnson answers his

owe poent's call with conventional nuclear weapons. he reaffirmed the need for strict residential control. >> make no mistake, there is no such thing as a conventional nuclear weapon. >> for years, one nation has -- against the other. do so now is the political decision of the highest order. and it would lead us down an uncertain path and -- whose outcome none may know. no president of the united states of america can divest himself of the responsibility for such a decision.

>> as cheers ring out in detroit, there are more in los angeles. 50,000 people packed the dodger stadium to greet the republican candidate as he opened his campaign. senator gold water arrives in the stadium with mrs. goldwater to combat against the democratic administration. this is the owning of the first swing to take him into washington, oregon and four other states. >> mr. goldwater talked about the tax rate as cynical. the candidate called his campaign turtian raisers as auspicious one. >> next up on the goldwater circuit, there's sacramento, before going on to the pacific north west. here the republican candidate admitted he was the underdog but

said he wouldn't know what do if he wasn't. mr. gold water mixing freely with the crowd, spotting people with signs reading democrats for goldwater. now it's official. the campaign is under way and nothing can stop it by election day. they call her dora but she's no lady. the hurricane of the season, dora, slams jacksonville beach points north and south along the florida/georgia coastline. winds of a hundred miles an hour and upwards of the beaches, the storm covered an area greater than the new england state. the calm eye of the storm took two hours to pass over state augustine as more than 30,000 people took schools and hospitals along the coast. >> in state augustine, much of the beach is lost to erosion. one section of the sea shore

just disappeared. in savannah beach georgia, the most 15 miles inland so people can balance. if you today put it no t.o. a vote, dora is the most unpopular girl in townto war. also the connection between the white house and the cia, dating back to president harry truman. former defense secretary leon panetta led a discussion with former presidential advisors and chiefs of staff about the presidential decision-making process. each detailed their own relationship with their presidency served and their time in the white house. from the panetta institute for public policy, this is an hour and 45 minutes. >> thank you, thank you all very much. and i welcome all of you to our final forum of our lecture series this year.

our theme as you all know is looking at 100 years since world war 1, 2014, 1914, an awful lot of history has occurred during that time. and to onanalyze the changes th have been made, we looked at war and peace and the changes in that arena, we have looked at government and we have also looked at the issue of freedom versus security. tonight we're going to look at the president of the united states and how presidents make decisions. and presidents very frankly influence all of those other areas that we just talked about. the president of the united states has today assumed incredible responsibilities in facing incredible pressures in that position. since 1914, we have had 17 presidents. of the united states, all of

whom will have various places in history. we have gone from wilson to harding, truman to roosevelt, kennedy to carter and reagan, johnson to bush and obama. what can we learn from all those presidents? and how is the presidency changed in terms of the responsibilities that have to be confronted. well look at the challenges of the modern presidency, through the eyes of four top aides. all of us have served presidents of the united states. and we have seen the qualities of what it takes for a president to be able to govern, we have seen qualities both good and bad. and i guess that's what i want to begin with. is looking at presidents that each of these individuals served. what was their great herself strength and what was their

greatest weakness? and how do you think history is going to look at them? talking about president reagan, president clinton, president bush and president obama. let's start with president reagan. >> thank you very much. leave it to leon and sylvia to put together an alphabet panel. david axelrod, a, end card and doober stein, d. and p for panetta. it is an absolute thrill and a joy to be here in monterrey and with leon and sylvia and with all of you.

ronald reagan's great et cetera strength. he knew why he ran for the presidency. and he knew what he would do once he was president. he would focus the country and the world on the united states rebuilding its economy and creating respect for america around the world. cutting the rate of spending increase, cutting taxes, rebuilding our national security, building up to build down. and finding overburdensome regulations. he stayed focused on those priorities. he was able to put in practice, along with the private sector, obviously, 18 million new jobs, an economy that he inherited that was double digit inflation,

double digit interest rates and america was as jimmy carter said suffering malaise. at the end of the carter administration, most people suggested that the presidency might be too big in this modern era for any one person. they stopped saying that under ronald reagan and for all of us and our presidents who conserved thereafter. ronald reagan also understood that he was elected not just to make statements, but in fact to govern and get things done. he knew that in order to forge consensus in washington, he needed to build consensus throughout america. and that would put pressure on washington.

he understood that governing -- well, let me put it this way, tip o'neill used to say i don't like compromising with ronald reagan, because every time i compromise with him, reagan gets 80% of what he wants. and ronald reagan would say that me and jim baker and ed niece and mike beaver and others. well, i'll take 80% every time and come back the next time for the additional 20. that's what governing is all about and that was a hallmark of ronald reagan. >> okay, so what was his weakness? achkd his weakness was that he had a tendency to trust everybody and that's why nancy and i were the verifiers. but he trusted everybody. until proven otherwise. and so you sometimes had to unwind things because they just

didn't add up. >> there's only one reason that leon asked me to come out here. he called me up and he saider skin, we're having this panel and i want you to talk about bill clinton. i said leon, you never everything about bill clinton. he said yeah, you got it. that's why i want you to talk. you can get the phone calls. i love leon panetta, you guys are lucky to have him. imtelling you, everything i know -- everything i know and anything i say that you don't like, you can blame it on me because he taught me it all. greatest strengths. for me, president clinton's greatest strength was his intellectual curiosity.

and his absolute ability to do the home work it takes to understand a problem from all angles. achkd his willingness to accept advice from people of all walks of life. you know, we could walk into the oval office and give him a piece of advice and we would say red, yellow and green and he would say orange, and we would say wow. he could take a problem of any magnitude and he could distill it down into a set of facts that he could communicate so that anybody could understand it. that is a unique skill. we could have nobel scientists in any subject coming in two weeks from now. and we couldn't get him to hit a lick of the snake for the first 13 days, we wouldn't do

anything, but on that 14th day, you would see books from the white house library stacked up this high on his desk. and he reads like that old evelyn woods reading course, i don't know how many of you remember it, and reads so quickly you can't believe it and can retain it. then he would call people on the periphery of the subject and you look at his phone logs that night, and he would have talked to people that you just couldn't believe. but we know but when those people could come in, for the first 45 minutes, he would just listen to them. but the last 15 minutes he would say something to profound that it would make you so proud you couldn't stand it. it was that intellectual

curiosity and to do his home work and to listen to people on all sides of the subject before he made his decision. >> and the weakness? >> there's a one-word answer. >> i think that's pretty easy, yeah. >> history speaks to that. >> president bush? >> george w. bush was a man of conviction, he was very grounded. he was also very deliberate and disciplined. he's also very courageous, because he has the kurjs to mco make a decision. and i would say his flaws is that he allowed there to be a myth that he couldn't read or that he didn't read when he was very well read and took time to read while he was president and it was usually relevant to the responsibility that he had.

but he also kind of preferred to be from west texas when he really was well-educated at yale. so he allowed a perception that he wasn't really engaged, but i think the strength of having the courage to make a decision, not to allow poll teches itics to d decision, but to-they were impossibly difficult decisions. >> david? >> well, first of all,v"émf let say a word about lee kwlon as w because i had an opportunity to serve with him. he's a perfect guy to be running an institute like this. congressman, budget director, cia director, chief of staff, secretary of defense. and it makes you wonder, why can't you hold a job?h2nn÷

but i'm the director at the institu institute -- and the goal is very much the same, which is trying to inspire young men and women to go into careers of public service and you're a great exemplar for them, so thank you for that. and i also sigh there are a lot of young servicemen and women in the audience tonight, and i want to thank you for your service too because you inspire all of us. thank you. listening to erskin talk about president clinton and his intellect and his intellectual curiosity had that same feeling to me. i have that sooirm feeling about president obama. i never sat in a meeting where i felt he was overmatched or unprepared and he was as stimulated by the whole array of issues that come before a

president as anybody i could imagine. but i would say -- i was going to say that his strengths were that he's incredibly bright, thoughtful and deliberative and makes deliberate decisions. the quality that i most admire about him was that he was willing and has been willing to make decisions that are in the best interests of the country, despite very, very negative politics. at a time when we absolutely had to make those decisions. and i think the american people tend to find leaders at the right time to make those kinds of decisions and he made them, we lived through some terrible crises, and i always felt good to be at his side because i felt he would get to the right answer, and regardless of the politics and i was mostly the guy who told him the politics, and i was almost always ignored. and i admired him for that.

i said earlier that what i like about him best is that he listens to me so little. but i believe, leon, that everyone's strength is often also their weakness. and so i think that, you know, the criticism of the president is the same, that he's deliberative, that he's thoughtful, that he's not spontaneous enough in his decision making. i think it's a good tradeoff. but i would say that that is the criticism that i most often hear. >> you have all mention crisis us and in many ways the president is tested by crises. i would like you to reflect on, what was the worst crisis you saw a president have to handle during the time that you were there and how did he handle it and how will history speak to that?

erskin, let's start with you. >> i these i'll go international. >> that's a good place to b. >> i don't know how many of you can think back this long ago. but this is before osama bin laden was well known, in this country at least. and we had a chance to get him in afghanistan once, but to do that, we had to launch some missiles and send them over pakistan, where we had a shaky relationship at best. and since there was a -- was that shaky relationship, we wanted to make sure that we didn't alert the packs too early so that the information we were going after him would leak out. so we sent the vice admiral at

the air force academy in to have denver with the president of pakistan. and he told him exactly three seconds before the missiles crossed pakistan. and when those missiles landed, we missed bin laden by literally minutes. and the reason i always looked at that as a decision that took real guts is that we knew the chances were 50/50 we would get him. two, we ran a real chance of disrupting the relationships with a very important country that we were having to deal with. and three, this was during the time of the monica crisis. and we also knew that if we were unsuccessful, that republican

house and senate would accuse us of trying to divert people's attention. and u if you remember, there's a movie out there called "wag the dog" and that's what happened. but it only took a few minutes to make the decision. he knew it was the right thing to do. >> i'm glad we were able to finish the job, thank you. end, crisis? >> first of all -- >> i know the headlines on 24 one. >> a president comeses to office focused on what they talked about as they were campaigning to be president. and then the reality sets in when they take the oath of office. and the truth is when they take the oath of office, they probably think more about their inaugural address than the oath they took. but after the inaugural address is over, then the burdens of the

job show up. and president bush had some significant burdens show up. and how was he going to react? what was going to happen? now not a crisis, it could have been. he managed it well by being restrained and listening and seeking counsel and making phone calls, the chinese were very slow to answer them. but then you have other crises that come, i don't want to say you don't anticipate them, but they're usually storms. and the greatest crisis that caused the biggest storm for the president is hurricane katrina. and the frustration with that crisis is that the president alone does not dictate the response. under our laws, the federal emergency management agency must find a request from a government to offer support and that request has to follow a particular protocol that congress outlined, the stafford act. and we had a hard time getting one governor to make the right

response or the right question or ask for the right information, yet the public only sees the president's response. they don't really appreciate i'm going to say the governor's response. so that was frustrating. but probably the greatest crisis that any president faces and i pray that presidents don't have to face this crisis, but too many do. how do you have to meet your constitutional responsibilities on a policy that you did not invite, but it requires the president to keep an oath. if he cannot keep it without the fine men and women who take other oaths to help him keep his oath, to call him into service. and that's going to war. and any time a young man is or a young woman is put into harm's way, and they're invited to make sacrifices that the president would never invite on anyone, it's a burden the president takes. and going to war is always a crisis. and that weighs heavily on the

president and i watched it weigh very, very heavily on president george w. bush and i watched it weigh heavily on his dad as well. so i would say that's the crisis, one that the law doesn't allow you to respond the way you would like to. hurricane. and another one that the constitution says you have the sole responsibility to respond, but you can't do it yourself, you have to count on other people to make sacrifices, and that burden ends up being the burden. >> david? >> well, since bin laden is taken--no, i the truth is for better or worse, there are a lot of crises to choose from under this presidency and it's not over yet. but on december 16, 2008, we got together with the president electric and the vice president elect just a few days after he

celebrated in grant park, with his economic team together and they gave us a briefing of the state of the economy. and christina romer, who was going to be head of the council of economic advisors spoke and she was an expert on the great aggression, and in the end, she said, mr. president i think we're in a recession as deep as anything we have faced since the great depression. larry somers coming in as head of the national economic council, talking about what that would mean for the economy, trillion dollar hole in the economy in 2009, trillion dollar hole in the economy in 2010. tim gieithner spoke and said th banking system is locked up, and are on the verge of collapse. and the budget director said this will add this and the steps we will take to deal with it

will add significantly to the debt and deficits. at this point, the president entertained and dismissed the notion of asking for a recount. >> and what began was, we basically became a triage unit trying to write the economy, but in the quarter before we took office, the economy shrunk by 8.9%, the worst quarter since 1930, we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. the stock market was headed to 6,500. and we had millions of foreclosures and it was the worst situation any president had faced since roosevelt in 1933. and what followed was a recovery act, a large spending program at a time when people were concerned about deficits, but necessary to plug the hole in the economy. we had to take steps to stand up

the financial industry which was reviled at the time for the role they played or seemed to have played in the financial crisis and the train wreck of the economy. and the rust au.s. auto industr on the brink and they were weeks away from bankruptcy. and so you add all those things -- and so we had to step in and save them, and none of these steps were popular. they were all difficult. but they were what his responsibility required and he took them and he took them with eyes open, knowing that the politics were bad. and he never once really asked about the politics and would. allow us to foist the politics on him, because this was what is he was elected to do. >> president reagan. >> just a few quick vignettes,

as much as reagan became loved during the campaign of 1980, i think the country really felt -- we saw the grace and dignity of president reagan after the assassination attempt which was the first major crisis of the administration. who can forget president reagan who was being wheeled in on the gurney at the hospital saying i hope all you doctors are republicans. the other part of that story is the surgeon leaned down and said, today we are all republicans or having seen nancy for the first time, saying, honey, i forgot to duck. but that caught on with the american people. another crisis is when we lost the challenger. and ronald reagan became the chaplin to the country.

in that most eloquent address, comforting america on the loss of those wonderful astronauts. then ronald reagan was accused of walking away on a deal with a strategic arms negotiation with michaele gorbachev because he would have had to sacrifice his defense initiative program, which he thought would keep more pressure on the soviet union. he was criticized but ultimately he was proved right because it got gorbachev back to the table. the next one that i want to mention quickly, everybody knows the signature line of the reagan years, his visit to the berlin

wall, but let me suggest to you that it wasn't that's si. the state department and the national security folks all opposed that one paragraph in the speech. because they thought it would undercut gorbachev's efforts on parastryka and. i showed that speech and the offending paragraph to the president and i said what do you think? he said i think it's a hell of a line. i said, well, you're president, you get to decide. and he called me back an hour later to come back to the oval office, and he said, i think we'll leave it in, and i explained the objections of the national security people and the state department. and ronald reagan said, no this

will help to find gorbachev and put him even more to bargaining and negotiation. we went to berlin the night before there had been massive riots against the united states. because we had put pursing 2 missiles in germany and else wrchlt george schulz called me on the phone and said will you tell the president that i share my department's objection to the speech to that paragraph in the speech and i hope you will convey my views to the president. and as everybody on this panel knows, when a cabinet secretary doesn't ask for ten minutes on the president's calendar but asks you to convey the information, it means i've covered myself with the bureaucracy, and if the line fails and there's a major world

crisis, it's on your shoulders. we have all had that experience. as president reagan and i were driving to the brandenburg gate in the presidential motorcade, he was reviewing his speech one more time. and he got to that paragraph and he turned to me and said, it's going to drive the state department boys crazy, but i'm going to leave it in. mr. gorbachev tear down this wall. ronald reagan fundamentally ended the cold war and brought gorbachev to the bargaining table so we got a strategic arms agreement. >> but since i was the chief of staff, i'll give you a small little element, when i had just

gotten appointed chief of staff, and i was at home, this was about 2:00, 2:30 in the morning and i got a call from the secret service and secret service said, mr. panetta, because, you know when you get a call at that time in the evening, it's not good news. said mr. panetta, i'm sorry to tell you but a plane just went into the white house, i said what the hell was it, a 747 what kind of a plane went into the white house? he said no, it's a light plane, it went up against the white house, we think it may have damaged the jackson magnolia tree. i said wait a minute, this could be a terror attack on the president. have you looked in the plane, is there explosives in the plane? and the answer was, well, according to cnn news -- >> it's true. >> true.

i said no, i would appreciate it if you get off your butt and go out there and check the plane to make sure that has not happened. >> leon, if it makes you feel good, there's a great story that colin powell tells, being at a wedding at a church, he was national security adviser. an aid comes during the ceremony and says, there's an urgent phone call for you. and everybody's eye follow the national security director as he leaves the church. and he comes back ten minutes later and alma powell leans over and says what's going on. collin says, well, there's been a coup in x country. she said, oh, i heard that on cnn before we left.

but leon, we should also underscore that, while we can pick iconic crises and challenges, what makes the presidency what it is, is every skinningal day is filled with, -- i can guarantee you that when we were running for president, we didn't talk a lot about pirates, that was something that came up later. and all of a sudden, the president has ten minutes to decide whether or not he should give the order to try and take out captain phillips captors and he had snipers bobbing on a boat who were pretty sure they could get the bad guys but might get captain phillips and he's got ten minutes to decide, or someone walks in the office when you're dealing with a financial crisis and a war, and tells you that we may have a h1n1 pandemic, that is the nature of the presidency, and that is why it's such an incredibly

challenging job. >> andy, let me ask you about that, because it's the whole question of, what is the process that a president uses to come to a decision? and you know, we have heard a little bit of it discussed here, but presidents have to face countless decisions on administrative issues on legislative issues, on -- as commander in chief, on foreign policy, political decisions, et cetera, et cetera. what was the -- what's the process that the president uses in order to come to a decision? i mean, you know, the perceptions are these, reagan kind of had this core set of beliefs that ken talked about. clinton kind of reached out for a review, bush we thought operated by his gut, obama the law professor's approach, what was the process that you sauce a president use in order to come to a decision? >> first i want to say that it's up to the chief of staff to know the president, the personality, kind of what their thinking

process is and you want to make sure the president, in my opinion, i wanted to always make sure that the president wasn't making a decision when he was angry, hungry, lonely or tired, and since that's 24 hours a day, it's a burden. i always want him to make a decision in the best possible mood he could be in. i didn't want a pessimistic president makings a decision, i wanted it to be an optimistic decision. so i focused on the president's lifestyle. it's a 24-hour a day job for the chief of staff. and you don't know when he's going to have to make a decision, and you want him to be in the best possible mood. i focused on it every single day, 24 hours a day, to make sure that the president could be as prepared as possible when we didn't know what he had to be prepared to do. but ultimately the would try not to allow emotions to drive the

response. he would seek counsel that was not monolithic. so i would make sure that he wasn't getting monolithic counsel, he was getting information to be able to make a decision, rather than be presented a decision, and i wanted to make sure that he understood when the decision was necessary, whether it was in ten minute ors two hours or six days or three months. and give the president an opportunity then to adjust the process that he had to go through to make a decision in time. because if you make a decision to late, it's irrelevant. if you make it too early, it may not be mature the way it should have been at the time the decision was put into motion. so i tried to pay attention to, you know, kind of goldilocks and the three bears, i was always looking for the perfect porridge to feed him. but ultimately the president had to be comforted that he had the information, the best information available at the time, from people who we could

trust but were not just feeding him a response. and he had to understand the con tra strants that were there. what were the consequences of a decision being made too early or too late and what are the consequences of the decision if it's wrong. but probably whispering into the president's ear on 9/11 is an example of delivering a message that the president is not prepared to hear. it wasn't a statement he expected to hear from his chief of staff, sitting in front of second grade students with an audience of press pool folks watching every move. and i couldn't present him the information and ask to have a discussion. or enter into a dialogue. i had to drop a message and then back off and let him accept that message and wrestle with what

his constitutional response would be and how he should respond while i tried to give him all of the tools in the other room where the staff was busy getting ready to help the president do his job. >> erskin? >> people used to ask me all the time, was this tv show the west wing, was it accurate? and i said it does a pretty good job of capturing the velocity of the place, it's like faster than the dotcom world. and the breadth of issues you have to deal with in a day, you know, in an average day for leon and for me, you know, we deal with bosnia, northern ireland, taxation, the budget, some kind of environmental issue, then we would have lunch. and you know, we always said thank god it's friday, only two more workdays until monday. and if you were doing one of these sunday shows, god, you

know, all the stuff you would have done on saturday, you had to do on sunday. so it really was a seven-day a week job. but i think what this guy next to me did when he came into the white house was remarkable. leon came in and brought hrlickey and myself in as his two deputies, and when we arrived, we saw a white house where every 15 minutes of every day was scheduled. and you can imagine in a world that's changing as o'and evolving as much as the one these guys described, clearly if you have every a minutes scheduled, it gives you no time to think, reflect, react to a changing world and it also means that u you're going to be or appear to be late to meeting after meeting when it's really just poor staff work. the second thing that leon and i saw, was we had some members of the staff, i know this will come to a great surprise to you guys,

who were leaking what was going on in various meetings, meetings they weren't even in. and one of the purposes of that was to lock the president into where they wanted him to go as opposed to where he might want to go. and therefore if he actually made the opposite decision, it looked like he flip-flopped. and finally, we found a white house where people would wanter into the oval office, the president would get a little information here, a little information there. and it would take him longer to make worse decisions. and so leon changed that, he made sure that the president got all his event information in context, we freed up three to four hours every single stay for him to think, reflect and react to a changing world. and we made sure that in theory that less is often better than more, that instead of doing two

or three events a day and therefore stepping on his message that he was trying to get out, that he would do maybe two a week. and that if he was saying something in new york that was quite important, that instead of having bob rice and bob ruben saying the exact opposite thing in new orleans and new mexico, that they all said the same thing. and that ways we were able to get control. we were able to establish some discipline, some organization structure and focus. and the president went on to have a successful second year. >> ken? >> erskin reminds me about west wing. and i had the privilege of being a consultant for the story line for three years. the first time i went out to hollywood, i met with seven writers, none of whom was more than 35 years of age and only two of the seven had ever been in washington. and i spent several hours, as we started to chart out the year.

and at the end, i said i had to go back to washington and this wonderful, very pretty young writer, woman, got up and gave me a hug. and one of the male writers said mr. duberstein, who immediately made me feel old, said,down how lucky you are? no, she's never kissed a republican before in her life. everybody walks into the oval office almost everybody and gets colt on the -- cotton in their mouth. they tell -- to say, it doesn't add up. everybody walk into the oval office, almost everybody, and says, you know, mr. president, it's in your best interest to do this.

and our job was to figure out why it was in their best interest first, and the president second. ronald reagan was a voracious reader. he read all the memos. all the decision memos we all falked about. but the key to reagan was listening to the argumentses in person. because an actor, he looked at people's eyes, he heard their tone and he could start sorting out what really added up and what didn't. he never liked the argument, mr. president this is the best politics for you. he would end the conversation. the answer was make sure at our level that he had the right options, and then let them

argue -- let people argue it out in front of him in the oval office and then later he would make a decision. >> well, i think -- and we have all -- some of it has to do with the input, right? there's so much information, and part of the staff's job is to filter the information, but filter it fairly so he gets a feel for the sweep of arguments. and, you know, obama, i mean one of the things that has been very good for him in the presidency is that he had been a legislator for 11 years before he became president and so he was either in springfield or washington much of the time. this was the first time in his life that he was actually living with his family on a regular basis. so he would go home every night at 6:30 to have dinner with his family, and then he would dive into this thick folder and well

into the night, reviewing all of the stuff for the next day. and he was always well briefed on what was in that package. but as ken suggests, i think the conversations were very important to him. and leon, you're asking a question that you know the answer to because you were involved in many of these conversations. you said he has a law professor, in the sense that he drills down into these issues, that's true, but there's a sort of dispassionate implication to that that wasn't true, he was very well aware of the implications of his decisions and he wanted to hear people argue them out. and whoever was in the room, he presumed they were there for a reason, and he wanted to know what everybody thought. he didn't just want one dominant voice to speak, but he wanted to hear the discussions and when he thought he had enough information, he would make a decision. >> no, it was, i mean again, just from my own insights, when we were looking at the bin laden

decision, the reality is we did not have 100% intelligence that bin laden was there and it was considered a very risky decision. but many in the national security council said it was too risky and that we shouldn't do it. and so he continued to go around. and i remember when he asked me, i said mr. president, i have an old formula that i used when i was in congress, which was, if i'm facing a tough decision, ask the average citizen in my district what would you do if you knew what i did? and i thought, if i told the average citizen that we had the best intelligence and a location of bin laden since tora bora, i think the average citizen would say you have to do it, you can't, you know, make the mistake of not taking this on. and i told the president that and i said in addition to that, i have tremendous confidence in

the ability of the s.e.a.l.s to make that decision. and he didn't make a decision that day, but he called the next day and said it's a go. let me just ask, you were all members of presidents who were elected to a second term. and second term, you know, frankly, turns out to be pretty rough. it's a bumpy ride. things catch up to you, you know, in the last four years, that you didn't have to worry about the first four years. you know, for reagan, iran contra. clinton obviously lewinsky, bush, iraq, katrina, we talked about that, obama health care, veteran's care. >> you're bumming everybody out, leon. >> how does a president stay relevant in the second term? and not -- and not seem like, you know, basically things are

going to happen without the president directing policy in the country. i mean how does the president stay relevant? let me ask you, david. >> well, first of all, let me say that presidents today have an even more difficult task because of the pace at which the media churns. it is so easy to be overexposed because of the way the media churns and people get tired, you know, we live in a society where people are always looking for new and they get tired and by six years, you know, you have to deal with that element and then we have got the kind of deep polarization that we have today. so it's difficult for any president, certainly been difficult for this president. but on the question of relevance, i think this is a sir

republican dip to us day to talk about this, because the president today talked about emissions from coal fired plants that is pretty profound in its implications and i'm sure will be very controversial as well. but no one can argue that it wasn't a meaningful act or gesture, it was a very important one, and i think it will go down in the sort of annals of discussion on climate change as a big step forward. to i think that you have to use the tools that are available to you to advance to the things that you feel are important. the other element, by the way, on this, is and this is a failing of our political system, we now have a permanent election campaign. we have elections, we have a few weeks of governing as an interlude and then more elections. so part of what happens is people get bored because this president isn't going to be running anymore so. they're already thinking about,

and you may ask us about it, what about the next presidential election? this guy's like yesterday's news. so that's something else, you know, in this environment in which we're constantly churning about elections and politics, it makes it hard for a second term president. >> andy? >> a second term is always a challenge, george w. bush had the changes of trying to get some of his favorite programs passed, he called for social security reform and wasn't able to build momentum, he called for immigration reform, wasn't able to build momentum. obviously he was dealing with two wars and he was trying to manage a transition, we had actually kind of won the hot war and we couldn't win the peace. so those were challenges. but then he had the crisis in our economy that hit after the republican and the democratic conventions, after the two nominees of the major parties had already been selected and we had an economic crisis and he had to deal with that.

so he did not have a lot of positive momentum going to get anything done with congress or to mobilize interest, never mind support from the american people. he was trying to clean up two wars, help secure peace in two places that didn't want to embrace peace and then he had an economic crisis that very few people anticipated would come. i think that what he did do was manage with a calm deliberate, president george w. bush and barack obama very different philosophies, very different parties, but president bush tried to make sure that president obama wasn't given, i'm going to say an empty bask to play with. he actually told him what was in the basket. so focused on the transition. and he actually started to do that quite early. and it was probably to the

well, i've said, you know this andy because i said this to you, i will always be profoundly grateful for the way the transition was handled. not only was the president generous to president obama but all of our counterparts were generous to us in terms of briefing us on their jobs and bringing us up to date on things that were relevant for us moving forward. so i was proud of the -- i was grateful to him and proud of our country because of the way that transition was handled. frankly we had beaten the bejesus out of him in our campaign. we were very critical of his policies. and and it said something about our country that despite all that we did work together on something very important at the end of that administration. you mentioned the financial

crisis. >> but also the intelligence side. >> right. but on the -- after leeman collapsed. the treasure secretary reached out beforehand to brief obama. and obama was as supportive as he could be in terms of trying to rally democrats and hold democrats together for that solution. and so, you know, i'm going to make -- i'm going to break all this comedy with a t and make one partisan point, which is, democrats in large numbers came to the support of president bush on the tarp, which was a very tough vote. it was a time of crisis for the country and i think that was a good example that's worth following. >> so my transition was that the second term is about getting ready to pass the baton. and a good president will make sure the president is not dropped the day that it's passed and i think that that's a very

important thing to do when you are a lame-duck president getting ready to support a new president that you may or may not like but you will respect. how do you stel relevant that second term? >> you governor as if it was your first day in office, not your last day in office. yes we had to bump the major hurdle of iran contra. but before that, we also had tax reform with marty russo. and one of the most fundamental tax bills in american history, at least modern, and it took place in the second term. so did immigration reform. so did welfare reform. social security. social security reform all were the first two, two and a half

years of the second term. he did it in part because he realized that the white house and he needed new blood and fresh ideas. and the credibility of frank and colin powell and howard baker and myself, not just as managers, but somebody who could figure out a strategy to make those last two years important. when i came back to the white house, who people were writing about was that ronald regan wasn't a lame duck, he was a dead duck. why? because he just lost the united states senate to the democrats for the last two years of his term. regan went out of his way to rebuild a presidency so that we did the canada/u.s. free trade

agreement. in hindsight it looks easy. except jim baker, my wonderful predecessor and secretary of the treasure couldn't push it over the line. it took the president to do it. the president had built up a trusting relationship with the congress on both sides of the aisle. he did the strategic arms. we got a supreme court nominee, anthony kennedy from here and california and northern california approved overwhelmingly by a democratic senate. and i know this is going to sound weird, but we had all 13 appropriation bills passed on time.

not bad for a b-movie actor in the last two years of his term. [ applause ]. >> you were there. >> well, we balanced the budget. >> there you go. [ laughter ]. [ applause ]. >> that's true. >> yeah. and to get that done, i had to spend months and months and months locked up in conference rooms locked up with newt gingrich. you all owe me a lot for that. i'm telling you. president clinton loved being president. he loved mitt dedelighted in it. he wanted to use everyday to make this country a better place to live and work and raise your family. i mean, i'll give you an example of something that shows his humanity. you know, every -- literally almost every day he would come over from the east wing to the

west wing and he would have articles of various newspapers from around the country. little teeny papers that he had ripped out and it had been somebody who had gotten some kind of bad deal. he would give me articles and say, go fix this. nobody would know the president of this country cared enough about their problems to try to make it better. and that's what he did. and i think he had a successful second term inspite of the fact that we were going through -- people say it's so partisan now. felt a little partisan then. they were impeaching him. but we were able to work with the republican house and senate. because the president knew what he wanted to accomplish in that term. the proudest i ever saw him, leon --

>> let me ask this -- >> before i get there, let me just ask this question. we all know that the presidency is a very isolating job. presidents get elected. they suddenly go to the white house, secret service is all around them. they can't go any place. they can't walk like truman used to walk around the place. they're basically in some ways trapped in the office itself. and as a result, you know,give me the shortest answer you can with regards to how did your president protect the human side of that individual in a situation where there is all

this isolation and this -- these pressures of the job? >> ronald regan loved to call congressmen and senators but not in washington. the white house switchboard -- oh the white house is on the phone. you call in a district. you guys know, marty, it's a big deal. regan would insist upon talking to the receptionist first. what's going on in your town? what's happening? i know it's president regan but tell me. you get the congressman on the phone. what did you hear in your town hall meeting? what did you hear when you're

walking the streets or going to a rally? what do i need to know? all of a sudden there was chatter all over. the president of the united states called congressman panetta. congressman russo. you know, what did you tell them? you told them you're going to support him, didn't you? that's how you start getting the consensus in america to impact the congressman in the hometown. that's also how we kept regan grounded. not from his california kitchen cabinet but much more from the rank and file. where is ted? i used to go home to brooklyn, new york, near ted's house. and i used to sit on a luncheon counter. people knew me when i was 18 years old. what are you hearing?

what's going on? what do i need to know back in washington? and i'm sitting there in a pair of jeans and a baseball cap. people will open up to you. and then i would share it with the president. >> erskine? >> i think i just gave one good example. we did everything we possibly could to keep the president in touch with everyday folks. we never had a problem with him wanting to hear people from different walks of life. he wanted your opinion. he wanted to bark on, bark off. he wanted to know what you really felt. but as i think ken said a few minutes ago, you know, when any of you all walk into the oval office, you know, you might have spent 20 minutes with leon and me first and we might say, now, look when grow in there, you tell him exactly what you told us first. okay? then you walk in the oval office

and the president says, how am i doing? so it's hard. >> you got that right. >> we tried everything. we tried pulling people off the rope line, who were going through the white house to come meet the president. >> that worked out well for you, didn't it? >> yeah, really good. [ laughter ]. >> that was one of my best ideas. >> let's move on. [ laughter ]. >> i tried to make sure the president always had time with his wife and time to pay attention to his daughters. no scheduler scheduled time for the president to spend quality time with his daughters or his wife. they didn't schedule time for him to talk to a friend. or to see a movie or even to

read a book. so i tried to make sure the president had time to see friends that were not part of the political community. yes, he had friends in congress and, yes, that was a little bit like work. but i really wanted him to have time to talk to people that weren't carrying the burdens of the office but were carrying the concerns of the nation. and we tried to do that. he enjoyed going away to camp g crawford, to his ranch. but he really liked being with friends that were not there using him so that he could befriend him. that is a hard thing to schedule because time is short, the decisions are important and the policy concerns are great. but i really tried to focus on allowing the president to interact with people that had concerns that were not nationally-driven concerns, instead they were personally-driven interests in a

great country. >> well, first of all, i mentioned the family, very, very important to him. kept him very much grounded. in the same vain, his old friends were his friends and he got together some friends he grew up with would come periodically. he was very close. but in terms of keeping in touch with the country the president said i want ten letters a night that are representative of the letters that we're getting. and he would -- sometimes he would write handwritten notes back, other times he would call. he would respond to all these letters. more importantly, he would circulate these letters around the white house. and if we were in a discussion on the economic crisis and he was told that small business lending was moving forward a pace. and he had had four letters from people who couldn't get any credit, you know, and he would have those checked out. and he would come back with these stories. so these letters became very

important to him and also very difficult for him because they were heart breaking about people struggling out there. and he would cite them often in private conversations he would talk to me. finally, you know, i think traveling and actually interacting with people is really, really important. i went in the summer of 2009 with a poll to say we're taking on some water on this health care thing. and this was not news to him, by the way. he said, i know you're right but i just got back from green bay, wisconsin. i met a woman 36 years old, married, two jobs, also has stage 4 breast cancer and now hit her life time cap and is worried about dying and leaving her family bankrupt. by now i feel him -- he had his hand in the small of my back easing me out of his office. but on the way out the door, he said, so let's keep fighting. this is a country we believe in.

so i think that human interaction is very important. >> no, it is. absolutely. let me take a quick break here to recognize our question review team who are the people that are responsible for selecting questions that will present to our speakers. and i would ask you to hold your applause until i introduce the entire group. they are julie copeland who is the city editor. mary duwan. doug mcknight. don miller, executive editor. jeff mitchell. if you would all thank them, please. [ applause ]. there was some comment about some of the students in the audience. they are from -- they are military and we have -- we were able to host them in terms of

talking about some of the issues that we talked about. let me introduce -- first of all, let me have them all stand, if i could. [ applause ]. >> let me -- let me personally thank you for your service to this country. we deeply appreciate it. they are students from the defense language institute and the navy post graduate school. thank you. you may be seated. [ applause ]. and lastly, if i could mention, that throughout our lecture series, obviously the student participation in these events is possible only because of the generous support of our lecture series sponsors. so sylvia and i are very

grateful for the sponsorship we get students from high schools, colleges, universities, military institutions throughout northern california to be able to participate and to be able to learn about the political issues facing this country. so i would appreciate it if you give our sponsors a hand as well. [ applause ]. let me turn to some questions from our audience, if i could. let's talk about one of the more ust seen in washington with secretary sin secky and the veteran's administration. obviously there was a scandal at the veteran's administration. it seemed to take weeks for the

president and the secretary to act. shouldn't he have been fired earlier? david? >> why me? [ laughter ]. >> i didn't know. you see, i didn't applaud for the panel that screened the questions because i want to hear the questions first. you know, the god's honest truth is if you're talking about pure politics, probably would have made sense because there's nothing that washington loves or demands more than a body to be thrown out when ever there's a problem. now, the fact is that general shinseki had done many things well. he had administered the post 9/11 g.i. bill in taking 2 million more veterans new policies related to agent orange and ptsd. and, you know so he had done a lot of things well. and, you know, it is the president's habit and practice

not to throw bodies out just because if there's blood lost in washington. so, as a matter of pure politics, yeah. the play would have been to fire someone quickly. but the decent and honorable thing was to really look at the facts and see what was known, what wasn't known, what was done and what wasn't done and that's what he did. >> let me ask you -- go ahead, ken. >> i think the tipping point came, though -- and i agree with what david said. but the tipping point came not when so many republicans came out for the resignation of shinseki, but when the democrats in very contested senate seats and vulnerable house democrats started lining up to impose shinseki, that is the tipping scale that wound up with -- >> i didn't say blood lost was a partisan pursuit. all of washington engages in it. >> ken, let me ask you this.

did regan like to fire people? >> hated it because it showed loyalty to his cabinet, loyalty to some white house staff, but when confronted with it, eventually it was the job of the chief of staff to say -- time to go. [ laughter ]. >> and whether that was i'll ignore it or john point dexter, regan, he did have to fire as well as occasional cabinet officer. but he held out in a sense of loyalty and importance of making sure that they could make right before he let them go. >> erskine, bill clinton? >> i learned something about politics from al simpson.

he described politics to me. he said it came from the greek word poly meaning many and ticks meaning insects. my experience is that most poll tixs got to where they are by saying yes. and not by saying no. and so i always felt it was my responsibility that if something like this had to be done that i would take care of it. but i would be the guy that said no or i would be the guy to let somebody go. and that's the way we did it. but that also means that you also have the responsibility when you're dealing with the president himself and it's just the two of you in the room you can't be afraid of losing your job. you have to stand up and say, mr. president, i don't think this is the right way for us to go. >> andy? >> presidents really don't like to fire anybody. sometimes they have to. and they come to recognize it.

i think general shinseki, first of all he is a patriot and did great job in service to our country. he did an awful lot of veteran's administration, did an outstanding job for much of what he did. however, he ended up personifying the problem. once you start personifying the problem, congress doesn't see the solution. and so i think that it was the right thing for secretary shinseki to tender his resignation. i don't know whether president obama asked for it or not, but i'm going to say that he tendered his resignation. since all of us who have served served at the pleasure of the president for the time being. that's what our little document says that hangs on our wall and it's redundant in its insecurity. and i think secretary shinseki's time being arrived. and i don't know if the pleasure was gone but the time being arrived. i think it was appropriate for him to leave. but no president likes to say

good-bye to a staffer. and i've watched presidents hold on to people they shouldn't have held on to very long but they did and others who agonized over the good-bye longer than they should have. >> yep. >> i would only add that even though erskine is an abor ration at his height, every chief of staff started out to be erskine's height and we're now 5'9". we talked about two terms for the president. here is a question. should the president's term be changed to a single six-year term? andy? >> i don't think it should be. because then it would make the president a lame duck on year one of a six-year term. and congress would not pay as much attention as they should. we watch the president's

authority wane as his political support wanes. and people already start to be looking at who the next president would be, which we'll talk about before we end up leaving. but, no, i do not support a six-year term. i think it's important for the president to be conscious of the pulse of america the same way members of congress have to be conscious of it. they just have to be paranoid about it. president shouldn't be paranoid. >> yeah. i mean, there was actually a column about this recently and i thought about it because there is some -- i mean, you know, basically you spend the last year of your first-term running for re-election and then you run into the problems that we talked to in your second term. but i actually thought that it was an important exercise for the president to go back to the country and run for re-election. i don't think we want to divorce the president from the electric after that first election. >> i am strongly opposed to a six-year term for all the

reasons that andy gave and david gave. i just want to take the opportunity, though, to also talk that the challenge, whether it's president obama or when president reagan had it, was to try to make sure that he is succeeded by somebody of his own party. reagan was able to do that with george herbert walker bush, but you have to go back about 50 years before that is true before -- >> two terms. >> two-term to be succeeded by somebody of his own party. that is one of the measures also of the importance of a second term that you've mentioned before about staying relevant. >> erskine you feel any different? >> yeah. i do. i have the complete opposite opinion on that. if i felt the president just spent the last year of a four-year term running for re-election i might feel the

same way that david does. but i don't. i feel like the campaign almost started the day they're re-elected or day they're elected. and therefore i -- i also think too many presidents make decisions based on, you know, what kind of effect it will have on their re-election as opposed to what they might think is the best for the country. i would really like to see one six-year term. i think it would really be very positive. >> i'm influenced by the fact that we made a bunch of disastrous political decisions. >> this is a good question. how does social media, instant reporting, 24-hour news affect the presidential decision process? does it affect just the public affairs piece or the decision overall? we are living at a time when, you know, as i mentioned to you earlier, we've moved beyond fire side chats. we've got blogs. we've got twitter.

we've got facebook. we've got everything that immediately reports things. how does all of that affect the presidential decision-making process? erskine, we'll start with you. >> when we talked about this earlier, i thought andy had the absolute best answer to that about the lid. can andy tell that story first and then we'll go on to it? >> sure. >> i went to the white house for a forgettable campaign for the governor of massachusetts in 1928 and i showed up in august of 1983 very excited to be working at the white house for president reagan. at around 4:30 in the afternoon of r over a loud speaker system that went through the west wing of the white house and old executive office building where the white house staffers are, there would be an announcement from the press secretary's conference that would say the lid is on. the lid is on. that meant news for the day had ended. reporters were putting stuff into their editorial teams and

editors and the evening news was getting ready to be broadcast, so there was no more news. and it was like everybody in the white house -- whew. there was also a discipline that you could tell reporters practiced strong ethics because they wouldn't run a story unless you had two sources and you could find out they had one source and they were trolling hard for that second-confirming source, but they wouldn't run it if they didn't have two confirming sources. then all of a sudden cable nudes came along and they couldn't run the loop enough over the course of the day and maintain eyeballs and ears, so they had to put alert. that meant they had to have something new to say every once in a while. >> breaking news. >> breaking news. >> so they made a conscious -- >> i'm going to move my chair over. [ laughter ]. >> they made a decision to go with one source, not two. and then other cable news outlets came along and radio

talk show and they said, heck, we're just going to go with a good rumor if anybody responds to it. [ laughter ]. >> and so all of a sudden the momentum changed and it was a 24-hour cycle and the lid was never put on. now we have opportunities to communicate instantaneously. we can offer a bert and it showed up in a tweet and somebody is offered to respond to it. we respond without thinking and all of a sudden the response comes out in 140 characters. i said 40 characters before. 140 characters and the person who puts them out owns the response and they refuse to move off of it even if they know it was wrong and so they don't allow good judgment to be used. so we are communicating instantaneously with our emotions and congress is the most paranoid so they communicate the most with your emotions and they echo them. and judgment, which is what our

republic was founded on, we were founded as a democracy that had representatives represent us offering some judgment before they made a decision and then senators took a longer time to consider judgment and the president could exercise judgment after watching what happened in congress. now we're reacting to emotions very quickly and people get stuck on stupid with the responses that they make and we don't taste words before we spit them out and our thumbs are not restrained as we punch and our hashtag is used before we rehash. [ applause ]. but like -- >> how do you feel about it? >> we can't put that jeannie back in the bottle. so our democracy looks less like a judgment-informed republic and

emotionally driven and people do get stuck on stupid and government doesn't work. >> i think the worst -- there are many bad manifestations of this. i started off as a newspaper reporters covering politics back in the early '80s, late '70s, early '80s. when we had 24 hours to report our our story or generally as much time as we needed and there wasn't this deadline pressure every ten minutes, every ten seconds with every tweet, every rumor. but the other thing that's happened is because of cable competition and so on, everything gets blown into a humongous story. so everyday is election day in washington. every story is going to define the presidency. and the thing i always remember -- the example i always use -- now, this wasn't a small thing by any stretch. but when the oil leak happened in the gulf, this was -- i don't mean to touch on -- it was

called obama's katrina, this was going to be the end of his presidency. do you know that it came. it was dealt with. and i don't think it came up once in the 2012 campaign. and one of the things that -- one of the disciplines you have to learn when you are in the white house is to evaluate these rabbits and not chase them down the hole. there really aren't that many defining stories that come along the course of the presidency and shouldn't get ain a panic along with the rest of the community and the journalists and pseudo journalists. >> every year i lived there i came to believe that human ert humphry was really right 26 square miles, surrounded by reality is how he described it. >> ken, any thoughts? >> my problem is because of

modern media, when you have the arab spring and cairo and tahrir square and you have a protester arguing against the united states and you have a split screen and the white house podium in the press room is responding to a protester in instant time, if you're in the white house, you don't have to think about winning the second or the minute but you need to win the month, the six months, the years. you need a consistent strategy. and you don't know who this protester is. you don't know who he or she stands for. and to equate that person with the podium of the president of the united states and having the press secretary responding, seems to me to be dangerous for

governing especially in america. >> social media has affected the presidency in another way and you touched on it which is the arab springs started -- >> social media. >> a fruit peddler in tunisia who lit himself on fire. this went viral. and the whole region went up. and this is another thing that makes the presidency, i think, much more difficult today than its ever been before. >> talking about the press, obviously presidents rely a great deal when they're running in a campaign on the press. and when they suddenly go into the white house. in part the press turns fickle against that particular president and the president starts to get a little paranoid about the press. and presidents begin to then -- you know, they don't go out. they don't do as many press conferences. they don't go out and deal with the press as much. tell me the relationship, you

know, between a president you served and the press. how did he regard the press, what was the relationship like, ken? >> ronald reagan really respected the press. it wasn't adversarial relationship, but he loved a whole bunch of the press people. first and foremost, believe it or not, was sam donaldson. who always gave him the shouted question. and you remember reagan with his ear cup, i can't hear you, sam. the reality, which i said to sam in a panel like this, was when we didn't want reagan to answer the question as he was leaving for camp david on the helicopter, before we walked outside the dip room, i ordered the pilot of the helicopter to start his engines. >> it's true. >> because you never want to make the president of the united states a liar. i can't hear you.