and knows what it is to be president really could be a perfect designated hitter. as john mentioned, the president of the united states would be the person making the decision about who this designated hitter would be and the person would be subject to a senate confirmation. i am imagining someone who does not need a lot of on-the-job training. frankly, that is not true of lower cabinet officials. they don't quite have the credibility or the experience in these crises to step up and reassure everyone to the same degree that perhaps a former president or secretary of state or really considerable person nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate. . . unusual thing in a low probability scenario would be able to do. >> thank you.

if i could just state a little bit and i'll turn to jim, too. we sort of -- both john feerick had some criticisms of this proposal. that we took out -- that we recommended taking out the lower level cabinet members, those below the big four and jim more generally worried about bringing in these new people into the line. you know, we weighed those things together. things together. i mean, akil mentioned this is an extreme situation where the president and the vice president died at the same time and it's more extraordinary that the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, the secretary of treasury, the secretary of defense and the attorney general are all gone and now we are looking for number seven. we've cut out congress. we're looking for somebody way down the line. something extraordinary happened. we weighed both the question of wanting to make sure people were outside of washington that somebody was around and jim may be right that there certainly are ways to operationally have people in different places and

that may be part of the solution. but then we also asked the question about these lower level cabinet members and i'm not denigrating anyone in particular but certainly the positions themselves are not picked for the same sort of national security reasons. they're not picked maybe -- people at quite the same level as one succeeding to the presidency. and john has a question about the line being shorter but we thought this might be a group that brings a little more to the table and is outside of washington weighing those different factors. >> well, let me say on the designated hitters, if we're going to use the baseball analogy, they are not necessarily the happiest people on the baseball team. [laughter] >> and more to the -- more to politics, vice presidents as we all know through much of american history have tried to

figure out what their job is, their main job is to be in the line of succession and day in and day out they're not quite sure what beyond that they're supposed to do. you know, we are now creating 3rd, fourth, fifth, sixth vice presidents. on the possibility that all sixth of the top cabinet -- the senior officers, vice president, president and president, vice president and four top officers all die, it seems to be remote. on the other hand, it gives the president the problem of choosing from among former presidents and vice presidents and governors. it provides a kind of standing

for former presidents and vice presidents to reemerge with a current role. i would point out that in the event of a catastrophe, that the president -- that the country tends to rally around whoever is in charge. we certainly discovered that after 9/11. and that to me this is an entirely -- it's a very remote and yet unnecessary procedure. and i guess -- you know, i would strongly oppose it. >> just one point. i must say i find this report is terrific and generating the kind of discussion you've heard from my colleagues, and that's in and of itself going to be a major

contribution. you're going to force, hopefully, a lot more focus on these subjects. i was thinking to myself that if you -- if you -- and again, i just read the report a few times in preparation for this panel. i'm revolving myself, i suppose, because of the book update in this subject that i thought i had graduated from a long time ago. and it seemed to be true and back to it 'cause it's so important and interesting. i think i would give a little more consideration to dropping the acting secretaries. let's take your recommendation to the top four. if the number two person in the state department -- the number two person in the ag's office

you start rendering more remote the possibility of what you worry about, everybody being wiped out 'cause now you have more people in the line of succession. and my recollection your commission was under-secretary, i think, of the state department. you'll have to double-check me on that. and if it came to him having to step forward, he would have done a very fine job under the circumstances. and also in the federal law today, under 5 u.s.c. takes over the absence or death or vacancy of the head of the department and the 25th amendment in terms of conferring authority on the cabinet along with the vice president to declare a president

disabled specifically in the legislative history and its -- we've seen it -- you know it, it contemplates the acting secretaries stepping up to be in place of the head of the department where there's no head of the department. as i say, what your report is going to do, i think, is produce maybe a lot of ideas and suggestions and at the end of the day, if something emerges from the process, you will have made a major contribution so i salute you. >> i'm not going to answer every objection. we have a panel coming up which will probably talk about some of these issues. do we have any other comments on the panel before we turn to a few questions from the audience? let's open it up for a couple of questions and then we will move to our secon panel. right here and you can identify yourself when the mic comes. >> john wallstetter senior

policy institute. would you be able solve the fair amount of problem with the following simple requirement in any meeting which has -- let's say four of the big six or all of the big six present, meaning, president, vice president, and the four top cabinet secretaries in the line of succession. they have to take place in an underground facility that is reinforced because if you're talking about a nuclear blast, it is not going to take out somebody, particularly, if it's a small device, it will wipe them all and a whole bunch of buildings, kill 50, or 100 or 100,000 people on the surface but if you are in a bunker at the white house or at the treasury department and you are 100 feet down, you will survive. and that, therefore, with some modification and also taking into account, for example, on some ceremonial occasions that you can have people -- a helicopter right away. they don't have to be in

sacramento. it's just as good if they were in richmond. where you can get a lot of the -- reduce the chance of having people all taken out at one time. the second question, if i could throw a second quick one -- there's a related question -- i took a quick look at your scenario. the first thing that's going to happen after that is marshall law. somebody is going to be taking command in the streets. and you need a provision that deals with marshall law whomever takes control if it's the president if he survivors or someone else there will be marshall law after a nuclear event or a big wmd event, whether you call it that or not. for example, you get 30 days maximum before, you know, it's half the period of the war powers act to commit forces overseas where whoever has marshall law gets it whether it's the president or some senior surviving commander. after that you have to go to some sort of a congress and get

90-day extensions at the same time but some sort of procedure to bound marshall law as well because you're going to have that after an event like that. >> i'll take on the first 'cause i'm not sure what to say about the second. that may be a wise idea. on the first, obviously jim mann brought this up for the idea of operationally trying to make sure the members in the line of succession are not all together or not in danger and that, of course, goes on today. and, you know, this is the most extreme possibility for which we feel the need to have some people outside of washington is we hope very remote and extreme. i'm not sure your scenario completely deals with it, though, an underground bunker wouldn't stop someone with an infectious disease that was put upon us, a biological weapon. it's not as simple as putting them underground and your point is well-taken. it's complementary to what we

say. if you think it's sufficient, we may not need to do this but it's something that we are generally in favor of the operation of. anybody else want to jump in? okay. do we have another question? if not, we can turn to the second panel. so i'm going to turn it to tom mann who seamless transition. a continuity from panel one to panel two. i'm tom mann. i'm delighted to be a part of this event and to be part of this project and the commission. norm and i have over the years collaborated with our two institutions on a number of projects. and going back a decade ago, john fortier has been an important part of all of those

starting with a transition project and continuing now to this continuity of government. so i'm delighted to be here and delighted to have three members of the continuity of government commission here to segue a bit from what's the problem, what is to be done to focusing a bit, if not exclusively on how in the world to do it. norm, i think, mentioned that it's been eight years since 9/11. it was hours after the attack that the concern about continuity first arose in the mind of norm and brian baird and some others, efforts were begun almost immediately and yet over

the years relatively little has happened and what has happened in congress, i would argue is -- has been perhaps at best neutral, having no impact and at worse, more harm than good. martin frost knows well the obstacles on capitol hill having listened to the concerns of some members of congress that it would be a travesty of the constitution and of our system of constitutional government to allow for any temporary appointments to the house of representatives violating the notion that anyone who enters the body has been elected by their constituents and further

making the argument of the distinctive difference between the house and the senate, although, it seems to not take into account a constitutional amendment that provided for the direct election of senators, but that's another story. there also is, of course, the sort of continuing problem of how in the world do you remove the speaker of the house and the president pro tem in the line of succession without implicitly criticizing or diminishing them and, therefore, setting up political obstacles that seem to be insurmountable in getting anything actually accomplished. so our task in this panel in part at least is to -- is to

are we right? have got a rough sense of the seriousness of the problems and ways to deal with that in a statutory sense, with respect to presidential succession, but perhaps in a constitutional amendment cents, to encompass the broader issues that include the congress, and if so, how do we make the months and years ahead more productive than the ones since 9/11? we have a wonderful group of àthank you all for coming to join us again. we're going to proceed in the order in which they're listed in the program. martin frost now an attorney,

but we know him as a long time influential member of the house of representatives, chairman of the -- of the caucus, ranking member on the rules committee, a dean of the texas delegation, a very important and constructive member of congress who actually was involved in many of the discussions after 9/11 about what to do on the continuity front. jamie ganelli has served in numerous capacities of in government as deputy attorney general, as general counsel of the department of defense, a

member of the 9/11 commission. it goes on and on. jim immediately to my right who is the solicitor general of the state of texas has managed to practice as well in all three branches of the federal government. as a clerk in the appellate courts, including serving -- working for justice clarence thomas in the supreme court on the executive side on the department of justice and on capitol hill in the senate working for senator john cornyn and deeply involved in continuity issues in both the congress and in the presidency

and finally, my dear colleague, norman ornstein who was present at the creation of the contemporary efforts to deal responsibly with the continuity issue. martin, why don't you kick us off. >> well, thank you. and i had the interesting task of being cochair of a special task force that the congressional leadership set up on this subject after 9/11. and y'all, of course, both participated in that. and i have some observations from having been through that experience. first of all, the first thing that this commission or anyone has to do is to convince the congressional leadership, bipartisan, bicameral that this is something worth spending their time on and the frustration we had is that the leadership of neither party of neither house felt that this was an important issue and so we could not convince the

democratic leadership or the republican leadership to really invest any capital in trying to address this problem. now y'all got to figure out how you go to the -- you have different leaders now than you did right after 9/11 and how you convinced the current speaker and the current majority leader and the current minority leaders that this really should be dealt with. the biggest obstacle in the house was that you had a very stubborn chairman of the judiciary committee, my friend, jim sensenbrenner who would not cooperate. and he had his own reasons he felt his view of the constitution and you didn't have the leadership to say mr. chairman we really have to do this, you know, we have to figure this out. they wouldn't pick a fight with jim sensenbrenner and nothing would happen. and specifically on a couple of issues, he was against large

members of congress who were killed. and interim appointments and going to what was discussed at the beginning, the question that the only way anyone ever has served in the house of representatives is buy election. of course, this is all a historical accident that senators can be appointed when a senator dies and house members can. the reason senator members were initially appointed in the first part of our history and only became elected later and so you had a tradition of appointing united states senators but not a tradition of house members. somehow you have to overcome that and the united states has to be amended so that if large numbers of the house are killed, are permanently incapacitated that they can be replaced by appointments by their governors of their states. it's the only thing that makes any sense. secondly, on the question of congressional succession, i don't support taking congressional leaders out of the line of succession.

first of all, you probably won't get anything passed if you take them out. secondly, i think it makes good sense to have congressional leaders in the line of succession. they've dealt with a wide range of issues in their current positions. most of them -- you don't get to be a leader in congress without having served many years in the legislative branch. i do think there's a technical issue you could very easily address that is recommended in the report that you designate the majority leader as president pro tem so you don't have a situation with an aging president pro tem -- i don't remember carl hayden sitting behind lyndon johnson after -- when johnson took over the presidency, and you had mccormick and hayden as the two people sitting behind the president when he was giving -- speaking to a joint session of congress and it sent chills through everybody. so you should -- clearly, the majority should be in the line of succession and he's not an officer of the -- official

officer of the senate so you make him an official officer by changing the rules and make him a president pro tem. that's a relatively minor fix. i have a mixed view in terms of designating people outside of d.c. i can understand why that's necessary. my preference would be to continue to have the cabinet be in the line of succession, though, you should reorder the priorities of the cabinet members. it shouldn't just be an accident in terms of the creation, the time that the cabinet position was created. there are good reasons to put the secretary of homeland security fairly high up, maybe not in the top four but maybe at the fifth or sixth. and the real problem here is that you do have different individuals, different personalities, different backgrounds in the cabinet and i don't know if you could reorder -- have some procedure where you would reorder this at

the beginning of each term. clearly, the fact that you have two governors in the cabinet right now, governor sebelius and governor napolitano who are very low in the line of succession but it would make sense if you were going to have this proceed through the cabinet to have them higher in the line of succession than they currently are. the difficulty clearly in our commission that i worked on early on -- clearly, initially identified this bumping procedure where a subsequently elected speaker could replace someone who had been sworn in as president, that has to be changed. that simply cannot be permitted to stand. once someone becomes president in the line of succession, they should continue holding that office until the next election. they shouldn't be bumped by someone elected by the speaker who's died. these are all very constructive things. we ought to come up with some solutions that make sense but

unless this group or others can convince the congressional leadership that this is an important thing that needs to be dealt with, it's never going to happen. you would think that right after 9/11 that you would have had the attention of the congressional leadership but that did not turn out to be the case and the problem is that congressional leaders are awfully busy trying to enact the president's agenda if they happen to be of the same party of the president or fighting the president's jeeb n in -- agenda if they are in an opposite party and i don't know how you make this into a priority item but somehow -- the country has to convince the people who control the levels of power in congress that action needs to be taken on this. i'll be glad to stop and comment on what other people have to say. >> martin, thank you very much. jamie? >> well, let me pick up where martin left off and my answer to the question what will prompt

congressional leaders to take on this issue is another event. you know, we just have short memories here in this country and we move on to the next issue and we're just not focusing on or remembering the lessons of our experience of 9/11. so i'd like to just echo a couple of points that were made in the earlier panel and by martin and give some examples of issues that i think we really need to take account of. akhil and others made the point that we need to have a debate and we need to have a plan and we need to have it ratified so it is legitimate. one of the ways that you deal with the threat of terror is to take out the terrifying consequence or to minimize the terrifying consequence. one of the terrifying consequences is chaos. and if you have an agreed-upon

and legitimately held order, you diminish the power of terrorism itself. and we can see that in the planning for wmd events and we should see it here in planning for succession in leadership. i want to underscore the importance of a sense of legitimacy. this issue is brought home to me in one of our staff reports leading up to the ultimate 9/11 commission report. in that report, we discussed the reaction in the white house post-9/11. it was one of our last reports, and the way in which the commission worked was that the staff would develop a review of the facts and present that view to the commission as a prelude to witnesses that we would hear in the hearings. and for this particular report, the staff among other things

looked at the conduct of the vice president and others who were in the white house on the day of the 9/11, their communications with the president, how orders were given, how orders were received and we also look among other things at the desire on the part of some to look at whether saddam hussein had been to blame for 9/11 and participated. so the staff report had many issues but many of them -- one of them was this issue of the immediate aftermath and the staff -- the staff's factual layout appeared to suggest pretty strongly that the vice president had given shoot-down orders without having first cleared those orders with the president. and another issue -- another set of factual findings that the staff surfaced was that there

was no intelligence linking saddam hussein to the events of 9/11. as a matter of practice, we vetted our staff reports with the white house before presenting them for the purposes of clearing any classified information but it was always the case that the white house would then also take the opportunity to give us comments on various elements of the reports and they basically had not said much about the connection of saddam hussein and 9/11 or the lack thereof which was kind of stunning to me, very surprising to me that of these two issues it would choose the former rather than the latter. i should note that after the

hear when the press announced the saddam hussein finding, the white house was much more active on that. but it drove home to me how sensitive we are about who position the right to exercise what authority. i would have thought myself that it was a good thing that the vice president felt free to give a shoot-down order in an emergency circumstance when the president -- when communications with the president were not as good as they should and there was enormous sensitively around this issue. we'll never know what happens. the board lays out the facts as it does and i'm not here to rehearse that but simply to remind you of how sensitive people are about who has what authority and, thus, the importance of really landing this issue after as martin says a public debate.

the second a little bit of color i would like to lay out for@@@@ there are the human factors you can see playing out in an emergency, and the particularly the emergency of 9/11. the first factor is just how human human beings are. we had elaborate plans for taking members of congress, particularly the leadership, out of places of danger into places of safety, so that we would have continuity of government. i can't tell you how many members of congress and senators would not go. why? because they wanted to see if their families were okay. they wanted to be with their families. that's a completely human and understandable response, utterly ignored in our planning.

the second point i would make is that you cannot underestimate the fog of war which is why you have to have blistering clarity about what's going to happen. rememb rudy gilani put his command center at the base of the world trade center and it collapsed. the building in which it was collapsed. second, the secretary of defense is directly in the chain of command. in an emergency like we had on 9/11. and yet secretary rumsfeld did not come to the command center until all the planes were down. until the entire event was long over. at first he thought he didn't need to come.

that it would be handled in the ordinary course. and then when the plane hit the pentagon, he went out to help. again, a very human instinct but indeed we had no phone call, not the faa's call, not the nsc's call, not the pentagon's call were all the relevant players were on the phone. you had an faa call with the faa folks and dod call with the dod folks. nobody had the secretary of defense. and only some of them were plugged into the vice president. so having -- having real clarity is very important and making sure that we have all joined hands around that clarity is critical for a sense of legitimate si. -- legitimacy. let me make a couple of comments on some of the debates we had

here, do we have individuals in the line of succession who were outside of washington? i think we can't trivialize the possibility that washington is not functioning. and we just to have come to grips with that. now, you can send a cabinet member out of town and have a schedule and do it that way. you could. and then the question is, how far down in that cabinet do you go to make sure you have the right expertise and executive authority to be viewed as a legitimate leader if you are the one that is out of town. reminding you that our cabinet is now huge. it barely fits around the cabinet table because so many people have negotiated for cabinet status that it is a highly watered-down credential, i would say.

the second is the issue of acting secretaries. and i would just make the comment that not everybody deputy is nick katzenbach we have several people who could be skilled secretaries i say this as one of the deputies in the four agencies that would be in that chain, you know, it would -- it would have given me no end of pleasure to be in the line of presidential succession but nevertheless, i certainly pause over the notion that we should include all acting secretaries. >> thank you, jamie. jim? >> well, i want to begin by thanking both the american enterprise institute and the brookings institution for establishing the commission and for putting together today's event. we've heard a lot of talk this morning about the founding fathers. i think it's fair to say that the combination of norm orstein

and tom mann and john fortier there are part of this continuity government that is so important and i'm glad to be here and with my very distinguished copanelists. this is a very strong report that the commission has issued today. and i would really commend everyone who has a chance to read it, both in the room and if you have a hard copy or i think it's on the website or soon to be on the website -- it's a very easy read. it actually opens with a very stirring, dramatic narrative that to me reads kind of like a seasoned synopsis of the television show "24." i flew here from texas expecting to get a chance to meet kiefer sutherland who i assumed might be keynoting the event. but it is a very important report and the substance of the report, of course, is what we're really focusing on today. these are very real issues that we face including some very

frighteningly real nightmare scenarios and i think it's clear we need reform and i'm glad we had that first panel to really focus on some of these reform issues. i want to focus my remarks kind of following up on my predecessors here on this panel because what i found particularly striking about the report -- even once you set aside the substantive issues and what i found striking and even perhaps alarming about the report is seeing just how often throughout our nation's history congress has seemed to make some of these changes to the presidential succession statute based at least as much about politics as principle. and i think that's what congressman frost was trying to remind us today. we saw this, in fact, in the very first act in our nation's history. the very first time we dealt with presidential succession. during the second congress we sought to exclude cabinet officers from that line of succession and this effort was essentially led as i understand

by opponents of thomas jefferson, our first secretary of state. and so i do want to focus my time here on some of the political realities and constraints that, unfortunately, we have to deal with because otherwise they may stand in the way of wise reform. and it's hard enough as we talked about especially as time passes -- it's hard enough to get folks to pay attention to this issue at all. and yet when we do get folks' attention it's even then in that remote situation, it's hard to get past the politics and on to the principle. i recall during my time working for senator cornyn we decided well, let's working with the commission folks we wanted to start with maybe some sort of modest incremental steps, try to make some bite size changes and try to maybe build some momentum for the cause and so we began with what we frankly thought was a straightforward, easy sell, a nonbinding sense of the senate resolution, a resolution that

would simply encourage every outgoing president to nominate and with the senate's consent to appoint all the cabinet members of the incoming president and to do so before inauguration, not right after with the incoming president doing it but having the outgoing president doing it before and that way what you would have is in the event of a tragic inauguration day catastrophe, terrorist attack at least you would have all of your cabinet successors being of the new administration, not the old one to avoid some of the party disruption that akhil amir. there would be an attempt to launch an inauguration day attack to overturn the effects of an election. we thought it was a nonbinding election and we in senator cornyn's office put this forth and came up with what we thought was a very creative name for the

protocol. we called it the cornyn protocol. unfortunately, the cornyn protocol was never approved by the senate. and i know what some of you may be thinking. it must have been a partisan democrat who stopped senator cornyn his moment of glory. wrong. we learned it was senator ted stevens who placed the hold that prevented our fine resolution from being approved by the senate by unanimous consent. now, why would he do that? we never actually got an official response. they never returned my calls, frankly. but i later learned from a staffer that the office essentially feared that this was really step one in a larger ambition to remove the senate president pro tem from the line of succession. now, of course, we did have to plead guilty to that charge. i know we've had some very robust debate on this issue. i think it was our view that the presence of congressional leadership in the presidential

line of succession is arguably probably constitutional and in our view certainly unwise. but what struck me most about this development was this. you know, it seems highly unlikely and certainly we hope it would be extremely unlikely that a speaker or a senate president pro tem would ever actually succeed to the presidency, at least outside of an episode of the "west wing." everyone knows that. and we hope that would be an unlikely occurrence. but the fact is, just the mere fact of being a member of the line of succession, that is a valuable, prestigious thing, a credential that people may be understandably proud of as we just heard and so, therefore, because it's perhaps valuable, it's a source for robust political jockeying. we saw this also in the debate over where to place the secretary of homeland security in the line of succession. you can certainly imagine a good argument that you should place dhs somewhere in the middle or even high up in the line of succession.

it's the fact that it's a sensitive, national security position and also the fact that dhs really isn't a completely new department. it's really a reassembling of parts of established departments. at the end the pressures were too great and dhs comes after veterans affairs so we have to deal with the political constraints. i could not agree more with the congressman that we have some wise reforms here the real question is how do we get them done? unfortunately, i don't have any grand solutions to offer. mainly, i just want to try to focus attention on this concern because i think that the commission really does have it right on the policy and it's a matter of figuring out the implementation. ..

some officials might consider it a prestigious thing, or at least a historical curiosity to be the last person in that position to be in this line of succession. i will leave it to the real political experts to figure out how to make this work. i am just an attorney, but as an attorney, i do think the commission has diagnosed some very real and serious problems and develop some serious and important solutions. i guess it is time for the political experts and legislative strategist to tell us how to get this done. thank you. >> i don't know, i think you have a bright future as a political strategist.

figuring out a way to turn a losing situation into a winning one, historically. that's promising. norm. >> thanks, tom. first let me say this report and much other information is available on our website, which is www.continuity of governmen government.org and i urge you all to go there and look at some of the very able links which include some of the hearings that were actually done. and i want to get a special shout out to jimbo who, when he was a staff director of the subcommittee on the constitution that senator kerry actually ran for the only hearing that we have had on presidential succession. it was a joint hearing with the rules committee in the senate which also has jurisdiction and unfortunately nothing has come of it ended for reasons martin frost suggested over almost the

last eight years we have really tried repeatedly to get congressional leaders, the speakers of the house, the majority and minority leaders, of the senate to understand their fiduciary understanding to protect their own institutions, but also to focus on the need for statutory changes for presidential succession. and the supreme court which is actually in even worse shape because we really have nothing there except a statutory quorum requirement of six. and i won't go into the great detail of one of the more interesting anecdotes of the morning of 9/11. let me just say that the judicial conference of the united states was meeting at the supreme court, barely 150 yards from the capital the morning that united 93 was almost certainly headed for the capitol dome. and that meant all of the leadership of our federal judiciary, all the members of

the supreme court, the chief judges of the appeals c there were sitting there within a very short distance of what would have been a sea and john roy long-distance of molten cast iron, chunks of marble and concrete, burning jet fuel, and the like, that could have created catastrophe. given the fog of war issue that jamie so eloquently talked about, if we had an event at the inaugural, the worst-case scenario, and you get a bunch of people popping up after we have lost the incoming and outgoing president, vice-president, and almost everybody for early in the line of succession, there are some questions about who remains. g i'm in charge here. having a supreme court to adjudicate rather than having 13 separate appeal court each popping up and saying well, we will have an opinion on this,

becomes even more important to guarantee some sense of assurance in people that we actually have that line of succession. at also add that i have pled with chief justice roberts to take on his role as the fiduciary for the court and do something about this, and he has not indicated any interest either. so with that, just one other note on the fog of war issue. i participated with fran townsend actually in a wargame. anybody who has done one of these wargames, which extend over a couple of days, with a plausible sonar you of some catastrophe taking place knows how much we do not know how little we have been able to prepare, how you get into situations where the information is ambiguous if an attack is taking place, what kind of attack, what might follow. and you get people in the room who play the major players, and try to come up with different decisions that will take place and what the repercussions would

be. you realize how little we know, how poorly we are prepared. one of the things that fran did as homeland security adviser, was to mandate that cabinet members and senior white house staff do these wargames. but she met with enormous resistance again for the human reasons, because it meant taking one or two or three days on a periodic basis out of their extraordinarily busy schedules and going offsite somewhere to go through these scenarios. after doing it, they all said how viable it was, how it opened their eyes to problems they had not known existed. but getting them to do it again without having a president directly ordering them to do it became almost impossible. so we've got problems. we know that we have focused on some of these issues and problems before. and we know that presidential succession was, and keeping the continuity of government was very much in the minds of our leaders during the cold war era.

and we know among other things they set up an elaborate bunker, secret bunker at the greenbriar resort faraway from washington. that is now a tourist attraction that you can go to. hardened with food supplies, with a mini chamber so that congress could get down there in the event of a nuclear attack. but of course it was all set up with the premise that once the missiles were logged in from siberia, we would have enough time to hustle the members away, and helicopters, entrées, perhaps in some instances by car, to get them out of the danger zone. what we now know after 9/11, and should have realized even before that is the kind of attack we are talking about in the modern era don't come with any notice. and can be of a devastating variety and require a different response. and it's a response that might have come because if you get

three, four or five nuclear bombs spread around washington set off at the same time, you could wipe out the entire cabinet without them having to be in the same room in the hardened location. we know from anthrax attack on the senate that it is not at all out of the question that you could get a kind of biological attack or a chemical attack that could get into a system and incapacitate government. we need to think about the worst case scenario. we also know though that through history we have seen this pattern repeated. a pattern built on inertia, built on the human nature that we all see with very smart people who don't write wills. even when they have small children, there are serious issues of whether you have a plan in place for who would take care of your kids if you happen to die together. because it's easy to rationalize the way because nobody likes to contemplate the prospect of their own demise.

and basically because there's a superstition involved also, that maybe if you do something it would encourage the actual outcome that you fear the most. if you look at presidential succession, we at other periods where we are in much greater danger, lengthy periods where we had no vice president and we did not have congress in session and you didn't have the cabinet in place. it took several events, assassinations of presidents, to lead to and to spur changes in the presidential succession act. and now since 1947, even though we've had dangers before and we did finally get some action thanks to john feerick and birch by and a few others to actually clarify some elements of presidential discussion in the hardest way possible through a constitutional amendment, but the easier fashion of reform of the presidential succession act passively not been on the table,

even though we know these issues exist. .com is a responsible way to do with this is to look at worst-case scenarios. the odds may be small. they may be very small, but we know they are not zero. we know they are not in intestinal. we know that in fact the odds of worst-case scenarios increased as we get easier access to a variety of mass destruction that can be used by large numbers of people, not just by nationstates are in getting insurance against those worst cases is a simple thing to do. it's not a costly thing to do. the reason we have some of these recommendations in the report, including having people from outside of washington in the line of succession, is because the worst-case scenario really is that you wipe out everybody who is in that line. and it's no longer just a matter of having one event of the state of the union where you get a cabinet member who can be

offsite. there are many others. we were able to get, fortunately, this time around a variation of the corn and approach for this in our girl. thanks to the core operation, both of the bush administration going out and the obama administration coming in, but also thanks to the good fortune that there was a cabinet member who was continuing in place, the secretary of defense, who stayed away from the inaugural. and we got the cooperation to have the secretary of homeland security, michael chertoff, stay beyond the inaugural, be away from sight so if anything happened, he could direct the homeland security response. next time around we may not have that, and we need to think about ways in which we can deal with it because of the niger is the worst-case. but finding a way to make sure that we protect worst-case and arias is the fiduciary responsibility of our leaders to

insist that if we have a period of martial law, it is as short as possible, that we get our constitutional institutions of government up and running quickly. that there is no question about who was actually in charge and that we get some responsiveness to the will of the people as we go along. there are ways to do it. these are not written in stone. we thought very carefully and evaded, weighing some of those issues. and all we really ask for now is that we begin to get some hearings and debate in congress so that we can move forward, not having to wait, although i think jamie is right, and then have the american people say why didn't you do something before. >> norm, i disagree that you necessarily have to wait. i think all that is required is

for some group of people to convince either nancy pelosi or harry reid that this needs to be done now. you just need to have one congressional leader who says we are going to do this and we will do whatever is required to get it done. i don't know how you accomplish that, but i mean, i think that's the first order of business. >> and we have seen when speaker pelosi puts her mind to something things have a way of happening. i would like to press you a bit on the issue of whether congressional leaders should be removed from a line of succession. this is one of the more controversial proposals, one that seems to ensure that a broader effort doesn't go forward so one could say on purely pragmatic grounds leave it out, it's problematic.

and i would like to get the reaction of the others of you as well. i'm a first branch of government guy. you know, i believe in the importance of congress. its particular role in the institution. and i'm wondering why a genuine sense of institutional pride and commitment, patriotism, wouldn't leave one to leave the speaker, the president pro tem has no business in that line of succession because they have more important work to do. that is to say, in the event that losing our president and vice president, the congress has a critical role to play, and why not, therefore, allow for an executive branch transition for an executive branch position in maintaining the continuity if

it's there of the congress itself. especially in the context of a politics where parties are so important in the delegitimizing of government if you have any effect a non-electoral transition of party control government. >> the argument is that whoever happens to be, separate us from the current individuals who occupy these officers, but whoever happens to be speaker and whoever happens to be the majority leader are national figures. now, maybe they didn't used to be before communications change, but they are truly national political leaders who travel the country and to deal with the broad problems affecting the country. and i would argue that they probably have a broader knowledge and a broader political exposure and anyone else in the cabinet.

and so it's not just because i was a member of congress. i happen to think that from the country's standpoint that these may be the single most competent, broad gauged political figures after the president and the vice president. it didn't used to be that way, but our country has changed. >> let me take that debate to the next level. it seems to me that in keeping congressional leaders and the line of succession, you vastly increase the potential for medical intrigue, for a possible advantage in terms of having a national figure, albeit someone who was elected from only one state or only one district. and it's that political intrigue that will just undermine legitimacy in almost every scenario you can imagine, even

an intraparty transfer of party. >> jamie, i don't see it that way because i think these particular individuals, even though they come from one state or they come from one district are recognized by the public at large as national figures are people on national death. >> even seating that point, let's say that's true. you still have the issue of political intrigue, which is the potential for changing parties or changing wings of the party. and given the issues that have surrounded almost every assassination, declaration of the inability of a president to serve, you can imagine all sorts of monkey business. and even if there weren't any, people would imagine it. which is delegitimizing. >> just to make one modest

point. essentially both of you are right, and this is a debate that frankly we are not only having today, the country has had this for over 200 years from james madison on one side to harry truman on the other side of this question. what i would offer is really sort of following up on what jamie said earliut when you were in that log war situation, when you are truly in this sort of extreme situation where for the first time in our nations history we have neither a president or vice president, the need for clarity. antony, let's say it's a tie between the two of you, i tie between madison and in trueman, i think the tie goes to what is sort of unimpeachably clear and so there isn't any unconstitutional about. i think there is some doubt among some of our most prominent scholars, why not construe that doubt in favor of removal. >> navia mention, let me just give one historic comeback keep in mind that after abraham

lincoln was assassinated and andrew johnson came to power, he was impeached by the house and came within one vote of being convicted and removed from the office by the senate. at that time, next person in line for the presidency was the president pro tem of the senate, who voted to remove johnson from office, who had a very strong vested interest in that process. so it is not just deaf, or hypothetical, it can be impeachment. let's just get back to your point. . political will of the country by moving from somebody at one end of the political spectrum to someone radically at the other end. it's really worth thinking through whether that is an appropriate way to have succession. and add to that, in our temporary politics, the speaker temporary politics, the speaker of the house and a

senate, even if it were the majority leader are not sort of consensual figures in the country that naturally unified people, because they are strong leaders like nancy pelosi, they are really quite controversial figures, oftentimes with a negative rating in the broader public partly because they are pushing at a particular party program, an agenda, and therefore have a lot of opposition. if it were a period, divided party government, i think there would be no legitimacy attached to succession to power by a speakeof the other party. it would seem more like a two. >> but what about contra to that, what about a succession by

secretary of the treasury or even an attorney general who is totally unknown i the country? you're talking about legitimacy now. someone the people out in the country barely could even name and in many cases might not be able to name. is that who you want leading the country at a time of crisis? >> you know, ironically the secretary of state and secretary of treasury now are better known than the majority leader of the senate. >> but that's only because of the current economic crisis. i would suggest to you that in a normal time, no one -- very few people would be able to invite with the secretary of the treasure is. a lot of people wouldn't even know who the attorney general of the united states is. >> all right. do we have any questions here ask please. >> i think the discussion has been an outstanding discussion.

just i'll go very quickly. i like sony people in the legal profession have been on many commissions and chaired a number and almost 50 years of it. and i guess i reflect the philosophy of a very dear friend of mine who said how important it is to american democracy that there be groups like you that keep alive important subjects and put out what you think is right. and american democracy functions incrementally. and the fact that you are out there and your successes might be out there, ideas, in time a number of these ideas might become more of a political

reality. so the importance of what you do cannot be deemphasize. >> i know the frustrations of jerry serving as on the commission or i would use a keypad at. but i, having said that, why some incremental steps couldn't be taken. made reference, congressman. jamie, you talked about whether the acting secretary should be in or out. there shouldn't be any question about that. they are either in or out. i think there's a consensus that could be developed there. and in some of these other areas about looking at the party rules, making sure that they are where they should be. however, and then there were suggestions, on this whole

inauguration period. so if you can get some of the incremental things done, that might set the bases, maybe not the same time, but a little bit down the line for some more steps. because people are thinking, you know, this is right to do to protect the safety and security of our country. i just throw that out. >> if i could react to that. in theory you're correct. i mean, it would be nice to be able to take, let's solve this problem, let's solve that problem. my guess is you're only going to get one bite at the apple here, and that if you ever get congress to pay attention to this and you haven't yet, you better get him to deal with this as much as possible at that one time. >> discovery institute. to suggestions, this is a

discussion you might consider and i would be interested in your comment. instead of an arbitrary order of the cabinet department, why not let each president be required by congress to pass the law, to designate before being sworn and while president-elect, the order of succession. but everybody, including the big four. because for example with this administration i would hope that general sasaki would be right near the top and even against the attorney general or mr. geithner. any other thing is, it's appalling how long it's taking to get the government in place. one way to finesse the confirmation issue without congress surrendering ultimate power is that the president's appointments, at least the senior officer in each department, i think it should be done for the juniors as well, takes office subject to confirmation within 100 days by the congress. so the president starts, and he

has full cabinet, or she has a full cabinet on day one, designates that succession adherence to ford and if it turns out someone didn't pay their taxes or didn't hire, reporter nanny or something and then the president will appoint someone else. >> i don't actually like that latter suggestion at all. we don't have much in the way of delay any more for actual cabinet members. and if you gave him an additional 100 days, they would take it. and serving in an unconfirmed status and having to make hard decisions not confirmed is not a good way to be a leader. you would trim your sails too much, you would be worried about the confirmation process. we did in the 9/11 commission report make recommendations, many of which norms that have been acted upon. to cut down the period in which

the subcabinet leadership in addition to the cabinet leadership is subject to confirmation. but at the cabinet level, i think the issue actually has more or less than salt. >> i like one of your recommendations about maybe getting each president the opportunity to order his or her own line of succession, the agi thing can set their own line of succession and sometimes include u.s. attorneys from obviously throughout the country which builds on the point about being outside of dc. my one question about your proposal would be whether it's constitutional. i don't have a reason right now but article to talk about congress by law shall provide for the line of succession. so the question is could congress pass a law delegating that to the president, that would be a question i think we need to take a look at. if it works out i think it's an interesting idea. >> i think probably the way to do that is before the end on

girl, the president makes a recommendation for a line of succession and then congress can pass along ratifying it. there is some real merit to that. part of the reason being that you may find a secretary of veterans affairs who is supremely qualified. i could go back to the secretaries of veterans affairs over the last period since we created the department and take many who were not chosen because they had the breadth of experience, depth and knowledge. and that is true of many cabinet nevers and that is one reason why we wanted to move just to the top four. but i'm perfectly happy to let the president designate six or however many. as long as we add in some people who are outside washington. having all the cabinet, given what we know about the way cabinet officers are chosen, there are criteria that every president-elect our president will have. they are regional criteria. they are political criteria.

they aren't gender and other ethnic criteria that may have nothing to do with whether you got somebody who has that coming into the white house. so rethinking this process all little bit, even if you don't like a lot of the ideas that we have, is important and worth doing and it can be done by legislation. just on the second point. there remains a big problem with the nomination and confirmation process. there is an enormous blog here. the way the process is set up, you have way too many people who have to get full fbi driven security clearances, 1141 senate confirmable president nominees. it narrows a pipeline and you have a huge flood of people coming in. and what it means is that months into a new administration, this was true on 9/11 by the way,

large numbers of people at that subcabinet level. people unita operationalized much of your policy had not been confirmed. that has got to change. and there also we need strong leadership from congress, part of it may be reducing the number of presidential appointees, and certainly reducing the number of senate confirmable once. these are not easy to do for the obvious recent. >> jim. >> i just wanted to point out the two main, the two arguments that have been made over and over again about removing the professional leaders from the line of succession. one, political intrigue. and two, that these tend to be controversial figures. both of these arguments apply equally to the new federal officials you are talking about. whether its governors or former president or vice president, you have the opportunity for

different kinds of political intrigue. and that these figures, you know, if it's former president, whether it's bush or bill clinton, or whether it's a former president who is up in his '80s like gerald ford, or ronald reagan, that's another problem. or whether it's a governor. are we talking about governor schwarzenegger? are we talking about governor paterson? that all of these create a new level of problems involving either controversy or political intrigue. >> i don't understand that argument because president clinton didn't pick speaker gingrich. that's the source of the intrue. if it's presidentially appointed, federal officers, we can go back and forth, it would be by the president joyce. so you would eliminate or at least substantially reduce the

intrigue. >> by the intrigue would be in the making of that appointment. >> if the president pick somebody who is clearly out of line for a political flashpoint, you have confirmation by the senate. and i do not think you are going to find a president, either one who is responsible and who is going to look for people who are clearly qualified, but you're not going to have a senate saying let's take this 85 year-old who is clearly losing it. if i were president, for example, i would put a jamie gorelick, or people who have a lot of breadth of experience, are active, vigorous, intelligent and clearly would have those qualities. and if you want to keep them up to speed by making them officers and getting them briefings on what's going on, you know, you've got lots of people who are going to win easy confirmation and who fit,.

>> but i think that reflects to me, a real problem which is a kind of, i'm sorry, but i kind of condescension to the existing cabinet nevers. who are also have their own qualities and qualifications. that you are in effect downgrading people who have served as governors and army chief of staff, whatever. in a case where, he seems to me there are lesser solutions with the existing i am not sure on taking congress out of the line of argument there. the idea of narrowing the cabinet's to four people and then replacing them with some group of elders who are neither appointed by the president as running an executive agency nor

elected, i really find a remarkable change that is not seem justified. >> if we are successful in getting attention to this report from speaker pelosi and majority leader reid and others and have some hearing some of along, i am convinced that all of these arguments will be returned to. they are, indeed, debatable. i appreciate everyone who has participated in this set up panels today for putting them on the table and calling attention to what we think is a serious problem that needs attention. once again, for all of you here

and for those out in c-span land, the report is available in hard copy and certainly on the web. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> later today, and look back at 30 years of programming with students and visiting the nation's capital. at 7:00 p.m. eastern here on c- span. this holiday weekend,

discussions with presidential advisers from richard nixon to george w. bush, friday 8:00 eastern. getting congressional support for presidential agenda is. then, lessons learned from serving the president. this is all here on c-span. over the july 4 weekend, notable americans a c-span, stories and inside the white house, domestic policy advisor on the president from richard nixon to george w. bush. honoring president ronald reagan. it can burn on his career and upcoming series. it should be to john updike. -- a tribute to john updike. there are more books and authors this holiday weekend starting friday morning on c-span2's book tv, including "in-depth"

tuesday. find out what is on any time at c-span.org. >> martha raddatz discussed a number of foreign affairs issues. this is 40 minutes. continues. host: and martha raddatz joins us from abc studios in washington, d.c. you have posted on your blog on "abc news" an update on colonel karcher. can you tell our viewers how he's doing? guest: he's expected to arrive back in the united states either tomorrow or saturday. his condition is stable but he was in very bad shape for a couple of days. they had a very difficult time stabilizing him. i learned after we filed that report that he could not be airlifted away from the scene. they had to drive him to the combat support hospital because there was a terrible dust storm that day. and some very brave soldiers who drove him there and then when they were leaving they actually hit a roadside bomb,

an e.f.p., those very, very powerful, powerful bombs that can penetrate metal. and there was a sergeant killed. so they delivered their commander to the combat support hospital and then when they were on their way back they were struck by a bomb as well. and it shows you this war as the commander told me, this war depuzz continue. host: well, on that note, in addition to the personal tragedy in these soldiers' lives, what should people understand about the violence that is taking place this week as american troops begin their pullback? guest: clearly there's been a big uptick in violence. there have been about 250 people, mostly iraqi civilians, killed this month. but it does appear there are focusing on american soldiers again. now, one of the things i worry about a little bit as u.s. soldiers and marines full out of bases in the cities in iraq is that it is more difficult for them to get to their bases.

they're further away. and those soldiers who remain, the trainers and advisors, have that force protection further away. but they have gotten out about 100 bases. they are pulling back. i think people misunderstand. they think somehow everything is closed there. the bases like camp victory, which is the major military base in baghdad, is still open. there's still a base in mosul open. er in scattered throughout the country. they have not reduced any troops in the last month or so. we're still about 130,000, a little more than 130,000. i think it will only go down to about 12r5,000 by the end of the year. -- 125,000 by the end of the year. you have a huge american presence. they just won't patrol by themselves in the cities. but they are certainly out there, and they are certainly in the fight. i think i said on abc the other

night that it will feel an awful lot like combat whether we have combat troops there or not. they're all combat trained, and if they get in a firefight it will feel an awful lot like combat. host: "the financial times" fee furred a common fare piece who is an assistant professor of history at stanford university. with the headline on it, "iraqis are too shrewd to fall for an invisible occupation." it is a follow on to what the plan is for the redeployment of american troops there. he writes, we are at the beginning of the end. on tuesday u.s. troops left iraq's cities and in two years they will leave the country. or so the official story goes. in reality, most of the troops are going to forward operating

bases which they will be hunkering down. and expensive built to last facilities. later on he writes, iraqis are too shrewd to fall for invisible occupations as me did in the 1930's with the british. the piece closes this way. in 1932 as now rhetoric about withdrawal was aimed at global as much as iraqi opinion. instead of attending only to appearances, stroking the fears of the people familiar with nominal independence, the u.s. and iraqi governments should deliver the reality iraqis and americans want. yes for independence, the troops basically out. that's my addition on the end there. guest: well, i've been calling it a bit of a stealth force now. but we do have a status forces agreement with the iraqis that calls for complete withdrawal at the end of 2011. now the iraqis can ask the american forces to stay.

they can renegotiate that agreement with the americans. i think you'll probably see forces there longer than 2011. the iraqis right now don't really have much of an air force. i'm not sure i've ever seen an iraqi helicopter in the sky. they don't have air support really. they don't have a navy. they don't have the sophisticated intelligence equipment that the u.s. does. and they do not have the ability to evacuate their own forces in a medical emergency. so there is a lot that the iraqi forces depend on the u.s. for. so i think what you might see is a renegotiation at the end of 2011. do american forces want to occupy iraq indefinitely? no, i don't think so. when you think of bosnia and how long u.s. forces was there and when they came in the combat was gone. there were no u.s. soldiers who were killed in that conflict.

so it seems pretty improbable that u.s. forces will be completely out by 2011. but that is what that agreement says. right now that all forces are out by the end of 2011. and in fact by 2010, by the end of august, ray odierno, the general in iraq, says he'll have them down to about 50,000. i think you would have to have a terrible, terrible turn in iraq, and i mean the uptick in violence would be enormous for any of those numbers to change. you have a president who wants to get out of iraq. he made a campaign promise that he would get troops out of iraq. so i think that is the path they are on. host: we are going to take some telephone calls and come back from a break of calls to talk about afghanistan because there's clearly a major troop action there and i'd like to learn more about you. let's hear from c-span viewers. first being from halifax, massachusetts. this is chris on the republican

line. go ahead, chris. caller: hi. good morning. thank you for taking my call. i was just curious to hear sort of what mar that's view on this, the difference in coverage between sort of presurge, you know, when we were fighting in iraq and taking a lot of casualties and, you know, the media was very critical of the bush administration, critical of the war's efforts. you know, there were a lot of calls for withdrawal at that time. and now i see the coverage and it just sort of seems to be everything is rosey and fine and there's very little critical coverage, you know, of the war. and also the fact nat surge worked and -- that the surge worked and bush's stay the course ended up working. i'll take the answer right there. host: thanks, chris. guest: i think it's more critical than that. i'm proud of the media because

the bush administration at the time was saying things were going well. president bush in an interview with me before he left office, i asked him about the fact that he said we were winning before the surge. and he said he knew we were not but he kept saying that. so when i say i'm proud of the media coverage building up to the surge, i think that really helped the american people understand and the bush administration that they needed to change course. indeed they stayed the course. indeed they stayed in there and president bush was committed to turning this around. and that's why the surge happened. that's why they changed strategy because they realized things weren't working. so i think the critical coverage leading up to that was important. i think the coverage when the surge happened certainly gave the president credit in saying that the surge had turned it around and general david petraeus and all the soldiers and marines over there worked very hard to turn that

situation around. i agree that there's not much coverage now, and i think that is in fact because the security situation changed so dramatically because of the surge. and you're not getting as much coverage. and you're also in many ways the same way the army has to get soldiers out of iraq to go into afghanistan i think you're seeing a lot of news organizations switching their focus from iraq to afghanistan. but i would hardly say it is a kumbayah coverage. if you saw my coverage of colonel karcher, it is still dangerous for u.s. troops. i want to show the sacrifice they are making over there. host: martha raddatz is an author of a book called "a long way home" which made "the new york times" and "washington post" bestsellers trip.

since the war began, how many trips have you made to iraq? guest: i've made 20. that's a lot of trips over there. it meant a lot to me to continue to go back. covering the last term of president bush i still wanted to go back to iraq because that was such an important story. and i could see from the ground changes that were made. i could see the difference between 2004 and 2006 when things were really, really terrible. and the difference since i was there a few months ago with lieutenant colonel karcher of the optimism that many of those soldiers had about the situation there. so to me it's always been important to go back. i tell you the book that i wrote about is the 2-5 and that battalion and that's the battalion that lieutenant karcher took over. .

it is a very important story for me to cover. many of those soldiers and marines are in afghanistan. host: this is jerry. caller: i heard recently on a website, lauroce.com --they have an article on the tree to note -- on the treaty on the eve of world war roman numb.

guest: a would not deal to help you much there. caller: today, why we go into iraq in the first time? saddam was a threat. he was a threat to his own people, but didn't think you as a threat to anyone -- no one was really afraid of them as ever the british and americans. that is a lot of bs. we have ruined our military following the british line. host: thank you for your call. i can just say that it has been debated time and time again about saddam hussein. they have learned from a different perspective. guest: it is a story about what saddam hussein said in his last interview, saying for years

executed, saying that he was only afraid of the iranians. that is why he was saying he had met weapons of mass destruction. he wanted the iranians to believe that it is a fearful of them. it has been debated again and again. then never found weapons of mass destruction. that was the principal reason the bush administration said they were going in. n said they were going into iraq. host: let me read one paragraph from this. it was obtained under the freedom of information act from the national security archive. if you want to read more detail, you can find it there. the director of the archives says that there is no reason to keep the conversations secret. he said that he felt so vulnerable to the perceived

threat from tehran that he would have been prepared to seek a security agreement with the united states to protect iraq from threats from the region. this is on our independent line. go ahead, please. caller: thank you for c-span. you had an interview with vice president cheney. i thought he treated you terribly. was it not the time -- you ask him a very pointed question. his reply was, "so?" in hindsight, it is probably a lot easier to understand what he meant now than he did then. guest: it was about a year ago. i was traveling with vice- president dick cheney. we had gone to iraq and then we had an interview set up.

i asked him about a poll, saying that 2/3 of americans did not believe the iraq war was worth the sacrifice. and he looked at me and said, "so?" that interview got a lot of attention. i think, particularly coming at the end of the bush administration, having the vice president say that was quite stunning. host: let me move on to afghanistan. "the washington post" have a major story. thousands of fan out in afghanistan. the south in crucial test for revised u.s. strategy. this is an area of the helmand region. there is a band of fertile land that produces some of the largest poppy crops in afghanistan. can you tell us more about the strategy? guest: we have four thousand marines going in there.

this is a really big operation. the taliban has clearly taken over the opium trade. that finances a lot of the fighting. i think i heard an earlier caller talking about an interview they heard. it was probably with gretchen peters. she used to work for abc news. she has looked into the opium trade as financing these militant groups in the taliban in that region. that is what u.s. forces are going after. this is a huge area that a taliban controls. this is the first major offensive since the obama administration has come in. i think what you're seeing now, when you see this -- i was struck when president obama talked about the new strategy in afghanistan. this is now his war. certainly, the iraq war is his as well, but the strategy -- there is a new strategy. it is his idea what failures or

what successes happen are on his store -- are on his shoulders now. sending in marines in this area is a big step. i was also reading today and struck by this, the pakistani army is putting soldiers along its border with afghanistan. some of those taliban do not fully from the fighting there, which has been a huge problem in the past this is the first sign i have seen. the obama administration has said they want to look at these two countries together. you cannot solve one without the other. there is clearly some coordination here that is going on. they have launched this operation. the pakistanis are preparing to keep those taliban militants there. it is good to hear that they are making the effort. host: this is a sidebar story

with this headline, "no limit in place for pending request for troops in afghanistan." the nation's top military officer said yesterday that no limits have been placed on the number or types of troops the new u.s. commander in afghanistan can request as he seeks to carry out a counterinsurgency strategy there. let's go to another call. good morning, rick. caller: good morning. how are you? thank you for your fantastic reporting. guest: thank you for saying that. caller: you are fair and balanced. i'm just joking. the iraq war, like it or not -- thomas friedman wrote a couple of weeks ago in a very important article. there is a globalization of this war, obviously this story was

fantastic about the gentlemen you followed. i am getting ready to go to work here. you are just fantastic. both you and c-span are fantastic. the war is not perfect. there are curious things going on. all that yellowcake that was taken to canada. we have the right people in place. i voted for mr. obama. i did because i thought he had a better look at the whole approach of it. democracy and peace is not perfect everywhere, not even in our country. look at lebanon recently.

look at serious starting to open up look at iran. i told my girlfriend seven years ago that peace will come when the power of the feminine starts getting on the streets. was i right or wrong? that is the most powerful thing. was it in intervention? what do you think? was it in intervention, like an alcoholic? the power of women in that area of the world, giving them a voice is so important to me. guest: we did a piece of on that recently on the power of women out protesting. i was in iran in september. it is remarkable to see, particularly these young woman commeen, so frustrated.

you can see them on the streets, pushing them to the limits. to have a real powerful voice. i think that really has caught the world's attention. host: we want to play a piece of video for you. we're talking about all of these different countries in that region of the world. the chief of naval operations had what he described as an unusual event. they have a consultancy that is encouraging the navy to get out and tell its story margaret we covered the resulting speech. here are some of his comments about how the military overall and the navy in particular restructuring itself to meet what they say are the threats of the future. >> the aircraft carrier abraham

lincoln was quietly in port in hong kong. by saturday, she was providing 50,000 pounds of food and water a day to the tsunami-affected area in indonesia. that event also let us to adjust our strategy in a very significant way. as i said, we have been responding to disasters throughout our history. let's see what we can do proactively. we begin a series of humanitarian missions. they have touched four hundred thousand patients from our ships. that is in south america, the pacific, and in africa. if you consider the four hundred 9000 patients, that is like going to the verizon center,

packing the house, and then having doctors treat every single one of the people 20 times. that is not an insignificant contribution that our people are making. host: the admiral went on to explain that it is this approach that the military is moving more into humanitarian efforts to help prevent future conflicts. that is an example of it. would you comment on what you have learned about this approach? guest: they have seen this work, just exactly as he described in the tsunami and the earthquake in pakistan, when the people see american soldiers or naval officers or airmen trying to help, that changes their attitude toward americans. you can go to some of these countries -- have been traveling to pakistan four years as well.

for a long time, they blame americans for their problems, for the war in afghanistan, sending foreign fighters over the other side of the border. when they see americans trying to help in an earthquake, when they see them delivering humanitarian aid, it makes a real difference. it obviously will not go away overnight. they have drone a tax they do not like. -- attacks they do not like. it works strategically to reach out to those nations. host: americans get a good value to applying the military in this fashion. guest: i have talked to some many sailors about the tsunami relief and the connection they made with people and the world seeing what americans did for those people in those countries

in trying to help. you can just see -- if you are in those countries and you just see americans at war or you feel threatened -- threatened by americans or not help, it just makes a huge difference. host: good morning to you. caller: i just wanted to make a few comments about the reporter here who is talking. you make everything sound quite rosy to a certain extent. how about some real investigative journalism to find out about when we are going to get out, what we are going to do with the bases, why it cost $800,000 to support one soldier over there, and what are 5000 people going to do in the embassies? guest: i would not say that i

have painted a rosy picture over there. we have more than 130,000 troops over there. what are we going to do with the bases? i think some of those bases will remain. we have a status of forces agreement that says that we're out of there by the end of 2011. i think there will probably be some sort of residual force. that will be up to the iraqis. we're in an agreement with the iraqis. iraq is a sovereign nation. if they want us to stay longer, we will. the embassy is the end -- is enormous. it might be the biggest in the world. it is enormous. it is a compound. you also have camp victory, which is an enormous u.s. military base on the outskirts military base on the outskirts of baghdad. for now, if they are still working out of there. this war is not over. if you are correct. it is not over. the the only talk about everybody being out of there by

2011, that is a long way to go. host: this morning there was an article in the "new york times." january 277 -- 2007 -- september 2007 was the height of the search. you can see where the italians were stationed in iraq. october 2008, back to 55 battalions. heavy clustering around baghdad. in june 2009, withdrawing and changing roles around 45 italians. the ones as were living and outposts, have mr. outposts of neighborhoods. they are switching to an advisory role. the process started. we're talking about american involvement in this region of the world. our next call is from irvine,

ky. caller: i have to organize -- helped to organize the first gulf war. i think people realize now that was planned extremely well, extremely effective it did not cost of -- cost us hundreds of billions of dollars or leave the country into a major economic downturn. that being said, hindsight is 20/20. let's look at what went wrong superfast. at that time, i had great intelligence contacts that provided information and that went on for several years where i could quickly contact the cia and the state department and directly, the white house, quickly. i think that was instrumental in

keeping the clinton administration out of the middle east when they were ramping up wanting to go i saw saddam hussein has basically no more than the mayor of baghdad. i believe the weapons inspectors [unintelligible] however, i was an outsider during the bush and administration. they and their agenda to be a little bit tougher i think i got intelligence to condoleezza rice prior to her taking the position. however, i still had difficulty getting information. i have extensive research on it.

i no longer had my contacts at the cia. i did not have a working member of the white house. my senators gave me some really nice form letters, but they toed the line with the administration. host: may i interrupt you? what is your bottom line here? caller: the bottom line is, i would like to be a peacemaker between those who thought it was a good idea who went to war and those who did not. there were some intelligence flaws in how to get that information. everybody was moving quickly. host: we have a lot of callers waiting. anything for that caller? guest: all i will say on the

difference between the first and second wars is that -- it has been well documented and acknowledged that there were not enough troops to keep the peace after the initial invasion. host: there is another aspect to iraq that is happening now. that is the oilfields. bp-led group to be a test case. the real work for its british giant is just beginning. the project will be a test case for how western oil companies will be received in iraq. we have a viewer by twitter who is very suspicious of all of this. coincidence? u.s. withdrawal from cities, first auction of oil, oil companies demand 10 more -- 10 times more than our record priest to. guest: i think this is a test case. i do not want to get into the

timing of all of that, but it is certainly a test case. security will be part of that test data and how they get on with the iraqis because the oil is certainly something they have been looking at for years and years. host: when is your next reporting trip to the region? guest: i duties at the last minute or was something is happening. i imagine sometime in the fall. host: we have eight minutes left in our conversation -- in our conversation with martha raddatz. caller: thank you for c-span. i have a few comments to make. actually, our precipitous withdrawal from somalia actually started this chain of events that led up to 9/11.

they perceive us as weak. also, our casualties in the iraqi war actually amounted to about two days at omaha beach. one final point is, in afghanistan, why don't we just cut the mountain passes between afghanistan and pakistan, thereby getting rid of the taliban's ability to operate on that alliance? guest: it would be very difficult to cut those passes. i cannot tell you how remote and hard to get to it is and how many ways out of their. if you try to do that, it is like sealing the border when

everybody says we conceal the border. it is awfully hard to do. we certainly could not do it here, i do not think. in afghanistan and pakistan, it is tremendously difficult. they did not do it in iraq in the early days of the war. they said they thought they had the border sealed with syria. that did not happen. there are just too many ways across those borders. it is a very difficult tiger -- a very difficult problem. there is debate about pulling out of somalia so quickly at looking weak. i think that has been well debated as well. that came after the horrible engagement there were many soldiers were killed.

we were not prepared for that fight and we lost many soldiers that day. host: martha raddatz comes from a journalism family. we have about five minutes left with her. go ahead, please. caller: good morning. thank you for your objectivity and your voice. sometime ago, bob woodward was able to get a hold of information through the freedom of information act that showed the highest level of american intelligence met with high levels of iraq intelligence in jordan and came away feeling convinced that there were no weapons of mass destruction in iraq. they reported this to the president. the president responded -- used

the f-word. that was in december, 2002. between december, 2002, and march, 2003 when we went in, he yet condoleezza rice and dick cheney talked about the weapons of mass destruction. they sold that idea in spite of what they knew, to the congress and the american people. don't you think that that information suggest knowledge? guest: i think probably what the bush administration would tell you was that there was other intelligence and that is what they tried to present to the american people. i stood at side the united nations the day: powell -- that colin powerll presented his case for weapons of mass destruction. the germans and french were

skeptical of us going into iraq. it seemed like a lot of circumstantial evidence. even to me that day, it did not seem like particularly hard evidence. a lot of it was not new. there were questions asked about a lot of that evidence. you are exactly right. they talked about mushroom clouds. they talk about nuclear programs. i think that intelligence has been gone over again and again. i know that mr. woodward did a lot of reporting of that as well. guest: does abc have anyone on the ground with the marines in afghanistan? host: yes. i think you know today, a soldier has gone missing from paktika province. the u.s. military says that the taliban is holding him. it is very unusual that a soldier would ever be by himself

in an area like that. i think there are a lot of questions about this. the u.s. military has confirmed they are holding a soldier. that has nothing to do with the offensive with the marines in helman province. host: bid morning, dan and on our line for independents. caller: i have one question how many mercenaries are going to stay in iraq and afghanistan after the pullout? guest: by that, i suppose you mean independent contractors. that is a really good question. i will tell you honestly, i do not know the answer to that question. i do not know the number of contractors. i do not know how they can do security without some of those contractors, particularly for embassy personnel, the ambassador -- that is usually contracted out.

others are contracted out in terms of that. i think that is a really good estion. i cannot have an answer for you. >> over the weekend, and notable americans on c-span, stories from inside the white house. from richard nixon to george w. bush. honoring president ronald reagan, ken burnms on his career. a tree to the late -- a tribute to the late writer john updike. there are more books and authors this holiday weekend, starting friday morning on c-span2's "book tv." find out what is on any time at c-span.org.

>> these places remind me of modern hit the neutrals -- modern cathedrals. let you like to see a few changes to the higher education system. >> princeton should be on the list. i think it will be wonderfully concentrated islands of talent and wealth and editions. it'll be opened to a lot of society. it will not be kept separate, which they are still far and i cannot understand why. >> the under education of an overachiever on "q&a." you can also download the c-span podcast. >> next, look back at 30 years of close of television programming on c-span. we will hear from current and

former associates of this show, including markets horton. they will also take questions from students and teachers of the close of the academy. this is one hour. >> i am from washington, d.c. welcome. >> i am your toes. we are -- i am your host. each week we bring students face to face with current events. this week we will be looking back at 30 years in close of television programming on c- span. our audience consists of students and teachers of the close of the academy. we will meet some of them right now. hello. welcome. >> hi. >> welcome. but i'm james. i am from kingwood, texas. >> what has been the biggest highlight of your term in washington. >> we just went to the world war

ii monument. i loved the statues and the stars and everything like that. it was really well done. >> you met with your congressional delegation by now? >> you have not done that. what i'm sure that'll be a highlight for you. ever some get a student here, we talk about recession and how it has impacted your life in high school and the things you do on the weekend. what are you fighting back home? >> gas prices are really high right now. it is a lot harder to pay for gas. i tried to stay at home. we are not driving around as much as we used to. the school is working with budget cuts and cutting their teachers. the school did not have enough to finish some projects. >> what you are are you in? >> i am a senior. >> what happens next year? >> god knows. [laughter]

>> are you off to college? but good luck to you. >> i hope to hear more from me. . . >> my favorite thing that we have done so far is the simulation with the federal judge and that would definitely want them to be a part of something like that, to be that close to the capital to be in the power center. this museum is wonderful soap to be able to have them see things

-- >> give us a more accurate depiction of what a history teacher does during the summer recess because i am guessing you don't just kick back and drink iced drinks all summer. >> no, although we did a little bit of that here in washington. [laughter] i know i can speak for a lot of my colleagues, we do research. we are constantly looking for the real stories behind the things that are in the textbooks. what is current proved how can we tie in and show constantly that history is very relevant to what is happening today? our job changes every day the news changes. we are constantly updating. >> the computer and all of the information out there these days, it is it more of a

challenge for a teacher to incorporate all of that or does it make things more difficult? >> i think it depends on your district and the funding and how much access you have to media. there is some great stuff out there and you can start to get your hands on it, and then you can't get into the labs. the recession peace its teachers that way. it is unbelievable what is available. having a really good people behind us who can help us dig through that stuff and get to it quicker and save the time, get the quality of their. >> thanks and we hope to hear more from you. our program this week is going to include guests talking about the last 30 years, people that have worked the longest on the program. joining us, joe geraghty, marcus harton, john milewski.

joe geraghty has won many awards for his documentary work including a 2003 award at the new york festival for his peace, "fight for freedom." marcus harton is a producer for the newseum and is responsible for a lot of the videos that you see out here on the floor space. john milewski was the managing editor of "close up" for 21 seasons and teaches a course at penn state university. please welcome our guests to the program. [applause] we are going to take a look back at 30 years of programs that brought high school students face-to-face with the nation's leading decision makers on a

daily basis. joe, this first clip is with president ronald reagan. >> reagan spoke to our students five times. we had amazing access and there were all televised on c-span. this one that we are going to show you, a student from miami asked him a hypothetical question. the answer was fairly memorable and actually led the news that evening. >> mr. president, my name is robert from miami, florida. i would like to commend you for giving america a stronger and more efficient administration for more than three years. my question is, if the situation in central america worsens, would you consider sending american troops into this area?

>> was that your question? >> if the situation worsens in central america and becomes a threat to american security, would you consider sending american troops into central america? >> it would have to be very evident that it was a direct threat to the united states. the truth of the matter is, the dating back to some days when the big colossus of the north, the united states, did lean on and practice what was called the gunboat diplomacy, our own friends and neighbors don't want us to send that kind of military help. they don't want our troops down there. we respect them for that. the president of bell salvador has said yes, we need weapons and ammunition and training, and we are providing that for them.

we will provide the manpower, we don't want yours. yours was a kind of hypothetical question in mind is a hypothetical answer. it would have to be something that we sought as a threat to our security and safety and then we would be defending ourselves and not someone else. >> we have had some high-powered guests on this stage, but what does it feel like to take the show to the white house? >> when that was going on, it was a little bit before my time. you know that the staff is saying, oh, my god, he is answering a hypothetical question. when i shirt -- when they saw it that evening, we got some attention. >> the president did not need an invitation to get on "close up."

>> this is very memorable. c-span went on the air in 1979. this was all very new. there was no cable in washington d.c. later in the evening after this encounter, the founder of c- span and the founder of "close up" co posted a forum with students. they got a surprise caller, a call from the white house. the screener says, "please hold for the president of the united states." when she realizes it is legitimate, she types a message to the host. brian is paying attention and it is confusing to him because there is no cable in washington d.c. i guess the clip can show what happens. >> hello?

hello, washington? >> would you hold one moment please for the president? [laughter] >> we don't have a commercial ready. >> i just came upstairs to the study and turned on the tv set and there you were i watched long enough to hear several questions that share your concern about the exclusionary rule. evidently, i did not finish the answer. i didn't mean that the police would be free to do whatever they wanted in the line of getting the evidence and breaking a lot.

remember, i did explain the exclusionary rule is not a lot. it is something called case law. down along the line, the judges made rulings in a court and he's become president. >> this is classic damage control. >> by the same token, it gives us a moment to say something about brian. tell us about his influence on this show. >> he is the kid with a football. this is an opportunity -- i want to say thanks to a couple of people throughout the show but we have to start with brian. the name that i want to bring up is a guy named tom gerard. tom passed away several years ago. he was working with metromedia

broadcasting in the washington bureau and he was the guy that introduced brian and steve. he was the early dealmaker. without those -- you use the word visionary. i think that applies to brian and steve and tom. they made it all possible. there is no one else that commits an hour a week to hear from young people. >> you know the story better than i do. you should tell the story about the camera. >> c-span had just gone on the air and they were showing only what was going on in the house of representatives. >> with cameras owned by the house. >> they couldn't have anything else on the air to accept the house session. our founder and former ceo went to brian and talk to a half -- and talk to him about, what if

we got some cameras? "close up" bought the first cameras for c-span. that also created our television program in december of 1979. from there, it just built and the relationship got stronger and stronger and evolved over time. >> absolutely. i was walking in the 1980's at the washington bureau and whenever this show broad kids from one of our market, we were over in capitol hill meeting with those members. sometimes we could get a story out to seven of our 10 stations with one visit. it was a marriage made in heaven for the program and for the newseum to marry up. >> i think it was more like a marriage made in a board room somewhere. our ceo in the museum -- and the

musin the newseum -- at the poit where the freedom forum museum developed enough television capacity to help the show, to be of service to "close up," we got recruited to the cause. that was, what, 13 years ago proved >> we promised to doug about things that have happened since you have been alive. c-span had a small studio over on north capitol street. they added bookshelves and the studio got smaller and smaller and smaller, so we had students sitting on top of students. there was a great relief when we had space for a larger group of students. >> hello and welcome to "close

up." >> i wondered which moment stockout for you the most -- stock out for you the most? >> it was the day the power went out. we were in the middle of a taping write about like this. the president of the newseum was discussing a first amendment topic and uttered the words "yoko ono." that was the last thing we heard the lights come everything, the control room, they were dead out. we use -- yoko ono is our patron saint because nothing could ever be worse than that there was an arc welder on the roof that shot the lights off.

>> from then on in the control room, we had a picture of yoko ono with this welding outfit on. >> that is what she sounds like when she is singing, like when she is wilting. >> how many of you know? yoko ono is? >> how many of you have heard her sing? >> good memories to hold on to prove >> yes. course i would like to move on to the next clip because we talk about memories. john, you took the show to berlin. the 1990's, "close up" made a trip to berlin. >> this was a fascinating time for obvious reasons. we did programming twice for berlin right after the fall and then a couple of months later. the most memorable thing for me

was the east german students and their attitudes. they were really savvy about what was happening in their lives and they knew that in their schools, they had essentially been lied to about world history and relations because they were receiving soviet propaganda said there were really worried about how they would keep up with their west german counterparts when the schools were integrated. it was very touching to me to meet these students. one of the students that are really connected with, he had a little pin that was the junior soviet club or something like that. i asked him about the pin. he took it off and give it to me. he said, "please, take it." >> let's take a look at that clip. >> what were your initial

impressions? >> i remember that night very well. i was watching tv and they said it on tv and i was just staring at the screen and i could not believe it. everything changed. in the streets, you could see many cars from the east and many east people in the department stores. sometimes you get into touch with them and it is quite interesting. >> michael? >> it is the freedom now, the freedom atmosphere. in the evening i heard it at a press conference, [unintelligible] i didn't believe it. the next day, i heard the news and i could not believe it. >> what are the impressions that you have now that maybe are different than what you thought before the fall of the wall? >> it is the free atmosphere, i

think. we can't believe that because -- it was hard for us. it was like a prison and now it is open. it is very good. >> "close up" in berlin. it is amazing when you listen to students talk about the things we take for granted, freedom of speech, from a different perspective i know that we have done a program since the breakup of the soviet union with students from the former soviet republics. it is always a fascinating session to see the whole gradation of how they have embraced freedom or the freedoms that are still withheld from them. >> absolutely. i think the freedom and the first amendment topics have been

particularly resonant with "close up" audiences. high-school students that come to washington are pretty attuned to it. i don't think there is any group in the country whose first amendment freedoms are more regularly and routinely infringed upon them high-school students. it is a resonant topic. >> we always talk and there really fascinating feedback on no child left behind it and immigration policy, which is nuanced by region. >> absolutely. the one thing that you do really appreciate is every area of the country has a different aspect and a different outlook on politics. it is one of the secrets that makes the greater "close up" work. we bring these communities together and in many cases, they

are roommates for the week. to kids from new york, to kids from the southern california. that really helps the -- that really helps to break down walls and creates more understanding. >> most of those places have the first amendment, too. [laughter] >> as you know in the green room when you are prepping the guests who are going to be on the program, you tell them, remember, these are students from all over the country so it keeps the politicians honest. they have to answer these questions. >> it is challenging for them because they cannot make assumptions about the audience. it is never a monolithic. >> hello and welcome. >> i am from washington d.c. my question was, since you have been around for over 30 years, i know that you have experienced a lot of changes in

administrations, congress, and throughout american history. what was one of your most memorable stories about american history that you covered through the 30 years that you have been here? >> that is a good question. i hate to go back to it, but the fall of the berlin wall and that story -- it is hard to beat that. we were actually there covering history as it unfolded. most of the time, our show is, we are not a news show. we look at things with prospective and analysis and we have discussions with students, but we are not cutting edge news. but we were there when they were knocking down the wall. i was amazed at their english- speaking abilities because one of the students never left east berlin ever in his entire life. it was fascinating for us. on that level, it was probably

the most historic the profound thing that we covered, i would say. >> lots of journalists will talk about the benefits in their job, witnesses to history, a former rose seat. we have had that benefit. i can think of things, not a single one jumps out, but there is a series of things that really felt real and felt like we were part of a larger -- the real world outside of the studio can be quite messy. do you remember the d.c. sniper case several years ago? schools were not allowed to come to the studio because all out of school activity was stopped, so we had to take the whole program to schools to keep it on the air. after 9/11, our first program.

all the students really wanted to know what they could do. this -- there was this earnest yearning to contribute to the nation that was hurting. they mocked the president because at that time, president bush said what people should do is keep doing what they are doing. the students were mocking that. i am supposed to shop? it did not resonate with them. >> another clip that was on a lighter note, we cover the conventions every four years. those were very exciting and newsworthy. you get a sense of who our next president might be paid in 2004, when president obama gave his speech, it certainly had a profound effect on the whole city of boston. you got a sense that this guy is going to become president some day. my son predicted it in 2008.

>> the obama speech was certainly memorable. we were just dazzled by this man. little did we know how quickly. ronald reagan's last speech to the republican party was also very dramatic and a memorable moments, this beloved president had his last forum that he would assemble the party. >> i am going to use this program to segue into our next click. -- into our next clip. let's take a look. >> i was just wondering, people from all of the world have different cultures and value systems, and i was interested in knowing if there was something you found that everybody can next on just because they are

human. when you are dealing with somebody, is there something that you could just always relate with them about? >> yes. regardless of one's race or creed or political philosophy or religion, there are some things that bind people together. i have always referred to mothers in the middle east area. the israeli mothers, the palestinian mothers, the syrian mothers, the egyptian mothers, they all want to see their sons get a good job. they want to see their small children get health care. they want to be able to see their husbands produce apples or oranges or run a pharmacy or practice medicine and have his talents be used properly. they want to lead a normal life. quite often, it is the leaders of a nation, the leaders of the population who are the obstacles

to police. the people that want human rights, democracy, and the alleviation of suffering, so that is what binds them together. what divides them are the problems between the leaders of those groups. >> jimmy carter talking carter "close up" on c-span. we have had no trouble getting the top guests on this program. what is it about this program? >> i would like to take credit. it it really is all about the students. it is an opportunity for president or top government officials to talk to students. i think we do it in a way that is a real discussion. they appreciate that. it is not just five minutes or a sound bite. it is an hourlong program where we can have a discussion.

we never gave in to screening questions. it was basically a candid discussion and the presidents all agreed. it was a pretty incredible experience. >> jeane kirkpatrick, former u.n. ambassador, the answer to the question was you, you were the reason that they did it. he was an ambassador to the united nations. president reagan and president gorbachev were meeting. we got kirkpatrick to come on into a teleconference with social studies teachers. she did no other media during the summit and told us to explicitly because it was to help educators. when she was leaving the green room, a reporter came up to her and asked her if she would come on hours. she said no and walked off. >> you were watching these programs from the control room.

week in and week out, there was some kid who would say where he or she was from and then just surprise you with what came next, destroying whatever stereotype he might have about regions in the country, gender, race, income. what do you feel like in the control room when those moments came? >> it was probably more whooping and hollering that you might expect. it was a reaction in the boiler room. a lot of encouragement for that kind of stuff, not that anybody in the room other than the crew would hear it through their had eadset. there was a fair bit of participatory cheering. >then there is the other thing

that we do in the control room, which is to fill in the pauses, the mystery science theater stuff. >> if you are just joining us, you are watching "close up." we are talking with joe geraghty, john milewski, and marcus harton on "30 years of close up television." we are talking to students from the "close up" academy this week. wellcome. >> i am from texas. i wanted to know who is the most memorable person that you have met with through this program? >> i think frank asked joe earlier about meeting a president. brian -- i have heard him talk about this to groups.

when you need a president or head of state, it does not matter what your politics are with the issues of the day are. there is something almost sacred in american politics. this is the guardian of american democracy for four or eight years, so it is always a very awe-inspiring moment. you have to get over that to conduct the program. whatever your situation is, it is always better -- it is always very memorable to meet a head of state. >> when you meet them, you definitely get an impression. i remember meeting bill clinton out in oklahoma after the five- year anniversary for the oklahoma city bombing. there was a huge crowd out there and probably most of them were republicans. a good number of them were republicans. he had the crowd beating out of

the palms of his hands. when he was done shaking hands, there were 80-year-old grandmother's climbing over people to reach out and touch him and shake his hand. you get to understand no matter what you think of him politically, the appeal of a strong, charismatic leader. >> excuse the term, but it is the lesser known people, the less famous people. the student michael that gave me that pin, i will never forget that. sometimes, it is those small moments. you helped me out about the supreme court is about drug testing in schools in washington? >> [inaudible] >> we visited the family involved in this supreme court case. they opened their house to us and let us rearrange the furniture to set up cameras and lights. we both were saying to ourselves that this is humbling, such a

privilege to have a job that people are willing to open up to you about these important things. there are the ones that have done something, not us. >> mary beth tinker -- how many of you know her? the black armband in vietnam. she appeared on our program. she was a very powerful person. we did a panel together. during that discussion, she felt comfortable enough that she came out basically and introduced her girlfriend. it was a very powerful moment. a lot of experiences like that that happened over the years that to mean a lot. she will be up there at the top of the list. >> it is a privilege. >> and a shameless plug, her arm band is in the first amendment gallery. >> plywood add one more name to

the list. -- i would add one more name to the list. we had phil donnelly as one of our guests. i told him, i am not going to brief you on how to work and audience. that was a real moment, and he was a master. he came out in what he did with the audience, i wish i would have been able to take notes on it. in the aftermath of 9/11, "close up" discussed the difficult and ethical question for photojournalist. tell us a little bit about this next clip. >> what we are about to see is an associated press photographer telling the story of one of the most disturbing

photographs published in the aftermath of 9/11. it is a photograph that just out of respect for people's sensitivity, few newspapers published anymore, and i will warned the audience that you are about to see it again. this is him telling the story of his photograph from 9/11. >> this is a disturbing subject matter, one of the most gut- wrenching it seems that we saw that day. why don't you tell us what this is? >> this is a pastry chef, his last day on the job. a reporter saw my photograph and immediately he was going around looking at all of the posters that were put up. it clear to him that he saw my

photograph. he thought that this person resembled a person that he sought in the poster from. he sought out the family and found out that it was a pastry chef, his last day on the job. he got a job on a fifth avenue restaurant and he was there early in the morning to get ready for lunch and dinner. >> what is going to your head when you are seeing that? >> i get asked that a lot. you photographed the even that is going on when that person is falling. i was standing between a police officer and an ambulance worker. there were actually pointing and they were saying there is another one. i was photographing people as they came down. you just do the job.

>> is it in autopilot? >> yes. it really hits you later on. >> we had some discussion about whether to show the photograph on this program. does it ever go through your mind that you should be a photograph in this? >> you can't edit when you are doing it. we record whether it is tv, stills, week record history every day. without us being there, but it is like that tree falling in the forest thing. you have to do it. >> talking about a very disturbing photos from 9/11. i want you to talk about the fact that we have talked about our students that are a draw to our audience, the start of the show, but their capacity -- we do not dilute the topics. we talk about the issues facing the country and help them to

develop critical thinking skills, but they give a lot. they do their job and step up to the plate. tell me about working with a student audience, in talking about the most serious issues of our time. >> it is a privilege to work with young people for a lot of reasons. he mentioned gas that want a briefing before they come on the program. some would assume that they would need to dump it down for you. we always encouraged the opposite. don't underestimate them. the one thing i found with student audiences, adults are way too familiar with all of the subtext in the political leanings of guests or the history of it. students can be disarming and guests are caught off guard because they don't ask the question in a predictable way. it is a pure question.

>> it is easier to get sucked in with stereotypes of students. a "close up" audience is a pretty non stereotypical bunch. it is an interesting crowd. i think that has brought a lot to the table for the tv program. >> we watched a generation of kids really get engrossed in the political presidential campaigns, starting in the fall of 2007. with all of the internet tools and their social networking platform, we actually saw a jump in what they brought to the table here in the studio. >> absolutely. the last two years when the presidential election was going on and its aftermath, it is incredible the amount of

students that were involved and those that volunteered to campaign. they are really up on the election. it was phenomenal to say. hopefully, it will last beyond just the obama administration. >> if i could add something, this is so essential to what "close up" is about. you hosted a program with ralph nader. there was something he said to a group of students that resonate with me. he talked about your use of the internet and social networking technologies and this is such a great opportunity for you because the age and stage that you are at, your energy will never be higher than what it will be for the next decade. don't waste it on what he termed internet nurses them. do something meaningful. -- internet nursenarcissism.

in iran, we see twitter being used to organize a protest that could lead to a revolution. i think that is the challenge for you. you find a way to do something meaningful. don't just amused yourselves to death. >> we had a student talking about the recession. he was saying i have been struggling all of my life. i came up here now with a question but a common that the struggle is what life is all about. it was an 18-year-old student from chicago. the close up foundation provided programming regarding the first amendment. we have had countless shows about the first amendment.

our next clip highlights that. >> it is another remarkable "close up" thing. we got the chief of the aclu with the chief of the aclj to talk about freedom of religion, freedom from religion, in a first amendment context. take a look at that. >> my name is joe cavanaugh from michigan. i have a copy from the congressional record. i am wondering what your guises stance on the fact that we lead the house of representatives led off with a prayer that ended most of all father, let us feel your love. in jesus' name, we pray, amen.

should we do that in congress proved we are saying that jesu'' name is appropriate to lead our house? >> do you have a problem with that? >> gasparilla >> how many of you agree with joe and have a problem with that? raise your hands if you don't. >> let me ask a follow-up question. we do have a problem with it if it -- if it just referred to as "our father" and not "jesus?" what is the distinction? why is our father ok and jesus is not ok? >> somebody that has an opinion needs to come to the microphone. >> this is an issue with the supreme court has ruled the wrong way, this is government

sponsorship or endorsement of particular religious beliefs. most of you recognize that with the respect for jesus. also, our father is something that the notes at a particular religious belief. monotheism believes that the deity is an male father figure rather than a female. there are many devout religious people in our country who should not be made to feel that they are not being equally represented because they don't share that belief. >> so many hands said it was okay if it was just a reference to god and that is because -- why is that? i think the answer is, and i would be curious to see what the students say about it, that is part of how america describes itself.

references to deity are in our founding document. i don't think that is true. america describes itself as the player does unum, one out of many. you are welcome in this country whether you believe in god the father or not. >> the perfect place where the people who come here really feel free to express their beliefs in its performance. >> another special thing about "close up," they will sit down and have a collegial discussion about their differing viewpoints on religious freedom. the purpose of the show has never been to go to anyone in

confrontation. it has been rather just a way to explain and engage students in the way the country runs. >> talk a little more about that. unlike commercial television, we have not invited the two of you on to light the fuse and watch you wrestle. for the most part, that worked. we had a little bit of trouble with gun control. by and large, people are -- >> i think there are two keys to it. we want a discussion with the students, so it is not a debate. i think they are embarrassed a little bit. if they have five minutes and we want fireworks because of ratings, they are going to go at it. when you have an hour and you have a studio audience that is

reacting to you, and we are encouraging them to react with the audience, you get this agreement but you don't get the name calling and the sort of amateur stuff. they have to raise the level for the students. >> most talking points aren't scripted for an hour. >> as a host, most of our time is encouraging guests to interact with the students. they make it possible with the questions that they bring to the microphone. >> absolutely. >> it is a rare opportunity. these are people that are making similar cases before the supreme court. they are doing it for our audience. it is a great opportunity for students. >> it was interesting, i found, and i think it is fair to say this. year in and year out, very difficult when we got the spokespeople for the dnc and the

rnc. we thought it was going to be great, but there were not given the freedom by their bosses to go off script. it was all talking points. >> they just kept repeating the talking points. >> for an hour without commercial interruption. >> sometimes, you have to go right to the source. "close up" has been doing television programs from the floor of the conventions back in 1984. tell us a little bit about this clip from last year. >> we actually do the show in the morning from the floor. when you are at a convention, there are lots of things that they are planning for that evening. the expect the unexpected. let's take a look at some clips from last year. >> what are the major

differences -- major leadership differences between senator obama and senator mccain? >> by leadership differences, do you mean -- >> what do you see the differences between senator obama and senator mccain? >> i guess there's two areas, one is policy and the other is the less tangible one, what kind of leader do you think there would be as president. i think in terms of the issues, with health care, senator obama has a plan based on the existing plan to have universal coverage that everyone can have. with senator mccain, it is interesting he actually dismantles the current plan. if you get health care through

your employer now, his plan is to take that away. he gives people the money and then you go out and get your health care on your own which is actually a very risky thing to do. as i mentioned before -- ladies and gentlemen, terry mcauliffe. you just kissed me on national television my former boss, this is terry mcauliffe. he was the chair of the 2004 cycle and the chairman of heather clinton's campaign. >> i would do nothing for this woman progress and you finally recognize that? we are married, terry. thank you, terry mcauliffe. [applause] >> there is not a government program that exists that is worth a dime if it does not serve you.

you don't serve the program, the program serves you. let you be free to choose. let you take your money and put it in a private retirement account. if you want to stay in the social security, you can. if you want to put in your own money that you manage, you should be free to do so. not that difficult. in the end, any security that you have will be what you determined. let you take the first 12% of what you earning and do that. [loud music playing] >> i want to take this time to thank you. >[laughter] >> what a train wreck. >> that doesn't even do it justice. i was standing 5 feet away and i

cannot hear a word out of his mouth. thank god for dick armey. >> his microphone was working. he is smart. it is like doing the program from the sidelines of the super bowl. >> we lost the use of our studio at our old home and we went out to marry field, virginia. talk about that project where every morning at dawn, you and a crew would walk into an empty studio and create the entire "close up" set before joe came in to warm up the audience. how do you do that? >> we got thrown out of our studio. we got like two weeks notice that our studio, where we had all of our cameras and stuff, we were out on the cold -- out in

the cold. we went around to some local studios, just looking for somebody that had half of a day and would be willing to host us. mhz said they could be they didn't have seats for an audience. we had a lot of set pieces but they said if we wanted to bring our old stuff, they had some old storage containers out in the parking lot. we said, ok, fine. we did not have any choice. we brought enough chairs for an audience and every morning the crew would show up and it was like the line of ants in the cartoon carrying stuff in the studio. >> that shows the commitment of the newseum to this television

show. >> the highlight of our final season was the new gingrich and james carville show on the outlook for conservatism in this country. this was right after the election. let's take a look at this discussion. >> the power of the media to carry messages from the party to the voter. >> i think the media, the traditional media is a fact. what came as a surprise, if you went back to the 40's and '50's and early '60s, this is an interesting phenomenon, there was this belief that you could go to journalism school, you would cover the news, the editorial page is over here, but you were somehow different. that all began to break down in the middle of the 1960's. younger reporters were anti- vietnam war. young reporters were pro- immigration.

younger reporters were anti- watergate. you got a judgmental personality that began to replace the so- called objectivity of the edward r. murrow generation. you are really going back to a 19th century model. if you study abraham lincoln, every newspaper in america was partisan. if you were a democrat, you subscribe to your democrat newspaper. if you were a republican, you subscribed to your republican newspaper. you found that each side covered the other in very interesting ways. we are moving back to that. i expect msnbc to be a radically left-wing channel. i expect james expects fox to be a very right wing channel.

>> in most countries, it is this and that. that may be fine. also, we know for a fact that this whole industry is changing by the day. chicago tribune, the los angeles times, the new york times, it is not like it is going to be the same. when you are our age, you can go -- right now, the big change i see -- >> and none of them think they will ever be our age. it [laughter] >> you are right. if you are a liberal, you can go on your computer and never look at a conservative thing. you can spend your entire life. so many people use information, as i say, the way to a drug uses

a lamp post. they use it for support and not elimination. people want validation. they don't want to be challenged. i knew i was right. this guy says so. whoever it is you go to. i think there -- i think there has to be challenges out there, too. >> just the taste that viewers expect from this program. those two guys, it was a pleasure for being up there for an hour. let's go to another student. >> i am from nebraska. what do you guys think personally is the greatest lesson students can take away from the "close up" academy? >> to challenge yourself to critically think about all of the important issues of the day, but not to buy into your own biases into really think. >> accept the role of the

citizen. i think it was jimmy carter that said he was going to and -- a more important office of citizen when he left office. >> played a role or don't, but stayed informed. know what is going on. know how things work. because you need to cast a wise and vote. >> i am going to ask that three of you to give short responses to, what is the biggest thing you personally are going to take away from your involvement in this program? >> it has been the involvement with the students on a weekly basis. it definitely has a profound effect on your outlook in your life. >> i was going to say that, too, but since joe beat me to it, i would just say what a pleasure it has been being involved with

the close up foundation and what a great fit it has been for us. that is my take away. >> i think, professionally, you could have a career in doing this kind of work april, and you do not have to pander. you do stuff that has a value. on a personal level, the opportunity to work with the people that we have had an opportunity to work with has been a true privilege. jack hurley was another key player that i want to say thanks to. many people there in the early days and over at c-span as well. >> and the teachers. they play such a critical role

in preparing students before they come here. thank you so much for spending your time, giving us your insight, reminiscing with us as we say goodbye. thank you for your input. give yourselves a round of applause. [applause] thanks to the entire team in the control room. we know you are in there. i think i can hear you in my ear. and to your -- to our viewers, thank you for watching us. we say so long. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> this is c-span, public