eastern. it is convenient to listen to c- span anytime, anywhere with the free c-span radio application. streaming of c-span radio as well as all three c-span television networks. dickenson to our interview programs. c-span, it is available wherever you are. find out more at c- span.org/radioapp. >> coming up, herman cain's announcement that he is suspending his presidential campaign. after that, the role of national security advisers. after that, a future of a journalism at the chicago ideas form. >> republican presidential candidate herman cain was joined by his wife outside his headquarters in atlanta where he announced he is suspending his campaign. this follows allegations by ginger white who said he had a consensual, 13-year and

extramarital affair with her. ♪ ♪ i have got some news we are taking names we are waiting now for judgement day. i am america one voice, united we stand i am america one hope to heal our land there is work that must be done i will not rest until we have won i am america is there no end to your own hypocrisy? you are only interested in political gain

you play your games you stuff your pockets i have a feeling that the tide is turning i am america one voice, united we stand ♪ one hope to heal our land i will not give up on this fight i will not fade into the night. i am america ♪ [cheers and applause] >> you all are great. thank you, thank you, thank you.

i love ya'll, too. [chanting] >> let me first say that as usual, the cain supporters are not warm-weather supporters. i cannot thank all of you enough for all you have done, how far we have come, the things

we have done. the things that we have been able to achieve. you know, i chose to run for president because the politicians in washington would not do their jobs. that is why i chose to run. they have failed to provide economic growth. they have failed to get spending under control. they have failed to make us less dependent on foreign oil. these are some of the reasons that inspired me to run for president. if you look at the last 40

years, we have seen that same kind of failure. it is just that the mess has just gotten bigger. you were frustrated. i was frustrated. millions of other people were frustrated. it was out of that frustration that i made the decision to run because the people in washington, d.c., are either playing the blame game or pointing fingers or throwing crumbs to the american people rather than bold solutions to fix the problem. america deserves more than that. [applause]

since the politicians have continued to fail, i decided to run for president. you all responded as you are responding now. i thank you. i am honored by the deep support of so many people across this country. it expresses the frustration of so many people across this country. when i made the decision to run, i did not fit the usual description of somebody that ought to be running for president. [applause] i had never held public office before.

[cheers and applause] i did not have high name i.d. right now it is probably 99.9%. [laughter] i did not have a kajillion dollars. we learned that the voice of the people is more powerful than the voice of the media. [cheers and applause] secondly, we have learned that message is more powerful than money. we proved something else. i grew up in a world of

segregated water fountains. my father was a chauffeur. my mother was a maid. we showed that you did not have to have a degree from harvard in order to run for president. we showed that you did not have to have a political pedigree to run for president. one of the biggest things we have shown is that we, the people, are still in charge of this country. [cheers and applause] today, we're one month away from the iowa caucuses. with over 300 million americans in our nation, i stand here

because of you. if you look at the top three republican candidates right now and consider the president in the white house, we can say that i am in the final four. [cheers and applause] we are in the final four. when you think of where i came from right here in atlanta, now to be in the final four for the presidency, this is a great nation. [cheers and applause]

that is why this nation is so great. i tell you what, it is a powerful and humbling position to be in. proving that we could do this was one of the greatest things, one of the greatest gifts that you and i could give to this country. i have often said that one of america's greatest strengths is its ability to change. we have created significant change on this journey. i am proof of that and you are proof of that. [applause] i am proof that a common man could lead this nation because i consider myself one of view,

not -- one of you, not one of the political elite. i am one of you. our nation is tired of hearing the politicians blame each other. it is time for solutions. as the false allegations about me continue, they have distracted my ability to present solutions to the american people. i have made many mistakes in life. everybody has. i have made mistakes professionally, personally, as a candidate in terms of how i run my campaign. i take responsibility for the mistakes i have made.

i have been the very first to own up to any mistakes that i have made. even if the political elite do not think i handled it exactly the way the political elite handle it. i have handled it my way because that is the type of person i am. [applause] because of these false and unproved allegations, it has had a tremendous, painful price on my family. these unproven allegations continue to be spinned in the media and the court of public opinion so as to create a cloud of doubt over me and this

campaign and my family. that spin hurts. it hurts my wife, my family, me, and it hurts the american people because you are being denied solutions to our problems. [cheers and applause] [chanting "herman"] herman! we love you. >> here is why it hurts. my wife, my family, and i know that those false and unproved allegations are not true.

[applause] one of the first declarations' i want to make to you today is that i am at peace with my god. [cheers and applause] i am at peace with my wife. [cheers and applause] she is at peace with me. [applause] gloria!

>> i am at peace with my family and myself, which is one of the most important things. that being said, becoming president was plan a. before you get discouraged, today i want to describe plan b. as of today, with a lot of prayer and soul-searching, i am suspending my presidential campaign. i am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distractions and hurt

caused on me and my family, not because we are not fighters, not because i am not a fighter. it is just that when i went through this reassessment of the impact on my family, on you, my supporters, your support has been unwavering, as well as the impact on the ability to continue to raise the necessary funds to be competitive we had to come to this conclusion. we had to come to this conclusion that it would be best to suspend this campaign.

that is the bad news. here is the good news. the pundits would like for me to shut up, drop out, and go away. well, as my grandmother, who lived to be 104-years old used to say, if someone is dead wrong, bless their hearts. [laughter] i am it will not be silenced and i will not go away. therefore, as of today, plan b. plan b.

i call it "the cainsolutions.com." let me explain why. there are three audiences out there, folks, that we have dealt with, that i have had to deal with. the media class, the political class, and there is "we the people." it is "we the people" that got us this far. it is "we the people" that wants change in washington, d.c. they are responsible for this massive movement going on in

this country -- the tea party movement, the conservative movement. it is a movement by "deep -- "we the people." i will continue to be a voice for the people. that is why, today, we are launching cainsolutions.com where the people will choose, not the media, not the politicians. the people will show that the people are still in charge of this country through this new organization, i will still be promoting the biggest change and transfer of power out of washington, d.c., back to the people since this nation began and that is the 9-9-9 plan.

it is not going away. i will still be actively supporting and promoting a foreign-policy that stars with through peace strength and clarity. i will still be promoting actively an energy independence plan for america. we can and we will become energy independent. now i know that many of you are disappointed. i understand that. i know that many of you are disappointed and i certainly understand that. i am it disappointing -- disappointed that it came to this point that we had to make this decision. one of the reasons that i ran for president of the united states was so that i could change washington, d.c. from the

inside. plan b is that we are going to have to change it from the outside. [applause] it will take a little longer. we are going to have to work a little harder. but we will change it from the outside. one other thing -- i will be making an endorsement in the near future. i will be making an endorsement and i can tell you right now, it will not be the current occupant of the white house. that will not be my endorsement. america has learned something about this process of running for president. it is a dirty game.

it is a dirty, dirty game. but i happen to believe that the american people are sick of this and if i am not the outsider to get there, i happen to believe that the day will come when the american people will reject all of the distractions, all of the false accusations and on proved accusations, and it will make a change because that is what we have got to do to get real change in this country and get it on the right track. as i think about my parents who raised my brother and i sat right here in the atlanta area, they taught us three very valuable lessons that you share. belief in god, belief in

ourselves, and belief in the greatest country in the world, the united states of america. even though i have had to suspend my campaign, i have not given up on america. i have not given up on the united states of america at -- and here is why. look at our history when we have been challenged the most is when we the people have risen to the occasion the most. i happen to believe that we will do it again because we the people are still in charge of this country. let me leave you with this. i believe these words came from the pokemon movie. the media pointed that out. i am not sure who the original

author is, so do not go write an article about the poem. but it says a lot about where i am with my wife and my family and where we are as a nation. "life can be a challenge. life can seem impossible. it is never easy when there is so much on the line, but you and i can make a difference. there is a mission just for you and me. just look inside and you will find just what you can do. just look inside and you will

find just what you can do." i have had to look inside to find what i can do and here is what i can do. here is what we can do. we can put united back into the united states of america and move the shining city on a hill back to the top of the hilltop where it belongs. i will never apologize for the greatness of the united states of america. god bless you. i love you and thank you. [cheers and applause] ♪ ain't no mountain high ain't no valley low

don't worry baby just call my name i'll be there in a hurry you don't have to worry ain't no mountain high enough ain't no mountain low enough remember the day i set you free i told you you could always count on me i'll be there when you want me some way, somehow ain't no mountain high enough enougho valley low ain't no river wide enough

to keep me away from you ♪ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

[no audio]

♪ pay no attention to the people in the street. make a joke of what we believe. it really do not matter if you disagree. i have some news for today we are waiting for judgment day. i am america one voice, united we stand i am america one hope to heal our land ♪

you preach your tolerance and lecture me you do not listen to your own hypocrisy you are only interested in political gain you play your games and refused to listen i have a feeling that the tide is turning i am america one voice, united we stand i am america

one hope to heal our land i will not give up on the fight i will not fade into the night i am america ♪ line your pockets while rome is aborning -- while rome is burning i have a feeling that the tide is turning i am america one voice, united we stand i am america one hope to heal our land i am america one voice, united we stand

i am america one hope to heal our land i will not give up on the fight i will not fade into the night i am america ♪ ♪ listen, baby eight no mountain high win't no valley loca if you need me, call me no matter where you or call my name, i will be there in a hurry you do not need to worry ain't no mountain high enough ain't no valley low enough

ain't no river wide enough to keep me away from you, babe ♪

>> hear what the candidates are saying from the campaign trail. >> in my view, this is the time for america to get serious. the big challenge i started with is our budget and our spending >> if your of entrepreneurs are not active, if investment is not landed in your marketplace, there is something wrong. capital is a coward. it will flee wherever it sees a risk in the marketplace. >> i am not an opponent of the fair tax. i think that is interesting having a consumption tax based on an income tax. it makes a lot of sense, but to

go through that debate right now and have a two-year debate on a fair tax, we need to do something now. >> read the latest comments and link to c-span pottery media partners in the early primary and caucus states at c-span .org/campaign2012. >> neck, henry kissinger. after that, reporters discussed the future of journalism. another chance to hear republican army came pottery announcement that he is suspending his presidential campaign -- republican herman cain's announcement that he is suspending his provincial campaign. >> gene sperling talked about the jobs numbers at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. on c-span. >> we did not have a lot of romantic ideas about spying.

at the saw it for what it was. >> in "the man nobody knew," the life of the cia spymaster, william colby. >> my father changed after he was thrown out of the agency. he is a soldier. he took on the toughest, dirtiest assignments given to him by the presidents -- eisenhower and onward. when it came time for the president to bligh and out -- asked him to lie in mislead congress, he could not do it. >> sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern and pacific on c-span's "q&a". >> next, remark from henry kissinger on his role as national security adviser for the nixon administration. mr. kissinger was the first person to officially fill the role. towards the bush adviser,

stephen hadley, and bill clinton adviser, james steinberg, joined mr. kissinger. this is one hour and 20 minutes. >> thank you for coming out tonight. it is a pleasure to welcome you here to our program. i would like to remind you to turn off your cell phones and anything else that makes any kind of noise. [unintelligible] tonight we are going to take a look at the world of the national security adviser, one of the most important jobs in the united states. we have an excellent and esteemed panel of experts with us tonight.

henry kissinger, stephen hadley, james steinberg, and james c ondon. i would like to introduce our moderator for this evening she was the chief white house correspondent for u.s. news and world report. some of you in the audience may recognize him. [unintelligible] you have a complete biography in front of you. i do not want to take up too much time so i can turn the program over to our speakers. please join me in welcoming ken walsh and our most distinguished guests. [applause] >> we have a wonderful audience and a wonderful panel. i thank you all for coming and thanks for the smithsonian for

assembling such a panel and asking me float -- asking me to moderate again. i have served as moderator for five smithsonian panels. our goal is always to generate -- shed light on things and not generate heat. i am sure we will keep to that premise again tonight. talking to our panel in advance of just before we started, they have a wonderful pratt of knowledge, not only of their time in office, but also our history of the last 40 years. our panel encompasses one of the most consequential periods of our history in foreign policy and national security. we will be talking about that tonight. we will have some time for questions at the end, but i also want to thank c-span for being here. they will be broadcasting this a bit later. of course, i want to acknowledge -- my mother has, from south carolina. [laughter] [applause]

i can not mention her. -- i cannot not mention her. the president's national security adviser is one of the closet people to the president. the national security advisor is there in moments of great triumph, tragedy, success, and failure -- is there "with the president when decisions need to be made on life-and-death matters, war and these matters. nothing is more important than what the national security deals with in the life of any presidency. our panel will deal with that this evening. our panelists have not only been eye witnesses to history, but they have also helped to shape history. we will talk about a lot of that this evening. dr. kissinger has to lead to catch a plane at about 10 minutes till the hour. we will get them moving onto the airport, but we will have plenty

of time for our discussion. he has an early call in the morning, so we will recognize that and logistically make that work. i will introduce the panel and go right to some questions. henry kissinger was sworn in on december 22, 1973, as the 56 secretary of state, a position he held until january of 1977. he also served as assistant to the president for national security affairs from january 1969 until september 1975. he is currently a member of the defense policy court. anyone who is familiar with national security and foreign policy for the last 40 years is familiar with dr. kissinger. he is chairman of kissinger associates, an international consulting firm. among the awards he has researched it -- received is the nobel peace prize in 1973 and the provincial medal of freedom

in 1977. -- presidential medal of freedom in 1977. i would like to introduce stephen hadley. he completed four years as national security adviser in january 2009. he was national security adviser to president george w. bush. he was the principal white house foreign-policy adviser to president bush, directed the national security council staff. from january 2001 until january 2005 he was assistant to the president of three deputy national security adviser serving under condoleezza rice. in his consulting practice today, he represents u.s. corporate clients seeking to invest and do business overseas. james steinberg is the dean of the maxwell school at syracuse university. prior to becoming dean, he

served as dietary secretary of state, serving under -- deputy secretary of state, serving under hillary clinton. from 2001-2005 he was vice president and director of foreign-policy studies at the brookings institute. he served as deputy national security adviser to president clinton in 1996-2000. he has a very extensive rosemay in government service. a personal note -- when he was that the dairy -- deputy secretary of -- deputy security adviser, we got to know each other quite well. i became very familiar with his diplomatic skills. jim, sometimes, would use very diplomatic language. when i pick one he did not like, he would say this is a couple less successful. i always remember that phrase.

[laughter] jane harmon is the director of the woodrow wilson center and president and ceo as well. she resigned from congress every 28 to take this position. she was a congresswoman from california for nine terms. she served six years on the armed services committees. four on homeland security. she has been recognized as a national expert on public policy issues. she received a distinguished service medal in 1998. she now serves on the board of directors of "newsweek." there is a media connection there. with that, i will take my position on the stage and the right to questions. just bear with me while i move

to my next spot here. you can hear me ok, right? great. i want to start out by asking each of our panelists at the same question. how would you define the job of national security adviser? jane, how did you see this from your perspective on the hill? what works and what does not work with dealing with the president on national-security issues? let's start with dr. kissinger on that. what's the fundamental objective of the national -- >> the fundamental objective of the national security adviser is to enable the president to make the best decisions in the national interest. that means that nothing should fail for the reason that was discoverable and not discovered.

[unintelligible] when i was appointed, i had no such perception. i did not know exactly how to organize the office. president nixon, whom i had not met before he appointed me, made the secretary of the national security council. we jointly called him president eisenhower.

he designed the outline. conviction was that no department -- this would be difficult than for the other departments to accept it that led him to propose that the chairman of the committee should be in the white house. that, of course, -- there were various points of view. the process depends on the personality of the president. how he prepares to work and, or

course, the attitudes of the various cabinet members and the security adviser. that is the outline of the system. -- outline of the system as it emerged in its present form in the nixon administration. that is how it was -- a clear conception of enter depart malt -- interdepartmental movement. >> there was a real continuity. a lot of people talk about how divided we are, but in the term national security, there is a continuity. >> the national security council was established in statute. congress set it up in 1947.

it only has four members -- the present, vice president, secretary of defense, and secretary of state. it is given a general charter to coordinate all aspects of foreign policy. that is really all it said. the question was what structure would come under that. dr. kissinger really established that structure. as jim will say, subsequent presidents have modified it a bit enchained the labels, but the basic structure is the same. i draw -- under our constitutional system, the president is given a lot of authority in foreign policy. it is through the national security council system that the president organizes the government, brings up the information that he or she needs to make decisions, and having made decisions, it is a vehicle to translate to the various departments and agencies that

have to carry it out. but how a president really runs that system changes dramatically with the president. the details of it are not in the statute, they are an executive order. they changed by the press that. the genius of the system is that it can adapt to the management style and the personality of the president. that is also true, i think, of the national security adviser role. your role is heavilyi guess thed say is, it is a great job. it really is a staff job. you are helping the president do a job. you are not running any agency or conducting -- that is what the cia does. your job is to try to coordinate

that process and make it succeed for the president. we had a little saying that if something went well, it is to the credit of the president or the secretary of the states or secretary of defense. if something went poorly, it is because the national security adviser fell to courted a properly. that was right. >> the flexibility is really an important part not only to adapt to the needs of the president but to the needs of time. when president clinton became president, the cold war had come to an end. the challenges were evolving. it allowed you to add that in bringing people to the table. economic issues took on a greater predominance. there was more participation by the economic agencies. issues of health and age and communicable disease became national security issues.

he would have people from those agencies involved and the environment and other things. that is the duty. they can take a structure that has served so well over a long period of time says dr. kissinger's time but use it to grow his needs. the other thing to remember, part of it is this policy formulation process making sure the information and perspective and choices are made available to the president and which you really want to have a robust debate and get the different perspectives. it also plays a critical role as a national security adviser in making sure what the president makes a decision that decision to implemented. the perspective and the mandate, the ideas of the president are carried out across the board and a very diverse community of back doors that are necessary to implement national security policy. >> do you agree about the

continuity. ? how did that come across to congress? >> let me start from a different vantage point i did or in the white house -- i did work in the white house. the an f c was right down the hall. a rookie named madeleine albright worked there. aside from the fact that madeleine and i were good friends because we worked on capitol hill in the senate before that, something that sticks out to me as it was a fairly small office. it was small enough for him to be a hybrid to have that job plus the state department. i do not think that has ever happened before or since. >[unintelligible]

>> it was a small group of people. now it is enormous. yes, i am sure there has been continuity in any -- many ways, but the growth has been geometric. what i can add is that i was a member of a totally dysfunctional body called the united states congress. feel sorry for me, will you please? i worked on these security committees. certainly, the dicey. was 9/11 forward. i intersected the national- security apparatus of the two budget terms lost early obama. -- two most terms as well as early obama.

it is supposed to write the laws and it do adequate oversight. how hard it is to get information from the executive branch, especially on a very heated and controversial issues because at least over time as i perceived it as a member of congress, more of the decisions on national security were made in the white house -- not in the department's heading by confirmed the secretaries. the white house as steve said, they are staff positions and not confirmed by congress. the president deserves to have personal staff. there is such a thing as executive privilege when used responsibly as the right thing for the president to have. however, it was incredibly frustrating in a number of instances to do proper oversight in my role as ranking member of the house intelligence committee for many years when i could not

get briefings or information because for a variety of reasons, the decisions and information and decision makers could disappear into this large space called the white house national security space. "i wonder if we talk a little bit about the president to all work with. what were they like in dealing with national security issues? did they all insist on what president bush called the decider? did they like arguments to be made in front of them? did they prefer that not happen? i just wondered if i could get a little insight into the presidents themselves on this. >> i worked with two president

in that capacity, nixon and ford. nixon knew an enormous amount of foreign policy. he studied it, he traveled. he was intensely interested. he had ideas. he knew what he wanted. he also wanted to hear the options. he preferred to read them than to see the confrontation in front of him. he had a personal aspect that he did not like to order somebody to do something that he knew that person did not want to do.

he would prefer to do it by memo. [laughter] the procedure was there was detailed papers that were too long. it required some reading. then he would listen and withdraw. one day or two later, -- the losing party was absolutely convinced i posted it on the president. that was a weakness of the system. it was done. president ford [unintelligible]

he was a student of foreign policy. that affects the sort of information that the president requires. president ford was in his second term of president nixon. he could not develop the designing aspect that nixon had. he did extraordinarily well considering the handicaps' under which -- it was those two different systems.

you cannot draw a final conclusions from either system because nixon was president in the period of liquidation in the vietnam war. tensions that would not exist -- it was very systematically and the options it presented. there were somewhat handicapped by the fact they were transmitted with an explanation but simply had orders from the oval office. >> i think one of the things that sometimes washington does not appreciate enough is how much the president is the

decider. he does make the decisions. there are a lot of press reports about what the secretary of defense thanks. what matters in our system is what the president of the united states thinks. by the time you get elected, you think you're ready to make these decisions. they are. he wanted the secretary of defense to have talked through the issue and to have work to the issue. we had what we call the tuesday

afternoon snack time. i would serve at soft drinks and a cheese dip and we went over the next two and a half -- its we in people's dispositions. we would walk through the most difficult issues and. this has been a great discussion. now we need to have it in front of the president. he was not a memo man. he wanted to have a direct interaction with his principles. we would have a -- in the quietness of his on contemplations, he would make a decision and come back. because of the problem henry talked about, he would come back and say i've made my decision.

you call bob gates and say i made a decision. you have a phone right there that has a button. you need to tell the secretary of state so they know it comes from you. you need to call them yourself. and he would. >> he would like to be part of the conversation. [laughter] that made for a lively set of interchanges. he had a lot of perspective to what he heard from the process. like to get people in a room to discuss it. he was suspicious of the -- if you got a consensus. he said that sounds wrong to me and he would tell you all the reasons that was a bad choice. often he would come around and

agree with the consensus but he wanted to test it and want to know what the thinking was behind it. there are some more -- there is more formal -- he wanted to probe and understand the thinking and to test his own questions against the thinking of others. and with a very interactive process with him. he did not easily decide on the spot. he likes to come back and tell people why he decided that. steve mentioned this as well, we became conscious of his own responsibility for the decisions. he would always say after a difficult debate, at the end of the day this is my decision. i value your advice, but i am not working to point to one of you and say i did it because the adviser said it was his decision. as time went on, the sense of confidence and responsibility --

is very impressive when you think about all the burdens and temptation to say, i got bad advice. the president stepped up to the plate and say this is my responsibility. >> a couple of things. i have not worked in the nfc, but from reading about president obama, he came to the presidency with very little foreign policy experience. he has spent a large part of his presidency on foreign policy issues and has stepped up to some very tough ones like the takedown of osama bin laden for example. from the congressional perspective, let me raise a couple of examples of the frustrations with this stuff. on eis bush 1