kinderhook. by the time you get to his retirement, he talks about riding out to the countryside to talk to the people who speak dutch. in this period between his birth and retirement, the dutch speaking in the hudson valley began to die out. >> very quickly, >> very quickly set the stage. he lost the election. what happens next in this country? >> you mean when van buren goes home? >> who comes into the white house? >> the war hero, william henry harrison. harrison comes in and unfortunately, catches pneumonia during his inauguration and dies 31 days later. nd john tyler, terrible, partyless president. >> sets the stage for an interesting conversation on our next program. first ladies influence in image. thank you for being here to talk about 12 years of early american history, changing country and presidents that led them and first ladies that helped them do

that. we thank you so much. >> thank you, susan. >> next week sudden death and secret marriages mark the tenure of the first ladies who served in the role between 1841 and

1845. anna harrison's husband william henry harrison dies because of complications from a cold he catches during his inaugural speech. and first lady harrison never steps inside the white house. then for the first time in our country's history, a vice president and his wife assume the office of president and role of first lady. but again, 17 months later, death comes to the white house, as first lady la tisha tyler, beset by health problems, passes away. now entering into the picture julia gardner-tyler of new york will tell the story of the may-december romance that leads the 54-year-old president and his 24-year-old bride to get secretly married in new york to avoid the objection of his hildren. ve on c-span and c-span3 and cspan.org. our website has more about the

first ladies including a special section welcome to the white house, produced by our partner white house historical association, which chronicles life in the executive mansion during the tenure of each of the first ladies. and with the association offering special edition of the book first ladies of the united states of america, presenting a biography and portrait of each first lady. and thoughts from michelle obama on the role of first ladies throughout history, now available for the discounted price of $12.95 plus shipping at c-span.org/products. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979. brought to you as a public service by your television provider. >> coming up next on c-span, former afghanistan war commander general john allen. admit need, another chance to seep to the's edition of "first

ladies: influence and image" looking at rachel jackson, emily donaldson and angelica van buren. and same-sex marriage ahead of the supreme court arguments. >> former afghanistan war commander general john allen discussed monday u.s. and nato missions in afghanistan. he also spoke about the progress by the afghan national security forces, his relationship with president ahmad karzai, insider attacks in afghanistan and future objectives in the region. from the brookings institution, his is 90 minutes. >> general, it's great to 0 have you here. i want to begin, i know we will not have a lot of happy talk but there are a lot of good things happening in afghanistan and most are unaware of the positives going on that happened on your watch sofment without ignoring the negative, which

will be factoring into the discussion as well, i wonder if we can begin by talking about two, three of the positive developments you saw on your watch. >> i think the coherence of the organization of the ansf from where i found it when i arrived in the summer of 2011 to where it is today has really been dramatic. and it's -- it's been delivered to this point because of the hard work of an awful lot of folks. stan mccrystal did great work in that area, bill caldwell working very closely with him. dave petraeus, of course, carried it to the next level. we were on track for the ansf to really come online as i arrived in 2011. one of my first priorities, of course, when i gave my introductory warks to my commanders about an hour after i took command was one of the principal priorities we would

have to face during the period of the next couple of years was to move ansf into the lead tofment get them into the lead for the purposes of maintaining and operating and conducting their own campaign. we had to build on the organizational capacity of the ansf, build on the capacity of its leadership, work very, very resolutely to create the support establishment necessary to build and sustain the ansf. it's come a very long way. its school systems, the afghan military academy, soon to be the officer school, which has been called euphemistically the sand hearst in the sand. the various m.o.s. military occupational specialty schools. all of those were under construction, if you will, at the time, which is given the ansf the capacity to move from being in essence an infantry force to an integrated force of the various arms.

that's the first thing. i think that the capacity of those schools to build the specialty fields that we need within the ansf has been really dramatic in that regard. so that we are now beginning to see, and there are still significant work remaining for the buildout of the ansf. it's not completely built until the end of 2013 actually. we're still fielding sathe amount of the force, although it's mostly recruited. but areas, such areas as logistics, transportation, engineering, explosive ordinance disposal, aviation crewmenship, all of those things are beginning to meerge as viable occupational specialties. something we could not have imagined 20-plus months ago. we were really just getting into the business of building specialties within the ansf. i think another very positive development has been the literacy training.

it was very strongly carried out by both bill caldwell and dan bulger in nato training mission in afghanistan. the concept of giving the afghans some capacity to capitalize on the program training environment, in which the soldiers and police were entering the service to give them some capacity initially to read and write and to make their numbers at a first grade level with the idea of being able to take that out to the third grade level over time. today over half the ansf has the capacity to read and write to a first grade level and we intend ultimately i know joe dunford will continue this process to continue, to not just emphasize the continuation of that program at the basic or entry level but to continue -- to emphasize the continued learning of the afghan soldiers and police throughout the period of time in their

enlistment, so that this becomes not just an initiative which is useful for military or police operations, it's an initiative that has the poem to change society -- potential to change society in many respects. when you have that many folks returning to their villages after successful enlistments who are able to read and write and able to make the numbers and express them this, has the potential for pretty dramatic change. across the country i think there were other important outcomes of where we found the ansf in 2011 to where we are today, which is that the securing of large segments of the population where other things could not happen. you wrote about it with michelle. i thought in a very good piece with respect to what you discovered in kandahar and reality is when i traveled to my battlefield circulation during my time months in afghanistan, i tended to visit more of the

afghan forces and our forces was i wanted to see how they were demanding, command and control online, how they were planning and executing operations and missions. and it was really inspiring frankly on many occasions to talk with the ansf leadership down to the brigade level and sometimes as low as the company level. that's the price that they have paid, frankly, to liberate substantial segments of the population, has resulted in opportunities to embed health care. health care access, getting school under way, protecting schools in communities. it has really i think enhanced the capacity of the civil population to benefit directly from the activities of the ansf. as they've gotten bigger and become more professional and more aggressive in the battle

space. because there are some real early indicators of how an ansf that is integrated, ansf that is professionally developed and professionally trained, that has the capacity for coherent planning, mission execution, sustainment in the field, there are early indicator as this force becomes more proficient, as we field the entire force as it works its way through the 2013 fighting season, advised by force that's we get some indication of how over the long term the civil society will benefit by greater access to services and educational opportunities that will come to a secure afghanistan. so some significant changes and some significant advantages to the afghan people. the numbers are -- the numbers vary from conversation to conversation. but when 8 million to 9 million afghan children under school today, and about 40% of them are

girls, young women, that is a dramatic change. if i encountered one thing throughout my circulation in the battle space or my circulation around afghanistan, it was the enthusiasm of this new generation of afghans for their education. and they saw very much that their education was not just a key to employment. they saw their education was a key to the future of afghanistan and i thought that was very positive and very, very much an indicator of the sense of this new generation of afghanistans who see the fute afghanistan -- future about afghanistan and less about the future of afghanistan being defined by ennissty or tribal orientation. to that extent, i did spend time with the schools. one of the schools in particular i spent a lot of time with in kabul and it was a school that -- where the youngsters almost

were a person. we sponsored them with scholarships, almost to a person, these youngsters saw their future in afghanistan tied to their own professions, whether it be doctor, she wanted to be a doctor. he wanted to be a lawyer. she wanted to be an engineer. whatever it might be, they saw their future as tied to afghanistan and not to a job and not to necessarily their tribe or their ethnicity. i think we have come from the middle of 2011 to where we are today in so many ways the development of ansf and ability to operate in the field and much work remains to be done, this has been a real benefit to afghanistan as a state and afghanistan as a people in the 19 to 20 months that i was there. i have to emphasize it was the result of the hard work of my predecessors as well. >> thank you. of course, i know i should have recognized all of the nato

allies that you command. i think you had 48-nation coalition in addition to all of the -- >> 50. >> 50-nation coalition. i want to come back in the moment to some of the specifics of the afghan national security forces as you were describing them. for those who don't follow this stuff all of the time, it encampuses about a half dozen organizations, afghan army and air force and different parts of the afghan police. i'm sure we will get into that in a little bit. for those who are skeptical of this mission, and we all know a lot of americans are and a lot of americans are tired of it, those of you who have been there have a right to be more tired then rest of us but the country in general has some work and it's dubious that we can be successful and what i wanted do next is maybe tell us a story of where we are in the war, compared to where we hoped to be, where we thought we would be at this point. you had been watching this carefully and important jobs relating to this mission now for almost five years going back to when you started at central command. during the mccrystal review, i

think it's fair to say a lot of people hoped things could turn a little more quickly. that the tally ban could be weak -- taliban could be weakened perhaps more than they have been. the afghan government could be more effective and a little less corrupt. pakistan could be persuaded to be a little more supportive. we will come back to the specifics. i wonder if you can tell us a big-picture story. were you frustrated by where the war was when you arrived? where you still fundamentally frustrated where it was when you left? or did you feel there was a generally positive narrative in big-picture terms? you mentioned specific encouraging signs with the afghan army and population and its commitment to the country. but when put the whole thing together, do you still believe in the mission? do you still think we're being relatively successful? we have a decent prospect for at least a modest level of success in the end? >> short answer to that is yes. and one of the comments you made earlier in your question about

fa is those of us who i think have been closest to the mission are perhaps those of us who believe in it the most. so i'm not fatigued by it. i was tired every now and again. but i want fatigued by it. in fact, as i was coming out of the mission, i felt mar more optimistic about what muck sess might look like then i was when i went into the mission. and largely because i think in so many ways we were beginning to see the ansf by the end of .12 and as we were seeing the ansf ultimately to take shape in .13 and in '14 to give us reason for hope because it -- as i think we all would understand, the political, the capacity for little development, economic development, those kinds of

indicators in a campaign like this, typically will lag the security achievements and security accomplishments. so while probably each of us would have liked to have seen great are capacity building in that regard, i'm not talking nation building but capacity building in certain ministries nd rule of law, counter be corruption, et cetera, i was confident that over time we could achieve levels of capacity not during the period from now until the end of 2014 but in the period after that, in this decade of transformation, which i think usefully emerged from the bond to conference where we had the capability over the long term to build the capacity and economic opportunity necessary for afghanistan to achieve stability. in the short term, let me put into operational terms what i think happened in 2012, which has helped us to set the

conditions for 2013. because 2013 is really the year that sets the stage for the accomplishments of 2014. how we anticipate seing that unfold. in 2012 we did a number of things, all generally simultaneously. it was really a momentous year in that regard. first thing was to recover the phase two of the surge. the first phase was 10,000. we were recovered it successfully by 31, december '11. second phase was recover the remaining 23,000 ton do so by the end of sent. so we recovered the surge and recovering it in sent would lead to you believe much of the serge was recovered during the fighting season. second operationally and strategically we were doing an operational terms, we were conducting a battle handover

from isaf conventional forces, in the lead for combat operations to the ansf, the ansf which were coming online in the sixth core areas, core as in corps, six corps areas, we were conducting battle handover when the ansf were moving into the lead and we were moving into a supporting role. at the same time as ansf were coming into their own in 2012 and bra grade and core level operations were increasingly the rule of thumb for operations in afghanistan during that period of time, and increasingly are today, isaf forces were converting. i made the decision to begin to convert my combat form agents to advisory form agents. as we had visited the unfolding of the campaignthere, would come the time when we would transition frbing the force primarily in contact with the

enemy to the ansf force primarily in contact with the enemy and we would be in an advisory role. it's inherent in a counterinsurgency campaign. in the very moment we're moving ansf into the lead, we're converting isaf forces from main force combat units to security force assistant units. teams initially and security force assistant brigades. we're recovering the surge. we're shifting in a battle handover from the isaf forces being in the lead to ansf being in the lead. doing that while we're closing about 500 facilities. we started when i arrived a little over 800. closing facilities throughout the country as our forces were beginning to retro grade, as our forces were beginning to leave the theater, closing and transferring bases to the afghans as quickly as we could

but in a programs way to ensure the platform of facilities supported the campaign overall but supported the requirements for afghans and for us. we did all of that in contact with the enemy. all of that in contact with the enemy. battle handover, recover 23,000 troops during a fighting season, shift from the ansf in support to ansf in the lead, substantially reconfigure our forces from combat forces to advisory forces and reposture them within the battle space and shrink our basing platform. we did all of that at the same time and in the same space. in the ansf very clearly began to move into the lead. they felt comfortable with it and we felt comfortable with it. and at the same time, frankly, we had to deal with such things as the urination video. we had to deal with the quote unburning.

-- coran burning. with had to deal with the shooting. we had to deal with insider threat and insider attacks. and within the context then of 2012, it was a truly momentous year as the ansf came online and as we began to transition my force ultimately to advisory force and ultimately to a force which would shrink overtime to deminute nish size and in proximity across the country to a much smaller advisory force. that set the conditions for '13. today, and i have been away from the theater for a bit bit virtually all of our formations now are in advisory configuration. ansf have planned, they planned it on their own that we were advisers so we were somewhat nearby and assisted them in the development of their o-plan which is dari for equal and they are going to be fully in the

lead for the fighting season of 2013 and 2014. we have configured the force now to be in a very close relationship with the ansf in terms of the advisory capacity and overtime time as our numbers come down the relationship with the ansf will change. it will change from being pervasive across the battle space of the battalion level, ultimately to arriving at a core level advisory posture over time. we will continue to close bases. we have about 180 today still out of the original 800 sore so and will continue to those bases as our numbers diminish and advisory posture changes. the idea being ansf will be in the lead for this fighting season. we will be fully in support of the ansf in this fighting season and that's how we envisioned the campaign would unfold. frankly, the recovery of the 23,000 troops in the summer of

2012 provided us an opportunity to accelerate the ansf moving into the lead ahead of where we thought they would be. they turned out to be better then we thought. they turned out to be better then they thought. i think that was a key realization for us in that regard. another couple of points, and you can get me off in f i'm going too long but it's important. the afghan local police was an entity that was really coming into its own at that time. and there are lots of anecdotal stories of problems with the afghan local police. i can assure you that in the context of how we have worked with the afghans closely, ministry of interior to raise dean ploy and train and support the alp, that it is an institutional force at this point. but as the a.l.p. became more institutionalized, more pervasive, it became a real

groundholding force for the purposes of the campaign. that it was a terrain denial force in many respects. it denied the most important terrain in many areas of afghanistan, human terrain. it denied the terrain to the enemy, to the taliban. so a.l.p. was coming online in a very real way. well up over 20,000. you will recall the original tash kill that was agreed to by the afghans by the president, was 30,000. the intent move that force to 45,000 over time and we're trying to secure resources for that now. finally, add an organizational level, as i was dealing with the reshaping our main force units into advisory units of very important organizational initiative occurred, and in some cases might have been missed and it was the creation of something called special operations joint task force or somethingness

known as nato special operations component command afghanistan. this is the first time in u.s. history and probably coalition history where we have formed under a two star a division size special operations command. and this organization brought under one umbrella all of the -- what we called three tribes of special operators that had existed apart in the battle space and, frankly, to that point those three tribes came together for the very first time organizationally in my office. so they all answered vertically to me. we achieved with the creation of the end sock alpha, meaning nato was a party to this process as well, far greater integration of our especially operations forces, our special operations joint task force, elements that were responsible for the training of the commandos and for the a.l.p.

and my task force or jsock elements, we were able to far more effectively integrate those as an organization, more effectively grapet those with the battle space owners and very importantly, lead the way for the afghans as their special operations forces emerged as they have emerged to be very effective, frankly, to lead the way in creating even better effectiveness for the afghan special operations communities and begin to set the stage for their integration into afghan plans as well. so 2012 was a big year. 2012 set the conditions for 2013. 13 will be the year afghans move into the lead fully for their campaign and it will be in 2013 that we set the conditions ultimately for '14. in '14, of course, the two really big events, one of them perhaps one of the most important events of the entire campaign will be the election in

afghanistan i think it's april 5th still the date. april 5th of 2014. we can pawuk about what role isap may have in support of that but isap will be involved in supporting it but really in supporting ansf and providing unprecedented and unparalleled security to this election we could not have imagined in 2009. finally as isap numbers draw down for the conclusion of the mission, as the end of 2014 setting the conditions for the enduring presence force, nato will call it resolute support, setting conditions both in terms of capabilities and locations and basing platform so that force can, if you will, be ready to go on the first of january 2015 fully integrated with the afghans in terms of the advisory relationship they will have and other support that the u.s. will have. 2013 is the year to set the conditions for 2014.

2014 will be the year where we terminate the mission and leap into the enduring presence or the long-term advisory mission. >> thank you. i'm just going to ask one more question and then leave it to those of who you would like to speak to bring up some of the other issues obvious slintral like pakistan and its role, our relationship with president karzai. i just want to thank you for the focus on the military campaign and ask one more question to flarb out a little further. then again we will go to all of you. it's a two-part question. building general on what you just said, would i like to ask sort of the simple down to earth basic are question, do the afghan army and police fight? you talked about this transition strategy and it's very well constructed and you had a lot of success with it. but i'm sure it also has a theoretical feel to some people. they probably still have a gnaw questioning, are the afghan solders and police really going

to fight? are they fighting now? are they capable and willing to fight for their country as they leave? that's the first part. the second part is linking now to the broader campaign. and it's a variant on the same issue of what the afghan forces can do on their own. i think it's fair to say while had you enough forces to do a lot, you didn't have all of the forces stan mccrystal originally envisioned the campaign plan originally envisioned, the president accelerated draw-down of u.s. forces just before you took command with a speech in june 2011. you and others worked together and he decided on the next phase of the draw-down plan to cut our forces by half over the next year. but this let certain parts of the eastern in particular i think less well tended to then the original concept would have called for. i want to ask you, those parts of the east of afghanistan in particular, where you didn't have forces or the time to go after all of the places wanted to clear out, taliban

sanctuaries, clear out weapons caches, create some of the local government structures, afghan local polices, force that's could hold land after nato forces with afghan support had cleared sazz the original campaign called for, can the afghans do that now? in other words, is the remaining job of clearing parts of the east breath too far for them or is it really within their capacity? and if it's not within their capacity, can we live with an afghanistan in which there are pockets of insurgeant sanctuaries throughout much of the countries east, fairly close to kabul? two-part question. simple part is do they fight? that's just sort of a gut instinct, gut feel from what you saw and what you expect. second part is in terms of the broader campaign plan, for those areas of general we didn't get to, can they do it themselves now? >> let me get the second one first. the east is going to be a challenge for a long time for afghanistan. and i think it's important and

sometimes this comes as a surprise when i saw this, on the first of january, there will still be fighting 2015. there will still be fighting in afghanistan. the fact that the isap mission ended and resolute support is under way add as advisory mission, there's still going to be fighting. afghanistan will join along and distinguishes list of countries hat will be struggling in post -conflict environment where it will have insurgency in some parts of the country for an extended period of time. there will be an insurgency in afghanistan for some period. the question really isn't whether there's the presence of an insurgency. the question is whether that insurgency ultimately is existential. my sense is as time as gone on, as i watched the professional development and capacity of the ansf improve and as i see that

continuing on the trajectory we have set the expectations we could legitimately have that over time we can posture the afghan forces in the east to dominate that critical, physical both man terrain that provides platform of continued operations over the long term, provides us -- when i say us, i often mean afghans as well, provides the afghans the capacity and in the context of something we're the term we're using now, the layered defense in depth, which i think has real promise because layered defense in depth has been developed theoretically in the last couple of years and as it will be implemented practically over time i think provides a lot of promise as afghans continue to

build capacity and as we see developments east of the border take hold over time. it provides, in my mind, the capacity for the afghans in the east to defend kabul, which, of course the strategic center of gravity for afghanistan over time. and without spending time on the concept starting from the bottom up where the afghan local police have been strategically cited to dominate the human terrain and in some cases physical terrain, it is integration of the location of the afghan local police with the afghan national lice who will be leading the a.l.p. at the district level. integration of police off the board for the border police through the afghan national police, through the afghan local police and supported by afghan civil order police battalions, which are organized in several brigades but in the east are

engaged 234 combat operations every single day, supporting the campaign that unfolds. police units, which are oriented on increasingly but on law enforcement but still in a counter insurgency role, they will be supported by the afghan national army. 201 corps north of kabul, 204 corps south of kabul have grown dramatically both in their capacity and their numbers adding both brigades and units and capacity over the last 18 months or so. and the late environment commander bill naval, commanding big red one has been magnificent frankly in bringing command elements of the 201st, general azeery in the north and naftali to bring them along to build the capacity for them to fight crediblely. so we have organic layering of police elements that will be supported by maneuver elements

of the police, which in turn will be supported by afghan national army units, cited in key locations both to dominate terrain and from those location that's conduct operations against rat lines out of pakistan, potential safe havens in afghanistan and support areas. they are additionally supported by some number, depending on the operation of afghan commandos, which turned out to be effective. afghan special forces units and increasingly in the near future you will see the fielding of the mobile strike force battalions. five in the north and east and four in the south, which are highly mobile, armored units that will give the afghans the capability of moving effective strike force elements quickly to key locations in the battle space to support a.n.a., who in turn are supporting the police. if i had a map, coy lay this out for new ways which i think would

give you a sense that in the east while it would have been use tolve have conventional forces for isaf conduct longer-term operations, we're just not bog to have the time or the forces. but i believe -- in fact, don't believe. i know, afghans embraced concept of layered defense in depth. planning for it now and over time as those forces m.s.v., mobile strike force vehicles, as they come online, as afghans layer their defenses, i have more confidence that they will be able to control the security situation in the east as time goes on. it's a tough question. there's not one that -- that can be rendered in an easy answer. it will be the challenge. in the east will ultimately be the challenge. prom imty to the pakistani border. nature of the sanctuaries and safe havens of pakistan where they are pressured or disrupted over time. all of those issues over time

will affect the security situation in the east. in the meantime if a security situation with respect to the federal administrative traveler doesn't substantially turn in favor of the long-term outcome in afghanistan. in other words, if they are not pressured, and there is not some form of reconciliation partial or full, i believe over the long term the layer defense in depth offers us the greatest potential to dominate the human and physical terrain in the north, north of kabul and in the east. north of kabul and south of kabul in a way that can defend the capital. it's a complicated answer but i hope i was able to render it in some respect. and do they fight? well, afghans fight very well, frankly. the issue for effectiveness of individual units is really your question i think. i have seldom seen occasions where the first man in the stack of an afghan unit going into a

billing where the chances are pretty good the first man is going to have pretty tough time, you don't see afghans shrink from that. as is the case with any american unit, effectiveness of the unit is typically defined by the commander. and there's an old saying in our forks any force, no unit can be better then the inherent weakness of its commander and often by extension its officers and by extension even more its staff and p.o.'s. we recognized this. d we have been, i think in good partnership with the ministerat m.o.d., and patang in the m.o.i., both of whom have gone to the president and both received permission to conduct pretty extensive leadership screening and i know that b.k. mohammedy has begun to fire and remove a number of commanders who are either

incompetent or who are home stetters, they have been there forever or they're corrupt. the idea of being in som ways to improve the capacity of the leadership of the afghan forces that both lead by example and lead by -- lead from the front morally and spiritually but lead by example and also lead competently as well. we're still suffering at the most senior ranks in the afghan military. mid-ranks and senior ranks, from a dirge -- dirth of education. many of these commanders, who were very capable jihadi fighters and they fought the taliban during the civil war, in an environment where staff leadership is important for the development of coherent plans for large-scale operations level, brigade level, we have work to do. to tpwhailed leadership. -- to build that leadership.

there has been an increase over the last several months of the attrition in the army. the afghans are getting after that. and in their view, much of the problems associated with attrition is socialed with leadership and conditions under which the troops are living. and to their credit, they're working hard to get after those attrition numbers by ferreting out those leader that's need to go but also closely examining the environment in which the afghan troops are living. afghans, don't have concerns about afghans fighting. individual afghan is a very brave policeman or soldier. the issue isn't that necessarily. he issue is can we produce leadership and coherent staff capabilities that can focus and take advantage of this interrent marshal spirit that we find in the afghan individuals and produce coherent fighting units out of that. that's the challenge. we have a lot of work to do to

build the professionalism of afghan army. they're enthusiastic about it but this is a very new army. in many respects euphemistically we're building this airplane while it's in flight. troops go from the training ground to the battleground. some of these troops have been from their recruit training fighting constantly now for years. so there are demands and sacrifices made by these forces as they're coming online that we would find challenging ourselves if we had to deal with it. and so afghan soldiers, afghan police are fighters. our challenge is whether the leadership ultimately will be able to lead them and that is a major objective of where we are today. >> thank you. fascinating answer. let's go to the crowd. let's please start here in the front row. wait for a microphone and then identify yourself, please and try to limit yourself to just one question. we would appreciate it. >> one question in six parts perhaps.

>> i set a bad example with one question in two parts already. right up here in the front row, please. >> hi, thank you. general, film stewart from reuters. >> good to see you, phil. >> some of us here were with secretary hakele on the last trip to afghanistan when karzai made his remarks about colucian between nato forces and the taliban. do you believe that president karzai's assertions sovereignty and these comments could threaten the strategy that you and others have laid out? and what would you would you say to the american people who have concerns about what kind of partner the u.s. has in president karzai? thank you. >> it's a complex answer, frankly. i have known president karzai very well for some period of time. let me just take a minute and talk about my own relationship with him because it's in that context that i hear his comments. i have known him since early

'09. but got to know him obviously very well from the time i took command in mid-'11. draw a phrase from ryan crocker's book, president karzai has the hardest job on the planet. and with the number of years he's been in place, the things that he's had to deal with on a regular basis, he has -- he does have a difficult mission. e does have a difficult set of challenges on any given day on virtually all issues. he has to balance a domestic constituency that is both tribal and ethnic. he has to balance his rhetoric with the potential for peace. he has to balance what he says with regard to his regional neighbors. you know, all of that goes into

the pot, i think, in terms of what he says and how he says it and when he says it and where he says it. when i -- when i was in afghanistan, my mother passed away and i didn't tell anybody. i didn't want anyone to focus on that. i didn't tell him, of course. eventually, i had the chance to come home and to lay my mother to rest. and afterwards my family, we were having dinner and he called me. i got a call that the palace wanted to talk to me at a diner out in the shenandoah valley. and i thought, this is not good. so i we outside and took the call. it was president karzai. he said, i just learned that your mother died. he said why didn't you tell me? i said, mr. president, you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders for your people. i didn't want to add to your burdens. but he said, our mothers are

precious to us. our families are precious to us and i just wanted you to know even though i just learned about it, that i wanted you to have my condolences and i wanted you to know how sorry i am for your loss. he didn't have to do that. the relationship we had -- and he called me after i came back here just to offer his best shes, he said, we didn't see eye to eye on a number of things. we didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things actually but did you what you believed was the best for your country and i have tried to do the best that i believeky do for my country. so with that as context, he has to balance a lot of things. in the palace, in kabul and across the country. in what he says. often those remarks i believe are intended to draw the distinction between him as the leader of afghanistan and those who have supported him from the

international community for some period of time. so that he does appear to be the sovereign and independent leader of a country seeking to move from a post conflict environment and developing society. and sometimes that rhetoric is harsh, and we don't have to agree with it. we don't have to condone it. we don't have to like it. on those occasions where i have publicly been confronted in testimony primarily with some of his rhetoric, i in fact reject it. i reject comments which would put our troops at risk, that would put his troops at risk. and if in fact the president truly does believe that the u.s. is including with the taliban, i'm here to tell you, i would know, and we ain't. and we don't inintend to. but i would also ask the question, what makes you believe, that mr. president?

what is it that causes you to believe that to the extent you would say that public sfli with the risks, not just of alienating the united states but alienating your own population. because his population i think the people of afghanistan, my own experiences and, again, i spent a lot of time, spent a lot of time amongst the people, while they maybe ready for foreign forces to go home, they do, in fact, have very strong views about america and about international forces. they're not anti-american. they're not anti-nerl. but they recognize sooner or later, international forces, foreign forces will go home. but i don't believe that the afghan people are anti-foreign or anti-american. so i think, first thing i would say to the american people is afghan people are deeply, deeply appreciative of the sacrifices that the international community has made for them. they understand what has been

done. in kandahar last year during ramadan as it's called i would typically give zicat to the families of afghans who lost sons or husbands fighting police. and there was an afghan father who came to me and i gave him zacat and offered him by prayers and my support and his comment to me was, i have lost with this death of my son four sons and i'm ready to give them all to this cause and i cannot thank you enough for the blood you have shed on behalf of afghanistan. so the afghan people i think are very knowledgeable of what we have done in that country. what we have done with them. shared sacrifice we have made. what we have done for them and i also can tell that you president

karzai understands that as well. and he has offered his thanks. he's offered his acknowledgment. so i try to keep in context the rhetoric. i try to understand why he would say things that he says and on those occasions things like colusion with the afghan and presence, i would simply say as commander there for 19 months that is not correct and i would be very happy to see what proof would leave him to make those kinds of comments. but i also had a strong relationship with him. on those occasions, for example, with the urination video, which prompted the first shootings of advisers, with the tragic, frankly, tragic burning of the religious materials, koran with the shootings, with the insider

attacks, the strength of our relationship and his commitment to the outcome, his commitment to the campaign was such that these events wb absorbed by the strength of the relationship. they didn't become events that broke the relationship. so yes, we're going to have rocky moments and there are going to be words spoken. we don't have to like them and we can even condemn them. but the long, reality is he's the democratically elected president of a nation that we're seeking to make a sovereign state with the blood of our young women and our men. and there will be occasions where we will not get along. there will be occasions where we will be openly antagonistic towards each other. on the whole, on the whole the relationship is strong. the relationship is resilient. and i believe that the relationship is sufficiently strong foundationly that it will

deliver the campaign to the end of 2014 successfully. >> before we go to harlan right behind, i want to ask to you follow up, general, on the issue of insider attacks. we talked about it before. you talked about it before a great deal. i know a lot of americans have it on their mind. i wonder if you can mention two, three of the things that are most important that you put into effect the last 19 month that's hopefully will continue to retchuse which thankfully is down in recent months by at least half. would you just say a couple of words on that subject? >> yes. this may have been one of the great strategic risks of the campaign frankly. taliban will not defeat us or afghans militarily. but what the insider threat did, it truly threatened the national will of the elements within the coalition.

and i have said publicly before, we're willing to bear great sacrifice on behalf of this campaign but we're not willing to be murdered for it. so i think as this threat became more apparent, and it had been going on for some time but in the summer of .12, it became both numerically and tragically a real prominent dimension of the political and campaign landscape. and so we looked very, very hard at this to understand what we had in front of us. i was as i did periodically when i had to leave theater to testify or to visit brussels, i would stop at capitals of key troop contributing nations and i was in berlin when i got the phone call that four friverage advisers had just been shot and killed by an afghan soldier.

and later we were to learn that he had not seen but had learned -- had heard of the urination video and had pulled the trigger based on that. and i was literally two hours from getting on an airplane to ly from berlin to paris, where as i got off the airplane, i was handed a newspaper by the attashy and there was an article in the newspaper i believe it was the international tribune, that said in essence that the difficulty we had with afghans are cultural difficulties and they were irreconcilable. here i am arriving in paris the morning of that tragedy and it would appear that the literature associated with this crisis being defined as being irreconcilable social issue. another of which were

particularly comfortable spots to be in. trying to lot of time understand what was at work with insider threats. and i rejected the sole explanation this was culture from the beginning. i had been adviser in other places. i served in countries around the world. some of them developing where the cultures were very different, very different. and it was never experienced any occasion based solely on culture differences. the reasons were sufficient to kill the advisers or kill the foreign forces. so it was more than that. as time went on, we began to listen to the chatter among the taliban that by attacking the advisory forces, they sought to create a crisis, both in terms of if they could separate us

along the seam. as our advisory forces increasingly became integrated into the afghan forces, if they could separate us along the seam of where our advisers were up close to the afghans, by forcing us to change our operational posture with respect to how we deployed our advisers, it would have the effect of striking a blow at the coalition. it would have the effect of diminishing the training and capacity building of the afghans. so we -- i chose as commander very rly along to determine this was an enemy threat and by challenging it as enemy threat, we were able to take i think more coherent set of measures to deal with the threat then to treat it as a culture issue with only culture training as the prescribed outcome. so we swam upstream. we looked at the training from the moment someone arrived in a

unit for deployment and the time training exercises that they would take prior to departing and tates or from europe the trainsing they received in theater and moment to moment that's would sure be taken to protect our forces on the ground in the proximity of our afghan allies. we looked at all of that with an eye to reducing vulnerabilities and improving our strength vis-a-vis afghans without alienating, frankly, our allies because we had to do that as well. so everything from the concept of the guardian angel to a comprehensive training program back at home stage was the result. we also worked closely with the afghans. it's not well known but afghans suffered tremendous casualties themselves from what they call green on green. green on blue is the afghan green on isaf forces,

green is afghan on afghan. and within the last 72 hours there have been a number of afghans, an a.l.p. unit as i recall, at least five a.l.p. guardians were killed by fellow a.l.p. patrolman. . we worked closely with the interior of ministry and interior of defense to begin the rebuilding of both cases in the ansf to deal with this threat and also to build joint capabilities that would permit us together to deal with this. because this wasn't just a threat oriented at the u.s. forces but it was a threat certainly oriented at the afghans as well. and the result of that were bilateral measures both out of the counterintelligence and intelligence level. improvement in vetting and ill provement of information and intelligence sharing. understanding, improved culture understanding.

afghans actually started to conduct cultural training of their own about us and why we're different just as we enhanced our own culture understanding of islam, ramadan, the interrent nature of the afghan people at the tribal and ethnic level. we did all of that. we integrated it together both within isaf and ansf and knock wood, as you said a moment ago, numbers are down. if there's one nun, one number too darn many because it's tragic. but i believe we have both taken measures necessary to defend the force. but also taken measures necessary at a strategic level to protect the campaign and that's really important. thank you. arlan? >> i'm harlan arland, i had the opportunity to serve many years ago. my question is also to you, michael, because you just came back from afghanistan, if you read or listen to tony's

briefing, it is entirely negative about the prospects. he's concerned about governance, rule of law, he is concerned about the economics, the fact that the g.d.p. is being sustained by us and in terms of security, he's worried that the enabling forces that will stay behind won't be there in sufficient numbers. curiously, his conclusion is optimistic, he argues if we prepare to keep thousands of troops and support there, and spend tens of billions of dollars, it's reconcilable. given the politics in the united states, given the crises likely in iran, syria, korea, the elections that put someone who is no friend of the united states in power, it seems that our long-term chances in afghanistan is not very great. if that proves to be the case, and i agree with tony's

conclusion, i think the situation is redeemable but i don't know if we could pay the price, is there a plan? >> i had a very good trip with tony as i always do, a lot of good recommendations and specific observation he is makes. i share his concern. i'm sure we all do. but just a couple of points. one is that the question of whether the united states will continue to support this mission does turn on how the afghans do in their presidential election next year, whether that process is seen as legitimate and whether the success of karzai is seen as serious. we have to figure out ways to use our influence to increase the likelihood of those outcomes, without trying to choose a candidate or preferred winner. we can get into the details of that, but one very specific the afghan machinery for watching leches did a pretty good job in the

last two elections. they found the fraud. the elections weren't great but the afghans ound it. i say thats a former international observer myself, we didn't find it, the afghans found it. but it's crucial those organizations stay independent. we have to try to support afghans in parliament and elsewhere who want to have a say in those commissions so president karzai doesn't have too much temptation to stack them with people that would support him. i don't want to suggest that karzai's only motives would be unfortunate but i think a democracy needs independent commissions. afghan -- afghanistan's constitution, partly our doing because we helped them write it, as you know, puts too much power in the hands of the president as general he chooses not just the governors of the province but the mayors of every town in that country. it's unbelievable. we, frankly, with all due respect to the americans who did great work on afghanistan a

decade ago, we botched it. that constitution is something they have to debate and figure out how to amepped but a short-term consequence is these particular commissions need to be populated by people who are seen as representing all of afghanistan, not one particular political interest. then they can watch the election, not just the voting but the campaigning up to that point, to see that the media cover the different candidates that allegations of impropriety are investigated, that political parties get technical support, not just president karzai's own people, those are the things we have to focus on in the next year. just one more point, i think the general wants to speak on this, we need to avoid talking ourselves out of our own staying power. we americans are tired of this war but we're pretty resilient ourselves and pretty patient. it's 12 years now. we just went through a presidential race in which the whole country said we're tired this war, we're not sure we

agree with it, but to their credit, neither governor romney nor president obama talked about speeding up the drawdown just to get out of there. there was no major speech from either candidate on how to hurry our departure. when you look at relations with the mideast, with korea in earlier periods, we spent decades supporting young democracies that were not always doing that well, not always that impressive, because we recognized we had security interests. it took, as you know, better than i, took south korea four decades to get to the point of a legitimate election and we stood by them the whole time. so if we have our security interests engaged and if we see progress, even gradual progress in the partner country, i think we americans are capable of doing what i consider the right thing and sticking with it. let's not talk ourselves out of our own ability to stay with something that's important for our own long-term interests before we even try.

>> i agree with all that mike has said. i think it's really important, the point he made about other post conflict societies where we've had a long-term presence. and because of staying power, we have seen over time these societies emerge to be in some cases the global example of democracy or the ability to develop an economy. and i won't go into specifics with regard to any one particular country but a couple of points i would make, one is that, as is always the case in a campaign like this, the ability to conduct goethal reforms in a young democracy is just difficult. it's hard. this is a the and increasingly assertive legislature. they're boisterous. they're aggressive and assertive. all those things are positive

with respect to where i think the jurgas seek to go in afghanistan. that's a positive thing. but this is a young democracy. it's early in this period. the good news is, in ways that other countries that we have been involved in over time, the good news is, first, that afghanistan sits on top of trillions of dollars of natural resources and it spans a wide spectrum of opportunity. from energy through rare torte strategic minerals to gems and gold, etc. just vast, vast wealth. getting at it is going to be the challenge. so the next bit of great wealth that afghanistan has to develop isn't the mining industry. it needs to develop its human capital. we have seen other countries where at this moment in its emergence from a post-conflict, or a conflict environment to a post-conflict or development

environment where the national leadership chose to invest in the youth. and there are countries around the world and people in this room can tick them off pretty quickly where those early strategic decisions to develop the youth of the country have delivered relatively small countries with great capacity over time. and we might use korea as an example with respect to how we tuck with korea. the question of affordability, we don't need the kind of forces in south korea we would in afghanistan. they'll have -- the afghan storses will have had two full fighting seasons umped their belt before we shift to a

long-term presence and advisory mission. there's little likelihood that afghanistan sits in an environment where, unlike korea, there could be a resurgence of a north korean invasion, help pod ten rblely by two communist superpowers. so the kind of international presence, ultimately, to support the security environment would be different. in afghanistan. it would be less. it would be tailored closely to developing professionalism as a force. and capacity of the force. swell, i think, as i said, reform, fighting corruption, developing the economic impact of the country. those will lag. the security environment. we should expect they will. the good news is, as we found in may of last year in chicago, the nato and its isaf, 2 partners are willing to contribute over time to the security environment, the

security forces of the afghans. and although i don't think the decision has been announced, there is very clear consideration that the afghan security forces, 352,000, should remain at that number for some number of years after our mission is over. that's a signal of commitment over the long-term which is good for the afghan people, it's good for the security environment of the country, if that force remains intact for a number of years, it gaves the next -- gives the next administration time to get its legs up under it, to pursue an agenda of reform, countering corruption. it gives the economy time to move into equill inreyum after years tissue equilibrium after years and years of distrorgs from wartime that alone is a signal not just to the afghan people but to the taliban that this capable force, which is get manager capable by the day, will be out there if yores after the

mission is over. it's a signal to pakistan who if it's very concerned about the outcome in afghanistan can give them crediter confidence to pursue strategies which augur well for the security of afghanistan, which by the way, a secure afghanistan is vie tl to the long-term security of it. the challenges are really dramatic. the challenges are many. but we shouldn't be surprised that there will be substantial political reform that will still need to go on after 2014. there will be a new administration, that administration will receive the support of the international community. shig was important and tokyo was even more important. probably than chicago. the long-term investment of something along the lines of $16 billion. by 70 donor nations and organizations. all of that augurs well for the future. none of it can occur if there isn't a secure environment. that's essential now for the

remaining about 21 months on this campaign to do all we can both to shake the insurgency and get the ansf into the lead and be organized in the post-2014 period with the kinds of forces there to provide the advice, the training, and the advisory capacity to continue the upward spiral of professional development within which that white space we can see the forward movement of government reform, embracing the rule of law and the development of economic capacity. >> let's go over here, about the seventh row. >> thank you. doyle mcmanus if "the los angeles times." general, mike began the session by asking you for positive indicators. you spoke convincingly and compelingly about the ansf. what are you worried about as you look at afghanistan through 2014 and beyond, what are are three or four things that could

go wrong? >> i think one of the great unknowns for us is pakistan. i'm very careful in how i agree -- how i address this challenge. far long time we have pursued what folks will euphemistically call an afpac strategy, where there is a sense that afghanistan's future will be defined by the involvement of pakistan. in some respects, of course. there are many other factors playing there. but as time has gone on, it's been clear, become clearer to me as we have seen an uptick in the violence in pakistan, as we have seen the challenges the pakistani military have faced in the federally administered -- a areas that a stable

stable afghanistan that is secure and confident in its future doesn't have to be finished product yet, but stable and confident is as much of value to pakistan as pakistan is of value to the outcome in afghanistan. that said, the whole relationship with pakistan is enormously complex. i really am careful not to permit myself or in conversations with others to fall into the trap of oversimplifying the relationship of pakistan and its role in the outcome in afghanistan. pakistan has many challenges that it has to face today in and of itself that are long-term in their origins, that date back to the soviet era, the soviet war, the jihadi residue associated with that, the emergence of

extremism and radicalism, to its credit, the afghan, the pakistani forces have been engaged in significant counterinsurgency operations in the federally administered eyrea -- areas. i don't think pakistan gets the credit it is due in terms of what it has undertaken, the casualties it has suffered, the sacrifices the pakistani people are taking on any given day with respect to a regional outcome. it's not just about pakistan in the minds of many of their leaders, it's a regional scout come. i don't apply with the general on this issue, we were able to see eye to eye on many issues with respect to the potential outcome of the region and it was an outcome that benefited not just afghanistan but it was an outcome that benefited pakistan as well. in that respect, i think while enormously tragic, the cross border incident that occurred on the 25th and 26th of november

20, 11, while enormously tragic with the loss of those young, the 24 young pakistani soldiers, it created an environment where when we finally were able to sit down again, we were able in some respects to open a new chapter in our relationship. the conversations that we have had with pakistani military leadership, and i have to be very clear with a caveat that my involvement was primarily with the pakistani military, not the environment in islamabad, the environment in which we find ourselves today is far more conducive than frankly where i found it when i took command. first of all, i would say that there is real emphasis now on pakistan seeking a constructive bilateral relationship with the afghan national security forces. this is relatively new.

it is one that will not come easily. it's going to require some building, because there are trust issues on both sides. we're seeing a willingness by the pakistani military to conduct complimentary -- complementry operations on each side of the borter, which we did years ago but they were frozen in time as a result of a variety of issues. we signed a cross border s.o.p. for the first time between isaf, afghanistan, and pakistan. and we have structured with greater coherence the tripartite commission where the three leaders, the three four stars and all their subordinates are engaged in both strategic, operational, and tactical ferings conversations. that said, with all that potential promise, it still remains the border area and the insurgency on both sides, frankly, of the border, remains

i think one of the principal obstacles, one of the principal potential sources of downturn for the campaign. it is for that reason that we have pursued this concept of the layer defense in depth. if we were to see some form of military pressure on the hakanis or the higg or the commander nazr group, new absent commander nazr, if we were to see some pressure in that regard, it would facilitate movement and reconciliation. if we don't see that, we can't afford not to take the measures necessary to dominate the ground between the border and the strategic center of gravity, which is kabul, and ult maly -- all matly to provide for the security of the city. so the relationship with pakistan is complex, but there is promise there that i had not seen before during my tour which

i believe can be leveraged, conversations at a bilateral level have turned out to be promising, the potential for the afghans and pakistanis to share both school seats, to exchange visitor, we now have a pakistani brigadier in the headquarters of isaf, lots of positive indicators but much, much more needs to be done. and the border region is going to be a source of instability for both countries. and it is there where common ground can be found. but it is also there where the great threat, i think, at an operational level, remains. the other thing to your question, really important one, that i worry about is an absence of an ability to effect the kinds of reforms necessary to get after corruption, frankly. all great -- all young democracies are at risk from corruption. inherent to the establishment of

democracy is the strengthening of institutions. and in environments where institutions ultimately are strengthened, they are a direct threat to the criminal networks and criminal patronage networks. so what we will find over time, we find it now, but we'll find it over time, is that the criminality and the sources of corruption, will be in direct competition and direct contrast to our efforts to strengthen institutions in a way that can create an environment for democracy to take root and ultimately to flourish. beyond the border regions and the unknowns associated with how the relationship with pakistan will develop, it is corruption which i think -- i spent a lot of my time understanding and creating capacity to deal with. it will be that which i think will be one of the principal challenges over time. thank you for that question. >> i'm going to take two final questions together, then we'll have to conclude.

so here in the front row and then in the fourth row, please. we'll take them beth. -- both. >> hi. before you left your job as head of the isaf forces, you made a recommendation to the president on the force strength required for 2014. there have been a lot of numbers, secretary panetta said 18,000, the white house said there could be zero, so i wanted to ask you, what do do you think is the ideal number and is zero a realistic option? >> that one will be quick to answer, we'll take one more. >> thank you, general, thank you for your service. if i may, could i ask you, what south korea have done not effectively and what can they do more?

>> enge i'll amend that question or add to it, if you want to talk more generally about the alliance and the coalition you were able to command. over to you. >> i was never asked to conduct any analysis with respect to the zero option. so while i -- i'm reluctant, i'm reluctant to shoot on joe's target because there is still a strategic conversation under way with respect to what those numbers ultimately will be, i believe we were all agreed that the outcome of the enduring presence force should be able to, as i think i may have said earlier today, build the capacity of the min striss, the ministerial capacity building within the ministry of defense, ensure we are table preserve the upward spiral of the schools and professional military education institutions, that would be the

second priority, the third would be a regional presence to continue the development of capacity of the afghan cores and police zones which may include, in fact, a national training center, akin to the n.t.c. as we know it in the united states at fort irwin or 29 palms. then with regard to the u.s. forces specifically, forces that would support the chief of mission, the ambassador, and the -- and his activities, but also i think importantly, counterterrorism. there is debate on what those numbers ought to be. i don't want to get into numbers now because the president hance -- hasn't announced his decision but my sense is that where the conversation was trending and i think it's important to understand that it's not just about then u.s. figure, it's about the coalition figure, and

that we have seen within the nato context a real sense and willingness for partnership in this regard that the numbers i have seen i believe can accomplish those objectives that i mentioned a moment ago. i believe we will be right on the edge of the resources but i think we'll get the resources that will be necessary to accomplish those missions. but i would -- i don't want to get into the numbers here because the decisions haven't ultimately been made. but the conversation has been rich, the discussion with respect to our objectives has been thorough, and it goes, importantly, to the point about the ansf and the post-2014 period. if that force which will have two full fighting seasons under its belt by the time we

transition to resolute support, if that force has progressed to the point where we think it will, that the desired objective that i stated a moment ago with the numbers that have been discussed, i think that we'll be table accomplish those missions. that's key because it demonstrates international commitment, it is a very important adjunct to the ansf, if they remain at that number for some period of time torbling continue the upward spiral. it's a powerful message to the afghan people, it's a powerful message to the taliban, it's a powerful message to the region and all of -- and all of that i think augurs well. this is not northeast asia where we need to keep large standing conventional formations to be ready to react to an invasion. these are forces that will be

needed to continue the upward professionalization of an ansf we've been working with now and ultimately will have two full fighting seasons under its belt by the time we get there. with regard to the coalition, from the moment i arrived it was clear to me the coalition was the cent over gravity for the campaign isaf wages. while there are 50 nations that have contributed troops in some form or another, there are many other nations that are not necessarily members of isaf but who have made enormous contributions to our outcome. those contributions in the case, for example, of japan or of korea, have been very important contributions to development, very important contributions to police development, very important contributions to literacy.

all of which are really essential over the long-term to the -- in familiar for the -- in particular for the police. the police have been fighting now for a long time as the elements within the counterinsurgency force. and as is the case with any counterinsurgency campaign, the commander has to watch the operational environment very carefully because there will come a point where the insurgents have been defeated and what will almost always be the criminal nature of insurgencies and most insurgencies have a criminal dimension to them, where the criminality will become the principal challenge as opposed to the security challenge from the insurgents and in some parts of afghanistan, we are there today. so the police need to be able to transition smoothly from being what we call the trailing only the counterinsurgency to the leading edge of law enforcement. contributions by countries like japan and korea and others to the development of police and

police capacity is helping us to make that critical transition from counterinsurgency to law enforcement in larger and larger portions of afghanistan over time. we wouldn't be where we are today in the campaign without the sax fices of these many countries that have come together -- without the sacrifices of these many countries that have come together in this royce hist toric outcome. when you think about where afghanistan is, when you think about the state of afghanistan's economy, when you think about other countries in the past, very few have had 70 countries come together, 50 to pledge the blood of their precious children, others to put their economies and political viability on the line, on behalf of afghanistan, and not just to do it for a short period of time but to do it for other a decade, and to sign up for the decade of transformation system of many

countries, japan and korea are examples in this case but many countries have pledged that kind of support for a very long time. and the afghan people will never forget that. they will never forget that. i can tell you because i have seen the work of your countries, those countries, at work and i have seen the after gab -- afghan appreciation and the mothers who have benefited from this moved to tears when they think about all that has come to the children of afghanistan and the women of afghanistan. let me just end by saying that as my own career comes to a close shortly, it has been the greatest honor of my life to have commanded isaf forces. started about 149,000 and ended up where it was. i, every day, think about the

561 coalition troops wrp killed in action fighting under my command. they are in my prayers every day and the 5 -- and the 5,500 who were wounded. they are only a part of the larger number. where we are today in this campaign, where we are in this conflict, what we have accomplished on behalf of the afghan people has been from a long succession of young troops and their leaders being willing to shoulder this burden, to go far from their homes and to struggle on behalf of the afghan people. while we all may have different views of the war and the struggle and the conflict, none of us should have anything other than the utmost respect for these young women and men who have in some cases given everything, all of us have given something, some gave a lot, but many have given everything.

and we should never forget that. and that was the greatest honor of my life and i am so happy to have had that chance. thank you to all o2. -- of you. [applause] >> coming up, another chance to sit tonight's edition of "first ladies: influence and image." after that, to legal experts debate same-sex marriage ahead of supreme court arguments. then, the ninth circuit court of appeals oral argument in the proposition eight case from 2010. ♪

>> rachel was not a fan of anything that took jackson away from the hermitage. she was always the thing that he would come back to. >> she ran the plantation and kept everything in order. everybody loved her. >> she might not have been like abigail adams, but she could write a nice letter. she was not as frumpy as she was reputed to be. >> the only problem was they got famous. as he rose in politics, she was called names. >> they used every piece of garbage they could find on rachel. >> she dreaded going to washington. i would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of god than live in the palace. she died. did.

>> emily donelson was 21 years old when she became the white house hostess.rachel's neiece. >> she was perfect. for all of the negatives washington had to say about andrew jackson, they loved emily. >> she received education in the fine arts of being a lady. proper table manners, a proper etiquette. it enabled her when rachel suddenly died to slide right into the role of white house hostess. >> the women liked her. she was polished. >> it is emily that jackson has a falling out with. he could not deal with this going against his will in his own home.

>> up first, andrew jackson's presidency. a story of personal politics, tragedy, gossip, and washington ambitions. thank you for being with us. produced in cooperation with the white house historical association. here to tell us more about that time period and the women who served in the white house are two guests. first, michael henderson. he served as the superintendent of the martin van buren national historic society. and pat brady is back at our table tonight. she is a first ladies biographer and historian.

help people understand the amount of change that andrew jackson brought to washington. >> he is the first westerner. we have virginia presidents before that. jackson is somebody completely different. he grew up in the frontier. the change is enormous. socially, the change is enormous. he was not like a new englander either.

he brought very different values and very different ambitions. >> she was the one of his life. when she died, a few months before he went to be inaugurated, and he was bereft. he spent all of his time thinking about her and her memory and having her pictures, portraits in the bedroom. it really changed. >> we need to delve into the campaign of 1828 to understand the presidency. 1828 was a year of -- how did it change? >> it was the first time we did not have the majority of electors. the election was given over to the house of representatives. you have these multiple competing factions in the house of representatives. he did not win the electoral college.

when the politicking was going on in the house of representatives, there was an opportunity to make deals. one of the deals that was probably made was that henry clay would become the vice president and adams will win the election. that was seen as a corrupt bargain. once we came out of that election, there was a whole buildup to the next election. >> you just described 1824. setting the stage for 1828. how does 1828 play out? >> in 1824, jackson was not quite sure that he was ready to

be president. he was not quite sure he was the right man. however, it was stolen from him. then he knew he was meant to be president. when he came out in 1828, he came out fighting. >> what is interesting about the campaign, he and his surrogates were out on the stump. as many as 800,000 more americans voted in that election than had in the previous. how did he do that? >> a lot of it was the growing development of an actual national party. martin van buren had been working in albany and had been working with people in the south, particularly in virginia. this is a period of great technological change. railroads, newspapers, new communication methods coming to

bear as well as a much larger electorate. there are more people voting, more interest in voting, and more opportunity to hear about it. >> more western states voting. >> rachel jackson became an issue in the 1828 campaign. this is the first time that people targeted the wife of the presidential candidate. >> to the extent that it happened. abigail adams had taken some hard hits from the press as well being referred to as madame president. that sort of thing happened. this was the first time someone went out attempting to find dirt, and found what they thought was dirt, and publicized it widely. >> who was the person?

>> charles hammond. he was in cincinnati, and he hated jackson and wanted to see him go down. he did not care what it took. when he found out that she had been divorced, he despised her. he was a fundamentalist. it was a moral issue for him. he thought she would disgrace the white house. >> how did adams play into this campaign? >> he did not really -- what am i trying to say? >> he did not do it, but he did not stop it. he was one of his party hacks and he did not come down on it. he sat back and said, oh my goodness.

>> we saw in the open, political cartoons that were targeted. was this a new phenomenon? >> yes. to call a lady who had been married for 36 years a whore, an adulteress, a bigamist, that was unprecedented. >> the crux of the story is what? what was the criticism against her? what was she accused of doing? >> she was accused of being married before she met jackson. >> she was a bigamist. >> she was married before, very unhappily. a man who treated her and her family very badly. her family hated him. out west, they did not believe you had to stick by your man for 50 years if he was horrible. they believed in dissolving an unhappy marriage.

>> criticism of her and the western frontier, lack of class. >> she had an accent. she had a tennessee accent. she did not have an east coast accent. >> concerned about what of the image of the new country would be? >> there is a strong class issue that runs through all of this. it is difficult in a country that supposedly does not have class.

would this person be virtuous enough to represent the united states? is this person genteel enough to represent the united states? >> she is preparing to go with him and what happens? >> she dies. at first, she thought she would not go. she thought the situation was too volatile that people might snub her. she thought about not going. she decided that it would be admitting they were wrong. she decided to go and on december 22, she died of a heart attack. >> she was buried in the dress that she planned to wear? >> should plan to wear it to the inaugural ball. >> this is our first video tonight. we will take you to the hermitage, their home in tennessee and learn more about jackson. >> we do not know what kind of health for rachael was overall.

it is apparent that throughout the fall of 1828, her health was not very good. the campaign for president that jackson was going through had a huge effect on her health. this is a letter that jackson wrote on the day that rachael died, december 22, 1828. he is writing to his friend. in a letter, he describes the onset of her illness. he says that she was a few days, suddenly and violently attacked with pains in her left shoulder. suffocation was apprehended. it was clear that she was in very serious condition. he talks about getting ready to go to washington like he is assuming she is going to get better and off we will go. unfortunately, she passed away later in the day. according to the stories of her death, jackson called for her to

be bled when she died. jackson was a big believer in heroic medicine. supposedly, there is a small stain on this cap. some things about his mourning, a black calling card that he printed. a poem that was published and later printed on silk talking about the death of mrs. jackson. a book that was given to him by a friend of his that has an inscription and it is called "the mourner comforted."

jackson was completely devastated. for her to die just as he was preparing the plans to get on a steamboat was more than he could deal with. this pendant was painted after rachel's death. he had it with him all the time, either in his pocket or on a beaded chain, on his bedside table at night. she was with him pretty much all the time, even though she had passed away. this is a book that was very important to jackson. she made this cross stitch cover for her books so that it would keep the book nice.

after her death, jackson kept a number of things like this very close at hand so he could refer to them. another way of keeping rachael close. he had this habit of purchasing or using or keeping things that reminded him of her. this is the central hallway of the hermitage mansion. this is his bedroom and after her death, she was never far away from him. he kept many mementos of her around. in the early 1830's, he had a portrait that was a special favorite of his copied so that he could have it hanging over the fireplace.

he would go out to her tomb every evening about sundown to spend some time out there. he wanted to feel her close by or something. >> this program is interactive and we welcome your participation. you can call us. our phone lines are -- you can send us a tweet. or you can go to our facebook page. we have a conversation running with viewers about this program.

here is a tweet from sheldon cooper -- >> she did not like extensive entertaining, but she was very religious. what she liked to do was to hear the leading preachers of the day, have family and friends are around her in the white house. i think it would have been a very domesticated white house. >> the same person asked another question. did any famous dignitaries attend her funeral? >> she was buried two days after she died. given the way people traveled, nobody could have made it. all of the local dignitaries, all the businesses in town, everything closed down and there was a huge attendance at her funeral.

>> it is time to step back and tell a little bit about the love story, the great love story between rachel and andrew jackson. >> she was the daughter of one of the first families of tennessee. she and her whole family came to tennessee via 1,000 mile river trip in which many people on the trip died. there were some of the earliest white settlers. her family was quite prominent in the area. she was part of the gentry of tennessee. >> we have a question by twitter of someone wanting to know how unusual it was at the age of 24 to be on their second husband. was that considered unusual? >> people died all the time. you really could not live alone. most people remarried because you needed to have the support in order to live.

>> the difference here was that they divorced. >> widows and widowers always remarried. it was peculiar for someone not to remarry. >> her first husband about 10 years her senior. >> why did they make a match? >> her family left the area of nashville because the war between the whites and the indians was so ferocious and so strong. the battle for territory. they left and went to kentucky where things were safer.

>> how long did the marriage last? >> i have to do the math on that. three or four years. he was too mean. >> he was a nasty abusive person. >> it took courage, but it took more than that. it took the support of her family. she would never have left him if her family had not supported her. you could not live without a family out west. she adored her family. they were pretty much a part of the whole decision. >> who was andrew jackson at the time she met him? >> nobody. >> he had been in local militias. >> how did they meet? >> he was one of the boarders at her mom's house where they had lived and he was in one of the cottages with another bachelor lawyer. why is one of the gentry renting out cottages?

in terms of this being an ongoing war, extra guns on hand is always a good thing. >> explain about what the region of the country was like. >> this is the far west at this point. most of the settlers from tennessee came by river the long way or they came over the mountains, but this was still very rough country. >> next is a question. this is from mitchell in nashville. >> i had noticed earlier where you put up her birthday was in june.

my understanding was nobody knew her exact date of birth was. is that correct? >> the day is not known at all. it is believed it was june because that is part of that tradition. it is a little up in the air. >> next is a question from martha. >> i understood only white property owners -- men -- voted during that time. >> that is correct. that was a growing thing. in the early days, it was only white property owners of a certain standing. as we moved through this period, the franchise would expand to white males. >> so she meets the tall

handsome jackson. they are attracted to one another. >> it is even more than just attracted. jackson truly liked women. he could not bear to see women mistreated or badly treated in any way. his gallantry was involved in what he saw was abuse of this woman. when they fell in love, they decided to elope. >> how long did they stay there? >> they stayed several months, close to a year. when they came back, they simply said, we are married now. her whole family said, this is our son-in-law, andrew jackson. who is going to tell them no? who is going to say, what about that other husband? people just accepted it because the family, neighbors, and friends accepted it.

>> when did the details become apparent? >> the divorce was filed for in virginia by the husband, but there were stipulations in that settlement that had to be posted a certain amount of time. he did not go through with posting all of it the right away. >> who is at fault here? >> that is for a jury to decide. >> they had to taken to court in kentucky. by that time, they had been living together as a married couple for two years. when he accused her of adultery, she was living with andrew jackson. if she had gone back and fought it, she would still be married to this person she hated. they just ignored it and quietly remarried. >> when did the hermitage become their home?

>> they started at a bigger place and then he got into some financial troubles and they moved to the hermitage. >> they came to this property in 1804. he was just sort of retiring for awhile. he spent a lot of time at home when they first moved here. their primary people who would have been visited would have been friends and relations from the area. rachel had a huge family and they all have lots of kids. there was a lot of them and they were in and out all the time. she was very close to our family. jackson was an orphan and he was

close to a family. emily donelson, the house she grew up in is less than 2 miles from here. after the war of 1812, there were people here all the time. rachel was acknowledged to be a pretty nice hostess. very cordial and very welcoming. during jackson's fame after the battle of new orleans, they have lots and lots of company and they had many parties or evening dinners here. they were entertaining people who were used to fine things in the city. they acquired a great deal of silver as they went along. they would have been used for an evening party were some very

highly liquored up punch was served. she had very nice things. this dual image of her as a frumpy country lady, she was not that exactly. it was more about her comforts in the big cities than it was about her actual appearance or clothing. she was not a fan of anything that took andrew jackson away from the hermitage. during the war of 1812, there are letters from her that say things like, yes, do not let fame and fortune blind you to the fact that you have a wife and i need you. i think he knew pretty well that she would have preferred him to stay home and be plantation owner andrew jackson. this is the earliest letter we have that jackson wrote to rachael and it was written in 1796 when he was in east

tennessee on business. it is addressed to her, "my dearest heart. with greatest pleasure i sit down to write to you, my heart rests with you. when i shall be restored to your arms to spend my days in domestic sweetness with you the companion of my life, never to be separated from you again." the garden was always considered one of her really special places. there is one story, a lady was here on her honeymoon. she mentioned that the garden was very special.

when they were preparing to leave, to move on to the next stage, she walked to the garden and rachel gathered flowers. gave her a posey before they left. >> we are back talking about the jacksonian era. we will take a question from twitter. did rachel jackson provide political guidance to andrew jackson? >> i do not know if we know that. he probably took care of the political himself. >> i would think practically, no. no records -- we have a lot of their letters. they're always personal. they're not about politics. >> we were talking about the program about his very large personality. will you tell the audience about that? >> he was absolutely sure of his beliefs.

wholeheartedly. when he saw people disagreed with him, he often took that as a sign of enmity. that was really difficult because -- personal enmity, yes. >> he may not have sought guidance from any other person. >> he would make his decision. what he really could not stand was someone who was a friend or relative who disagreed with him because that was personally dishonest as far as he was concerned. >> we will learn more about how that unfolds in his presidency. >> how many slaves do the jackson have in tennessee? with they travel with him to the white house?

>> they had 300 odd slaves. it was a rather large plantation. nobody at the time traveled with large numbers of slaves. they would bring a couple of personal servants. things had become iffier as abolitionist sentiment grew. it became less and less possible to bring slaves to free territories. >> jackson wins the election and comes to washington. tell us the story of his inaugural party. >> he has the inauguration, he arrives on horseback back to the house. the public is invited. there are about 20,000 people. the house is open to the public and this is the democratic republic of the people of the west and they crash into the house and dance on the tables, they drink all the wine.

there was a 1,600 pound cheese that had been sent as a gift. the white house was beaten up pretty bad. even jackson had to be escorted out of this because they were afraid for his safety. >> he left the party early. >> we have been talking about the burgeoning and strong washington society that was developing. how did they react to this opening of the white house? >> with horror. margaret smith, who kept diaries and letters, said, it is not the way it was with every other party after an inauguration. it was part of the selected few who came, not the public. >> once the party was over, this

was the man described in being an intense mourning. >> first of all, they had to refinish it and replace all the drapes and the chair seats and put things together. even after that, to the disappointment of washington society, we will not be giving parties. >> let's take a quick glimpse of america in that time with census bureau statistics. the population is 12.9 million in 24 states. more than 30% growth since 10 years earlier. the largest cities are in new york, philadelphia, and baltimore. >> it is a period of incredible change.

much like the period we have gone through with the information revolution. we have gone from an agrarian society to being the society of multiple ethnicities, multiple religions, waves of new immigration, the railroads, the telegraph. >> what was happening to the north-south unity? >> north-south unity was always a difficult one. the founding fathers never settled that question. by the time we get to 1820, we have an economic crisis. we have the missouri crisis. it precipitates a quick fix, we will put in one free state and will put in one slave state. by the time we're getting into

the later 20's and early 30's, the specter of slavery is raising its head again. >> the next question comes from virginia. >> i was calling because i may have missed -- i wanted to get in earlier. pennsylvania county, virginia. we have in our court house of portrait of rachel because she was born here supposedly in 1767. which was the year we broke off and organized our county. her father was a surveyer. supposedly left here when she was 12. the gossip was that he had to leave town because they were interested in some of his surveys. anyway, we do have the site marked and rocks left from the frame house. >> thank you, mary.

>> it was where she was born and lived until she was 12. we know nothing about her girlhood. we extrapolate that it was like the girlhoods of other children on the western edges of settled territory. >> next is a columbus, ohio. >> i was calling to see if she had any children. >> no. despite her wish for children, she had no children. she was one of 11. most of her brothers and sisters had very large families. she had no children of her own. they adopted one of twin sons

that belonged to her brother and sister-in-law. there was an andrew jackson jr. >> we talk about the adopted boy? >> there was also another son, jackson had been in battle and had slaughtered many people. found an infant, tried to give it back -- you killed all of this family anyway. jackson takes him home and raises him as his son. it is a very interesting story. >> he writes a lot of letters saying, there is something special, he is an orphan, i was an orphan. there is some reason i found him. he is not to be in the servant'' quarters. he is to be in the house and he is to be educated. he wanted to send him to west point.

>> the first year was a fairly quiet one. social means politics by this time in washington. when does he decide he needs some assistance? >> rachel's niece and nephew were with him all the time. this particular young man had been one of their wards and became the president's secretary. he had married his first cousin and a planned all along to accompany him. >> how did she create the role?

>> she was young, she had very good manners, she was trained at a ladies' academy. one of the main reasons they loved her was because she was young and malleable. they always liked the innocent. >> he lived fairly large in the white house it seemed. a very nice party, lots of money spent on redecorating. how did that square with his public image? >> he believed in democracy with a small d.

he was concerned about moneyed interest and elites controlling the country. he really believed in people being part of the democracy. >> it did not preclude entertaining. >> it did not preclude him learning how to interact in society. >> he always wanted to be a gentleman, that was one of his goals, to prove that he was a gentlemen. if you looked at the controversy, in the early days, other men did not treat him as equals. >> next up is colorado. >> i would like to know, what was the big to-do about the election of 1828? we know what was said about rachel jackson, but what was the comments on the other side? >> among other things, they said john quincy adams -- it was based on a little thing, but it had nothing to do with sexual they said he was api

pimp. they said a lot of bad things about adams. and also about his wife. she was, they believed, a foreigner. she had american parents and was legally an american, but they saw her as a bad influence. >> she was not happy in the white house there. washington was a little town. >> scandal, intrigue, and it was not just in 1828. what became known as the petticoat affair. it framed much of the jackson -- the peggy eaton affair. it framed much of the jackson presidency.

>> peggy was the daughter of a washington, d.c., hotel keeper. many politicians stayed in his hotel and the family got to know them well. she was beautiful, well- educated, she liked to perform. she appeared in public, which god forbid a lady should do. >> she was beautiful, vivacious, and she did not know her place. she interfered and went into situations that were part of the men's realm. the woman's sphere is to guard the households and the morals of society. the men go out and fight in this new capitalist world. margaret, that is what she liked to be called, she was somebody who was going up against a different class and was going at it in a very difficult way. she was outspoken and bold and that was not a woman.

>> how did she become an issue for the cabinet? >> her husband killed himself. then she was a widow. one person who had consistently lived at the hotel was john henry eaton, who was one of jackson's closest friends. he was a supporter of rachel. and he was worried that he might have ruined her reputation. there was a lot of talk that they had had an affair and that is why her husband killed himself.

he asked jackson, should i marry her? jackson said, certainly. >> jackson was familiar with her. >> he liked her. >> he knew her when she was a young girl. he felt she was perfectly respectable and this was a good thing. >> how did that rise to the level -- >> they married too soon. that was a problem. >> once the cabinet was named, it included eaton and his wife. she goes and calls on one of the wives. she refuses to return her calls. nowadays, we do not know what that means. in those days, that was akin to slapping someone in the face.

>> society was very structured. you would visit the vice- president and you would leave your card. she started in on this process, but she did it in correctly. >> jackson's cabinet was in an uproar and many resignations because of this. >> all the wives refuse to call on peggy eaton. when the president gave a big party, attempting to force these women to recognize her, they would walk on. everything was so ugly and margaret was totally mortified.

among those who gave the cut to margaret was emily donelson. >> we have two quotes from jackson. "do you suppose that i have been sent here by the people to consult the ladies of washington?" here is another one - "i tell you, margaret, i would rather have live vermin on my back that let of one of these washington women on my reputation." did it become a constitutional crisis? >> unfortunately, it was his defense that turned it from a social crisis into a political crisis. he could not leave it alone.

he spent enormous amounts of time trying to defend her honor. tracking down the people who made these terrible comments. finally, it becomes in his mind that it has to be an attack against him as well. >> bringing this back to his niece. he could not abide family members who disagreed with him. >> she was so influenced by the ladies that she joined in the ostracism of margaret. he demanded -- she did receive her at the white house -- he demanded that she treat her as a friend.

she would not. so he sent her home. >> next is a question from john in virginia. >> great series, as always. i am wondering how andrew jackson's personality or approach was affected by him becoming a widower. wilson quickly remarried, which was not the case here. was there any noticeable change? >> he was devastated. >> he was not just devastated, he was embittered. the whole first term did not accomplish anything. he was either in mourning or he was attempting to help peggy eaton out. he was fighting with his favorite niece and nephew. he saw her as a surrogate for

rachel. if they could treat her this way, they might have treated his wife that way. he could not let it go. >> next up is a call from dorothy in ohio. >> thank you for taking my call. the program has been remarkable so far. how did rachel live with andrew jackson's fiery temper? >> the only person who could control jackson when he was in a rage was rachel. one particular time, but they were going down river and there was the boat ahead of them with a number of happy young folks who were all drunk. they were zigzagging so that their boat was being held up. he said, i will kill a couple of them.

she stopped that whole operation. i do not know if he would have or not, but maybe. >> next is nancy from new jersey. >> i would like to know if either of your guests have ever seen the old movie depicting the jacksons with charlton heston and susan hayward. i saw it as a young woman and it showed a beautiful love story. was it accurate? >> it was not particularly accurate, but it had a great looking actors. the book came out in 1951. it was a bestseller for years. >> last question for this part of our program is on twitter. it sets the stage for the next half hour.

what was secretary of state van buren's role in the petticoat affair? >> he had the unfortunate benefit of being a widower himself. he was free to go and see margaret when he did. he called on her frequently. he treated her well and he gained tremendous respect from jackson for that. 19th century historian said the whole political history of the last 30 years can be attributed to the moment when the soft hand of martin van bureau touched margaret's knocker. van buren steps in and places himself in position to be the next one to run for president.

>> how did it become a successful bid for president? >> he resigned, he got eaton to resign. he got the rest of the cabinet to resign. jackson said you just cannot resign. he nominated him to be the minister, the ambassador to great britain. martin van buren left for great britain, very happy to be the ambassador. >> martin van buren comes to the white house, and he is the first northerner, new york state. he was the first born with american citizenship. another first for him, the adams

were of english descent. >> he grew up speaking dutch. >> his wife died many years before. we will listen now to white house historian. >> she was a southern belle, a tall girl. today, you would say she was athletic looking. she married abraham van buren. she was from near columbia, south carolina. she had plenty of money. somewhere in the area of fort jackson.

she bought pretty clothes, she was apparently a lot of fun. she and abraham went to great britain on their honeymoon. she had a platform built at the end of the blue room. she received all her friends. they just nodded, they did not shake hands or anything. it was not taken very well. they did not like that at all. the platform was removed. not a lot known about her. very few letters. she was a belle of that time.

>> martin van buren came to the white house as a bachelor with a number of sons. was it a quiet place? >> it was very quiet. he was facing a tremendous political crisis because of the panic of 1837 he inherited from jackson and jackson's policy. >> several weeks after he was inaugurated. >> he was a depression president. >> this is the first huge economic depression. we had a small one in 1819, but it was not nearly at this scale. we had an interconnected global economy. there were calls on banks from

london. as the banking crisis started to collapse, we do not have a national currency at this point. state banks start to collapse and everything dries up. >> what was the depth of the depression for most americans? >> there were riots over food in new york city. >> it was still going on in 43. >> it got a little bit better, but not nearly for a long time. >> did he have the ability to resolve the crisis? >> this is before we have a fed. he did recommend an independent treasury system. martin van buren and the democratic party had been

arguing against this kind of federal projects. they backed themselves into a corner. >> i do not think anyone at that time could have dealt with a major depression. they had to wait for the economy to appeal. >> they did not have the tools. they did not know what was causing it. they did not have a structure in place. we did not solve this problem until we got the new deal. >> with this great trial going on, how interested was the administration in having a social side? >> he was a very social person. he was very personable. he always liked women. he had lots of women friends. there was still a social side to the white house. a lot of this politicking was done socially. >> in terms of large-scale

entertaining, a new year's day party was pretty much his big party until his eldest son married. >> here is where we have to bring in dolley madison. the great character of our program. >> the queen mother, she had a beautiful cousin, angelica. martin van bureau had four single sons. she introduced them all. >> her husband had died. she moved back to washington. she loved the washington scene. >> she was right there. she immediately jumped into the social swing.