learned everything i know about being national security adviser for man in the front row, brent scowcroft. and one of the things, worked for him when he is national security adviser the first time, but we served together on the commission more than most important things about the tower commission which was astounds with president reagan in 1986 in wake wake of the iran arms sales was to stave off an effort by the congress to basically take over the national security structure required the national security adviser be confirmed, set the number of people come set the organizational structure and brent led the charge to frustrate the effort because it's not just an issue of privacy. it's an issue of separation of powers. if the president cannot gather around him or her a staff people in which he or she can have great confidence, but the president is not to be able to carry out the constitutionally prescribed roles with the president has a lot of rules and a lot of leadership. so it's a fundamental constitutional principle that needs to be observed. and it is always subject to struggle becaus

but when president bush said brent scowcroft to china after tiananmen, if that had been made as a public discussion there would have been endless debates. and after he had been there and work out some principles, those principles could then be discussed and become part of the political process. so the art of conducting the nsc, in my opinion, involves a combination of making sure that there is the needed level of transparency. but also there is an element of creativity. one of the realities in my observation is that the operators always have, have the floor, because they have immediate problems. and the thinkers who want to do something have to establish themselves. and so almost every president has somewhere along the line felt it necessary to employ emissaries, channels, separate channels. so i'm a great admirer of the current security advisers so this is not directed at current events, but if you're thinking about the role of the national security council, there is a ay element to reflect on. how to strike that balance between the operation and division? >> i'm going to ask i think th

black cat, and he's a senior fellow with galactic councils cyber statecraft initiative and are brent scowcroft said on international security. ambassador looked luke is a former u.s. permanent representative of and serving under president obama from 2013- .017 prior to this and after retiring from active duty as lieutenant general after 35 years of service he served as the assistant to the president and deputy national adviser under president bush as well as under president obama. we had a bipartisan ethos. you've worked in real hands-on bipartisan manner. john gilligan is chairman of the board at the center for the internet security cookies are just president of the schafer corporation senior vice president, and chief information officer at the u.s. air force and department of energy. sherri ramsay is senior advisor to the ceo at cyber international, engaged in strategy development and planning. she is the former director of the nsa css threat operations center, that's a pretty big job and pretty significant position where she led discovery and characterization of threats to national study sy

and scowcroft looked at him and said, zbig, that's the worst thing you could possibly do. [laughter] he doesn't have time for that. jimmy carter, i think, got bogged down in the minutiae. i mean, in fairness, you know, stu eisenstadt will give you chapter and verse, and i'm sure jack could do, on all the legislation that was passed early in the carter, you know, more legislation than any president since lbj. but he couldn't prioritize. you need a chief of staff to prioritize, to make sure that the narrative is consistent, make sure that everybody's on the same page. none of that is happening, clearly, in the present day. [laughter] but he suffered from not having a white house chief from day one. and in my opinion, jack would have been a great one. >> well, you know, one of the things when you start out your book, you talk about what seems like just the most logical kind of meeting in advance of an administration taking office, and that's bringing former chiefs of staff together -- and in this case it was to -- >> rahm emanuel, yeah. >> -- to bring him up to speed. and had

scowcroft looked and said that's the worst thing you can possibly do. he doesn't have time for that. jimmy carter i think dot bogged down. in fairness, you know, they will give you a version of the legislation that was passed, more than any president since lbj. but he couldn't prioritize. you need a chief of staff to prioritize, to make sure that the narrative is consistent and make sure everybody is on the same page. none of that is happening in the present day, but he suffered from not having a white house chief from day number one, and in my opinion he would have been a great one. one of the things when you start your book you talk about what seems like just the most logical kind of meeting in advance of an administration taking office. to bring him up to speed, they have most of the chief chiefs of to give them advice. you were there. what was it like? the >> december 5, 20 of 8 t eight e president's outgoing chief of staff had gathered this group and that there were 13 or 14 of us and sat around a table and a chief of staff office. we went around t

brent scowcroft, advisor to republican president, said there is no more credible expert on nuclear weapons than energy secretary ernest muniz who led the technical negotiating team. at the time of the agreement, i was very proud of our members because they studied the agreement. they sought delegation from as i said generals, admirals, scientists, ambassadors, experts in national security, and got that validation that this is the way to go. they sought clarification every step of the way. and they resisted in outside mobilization against the agreement. and there was positive mobilization as well. information, validation, clarification, mobilization. so much went into the decision. and i want to hold up this book because it's a treasure to me. it is a democratic member statement in support of the iran nuclear agreement, , summer 201. where they made their own study, came to their own conclusions, put out their own statement and put it in a book, signed it as a record of why we went down this path with knowledge and clarity and determination to honor our oath to protect and defend. president

i know about being a national security adviser from the man who is in the front row here, brent scowcroft. learned fromings i him, when we researched on the tower commission, which was established by president reagan in 1986 in the wake of the enron arms sales -- that iran arms sales was to stave off the action by congress to basically take over the national security structure. it required the national security adviser to be confirmed, that the organizational structure. brent led the charge to frustrate the, because it was not just an issue of privacy, it was an issue of separation of balance. if the president cannot gather inund him or her a staff which he can have great confidence, he will not be able to carry out the constitutionally-prescribed roles that the president is prescribed in policy -- in foreign policy. a fundamental constitutional principle that needs to be preserved and it needs to always be preserved because in terms of war, presidents get more power and sometimes the president seems to get in trouble and the congress takes it back. but it is very important to the is edit

driveway, until condee rice promised him an audience with bush, which he didn't get immediately anyway, scowcrofteceived him and bush dropped by. and yeltsin behaved in ways like we just saw on the tv but then yeltsin seemed to calm down and in the next encounter behaved like a statesman and bush finally decided yeltsin was the future of russia, that he'd go farther than gorbachev in democratizing russia and might be a better friend to the united states and more important of all he could hold it together whereas it was fall ago part. host: i know this is delicate, mr. gorbachev is 86 years old. when he gets to the end of his life, how do you think the russians will treat him, always the big ceremony at the end of somebody's life, compared to what the rest of the world will do? guest: i think the first thing to say is they will feel better about him in the initial after math of his passing. they didn't like raisa, his wife. but when she died, they said some lovely things about her. so i think there will be a period of fondness and nostalgia and he'll probably get a modicum of ceremony from the gov

i encourage you to join the conversation #ac cyber abc scowcroft's. .. the attack in ukraine and multiple sets of questions. the internet raises issues that the originators really never thought about is going to keep it going and how do you really do that and at the individual level there's issues of privacy, privacy from government, privacy from corporations. there's an approach called a multi-stakeholder model and questions fo who are the stakeholders and how do they relate to the. all these racing sets of issues and as you think about the questions, it is useful to have at least the framework in your mind at will change over time it certainly changes in mind. but what problem are you trying to solve not the technology but the problems, what are you trying to do, and the problems range vary considerably mentioned privacy already individually give us a. then you have the whole influence arena if you will some people talk about hybrid and implements and how it is implemented at her from attack on the operational systems you have the meaning of exchange o