Had to get to the library but then we had a distinguished professional here we would remind people jack brennan continues to serve we are so glad if you are here if you are a veteran or member of active duty please sting and. [applause] our guest graduated from the United StatesNaval Academy 1976 a 37 year career and some extraordinary stations along the way including Combatant Commander and of course the nato allied Supreme Commander with masters of arts which he subsequently went on to gain after the navy is also an operating executive with the Carlyle Group that most known as a Permanent Fund in the United States and with Mccarty Associates one of the most treasured guest i have on my radio show and have personally campaigned to get the admiral on the board of at least one and three Big Tech Companies so facebook and amazon with their discussion of National Security of the United States. [applause] i also like to point out he spent those years out of sight of land please help me to join in welcoming admiral. [applause] tonight is a little bit different the audience is watching cspan someone to make the presentation a little broader if you do not have a copy of his memoir but why did you call it the accidental admiral . Anybody goes into the navy knows the place where you end to end up is in the pacific with the great naval admirals so i was dragging to go into the pacific and then secretary of defense bob gates called me up and said we need you to go to europe and work with nato progressive mister secretary i dont know much about nato or europe i am a pacific guy. [laughter] that did not win him over. [laughter] so i felt it was an accident i ended up in europe and then second all of our lives are accidents we can never predict them. I wanted a title of the book that emphasized you can have a brilliant plan for your life but there are intervening moments. Ive often said have you ever considered saying i know what guy . s. [laughter] i know a guy who made your career. Admiral mullen who was the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff but early in his career and mine hes ten year senior to me which is perfect distance from a mentor in the military the head of the forces he was my detailer to broke me out of the standard seagoing career said we will send you to the Fletcher School so you can do a phd thats very unconventional. He was there at the beginning of my career and then the far end when i was getting ready to become a four star so he followed up people talk about being mentors but they dont have the followup or truly engage again and again but admiral mullen was there for me at every step. So watching you on cspan so anyone any time in any career i found it to be invaluable can you explain why you wrote this . It is extraordinary. The idea is to identify 50 books to make you a better reader. Because nobody has time to read 50 books but here is a synopsis of each of these 50 books and the leadership lessons. Its not leadership books its novels like to kill a mockingbird it is autobiography like the memoirs of general grant it is the eclectic group of books so i write it because you could hand it to someone and do the People Magazine version or they could say that when kept my interest i will sit down and read in love and war. Whats remarkable with our series is general mattis he was just in your chair a couple months ago has 63 books to his memoir you both are adamant with the officer. I had a chance to have dinner with those cadets who were here this evening and then to prepare myself for military service physical fitness and tactics all of that are important but the most important is to read the day you dont at the end of your life you will be the sum of what you invest in education. Read read read i can practically answer the question so picking up a book about the battle of monopolize and you can put yourself in that moment. It is a simulator and a chance to test yourself against the highest standard. It is powerful and important and a force multiplier in our life. The next book is the power as you point out from when you first started you are going places but a friend of mine said with a Great Academy class of 63 so explain to the audience watching at home what seapower was intended to do. The subtitle of the book the history and geopolitics of the worlds ocean instead of writing about people i write where the characters are oceans the atlantic and arctic and mediterranean pacific in the south china sea. There is power in that because in each chapter i talk about the history of that region of the world in importance of the sea and that is the connection to the admiral the greatest strategist the navy ever produced creating this idea of a global navy the reason we have a powerful seagoing navy and marine corps is because of these solutions 70 percent of the planet is covered by water 95 percent moves on the ocean 70 percent of the oxygen you are breathing tonight comes from photosynthesis in the sea. The oceans matter that is the genesis of the book and we should have a strategy as we did 120 years ago. Dealing with the chapters in this wonderful book sailing true north. Because commanding Richard Nixon one of the millions of sailors thousands of ships so the other that i ask about is he was under nixons command so would chester portrayed now to be familiar to people make it today . I think the real question is would he have made it out of the Naval Academy of today. [laughter] when he was a midshipman we would say over the wall unauthorized liberty its like beer for his classmates and there is a wonderful vignette i picture him as a stately great executive just a whole package he is in this beer shop he sees what he thinks is a civilian the next day it turns out that is one of the officers at the Naval Academy so he thinks my career is over. But he gets a Second Chance and there is power in that idea you have to give people a Second Chance from time to time i have had many Second Chances in the course of my career theres power in that lesson. Because at the Nixon Library we are curious constantly researching the relationship with the president and the pentagon and there used to be a very controversial scandal can you expand on what that was . There was this word about intelligence gathering on civilian officials on the military it sounds terrible and it is. Probably more benign than that on the category this person thinks this way but that appearance to gather intelligence with the military agenda was pretty damning the record is not clear if they were fully witting of that are not i will give them the benefit of the doubt i knew him. I met him he had High Integrity i will talk about him in a moment that the lesson here for all of us is be careful of the optics of how something appears because it can drag you down if you are not very careful to maintain yourself at the highest levels of standards at all time times. And he was deep selected he reach for Daniel Patrick moynihan. Just as kissinger never met him. As you know we just deep selected the current chief of Naval Operations admiral michael couple of months ago was a threestar thinking maybe if the stars align i can get four stars someday the secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer faced a crisis with the original candidate had to step aside so instead of going to the fourstar bench the secretary of the navy went down to a threestar officer over the fourstar community it has happened before so the advantage is you have a fresh set of eyes and one who is elevated has any baggage to pay off you get a clean break that could be very advantageous and i would argue as the navy goes into the turbulent 21st century we would be well served to be a little more selective. Its now my pleasure to turn the stage over to give your presentation. Thank you very much. First and foremost thank you to the Wilson Library and also spend a moment while the furniture is moved his wife navy mama navy daughter a lot of navy going on in the house tonight that was a wonderful introduction and when people hear that supreme allied commander they see me and have two reactions. One is i thought you would be taller. [laughter] the other then why were you not an av Fighter Pilot . To be honest i desperately wanted to be an av Fighter Pilot but i had a traumatic experience at an airport that made aviation difficult for me. [laughter] so heres what we are going to do. Were going to sail fast over the next 25 minutes but i want to talk about the oceans but i really want to talk about character. I need everyone to understand the difference between leadership. General mattis was here he talked about leadership im going to talk about character. Leadership is what we do to influence others and to be out there influencing millions of people as a nato commander but that door swings on a very small hinge of human character you cannot unless it allows that to swing. I set out to write a book about character we are a wash of a lot of books about leadership i want to know about how we lead ourselves with character write about what you know about and using a framework of admirals so we will set back in history 2500 years and pull it up to the present to talk about ten dynamic admirals there has to be a Great American 2500 years ago athens faces a existential threat by the persian empire the persians are the iranians of today they are about to conquer athens the city state with the power of persuasion and convinces his captains to fight a battle in which they are outnumbered ten one with the captains of that day heres the advantage they had all of the rowers were free men that persian fleet was five times the size was run by slaves the mysticallys said tomorrow you must row for your family. For the your city, for your freedom and they destroyed the persian fleet it is the extraordinary story of accomplishment but within three years after that victorious battle, his arrogance overtakes him and he ends up alienating his countrymen is banished from grace and ends his life in the court of the persian emperor it is a greek tragedy and it is a story of how you can be given incredible gifts but if you allow your ego and arrogance to overtake them metaphorically will end up in the court of the persian king. Going to china now in the year 1400 the chinese emperor invests and the admiral is entrusted with an enormous treasure fleet constructed of wood that explores the indian ocean and if you have a comparison of europeans and chinese look at the shift see that massive wooden one that is the scale of 500 feet long do you see that little toy boat next to it . Thats the flagship of Christopher Columbus santa maria which 100 years later in 1492 thats what the europeans were sailing. The chinese were sailing massive ships. By the way that treasure fleet that economic juggernaut of the 14 hundreds looks a lot like china strategy today. There is a lot to learn about their ability to organize and what his boss wants him to so now jumped further forward to the time of the spanish armada sir Francis Drake saves england but the caribbean is known pirate in the rapist and a murderer he burns cities and kills indiscriminately perhaps the darkest character of these admirals he is a patriot if you have been to disney world on the ride pirates of the caribbean . Thats based on sir Francis Drake. Here is my favorite vice admiral lord nelson who fights another existential battle defeats the polish in 18 oh five off the coast of spain i like admiral nelson a lot 5foot 5 inches tall. [laughter] a man of normal height. [laughter] that was fearless in combat he lost his arm in one battle and deny in another beloved by his sailors he took care of his sailors and the captains adored him winning the existential battle was he perfect . Not so much Emma Hamilton a beautiful young actress and adulterous affair with her over a number of years has a child out of wedlock he would never get to her Senate Confirmation today. [laughter] if you see that picture of him in those days you look at signal flags he was a difficult subordinate actually putting the telescope to his blind eye he doesnt like the order of the admiral and says to the flight captain i dont see a signal go starboard. This is the expression to turn a blind eye to something so his moral compass doesnt always sail north so a complex character. Who else . Talk about our friend arguably the most brilliant officer the navy has produced who has a global strategy for america not just the navy but why America Needs the oceans. And intellectual is a man with spectacles on his nose and winter in his heart he is not a loving or giving person. But he does write and pursue the truth wherever it takes him and creates the Naval War College the most important of all war colleges of military institutions so not a warm figure he is a miserable commander at sea he commands badly that he is smart. That make sure that is character. Who else . This is a british admiral. He is Jackie Fisher at the turn of the last century. He comes into the british navy with cannons and by the time he commands the british navy has gone from wooden ships to steal holes moving on to oil longrange fire control platforms huge cannons and submarines are coming in an extraordinary innovator and also hugely egotistical the only one in the room that quintessential person has to show how smart he is the minute the door opens. This massive ego tied to the taste for innovation lets go back to the biggest admiral in American History fleet admiral who comes out of fredericksburg texas landlocked wants to go to west point and going to annapolis becomes a steady growing within the navy to command the bureau of personnel with a good steady career. What happens . December 71941 the Pacific Fleet is destroyed. The navy and the nation turned to chester go to pearl harbor and take command of the Pacific Fleet the problem is it is sunk. It is at the bottom of pearl harbor luckily the carriers were out there is a few submarines. He takes command not on one of those gorgeous battleships in his Service White uniform but in a set of khakis watching bodies being pulled out of the smoking hole. That is resiliency squares his shoulder with people like macarthur and methodically and slowly he takes apart the japanese empire. That is the arizona folks. If you have not been to pearl harbor and gone to the temple of the navy, go. See the arizona. That is the start of world war ii. That is missouri. That is the ship upon which the surrender document was signed. This is the beginning and the end of the second world war. What happened in the middle chester happened in the middle. Its a great story of resilience and through that hole. He never raises his voice he does not engage his ego. This is the kind of admiral you want. Jump forward and wrap it up with a few more. Next this admiral had a Big Personality and huge eyebrows and someone who was deep selected chief of Naval Operations and innovator but not of technology didnt come up with the new brisbane devices it was to reengineer the navy as a society. He took the tension of race and faced up in ways that ultimately help to bring us together he had many innovations a thing to know about the admiral is he was value driven every day of his life. He woke up saying whats the right thing to do . Thats a pretty good quality in anybody. How about this character . Any nuclear submariners . Very famously the movie the nuclear age he is brilliant iconoclastic, very difficul difficult, hes focused for making life hard around him by demanding by everything be done to perfect specifications. That he is smart. At the end of the day he creates the nuclear navy by the way an immigrant to the United States born in russia comes here at six years old. So last admiral grace hopper we call her amazing grace. World war ii happens she has a degree in mathematics from yale naturally brilliant she is teaching mathematics at the university she knows she wants to be in the war effort. The problem is the navy is not bringing in women. She only weighs 105 pounds. The minimum weight to get in the navy is 120. She starts drinking milkshakes. [laughter] thats a good problem to have. Eventually she puts on enough weight but what really happens we need her brilliant mind because she invented the idea of computers with the first mainframe 8 feet wide and 50 feet long and we have to figure out how to program this thing programming doesnt exist Computer Science doesnt exist she invents all of that with a small group of people. She writes code wall still used today i started programming myself in the seventies that is grace hopper. She was tiny, energetic always had a smile on her face, the young grace hopper. Someone he wanted to have a beer with. She was terrific because she was unafraid to try everything new. Curiosity was her character trait. Here are ten admirals. And now you say what do you think . What are the attributes of character . I will hit them very quickly then we will open for questions. The first attribute that i believe comes across again and again and again is the character attribute if you want leadership to swing the quality you have to have is empathy, listening better you dont know who this is an officer in the 1930s for incoming aircraft a very innovative system today they are empathetic that was chester he walked into the room to listen before he started to talk for go thats a pretty good quality in a leader. Intellectual curiosity we talked about this a moment ago. Grace hopper when she died had 10000 books and her two bedroom apartment in new york city. I have 5000 my wife calls at the gentle madness. In that apartment was 10000 books where the most complex books of mathematics and engineering as well as detective novels and james bond fiction she read vociferously she was curious at all times there are books and being worldly but its not just nonfiction it is novels find some time to read some fiction if you want to understand china and attention between world and urban if you want to understand what its like to live as a refugee in syria check out exit west or to understand what its like to live in authoritarian society pick up atwoods latest book the sequel to the handmaids tale it will chill you and it should. Fiction allows us to combine with the facts of nonfiction to put us in that simulator. With that intellectual curiosit curiosity. Values we have to cherish our values. Democracy, Liberty Freedom of speech, freedom of the press racially quality we execute them perfectly but they are the right values i will give you a practical example. Look at that beautiful picture you think im proud of my u. S. Navy and then they hung it up in my office and then if we look closely look at the first row you see all the officers and then the sailors in the second row in the photograph. There are three people missing. Anybody in the military would turn to the junior rotc unit to set up a formation they would not have a gap like that so where the chief petty officers . I got out a magnifying glass they are three africanamerican that are at the back the photograph taken 1949 desegregating trying to get better what happened in this photograph i dont know i would guess the commander of the ship set up the photo then the captain came down we know the captains center first row has a grumpy expression on his face. My guess 1949 he came down to see three black faces chief petty officers they would have been the chief cooks on the ship he said you three go stand in the back. Why do i show you this picture . Because as people of character to look closely and understand what is before us in second to ask ourselves every day what am i doing now that in 50 years will look wrong . Thats a good test of character. Teamwork. Nelson a group of somali pirates by French Special forces except here is what you dont know. Is a French Special forces landed there with the italian helicopter refueled by a danish forget over watched by the Portuguese Air patrol aircraft a bahraini forget nearby under the command of a nato commander american we found this with information from iran. Piracy is one thing nations can agree on that they can have strange angles. Teams were built better than anybody else that was an attribute of character. Here is the last one a beautiful ship very famous to the history for a very tragic reason this beautiful cruiser blew up in havana harbor 1898. When it blew up United States immediately fell in line with reporting that said the ship was blown up by spanish terrace. We use that word. Okay. So what happened . The spanishamerican war happened. Randolph hearst we launched into this war a lot of people died. We acquired colonies its not a happy chapter all things considered. When we salvaged the ship 50 years later we discovered it had not blown up there was an external mine attached to the whole it was an internal explosion the premise of the spanishamerican war was not right. I can tell you where you find a picture of the main is on the wall in my office forever i have been in my career and i keep it there to remind me before we lose our temper and launch into a war making a big decisio decision, stop and make sure we have all the facts. I also keep it there to remind me no matter how well you thank you are doing, your ship can blow up underneath you at any moment left thats a good lesson for an admiral. So now to wrap it up , character is hard. Its a lot harder than leadership we can have one mythological reference in all ref one dash presentations we try so hard we make mistakes the seas get pretty rough in the voyage of character. Stay with it. The seas will calm if you spend time thinking about the importance of character which i would argue transcends leadership it is the enabler. This was taken about five years ago somali migrants standing on the beach what are they doing . Looking on their cell phones trying to get a signal. Newsflash that does not help. [laughter] that they are doing it anyway. Metaphorically what is happening in this photograph they are reaching for the light to connect they want to be a part of a larger world and get to the next step in their journey. This is a photograph of hope. In my last thought for you tonight about character comes from napoleon for go i love quoting napoleon because short people have to stick together. [laughter] if you remember nothing else while we have been together in this marvelous library, the center of intellectual thought, thought, which probes the biggest questions of character if you remember nothing else napoleon said a looter is a dealer and hope Everything Else i talk about tonight devolves from that quiet sense of self that inspires others with hop hope, not with fear but a dealer is a leader in hope that is the heart of a character. Thank you very much. Thank you admiral. We have time for a few quex questions. Flying in from vietnam this morning and flying out this afternoon. Our first question comes from one of the many cadets from Troy High School jrotc. What would you say to cadets who cannot enlist either way but to give back to their country and serve their country because there will be those who have high functioning autism one autism that precludes them but they still have the aspiration to innovate. What a wonderful question. I will answer as follows. I am often approached by people very nicely who say to me thank you for your service. I appreciate that but heres the answer there are so many ways to serve this country. Certainly in uniform im proud of everybody here who has worn a uniform or is military service is important police, firemen, emt police core diplomats, cia officers, schoolteachers those in Rural California do you think they are serving the country . I do. And innercity clinic lawyers who volunteer to help people who are accused of crimes. Journalists. Not always popular i would go into combat in afghanistan all tricked out with my bulletproof everything in my helmet and guys on my right and left with big guns. I was pretty safe next to me is somebody like Richard Engel from nbc news standing there in an ill fitting bullet proof vest that wouldnt stop a bullet a little tinpot helmet he is risking his life to tell us what is happening. Do you think he is serving us . I do. My answer is find a way to serve within your capacity and proclivity and what works for you find a way to serve and i ask everybody tonight when we see others serving the country stop a schoolteacher to tell him or her thank you for your service. Stop the post man and tell them thank you for your service there is a lot of ways to serve this country and thats my answer. [applause] admiral thank you for your service i appreciate that. You mentioned resiliency being such a profound statement of why he was one of the greatest can you talk about those behaviors to develop resiliency . I just got back from Saugus High School its a great message for all of us how to become more resilient. Let me tell you about two of my contemporaries one of them is really famous bill on the right and howard on the left. Resilience howard is 4foot 10 inches tall and africanamerican and comes from a pretty challenging background goes to the Naval Academy and rises up and then the captain phillips of the takedown of the somali pilots she is the captain commissioned the first fourstar africanamerican woman in navy history and is a good person and a person of immense character and what she overcame in terms of bias is pretty inspirational thats real resilience. On the right sixfoot to a eyes of blue everything is perfect right before 9 11 he has a parachuting accident breaks his back 9 11 happens he is in hospital watching the seals deploy he comes back from that works as a captain in deep blue then goes on with a storied career that he has been fighting leukemia for ten years. He is incredibly resilient and regardless of how you think about anything politically these are two people who have demonstrated extraordinary resilience Michelle Howard under circumstances hard for anyone to understand frankly africanamerican woman coming into the navy thats a pretty tough deck stacked against you frankly she broke every ceiling bill, i guess they would say people are faced a significant medical challenge but he does it with grace and pragmatism and he shows the best of resilience that is quite common but with the grace and i admire him deeply so resilience is extremely important for all admirals and all of us. I was one of those midshipme midshipmen. [laughter] i was at my 50 year reunion so what does the Naval Academy and training due to instill character that our military officers of the future . We are better at this than when we went through the academ academy. But i think today all the services take character very seriously and we work hard to make sure young men and women make the right choices we have a controversial issue going on right now i dont know the details lieutenant Michael Murphy does anybody know who he is . A medal of honor in afghanistan he faced a very difficult moral choice whether or not to kill a young afghan boy who had stumbled onto their patrol they had a debate about that dont kill him. He will go rat us out. Michael murphy said we dont kill civilians. They let him go. They were attacked three of them died, the survivor marcus futrell wrote a book called bone survivor. Forget about this goby that story that is what the military is all about. [applause] we have time for one last question i want to make sure you all know we have copies of the admirals book pick one up on your way out what is your question. Thank you so very much Supreme Commander you are precisely what we need. When he too had the admiral because hes talking about character. So without getting into politics. Rest in peace so would you consider that at one point in time . And Vice President with Hillary Clinton and invited to the trump tower i think about the two bullets whizzing by my head. [laughter] my answer is i would be honored to serve the nation again and how that unfolds i dont know but for those to embrace with serving the country whatever form it makes sense to you. Thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] good evening, everybody. I am Bradley Graham the coowner of politics and prose along with my wife and on behalf of everybody here, welcome. Thank you very much for coming. We are very pleased to