Brennan distinguished leadership series. The first member of the series was general james mattis who was here two months ago. Jack brennan was the first wofriend of nixon a veteran witn the white house returned with president nixon, retired from the marines rather than leave his side so we thought we would name it and then we had a distinguished professional jack continues to serve and we are glad so many of you are here. If you are in or what you stand and allow us to think you. [applause] our guest is admiral James Stavridis, graduated from the Naval Academy in 1976. He went on to a 37 year career and some extraordinary media stations along the way including as the Combatant Commander of the u. S. Central command, Southern Command from 20 of six to 2009, and of course as the nato allied Supreme Commander. He earned his phd and masters of arts from the Fletcher School of law and diplomacy which he subsequently went on to leave after his retirement from the navy. Admiral James Stavridis is the author of ten books but also in operating executive with the Carlyle Group which most americans know as the preeminent venture capitalist funding the United States and to chair the boards of the councils at the associate and is among the most treasured guests i have on my radio show and im leading a can aim to get him on the board of at least one or hopefully three of the Tech Companies so google, facebook and amazon bring to the prescription someone knowledgeable about all these things so from his 37 id also like to point out he spent 11 of those years of outside so that is quite a recommendation. Please join me in welcoming jmiral James Stavridis. [applause] what we are going to do tonight is a little different from the audience here and watching on cspan. Im going to ask a few questions and then do a presentation and i want to make it a little bit broader i do not have a copy of otmy first question is ive nevr asked why did you call it the accidental admiral . The place you want to end up as a four star is the pacific. You want to be out there where all the great naval admirals were coming and i was kind of anding to go to the pacific then secretary of defense robert gates called me and said mr. Stavridis, we need you to go to europe and work at nato. I dont know much about nato or europe. I am a pacific guy and that didnt win him over and so i thought that this was kind of an accident that i ended up in europe and second because all of our lives are accidents. We can never predict them so i wanted a title of the book that emphasized you can have a brilliant plan for your life, but there will be intervening moments and so weve often said the most important words in english language are have you ever considered, and i know a guy. Who is that guy that made your career, admiral clacks admiral mike mullen who was the tremendous the joint chiefs of staff at the end of his career but early in his career in early nine, hes probably ten years senior to me, which is probably the perfect distance from a mentor in the military. When he was the head of Human Resources if you will, we call them in Navy Detailers and it broke me out of a standard career and said you know, mr. Stavridis, youve got something going on. They are going to send it to the Fletcher School of law diplomacy and put your position to do a phd. That is very unconventional. And he was there at the beginning of my career and then at the far end playing by was getting ready to become a fourstar officer is a very strong advocate. The point i want to make if he was a mentor who followed up. So often people talk about being a mentor but they dont have to follow up. They do not Truly Engaged again and again. Admiral mike mullen was there for me every single step. Ul our friends listening and watching on cspan, this is a book that you can give anyone come any time in any career and it will be invaluable to them. And i found it to be invaluable. Would you explain why you wrote this and what it does because it is quite extraordinary. Is the leaders bookshelf. Because nobody has time to actually read 50 books, whats in here is a synopsis of each of the 50 bucks and its not a bunch of boring leadership books. Its actually models like to kill a mockingbird and king arthurs court. There is biography is we will talk about later. Its a very eclectic book and i like it as a gift because you can hand it to somebody and they will either do the People Magazine version or they can say that one really catches my interest. Im going to sit down and read in love and war by the vice admiravice admiraland his wife. What is remarkable about the distinguished leaders series. There was in appendix and youre both adamant the officers would be reading. Can you expand on that . Documents that are here this evening and asked me what can i do to prepare myself for military service and i think there are good things that are important, knowledge of ship handling, tactics, all of that. That. The most important thing is to read because the data you graduate from a university is the day that you own your education. And if at the end of your life you will be the sum of what you have continued to invest in that education, read, read and practically answer the question only through picking up ad boo, a novel for example, lets take the gates of fire and you can put your self in that moment. Its a simulator. Its a chance to test yourself against the highest standards. I think reading is powerful and important and its a force multiplier in our life. The next book is seapower and i love this book because it taught me first of all all i need to know about Global Climate change because as you know, it is tha it isnt clear t was when you first started so whether or not you were going places inou the arctic you never went before but its named for a book that has a fairly good pedigree and a good friend of mine and aviator in vietnam said im not sure im going to read a book entitled to this because the naval class of 63 that he converted. Explain to the audience watching at home what it was intended to do and the legacy that it carries. The subtitle of the book is the history and geopolitics of the world so instead of writing a bookd about people, i decided to write a book where the characters are the worlds oceans. Chapter on the atlantic, pacific,c, the arctic, the south china sea. And i think theres power in that because in each of those tractors i talk about the history of that region of the world and i tie it to the importance and that is the connection to the admiral that you are thinking of. The greatest strategist the navy has ever produced who created this idea of a global navy and the reason we have a powerful navy and marine corps is because of these vast oceans. 70 of the planet is covered by water. 95 of all trade moves on the ocean. 70 of the oxygen you are breathing tonight comes from photosynthesis in a sea, the oceans that are. That is the genesis of the book and the theory is we ought to have a strategy for dealing with those and shortly as it is articulated 120 years ago. Before i yield to the presentation, this has to do with two of the chapters in this wonderful new book, biographical sketches and i take these because chester commanded richard nixon, he was one as you say one of the millions of sailors on a thousand of ships under the command. He wasnt o only ship most of te time. And the other one im going to ask us about he was under nixons command, so my first question, would chester, portrayed now in the movie midway and familiar to people if they read sailing the true north, would they make it in the media of today . I think the question is what he has ever made it out of the Naval Academy of today . We would go over the wall of authorizedve liberty and buy ber for his classmates and buy it back. Just a whole package. Hes in this shop indices what he thinks is a civilian and he moves on. The next day it turns out its one of the officers o at the nal academy and so he says my career is over but he gets a Second Chance and i think that there is power in that idea that to get those, you have to give people a Second Chance from time to time. I certainly got many Second Chances in the course of my career. Theres a very controversial scandal. Can you expand on what that was and what they knew was going on. The intelligence gathering on civilian officials by military and that sounds terrible and it is. It was probably more benign than that. Probably more in the category of this person in the white house thinks this way and this one thinks this way, bu but the appearance of gathering intelligence in order to move the military agenda was pretty damning. The record is unclear on whether he was fully willing on that or not. Im going to give the benefit of the doubt. I think that he was an individual with high integrity. And i will talk about him in a moment or two. But thess lesson here for all te fuss is tofthis is to be carefue optics, be careful of how something appears because it can drag you down nixon did a lo ant wouldve keeps electing as president and reached for Daniel Patrick moynihan and reached for people who were out there we deselected the current chief of Naval Operations admiral michael and incubus thinking about maybe if the stars aligned i might get a fourth star and then the secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer faced a crisis in that the original candidate had an issue and had to step aside so instead of going to the fourstar bench, the secretary of the navy reached down relatively speaking to a threestar officer and elevated rhim over the entire fourstar community. Its happened before and before that, admiral burke was elevated as a threestar. So, the advantage is that you get a fresh set of eyes and no one that is elevated as any baggage to pay off. You get a clean break. That can be very advantageous and i would argue as the navy goes into this very turbulent 21st century we would be well served to be a little more selective. That is the perfect transition to a clean break and its my pleasure to turn the stage over to give you a presentation. First and foremost i want to say thank you to few and the Nixon Library and i also want to spend a moment while the furniture is moved so thank you above all. Maybe mom and father, a lot of navy going on in the house tonight. That was a wonderful introduction. Normally when people hear that introduction, supreme allied commander then they actually see me and typically have two reactions. One is i thought it would be taller. If you are really that cool why were you not a Navy Fighter Pilot because i was a destroyer and to be honest with you, i desperately wanted to be a Navy Fighter Pilot when i was a young boy that i had a really traumatic experience at an airport that mediation really difficult for me. [laughter] heres what we are going to do and im going to do this in about 25 minutes, so we are going to go fast but i want to talk about the oceans. But i really want to talk about his character and i need everyone to understand the difference between leadership. Jim mattis was here before and im sure he talked about leadership. Im not talking about that. Im here to talk about character. Leadership is what we do to influence others. It is a big door and it swings out there influencing millions of people as they did for me when i was a nato b commander, e bad big door of leadership swings on a very small hinge and that is human factor. You cannot do that unless your character allows it to so i set out to write a book about character and we are awash in books of leadership. There are a lot of a them. I wanted to write about that inner voyage and how we need ourselves, thats character and write about what you know about. I decided to write about using a framework for ten admirals so we are going to sit back in history 2500 years and pull right up to the president and talk about ten very dynamic admirals. There has to be a greek and this is 2500 years ago adkins faces an existential threat and is threatened by the persian empire. Of course the iranians have today. Theyhe are about to conquer the city state with the power of persuasion it convinces his captains to go and fight a battle in which they are outnumbered five perhaps ten to one that the captains of that they launched. Heres the advantage themistoles had. The persian fleet five times the size was wrote by slaves. He said to his captains tomorrow you must worl work for your fam. Tomorrow you must grow for your city. Tomorrow you must grow for freedom and he destroyed the persian eats. Its an extraordinary story of accomplishment and charisma that within three years after the victorious battle, his arrogance victorious battle, his arrogance alienating his countrymen, he is banished and ends his life in the course of the persian emperor. Its the story of how you can be given an incredible gifts but if you allow your ego and arrogance to overtake them, you will metaphorically and dot. Lets go to a different part of the world. Lets go to china we are now in the year 1400, 1405. The chinese emperor invests in this admiral entrusted with an enormous treasure fleet constructed of wood which explores the south china seas and to give you a point of comparison, look at the ships in the upper right. See this massive bark that is the scale of the flagship which has a50 crew of 600. You see that little toy boat next to it, that is the flagship of Christopher Columbus,hi the santa maria which 100 years later in 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue and that is what the europeans were sailing to explore the world. The chinese were sailing massive ships and by the way, that treasure fleet looks a lot like the strategy today. Theres a lot to learn about his ability to organize, his ability to fulfill with his boss wants him to death to jump a little further forward to the time of the spanish armada, sir Francis Drake saves england, he believed the british fleet that in the caribbean is known as a pirate, a murderer. He has slaves and he burned cities and killed indiscriminately. He is perhaps the darkest character of the admirals. He is a patriot and also a pirate. How many of you have been in disney world on the ride pirates of the caribbean based on sir Francis Drake. Heres my favoritete british admiral, vice admiral nelson who fights another existential battle. He defeats the fleet at the battle of the coast of spain. I liked him a lot because he was about 5 feet 5 inches tall, a man of normal height. [laughter] but he was fearless in combat. He lost his right arm in battle, he lost his eye in another battle and he was beloved by his sailors. He took care of his sailorsrs ad his captains who worked for him adored him. He was a team builder. Beloved by the sailors and beloved by his captains was he perfect . Not so much. This was a beautiful actress we would think of today he has an adult rest of their with her over a number of years he fosters a child out of wedlock. He would never get through Senate Confirmation today. [laughter] and you see that picture of him looking at the signal because in those days you look at signal flags to know where to sale your ship. He was a difficultwa subordinate actually putting this telescope to his blind eye because he doesnt like the order and he is saying i dont see any signal they are goahead and come to starboard. This is where the expression to turn a blind eye to something comes from so a great hero of his country and his moral compass doesnt always feel true north we talk about our friend arguably the most intellectually brilliant officer of the navy has produced in the 1880s, et 90s he produces a global strategy for america not just for the media why America Needs the oceans. An intellectual is a man with spectacles on his nose and winter in his heart. He is not a loving giving person. The balance is not good, but what he does is think and write and hers pursue the truth. He creates a Naval War College arguably the most important of all of our war colleges and institutions. So, not a warm figure he is a miserable commander at sea. But boy is he smart. Again, that mixture in his character. Heres one not many people know, hes a british Admiral Committee is a british admiral at the turn of the last century and what i like about Jackie Fisher is that he comes into the british navy plan there are sailing ships and can inspire the time he commands the british navy as they see lord ita sea lordson promotingd muzzleloading cannons to steal homes done with cold, moved on to oil, longrange fire control platforms, huge cannons, sub marines are coming in. Hes an extraordinary innovator and contemporary of Winston Churchill and hes also hugely egotistical. Hes the only one in the room. He is the person that has to show you how smart he or she is the minute the door opens. So, this massive ego tied to this brilliant case for innovation. Lets come back to america and lets go to i would argue the best admiral in American History certainly the fleet admiral comes out of fredericksburg texas, wants to go to west point, and going to annapolis and becomes a growing force within the navy command the bureau ofin personal know. He has a good study career going on. What happens the Pacific Fleet is destroyed. The navy and the nation turn and he is told pack your bag, go to pearl harbor and take command of the fleet. The problem is thend pacific flt is at the bottom of pearl harbor. Luckily the carriers were out. Theres a few submarines there. He takes command of the Pacific Fleet bought on one of those battleships and gorgeous uniform. He takes command in a set of khakis watching bodies being pulled out of arizona. That is resilience. And he methodically absolutely takes apart the japanese empire. Upper left that is arizona, folks. If you havent been to pearl harbor and the temple of the navy and go and see arizona, that is the star started world r ii. Bottom right that is missouri. This is the beginning and end of the second world war. What happened in the middle, chester happened in a metal. Its a great story of resilience and that whole period he never raises his voice. This is the kind of admiral that they want. Lets jump forward and wrapped it up with a few more. I like this admiral. He had a Big Personality and he had huge eyebrows. He was someone who was selected for the chief Naval Operations and was an innovator of if not the technology. He didnt come up with these devices. The innovation was reengineering the navy as a society. He faced the tension in the race coming in the navy in the 70s and faced in ways that ultimately helped bring us together. He had many innovations. The thing to know is he was value driven everything o everys life. He woke up saying what is the right thing to do. That is a pretty good quality in anybody. How about this character. Very famously calls the navy into the agent is brilliant and iconoclastic and difficult. By demanding that everything be done to the perfect specifications. He is cantankerous but boy is he smart and at the end of thehe d, he creates the nuclear navy. An immigrant to the United States born in russia, comes here when hes 6yearsold. Last one, grace hopper. We call her amazing grace. World war ii happens, a phd in mathematics from Yale Universi university. Shes teaching mathematics at the university and knows that she wants to be in the war effort. The problem is the navy isnt bringing it with the. She only weighs 105 pounds. The minimum wage to ge wait to e navy is 120 pounds. She starts drinking milkshakes. [laughter] we need your brilliant mind because we are inventing the idea of computers. Weve built the first mainframe which issh 8 feet wide and 50 ft long. Weve got to figure out how to program this thing. Computer science doesnt exist. Shshe then toldshe then told upl group of people. She writes the code while still used today. I started programming this myself in the 1970s and met grace hopper. She was tiny, energetic, always have a smile on her face, the young grace hopper, someone you wanted to have a beer with. She was terrific because she was unafraid to try anything new, intellectual curiosity was her character trait. Right about now you want to say okay admiral, what do you think are the attributes of character that come out of those admirals, so im going to hit them very quickly and then open up for comments and questions. At firsthe first but i believe s across again and again as a character attribute if you want that big door of leadership to swing, the quality that you can have is this, empathy. Listening better. He is an officer in the 1930s listening for incoming aircraft. Its a very innovative system today. I put it here as a metaphor. Good leaders are empathetic. That was chester. He walked into w the room to listen before he started to talk. That is a pretty good coffee and a leader. Intellectual curiosity. We talke talked at this moment t ago, grace hopper when she died had 10,000 books in her twobedroom apartment in new rtyork city. My wife calls it a gentle madness. I love books, i love reading. Race hopper beat us all in that apartment with 10,000 books were the most complex books of mathematics andom engineering as well as a detective novel shed read this adversely and was intellectually curiousus at all times. There were some books i was reading lately that it isnt just nonfiction, it is novels. Find time to read some fiction. You want to understand what is going on in china, bottom left, the tension between rural and urban, pickup waiting. Want to understand what its like to live as a refugee in syria, check out exit west and you understand what its like to live in the authoritarian society. This is the sequel to the handmaids tale and it will chill you and it should. Fiction allows us to combine with the facts we use and put us in that simulator. So intellectual curiosity again iand again. Values we have to cherish. Liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of education, freedom of the press, gender e. Quality, racial key quality, we execute them but they are the right values that i would give you a very practical example of values. Look at that beautiful picture. You look at that and think im proud of my u. S. Navy and the someone gave this to me as a gift a couple of decades ago and they hung it up in a office and theoffice andthen i started to y into there was something really wrong about it. Look at the first row and then look at the sailors, look at the second row of the photograph. Theres three people missing. So anybody that is in the military, if we turn to the junior unit they wouldnt have a gap like that in the second row. So, where are those chief petty officers . I got out a magnifying glass and finally found them. There are three africanamerican petty officers all the way back in the correction. A photograph taken in 1949. They are desegregating, trying to get better. What happened in the photograph, i dont know. I will give you a highly educated guess. I would guess the second in command sent off the photo and the captain came down from the ship. We know who the captain is. Hes in the center, front row, he has a grumpy expression on his face. My guess 1949 he came down and saw the faces. He said you three go stand in the back. Why do i show you this picture . For two reasons. One, as people of character, we have to look closely at things and understand exactly what is before us. We have to ask every day what am than 50 years is going to look so wrong and that is a good test of character. Teamwork. This is a take down of a group of somali pirates by French Special forces. Except heres what you dont know. Those are French Special forces landed by anatolian helicopter refueled by danish, over watched by a portuguese maritime aircraft. Here is the punchline. We found that they would take her information from iran. The uss maine is very famous and the naval history for a very tragic reason. This beautiful cruiser blew up in havana in 1898, and when it blew up, the nation, the United States immediately fell into line with reporting that said it was blown up by spanish terrorists. Okay so what happened . A member of the name randolph hearst. A lot of people died. We acquired some colonies. It wasnt a happy chapter of things considered. When we salvaged the ship 50 years later, we discovered it had not blown up because of an external mind attached because of an internal boiler explosion. If i keep it there to remind me that before we lose our temper and launch into the war before we make a big decision, weve got to stop and make sure we have all the facts and i also keep it there to remind me no matter how well youou think you are doing, and worshiped him blow up from underneath you at any moment. That is a good lesson. So, to wrap it up and then we will open up coming character is a lot harder than leadership. I am required to have one mythological reference in all presentations. They push up but the boulder rolls back down. Characters like that we try so hard. We make mistakes, it rolls over and disease gets tough. Stay with it. These are my grandstandin migran the beach in the red sea. There looking up cell phones trying to get a better signal. Newsflash, that does not help. [laughter] they are doing it anyway. Metaphorically what is happening in the photograph, they are reaching for the light. They want to connect. They want to be part of a larger world and gets to the next step of theofof journey. This is a photograph of hope. And my last thought for you tonight about character comes from napoleon, and i was quoting napoleon because the short people have to stick together at home. [laughter] if you remember nothing else from our evening together in this marvelous library, the centers of intellectual thought, which proves every day the biggest questions of character, if you remember nothing else,e,t remember this, napoleon said a leader is a dealer in hope. A leader is a dealer in hope. From that quiet sense of selfconfidence that inspires others with hope. The leader is a dealer in hope. Thank you very much. [applause] we do have time for a few quick questions. He flew in from vietnam and flies to istanbul this evening. Our first question will come from one of the many cadets. What is your question asked what would you say to those that are not able to enlist right away that have the aspiration to get back to the country and serve the country typically those that have high functioning autism or adhd, something that precludes them from joining the servicesm right away but they still have the aspiration to want to cause the changes and innovate, what a wonderful question. Im going to answer it as follows. I am often approached by people very nicely to say to me thank you for your service, and i appreciate that but heres the answer to your question. There are so many ways to serve tthis country. Military service is important. How about police, fire and, emts, peace corps volunteers, cia officers, schoolteachers in Rural California teaching classrooms for 48,000 a year you think they are serving thevi country, i do. Nurses and innercity clinics, lawyers who volunteered to help, people that are accused of cri crime, journalists, not always popular but they tell you something. I was going to combat in afghanistan all tricked out with my bulletproof everything, guys on myy right and left i was pretty safe. Next to me would be somebody like nbc news standing there in eran ill fitting bulletproof vet and i assure you it wouldnt stop a bullet. He has a little helmet on one side, risking his life to tell us what is happening. My answer is find a wayay to s serve. Find a way to serve, and i would ask everybody tonight when you see others serving the country, stop a School Teacher and tell her or him thank you for the service, stop the post man, tell them thank you for your service. Theres a lot of ways to serve and that would be my answer. [applause] thank you for your service. I appreciate that. Second, you mentioned resiliency and there is a profound statement why you believ of whye hes one of the greatest. Can you touch on the characteristics or behavior people need to develop resiliency . I just got back from a high School Spending time with some of the parents and the students and i think it is a message for all of us on how to become more resilient. Forcing 10 inches debate 4foot 10 inches tall, goes to the Naval Academy, rises up through the g rain is. Anybody see the movie captain phillips about the takedown of the pirates. She is the one that commanded the mission. Goes on to become the first fourstar africanamerican woman in navy history. And shes a good person. She is a person of immense character and whether she overcame in terms of bias is pretty inspirational. Bill mccrae than his 6foot two, eyes are blue, everything is perfect. Right before 9 11 he has a parachuting h accident and 9 11 happens, hes in the hospital watching all the others go off and deployed. He comes back from that, works and then goes on to a storied career but heres what you may or may not know hes been fighting leukemia for ten years. Hes an incredibly resilient person. These are two people have demonstrated extraordinary resilience that is a pretty tough back stacked against you. Frankly she broke it, every ceiling. Bill mccrae than half the people in the room would face a significant ethical challenge at one time or another. It is quite common but he does it with such grace that i admired him deeply. Over the wall at the academy i attempted my 50 year reunion and the building felt the same way was wondering what does the Naval Academy and others due to instill character in the people that are military officers in the future . We are better at this than we were when we drifted through the Naval Academy buying beer on the weekend, inside joke but i think that today the services take these issues very seriously and we work hard to make sure our urung men and women will make the right choices. We have a controversial issue going on right now. The president has chosen to pardon and i dont know the details of the cases. He is a recipient of the medal of honor and pride in 2008 on a seal mission that went wrong. He faced a very difficult moral choice which was whether or not to kill a young afghan boy that stumbled onto their patrol. His team, there were four of them and they had a debate about that. We dont kill him, hes going to rat us out. Michael murphy said we do not kill civilians. They let him go. The team was attacked, three of them died, the survivor wrote a book called the lone survivor. Forget about this. Go read that story. That is what your military is all about. Not this. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, we have time for one last question. Before we get to that question, want to make sure that you all know we have copies of the ad was booked autographed into a museum store, be sure to pick one up on the way out it makes a terrific christmas present. Thank you so much Supreme Commander and everyone thank you because that is precisely what we need. Without getting into politics when we so need character and at the point that we are in a hollowed ground rest in peace to the roosevelt answer my question is would you consider running. I mean that in complete seriousness. I think with two bullets wheezing by my head. [laughter] my answer is i would be honored to serve the nation again and how that unfolds i dont know but just as surely as i ask these qaeda and your daughter and my daughters and others to embrace the idea in whatever form makes sense to you. [applause] i remember realizing at a certain point why wasnt i political when i was young and this deep political you have to feel like you have something in common with other people and that you have power. I started with neither of those things and obviously ended up with plenty of both. To me, someone struggling with an addiction is also struggling with conditions in their life. Maybe they are homeless or struggling with a Mental Illness that went on treated. They were someone i would see on the side of the road, living under a bridge, panhandling on the side. Addiction had hit hard in the communities and there were plenty of people at the top of socioeconomic laughers struggling as well i want