Most recently published the spymasters which is a book about how the cia directors shape history. Its a really pathbreaking work at her book. Its the first book that looks at the modern directors of Central Intelligence and evaluates [inaudible] and how they have interpreted their jobs. Well have time later in the program to talk about all of those issues. There is a link available to brookings in order to purchase a copy of the book at a think youll find [inaudible] its really something quite [inaudible] were going to focus today at least initially on the pandemic. The Intelligence Community appears actually did a fairly good job warning and anticipating that the pandemic was coming. And ask you to give us some of the data that point in the direction . Yeah, bruce, first of all before i do can i just say that thank you for the kind words for the spymasters. I was lucky enough in doing this book to talk to almost every living cia director and i was even luckier to be able to talk to you. You made a tremendous contribution without your wisdom im not sure the book would be as good as it is, so thank you. So i have an epilogue in the book. The book of course is, traces the history of the cia through the eyes of directors from Richard Helms all the way to gina haspel as you mentioned but i have an epilogue at the end of the book that walks through what the the president knew and when he knew it about the emerging Coronavirus Crisis and what the Intelligence Community told him. And we are suffering as we speak that catastrophic consequences of a president who ignored regular warnings about the coronavirus in the president s daily brief that were there throughout january and february. And specifically, he was briefed on january 23 by beth sanner whose name has now emerged as the briefer at that time. Trump later famously said the fox that come he said this was the first ever heard of the rotavirus and that is briefer had said it was quote no big deal, end quote. Theres so many things about that statement that are suspect to begin with, which is first of all the president s daily brief is by definition everything in it is a big deal. When that item is also briefed verbally in addition to being in the pbd its an even bigger deal. When i talk to intelligence officials about this they also this makes no sense that just something that was no big deal in the pdb. On top of that my sources tell me, and, frankly, its disappointing that this has been reported in many places since trump made that statement without challenge. Nobody, a number of the count several the kind of gone along with trumps version here. My sources tell me thats not at all the case, that the warning was clearcut and it was that they should be taken very seriously indeed. And i think, bruce, you probably have sources have told you the same thing, or something similar. Very much so. I have several people who have said that sanner never said that. Shes in an advantageous position talking about classified information, and [inaudible] but youre absolutely right. Rarely dont worry about institution, as an Institution First two [inaudible] the whole planet is imploding rather than dont worry about it. Whats clear here the president had very clear warning [inaudible] what is unclear is did anyone else get [inaudible] some members of the congress often acted on [inaudible] deleterious ways. But the people who were not warned where you and me in the American People as a whole. Thats very disturbing. Would that warning have been the norm for most intelligent directors and National Intelligence . Yeah. It would be. Its almost unimaginable, inconceivable that any previous president s would have ignored that kind of warning which trump clearly did. Its equally inconceivable that any previous president wouldnt bother to read the president s daily brief, which evidently is the case with this president. So its really in my mind its a real dereliction of duty. I also taught as you know, bruce, in the book about, i have a whole chapter about the walk up to the attacks of 9 11. And in that case the cia, as they say out at langley, as yu well know, in this town there are only poly successes and intelligence failures. My other favorite saying was the one a former director told me, which was cia will never be abolished because then president would have no one to blame. Well, cia of course was blamed after 9 11, but as i lay out in exacting detail in my book, and the walk up to 9 11, there were multiple warnings. And not only george tenet and covert black of course he tried to warn the Bush White House but also rich who was the head of the allocated unit who goes on record a book as well. Having said all that come to me 9 11 was a case famously a quoteunquote red light slashing. Covid19 was a case of sirens sounding, horns blaring and a parade down main street by comparison. Not just multiple warnings in the pdb and Intelligence Community but also warnings from the cdc come warning from the head of hhs. At one point they called trumpet maralago and tried to tell him how serious the coronavirus was as as a threat and he was treated to a diatribe about ecigarettes on the president. President did want to hear about it. I wrote a piece of the Washington Post recently that said essentially that trump is unbelievable. You cant read them because he doesnt want to hear it. He brings a level of contempt for the Intelligence Community into this job unbriefable not even Richard Nixon brought in the past. Yes, i think the book and others have made that using 9 11 as an analysis [inaudible] congressman, the white house, state Department Warning everybody. He also took advantage of the opportunity to testify on the hill. I dont recall how much detail he went into, but every january is a possibility of intelligence can whats called briefing. And in this briefing, other Senior Intelligence officials go up in front of numerous committees and actually tell the same story over and over of what they think are the top threats to american interests around the globe and interest of our allies. And i can tell you from my own experience, cia, National Intelligence agency, put an enormous amount of effort into it. One of the most projects as far as i know, and you reported in the book, 2020, there was no [inaudible] thats absolutely true. My feeling about it, and you can read about in the book obviously, is that it is absolutely critical come those three things are critical in a democratic society, and especially ever since weve had congressional oversight which came about of course in the mid70s as a result of all the scandals. Its essential that the cia director be the honest rocher of intelligence, not just to the president but the congress and the American People honest broker. The ww ta as you said is an annual event. Its not required by law but it is always happened without fail until 2020. I asked bob gates will been whos been around the block in all of his decades of experience, in nationals could become the ever heard of the ww ta not happening. You said never. Never before. Its not a coincidence it didnt happen in 2020. But bruce come if you would permit the i just want to read a little excerpt from a epilogue about something that was in the 2019 worldwide threat assessment that almost nobody noticed at the time. It said, quote, we assess and this is 2019, january 2019 before before anybody heard of covid19. Qualcomm we assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or largescale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive disability and death, several effective really come become strained international resources, preparations may be inadequate to address the challenge of what we anticipate will be more frequent outbreaks of infectious disease. That was in the 2019 wwta. Can you imagine what would have been in the 2020 wwta when the Intelligence Community knew that something was coming out of the wuhan province of china and it was headed straight at us . And everybody knew that this could be another 1918. So its to me a huge, this is an issue that hasnt been talked about enough, the fact that that wwta was canceled in 2020 and, unfortunately, it seems to have happened because the lives of our Intelligence Community were afraid to challenge donald trump come to saying things he did want to hear in public. Well, he wasnt experienced at challenges previously. It was a beginning of the end for dan coats. When dan coats in 2019 went before the cameras and said to his credit, told the truth about Global Warming and i ran being in compliance with the Nuclear Accord and accurately described the extent of the russian assault on our election in 2016. He told the truth and he was taken to the woodshed by trump, i believe it was at the next day. And that may well up in the beginning of the end for dan coats, but my reaction would be tough luck. Thats your job. You need to do it. [inaudible] and he did to his credit. Central intelligence. Exactly. Original headquarters told me Section Three which is [inaudible] i guess one of my questions about what briefing, other areas you communicate is what establishes the intelligence director silencing themselves, or do we have any indication that the white house [inaudible] im not sure that i could prove it one way or the other, but at the end of the im not sure it matters much. Im not sure, whether or not, whether its the Intelligence Community leaders censoring themselves or whether its the white house saying we are canceling this briefing. The result is the same. The result is the politicization of intelligence, the suppression of information that the American People need to know, especially in the time of crisis. And either way its unacceptabl unacceptable. Study of [inaudible] comparable to this level of politicization of [inaudible] donald trump loves to weapons of mass destruction, iraq. But even in that case, intelligence to me was out there, they were not prevented [inaudible] its not the first time weve had a president who is convinced that the cia is a deep state full of liberal enemies determined to bring him down. Thats exactly what Richard Nixon thought of the cia, and Richard Helms, and helms of course, in the book, i was lucky because its a cast of characters you couldnt dream up, beginning with dick helms, dry martini in one hand come cigarette in the other, who could walk in the oval office until lbj what he did want to hear. Lbj wouldnt always listen. But the obvious comparison here would be between trump and nixon. Nixon brought nixon blamed the cia for his loss to kennedy in 1960. He was convinced that the socalled missile gap that john kennedy ran on in 1960, he accused eisenhower and nixon of a lot of the so weeks to get hit in missiles. It wasnt true but nixon was convinced that the cia had hash this and fed it to kennedy and kennedy had use to win the election. Nixon came in with similar sort of contempt for the organization, but Donald Trumps campaign to politicize the Intelligence Community would make Richard Nixon blush. Hes been far more overt, flagrant, blatant, and successful than nixon. The latest example of it is we could talk about this all day, but the latest example is installation of John Ratcliffe because he is not, feel the qualification ratcliff has is that the only he pedals russian this information as a fact. Thats about the only thing he is good at in this job. Nixon has had success, i mean, at success that nixon could only dream about. To fastforward to 9 11, i was kind of fascinated that the New York Times, i was lucky enough to be on the cover of the New York Times book review last weekend and the ridges that i offered a damning portrait of george tenet. I thought, really . I thought i had been rather kind of nuanced and fair to george tenet because the conventional wisdom is that george tenet and the cia kowtowed to dick cheney and rumsfeld and the rest of them, and in effect made up this case for w ndaas anorak. I dont think its about something wmds. Trump exploited that belief in the 2016 election. But its more complicated than that, and i think you can make a very strong argument that george tenet wanted to please george. Bush, perhaps more than a cia director should come that he downloaded to close. He certainly failed in that infamous slamdunk meeting to push back and tell the president that we just dont have a very strong case. Having said that, i asked him point blank did you cook the books . He practically jumped out of his chair. This is very rare interview with george tenet. He hardly gets in. He denied vociferously. And i think its hard to make, every state has looked at this has said that there isnt any hard evidence that the books were cooked by the cia. They just got it wrong, which is different. Well, i agree with you. [inaudible] slamdunk meeting is quite john mclaughlin, deputy, career Intelligence Analyst by laying out heres what weve got. And the president then says, thats it . Thats all youve got . Thats actually the most important statement of the meeting. A slamdunk was unfortunate statement, and they reveal that the day before he got fired so he knew right away he was set out. Of course he doesnt deny saying it and he admits it, rob will be the dumbest thing i ever said. It was a dumb thing to say but it doesnt change the tenor of the knee which the president and his entire National Security team wmd. And if you read the famous now unclassified aud. [phone ringing] on every critical issue the agency of the government that shapes the most about biological weapons or chemical weapons or missiles or Nuclear Weapons was in strong dissent for example, a Nuclear Weapons. Los alamos. Theres also no way you can make a Nuclear Weapon with these tools. So any careful reader of that document would come away with a sense that this is a very, very poor paper. Of course the of the reason was the Bush Administration really wanted Intelligence Community was that iraq alqaeda, was responsible for 9 11. I think george can likely take the position in say we said no. As you know, bruce, having read the book, thats exactly what george tenet said to me when i said did you cook the books . He almost jumped out of the chair. The next thing you said was we wanted to cook the books, all we had to do was make a connection between if iraq and alqaeda hijackers. We never did that. That wouldve been game set matchpoint game over. We never did that. Now, so he deserves credit for that but bruce, how do you explain tenet having signed off on what was so obviously a terribly flawed estimate of wmds . Well, i think as i recall the argument that was made at the time was we cant fight the administration on every single issue. Were going to pick i respect will not make the connection with alqaeda and iraq. That means were going to go with evidence on wmd. We will a fought the main fight. We were not fight [inaudible] the other thing was iraq had had weapons of mass distraction and it had used weapons, so it wasnt a very difficult propaganda case to make. You still had to worry about it. At the want to go back to the pandemic. In 2003, arguably there is an error of mission here in not making more clear to the American Public the [inaudible] 2020, the American Public is not even consulted, and people like you and me in my case i went ahead with a cruise in brazil which had i known how dangerous the virus was come theres no way i would have gone. Theres 200,000 other americans, plus paid the ultimate price for the failure of the government to start taking sufficient measures but it seems to be in the history of intelligence, yes, weve had other intelligence failures, nothing this and this is a failure of omission. They knew but they didnt do anything. Yeah. And that comes back to come if you dont mind i will make another distinction between 9 11 and the covert crisis. I argue in the case of the 9 11 warnings in the book, and i think you agree with me on this, bruce, that all condi rice had to do when ward as she was in no Uncertain Terms by the cia about an imminent attack, arguably all she had to do was call a principals meeting. And had there been a pencils meeting where you get all the heads of departments around the table, ahead of fbi, cia and and so forth, and shake the trees, stuff falls out. And in all likelihood i think what would have fallen out, among other things, was the fact that there were two met, alqaeda camps on u. S. Soil for months prior. That couldve resulted in rolling up the whole plot before september 11. So the was a process failure there at 9 11. We are looking in this case with covid as something much more egregious, not only in the number of americans who have died as a result, but its much more than just a process file. There were, i was on a program with libby i get to work for Vice President pence and is now a a whistleblower about this whole process, and she said look, there were plenty of meetings and everybody knew how serious this was. The problem was at the top the fish rots from the head, and if the president isnt interested in governing how is the president believes in magical thinking come if the president thinks you can just wish away a crisis that is a threat to National Security, you are in deep trouble. And we were and we are. Its very disturbing. Its also interesting to me that not on the same magnitude. [inaudible] did stand up in their own way to trump and that something Jamal Khashoggi. He very famously went to turkey right after the murder of jamal. Met with the turks, listen to the tapes saudi arabia, did investigation on the ground in turkey but he is something of a turkey specialist. And then she came back and she testified on the hill that the saudis were responsible for the murder of khashoggi. She didnt testify in public and she never said in public gene hester never speak to the publi public. Right. The most silent cia chief ive ever seen. But she never denied that. And many, many figures of both parties come republicans and democrats, have said thats with the cia says. If you read about Jamal Khashoggi, every article at one point or another says the cia told the president that Jamal Khashoggi was killed by the southeast. Very few cia judgments get this much attention. In a way she stood up to the president there. [inaudible] that are much more important issues. She did not and is that really stood up to them to this day, october. The American People have a right to know who knew, when did they know it, what did they do about it . And, unfortunately, were not getting that kind of information from the Intelligence Community. I agree with you, and this is something that i write about as you know throughout the book, and it goes all the way back to dick helms, and prior to helms. Im sure it was true with dulles and others. Helms famously said its not enough to ring the bell. You have to make sure the president hears it. And thats one of the toughest things, if not the toughest thing for every cia director. Because its an almost impossible balancing act. On the one hand, you have got to tell the president hard truths, but youve also got to have his ear. Thats difficult in the best of times. Its almost Mission Impossible with this president. So i would never want to underestimate or minimize the challenge that gina haspel faces with this president. High hopes for her i think in the beginning among a lot of people and John Mcglothlin told me he thought george tenet tenets deputy, boy, if anybody can get through to this guy she has a shot, blah, blah, blah. Its been disappointing. In fairness to her, we dont know what she says behind closed doors with trump, for sure. We dont know how much she has pushed back, and we probably will never know because gina haspel is the least likely director to ever write a memoir, i would guess. Although dick helms said he would never write when either and he wound up doing it eventually. So in fairness we dont know that, but what we do know is troubling as you say. She deserves credit for khashoggi, i would totally agree with that. But in other cases, again, the failure to testify in public. Shes been awol on a number of occasions when she was, should have been speaking to the public. She clearly feels that she needs to keep her head down and not get it shot off. And, but i feel that cia director, as i said before, hs to be that honest broker of intelligence, not just to the president but to the public and to the congress. And just to give you an example. I spoke to one former acting director of cia who said that if the president had said what he said about beth sander, the briefer, and thrown under the bus, that he come if he had been in charge, would have immediately either come to her defense or at the very least picked up the phone, call the National Security adviser and said, if that happens again, i am out of here and im out of here making all kinds of trouble for you. And, call in every National Security reporter and background brief the hell out of it, supporting your briefer none of that happened. And i think this may well be a case of she is a covert operative. Its in her dna. She is their whole career trying to be invisible. This doesnt come naturally to her. It can much more naturally to the leon panetta has of this world who knew how to deal with congress and the white house and the public. And shes been disappointing in that respect. And one of the quick thing, which is the cia director also has to be, as you well know, bruce, traditionally as always the best one to of been honest brokers who do not put the thumb on the scale of policy or recommending legal action of one kind or another. You present options. And by all accounts she was really gung ho on the leaflet targeting of general soleimani of the iranian general. You can argue the merits of that. That. You can argue that either way whether soleimani shouldve been taken out, but by all accounts she was very gung ho about that purportedly, and thats really not the role, in my view, of the honest broker of intelligence. Is troubling. Its troubling understandable reasons. [inaudible] got an extremely good at what they call decapitation, taking out terrorists. And obviously in some cases the world applauds them. Leon panetta leadership bringing Osama Bin Laden to justice is one of the cias highest moments, best performance. But when you start thinking about thinking how government officials, undoubtedly are engaged with terror. That crosses another line because you are then [inaudible] added up think we have seen the end yet general soleimani. It also raises dangerous consequences of our own. The other thing is [inaudible] situations where we killed russian intelligence officers, they killed american officers. Thats not because the russians are nice guys. Both sides knew that once you started this, you are on a very slippery slope. Let me just come back to the point about briefing the president. As we think about the future, it seems to me one of the messages we grapple with is that cia and Intelligence Community need to think about a little bit. The traditional profession of the cia president , getting in there in the morning and briefing to him, maybe someday her, isnt overwhelming privilege for the entire institute. Everything else is not orsi, its our or s for priority. Its also interesting, different president s receive the pdb in different ways including the organization, but visibly effective. Bill clinton is not a morning person. He never got an oral briefing or rarely got an oral briefing because he just woke up but he read the book very, very closely. The agencies morale was terrible because they didnt have access w may not have listened to what was in the book, may have ignored warnings that he loved having the meetings, and the agencies morale went through the roof. I can only imagine trump, doesnt take oral briefings and doesnt read. Morale has got to be burned out coming out there on his first day on the job and trashing [inaudible] the point is as we think about the future, president s and i think the congress, need to say to the Intelligence Community yes, of course, the president s daily brief is important. The congress the American Public needs to be we have an obligation to make known to the American Public. A simple way to do that of course would be to World Wide Web of briefings. Not an optional exercise. But make it a legal responsibility. You can do it on a semiannual basis. Twice a year. [inaudible] but even a classified briefing usually has a public consequence after. And since that ought to be the change i would recommend to joe biden on things to do, i think i would recommend Something Like that. I really completely agree with you. I think that the other thing that, frankly, i think never got enough discussion, and i was talking about it a moment ago, for lack of a better phrase, i dont think anybody is clear about what the rules of engagement are for targeted killings of figures like general soleimani either. I wonder if that isnt something that needs to be looked at. But i agree. I mean, those two things, and it may be as simple as making the wwta are required thing. You may be right. While we are talking about taking out terror, parts of most revealing part of the book or insights into the killing of [inaudible] post9 11 world i we allowed to say his name out loud, bruce . I think so. I think its safe. The world dominated by Osama Bin Laden, many Young Americans never heard of [inaudible] but he was probably the worst terrorist of the 1980s, 90s and 2000s responsible for the attacks on the American Embassy in beirut, possible for the also for the abduction of numerous americans and brits and others held hostage in lebanon. Hostagetaking spree directly linked to the irancontra scandal to the almost discredited of Ronald Reagan in his second term. You tell us in the book more about how he was taken out anyone else. I dont want you to spoil the book. We certainly want people to buy it, but cant you speak a little bit about, first of all, [inaudible] and in what you ultimately learn. Is yeah, sure. The most incredible untold story i can think of over the last 50 years, because as you say, ahmad was the most wanted terrorist ncaa history. He did kelly was responsible for all of the things you just talked about and he was considered the most intelligent, crafty, elusive character they had ever gone after. He wore disguises. Cia literally had one grainy photograph of him, and that ws it. They could never keep up with him or pin him down. Among other things he created come he was a brilliant operational chief of hezbollah. He created the socalled shake charge, which was a super sophisticated ied that would go through this deal of a tank like a knife through butter. And it literally drove the israelis out of lebanon. That weapon alone. So he was this extraordinarily dangerous character. The cia chased him for decades. I tell the story which i wont go into detail about, which is have been told about the time that the cia very nearly got him on bill clintons watch and george tenets watch, cia director. They tried to kidnap him in beirut and take into a ship offshore, and failed. A decade went by before they finally found him again. It became a joint cia mossad operation that finally resulted in his death in damascus in 2008 and its unbelievable hairraising story. As you know, bruce, the way they got in. Nobody will talk about it. No one in a position of responsibility at cia or in the u. S. Government or former cia directors will say anything about him to this day. They wont talk. I believe, the best i can i asked every cia director and the ousted no, no, no we cant address it. Yesterday i was speaking to the kennedy school, intelligence project at the kennedy school, and that a bunch of middle eastern active intelligence operatives, none of them would comment either pick so its extraordinary. At a think its because a deal was struck. And i think george w. Bush promised the israelis in 2008 that the u. S. Would never acknowledge its role in the mission. And you can read all about it in the book. But the last thing i will say about it is i harass poor john brennan, and i kept, wouldnt take no for an answer. Kept asking him what he could tell me about him and he finally pause and said, he died quickly. Period, in the subject. Thats very jawdropping. Speaking of which, [inaudible] just after the election, john was [inaudible] i have known him from the late 1970s. One of the most vocal directors, particularly sense he left since he left. [inaudible] i am very sympathetic to his argument, Donald Trumps behavior around russia much more than we probably know. But for a former director [inaudible] john has taken some criticism, some heat for memoir by david ignatius. This gets back to the question that has been coming up for the last three or five minutes. Is it the directors responsible visavis the public visavis explaining whats going on . What other response those after they leave the job . Most cases where we have directors were written memoirs like leon panetta, they are very revealing they dont really tell you anything, no real secrets. A lot of good but rarely do you get wow, i didnt know that. What is your view on brennan in particular, speaking out . Directors in general. You talk to every living director now, how they see let me begin by saying im glad you brought up a net because i had a big advantage writing this book over all of the cia directors, and anybody whos ever worked there, which is no review board. Nobody reviewed anything i wrote, and if cia directors told me more than they probably should have at times, and some of them did, nobody was in the room to say, excuse me, mr. Panetta, you really cant say that. I was really lucky in that respect. And youre right, that panetta doesnt reveal secrets in his memoir but he sure told me an amazing story about stand in Arlington Cemetery at one point and he was at the funeral for a young woman who had died in a suicide bombing in afghanistan. And at that moment as used in after great site he got word from Operations Center that there was an alqaeda terrorist plotting attacks against the u. S. In the crosshairs of a cia drone at that moment. And he was also told that there were innocent civilians, quote, in the shot, end quote, as he put it. Panetta told me all about how he called the white house and said, what do you think . And the white house said this is on you, leon. He said, takes a lot. Fingering his rosary beads and sang his hail marys, as as a dt catholic, made the decision to green light the leaflet drone strike which did, in fact, wind up killing some civilians. And we got him, as leon said to me. But he said, you know what . Ultimately all you can do is hope that god agrees with you. Its really an extraordinary and hope if the book does anything i hope it humanizes the directors situations like that. To answer your question about brennan, its absolutely true that theres a lot among the lot of retired or directors and other cia officials, theres a lot of resentment toward brennan about how vocal hes been and how quoteunquote partisan hes been against trump. I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with it. I was with bob gates at his cabin on a lake in seattle, outside seattle, when the letter arrived for him to sign protesting the removal of britains security clearance. And gates told me im going to sign it but i sure dont agree with a lot of the stuff that brandon is saying and doing. So theres real, people are uncomfortable about brennan. The irony here is that john brennan, as partisan as he is, by all accounts when you cia director with obama, he was scrupulously nonpartisan and the honest broker of intelligence. By all accounts. But i talked to had been in the situation room within which a it brennan would come in and just let obama have it. Whatever it was. He wasnt afraid to tell obama stuff he didnt want to hear. So i would respectfully suggest to a lot of the former cia directors that while this tradition of being above the fray and nonpartisan as a former director, something in ordinary circumstances and normal times absolutely is malleable and valuable and traditional, but these are exceptional circumstances. We have not had a president before who stood on a stage in helsinki with Vladimir Putin and basically took his word over our own Intelligence Community. And they think they should tell people something when, not only john brennan, but general mike hayden and james clapper, and a lot of other people have decided that these are times that are not normal, with a president who is not normal, and we are compelled to speak out. I think you are absolutely right, absolutely. We are in extraordinary times, not a normal president. He doesnt abide by the normal possibilities [inaudible] with our foreign adversaries. I would hope that we got a thorough investigation to find out sounds a lot like hillarys emails after 2016. But this isnt a question of being sloppy with your emails. Its much more important, critical. Let me just add to that, bruce, bob woodward reports that dan coats, former senator dan coats, former dni, became convinced that the russians had he couldnt think of any other possibility. I found in my reporting of the book senior cia officials, former senior cia officials, one of whom ran Russian Operations for years who said after helsinki, that this one person in particular said, after helsinki i could think of no other possibility, no possibility, other than Vladimir Putin has something on donald trump. And it didnt mean compromise, couldve been a financial relationship, but something. Well, we are almost out of time. That gets us back to the subject around and around and around, which is what is the directors responsibility to, public when they have information that is damaging . John brennan overlap donald trump the matter of a few hours, not even a few hours only had access to classified information for a brief period between election of the inauguration. [inaudible] what does gina haspel no . After all, the former soviet russian intelligence topfive targets of the cia to try to learn things about. Its a worrisome that we have not had any peak at, and i guess the republicans have done a pretty good job on the hill making it almost impossible for democrats to ask those kinds of questions. Normal oversight from history like Intelligence Community [phone ringing] not working for effectively for years. Thats true, and as you well know, back in the 70s after the socalled family jewels were disclosed, 693 page compendium of skulduggery that attempted assassinations, plots and everything else, the whole world of intelligence changed. Congressional oversight began. It changed everything for the better, and after this period of time when we have been governed, i use that word loosely, by a president whose loyalties are questionable at best, you would think that it would be time for some reform. It would be time for some checks and balances. I mean, its true that oversight has been come has been effective but lately not so much, as you say. Oversight came out of the 1970s, but not only [inaudible] agencies should be able to any covert operation. We told you what were going to do. We cant help you. We said this is what were going to do and that you said no, dont do it, or five out of seven of you said do it. [inaudible] i think our time has reached i want to thank you again the spymasters, its a great book, about as innovative and it fills a niche that was there. Not only in telling the stories of modern Central Intelligence but really telling the story of what is a director, what do they do all day, what are their responsibilities . And how do they interact . That story, it has never really come up before and it think its very, very ita