Peoples Services Less well attended. In the book, as well summarized gen. Powell it was very important that that rule be the first of the 13 rules. I start that description by saying its not necessarily the case, but its the attitude you should have. Things will get better. You are going to make them better. It is within your license to make things better. As you go through the rules, perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. Multiplier is a military term, ways to enhance the power of our force. Were looking for things that make the force more effective. So, i have found in working with , and this book is about working with human beings, i find if you convey an attitude of perpetual optimism, we can do it, we can do it, it becomes a force multiplier. To roberts real question, when i go across the country, i see all of the problems discussed here in the problem with overseas adventures and other crises around the world but i have also seen around the , people who are , financial leaders, i still find people are optimistic. Reaganlikest confidence among the people. If theres anything really bugging them, it is that they sensed their leaders in washington do not understand how much confidence and optimism is still out there and theyre waiting for their leaders in washington to cut through the gordian knots and get this country moving. Thisoptimistic about country. These are not the worst of times. People forget in my lifetime, 1968 andas like in 1964. 68 when Martin Luther king was assassinated and Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. And then bobby, martin, the vietnam war, race riots, racial problems, the Vice President resigned in disgrace, we had not come out of the it not win that war. The president resigned in disgrace. There was still a constellation aligned against us. And yet, through all of that, we lost hope. Jerry ford came through with simple midwestern values. President carter and had difficulties with the economy and then Ronald Reagan shows up and he says it is morning in america. Here we are. And a few years later, the soviet union is gone. Its china trying to become a by invading,not but by selling to us. They got pretty good. Imagine where we are now. Is selling a stuff. And the money we are paying buy, they then loan us to more stuff. This is our economic problem, ladies and gentlemen. Weve got to figure this out. Optimistic. Ve to be what fuels this is what makes us americans. Robert i did not know until reading the book that an important subject is the hustler. Gen. Powell the hustler, for those of you not old enough to member the movie, its a movie about a pool hall. Paul newman is determined to be the champion. He thinks hes the best in the world. He goes into this pool hall in new york. In the game starts and fast eddie is good. Hes very, very good, but minnesota fats has a manager or financer sitting in the chair, watching all of this. As the evening goes on, they are. Rinking and shooting cool minnesota fats is becoming desperate and looking to jersy squat. He says, stick with this kid. Hes a loser. Minnesota fats keeps losing. And he says, i got him, i got him. He excuses himself. Goes to the bathroom. He comes out a few minutes later and he is reaching for his coat. They think. And as the attendant is about to bring his coat out to him instead of taking his coat, minnesota fats smiles, puts his hands up, has talcum powder put on his hands. He looks at fast eddie and says, lets play some pool. He beats the devil out of them. Minnesota fats never gave up. He thought he could win. He did win. Against eddies weakness. As i say in the book, i love t scene and many today many a day when i was in trouble, which was a frequent occasion, where i had to testify before congress or face a hostile press [laughter] gen. Powell so help me, i would put my uniform on or my suit and i would go to the restroom and i would wash my hands and i would look in the american i would myself softly, fast eddie, lets play some pool. Robert but gen. Powell i never watch the last scene. The staraul newman is of the movie. He has to beat minnesota fats at the end. I never watch it. I dont want to see that. Robert you turn it off early. You visited a Japanese School. A school full of kids driven to exceed. To succeed. Gen. Powell a private Japanese School in tokyo. Very intelligent, smart kids from welltodo families. I give my speech to the students. I love talking to students. I talked to them wherever i go. Whenever i was through questions , i noticed kids were lining up with her little cards with their questions. I dont like that because these are questions the teachers have looked at and improved. These are the honor roll kids. I took a couple of them and then i started looking into the audience, does anyone else have a question . At the back ofy the auditorium where i used to hang out when i was her age, she raises her hand and she gets up and says, general, are you ever afraid . Im always afraid. Im afraid every day. Why are you never afraid . I said, im afraid of something almost every day and i fail at something almost every day if not every day, and what you have to learn to do, my dear is fear and failure are a normal part of human existence and you have to learn how to control it. You will never defeat it, but you can manage it. Have confidence in yourself. Ofoptimistic you can get out the problem youre having. If its a failure, figure out the problem youre having. Move on. See what is ahead. He room was deadly still i think everybody had that thought in their minds. Kids are afraid and may have to be taught to manage and overcome fear. It was emotionally moving moment for me. If i can digress for a moment, robert, most of the book is like this. We will get to the top, hard chapters about my time as secretary of state, but this is a book of parables, stories, reflections and memories. There were 44 short chapters. Heavy lifting. It will take three hours. Some of the chapters are a page in a order long. I think the longest one is eight or nine pages. And you can dive in anywhere. Theres no sequence. No coherence. So they wont read the last chapter or so have you i gather when you were hanging around at the back of the classroom, you were not the obvious qualifier, most likely to succeed . Gen. Powell absolutely right. I come from an immigrant family. My parents came here in the 1920s with a lot of my other relatives. They settled in new york, finally after bouncing around a little bit. They all had children. There are a lot of cousins in the family. We were all simply taught. We have expectations for you. We did not come to this country to have children who will stick something up their nose or not get an education. We have expectations. And do not do anything that shames the family, do you understand . In trouble, wet begged to be beaten rather than the familyt shamed bit. It was devastating. The third thing we were taught was a word that you do not hear much anymore. Mine germanic is, mind your teachers, mind your adults. Family expected us to go somewhere. My cousins became lawyers and doctors and judges. I just sort of hung around clling up with a straight average through high school and city college in new york. I am not sure how i got in, but i got in and graduated with a low average years later. The only way i got out of city college was because i was great in rotc. I found my calling. I wanted to be a soldier. I got straight as in rotc. They rolled back into the overall grade point average. That brought me up to 2. 0. They said, good enough for government work, and i am out of here. I am nowrt considered one of the greatest successes the city college has ever had. They named a center after me. He Colin Powell Center my professors are rolling over in their graves. It isll kids, this not where you start in life. It is what you do along the way. Your past is not your present and its not your future. Your past is your past. Grow. Ive always been growing. Never think you cant make it. While the problems with our country right now, our Graduation Rates are not where they should the. , if i had everd gone home and told those two immigrant people, my parents they were short people, about 53 and 55, if i had ever said, yeah, i think i will drop out, the answer would have been, we will drop you out and go get another kid. It aint going to happen. Theres a chapter in the book called we are mammals. Essentially i love not only the love animal clinic, national geographic, while kingdom. I love watching lions and tigers raise their cubs, their kids. What i get from it, the cubs finally opens its eyes and dont and is allowed to move so far from the mom in the den. But only so far. If he steps outside the box at the long age or is not ready for it, bam, she hits him upside the head with her paw and back in. Grows, gets little further. Your daddy is out there somewhere. Other than that, he doesnt do much. Hes just around. [laughter] is, iowell but the point watch this and its years old they are sent out on their own, but what has happened in that two years, they have learned the importance of their siblings, their cousins, the females in the pride, and the role of the male and the pride. They have passed on to them a thousand generations of what it is to be a lion and how do we that, how can we imagine we dont have that same mammalian requirement to pass on all the experiences we have as human beings to our children . That there are too many children in america who are not having that experience. And if you do not have a good arians past debt good experience, but guess what . See the bad things in life. Robert when we spoke last week at npr, i told you that ive been to make up to jamaica for the first time. When i recorded two jamaicans talking to each other i could not understand where they were saying. And you grew up bilingual. Gen. Powell all my relatives spoke with a heavy jamaican accent. My mother and father were not too bad, but i had a couple aunts i could not hardly understand it all. They never lost it. I could speak with them and i could also slip into a jamaican patois if i had to. No problem. Mon, i was telling robert, there are certain things in the language you have to understand. If you say in jamaican, how you doin . And he says, not bad, not bad, that means hes doing good. If you say, how you doin . Goodhey say, not good, not. That means bad. You have to understand that reversal in the lexicon. There was the special feeling for the place that we came from or they came from. It was very tightknit. Theres a story i didnt tell it in the book, but elsewhere, in my neighborhood in the south bronx, it was all timid tenements him of course and i had aunts living in every building. When i welcome from school about four blocks, they were all hanging out the window, leaning on the windowsill. They never left. They didnt cook to rid they didnt go to the bathroom. They were always there, watching. And if any one of the cousins did anything wrong, got caught misbehaving, it was instant retaliation for her you talk about the speed of the internet, nothing compares to the speed of the south bronx section of new york city. We were there greatest treasure. Our children are our greatest treasures today. They would not let us fail. We have too many children in america today, particularly in our inner cities and rural areas, indian reservations, which are not being raised to not fail. A poor family,om went to private schools, he of histhe valedictorian class. The firstrst person in his family to have such an honor. I said, how did it happen . You said i never, ever had the opportunity to fail. Me. Would not let anytime something went wrong, were there. I was never allowed to fail. Robert one chapter of the book is called tell me what you know. And you write about a book you developed for your intelligence staff. One, tell me what you know. Tell me what you dont know. Tell me what you think. And always distinguish which from which your this brings us to iraq. I guess my big question is an huge capital letters, how . But specifically, someone only identify with caution in the use of military force, never going to light, weighing our obligations very carefully,eing very much the realist tell me about the decision that was made to go to war in iraq and your presentation to the human u. N. Past year ofin the president bushs administration, george w. Bush, iraq was not an issue. Remember, we had planes flying over the northern portion of shooting, iraqis were and for the most part they were contained. The sanctions regime was starting to break down. We were watching carefully to see whether we can allow the iraqions to break down and is free to do whatever it wants to, make weapons of mass destruction again. Remember, they had them in the first gulf war. They use them against their own people. They fired them against the iranians. It was not a figment of our imagination. We thought they had them. Aey also were playing with Nuclear Program that was not that far along and we had a pretty good idea they were playing with biological weapons as well, which are much more difficult to use, but nevertheless are deadly. Faced with thes challenge of ringing the country together and fighting this conflict we are now in, brought to us in afghanistan via al qaeda. That. They do not stay under control, but then the president s attentions turned to iraq. Be a nexis between the weapons of mass destruction that iraq has or could develop and terrorism. So the president started to ask his military authorities to give tendency,for such a which they do. Theugust of 2002, i send president is receiving a lot of military information but we have not put it in a political context. And we wentas there into his private study. , if we, mr. President have to use military force to take out this regime, we become the government of this country. National law. There are 25 Million People standing there. You are in charge. If you break it, you own it was the expression i used. And we talked about it for a while, what that meant, what the implications could be. Said, watching we do . I said, we should avoid the war. Lets go to the u. N. Are the the they offended party. Lets see if we can get a resolution and see if saddam was to play by the rules and give us all of the information we know he has. The president agreed. In september of 2002 we went before the u. N. And made the case for the u. N. To get engaged and get the inspectors back and pass necessary resolutions. I work on the resolution and the draft and we got a resolution in early november putting saddam on notice and demanding that he return all of the information. He flunked that test. I made it clear to the president that if he passed the test, we stuck with Saddam Hussein in power. I also made it clear that if it was necessary to use military force, i would be fully supportive. Late january, none of us were satisfied with what the u. N. Had been able to uncover. By the middle of january, the president decided force was necessary. By the end of january i was with him and he said, we need to present our case to the United Nations and i would like you to do it. And do it next week. So, i had four days. When i saw the case, it was not while we needed. It did not connect up with the intelligence. It did not cross reference things. We said, how did it get like this . We provided all of the information to the nsc. They took it from there. The president had already announced i would be there. I was not worried because there was a National Intelligence estimate asked for by the congress that had gone before the previous fall and congress had overwhelmingly residence t resolutions saying to the president , try to solve this diplomatically. If you cant, we will support you going to war. It was not a close vote. I knew i could pull it off. There was four days and four thets with my staff, with record of intelligence and the intelligence communities who came together. And iled it all together tossed a lot of it aside because there were not a lot of sources and things that were in the presentation i was not sure were well sourced. ,o i went up to new york brought the charts and slides and had a presentation that had been vetted by the cia. Every word was attested to. There was intelligence the president had. My colleagues had been using it. Thats what i presented, and i thought it went rather well. The British Foreign ministers joined me in agreeing and others were not in agreement, but thats where we were. Within a few weeks, we nobodyred, hate, hey, found anything. We cant find anything. Some of the sourcing we have acted on,of, congress the president acted on, we all , i was taken aback when sourcest there were 4 only to discover it was a Single Source and we had never met them. The germans had him we were getting information from the germans and we had never talk to this guy. Case for the presence of weapons of mass destruction fell apart. We still felt he had capability and that free of sanctions he would develop them. We knew that there is everything imaginable that could be bad. But the thing that we presented that said they were there turned out not to be the case. Now, a lot of people agreed with the case and bought into it. Six months later, the cia said we still support the judgments. E made last year so, the problem i have had for the last nine years is notwithstanding all that, my presentation is seen as the defining one, the most prominent one, and became the symbol of the intelligence package we put together and i have been answering questions about it. All it can say is so don was gone and i am glad we do not have to worry about weapons of mass destruction being present or not presence. Completely is not out of the transition, but we have given them an opportunity for a better life for their people. I will always regret my presentation was wrong. I get offended when people say you knew better. You knew this was a lie. No, we accepted considered judgment and local judgment of all 16 intelligence agencies, im still seen as the symbol of it all and that is something i have to work with, but i discussed this in the book. I will never get rid of that. It will be in my obituary, so i have to keep moving forward. Else involvedone in this you apologized, actually but unlike anyone else involved in this, you apologized, actually i said ill no, regretted it. I did not apologize. If he remained in power, he would be in compliance. In reality, he did not have any weapons of mass destruction. Yes. Powell he chose not to take the get out of jail card. We gave him that opportunity. But he didnt want us to know he didnt have them, he did not want his own people to know he did not have them. He really thought we would not attack. Somebody would stop us the french, the germans, the russians. Somebody would keep it from happening and president bush was himrmined we had to remove on this threat and provide a better life for the iraqi oil. For the iraqi people. Did you feel anxious that the u. S. Was sending troops . Gen. Powell you did not know what was going to happen once baghdad fell. Theres no question in my mind that the capture of baghdad was easy. , had no question about that but as we developed plans, i was concerned that not enough force of going in in anticipation what might be there when we got there. I said, i do not want to get in your business, but are you sure you have enough troops to deal with this . Satisfied that he did. These were the military authorities. Baghdad fell quickly. What surprised me, as soon as baghdad fell, you could see all of the animosities popped up between sunni and shia and kurds, and then the bombing started. My colleagues dismissed all of this. These are just dead enders, as my colleagues described them. It seemed to me they were not want. While this was emerging, we stopped the flow of additional troops because we expected thered be no need for large numbers of troops. Some will remember when secretary shinseki was asked of a hearing, how many troops do you think it will take, general, and he said a couple hundred thousand, and he was immediately criticized by the leadership of the department of defense saying, that can be right. We do not agree with the general. This is a general who had been around for 30odd years, who was involved in the balkans. He knows a little bit about all of this. But he was dismissed because we did not expect that to happen. The things you do not expect to happen are the things you plan for and be ready for when they do happen. Robert compounding this, you decisionthe book, the had been made to keep the iraqi army in uniform so they could maintain order once the regime was decapitated and you were quite surprised when paul bremmer, the man who is the u. S. Chief of the operation, was not a fan of the idea. A seriousl there was discussion of, who was going to keep order if we dont have troops to do it . We needed some force to keep order. The iraqi army was one of the few functioning institutions in the country. Not functioning well, but functioning institution. Ambassador bremmer felt strongly should beraqi army disbanded because it was an instrument of oppression and that was his point of view. We had studied this and we had received three separate briefings from the pentagon saying they were counting on getting rid of the really bad leaders of the iraqi army and because theack up structure was still there rather than building. The cia felt it was the right way to go. I did. My half did. Thisresident was briefed, is what we are going to do. My staff did. At suddenly, im not clear where it originated mr. Rumsfeld, mr. Wolfowitz gave Jerry Bremmer and instructions to disband the army if that is what he thought was right and jerry issued the order disbanding the army. Toid not know he was going do that. I know that senior members of the joint chiefs of staff did not know it. The cia did not know it. Suddenly the army is disbanded and you have hundreds of thousands of people armed and trained in the use of arms set free and within a few weeks they are lining up, wanting their pensions after they were fired and we had to pay something in order to keep some peace, and then we started to rebuild an its taken some time. I think it was a bad decision. If Jerry Bremmer was here, he would tell you its the right decision, but i think it was the wrong decision. And most importantly, it was not what we told the president we were going to do. Given that the u. S. Is out of iraq at least in terms of what iscombat force, the legacy within the military . What are we going to be like because of the iraqi experience . Gen. Powell let me start with the military. The military has a remarkable capacity to learn from experience. They look in the mirror and see the reality. They dont hide from reality. The armed forces will recover and recover rather quickly now that they are not going back and forth every few months and they have time to get training. They will learn a lesson. I still keep in touch with my army friends and read the necessary magazines and literature. For 19en out of the army years. I retired, but i havent resigned. They may call me back. Right after prescott, they will calmly back. They are not that desperate, trust me. They will learn from it. What is Counter Insurgency and what is the best way to go about it . A lot of what i saw in iraq is counterinsurgency. Look for a Young Private or a lieutenant. I think what the military is looking at right now is what doctrinal concepts are appropriate to this 21st century world we are living in now that beare out of iraq and will coming out of afghanistan in due course. No good news is there is military competitor to the United States of america. The only two nations that have the potential economic capacity to challenge of us would be to challenge of us would be china and india. Here is absolutely no intent good a jobing to selling to us. While i watched china with great interest, i am not of the view that china is going to become a enemy an enemy because they have gotten very, very far by not eating an enemy. Are the largest economy on 8rth and they still have billion people wanting to know when it is their turn . Russia is not the soviet union. Mitt romney said they are our main geopolitical rival. Gen. Powell i disagree with my good friend mitt. Do they get silly . Mr. Putin does that all the time area all the time. President. The see what happens when you work with me i was not entirely sure. In a moment we will takes questions, but i want to ask you very seriously, if you got your calls returned and were in the discussions, two quick questions. What was your key message be about four syria and it ran . Iran . Syria is an extremely difficult question. I know president assad. He lies constantly. You cant trust him. But hes in solid control of the country even with all of the troubles he is facing. He is of a minority group. Killed 80,000e people. These are brutal folks who will not give up our easily. Going to leavere power, its not clear what we would be supporting on the other side. Before be very careful you start suggesting that intervention is appropriate or providing more weapons is appropriate to read you just might feel more violence. I think finding some kind of political solution is the best way, but its going to be very, very hard because the opponents in the opposition want him to leave and he ought to leave. He really is a bad guy. He ought to leave. But he knows the consequences to his tribe, to his interest may be more than he can bear. On the other side, we do not have a clear idea of who we will. E supporting they will not give up their Nuclear Program easily. They keep insisting this is just for power. They dont want a weapon, but i have seen some of the things they are developing. They are developing rockets, things like that. You cant trust them. But the solution may well emerge that says, if thats all you want is power, lets talk about with thean do that most strenuous regime of inspections we can come up with so, if you make the slightest mistake or your lying to us, it is detectable. Meaning we will attack you, we will bomb your facilities . Gen. Powell in my world, the is aserious consequence wonderful term. It doesnt tell you what we will do. Let him worry about what we might do. You dont tell what youre going to do. When you do it, you do it. , he understands what we might do to him. I have been around Nuclear Weapons as a National Security advisor for close to 50 years. I was taught how to deploy Nuclear Weapons as a young captain. In germany guarding the narrowest part of the nato defense area, we took the defense line if they came through me, it was done. It would split nato in half. My war plan was to stop them as best we could. We felt we could only do that for a few days. I still remember out in the field one day, we were studying this problem. The staff was saying we need to call for the release of Nuclear Weapons. I said, let me see the target. They were all in west germany. Where will all the germans go . We will evacuate them. Really . How . It was so surreal. The weapons were there. They could have been used, and if we had done it, the russians would have responded. I do not think you would have stopped the escalation that would take place. Notarned these things are really that usable. You can deter somebody with them , you can do to her the russians deterred us. The one who wanted strategic defense to make them worthless. You shoot them at us and will knock it down. As chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, i had 28,000 Nuclear Weapons of all kinds and my russian colleague and i would talk about this. , was telling robert backstage when the cold war was just about ending and were talking very weredly, one day we talking about the Security Systems we had on our missiles to make sure there were not any accidents. A level of security that was higher than mine. He had one more level of rejection to keep them from being used. Comed, misha, misha, how you have this extra layer . He said, we lost 40 Million People in the great patriotic war, world war ii. We dont want to take that chance again. Those cant ever be used. You know it and i know it. I said, i agree. The consequences are almost unimaginable. So when you look at iran, its broke. Its under a norm is pressure. People can say they are crazy. They will fire one just a hit israel. Difficultt a little to internalize because they know they would be destroyed the next to go tothey may want heaven and see somebody up there, but more important for them that theyu believe would buy into the logic of deterrence if it came down to it . Gen. Powell i would not rely on it totally, but i would not dismiss that turns by saying they are crazy. Theyre not crazy. They may not be like us, but they want to survive. They want to survive. The first thing to ensure they would not survive would be to use those weapons. I think deterrence and containment plays a role in all of this, but i dont want their Nuclear Program to go higher toward a Nuclear Weapon and to create rockets that would deliver such a weapon. I think with all of the diplomatic and political pressure on them, sooner or later it will cause them to rethink the awkward position they are putting themselves in. I once met with the irani and foreign minister at dinner. We were both very careful not to get in trouble talking to each other. I said, what is the biggest problem you have. He said, unemployment. We have to find 600,000 jobs every year. Greatest Political Force at work around the world and we need to understand it and the United States, is Wealth Creation and economic growth. Thats what china is doing. China did not get where it is playing nuclear tag. They did it by making things people want to buy. They need to keep growing wealth in order to bring their people out of poverty. Spring,sed the arab fundamentalism . No, jobs. They want to get rid of corrupt governments. It was a fruit seller in tunis to set himself on fire because and said an argument enough. He set himself on fire and started the Arab Spring Movement we now see in such full flower. Micrt there are two stands. We have time for some questions. We will alternate from one side. O the other we will begin with this microphone here. Ok. General powell, i am very proud you are here tonight. I appreciate you coming here. Since you have been on both decades, last couple the political and military side and also the state department, do you think with our military , which is incomparable to anything else in the world in buts of doing their job, they also can be defended by do nationbuilding . Gen. Powell the principal reason for the military is to defend us and apply the states power. It does not mean you cant do other things, but that has to be the Principal Mission in my humble view as an infantry officer. The way because intrusion is written, you raise and support armies. When you look at japan and , theyy after world war ii were not run by diplomats. Were a series of generals and germany. They were doing peacemaking, peacekeeping. They were doing constitutional governments. Military can do just about anything they are asked to do. Its a very competent, Skilled Group of young men and women. Yes. Robert yes, question here. Is this on. Robert yes. [indiscernible] robert a little closer. I would like to ask you personally to think of running for president again. [applause] gen. Powell maam, i hit myself by date long ago. As robert said and as i said in the book, it was enormously difficult time because i felt this obligation those being put upon me by many people. There were a lot of people who said, we dont want to see you anywhere near public to. We dont like you. But what pushed it over the edge was there was not a single morning i woke up where deep inside of me did i think it was the right thing to do. Am not a politician im still basically a soldier. I listen to the suits. There is never a morning where i wanted to get up and go out and do that. I am so glad we have the romneys and bushes and kerrys. Ofo my wife is not in favor it. Been married for 50 years. We have been a team for 50 years. 100 beginnings with me and she shared my view. People say, well, she listen, she did not marry me when i was chairman. She married me when i was a young captain heading off to vietnam for a year, leaving her behind with the baby that would. E born while i was away we are close. Very close. Theres another part of the book that says the best thing about being disappointed is, you get over it. Everything is in this book. Youve got to get it. [laughter] we need you. We need her. Gen. Powell thank you. Robert sie . Sir . Other book is really different. Some of us are really good at engineering. Some of us are really go to our to see. Do you think educators should allow more choice among younger undergraduates in the first two years so they can select those careers and subjects they have an interest in . This is al fascinating question. We could easily spend an hour on it. , ipublic School Education flunked out of engineering. Thats what youre suggesting. I know that. Up things you have to put with in public life. Robert but now you have to theorize about higher education. Gen. Powell i only tripped over this in recent years. Only in recent years have i gotten over trying to bring schoolmemories, in high i was exposed to stuff that bored me to death at the time, but 30, 40 years later, i remember it with such warm it wasss, and im sure there all the while having an influence on me. We had our depreciation. We had music. Bolero,till hear revels the night watch by rembrandt, canterbury tales by chaucer. All of these things are children need to be exposed to and not just how do we passed this math and science test to get to the next grade. It would be a shame if in the course of education of our children we do not expose them to lots of things and give them greater choice of what they want to do with their lives. Most of them at that age are not sure. Expose them to lots of things. Sooner or later, something will catch them and turn them on. Had not come into my life when i was 17, i would not be here. That is what i tell kids. Keep looking for the thing you do well and you love doing and dont stop. It isnt fame and fortune. Its not the amount of money you make or the titles you get. Its doing that you do well which you love doing. I was talking to a group of students not too long ago. I said, i did not come into the army to be a general. I came here to be a soldier. They could have sent me home anytime they wanted and i would have been happy. We have to get kids down from this ive got to make a zillion twoars or be ahead punch or be a Hedge Fund Manager or the guy who invents facebook or something. Get them to find that they love doing. General howell, sir i was inowell, sir, europe working on data. I had a different environments. Talking about where are we doing this. These are puzzles i could not really account for. It was an awful lot of rumor before the iraq war there were caravans leaving [indiscernible] reportsell i saw those and we looked through them pretty thoroughly and a lot of people said, well, the weapons and they were sent to syria. I have seen no evidence either of those things account for the absence of weapons. There were no weapons in my judgment. And the judgment of the Intelligence Community now. Yes . General powell, you say you feel the u. S. Military has no. Ay or peer why do you think some any of our politicians and obviously some of the american constituents feel the same level of military maintainededs to be to the detriment of domestic spending that could benefit nationbuilding here home . Gen. Powell well [applause] gen. Powell there are couple answers to that question. Im not sure what the right level should be. Any more. In the cold war, i recommended to mr. Cheney, who was my boss at the time, the secretary of 5 , and we did. The war was over. We cut 25 . I dont know if that level of cut is in the cards. I dont think so. I dont think you can make that kind of got, but i think the pentagon should be, like any other government department, analyzed to see what we dont really really need. That are a lot of programs will be challenged. If the sequestration comes anywhere close to being implemented at the end of the year, the pentagon will have to make further reductions. We would not spend a dollar more on military spending than we need to. We should not spend a dollar less. We have to find the right balance. I am confident the generals and admirals will find the right now is. They understand the real strength of the economy comes from an economy that is working. Its always argued that defense spending is at the expense of domestic spending. We ought to spend what we need under programs. Union cannot do both. We can do both. Constrained defense spending is that which is absolutely needed and as said by our commanders. The mystic spending should be what is needed to take care of our people. To take care of our history infrastructure and all the things we need. Everything should be on the table. I think it was a mistake not to except the proposal. It would have been a start, because everybody would have came to the table ready to give up something. That did not pass political muster and we are trying to figure out how to get past that. Somehow, we have to do we cannot keep spending 3 trillion a year and only taking into trillion dollars a year. As one businessman said, we cannot run a 711 like that. The money and our grandkids will pay for it. That is not fair. We ought to start now to figure out how to bring our Government Spending down. Which means having to give up something. I could think of several things to take away tomorrow and i would not complain about it. There are ways to cut spending and a sensible way and reform de, which is terrible. Get rid of loopholes. You cannot find the right combination of Political Support of politicians who will move in this direction. It isnt going to happen just because of an election. Obama orr. Romney, mr. Superman, those of us here and around the country, you better start examining the issues and what all these folks stand for and not only what they say they will do. More of what they are able to do because of the political strength of their party. We are in charge of this now. Not the super pacs and rich guys writing checks to people. American people have to back away from the far left and far right. Back away from the Television Commentators commenting on other commentators and start taking a hard look at where we are and what we are doing. [applause] this is for the commentators. Were you saying that the cuts that would take effect, if nothing else happens, that is doable . Do you think you would be sounding the alarm . Will notll i think it happen, even though it is on the books. In my judgment it will not happen. I dont think it is going to happen because the catholic once is because the consequences will be too severe for domestic spending and defense spending. They are already kicking him between 400 and 500 billion. The secret station would double that number and the pentagon could not take that kind of reduction. Nor do i think congress would allow it to take place. This into the put law, they are just as capable of taking it out of the law. Wehave time for just have time for just two more questions. Thank you for being here. Says wondering if you could Leadership Principles you took away from your experience . Bushfically president coming in as a young and inexperienced individual. But also veterans who had very strong personalities that crashed and created a change in leadership. What Team Leadership advice can you give to leading a team well that has such a strong personality . Gen. Powell strong personalities dont necessarily create conflict. Bush 41, George Herbert walker bush, personalities were very strong to include some of the the second bush first term. Me, mr. Cheney, and others. We got along well. Ol ime around we got got along well on so many wishes. If you look at what we did to expand nato, expand the european union. What we did with hivaids investment. What we do to increase the amount of assistance we give to the rest of the world. A lot of things were done very well, in total harmony. There were not strong feelings about the issues. On the issue of iraq, that was a ekkey one. We had different points of view of how many troops are needed. We had different points of view of how to resolve the issues. Finally, it reached a point where the president in 2004, we were not working as well as we should as a team. It seems like there is somebody who is more at a frequency with the others than anyone else, its me. I only wanted to stay one term. Right after the election i want to step down and the president agreed. He understood the problem how do you function as a team . Everyone has to have a common purpose of what we are trying to achieve, Mutual Respect with each other, and trust with each other. I think we couldve done a better job with that. As i say, i was probably the one who was most out of sync with the others. Thats why i left when i said i was going to leave. And the president but it was a good idea too. I appreciated your point of view the most, personally. Thank you. [laughter] [applause] one more question. Myquestion gen. Powell question is simple. A lot of us americans are always saying, what is wrong with america . Theill believe we are still land of prosperity and opportunity. In your opinion, whats right with america . Gen. Powell so much. Weve got wonderful democratic system that is noisy, looks like conflict. Ed with it has always been that way. It was designed that way. Harderow it is getting to resolve conflicts. Our democratic system has to the test of time. Slavery, we faced civil war is, we faced all kinds of challenges and we ultimately come out the other end in pretty good shape. If the other guys who fell apart. The soviet union said they would beat us to death and they collapsed. China said, this is working, we have to be friends with america and not their enemies. We will be trading partners. We have this resiliency in our makeup as a nation and people that takes us through difficult times. The foundingome of fathers and what they went through, these guys really argued. , they would shoot each other. Hmm, never mind. [laughter] documentsl the two that i like to read our jeffersons first and second inaugural addresses. In his first, it is a beautiful address talking about america and what it means, and what we are going to do for the people. Beautiful. Four years later when he wrote his second inaugural address, he was mostly mad and annoyed, and he was mostly mad and annoyed at the press. [laughter] gen. Powell there is a long section in an inaugural address where he goes on and on about how they should be in jail. Why dont the states walked these people up . Bit. Paraphrasing a little he said they ought to be thrown in jail and violating the laws for what they say about me and others. But then he pauses and atypical jeffersonian manner and says, but, given the choice between allowing people to speak freely or throwing them in jail, i choose the former. The reason he said he could choose the former was because, if everybody speaks long enough, the truth will win. The truth will always beat the lies. The truth will always overcome falsehood. Second, we have the best economy. Its the strongest economy in the world. We are number one. And have been and will continue to be. Resilience and a strong economy, strong military. I think political prophecies are more important now. All, we have a glue that holds us together as americans. We are all proud to be american. When i really think about this, of immigrantsve that come to this country, and the speeches and i will end on this, about what it means for americans to understand how we affect the rest of the world. Even though people are complaining about us, people are lined up at out of our embassies. Tomorrow they will stay the same thing, i want to go to america. First has to be the japanese businessman. , owns many conglomerates, he was being interviewed one night. The interviewer says, of all the cities that you visited, which is your favorite . He says, new york. Him, why new to york, why not rome, london or paris . He says, new york city is the only city were i walked on the street and people come up to me and ask for directions. [laughter] gen. Powell try that and paris. Its remarkable. We are a nation of nations. We are renewed, refreshed. We have immigrants coming here. Immigrants go to europe to get jobs. Immigrants come here to get jobs but also to become americans. Try that in half the countries in europe. Story, which my assistant with me knows so well. I lover i am in new york to walk up fifth or park avenue on a Beautiful Day and look at the shops and churches, everything, and admire all the people going by. I always have to stop at one of the numbered cross streets where there is a pushcart hotdog peddler. I always have to have one. Special mustard and red onion relish. Have one. Even when i was secretary of state, i would come out of my suite of the waldorfastoria. [laughter] gen. Powell start up park avenue and have five bodyguards around me and three police cards on park avenue to make sure wacked me. I always stopped and ordered my hotdog. A guy would look up a bodyguards and ive say, ive got a green card, ive got a green card. [laughter] gen. Powell but now i have no bodyguards. Im all alone and i still do it. It goes Something Like this. , red oniontard relish. He fixes it. He starts to hand it to me. He says, i have seen you on television. You are general powell. Heres a hotdog, i hand him the money. Over and over, general, no. You cannot pay me, you dont have to pay me. America has already paid me. I will never forget where it came from. Im here, my children are here. A hotdog. Lease, take i take it and continue walking up the street. It washes over me, this is still the same country. Dont ever sell this place short. We are still the leader of the world that wants to be free. Thank you. Thank you to the synagogue. [applause] history bookshelf research the countrys bestknown American History writers in the past decade talking about their books. You can watch our weekly series every saturday at four clock p. M. Hes during here on american tv on cspan3. This weekend on American History tv. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on lectures in history. Comparisons between Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson on the constitution. The wholee a look at cartoon. A very different impression of what people thought of johnson and the constitution at the time. Not that he was a defender, but he did not understand the constitution. It was above his ability, and that he was acting in unconstitutional ways. 6 00 on american artifacts. A preview of the 19th amendment at the national archives. In history, beginning in 1776, when new jersey became the new jersey state constitution made no mention of sex when discussing voting qualifications. It only had a property requirement. Property,own and of primarily widows and single women, not all women in new jersey could and did vote in elections at the local state and national level. At 8 00 p. M. On the presidency, the author talks about nixons early life and career. 1940 seven and 1948 he campaigned for the marshall plan. Club,t to every rotary chamber of comments, vfw and american home. Every crowd that would take him. He told them he owed them his best judgment, not his obedience. And he convinced them. When the Party Primaries were held in california in december of 1948, Richard Nixon did not just when the republican nomination, he won the democratic nomination. He ran unopposed in the first reelection campaign. Past onre our nations American History tv, every weekend on cspan3. Our look at some of the highlights from the last 12 months continues as we take you to pearl harbor in hawaii. The battleship missouri, 53,000 ton flagship of the third fleet becomes the scene of an unforgettable ceremony, marking the complete and formal surrender of japan. United