Transcripts For CSPAN3 The 20240704

20 years ago, yesterday day, president George W Bush addressed the nation after the Space Shuttle columbia disaster. And its in a moment like following other moments in his presidency, the horrors of 911, the global war on terror, the invasion of iraq, but also high points in the presidency. President bush was trying to bring the together in a moment of grief, but also to try to provide a vision of hope and common. And its in moments like this that the extraordinary resources, the Miller Center and these scholars that you have with you here today provide for us. We have, as you all know, because we released the George W Bush oral history in the fall of 2019, right before pandemic Russell Riley and Barbara Perry with a number of colleagues have brought the oral history of this presidency. And today were here to celebrate one of the first fruits of that project. That is what we call basic research. And from that basic, our scholars take and produce books of scholarship where. They learn new lessons from that administration by having talked to the senior most officials from the administration. And is only the first of many things that people will learn. The bush presidency. We got into this business in 77. There is a picture in the hallway outside of the Ford White House standing on the steps of the Miller Center. Theres young cheney, a young don rumsfeld and brant scowcroft, for which theres not a photo of him ever being young. And a number of people who served in the ford administration, like paul oneill, who would go on to serve as secretary of treasury for for president bush 43, who would back time after time to be interviewed for oral histories, the reagan oral history, the bush one, oral history, and now this bush 43 oral history. We have conducted an extensive oral set of oral history interviews for every president since ford and Russell Riley has been there for, almost all of them Russell Riley is the codirector of our oral history, along with Barbara Perry. Russell has logged. And it says here and its its hard to believe, russell, that youve done 1500 hours of confidential interviews. Senior administration officials, white house staff, cabinet officers and leaders. Barbara perry codirector, who is the jerry belial . Black hills professor here at the Miller Center and the director of president ial studies coleads the oral history program. Over her time, she has conducted more than 120 interviews for. The george h. W. Bush project, the george w. Bush project and barack obama project. In addition to having pulled together and completed the Edward Kennedy oral history project and helping launch the Hillary Clinton oral history project. We dont just do president s. We do other senior officials. And with that, its a great opportunity to introduce our special guest, whos joining us by zoom today, robert gates. As you all know, robert gates served as u. S. Secretary of defense from december 2006 in the bush 43 administration. And he continued his service through july 2011 into the Obama Administration. Hes been awarded the National Security medal, the president ial citizens, and has twice received the National Distinguished service medal. Secretary gates also completed three Miller Center oral history interviews. And for that, we are so grateful the one person who is not here today is other coeditor of this book. This book is coedited by Barbara Perry Russell Riley and mike nelson. Mike is a professor at college in tennessee. He had planned to be with us today, but an ice storm is moving through tennessee and for his safety and and to keep logistical complications to a minimum, mike has decided to stay home. But mike, if youre out there watching, which we hope and think you are. Thank you for all of the work. You do. He is also a senior fellow here at the Miller Center. So with that over to you, barbara. Great. Thank you so much, bill. We have just marked eight years of bills tenure here as the director and ceo of, the Miller Center and so hes served the equivalent of two president ial terms. And we hope, unlike president s, that he can carry on with at least one more term, maybe get up to the fdr mark. We also want to thank him so much for, his interest in oral history and joining us frequently, in fact, this week we did an oral history for the obama project that were now into. And bill joined us with that particular person he has known over years. And its really makes all the difference the world for russell and me to have, who knows the person that were interviewing. So thank you to bill and thanks so many of you here in the audience in person we have a full house today well as online and with cspan, many of you support the work of the Miller Center that is varied and particularly for those of you who support president ial studies and our Recording Program where we go through the secret white house tapes of president s, but also the oral history project, as bill has mentioned them. So, secretary gates, i want to say hello from charlottesville. And welcome you today virtually and i thought i would start with you. First of all, can you me . I can hear you just fine. Thank you. Oh, good. Thank you, sir. When i invited for the interview that you were so generous to give us two days last year for the obama, i went back and i looked at the interview that you did for the bush 43 project. First of all, recognizing that that had been your set of interviews with us, because you were interviewed for the bush 41 project. And as were speaking to our colleague mike nelson for the bush 43 project interview, i think out out at your home, you said you mentioned obama. You you sort of chuckled. And in the transcripts laughter, because you said, i guess youll be back to me a third time. And so how i began my invitation to you, which was were back, were here again tour for the third interview. And that one of of course, was for the obama project so we we hope youll join us when that one is released some years down the road. Having said that, sir, given that you have participated in three of these oral history projects, tell us what you think is the value of given giving, spoken narrative and others who have worked in these administrations with you . What is the value of those interviews for history, for teachers, students biographers, journalists but also practitioners such as yourself . You have served in the administration of eight president s from both parties pressurized pleasure. Well, today i would say that the great value is. It provides the person perspectives and personal experiences that often dont make their way into Historical Research when youre through documents and president ial records and so on things be pretty dry and and you end up sort of this happened and then that happened and so on and so and and when you have these oral histories, just think we would have had an oral history with franklin roosevelt. Theodore roosevelt or abraham lincoln. I think it brings the history light and and provides personal experience, personal points of view. People who can describe what it was like to be in the room when those decisions were made . Who can talk about some of the humor . Who can talk about how people were wrestling with about person, all relationships that that often dont find their way into into the documents. So i think i think it just adds a whole the whole new domain session to to looking at president ial and other experiences. Well we agree with you so much and certainly russell and i, in sitting on these interviews and being part of the interview panel, often with both Alice Spencer back, which is here, he participated with secretary and myself and others on the obama interview. Secretary gates, we attest that just to exactly what you said, sir, and that is that it is it is history come to life, and thats why we enjoy it. So but we also think it adds, as you said that extra piece of the puzzle as historians and others go back to piece together what has truly happened. But one thing, for example, that you will never find, that youll never find in the documents is people sitting in the situation room, the jokes that were being told or witticisms or something sometimes in the in the of circumstances, anything come to mind. But i think theyre in the oral history. Thank you. We like to hear that encourages people to go online certainly and also to purchase our book where we have a number of these stories and they available for those of you who are here today out in the ante room having said that to one also wanted to note it note that based on the bush 41 oral history that russell conducted before i arrived that taking off from that secretary gates and russell and i participated in a partnership between the miller and virginia public media and a recent documentary called state craft about the bush 41 Foreign Policy team, which was a golden group a golden group of people, a plus, and bringing their experience to bear, including secretary gates. And so you can watch that on pbs. You can watch it online and on their passport, i think it is called. So let me turn to russell now and read to you something that will be familiar, because it is as you begin your chapter in book, an introduction and, you say, russell, no presidency, in the lifetime of the republic, referring the bush 43 presidency, george bush will be more difficult for history to get right than the 43rd. Tell us why you think that and why you began your chapter that way. Sure, id be happy to do that. First, i should let you know that having already been presented as somebody who does a lot of these interviews, i feel much more comfortable down and asking questions of people in in a private setting than. I do in front of an audience like this, although its terrific to see people again at the center so thats thats sort of where my bread and butter is. But in terms the question about how difficult it will be to this president , right. For history, there are three factors that i write about in my chapter. The first one relates just to the basic controversies associated with his presidency and controversy and are enemies to figuring out presidency and getting it right. And it takes a while for those passions to die down. I dont think were there yet. I think its going to take some time, but this this was a presidency that was controversial from the very outset. I mean it was the first president who had come to office elected with a minority of the vote since Benjamin Harrison in 1888. We recall the controversy in florida that precipitated his with the you know, the socalled Brooks Brothers riot with people creating a ruckus over the vote count. He came into office on the basis of a Supreme Court that was so improvised optional that the justices said it shouldnt be used a precedent for any other cases. And then once you get him into there are, you know, just a host of really highly controversial conditions, the failure to detect and prevent the the attack of 911. But then after that, the decision invade iraq, the abu ghraib scandal, hurricane katrina, a massive economic in 2007 and 2008. And so all of these are going to be complications. Historians trying to get this right for future generations in terms understanding this president. So thats the first factor. The second factor is the basic that we used to come to understand the presidency, those president ial records in this instance, the problems of history are problems about the east and famine. If you go to the website of, the George W Bush president ial library, youll learn that there are 70 million paper records there, as well as 200 million emails and. Presumably, if you follow caro, the eminent biographer who said his method is to turn every page, some of youve probably seen this as a result of a of a documentary on caro now, but his method is turn every page and i actually went through the calculations and if you turn 2000 pages a day nonstop it would take you 191 years to go through all of the evidence accumulated. And thats just the paper records. There are three times as much in the way of emails, so theres theres a massive needle in a haystack problem in terms of trying to to come to terms with that massive of evidence then beyond that. In the the. Barber. Help me. Yes well so in terms of sort of the what is what are the all the issues that will cause us to continue to struggle with categorizing and and evaluating president bush three the the problems with with famine occur because of the inability of to get these records cleared is a very small staff of of archivists involved getting them cleared. And therefore it will be. By one count, the George W Bush library is 240 years behind on dealing with failure requests. So if we dont have those archival records available, then you have to go to alternative sources. In the best of the alternate sources is oral history. The third point in terms of the difficulties in understanding this administration or getting it right for ironically occurs as a result of a Great Success the administration. And that is the attack of 911 was a one off event and the reality of that being a one off event has a powerful on how we view that administration the germanjewish philosopher Walter Benjamin once that a man who dies at 35 will by remembrance always be remembered in subsequent history as. A man who died at the age of 35. Its impact able to look on somebodys history like that without understanding the and colors everything that went it. We today understand that 911 was a one off event and therefore our views of the bush are colored. That experience which is very different from the lived experience of the people who were in the administration at the time, who on the basis of evidence from people like Condoleezza Rice believed that every day after that was 912 that every effort they were making was geared making sure that there was not a recurrence of that event. And yet from deep historical perspective, in looking back on that, we have a tendency to underestimate how powerful an influence that on the administration. And it will think forever be a problem for us in terms trying to understand the presidency because of that reality. Well thank for that both an introduction for today but also your superb to the book secretary gates let me turn back to you you into the bush 43 cabinet as second secdef as we call it in the business. The second secret of defense coming after donald rumsfeld, another of the people we had the privilege to interview, in fact, right here at the miller. And he brought along the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, the vice chair of the joint chiefs of staff, and paul wolfowitz, his second in command. And as communications people, he brought two of those people. So well we like to point out that we sometimes as we secretary gates and these instances typically for just one to a group of us interview him but sometimes well say to two we say to all the secretaries particularly if youd like to bring a team, feel to do that. So first of all, if you will, sir, tell us what that was like to come in to an administration thats already six years down the road, five years down the road, replacing a secretary of defense who has become controversial in that period. And then if i ask us a second part of the question, which is you then transitioned into the Obama Administration because he asked that you stay on and you stayed in that cabinet for a couple of years. And perhaps if could for us compare and contrast the commander in chief leadership styles of those two president s, 43 and 44. So when i was when i received a telephone on a saturday morning and laid october from the National Security steve hadley, id started working with in the Nixon Administration. Asking and it was just out of the blue, would you be willing to if the president asked, you serve as secretary of defense. Now, the back back story to this is that 18 months, 19 months before that, they had asked to be first director of National Intelligence. I had gone into the white house and talked with hadley and i talked with andy card, who was then chief of staff and and we wrestle with it the is i had opposed the creation of director of National Intelligence thought it was unworkable and and they were asking me to be the first person to occupy the job and. So needless to say, i had a lot of questions. I felt there were a lot of deficiencies in. The law, they basically agreed everything i asked and but still was wrestling with in of authorities and so on. But i was still wrestling the decision then and ultimately i thought i was going to take it. And im pretty sure they thought i was going to take it. But at the last minute after the inaugural, i had told i, andy card that i would call him the monday after the inauguration, after id had a chance to think about it one last time over the weekend. And i called him that monday morning and i told him i decided not to do it. And i think he was pretty shocked. I was pretty surprised myself because everything that had up to that i think had led them to that. I was going to do it. So i told my wife afterward, i said, the one piece of good news about this is that the Bush Administration will never, ever ask me to do anything. So, so fast forward. Hadley calls me, interestingly enough, this time i said, steve, you weve got a lot of Young Americans out there fighting and dying, doing their duty and if you ask me to do this, i will certainly do it. So no hesitation that one. But after i hung up the phone and contemplated what i had to my wife, i i was thinking and i told her, i said, well, look, bush just lost control of both houses of congress and losing in two wars and losing them both. What possibly could go wrong. So the good news about going into the administration was that i knew both condi rice by then secretary of state and hadley, steve hadley, National Security adviser. Very well. Condi id worked together on the bush 41 nsc when i was deputy security adviser and and i had, as i said, i had known steve since 1974. So i was going in to work with a couple of people that i really knew well and knew. There be any backstabbing, knew that we would Work Together productively as a team. One of the things that i was committed to that would be easy with condi was. I, i had observed over much of my career, most of my career, the secretaries of state, secretaries of defense, not didnt get along mostly, didnt like other and sometimes really hated each other and and often were not even on speaking terms and and so i was determined and. Ive always felt that poorly served the president. So i was the term and condy and i would have a positive working relationship i also had the other my other approach to it was you when youre the secretary of defense you never have elbow your way to the table. You got all the people, all the money and all the want all the weapons. So nobodys nobodys going to exclude you from a meeting. So i just wasnt worried about that. So i was able to start the Bush Administration good personal relationships. These other leaders based on a long acquaintance i had not interestingly enough the whole time that i was at texas a m and while George W Bush been governor of texas, id had one photo op with him. But i really the first when i had my interview. Interview with him was the first conversation id ever with the man. So we some getting used to of of getting to know one another but what that was pretty easy. Hes a very easy guy to get along with and hes got a great sense humor and so on and. You know, by that time also had been president for almost six years. So he was a very experienced person at that point. And and so i felt very comfortable into that administration for. All those reasons i began to get word both in the press and privately in the summer of 2008, that both john mccain and barack obama were considering asking me to stay in the event they won the election because we were in two wars to provide some continuity. But the idea would be just a temporary thing, a bridge, if you will. But i got word from senator jack in july and late july, i think saying obama would like to talk to me. And and i said, well, jack i dont think thats appropriate. I can i can only be secretary of defense for one president at a time. And he wanted to talk to me about whether i might be willing to stay. And i said, but im and he called back in september, i think, and and perhaps october. And the question again and i said, look jack, i cant do that until after election. But i said, i could provide. Some questions for you that could for him to consider that would guide conversation that would basically be a basis for conversation really tackled some tough issues and and he said, okay so i put together a of ten questions and this was a little unusual because shall we say i dont think theres much precedent. American history for a prospective cabinet officer to be interviewing the president rather than vice and and so i wrote questions. I had them handdelivered to, jack, and he delivered them to and he called me back literally days later and he said, obama is even more interested now. And you come in talking to about this job and he thought the questions were really great he said but he wants to know do you want written answers . Its not an exam, a guide to a conversation. And you know, the first question. And so when we had secret meeting in the firehouse at national airport, every few after the election, and it was just the two of us in the room he pulls piece of paper out of his pocket and thats the list of questions. And the first question was, how do you know you can trust me . We dont know each other. And it kind of went from there. Whos going to be on the team . Whats your attitude toward iraq have basically been put in place by bush with the agreement with the iraqis, but whats your view . Heres what you just said. Afghanistan, where what do you about afghanistan . What are you going to do in afghanistan . What about the Defense Budget and so on. And we had a really good conversation at the end he said, well, id like for you to be stay on as secretary of defense. And i said, well you know, kind of about how long and and we talked about, well, maybe a year or thereabouts what i didnt realize then was i put a comma at the end of that sentence and he put a period and, im sorry, i just got that reversed. I put a period end. You put comma. And so ended up actually working for him than i worked for bush. So almost a little over two and a half years, that was a very different experience because while i knew a very superficially or not very well general jim jones, who was to be his first secretary. I first National Security adviser, i really didnt know anybody else in the administration. And there were a few whod been around as long as i had who i had known in the Carter Administration when i worked in the carter white was spake brzezinskis assistant. But mainly there were lot of people i didnt know. I didnt know hillary at all. So based on my experience with condi, one of the first things i did after we were all announced was invite hillary, come to the pentagon and have lunch with me. And i talked about the way condi and i worked together and and the importance of us being on the same page and how we can Work Together to help the president. And she was all in and so i she she and i had every bit as good a working relation the ship as i had with condi. And, you know, i think thats there and i know thats not unprecedented American History to have two successive women secretaries of state and both of having a really Good Relationship with the secretary of defense. So you know i got to know people but but obviously it was a different environment for one thing it was that it was a brand new administration so everybody was learning and and im kind of new to the job. I remember the first meeting in the situation room. Everybody had their cell phone out and was, you know, checking texts, emails and so on and so forth. And afterward, i went to jim jones and i said, jim, theyre broadcasting everything were talking the rest of the world, youve got to do something. So, you know, next meeting, nobody had a phone. So we had to make there was there was progress to be. But i will say that that it was they made me feel welcome. I will say there were so awkward moments and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff when i first joined the administration, admiral mike mullen, who had become chairman under president bush and had been there only six months, less time than i had and and, you know, wed go into the situation room and thered be a meeting. And this was in the early weeks of the administration and and they would just the Bush Administration and get all the dumb decisions. And how could they possibly have thought all these things and everything and mike and i would get in the car to go back to the and wed look at each other. Its like, dont they . We were part of that. And what what are we chopped liver or are we in hezbollah in there and and so, you know, we had to put up with fair amount of that which happens. Know, as you said, ive worked for eight president s, four of them in the white house. And it happens in every new administration. But, you know, we went through those growing pains. I remember at one point obama had an offsite for the new cabinet and because the kinds of things you dont see in the documents and he asked me to talk the cabinet officers, as somebody whod been around not just as a cabinet officer for a couple years at that point, but whod been in the white house and worked in these things and so on and so forth and so i made disparaging comments about the white house and told the cabinet officers they needed stand up for themselves when somebody says the white house is calling, just say buildings, dont call people. If the chief of staff wants to talk to me, ill talk to him. But if its some, she has 13 staff members. Im a member of cabinet, but the one that i the thing i said that and several of them have come back to me over the years and that that they said made the hair on the back their neck stand up was at the end of my remarks i said the one thing you all have to remember no matter what cabinet position or agency you lead is that right somebody your organization is breaking the law or and even if theyre not breaking the law, they are doing things you will hate. So your job is to figure out a process to make sure that when that that you find out about those soon enough before people real damage and that was first time any of it ever most most of them hadnt run really big organizations before and that was the first time some of them thought about that. But the bottom line is it was pretty smooth transition. Obama made it pretty easy and and i told him, i said, its your department of defense. So this department will be staffed by all of your people. And i dont have time the rolodex to go out and hire all your people. So you, me, candidates for all these jobs. And my only criterion is can they the job, will they be competent . Thats all that i care about. But they also need to know that had a say in their hiring because. I might need to fire and which had happened several occasions in the Bush Administration. It wasnt a theoretical proposition and. And so thats what they did. They would send candidates and there were only actually only two or three that i said i didnt think do the job and sort of did thumbs down. So was a pretty smooth transition in terms of personalities. I really didnt have a close personal relationship with either one of them. I like to say i wasnt into mountain, so i lost my bonding opportunity with with bush. I was a foot too short and years too old to play basketball with. But we had a very close professional relationship and there was a lot of kidding around and a lot, you know, it was casual enough that you could joke with each other and everything complained to me. But obama had claimed sometimes when we were just meeting one on one and hed complain about all the problems he was facing and so on. I said, so tell me again why you wanted this job and. I would say that bush was they both were very interested in hearing the views of other people of of hearing contrary of view and taking into account both were patient and and and willing to listen. And i had a lot of i had a lot of debates, a lot of arguments with president obama over a variety things more toward the end of my libya egypt and so on but but they both welcomed it. Interestingly, bush would ask, okay, who wants hoo hoo hoo . Does anybody have anything they want to say . Obama, the other hand, was more like a College Professor and hed go around the room and make everybody talk. You couldnt you couldnt rely on not sticking your hand up to go allow the gays to kind of pass by you and in obamas actuation room everybody was going to get called on to give their i would say that fundamentally bush was more reliant on his gut on his instincts and and obama was more analytical and in took more time to make decisions on that werent urgent. He take a lot of time, unlike bush, who tended make decisions pretty promptly, pretty quickly. Now, if obama needed, to make a quick decision. He was always willing to do it. And for somebody who had never run anything, i was always impressed by his embrace of decision making. He was not shy about making decisions. He was very clear that he relished the opportunity to make. He once told me the reason, one of the reasons he ran for president was that he was so bored in the senate and and and so that his decision making, he could make a decision very fast if he had to and did. But on those situations, there was not a deadline or not an urgent situation. He would a lot of time and a lot meetings and afghanistan was a good example of that thats a very long winded answer to your question, but but so rich and again our audience can see why just sitting back and listening to your descriptions of your service leavened with humor is is not only insightful, informative, but its entertaining. Just a couple of points to raise. One is you all have at your seats a card and a pencil. So feel free to write your questions for of us on the stage and certainly for the secretary. And well collect those and save 10 minutes or so at the end of our hour today. And likewise, if youre watching live online, submit your questions there to. And ill have one other thing to say before turning back to russell, and that is as a Lifelong College basketball fan and of course, being at the university of virginia, the home of, the 1919 Ncaa National champions. So i would think you would have been a great point guard to president obamas shooting guard or small his small forward russell no, i was i was basically going to echo your point is that one of the great advantages having this secretary here with us is you get a sense what its like to be in an oral history interview us that he has repeated some the things that he said in the interview how enjoyable and enlightening it is. And you can imagine if you combine this small portion of an interview with a much more elaborate version of that or interview, and then you add 50 or 60 or 100 others the kind of information and evidence get about a presidency just extraordinarily rich and its available you to look at you can go to our website and secretary gates is in our interviews have been cleared theyre available for you to read you can get the full elaboration on not on president obama yet because wait until the end of a project to make those available. But certainly his commentary on earlier president s, including president bush and i quoted from him briefly and the essay that that i wrote so that that original data is there we make it available then what we do with it. We try to make a first effort through these edited volumes try to put an interpretive gloss on it as scholars. Spencer fine chapter on the iraq intervention, barbara, you want to talk about your judiciary . I do, i do. So i am in addition to i like to think of myself an expert on the presidency. But i know for certain that i am on the Supreme Court. That is an expert on it. I am not on the court, but i think im an expert on it and served a fellowship there in the mid nineties with chief Justice Rehnquist. So i wrote on appointments by president bush to the Supreme Court, and i start with bush v gore a little case that you might have heard about in 2000. And i was enough to because of my contacts at the court, to get a seat at what we thought would be the only oral argument in bush v gore. It turned out there were two of them, you might recall, before the court handed down its final decision. And so i start with that in my chapter in this book, and i start ted olson, who became the solicitor general for bush 43, but was the lead attorney in arguing the present, soon to be president s case, governor bushs lawyer at the Supreme Court. So we had a whole day with him in washington, myself, one of our fellows here, sarah wilson, joined me. She is a lawyer. So we had a wonderful conversation with him. And i quote from him where he says, he comes out into the courtroom. In the courtroom. If youve been to the us Supreme Court is about three times this size. So its like a cathedral, it holds 300 people and ted olson comes out and he sees every important person in washington seated there. I was very close to sitting next to ted kennedy. Men, men and women who come from the congress to. Caroline kennedy was there with her uncle. Nina totenberg, who covers . The court for npr. Of course, all the press were there, and there were people marching around outside for bush, for gore. Al sharpton was there marching around. So ted looks out and he says to us in his oral history, i said to myself, close your eyes, stop and think about this for 30 seconds, because someday people are going to want to hear these. And sure enough, we got hear them. So let me give a pop quiz. Those of you who are here today or if youre watching online or youre watching archive. So in 2005, right before the 4th of july weekend, Sandra Day Oconnor, such a historic woman on the court, the first woman appointed by reagan in 81 she announces in the middle of that summer surprisingly that she is going to retire the court. And the reason though is it was a prize was that chief Justice Rehnquist had been diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer and it was thought that if someone was going to the court that summer, it would be he. But she went in to see and he said, no, i dont intend to leave. And she said, well, i was thinking about leaving year. And he said, well, just in case i next year we cant have two people leave next year. So you better go ahead and leave now. So she did. Anybody know who was appointed to that associate position . John roberts. And you might say, wait a minute, i follow the court. Hes the chief justice. She the chief justice as turned out. He didnt even get to his confirmation hearings for that associate justice position for sandra day seat and chief Justice Rehnquist died over the labor day weekend, 2005. Knowing that as president bush 43 did, and he had a superb for working these things out. He had cheney, karl rove Alberto Gonzales who was white House Counsel at that time his staff secretary, Harriet Miers, they had gotten together in a group before any of this happened to talk about first people they might appoint. They went through the whole first term without an appointment. So they were ready and knew that john roberts was viewed as the top legal mind in his generation. So it was a pretty easy promotion before he even got to be an associate justice to go ahead and put him on the chief justice position. And by the way, thats perfectly doable. You dont have to go being an associate up to being chief. And he sailed through his confirmation hearings. All right. Anybody remember then who came back to the president came back to being the next nominee . Harriet miers. People have forgotten about that. But Harriet Miers, who was staff secretary at the time, a good friend of the president s texas, she worked in law firms there. She was the first woman head of the texas association. She had headed up the commission and cleaned up a lot of corruption in there, a very hotly thought of lawyer in the lone star state. And circling back to something secretary gates said about how bush made decisions. This actually gives you an example of two approaches. And secretary gates said oftentimes he went with his. Well, actually in first nicknaming john robert, he went through the process. So they had this very careful setup of through the committee. They had interviewed john roberts they had interviewed samuel alito. They had interviewed michael luttig, all federal judges, all conservative. And the president followed to get to the chief, john roberts. But he went with his gut for Harriet Miers. A friend of his, also someone he knew in his mind would be conservative enough. Remember, he was a a composite conservative. He thought that she was they had their friendship. He thought they had he thought she was meritorious and he thought that she would be a good Supreme Court justice. You might recall that that didnt work. And so we had the opportunity and i to bring Harriet Miers here to interview her. We went to washington to interview Alberto Gonzales. We interviewed karl rove. We interviewed chief Justice Rehnquist or excuse me, cheney, all the people who had served on that process committee. And as it turned out, the right wing of the president s party did not want Harriet Miers that oconnor seat, because you might remember it was called the swing seat. She a moderate conservative and sometimes voted with liberals, particularly on abortion and affirmative action and sometimes she voted with conservatives and. The right wing of the party had been just waiting, waiting, waiting for her to leave so they could put certain conservative in that role. And they didnt have that faith in Harriet Miers. They thought she might be more like oconnor, and she realized was hurting the president. She also said she wasnt an expert in law and she admitted that. But it would be like a language for the first time and in two or three weeks having to go up to the hill and meet with senators and 1 to 1 meetings and, not be able to speak the language. So she saw she was hurting president and she stepped aside and she says and i quote this in the book, she says, i wanted to step aside, make it okay for the president. I hurt by it. She said, went back into the administration. I went back to being staff secretary. And when the president made Alberto Gonzales, the attorney, she became the white House Counsel. So with such grace, she she solved that problem. The president s people and the president went back to the process and, chose samuel alito and think about that. That series of steps in history, kind of what ifs. What if Harriet Miers had stayed the course . What if she had gotten confirmed . Would we be where we are on issues of abortion or affirmative action if she had ended up being more like Sandra Day Oconnor . And then you get the three trump appointees on top of that. So at the very end, i quote from ed gillespie, who was a political adviser to the president. And when we interviewed him here. He talked that situation and how difficult was for the president and for Harriet Miers. But he said, you know, when we samuel alito to the white house to come meet the president and then be he said there was harriet, as gracious as could be. And he said, you know, it was just it just like harriet and then Alberto Gonzales said, most of the time, the president try to follow a process. And one of the times he didnt and going his gut and choosing Harriet Miers, it didnt work. So with im going to turn back to to russell and say weve got about a minute or so to go. We ask for your questions. Russell, you have in in in your reference in the book, you talk about the three presidencies of george bush. What do you mean by that . Very quickly. Most served during a time of relative constitutional stability. That is a situation where the the distribution of powers and and the equation of powers among the branches relatively stable. And that that kind of constitutional environment tends not to change very much over time. One of the interesting things about George W Bush is there were actually three different sets of constant additional regimes that prevailed during the course of his presidency, the first one being one of kind of constitutional balance. We wed come out of a of a cold war era of, relatively elevated president ial into a postcold war period where congress and the courts and Interest Groups had become somewhat resurgent. And, in fact president bush had been elected not to exercise know sort of soaring president ial leadership basically to be a governor of the country. He was pursuing, importantly, tax cuts, education reform, which were not heavy lifts, really education more so. But because he needed to bring his own party. And so the president bush that we elected. In 2000 was a you know was not supposed to be an extravagant, powerful political figure. And yet after 911, because he becomes war president at that point, you see this extraordinary change in the character of the bush presidency. And it was predictable because this had happened and repeated in americas past, where you had gone from a president , relative constitutional equality to a situation where president had been terrifically empowered because of the commander in chief role and this is what prevails, at least until 2006, 2007, the short version of this is that im puzzling over what happens at the end because there is a signature. Secretary gates referred this earlier with the congressional midterm elections in 2006. What happens . The president loses both chambers of congress at a single midterm. Thats a relatively rare event in american. Its clear its clearly only happened six times and thought times were immediate post war election 1980 1945 at the post cold war election 1994 with the republican revolution. So that history you to wonder whether the American People werent acting in 2006 as though we were in a kind of postwar world. Now you know, we werent we hadnt finished with afghanistan. We hadnt finished with iraq. So how do we explain this . Well maybe the American People thought the war on terror had had gone by the wayside. We you know, the president encouraged people to go back to acting normally. And they had. And so perhaps this is a sign that the American People were supportive of what the president did that felt like he had solved the problem of the war on terror. But theres another you. The other interpretation is, no, he the war on terror. And that we believed that he had not properly exercised this massive authority invested in him and therefore we didnt want him to serve a powerful commander chief anymore. This important hardly has an impact how the country deals with the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 because you dont have as you might otherwise have had, an extraordinarily powerful press agency to ride herd the government response and the economic response to that instead get this sort of odd hybrid version of leadership housed in the Treasury Department hank paulson and with the Federal Reserve with tim geithner and so forth. And so im not telling you that i have this completely resolved. Im just telling you that there is an interesting historical signature in 2006 that indicates that that leadership, regime change and im still trying to pass through exactly why is so i havent solved it yet but you get more of that in the show brokaw. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Well, thank you for submitting your questions mr. Secretary. You wont be surprised to know theyre all for you. Russell and i are not offended, because people can see us any time. But we want to start with this one. And it is a withdrawal from afghanistan was always going to be a difficult task. Can you, sir, offer your views, the planning for the withdrawal that went on. You see it up to 2021 and the withdrawal under biden administration. Well, my perception from the outside is that there really wasnt any planning. It seems to me that once President Trump cut the deal with the taliban that the defense and state departments overseen by the nsc at that point should have begun reaching out to afghans who had worked for us and with us who who would be at risk in under the taliban and not necessarily beginning an evacuation at that point. But but getting contact information. How do we get to you and also planning, how would we conduct an evacuation and how do we get these people out of the. And and the of having one airfield outside of kabul where people from all afghanistan would have to find way to kabul with documents and proving theyd for the americans. But having to go through taliban checkpoints to get to kabul. So there should have been planning for multiple evacuation points, whether included kandahar, herat, mazar e sharif. But four or five places get to those places and we will get you out of the country and and having a means contacting these people and and then beginning that that process. Now, president ghani was. Any evacuation he thought that would make his government look weak. And so on but it seems to me we had an obligation to these people could have could have done a much better job of of our contacts with them. Also, i would say strategically i was with those who believe we should have kept four or 5000 troops there because then they the our nato allies also had five or 6000 troops there. And so was 11 to 13000 troops. And the important thing they did in at that point was protect the contractors were supporting the afghan army, getting them food, getting them ammunition, providing for transportation, the logistics the whole the reason the Afghan Army Collapsed in no small part was because they were abandoned when all of the contractors left and or were leaving and so we could have sustained that position i think some period of time rather, biden said, well, the taliban, there had already been an agreement. He couldnt the agreement that trump had signed, but he did. It changed the agreement because trump had said, were going to go out. The agreement was will go out in may of 2021. And in fact, did change that to august or to august. So and and that was in the middle of the fighting season as well. They could have waited until winter when things had calmed down a little better. There was less active conflict. So i think there were a number of areas where we could have done significantly better planning in of that whole tragedy. Thank you. You always seem very well rested, sir, to me. But theres a question here says what International Issues keep you up at night and . What, if anything, gives you hope . Well, you know, i, i, i, i started working at the nsc and, and as an nsc staff member in the Nixon Administration worked through the ford administration, ended up going back for three years under the Carter Administration and was deputy National Security adviser under bush, was director Central Intelligence under Deputy Director under president reagan, director under sac first president bush. So by the time i became secretary of defense, id kind of had my fill of being kept up at night and and to tell you the truth, i got to ask i got asked this question by a young soldier in afghanistan and he asked me what what keeps up at night. And at that point in, my life, i looked straight at him and i said, you do . And what happens to you . What keeps me up at night . But im happy to say no. Ive ive been out for itll be a dozen years this july. Theres not much that keeps me up at night, just in our off the record conversation when we try to do most recently we did talk about our mutual concern about deer in our yards, our azaleas and you me. Some very good advice about about anti deer tape on the just offering that todays practical tips is spring comes spring comes on us but. One thing that as academics would have probably kept us up at night have been to have to be the president a Major State University as you of texas a m. And so id like to point out that in in that resume that very modestly the secretary just named for also put in the presidency of texas a m where he also highly successful and very which is almost an oxymoron on among faculty is to have a Popular University president but he managed as well. So i just that in this time of fraught politics, in this time of division in in in politics and weve it at other times in our country, but more aware of it, i think now, particularly because of media to have the kind of model that is exemplified in an exemplary fashion by secretary. Lets give him a big round of applause. So we thank you for service to our country and thank you for continuing that service by continuing to meet with us. These oral histories we also want to thank christine cristina lopez, guitar de chao in the back here, who is the head of our programs here. Shes also a professor of latin american studies and a political as russell and im bill are and she and her team make this and then youve seen khan a very here doing sound and we have his colleagues and dan up in the crows nest with all of the the work goes into this always led mike and our comms team led by howard so lets have a round of applause them so. Russell and i if you will let us exit, well go out and be prepared, sign your books. And ill also ask spencer bakaj if he will join us. Spencer, as we said, worked with us and gates on the most recent oral history. Spencer is a full professor at the Virginia Military institute, specialized in defense policy, National Security. Hes head of their National Security institute there and center. And so if you have questions for him about, 911 and the wars in afghanistan and iraq hes your hes your man. So thank you all. And we hope to speak to you after our session today. Thanks