Transcripts For CSPAN3 White House Press Secretaries 20141220

Brief. I thought we would start the way we usually end these things. By saying thank you. This is the week we recognize the service of people who served our country in uniform and all of you served in public service. I will start by saying thank you. I remember every day of the oil spill was brutal. Spillmber during the oil poppedn Rolling Stone to their story about stanley mcchrystal, got a call about a fourstar general back from afghanistan and i remember walking to the residents and called the president. I said i think you need to read this story. I walked over and he met me downstairs and he read the first two paragraphs and we had a quick conversation and he said whos ever left, lets meet in the oval office. You had these events area i remember the shooting at fort hood, what awful day that was. A decent part of the evening, weise we probably spent hours in the oval office with bob gates and admiral mullen and bob mueller from the head of the fbi and the president talking some of the stuff they had already learned in the investigation. A thursdaythat was because i remember i am walking out of the oval office and i saw Larry Summers waiting and he is walking in and all of a sudden, i remember tomorrow is the employment report. The White House Economic Team gets the employment report it comes at 8 30 a. M. In the morning. Larry was going in to talk to the president about the report. I see him and he just goes it was the first time that unemployment surpassed 10 since ronald reagan. Have are moments when you all this stuff or something collides. Wasmost powerful moment late october in 2009 in the midst of the afghanistan review. Exploded on at truck carrying a bunch of our soldiers. There were 18 dead. The president had lifted the ban on press coverage of the transfer process at dover. We knew at some point we go to dover. This was a good time to go to dover. We left the white house about 1245 at night on accompanied by a helicopter, it was about a 45 minute ride to dover and the helicopter came down and they had given us the tale number of the giant plane that all the transfer cases in them. I remember we put the helicopter down and i looked out the window and the first tale of this giant plane and its that one. I can remember coming off the helicopter and seeing in these neat little rose, 18 transfer cases with the flag. The process is a remarkable ceremony. We were sort of their there for about four hours. The president went out with the honor guard. They get one of the transfer pieces. They bring it off. Its a whole ceremony. I will never forget we got on the helicopter and we flew back to the white house and we landed the little after 4 00 in the morning. And i remember the next morning, a great friend of mine, david axelrod, said what did you guys talk about on the way home . What did he said . What did he say . And i said, nobody said a word on the way home. Which is got on the helicopter and we were in the midst of the afghanistan review. Your walking the president go to you are watching the president to through this is very dignified transfer anyone knowing that he is sitting there thinking that i am look to make a decision where somebody is going to come back like that i am going to make your decision were some use going to come back like that. We had to describe the next day its the next day so i never had to brief on it but i remember thinking there are those moments where you begin to feel a little bit of what they are going through. And in a real sort of way that you just feel that you can understand for a brief moment what ways on their shoulders weighs on their shoulders. Switching gears, did you ever lie . [laughter] are you talking to me . [laughter] you. Did it yes. Did any of you lie . I think that i never really lied. And i am not lying now. [laughter] one of the promises i made when i took the job was that i would never lie or coverup. And i did not. I kept that promise. I think that sometimes i boarded the worded things to make them less true . [laughter] less damaging, lets say. Did you ever walk up to the line . Sure. Dont forget this. Let me back up a step. Ford succeeded Richard Nixon and he had done great damage to the presidency by watergate and how we handled watergate. And i think this made all the people in the form administration determined to go on a completely different direction. Plus the fact that i came out of the press. And a new that there was always a suspicion that the press secretary was not being completely honest with us and so forth. And, just to tell you, i am not making this up, just to show you how i was determined to be completely different than the nixon white house, nixons press secretary was named ron sigler. Ziegler. And one of the things that i said why was first appointed fords press secretary was, i am a ron but not a sigler. Ziegler. Given the fact that ford had succeeded nixon and the way the nixon demonstration and the fact that i came out of the press and the fact that ford in his whole political had built a reputation for honesty and so forth. So we may have delayed putting out some stories, as i say i may have described them in the best possible terms without lying, but i never did lie and that was a real promise to myself to the press corps and to the press corps. You cannot lie in that job. It it is career ending. If you ever got caught knowingly misleading the press, the consequences of that would be the rupture in that relationship of fragile trust that exists anyhow and you would not be useful to the president. I got in trouble one time, helen thomas asked me that question and i said, no, i have never lied, but i certainly learned how to tell the truth slowly. [laughter] there are times what i was thinking when i answered that question was, were up in Marthas Vineyard after this is our thing in which the president had to go on National Television talking about things that we are all familiar with. The very next day were going off on a happy Family Vacation to Marthas Vineyard and i knew that we were going to be going back to the white house because we were getting ready to launch a Cruise Missile strike against Osama Bin Laden drug addiction at a little powwow he was having. To try to catch him at a powwow he was having. And i remember being at the schoolhouse at Marthas Vineyard. Robert has probably been there. The reporters, they want to go to the beach, so the hang around saying, what are we going to get to live . When are you going to wrap things up . Tell them what the lid is. No more news for the rest of the day so you are free and clear unless some emergency happens. It is our signal to them that we will not get more news during the day. Put out more news during the day. And what are you going to say . Was it a lie to say, no lid right now, im a second see if anything is happening. Where going to war in an hour and a half, would you like to stick around . [laughter] there are techniques that you have to use them sometimes they border on a thing called spin which is that you are trying to take your best interpretation and offer it up. But i think if you knowingly mislead the American People and their representatives the press corps you are toast. And that is a good thing. You were a part of the group of nine in your administration. How did you handle that . Did you say, dont tell me anything that i cant tell, or how did you handle that . First of all, i was fortunate to become press secretary to both reagan and bush under circumstances were i knew them, i had worked with him before in lesser jobs. In both cases i want to them and said i want to be in all meetings, including all National Security council meetings. And a president bush, who had been the director of the cia, said that is not the way we work. We have a compartmentalization, classified information, and we determine who needs to know. And i said, my view is that i need to know everything you know. And he said, lets see how it works. The last thing i said to him was, if either gold classified of identified classified Information Fire me. I am out. , i am out that day, 5 00 that night i am gone. He said ok. With that deal at the beginning, i would go to all of these meetings and often the pentagon were called back and say why is fitzwater here . Unfortunately president bush, and fortunately the second time this happened, he started a meeting and i was a half a second late and he said, lets all wait for marlon until he gets here. [laughter] there was never a question again about why it was supposed to be there. Why not . But in my own mind i had to worry about that every time and what i would do first of all is make a judgment on my own in front of decide if im really confident this is not classified. I would go to the National Security adviser and say, is his classified . Is this classified . Am i getting in trouble here . And he would say, this is a better way to say it or this is more nuanced. It saves me so many times from saying something saved me so many times from saying something that i should not have said to have a process. And have it in mind. Mike makes an interesting point that if the press secretary lies, he loses credibility, and why we have to be so careful about that. I have to the quick examples, one was larry, who was asked if larry speaks who was asked if we were going to invade or not a grenada. It went to the security advisor and he said, that is preposterous, absolutely not. Larry did not know. He went back to the press and said that was preposterous. The next morning we did. And the press never treated him well again. Similarly, jody powell with president carter. He knew what was going on, he he was very close to president carter, he was a part of the considerations on the attempt to rescue he was close to president carter, he was part of the considerations of the attempt to rescue the hostages in iran. The president wouldve word of in which women said, is this happening . Jody had not thought about it, would like to when this question happens. What do i do when this question happens. The same thing i would have hethe same thing i would have in his own mind said said, i think i would have, that the most important thing is the mission and protecting the lives of our troops and i am not going to admit this matter what. What jody did was he had not thought through and he said no, this is not happening, and of course it did. He had troubles from then on. And he was a good press secretary, a really good one, but it just happened. You kind of live in fear of that all the time. In no we have all come close. I know we all come close. At the beginning of the administration it will sound preposterous, but dont evening knowledge forget drone strikes, not even acknowledge theres a program that does this. You are new when you are freaked out about saying something, ok. On the third day that i was briefing someone asked about a drone strike. Do i have any information on that. I am not going to get in to it is on the front page of the new york times. Someone is reported that we killed six people may drone strike and yet the press secretary of the president of the United States is not capable of knowledge and a program in which that even exists. Acknowledging a program in which that even exists. I did not say anything that i wish i would have because you cannot have somebody standing up there saying Something Like that while they are reading the new york times. It is preposterous. I have an example like marlons. During the afghanistan review, we had 12 or 13 three our three our situation room meetings to go through the process. After the first meeting, ron came into my office and said, brought rahm emanuel commits my office and said the pentagon does not want you in those meetings. They do not want a political guy at meetings. Ever been to the pentagon . [laughter] i reached over my desk and picked up my id because the great thing about being present here is the secret service guys know you when you do not in your id and i said take this into me how it all works out. And he said what do you mean and i said if those guys think i am in there to give them political advice about afghanistan, then the idea that they do not know the president , that is the biggest understatement of the world. I said, if you think the president is going to going to weigh three ho go into a three hour meeting we are going to repeat a dozen times and im going to the walking up to someone who sat in that meeting and say, im about to go believe, the president go believe, the president has been in these meetings, can you give me the rundown so i can answer 30 minutes of questions about afghanistan . It is crazy. If someone is willing to sign up for that, be my guest. Are you serious . You would have quit . I absolutely would have because like marlin, you have way more information than you can ever say. And particularly at a time look, i am sure there was done and is now a citizen the office where you have to lock up classified documents, you want to record when the suit gets opened, record with the circuits closed. When the safe gets closed. When you have somebody that is not in that and cannot watch it and understand what you are supposed to steer around, then the whole job becomes moot. Because if i am not in that and again, it is not plenty of reporters look at those briefings and say you did not say a lot about those 12 three our meetings hour meetings but you get a sense of the interplay and the issues they are talking about and you could bring some of the out to do it, a general or something we just as complicated to do, but if youre not in there listening to that discussion in those 30 hours were the meetings, i said one thing. It was the second to last after the decision was made and the president said, how do we announced this . And i said, were doing a primetime speech at west point, sir. That is all i said and called meetings. But that was not to say anything, my job was to take a lot of notes my job was not to say anything, my job was to take a lot of notes and inform reporters. If you cant do that, then a briefing would not matter, the press secretary would not matter. You would not have any capability. Two important things here. And what these folks to get their chance to read i want these folks to get their chance. It is not what you know that its when trouble, it is what people forget to tell you that gets you in trouble. Marlin, and his vote, says it is about having a process to verify that you know what you need to know that is critical to the job. The second thing is that the president has to protect that role of the press secretary to be there and know what is going on and to take it all in. I had the same experience. President clinton would stop meetings and say, get michael in may because the press michael in here because the press will be on him and i want them to know. He would make the Company Meeting someone would actually see what the conversation was about. Make me come to the meeting so i would actually see what the conversation was about. To do want to follow up on that. We are going to ask questions, the two mics on either side for the purpose, so have at it. One ford asked me to take this job, when ford asked me to take this job, he made it clear i could sit in on any meeting. Sometimes kissinger was not too bad happy about that but other than that i could sit in on any meeting because you do have to go to another member of the white house staff and say, i have been asked a question, how can i answer that, they are going to spin you for their own purposes. They are going to give you an answer that helps to achieve whatever they are trying to achieve, not to be truthful with the press. You consider any meeting you want to 40 said that you can sit in on any meeting you want to when he kept that promise. Just another more of a problem but kissinger was more of a problem but that is one of the most important things that you can do to make sure youre getting the facts to pass on to the press. If you have to call the stop and say i have been asked a question, they will give you an answer that helps them with whatever the issue is. So that is why i think the press secretary really needs to have a meeting daily with the president. I expect we asked these questions, what do you think i ought to say about that you bring in a list, i expect to be asked these questions, what do you think i should say about that . The meetings, that is so important. The prosecutor can always come into my office area that is press secretary can always come into my office. But it great if you know what you want to ask the president. A bunch of times it is watching the process play out in the meeting, whether in the situation room or the oval office, they make the decisions. Sometimes you are just sitting there and watching. It helps you get more educated about an issue. There are a bunch of things that we want to talk about because one of the questions i have is did you all play favorites . You were my favorite. [laughter] [applause] well, i should have been. There was a rumor that one of your predecessors called on women based on what color their jacket was. Is that true . I dont think so. [laughter] when i was press secretary, we played favorites only to certain news organizations that we thought would put a bigger display on a story to try and get more exposure over time. Exposure or liking you, liking your side . Know, just to get the story out there. Usa today, will give you an exclusive dual put it on the front page. Usa today, we will give you an exclusive if you will put it on the front page area of when i was press secretary, there was only one woman in the press corps, helen thomas area you desperately want to tell helen thomas stories. [laughter] i was standing at the podium and you see this wideangle shot of all of the reporters. In the Briefing Room, people sat on the floor and window boxes and so forth there were no chairs and the reason room, people sat on the floor and window boxes and so forth. I made my announcements and said, does anyone have any questions, or at what a known something the president has done, and how when her hand and say, ron, do you agree with him on that . And my answer was always the same. Who gives a damn . [laughter] i am here to announce what the president is doing and saying. I am jim. I am jim. You guys have said that you do not lie in one of you said you cannot mislead, and yet i think that the American People feel often that they have been lied to. I recently read an article that try to analyze why conspiracy theories are so widely believed in america, such as the Conspiracy Theory about 9 11, but it was an inside job or the Bush Administration did it. That it was an inside job or the Bush Administration did it. Pointed out that often times people have been lied to whether it was about what we did in guatemala or the cia giving people lsd or more recently the nsa stuff. So i am wondering, does the emperor have any clothes . You folks are in charge of some of his lying that the American People feel we have endured. You are wrong. That is not true. Would not go and lie. Sometimes, you are right, there are things that the government has done that nobody who is speaking for the president knows about. There are things that the government has done that the president did not know about. But i am telling you, if there are things going on like that better criminal or wrong or against our constitution, i am pretty confident that the people on the stage would have alerted the American People. It was decades before we learned some of these things. That is true. Sometimes it takes a long time. Question is for ron. What was the hardest thing about transitioning from being a journalist to be a press secretary . Did you talk about the differences between being a member of the press and being on the inside can you talk about the differences between being a member of the press and being on the inside . As a practical matter, and house car would pick me up at some aquatic and the morning a white house car would pick me up at 7 00 in the morning. You had a white house car . [laughter] when did that happen . Yeah. He cut a better deal than we did. I would leave the home at 7 00, get to the white house at 8 00, you to breakfast there, Start Talking to my staff about what are we going to talk about today, and i would have a meeting with the president at 10 00 and my briefing would be at 11 00. In the afternoon, reporters would wander in and out of my office with their own questions and there were meetings that i attended and so forth and i would usually get home at night around 8 00. I had a very young son then and he would be asleep by the time i got home. Been asleep when i left in the would be asleep. I would wake him up and play with him, because that was the only time i would get to see him. But is a long day. That is a long day, but that was the way it worked. Robert, you had kids . About the car. [laughter] Everyone Wants to about the car. One of the big differences was televised briefings. Marlin rarely had televised briefings. Mike, what is up with that . What made you make a decision and do you regret it . I had done televised briefings with the state department, which goes back to the irancontra iran hostage crisis. It seemed weird to me, they had this thing that dated back to marlins time or they would turn the cameras own for the first two or three minutes and then turn the lights off and was disconcerting. And two people came in, it was not about television, it was about radio. Two of the finest reporters were radio reporters and they said we are at a disadvantage because our colleagues can use all the material they get from the briefing but we do not get raw material that we need for our broadcast. We have to go on the hour report from the white house and we need sound. It needs to be available for electronic broadcast. We will experiment. Lengthening the amount of time we kept that the briefing was available. We kept lengthening the amount of time briefing was available. Finally, mark miller came in. Did you know the entire briefing was televised last friday . I said, yeah, and if you make a big deal, it will never happen again. It worked fine for three years and then we got into the excavated with Monica Lewinsky we got into the escapades with Monica Lewinsky and i became a daytime soap opera escapades with Monica Lewinsky and i became a daytime soap opera. How did you get away with never answering questions about that . Cnn was the only all caps on all cable channel and they were not interested in putting the briefing on. Occasionally they were like Oklahoma City. But the Daily Briefing was the raw ingredients of news reporting. We were out there giving our point of view, getting questions, answering questions, giving our take on the issues. The reporters did not think of it is in news event, just a part of what came into reporting on the news. What happened is because of the monica stuff it became its own separate, Theatrical Event and everyone has suffered since then. It was a stupid thing for me to allow live coverage. I shouldve said, you can record it, you can use it in your later broadcast, but nothing lives unless i grant permission. Which is what happens in the state department, where they call a filing break and the spokesperson is to grant permission. You were totally against it, as i recall. I want to rise to mikes defense, on the other side of the issue. I am not sure if it was good or bad about sense but i do know this. Mike was the perfect guy to do it first. He was handsome, he was young, he was articulate, he knew the government. [laughter] and, most importantly, every time at a time with a scandal or whatever it was definitely it was a scandal. I am pretty sure of that. When the white house was having difficulties, mike was a stable thing during that period. I used to watch him and i would say, i do not know if anyone behind the scenes, what they are doing or if they are going to meetings when they shouldnt or not going or whatever, but mike is there everyday and doing the best he can. Government is still operating, it is not easy, impeachment is no fun for anybody, but we are moving ahead. And so i think that the Television Presence paid off in that instance. Since then we have not had the same kind of situation, although they are not willing to dismiss it entirely because i think there are some circumstances in which the Television Presence is important. But it makes it a different ballgame, different for the reporters. It was the end of a lot of the print journalism power and influence in washington. We could examine all of that at great length. Ok to was a complicated thing. It was a complicated thing. Sir, then this gentleman. Thank you very much. We would love to have you join thank you very much. We would love to have you join us with the young founder society. My question is about something you have not talked about. You have been talking about the transmit mode, what peasant what messages you are putting out. As internal advisors to the president about what the impact of the press will be on decision making. I am wondering if you could add insight into when you have to tell the policy shop, we are not doing that. That is a dumb idea. The press is not going to like it. What are some of those time where as a president ial advisor, you steered policy . Who would you like to hear from . I think for the panel. Who wants to take that . Who feels most compelled. I build off of what marlin said. Both for the briefing, whether it is televised or not, the briefing does shake government into giving an answer. Even when they might not want to. And you know every day i did not have breakfast at 8 15 at the white house. We were at a 7 30 meeting. Im kidding. When we went into that meeting, there were 10 of us in the chief of staffs office and i was always the last one to go because they knew i had a bunch of stuff. You knew, you had a pretty good sense at 7 30 in the morning what youre briefing was going to be like, what your day was going to be like. You start the process there is making sure people understand we read this in the newspaper today and we are going to have to Say Something on it. We do not get to not Say Something on it because we are going out there. And i literally have been in meetings where people have said, we do not have a policy problem. We have a communications problem. Ok, tell me what is. Say and i will fix your policy problem or you know youre going to Say Something and i cannot remember how many times somebody would say, it would be good if you do not get asked that question. [laughter] i agree, but to be clear, you are not getting asked that question. I am getting asked that question. On more than a few occasions, youd sit through a meeting and nobody would come to a resolution. You would say, guys, theyve advised my briefing for 1 30. We can do this one of two ways. Either somebody can stick around here, and you guys can figure out what we are going to say, or tune in around 1 30 and ill tell you what the policy is. Remarkable how quickly operation started working when they realized, you know, the one thing the briefing really does is it forces you to have to go out there and talk about things even if you do not want to talk about them, even if they are classified and hard to talk about. But we have a government that everyday has to answer those questions. And it makes the machinery of government work better because those answers are forced. Even it takes sometimes a press secretary saying, i remember doing a lot, and i remember sometimes they would want to id say, we are not saying that. That is crazy. You cant do that. And you would be 15 or 30 minutes late because he would walk back in and say, i know you do not want to answer this question, but that is not what we are going to say. It helps the machinery sometimes when mike would go out there, when any of us would go out there. The other guys, they do not have to go out there. They tune in. I wonder how mikes going to do with them. And it helps move that machinery in a way that you say, ok, it only works if we were together and we give an answer thats good and informed. He makes a very good point about part of being the job being press secretary. Most of the job is to represent the president and the white house to the press. But the other part of your job is, as he explained, is represent the press to the white house and the president. And having come out of the press, i felt that particularly. Sir . Hi. Im adam armstrong. I was just curious, you guys have had very exclusive access to the president. Now that you guys are outside of the white house and you guys are reading newspaper clippings, is there, what do you thin kthe media can be doing to be doing a better job to help serve the general public . Next question. Im sorry. [laughter] sure, why not . Go ahead. Well, you know, i think journalism has changed. Since i was a journalist or since i doubt with journalists. And i went back to journalism after i left the white house, but i think what has happened is, you know, when you only had the huntley brickley show on nbc and cronkite on cbs and morning newspapers. They all had a 6 30 p. M. Deadline. If you covered the White House Briefing and it was over by noon or Something Like that, you had the whole rest of the afternoon to call up other sources, do research, to go to the files and so forth. Well, with the internet and cable television, you do not have that. There is a deadline every minute. I think that has really changed reporting, and the content and depth of reporting. I think the other thing that has changed it, when i was at upi, we had two fulltime reporters at the pentagon, two at the state department, five on the senate, five on the house side. We even had fulltime reporters at the commerce department, agriculture, justice. You state on your beat for a long time. You learned all the issues, became expert, had all these contacts. So you could really report indepth. As you know, newspapers are really in a dive. And everybody is a generalist these days. You dont get that depth to the reporting that you got when you had experts. As a result, a lot of the reporting does not focus on the substance of the issues, but look at the last election. What was the last election about . Not the 12 weeks ago. But i mean that last president ial election. Gaffes. That is what reporters do because they do not have a lot of expertise these days indepth on issues. Let me ask robert. You are the first, the first social media administration. Im curious. Sir, we have not forgotten you. Im interested in how you feel this has changed your work. It changes that a lot. As ron said, the whole thing is sped up in a way that is everybody works for everybody is a wire reporter because your stories do not come out in a newspaper that you get at 6 00 in the morning or you might get at the back of the printing place at 5 00. Its all instantaneous. Its sped up things remarkably, both in good ways and bad. I think, i remember i joined twitter, and i joined it mostly you realize it is in the i was watching a president ial press conference. I hated to do president ial press conferences in the Briefing Room most because it sort of felt like, thats sort of where reporters of the press secretary did battle. And it was battle. And i thought, do not bring the president in there. The president go into the east room or something. I must have lost the battle. We did a press conference in the Briefing Room. Im sitting on this row of chairs on the side. And a deputy of mine is on twitter. And were, im like, whats that . Hes got an ipad. As the president is giving his answers, all these reporters are tweeting, that is a bad answer. I do not think he is saying this. Im think to myself, i am watching the human bubble box, the voice box. And i thought, this is ingenious. Now i know exactly where everybody is heading every minute of the day because they are tweeting it all out. But digital can indications having the weekly radio address be the weekly tv and radio address. It has sped things up and knocked out barriers in the sense that you can communicate the way you could not before. Some argue this administration has put up more barriers than any of the preceding except for my second administration. Im not there every day. Every white house tries desperately to control the message that comes out every day. And that is not going to change any time soon, unless there is the advent of state run media, which also is not going to happen anytime soon. I think you have got in some ways a duty to communicate directly with the people. And i think there is a huge challenge. For instance, 1980, right . When marlin was that administration, 50 Million People in a country of about 270 Million People watched one of the three evening newscasts. 50 Million People. You walk into the east room. You do your vett. 310 million today and a little more than 20 million. There is more information more readily available than at any moment in our nations history. Im not clear on what thi shas to do with my question. The argument is that the Obama Administration has put up more barriers, made more of an effort to control pool reports, things like sprays. I think that what im saying is that i think because the media has become so segmented that you now are speaking in a way that the president puts up a youtube video. That reaches 10 Million People like 10 Million People would watch newscasts. In pool reports, somebody came to me pretty early in the administration. And said, we are going to redo the pool. The only people that are going to get reports are people that pay. Good luck. What do you mean . I said, let me if you a piece of advice. Get an email program to send out your reports. I was sent to the white house or reporters association, i think it is madness the white house sends out pool reports. Buy an email program and the whole system is solved. Youd decide whether or not you have to pay to be part of the pool. There is no discussion about somebody augmenting the pool report before you say what you want to say in it. Im just saying that it is remarkable in that White House Briefing room, mike and all these guys know this, you go into that Briefing Room, the first person that gives you the question, you do not leave that room until somebody in the press corps says thank you. When that lead reporter says thank you, that is the signal to the press secretary that it could lead they have reached the end of what must people would consider useful briefing. Sometimes it is 30 minutes, sometimes an hour and 15 minutes. It is the only room and the white house that is not controlled by the white house. Reporters control that room. They control in large measure the rules of some of that briefing. I just cannot think that if you are just reading pool reports, i would not depend on the white house to distribute those. This thing about pool reports as one of the most shocking things. As a former White House Correspondent and press secretary, this is supposed to be five or six reporters who represent the whole press corps because they all cannot get into an event. So these five or six, they go, they write out what they see and hear and they give it to the other reporters. Now, what role does the white house have in that . Now they have taken it over and they are editing the pool reports. The next thing you know they will go to the Washington Post and edit the post. This is a shocking development. Im not making this appeared i have a tremendous this has had a huge impact on me. In fairness to the white house, i do not remember this issue coming up a lot was there, but in fairness to the white house, it is my understanding that reports are not unilaterally edited by somebody at the white house. But there is a discussion with the reporter about changing i am not suggesting it is right or wrong. I do not ever remember being at the white house and somebody telling me what to put in a pool report ever. I dont remember that. I think the whole thing is solved by the correspondence having their own email system. These are the folks who want to talk about the suggestion about what the media could do. Id make two. One is stop covering the white house as a political beat. The reports cover it as a political story. Is the president up or down . Polls up or down . Give us more substance. We can handle more substance. The second thing was recognize how hard it is for information to get out there to the public. Sometimes News Reporters believe, i wrote that story. It is not news anymore. It is the repetition and finding ways to bring important things back into focus that we tried so hard to do. And sometimes we used techniques to try to control that to the advantage of the white house. But it is done with the hope that in this cacophony that is out there, something might break through. I think the press can do a better job of helping on that. Sir, we have three more folks and have been patiently waiting. Im hoping we can get all of their questions. Hi. Thank you so much for being here. You mentioned that the role of the briefing is to shake the truth out of the government. Hold it accountable. Im wondering if you worry that the revolving door between press secretaries and private news entities is somewhat undermining that, and people are throwing up softball questions hoping to get a job afterwards. You have jay carney, tony snow, George Stephanopoulos all going or coming from the private sector, news organizations. After their press secretary gig. I wonder if that undermines things. Thanks. Do you think any of those people got unnecessary softball questions . I dont know. Is the press corps in general maybe that is not a question for you but for the press corps. Do you think the press corps in general is more, i guess, soft on press secretaries . I wish they had been. I would say watch the briefing tomorrow. And i guarantee you that you will not come away with the impression that somehow josh has been unnecessarily given a huge number of software questions. They will not break tomorrow because the president is in asia, but when he comes back. When he comes back and it is maybe the week where the president might do something and immigration, and you do not have to listen long listen to the first five questions. I do not think anybody there are days in which i would have loved to have picked that person who is somehow going to give me the great softball. Did jay carneys previous work in Time Magazine as a journalist get undermined as soon as he takes a political partisan job in the white house as a press secretary . No, because the content and reporting stands on its own. If he makes a career adjustment and goes and does that, it is very hard to go back the other direction now. Going from being a political person back into the media world is strenuous as George Stephanopoulos would say. As my old boss tim russert would say if he were still here. I do not think it compromises their prior work as journalists. Their subsequent work has to stand in its own. That is my take on it. You get to watch these people and you get to decide whether you think they are doing a good job for you. And the feedback on that is constant, believe me when i say. Sir . Thank you. Hi. Im a student at American University in washington, d. C. I wanted to know you guys have had unprecedented access to so many president s, such a wide range of president s, if there was any one moment that was very memorable something they said or did that show their character and that you will remember for a long time if you can share with us. Ron . Well, i guess i have already told my two moments. One was announcing the end of the vietnam war and the other was announcing betty fords breast cancer. Is there a moment that we did not see . We think we see so much but actually we see very little. Thats a fair statement. You told this story in 41 on 41. When you saw the house at kennebunkport. I dont know how you feel about that. Two quick stories. One was president bush called me to the oval office and he said i hear the press asking you questions about what am i going to have a meeting with gorbachev. And he said, this was early in the administration. And the press was getting their normal cantankerous selves and saying things like, you are supposed to be the foreignpolicy president. You have let six months go by and you have not met with gorbachev. What is going on . And he said, so i want you to know this im going to meet with gorbachev in december. Which was four months away. He and i have agreed by telephone. But he does not want anyone to know right now because he has got hardliners pressing him in russia that he is getting too close to america and they do not like it. I had better can you keep that a secret . And president bush says, we will try. And gorbachev says america keeps no secrets. Ill know about this in days. So bush said to me, i want you know because only jim baker and the secretary of state know about this. Now you are the third one. If it leaks, youre fired. But he said, i also want you to know i listen to your briefings. I want you to know that you need to come up with language that does not deny this is going to happen. Because sooner or later they are going to find out it has been arranged. And that was a great moment for me because it said that the president is sensitive to my problems in the problems of information. The other story is when his house burned down, not burn down when the perfect storm hit new england. It leveled their house, wiped everything out to the ocean. And we went up there the second or third day after it happened. I do not know exactly how many days, but but it was so sad. And the press was with us, but they werent with him in the house. They stayed back out of the way. And basically it was so shocking for him to just walk to the house and everything was gone, although mentos, all the pictures. He found one little picture of his father in the yard. What do i do with this . Our photographer said, let me have it. I will try and save it. That was it. And we were all in tears. And he started beating this rug. We thought he is going into shock. And he looked at andy card and myself and said, will you help me . We all started beating this rug. And there was no purpose to it other than that we were three people caught up, especially the president , in his horrible emotional loss which we see often in hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and stuff across america. But there was really no way for me to explain that to the press. And at the end i said, can i bring the press in . He said, i do not want to be here and he left and went and got in the got in a shack or somewhere there. I brought the press over. They walked through the remains of the house and got no emotion. Said, ok. Almost no story and walked away. I mean, that was really, thats tough for a press secretary or president to have to go through those kinds of emotional things. I dont know if that thats relevant to what you are trying to find out, but im just saying those kinds of things happen. Mike, did you want to add to this . I mean, what i recall actually was a moment that was really important in the Clinton Presidency where i was absent. And it was not long after i had started my in the white house. The Federal Building in Oklahoma City had been destroyed in what turned out to be domestic terrorism. And it happened. We had done all these briefings, all the stuff that the president president clinton went to Oklahoma City to participate in the memorial service. I did not go because it happened that my third child was about to be born. And my wife was here. That was probably a wise idea for me to stay. But i remember watching. I remember we were in the delivery room and our doctor came in and looked at me, and said, are you interested in the fact your boss is having a press conference . I was, but i decided i should probably stay where my appointed duties required me to be. But i remember everyone commenting on it. This was a very Pivotal Moment for clinton because he had been, he had suffered a lot of political losses in the midterms. The request is about, are you still relevant because the republicans and Newt Gingrich had taken over the congress . In that process the president often has to do healing and helping a country go through moments of trauma. He had done a good job at that. I had watched it like every other american watched it. Watched it on television. He called. He called to congratulate us on the birth of our son. But i remember just how absolutely tickled he was that he had been able to use the presidency to do something really important to help the people in Oklahoma City. To help himself. He understood he is done a great job. That there are those moments when they get to with lights off and cameras off, they get to stop and assess what it is all about. I think those are rare. And you get real insight into what kind of person they are. Sir, you are the final question for the evening. Many of the time i have been cut off. My name is jim burn. I have covered this time for 50 years. I was at the briefing a year ago last month when the committee for the protection of journalists issued a damning report on the administrations behavior with regard to the press. And some of the top reporters in town were quoted. In my opinion, the worst thing he did in the point of view of the press, he promised to veto the Defense Authorization act for fiscal 2013, which has that section and it permitting our government to arrest any of us, anywhere in the United States on suspicion of treason or whatever. And he signed it. And it went to the Supreme Court had this up in court refused to hear it. In any case, im wondering, you must have read that report. And then the Defense Authorization act of fiscal 2013. My god. He said he was going to be to it. He did not. I do not know what youre referring to. I was out of government at that point. I did not see that report or mention that provision. One of the things that i am reminded of a story of we were, its probably early in the administration. There were soldier abuse photos that we had to make a decision on. And our first decision was to release those photos of i think it was iraq and afghanistan. And i remember about a few days after the president made the decision that it was a good thing to release those photos, bob gates came over to the white house. And i sat in on the meeting. And he engaged and talked about it and made what i think what i think was everybody believed was a very persuasive case on not releasing those photos. And why that would put people in dangers and put soldiers in danger and have the reaction of people even not directed at those in the photos but just overall. And we talked a little bit about how sort of knowing too much information. I did in that meeting. And we walked out of that meeting and the president had decided, told secretary gates well reverse the decision. We will not release the photos. And i do not know if it was that day or a day later, literally the last question i got in the briefing i was half off the podium walking away. And it had even we said we would release the photos but they had not been released. And somebody called out, when are the photos going to be released . I knew i was not far enough to pretend i did not hear it. I remember sitting to myself, ive got to be, like ive got a challenging answer here because i know they are not going to be released. And i know ive seen the meeting, seen the discussion, and i know why. And i was very reminded of telling the truth slowly. I gave an answer that led everyone to understand we were about to make a very different decision. But it just reminds me of those times in which, as we talked about in the beginning, you have goy information, and what do you do with it when you have it . You are making these decisions about transparency, nontransparencies. Some of the definitions are i do not think as easy as some people might presume just transparency writ large or some in of those decisions. Thank you. I do not know that this gentleman is satisfied with that answer. In so many things that we could have talked about including that you were the First Political figure to appear on saturday night live. We will have to say that for the left that next session. Thank you. [applause] join us tomorrow for american artifacts when we feature the Octagon House and the treaty of ghent. The treaty of ghent was signed ,n belgium, a neutral nation ending the war of 1812. We visit the Octagon House where president James Madison signed a ratified treaty in december, 1815. He took refuge the previous august after the british burned the nearby white house. All weekend long, American History tv is joining our Comcast Cable partners to showcase the history of lafayette indiana. To learn more about the citys honor 2014 to work, visit cspan. Org local content. This is American History tv on cspan3. From an airplane, even the watchful purple hills could not see so well as i the state of evening. She would have been 23 whenever she was writing these. You can see that she has a romantic side. Being able to see nature below her. Aviation ame an she would write about the beauty of flying and how she loved things like sing the clouds up there seeing the clouds up there and the serenity of being on her own and being able to look at the beauty below. An earlyrhardt was woman pilot at a time when many women did not have careers outside of the home. She is most well remembered for having disappeared. It is still a mystery what happened to her. She is also remembered because she wasnt such a pioneer for womens rights and womens education and careers. Of the sexes was very important to her as well as promoting aviation as a legitimate travel option. Many people were afraid to fight the time. It was not until around 1920 when she started really thinking seriously about taking flying lessons. She had to convince her family because it was dangerous and expensive and they did not have the money to allow her to do that. She started taking jobs so she could pay for her own lessons. One of the requirements her father had was that she take lessons from a woman pilot. Eventually, she found need a snug nita. If you read things from her perspective, emilio was horrible inause she would daydream the air, she was loving the beauty and the height and the excitement and was not paying attention to the technical things she needed to know. Today, you are in the purdue universitys library. We are looking at items from the collection of a Marriott Amelia ehrhardt. She met him in 1928. George putnam was a big promoter and publisher and he had gotten the rights to publish a biography of charles lindbergh. He became the first person to fly solo across the atlantic in 1931. 1920s, he was a huge rockstar. They wanted to have a woman do similar things, like fly across the ocean. There were several limits wanted that several women pilots who wanted to do that. Someone who was articulate, would be a good spokesperson and was attractive. At the houseamelia where she was working as a social worker. E interviewed her her First Impressions of him was that he was horrible and pushy and arrogant, which is interesting since they eventually married. He thought she was the perfect person to promote as the first woman across the atlantic. He did not explain that emulate was not going to pilot the plane. When amelia signed on to this , the friendship light because friendship was the name of the plane she was aware of the risks of this kind of light because its a longrange flight. A lot of things could go wrong with the plane with weather conditions, any number of things. She wrote these two letters that she referred to as popping up letters. I die and these letters are read by my family. She wrote one to her mother and one to her father. This one im going to show was when she wrote to her father. Dearest added, pray for the , prayst dearest dad for the latest adventure. Goodbye and good luck to you. Some people have interpreted that as your daughter, but she likes to play with words. She was using it in the sense of doting. She and her mother argued a lot. They did have a close loving relationship but her mother was mary irresponsible very irresponsible with finances. That irritated amelia. Her father was very charming and that covered a lot of things. , which isalcoholic why amelia avoided all stimulus. She did not drink alcohol or smoke or do drugs. She did not want to have any sort of stimulants consumed. This is a folder of pilot licenses that belonged to amelia. Most of them do not have photographs on them. It does have a picture of her, her signature on it. It tells some interesting things about her personality. She is very idolized and a hero for me as well. She did have some faults and one of them was she was very reluctant to grow old. Her mother, her grandmother and several of the women in her family had lived until their 80s and 90s and above. Muchas very aware of how they struggled. It was always on her mind. At some point, she began lying about her age. Asksis license here, it for her age. You can see this license is dated 1930 and she said that she is 31. At this time, she would have been about to turn 33 in july. She is already lying by at least one year here. She had such a youthful appearance anyway. The other interesting thing about this, we get a sense of her coloring from her description of her era her hair and her eyes. She was tall and thin. She weighed 118 pounds and was five foot eight inches high. This is a compact. A place for powder here. She used all the powder. , whicha place for rouge still has the plastic on it. One of the things amelia prided herself on was she was always camera ready. In the early years, she would often have crashes and someone from a newspaper would drive and ask if they could take her picture. We always have to be ready for the cameras. Right after crashing a plane, she comes out with a compact and puts powder on her nose. The sun would burn her skin if she did not wear powder. It is so fascinating that she. Id not use the rouge side if you look at images of her, photographs or images of her in the newspaper, sometimes it looks like she was wearing makeup. Usually what happened is the people who were producing the her eyes withdraw over and fill in her lips. She rarely wore it. We do have a few portrait shots where it looks like she might have a little on. This is very unusual. This will compact tells that story. This is a famous document that amelia wrote the morning of her women to George Putnam. According to several accounts of people who knew the couple, George Putnam had proposed to amelia multiple times and she had turned him down. I dont remember at what point she eventually agreed but she clearly did it with much hesitation. Amelia and george often call each other by their initials. She calls him gdp. Gpp. Things we have talked over before, most of them. You must know again, my reluctance to marry. Ttereeling that i sha thereby chances to work, which means most of me. Know there is compensation, but have no heart to look ahead. I shallou to understand not hold you to any medieval e. At of faithfulness to mak if we can be honest about affections for others which may come to either of us, difficulties of such situations may be avoided. Please let us not interfere with the others work or play nor let the world see our pride in this connection, i may have to keep someplace apart where i may retreat from an even attractive cage. You will let me go in one year if we find no happiness together. I will try to do my best in every way and give you fully of that part of myself you know and seem to want. This is a letter she presented to her fiance without any words and he read it and then nodded and agreed to it and they went forward with their marriage. The things in this letter are extremely telling about her personality, her concerns about marriage and really about how important her career was to her and her concerns she would have to give that up. The other interesting piece is something feminists find andinating is this is 1931 the comment that she does not unexpected to be faithful and he should not expect her to be faithful either and she thinks it foolish to get married. It is interesting to think about because of x you wonder what made her go ahead and marry him. As her promoter, he was promoting her constantly. It could be that this was something he felt was critical to their continuing relationship. It is not really known why she went ahead and marry him. There have been many people who have speculated that they had a manager relationship, there was not a rollup their. Real love there. She did write love letters to him. She had various affection names she would call him. There are accounts from his side of the family where there were people who would see them together being very loving. They were just extremely private. After amelia made the friendship flight, she felt she did not really achieve all of the accolades in a way that was true to her. She became instantly famous and was on newspapers. Huge parades in her honor. Everyone knew the name Amelia Ehrhardt. She did not feel she deserved those accolades because she was a passenger on the plane. She did not feel like her skills were needed. A few years later, she decided she wanted to make a solo atlantic flight completely on her own. She would be the only person on the plane. There are actual documents in the collection where it talks about how it would be smarter to fly with a mechanic or a navigator. She knew it she did that that people the media would say that she did not play the plane. That riskd to take and be the only person in the plane and in 1932, she did fly her plane solo across the atlantic ocean. She was not the worldss best womens pilot and she certainly was not as skilled technically as aviation as many other pilots at the time but she was very driven, cool under pressure, courageous and she loved to fly. Those things work in her favor because on this flight in 1932, a lot of things went wrong on the plane. We would not know that if she had not kept this notebook. This little notebook was written by her during the actual flight. It is all in pencil, which is difficult to read. She is talking here about her times, whenever she was leaving for the flight. The piece i find the most of all,ing is, first she starts talking about flying through a storm. At this point, she is 13 hours on the way. She says if anybody finds the the nonsuccess was caused by my getting lost in a storm for an hour and then the out. St manifold burned she thought at this point that she was probably going to die. She is referring to leaving a note for anyone who finds the wreckage of the plane. Amelia published a book about this, the account of this flight after she successfully landed. Did shes about not only have this fire aboard the plane, but there was gasoline running down the back of her neck and all sorts of things were going wrong with her measurements. She could not tell how high or low she was flying. If she flew to low, she would be close to the water and risk going down there. Too high, it was difficult to see. The conditions could cause ice on the wings and so forth. She was trying to figure out how high she should be flying because her gauges were not telling her. Coming with this flame on the plane while she is trying to pilot it 13 hours into what , shee a 17. 5 hour flight would happen quite fatigued at that point. It tells a lot about her strength of character and her courage and determination that she pulls out this notebook and is writing this. She thought she might die at that point. Speaking at aas conference in new york about womens careers. Edward c elliott was at the same conference. He heard a malia speak and he was inspired to invite her to give a lecture at purdue, which she did later that year. Following that, Edward Elliott approached amelia about some sort of position she might have at university to help encourage. Omen students the idea of how to educate women was very much on Edward Elliotts mind at the time. This was following the 20 years when women had gained suffrage. They were coming to universities more. It was not clear what universities needed to do to support them. Edward elliott approached Amelia Ehrhardt and asked if he could meet with her and her husband about something she might do at purdue. They got to talking over a meal. It was suggested that she serve as a Career Counselor for the women students, which worked perfectly for malia because she felt strongly that women should have careers. All the way up until world war unheard ofheard for a woman after graduating college to pursue a career if she married. One of her main goals was to encourage the women students that they could still marry but aso pursue their own dreams people in professions or whatever else they wanted to do and not that set not set that aside for getting married. Broughtard elliott amelia to purdue, one of the first things she did was send out a questionnaire to the women students. One of the first questions is, are you planning to seek employment after you leave college . If you are planning to work, what is your reason for doing so . The answer she gives here, clearly things she wants the women to consider. Economic necessities, the family expected, to attain personal independence, to secure luxuries, to have something to do, to achieve professional success, to have the mental stimulus of a coalition something. Of accomplishing something. Things they should think about and not give up on. Things that would keep them busy and engaged and feeling a sense independent ende enough to do the things they want to do. This is one of Amelia Ehrhardts flight helmets. A leather helmet with strap underneath her chin here. She did have a few different helmets throughout her aviation career. This is the one that came to us directly from her husband after she disappeared. We know she wore this on several of her important flights. It has been loaned to museum several times throughout the years. Fromas on the faculty 1935the her that she 1937. Eared, she would stay on campus a few weeks, a few months out of the year. She would come during each semester and be on campus for a month or two. After amelia had been here for a year or so, the trustees and the president of the university asked her what they could do for her and she said if she had always dreamed of a plane that could take her around world. She wanted a plane that was faster him a that had more endurance, could fly longer. The Purdue Research foundation agreed that they would provide a fund for Amelia Ehrhardts aeronautical research. She could use the plane for around the world flights. But the plane would also be intended to be used for research purposes. She decided she wanted to make around the world flight a little earlier than originally planned. She began planning for that around 1936. She worked with the next bird on navigation who charted out the route. An expert on navigation. She parked it in hangar one of purdue airport. It would stay there unless she was flying in it. After her world flight, she would bring the plane back and it would be used for teaching and research at university. When amelia left for that final flight, which her goal was to cumnavigate the equator even though someone had already done a world flight, she would to do it at its longest distance. She started that flight and made it as far as hawaii and was about to take off to go to the island when her plane ground looped. At take off, something happened where she allowed one of the wings to dip or something went wrong as the plane swerved and crashed. It caused damage to the front of the plane and the landing gear. She works with purdue to get the plane sent back to lucky back to lockheed. She wanted to reverse her route. The reason for that was the direction of the wind had changed in that time. They reversed the route, which put the part about landing on the island, the most dangerous part at the very end. There had been much discussion between her and her navigator and various other people who said it would be difficult to find the island. Wide, has one mile large birds, a lot of things that can go wrong. She decided she wanted to do it anyway because it was close to the equator. What happened was she disappeared on route to the island. Had that happened at the beginning of the journey, it is possible she would have felt better prepared. Different things were going wrong. She was always very concerned about having too much weight on the plane. And one of her stops, they were taking anything nonessential off the plane. Some of the things they removed where the direction finder, which would have helped her find the island easier. The other thing going wrong was her radio communications. She never fully established with the coast guard monitoring her journey they knew how difficult it would be to reach. They never agreed on what frequency they were going to communicate or they had set a couple different once but could never connect to each other. They could hear her, but she could not hear them. What happened was the coast guard is monitoring it, they have ships nearby to help without smoke help put out smoke. They hear the sound of her plane. For whatever reason, she passed it or had been parallel to it and kept going. She ran out of fuel. It is not known if she crashed on one of the islands around there or her plane went down in the ocean. She clearly did not make it back to purdue and neither did the plane. After that disappearance, there was a lot of conjecture about could you survive. Wantedwanted it to her to have survived because they loved amelia. She seemed almost immortal. It was hard for people like her mother to accept that she was really dead. Hard for George Putnam to express that. They finally went to court and had her legally declared that. He contacted the purdue president and asked with University Like these things and the president said yes. The bulk of our collection came to us in 1940, the year after she was declared dead in court. What is fascinating as there is to the story that came much later. There were some very private documents that were kept by putnam and his descendents. Things like the love letters she wrote to him, the poem she wrote when she was younger, their marriage license, the premarital agreement. All the things that told the personal side of her marriage. It was not until 2002 when the granddaughter of George Putnam approached the university about donating this small but clearly significant collection in terms of understanding amelia and her marriage. That is one reason that biographers have argued that they had this managermanaging didtionship because they not have access to further prove that there was more there. Chapman gave the bulk of the personal things that came to the rest of the collection. Now researchers can see more about what her personal life was really like. The significance of having this collection of purdue is that it not only tells the story of amelias relationship with more aboutalso tells produce history in a sense that purdue has always had a strong focus on engineering and has graduated many pilots and many astronauts. The history of light and space is huge at purdue. Sheia came to purdue, taught women students and encouraged them to pursue careers and that whole story is tied up in purdue because of the Research Foundations support for what became her final flight. The fact that she disappeared and she was still on the faculty at purdue, the fact that the plane she disappeared and was purchased by purdue, it is significant to have the collection here because this was a significant part of her life. It was the final two years and a time when she was pursuing the things she wanted to do. Throughout the weekend, American History tv is featuring lafayette and west lafayette, indiana. We recently traveled there to learn about its rich history. Learn more about the sister cities and other stops on cspan citiesore cspans tour. Youre watching American History tv on cspan3. This month is the 10th anniversary of q a. We are featuring an encore presentation of one q a from each year, highlighting authors, historians, journalists, filmmakers and leading policy thinkers. The september 11 Victims Compensation fund. The importance of the africanamerican experience to u. S. History. Robert december 22 to the 26th at 7 pm eastern. History tv an tonight for lectures and history. Virginia Commonwealth University Christopher Saladino discusses the Cold War Nuclear arms race