During this career 9 11 and is a great Public Servant committed to keeping the city safe so thank you for everything that you do. [applause] and i would like to take a minute if the veterans and those that served in the forces could be stand and be recognized. [applause] i would be remiss at this point if i didnt also think the ambassador to the United Nations who honored me with a wonderful foreword for the buck, and i appreciate his support for the buck and this Important Message. It is a great privilege to be here in this wonderful institution of the Union League Club of new york. Since its founding in 1863 its members have played an Important Role in the National Discourse on a wide range of issues and as ron mentioned they constructed the statue of liberty and got rid of boss along the way so it is a great privilege to be here and it is fitting that we are in this historic room to talk about fighting the media war in iraq because this book is about history, how we make history and
Members and guests tonight had the honor of introducing a friend and academic colleague who happens to be a best selling author, call miss, speaker, commentator, senior Level Management strategists are key has worked with president s from here at home to south asia to iraq and for more than 20 years our speaker has provided strategic and Crisis Committee k should counsel to companies, policy organizations, government agencies, not for profits, advocacy campaigns and grassroots groups. He is served in many roles including executive director of the Republican Party in new york state, advisor to the us chief of protocol at the vatican, planner to the department of state of former president s bush and clinton to the tsunami ravaged south asia and director of communications for the Environment Protection agency. Our speaker is currently an adjunct professor. A charter member of the board of advisors at college of liberal arts and sciences and a opinion contributor to forbes in the hopes of
The president encouraged all of us to spend time with the press because even on an offtherecord, if we couldnt answer their questions, we better go back and do more homework. The last thing ill say, one of my fondest vignettes of the press and reagan was Sam Donaldson, lou cannon of the Washington Post, Andrea Mitchell of nbc news were all fighting about who was going to do the last pool report on air force one or 26,000 as we headed back to california at the end of the reagan presidency. And my lasting memory on a portable typewriter was Sam Donaldson on the floor of air force one typing the final pool report and reagan came back to say thank you. Thats the kind of relationship, even though it gets tough, iran contra, my job in the aftermath of iran contra was to remind reagan before he went within shouting distance of sam or andrea or anybody else, remember if you answer the question on iran contra, you might as well not give the speech youre giving today because nobody is going to c
We wooel weel well look at challenges of the presidency. Four top aides, all of usveat sd president s of the tooits United States and weve seen the ities qualities of what takes for a r president to be able to govern. Weve seen qualities both good and bad. And i guess thats what i want to begin with. Is looking at president s that each of these individuals serve. What was their greatest strengtt and what was their greatest weakness . And how do you think history is going to look at them . We are talking about president reagan, president clent kbron, president bush and president le obama. Lets start with president reagan. Ken . Leon, thank you very much. Leave it to leon and sylvia to put together an alpha bet panbe. David axle rod, a. Ber skin boels, b. Rod, andy card, c. And duber steen, d. M aep p for pa netta. All of it is an absolutely joying to here with leon and ray and all of you. Ronald reagans greasest strengths. He knew why he ran for the presidency. And he knew what he would
To authority, quite responsive to what a president wants and if you look at the various covert actions over the years and ill be discussing some of them, these were directed, conceptualized orchestrated endorsed by president s of the United States. Now, when we get into the controversy of the cia itself, i think its important to understand that when president s come to washington, they fall in love with two institutions. They fall in love with camp david and they fall in love with the cia. And when they fall in love with the cia, unfortunately, its with the clandestine aspect of the cia. Its Clandestine Operations and its covert action that they fall in love with. Harry truman was an exception to this and ill discuss that in a minute. When president s have had trouble with the cia, its been over intelligence analysis where i spent 24 years as a soviet analyst. And the remarks of a couple president s will i think demonstrate what i mean. One of my favorites is Richard Nixon. When Richar