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
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
The most important Strategic Initiative of any president over the last 40, 50 years, it was the strategic triangle of nixon and kissinger to allow the United States to build better relations with both china and the soviet union than they had with each other. And it was cia intelligence that provided the impetus to suggest that we could do this and as a result the soviet union would have to engage us which they did in terms of the treaty of berlin and the arms control agreements and we would end up with very good bilateral relations with both of them. So, the cia can be effective as a support instrument in this area. In terms of what needs to be done, because im running out of my time, i think we could do ourselves a lot of good by going back to that oped that president truman wrote in december of 1963. The warning about covert action, the warning that covert action is policy. And covert action, therefore, can taint clandestine collection and even taint intelligence analysis. That the c
Taking at look at the foe Phenomenal Growth of mobile gaming. We begin in syria where we confront a syria strike has killed a commander. He was killed in p a special Army Operation in italy on thursday. Earlier remembers say he died in a drone attack on february 27th, but now the group says that he was indeed killed on thursday. He was a vet repleader who held the title of general military commander. Ever the the front. A closer look at the fronts and its objectives. The group is al quaidas branch, it took on the name as part of the uprising against the asaad regime. It has also been fighting other groups. Now its leaders are considering cutting their links with al quaida to purely syrian entity. A rebranding would at least in theory free up more funding. U. N. Security council and is listed as a terrorist organization, but reports are saying that not all leaders are onboard with this latest plan. The director from the u. S. Of oklahoma, good to have you with us. Who benefits from the
Great to have you with us. It is day four of iraqs largest offensive yet against isil. Tens of thousands of iraqi troops are working alongside shia militias to take back tikrit. Now theres hope a unified force can loosen isils grip on the city. Reporter the battle cry of this fighter. This is near the base of operations for iraqs shia militias on the Eastern Front of the battle for tikrit. The key players are iranian backed hezbollah. At a command center nearby the interior minister a leader of the militia confirms with the man given drol of the hezbollah brigades. They have combined with iraqi police, special forces and army units, for the biggest offensive since isil seized parts of iraq last june. The troops are backed by iraqi air strikes, but it has been a slow advance to tikrit. This is a trip wire for a roadside bomb laid by isil. An Explosives Team detonates this one, one of hundreds they found along the road. 30 kilometers southeast, Iraqi Security forces make their way across