[inaudible] [applause] moderator Susan Eisenhower. You dont want to follow the steps when you enter. Lessee they told me left. [laughter] karl you know the distancing right and left on you . You are their right. [laughter] snack welcome everybody i am Susan Eisenhower and it is a terrific pleasure to be here today to have a conversation with doctor lynn cheney and carl rove. This is a real honor to me and have an intimate conversation with the executive power in the United States to actually wield power alongside of the president of the United States and also to talk about what it is like to be behind the scenes. Let me just say very quickly, if i cough i am not sick. Way you can back from rouen with that cough. [laughter] you feel right . Are you little warm your little warm, lindy wanted change . I think you women should be here and i should be out. I had to clean up some of his the other day and inhaled some fire smoke. Any case, dont be alarmed if i find myself coughing. Let me just say that it has been a thrill to talk to you again and i had some experience as a child with what it is like to be in the company who wields enormous power, to observe both the pressures of the job, along with the loneliness you might say of power and obviously it comes with privilege but also great sacrifice. Lynn, you have said over time, that you have carved out a remarkable career for yourself. But this proximity of power probably started for you when your husband, dick cheney became chief of staff to gerald ford. And i did not see him for two years. That is just sort of the way it is, but i was so interested in what he was doing that he learned to come home at night and tell me what he had done all day. So that was really fascinating inside look. You and i were joking before, if you are the president of the United States, youre called potus if you are the first lady of the United States youre called flautist, first lady of the United States. If you are the wife of the Vice President i finally had to shut it off before they did it in public. So have you been tempted to turn into a twitter handle . [laughter] i dont think i really feel comfortable twitter, im always afraid im to send something i dont know i sense and its not a good idea. Good points, carl, youve been an and norma sleep arvo position in the white house. I have to ask both of you dont mind, i think we are in badly need of humor today. I dont know if ill be agree but i would like to know what the funniest and strangest thing that ever happened to you while you are in the white house arena . Me . Yes you. There were a lot of them but i still a car and i think that was the highlight. Now is that funny customer. It was enormously funny, because i had this colleague al hubbard, head of the National Economic council. Originally from jackson tennessee so he spoke with this southern accent. Sort of like sounded like a slow minded guy from jackson, tennessee. Hiding the fact that he had an harvard mba and started at a very young age with a private Equity Partnership in indianapolis that was wildly successful. Basically this strategy was, by the last buggy whip manufacturers in america consolidated a make a lot of money and he really did. He stepped aside from that he had a really nice bmw, really nice. If you are at the white house, you are spending a lot of time in meetings. I had a meeting across the way from the west wing and the Old Executive Office building. It ended early and i had a few extra minutes before my next appointment. I was walking down the stairs and across whats called old executive drive. Its the street between the west wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office building. Rights by the entrance to the basement of the west wing, hubbard had parked his car. And i notice he left his keys in there. [laughter] so i got in it and moved it up west executive drive. Now remember, to park on west executive drive you have to be a senior aid to the president , you go through three checkpoints manned by people with automatic weapons, your cars swept their bombs and you go over some advices embedded in the concrete i dont know what it does, but it does it. So its very secure. I took the car and i drove it up about west executive drive about 75 yards. But after 911 they had the sniffer trucks, they look like ice cream trucks are parked at the four corners of the complex. They sampled the air for chemical and biological agents. It was just large enough that when i parked the car behind it in the vacant space, you couldnt see it from the west executive entrance. So i wasnt there, but i have eyewitnesses who said at the end of the day, hubbard came out, took a look around, couldnt see his car, took out his flip phone, hit the speed dial to his assistant and said my car, my car is gone theyve stolen my car he found it, so the next morning course of the senior staff meeting, with sort of a town common edging tone, but nonetheless goodnatured he accused me of stealing his car. Big mistake. So i kept stealing his car. And id work it out so that one time i worked it out with the secret service of that i it by their loading dock. Can you imagine that cult mr. Hubbard, your cars blocking the loading dock and we are expecting a load of surfacetoair missiles, would you please move it. This went on for a great deal time and was enormously fun. Every time i would steal his car he would accuse me of at the senior staff meeting. But after the first time, i would always get somebody else to be in the car with me. Seventy said you stole my car, i really dont appreciate out to al i dont know what youre talking about, because i saw somebody else get your car, which was true. Because i had to make it in the car with me. So long story short, the final week im at the white house, we are flying back from reno, nevada, where the president spoke to the american legion. We finally had television on air force one, and i am watching television and im sort of mystified because there is a camera at the corner of the white house which called pebble beach. When you see the north portico of the white houses is being shot from pebble beach. Only the cameras not look at the white house it swiveled down looking down executive drive minutes looking at a car that has messages spelled out and posted notes on all of the windows, forming letters and words in someones wrap the car in industrial cellophane. Giant sheets of industrial cellophane and decorated it with stuffed animals. [laughter] and its my car [laughter] cnn is saying we dont know is going on on the west executive drive, but someones car has been whose car is that . Eventually its mental and Good Authority at the senior visor karl roves car we dont know whats going on. So i get back to the white house at culpepper and i say fantastic man, you paid me back. For every time im still in your car you paid me back. I got the white house photographer from west exactly want to get a picture of you me and your handiwork. First devices had data but finally he fences up that he had done it. And i said look this is the greatest thing youve ever done. No one has ever come close to this we have to have a photograph. We said worth through the white house and people come spilling out of the ike people come spilling out of the west wing, its about 6 00 oclock in the evening, and people start applauding hubbard and hes having a hard time with his camera people are coming out in their applauding hubbard any starting to get in scanning say yeah i did this its really fantastic really fabless. A block to uniformed officers of the secret service and put him in handcuffs. And then the white house photographer takes the picture. [laughter] and it really creeps hubbard out its one of my favorite photographs keeps them creeps them out its in my bedroom. There is a picture of hubbard put in handcuffs in his leg and my really in trouble customer is this funny . And these two officers these were my people. They are putting him in handcuffs and im like oh buddy you got me but i just got your back. [laughter] its good to know there is a sense of humor admitted all of the pressure. You have to. The white house and the Vice President s house, these are very formal places. Theres a reason why there is a downstairs official area and the living quarters upstairs. Because there really is a difference between the public life in the private life. What about you, lynne, im sure you have many funny stories but have you had strange ones as well from that period . This is funny and strange. We spent a lot of time at camp david as carl knows after 911. It was the undisclosed location. And we had our kids, its the same story that you find joy in life even though you are in a dreadful time. We also had our dog a big labrador, yellow lab named dave. Dave was the love of our life. So we took them everywhere at camp david. Dogs are allowed everywhere camp david. Except one day okay karl i cant help me is that laura where we eat . Okay laurel lodge. Dick watched in and you dave with him. There are people around and varney, who is the president s dog, and the kind of mean little scotty. Mean little faster used to bite me all the time. I wish the president never would had varney. Of varney was a troublesome dog. Dave thought he was probably a squirrel because he was kind of little. We shot out after him. Varney being chased by dave is going round and round this table at high speed while bird watching and the president walked in he says what is going on here . And dick, knowing this probably was not a good thing to have dave chasing varney, pulled a donut or something off the breakfast tray said dave comiccon. And dave always came for food. So he got the donut, got dave out of there. We went back to our lodging and ten minutes maybe, othello knocks the door, he is in full dress uniform, hes the Camp Commander and he said sir, the dick dave is not allowed in laurel again. Hed been sent by the president to tell us not to bring dave to laurel again. But the president was really nice about dave but not about dave chasing varney. That was not good. Pets play in a normals role. During my grandparents tenure in the white house, they brought heidi, a weimer honor, and then heidi had an accident on one of the rugs and got sent into exile. Ive also got to say, one unknown fact about the white house is the Burial Ground of our pets parakeet. He was on the thirdfloor name pete and he died so we were allowed to give them a dignified burial in the rose garden. My siblings and i put up a little pete, rest in peace. But they took it down to mow the lawn. You got to wonder, roosevelt was the first guy had the west wing also had a gigantic collection animals. His children he had in normas collection and a several of them died during the days in the white house. You have to wonder if the burial locations of their favorite pets. Most of them are like coarse im going to have them buried at the white house. We have t should have an archaeologist go over the grounds. The problem is you cant go back and visit the graveside. Except dave is buried the Vice President s residence. And we are sure we know the site is. So if we are ever invited back to the bpr we will go visit dear dave. Does he have a headstone . No he thought as a little too showy. Okay im feeling better. He has one in our hearts. You know the apropos of that, one of the interesting things to me was how important to both the president s residence and the white house are to the political and policy business of the government. In both the cheneys and the bushes were enormously good at entertaining a lot of people both formally and more important informally. whether you have there are holiday parties that were clearly geared towards, you know, their official business and their friends. And it really was important how many a time, you know, youd have some hardnosed democrat whod be smoke a cigar on the truman balcony, and their spouse would be jumping up and down on the lincoln bed. It helped establish a sense of community. After we left the white house, i cannot tell you how many Democrat Members of congress have told me if youd have told me id have spent more time with your guy than my guy, id be surprised. And they did. The president and Vice President both knew from having been at the white house from chief of staff and the president as having been governor of a democratic majority in the legislature how important it was to do what you could informally to reduce some of that tension. Well, i think thats an extremely important point. And i know that its virtually a given that we all recognize that were living in tremendously turbulent and uncertain times. I think we have to all recognize that. But i must say that the 2000s were also very turbulent and uncertain. And, of course, what immediately comes to mind is 9 11. This extraordinary moment in American History when so much changed for this country. I have to ask you, lynne, what was that like, to actually be trying to, first of all, you were in a high ranking position during those years at the National Endowment for the humanities, and i wonder what that was like also to be supporting your husband and to be, you know, a semiboll of this country symbol of this country during that tumultuous time. You are such a nice interviewer, and im going to make a public confession that i have never made before. I was getting my hair done. [laughter] and the nice fellow who was doing my hair came out and he said, you know, a plane just flew into the world trade center. I said, ooh, what a weird accident. And then a few minutes later he came back and said theres a second one. So, of course, the secret service hustled me off into a car. And you could see smoke from the car. It was the pentagon burning, but you dont know what it is. You just see it coming up from over the buildings. Un explicably to this day, they took me to the white house, which everyone else had just evacuated. [laughter] but it was, you know, such a memorable day being done, called the peocc. To be in the peocc and watching the country be run, watching manny lujan shut down all the planes in the United States and, you know [inaudible] knorr etta whos a good friend to this day. Thank you the, karl. Condi rice was there. I dont think you you were off with the president , i think. Yeah. But it was the same experience karl had only more serious. On the way there are a bunch of cabinets along the way, and you watched secret Service Opening the cabinets and grabbing very large guns, you know, passing on. Its like a movie. Its, that was stunning, to me. And then when the day was over, i did take notes that day which, you know, were subpoenaed or whatever. But it was okay with me. I didnt write anything secret. And moreover, i was shaking so much, i didnt even know i was, theyre barely legible. But i didnt miss those. At the end of the day, we flew in a helicopter to camp david. And when you lifted off the south lawn, you could see the pentagon. You could see the fire burning. And i couldnt help but think of the burning of washington in madisons time. Washington, of course, then was just a small village, and this was a much greater consequence. But it certainly is a day lodged in memory. What was it like after that . Because you go to an undisclosed location think about that for a moment. Yeah. Just think about that for one moment. The decision is made that the threat is so unknown and so dangerous that the president and the Vice President of the United States cannot be in the same place unless absolutely essential. The Vice President must be taken to an undisclosed location that in the event the president s dead, we have continuity of government. That was the nature of that moment. Incredible. There were worries afterwards about airborne poisons that might get us, anthrax, ricin was talked about. Thats when the sniffer trucks show up. And then they make their way around the white house staff. They walk in and say they have a little device that says to punch a button if it makes a noise. They say if you hear this noise, it means that its a chemical attack. Then they handed me a big plastic bag and said this is your mop suit. Take it out and put on the helmet and the mop suit. If you hear this sound, its a biological attack, and you need to take this needle, stab yourself in the heart and then put yourself in the mop suit. [laughter] and i said, sure, like thats gonna happen. [laughter] and i said my assistant, susan ralston, is standing there listening to this lecture. And i said, okay, wheres her outfit . They said we have a limited number of suits, itll be several days before we have more. And i told handed mine to susan and said, okay, dont tell me when you stab yourself in the heart. [laughter] you know, i dont quite understand that. Could you help us with that . Stabbing ones self in the heart . Its adrenaline. Oh, its adrenaline. You can run then. Yeah. Or maybe it was chemical, you stab yourself biological you have to hope you dont. People who are from their visit to wuhan. [laughter] i cant help but ask, what is it like to be in an undisclosed location . I mean, was it massively isolating . You know, you can be around people all the time and still be very isolated. I was writing. You were writing. And it was actually perfect. I sometimes describe my life as one long interruption. But, you know, this is a Peaceful Place where you could write. Our grandkids were there, our children were there. So, you know, that part of it was not onerous. But knowing the state of the country was. And i was going to say a minute ago, i think i have the distinction of being on [inaudible] longer than any other human being because it was thought to protect you from anthrax and other things that might be in the air, 90 days. And when i tell physicians that, they say, oh, my goodness. [laughter] i think i could still use it to effect. What do you remember about that day, karl . Everything. Everything. Its 8 48 a. M. , im standing 15 feet away from the president outside of emerald Booker Elementary School in sarasota, florida, and the phone rings and its my assistant, susan. She says a plane has flown into the world trade center, we dont know if i