This is a wonderful read. When i started it i was sort of like this is going be too much information. I will be able to take it in. Its fantastic. Its based on an addition to your own knowledge and research its based on over 70 interviews and youve interviewed among those the leading director of the living directors of the caa except for the current one. Its really not going to say it, its not so much about the cia directors as about the cia directors and the relationship to the white house and the president. Would you agree with that . Thanks for the kind words about the book, because one of the things i really tried to do, maybe above all, was to humanize these directors. I was lucky because it is a cast of characters never couldve dreamt up, from dick helms act in the 60s was the quintessential cia director bob gates described to me as a james bond type character. Cigarette in one hand, dry martini in the other who could walk into the oval office and tell lbj that the domino theory was flawed, and then Going Forward through bill colby who to me was kind of the corleone of the cia, then youve got bill casey and youve got an amazing cast of characters all the way up to gina haspel, the first woman to run the cia but youre right that the book focuses a lot on the relationship between the president and the cia director. Its been almost impossible balancing act for cia director because he or she on the one nsc, president s hard truths while also keeping the presidency here. Thats a really tough challenge even in the best of times, and in the current times its practically mission impossible. Yeah, and i dont use all the comey film over the weekend not yet. But its one of the things that becomes clear, how hard that particular relationship is just generally and am a charter it was under trump. Just going down that line a little bit, so who has the worst relationship . I read the books i kind of think i know what youre going to say. And then who had the best relationship . [talking over each other] thats what i thought. Willsey, really fascinating character to me, brilliant guy. He was as we all know on a spectrum, an ideological spectrum is well over to the right, but he loves to joke about the fact that he was president of yale students for Eugene Mccarthy back in 68. He is known because he thought it was winnable and were weret doing enough. Anyway, he becomes cia director, but bill clinton and woolsey were like oil and water as one source put it to me. Clinton just did not like him after the first briefing which went on and on evidently at some length. Woolsey left. Bill clinton learned come turn to one of his advisors and said, i never want to see that man again. He almost never did. Woolsey had literally one meeting with the president and at one point there was a freak accident on the south lawn of the white house, a small plane crashed and killed the pilot. Afterwards, woolsey said to the press, that was me try to get an appointment with bill clinton. Oh, my god. It was not a very productive relationship, and woolsey met his demise over the james dando, that case, the most serious mold since kim philby probably in american intelligence history. Intelligence history. Happened on his watch. It ended, essentially ended his tenure. And what about the best relationship . That would be a number of contenders for that probably. I would say that bob gates and george h. W. Bush had a very good relationship. Leon panetta and barack obama had a very good relationship. John brennan and obama certainly. A spoiler alert. For those who know that i wrote another book called the gatekeepers about the white house chiefs of staff, some of the attributes that make a great white house chief of staff also serves cia directors well. Its no coincidence, in my view, that leon panetta was the Gold Standard at both. There were certainly other great white house chiefs and other great cia directors, but panetta was right up there with the best, and both jobs, and thats partly because has a lot to do with the fact that panetta when he became cia director for obama he was 70. You been around the block. He served in congress. He was comfortable. You knew the white house and he could walk into the oval office, close the door and tell barack obama what he didnt want to hear. And that is essential in both jobs. One of the Great Stories i felt in the chapter is about the time the director of National Intelligence made the mistake, blur, lucinda director of National Intelligence made the mistake of trying to take on leon panetta in a bureaucratic struggle over who would appoint the cia station chief. Well, i guess you could on paper make the argument that the director of National Intelligence outranked leon and, therefore, denny blair ought to make that appointment. But in the real world blair should have known that that was turf that was jealously guarded at langley. Panetta knew that, and blair sent out a directive without informing panetta to all the station saying that he, denny blair, would be avoiding the new station chiefs. Well, panetta waited about a half hour and set out another message to all the stations saying, disregard the previous message. Well, this was not a fair fight. This went to the white house, but leon knew exactly who had his back on this one. Not only barack obama, but Vice President joe biden who wound up being the referee on this one. And as he walked into the office to adjudicate this with biden, leon turned to him and said, joe, is our teatime still 930 thymic to mark . And biden biden said yes. And blair knew he was a dead man walking. Yeah, you know, this book is not just about the white house, the president , the cia directors but its also a chronicle of American Foreign policy. And not just things women from behind the scenes but just the r events that have taken place in American Foreign policy over 45 decades. A number of those things obviously have been on our mind lately, 9 11 being perhaps the most obvious one, but the killing of bin laden. But there was one incident that a think a lot of readers in our audience will not know that much about, and that is that of the mod i wanted you what to tell a story because i dont have others listen to but i felt like, im so embarrassed i dont know the story. Now im so grateful that i know this story. Sotelo. Dont be embarrassed because a lot of people dont know it. In fact, the first half of the story until in the book about has never been reported before. Its an absolutely unbelievable story that it lasts for three or four decades. He was far to wait the most wanted terrorist in the middle east by both the cia and mossad going all the way back to the worst day in cia history which was the bombing of the beirut embassy. In beirut which killed so many cia officers. And other americans. At the time. Subsequently, it was determined that is a probably it was the dawn of of course that whole area of truck bomb terrorism. Hellishly the beginning. It was really pivotal time from that date forward yet more american and israeli bottoms have been anyone. He was operational genius of hezbollah, the operational chief. They called in the scarlet pimpernel of terrorism because he is so elusive. They literally had one grainy photograph of him, the cia and they could never keep up with him. He would wear disguises. He developed come pioneered the use of the socalled shaped charge, a kind of sophisticated ied that really essentially told the israelis out of lebanon, and it was that effective and lethal and it would cut through a tank and he killed a famous israeli general triggering the israeli withdrawal. In short, he was a most wanted guy come and the other two most wanted guys were general soleimani of syria and in a reign in general named soleimani whose name may ring a bell. Since you skilled in january of this year. In any event, cia tried and tried to track down mughniyah and i tell the story of an operation on bill clintons watch at the end of his presidency on george tenets watch, as cia director, which they tracked him down to beirut. They discovered he was visiting his mistresses flat, and he would visit her and he would beat her as it turned out, the cia enlisted her, setting up d grabbing and cut them down to the dock and onto a vote and all to a battleship offshore. It all went south. The operation failed at another decade went by before cia finally tracked him down in damascus. So i tell that story in hairraising detail how come in a joint cia mossad operation they finally got mughniyah, tapped him as he driving around damascus in his luxurious suv. They decided that they couldnt plant the bomb in a phone. He discarded phones too often, but he always had his suv. And they wound up, cia, building obama. They had a technical marvel because they had to replace all back door of the suv without mughniyah or his bodyguards noticing and had to match the paint color exactly, even the age of the paint job. They did all this and mossad ended up pulling the trigger. And at one point, at one moment while they were surveilling mughniyah and waiting for the moment to strike, they looked and looked again and realize that the guy, someone leaning on his car talking with mughniyah was, guess who, general soleimani. And they thought my god, its a twofer. We can take them both out. Well, they said permission was denied. Mughniyah was he on legitimate target. They went and soleimani went off, and they finally did get mughniyah. Its just an unbelievable story. And also the whole negotiation because assassination quoteunquote has always been a fraud proposition at the cia fraught here its been prohibited by executive orders including 12333 for decades. In this case it went through contortions so that the israelis would pull the trigger rather than the americans. Bush signed off on the deal as long as nobody ever talked about it, and nobody does talk about it to this day, except in part to me for this chapter that i wrote in the book yeah, you have a whole page where you excerpt from your interviews where you ask a number of cia directors what happened, and theres no comment, no comment, no comment which i guess comes with the territory but is not a bad story to eventually get to know. Can i just say, john brennan who finally got frustrated with me asking him repeatedly for comment what happened to mughniyah, he finally looked at me and he said, he died quickly, period. That was his comment. Thats more than you got from any of the others. Many of the other directors. Yeah. One thing i wanted to ask that you dont at least dont really talk about and i love your thoughts on is the use of military generals to be head at the cia. And whether you know, how we should think about that and others have thought about that come thinking of general petraeus, general hayden, and is kind of like, cousin is a way which these are distinct authorizations, for using force, covert activity. What did you learn about that particular, you know, that mixing a kind of expertise . Its a mixed bag. The two of course directors who get into it are my kayden and David Petraeus, each of them really capable and really interesting characters. Hayden tells a story about how he first when he arrived, he would run the nsa, National Security agency prior. He was still a general, not quite retired when he arrived at the cia. He went to the socalled bubble, the auditorium cia, to make his first address to the troops as it were. As he was speaking when he came to the end of his remarks he took questions and somebodys hand shot up and they said, what would you like us to call you . And hayden who was famously eloquent and the live and articulate glib was thrown, he did not answer, and finally he said whatever makes you comfortable. Dont call me general. Whatever, call me whatever you want to call me. He said in retrospect it was most important thing he said that day. There is what some at cia call, something called 4star general disease. What it means is that military people sometimes arrived at the cia and certainly directors have arrived on occasion with a very welldeveloped sense of entitlement, used to having the key staff, a staff of 50 people too, as David Petraeus did when he was in afghanistan, to cater to his every whim. This was a little bit of a problem for the trace when he arrived. It was just a culture shock. They are just different cultures, and when you have been a commanding general like the tray us, you are accustomed to a different way of life, a way of operating and have people at your beck and call. I think he adjusts to the cia culture but in the beginning it was rocky for him. He had only just really adjusted to the cia culture when of course he met his untimely demise by sharing classified information with his mistress, paula. And in the book, i i mean, i ad him pointblank about that, and its fascinating i would have to say. Use an excerpt from her which i felt was also interesting and i can be a teaser for reading that section of the book. What about when directors are asked or told by president s to break the law . What did you learn about that process and how that plays out looking at all these different directors and the relationships with president s . To me that might be the most fascinating scene in the book, and its because its a continuous theme that from the beginning all the up to our current cia director gina haspel. I had the privilege of getting to know the winner of richard helms, the previously mentioned quintessential cia, oldschool cia director. Cynthia died last summer but i spent a lot of time with her the summer before. She was 95 and she was full of terrific Untold Stories about her husband and she said, you know, chris, they were all asked to do things they shouldnt have done. And i said, like what . And we got into it and we talked about the fact that helms, he was a flawed character. He was brilliant and he was smooth and i loved the stories about him holding his own on the dance floor with fred astaire at the 1975 date dinner for the shah of iran. Helms was dancing with cynthia, and fred astaire was dancing. Quite the character but flawed. His relationship with lbj is fascinating because he admired lbj for his domestic achievements and the great society. He was exasperated by the vietnam war. He wanted lbj to succeed, and lbj leaned on him very hard, as only lbj could do, and told him in no Uncertain Terms that he wanted intelligence showing that domestic protesters against the vietnam war were being controlled by foreign communist powers. Helms protested, says thats not in the lb chief lbj said helms shouldve known better, but he bent the law. He set up an operation called operation image chaos. It was illegal domestic surveillance of protesters who had every right to protest. And at the end of the day he came up with absolutely no evidence of any foreign communist control. So helms was flawed, but at the end of the day, helms stood up to nixon at the most important time, when the crunch came during the watergate scandal and h. R. Haldeman, nixons chief of staff, called him into the house and told in famously to shut down the fbi investigation into watergate. Helms was having none of it, and he stood up for the rule of law and he arguably saved the cia. So helms was the earliest example of a cia director who had to deal with that kind of pressure, but so many have had to. Time and again president s will ask them to do stuff they shouldnt be doing, including i love the way bob gates put it. Gates said usually youve got a really difficult problem, the state Department Says that the military handle it. The military says let the diplomats handle it, and they all say lets let the cia do it. Cia is one former director told me you could never get rid of the cia, never abolish it because then congress would have no one to blame. The fact of the matter, over the last five or six decades, is that when the cia gets in trouble, it is usually because president s have asked them to do stuff they shouldnt be doing. Did they get in trouble . Do they get in trouble . You said when the cia, i mean, to the actually get held accountable or get in trouble . Yeah, certainly have been blamed time and again. The other classic lament out of langley which a love which in this town thoroughly policy successes and policy failures. Certain cia was blamed for 9 11. It was called the failure of imagination. It was called all kinds of things but basically the cia was, the deputy said people, to me, congressman would come up to me and say hey, how does a field of the worst intelligence failure since pearl harbor . The truth is, and i have a detailed chapter on this, in july of 2001, george tenet, black, and rich, head of the alqaeda unit with over to the bush white house, he slammed assist on the table said weve got to go on a war footing now. They met with condi rice. Essentially they blew the whistle, and nobody heard it. This was the case, this was, in my view, less of an intelligence failure and more of a policy failure, a white house failure to heed their warnings. Fastforward to 2020 and we are now suffering catastrophic consequences of a president who ignored warnings in his president s daily brief throughout the month of january, and 200,000 americans are dead. One of the things you talk about, which will different and i want to your thoughts on it, is the abandonment of norms, procedural norms under this president , particularly in terms of the Principal Committee meetings, et cetera. Can you talk about that . Its a thread you talk about the route. It just doesnt come out of the blue when we talk about the Trump Presidency. This isnt the white house that, not only has declared war on process and on norms, this is essentially a white house declaring war on government from day one. I will never forget denis mcdonough, the Outgoing White House chief of staff for obama telling the that when the clock struck noon on january 20th, sitting in his office waiting for reince priebus, the chief of staff and the staff to arrive, and nobody showed up. He waited an hour or more, finally just turned off the lights and left. To me thats a metaphor for this presidency, but its not the first time that process and norms have been abandoned. One case in point is 9 11, and thats go back to that because one of the things i learned in the book, i did a documentary in 2015 for showtime by the way called the spymasters in which we told the story of the july 10 meeting, july 10, 2,001,001. In the book i was able to go deeper and talked to a number of really persuasive sources in the white house and cia who said essentially that all you have to do in july of 2001 was call a a principals meeting. And, of course, pri