I am ambassador at the Elliott School. It is a super treat to be here this evening to have a chance to introduce a true hero from our National Security community. And you have seen his biography in the title for this evening, a discussion on an intelligence career. Its hard to imagine anyone more suited to the topic of a career in intelligence the mr. James clapper. And it is a great, great treat to have him here this evening. You can see from his background, he has had over five years of experience in the Intelligence Community, in the military side, civilian side, inside and outside government, and overseas as well. Maybe it is not listed in his bios, but someone could ask him a question about his 2014 visit to north korea to rescue a couple of americans who got caught up there. I first met mr. Clapper in the 1990s when i was a bureaucrat in the pentagon. Hims a little bit scared of when i first encountered him, but my boss carter and the rest of the panic on held him but my boss Ashton Carter and the rest of the pentagon held him in high regard. We were grateful to have him part of the team. Most recently, i logged many hours with mr. Klapper in the situation room discussing north outbreaks, chemical weapons and the whole gamut of National Security issues. These were in the format of the Principal Committee meeting chaired by ambassador susan rice. I was on the back bench and he of course was at the table. As some of you know, because i know you do role playing, all every principle Committee Meeting begins with an intelligence update. It was almost like a ritual prayer. Mr. Clapper would in tone the latest problem that was on the table that day. It has been my pleasure over my entire career to work with incredibly telling members of the Intelligence Committee, in particular in my last tour of the white house to work with people who work directly with the sister clapper who worked directly with mr. Clapper. I speak for legions of intelligence professionals noting the integrity and humanity that he has led the community he has let the Intelligence Committee, and he truly personifies the term, servant leader. It is an honor to introduce you tonight to him. The other thing that shows the humility, i did a little bit of serving some of his former teammates, and there is a favorite saying of his that their job was to be down in the engine room, shoveling and tell coal shoveling intel coal. I am sure we will have more than coal from the conversation today. It is my distinct honor to invite mr. James clapper to the podium. Thank you very much. [applause] james well, thank you very much. It is great to be here. I think i should pay tribute gentlemanura and the sitting to her right, who i am sure is known to many of you as chris colgem. Distinctionth great from the National Security council. If any of you are looking for a role model for public service, you only need to look right here at laura and chris. What i thought i would do tonight is, and i will try not to talk too law because what i am interested in his dialogue and questions and discussion. About to talk 20 minutes some ruminations on the professional intelligence. I do that by way of a commercial. Im writing a book and reflecting on the 50 plus years or so i spent in professional intelligence. And so the first time, long time, i had some time for contemplation. And so what i thought i would sure of those i thought i would share some of those ruminations with you, and hopefully, if you are not already interested but at least , consider public service, National Security and i think more specifically, im here to recruit for intelligence. And in doing so, just a couple of lessons i learned along the way. And again, ill just touch on some of these things and we can talk more about them in the q a period. My father was an Army Intelligence officer. He served in world war ii, specifically in signal intelligence, collecting enemy communications, breaking codes and that kind of thing. And he served during world war ii and during the korean war and quite by accident, he and i served together in vietnam in 1965 and 1966. So in some ways, i probably inherited the intelligence gene from him. In fact, first time my life i knew i was going to be an Intelligence Officer, i was 12 years old. Was 1953. Typically, military families, you move a lot in the military, and parents would drop the kids at the grandparents, and go on to the next place, find a place to live, get the house set up, and come back and retrieve the kids from the grandparents. You know, stay out of the way. So in the summer of 1953, we had just returned from japan, the northernmost island of japan, and on our way to fort devens in massachusetts. And my parents dropped me and my sister at my grandparents in philadelphia. And the big thing was, i could stay up as late as i wanted to watch television. In 1953,in the day, television was still a novelty, not like it is now. Was they favorite shows schmitz beer movie hour and they used to show these old charlie chan movies. First friday i was there, i decided i was going to surf. It was 12 30 in the morning. For all of you in this room, in those days, when you surfed, you had to go up to the tv and turn the dial. [applause] james i know thats completely foreign concept, but that is the way it worked. And we only have 13 channels, thats all. Black and white, black and black and white with a big vacuum tubes. So, im turning the data between channel four and five, and between those channels, i heard talking. Thats odd. I just held the tv selector right there halfway between california and five, and i held it for 50 minutes, and i held and i foundnutes, out that it was the Philadelphia Police department dispatcher. \[laughter] [laughter] james and it was interesting to me because all kinds of mayhem going on in the city of philadelphia. And it was really interesting. After a while, it got tiring holding the tv knob, so i switched it to get it back, and ran to the kitchen and got some toothpicks, and stuck them in the selector dial, so i guess i hacked my grandparents black and white tv set. [laughter] james then i started listening. I stayed up until 2 30, 3 00 in the morning. So the next night, i was going to do the same thing. So, i got a map of the city of philadelphia. And i started plotting police calls, where they would dispatch cruisers and that sort of thing. Too long, andtake i am doing this night after night and that kind of thing. I could figure out where the high crime areas were in philadelphia. And police use these police codes like 104 and 106. So i got these three by five cards, and i started writing them down and when i figured , them out, they would compromise them and say what they were. And then i figured out that they had a callsign allocation system where Police Cruisers in each district would have a unique set of call signs. They would call the cruiser. Whoever was riding in it. And i also found out that the Police Officers in the greater officers and the greater lieutenant and above had their own personal call signs and i had card files set up. And the way they dispatched Police Cruisers, i figured out what the Police District boundaries were in the city of philadelphia. So after three weeks of this, i had a pretty good idea of how the Philadelphia Police department works. [laughter] james nobody knew what i was doing. It just seemed a cool thing to do. So my dad, who spent his life in the signal intelligence business, he and my mom calm back to pick up my sister and me. And my dad says, hey what have , been have you been doing . So i whip out my map and you , would call it metadata today, but my three by five cards. , but is 65 years ago still november the expression on my dads phase. My god, i raised my own replacement. [laughter] story for i tell that humor, but i make a serious point because it does illustrate the nature of the work in intelligence, where you are figuring out a problem when you dont know all the facts. You have to draw inferences. You have to corroborate your hypothesis, test your theory, and then at some point in time, you come up thats a fact i can go with. And that is kind of what i did, even though i didnt know. But any way, thats when i knew i was going to be in intelligence. Anyway, fastforward. I enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve in 1961, moved to air force and was commissioned. I went to the university of maryland and finished up there in 1963 and commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the air force. I did 32 years in the air force. We moved 23 times in that 32 years. In my last job in active duty was director of dia and i retired in 1995. And i was out of the government for six years but still working for the government. I did khobart towers investigation in 1996, which is when i really got religion about terrorism, and we can talk about that, if you want. Gillmor commission, headed by former governor of virginia on weapons of mass destruction. Served on the in essay served on the n. S. A. Advisory board for four years and i taught intelligence at the graduate level. Came back in 2001, specifically two days after 9 11 after director of what was called the National Mapping and imaging agency. Did that for almost five years. Was out for a couple of months. And bob gates, who was then secretary of defense, who had been the director of central intelligence, asked me to come back and be the undersecretary of defense for intelligence , which oversees all intelligence in d. O. D. And the deal was only 19 months and got held over and asked me to stay on, and 19 months turned to 3. 5 years. And then i thought i was done, and then i was asked to serve as dni, and did that for 6. 5 years and i stopped that on january , 20. And i can tell you it is a great time to be a former. [laughter] then i went to vietnam, 1965, 1966. I dont know if you have seen some of the series on pbs by ken burns on vietnam. And it is very well done. And having lived through that era, both the war itself and the aftermath of it, which was a very, very traumatic time for this country. So, i really resonate with that series because it captured not only the substantive facts, but the atmosphere of it as well. For me personally, that was absolutely the worst year of my life, both personally and professionally. I hated the war and became disillusioned about it. And i briefed general westmoreland and i was ready to get out of the air force after my tour was over. And for some reason, somebody kind of plucked out of anonymity and mentor to me. It was a couple of general officers who picked me up to pick me out of the crowd for some reason. And that had a huge, huge impact on my life and my career. Because toion that emphasize the importance of i dont have anybody to mentor. ,ell, i would commend to you and what i always tell young people in our agencies, that if you see somebody that you think who is a roll model for you who is a role model for you ask them to mentor you. , dont wait to be asked. And there are no thinking senior, i dont care what the capacity is, will turn you down. Because they will be flattered and honored that you asked. And thats a way to help yourself advance your career wherever you go. And i just mention that very briefly because of the huge impact it had on me. , then back in texas for a and volunteered to go back to a second tour, which is in contrast was very, very rewarding. I was flying Reconnaissance Missions on the back of some c47s from world war ii and flew about 73 combat support missions. My second tour was a great tour. So, after my second tour in southeast asia, which ended in june of 1971, i had another mentor, who planted me in the office of the National Security office in fort meade, maryland. At this point, i was a young captain, and i had about eight years of service. And i was working directly for two threestar officers, directors. They are both dead now so i can talk about them. And i bring this up because of the contrasting styles in their leadership. I served the last year working for vice admiral gyler who went on to be the pacific combatant commander. And he was followed by air force ofeestar general, director the n. S. A. And only there for a year and got his fourstar and went on to another assignment. I bring this up to mention the two contrasting leadership styles. And i recount this in the book because admiral gyler was a very demanding boss. Very smart, but he was extremely hard on people. And what i watched happen from , which was military assistant, i kept his calendar and tracked his papers, so i had a lot of opportunities to observe. And what i noticed is that style of leadership is effective if you are very dictatorial, demanding, and very harsh with people. It is effective. And people will do exactly the minimum and nothing else. And however depend i watched this, too, when people were afraid to convey bad news to the director because they did not want to incur his wrath. He would fire people on the spot. So then the next director came in, admiral gyler left and general phillips came in, and he was the exact opposite. The antithesis, 180 degrees out. Very quiet, very introverted, very courteous, and very gracious. And the impact was amazing to see the difference in the way people reacted to that. People would bring ideas to him , and people were not afraid to ,ell him, this is screwed up you need to do something about it. They werent reluctant to do that. Now, both styles of leadership are effective, they both work. So fastforward 20 years, and now im a threestar general, and im now a director of an intelligence agency. And so, what i tried to do is remember that experience, both positive and negative. And yeah, there are times when you do have to be tough with people, but by and large, what i found in my 50 plus years in the intel business, people want to do the right thing. You want to do the mission and they want to do it well and excel in it. And you have to create an environment where that can happen. Leadership in intelligence ultimately is about motivating others to use their intellects. That is one of the great things from a diversity standpoint about the Intelligence Committee. It is all about your brain. Does it matter what your ethnic group is, your gender, or sexual preference, none of that matters. It is your mind is what counts in the Intelligence Community. And the interesting work that you have the opportunity to engage in. I consider that kind of a leadership laboratory. That will be in the book. [laughter] james so, but i thought i would mention it because in the context of leadership. Looking back, i think the one factor that is changing the Intelligence Committee, the thing that is changing the Intelligence Community more than anything else is technology. Mean, when we had traumas like 9 11, yes, that had an impact. The organizations, which i think are highly overrated. Reorganizations, which i think are highly overrated. But what is really historically changed business of intelligence is technology. And i say that in the context of adversary technology, what are the adversaries doing and our own to cope with it . On just fast forward again the most recent period, the 6. 5 years i spent as director of National Intelligence, my focus was on integration of the community. That was the central message from the 9 11 commission, which was convened which chris served on, was convened to examine what happened and what went wrong in the 9 11 attacks. And so, one of the major recommendations that came out of viewommission was their that the nation needed a director of National Intelligence. First they called it the n. I. D. , the National Intelligence director. The acronym is not very appealing the n. I. D. ,[laughter] james anyway, it came out d. N. I. And the notion was to have someone as a fulltime responsibility to champion integration across the community. U. S. Intelligence community is the premier capability on the planet. Its huge in total. 70 billion plus this year. 76 billion if you count d. O. D. And the National Intelligence program. That is larger than all, but maybe three or four the cabinet departments. So it is huge. It is a major enterprise to run. 16 components. Six agencies, including now the fbi, which is very much a part of the u. S. Intelligence community. So, how to integrate that . How to draw on the strengths, the couple mentor strengths of each of the agencies . And that is what i worked on during the 6. 5 years i was on. It is a never ending journey. You are not done by close of business friday. High, the low, and the most interesting, and we can talk about it during the q a, but i think the high for me was being present in the white house situation room during the raid to take out osama bin laden. It was an amazing, amazing event. Be,w, i think has to although a lot of people dont agree with me on this, is Edward Snowden and the damage he continues to have caused. We talk about that as well. I understand the issues with domestic surveillance and if thats all he had exposed, i could be a lot more forgiving, but he did so much else and so much damage and absolutely nothing to do with domestic surveillance. The most interesting experience for me was my trip to north vietnam, excuse me, 40 and flip, me, northa excuse korea in november 2014. [laughter] james and i was on a mission to bring out two of our citizens who had been in prison in hard labor. It was a fascinating experience particularly for me since i served 30 years previous in korea as the director of intelligence for u. S. Forces korea. So i was an amateur student of the peninsula. After that, i was on my professional bucket list someday to go to north korea. Finally, let me conclude these remarks with some philosophical observations that i call them. Maybe it sounds a little pretentious. First of all, why do we do intelligence . Why does any nation