Im responsible for your safety tonight. Follow my instructions, please do that, please sit down. The exits are behind us. Other people are here to help him. I come back for everybody. Over here to the right, two lefts when we get to the screen, i ordered ice cream. Nothing was going to happen. This is an extraordinary evening, general h. R. Mcmaster gave us the opportunity to celebrate. A remarkable institution, National Security council, four gentlemen, i got three or four more in the audience. My goal is to help all of you understand how the institution works and some of the big question, i will try to be the moderator. The first thing i want to ask you, the National Security council sits at the fault line of american constitutional governance. There is no question congress has a right to oversee the actions of departments like the Defense Department, the state department and no question the press, the right of privacy in his decisionmaking, we call that executive privilege. The National Security council sits squarely on top of that. You are there for the president to helpful the government together, you are coordinating the activities of agencies that have accountability to congress and i want each of you to reflect on that in your personal experience. I can interrupt you anytime. I will start with you, h. R. Mcmaster, on this question. To ensure that Congress Fulfill its constitutional role which is vital to our democracy because it represents the American People but also congresss role that is critical in the unwise policies and across the administration to access the great work in your staff. Departments have the primary responsibility to interact with the hill but what we attempted to do is have conversations with senators, congressmen and staffers about key policy initiatives and early in the development of integrated strategies. We found that helpful because a lot of the topics we are facing require legislative revenue and resources. Our emphasis on early consultation from the nsc. Obviously continued coordination between relevant departments and the hill and relevant committees. Each of you have administrations with contentious relations with congress. How does this issue, they would want to know what you are saying and thinking but you have an obligation to the president s advisor. I think the most important thing for the National Security advisor in the nsc on matters of interNational Security to project an image of bipartisanship and my relationship with president obama i ask for that latitude to resist putting a political spin on big issues until they are developed and obviously it is political decision. During my time, we decided to combine Homeland Security and National Security into one staff and that was a big difference in terms of the size of the staff but the bipartisan approach is extremely important. In my military career i had the good fortune of spending a few years on capitol hill. As a marine Liaison Officer my motto was due for the majority what you do for the minority and vice versa. I found out when i became National Security adviser all of a sudden i was a democrat and didnt know i was. You have to get through that and you can only get through it by working at it and making sure you reach out to both sides, extraordinarily important on security issues. The National Security advisor is not confirmed by the senate and does not testify on the record before congress. My predecessor spent a lot of time consulting informally on the hill explaining policies and all the rest, an important part of the job. I learned everything i know about being National Security advisor from the man in the front row, one thing, i worked for him when he was National Security adviser the first time, we served together in the tower position and one of the most important things about the Tower Commission established by president reagan in 1986 in the wake of iran arms sales was to stay off of an effort by congress to take over the National Security structure, said the number of people, the organizational structure and lead the charge to frustrate that effort because it is not just an issue of privacy but separation of powers. If the president cannot gather around him or her a staff in which he or she can have great confidence, the president is not going to be able to carry out the constitutional roles where the president has a lot of roles and leadership. It is a fundamental constitutional principle that needs to be observed and it is subject to struggle because in times of war president s get more power, Congress Takes it back. It is very important for the institution of the presidency to preserve the group that is able to support the constitutional role. Nobody had a bath with 4 difficult relations with congress than richard nixon. How did you balance your obligations to be his advisor but the accountability to the congress . The question of accountability arises in two ways. One, how congress can control policy and some of it is carried out by the nsa. Some measures that have to be taken, essentially secret mode, openings of negotiations, the exploration of new avenues. That is the basic problem. The administration in which i served during the vietnam war, you cannot say bipartisanship was at a type, some of the people who started us into that and the Peace Movement so passions were great. And president nixon had a combative side. What we did is two things. As a matter of principle, president nixon did not permit that his Staff Members could testify before congressional committees or could be subpoenaed by congressional committees. We agreed with senator fulbright that we would have private meetings, he would invite me and members of the Foreign Relations committee to drinks in his house and i would come periodically and brief them so no formal record was kept of the briefings and it was not a subpoena. We invariably briefed the leading members of the senatorial committees. The problem was there was a philosophical difference and the country was so deeply divided at that moment it was very difficult to find places for bipartisanship. One party has started, the other party inherited and the party that could have revolved had a shift inside that party so they objected in principle to the policies they themselves had advocated. I dont say that as a criticism. That was the fact of the situation. Even in the nixon period, we we made strenuous efforts to evolve the congress in our decisionmaking. The key issue comes down in continuous debate to the operations of the nsc become so pervasive that they act like a department. There is a category of decisions which i most would believe have to be done to some extent secretly. And to permit exploration. But then when it becomes a day today occurrence, trouble arises whether there is still congressional control. I most of the time, the nac has stayed on the right side. But one could argue that if the nsc as an institution conduct and continues negotiations that go on over several years, it is really doing, taking steps that ordinarily are under departmental and congressional control. You have anticipated the next question i was going to ask because there is a critique in washington these days the National Security council has become operational, taking on the activities of the departments rather than being coordinating advisor. Each of you dealt with that criticism. Henry has given his thoughts. How do you think about that. Part of the bargain about the National Security advisor and nsc not being Senate Confirmation her testimony and the like, it needs to be respectful to find its role so it does not preempt the role of departments and agencies or cabinet secretaries. Did not get too public in terms of what they are doing. We learned in the iran arms sales and irancontra the dangers of having an nsc that runs operations. On the other hand, i i would suggest simply this. The nsc spent a lot of time developing ways of building policy options for the president. I think there is our role for the nsc not in running operations, not displacing the department but to make sure once the president makes a decision and sets a policy, that the departments and agencies are implementing that policy effectively. Its not the substitute but it is to make sure that their implementing the president decision and hold them accountable. I think thats kind of a new frontier for the nsc, and something i think we need because the greatest policy is no good if it isnt implementing and isnt causing effects on the ground to advance the interests of the country. I think the biggest cancer in the nsc is when it crosses over from the institutional to operational. We have to guard against that. Its not easy. Technology is a doubleedged sword in this case, where Technology Allows someone on the nsc, if he or she wishes to, to pick up a a telephone and calln operational commander on the field in afghanistan, and thats a a problem for every administration. Thats not just one administration. As as a marine officer i was one receiving end of direction from direct from the white house as a captain. When i was in an operation in cambodia, wellintentioned staffer decided he wanted to talk to captain jones, and he could do that. But that is the big problem, and its one of the jobs i think the National Security adviser or whoever else can convey is under no circumstances will you do that, under no circumstances. Because once you open that door then you do get into running, micromanaging and running operations, and that something that the nsc should guard against, absolutely. H. R. , can i put you on the spot. Was sure perk levies its been a great gift to study the nsc from a Historical Perspective and then to learn from those who are here and especially general scowcroft has been a tremendous role model and mentor for me as well. So much of his work is very relevant to this question on emphasizing the role of the National Security council, incarnating in integrating across all the departments and agencies to provide options to the president. Once the president makes decisions, to assist with a sensible implementation, execution of those decisions. Recent years, for whatever reasons more and more authorities have been a centralized within the National Security council and it did cross i think a line between a coordinating and integrating organization into an executing arm of the government. So consistent with president trumps guidance we have devolved responsibility and authorities back to the departments where it belongs, and emphasized that coordination and integration role. One of the ways weve done that is with the time we saved and not calling up captain jones or his equivalent, what weve done is applied that time to reestablishing our strategic confidence to think longerterm and to involve the head of the departments and agencies, state department in particular, to play a foundational role in framing problems, in viewing situations around the world that affect our National Security through the lens of vital interests, and then based on that framing, to establish longterm goals, and more specific objectives associate with those goals. Then what happens is the principles issue guidance to the departments and agencies which then allow them to get to work and to actually start doing things. If its already within their authority to meet whatever the principles guidance is. Then we bring those decisions to the president that require his decisions. The approval of that framing and then ultimately we deliver to the president and integrated strategy. Much as we did as many of you watched us do it on the cuba policy which is probably the most public one. There were policies on iran, for example, which you will hear more about this week. And i could go on and on, but i think what has helped us has helped us address this potential of centralizing too much control in the nsc, making the nsc to operational is to focus more on the development of these integrated strategies. We knew the National Security adviser, you had a staff that was 40 or 50, not exactly sure, i think it was like 42, 45, Something Like that. Weve seen big staffs in the nsc in recent years. I mean, is this a simple question . More people are looking for things to do. They take on command. I know, h. R. , you started with the idea can all of you talk about how big a step is and how influential it is given its job . Please, h. R. If you are talking to kissinger you can probably get away with 40 or 50. If you are me in my need more help, right . We should remember you probably need a few more staffers if youre not henry kissinger. We have made a conscious effort to reduce the size of the staff and to make sure that form follows function. As we devolve, as a get of management of tactical issues, then were able to reduce. We have reduced significantly the numbers of policy people and overall staff. It was over 400 or so at its peak, we are down to about 360 0 something epic that sounds like a lot. Of those 360 its about 160170 policy people. The rest is the white house situation room which runs multiple shifts and information technology. Those who manage the president s travel and visit a foreign leaders, so theres a large administrative component. Its not as big as some of the numbers you hear talked about. What has contributed to the growth over time as well from 50 or so, the 167 is emphasis on Homeland Security, especially after the mass murder attacks on her country on september 11, 2001. The National Security council has a blended step that also includes the homeland Security Council. Does that mean we can get smaller . No, we cant i think. The emphasis is to have the right people with the right expertise and because of the coordination and integration efforts, the right personality a lot of times to lead by charm and bring people together around these important issues. I think we are in a good place now in terms of the size and effectiveness, especially the extremely talented as all of you know, the dedication and talent of the people on the National Security council, its astounding. It just makes you proud everyday when you interact with your teams there. But it did grow for a number of reasons. It is getting smaller again but the numbers can be deceiving in terms of policy. We didnt start with a fixed idea of the number of people that should be on the staff. I think one of the problems is, what do you define as National Security . When we started in the nixon administration, we concentrated on a number of key issues like russia, and opening to china, four or five key issues, and we left most of the others up to the departments. Then gradually over time the line between strategy and daytoday policy got eroded, and so that was self to be a greater need for white house supervision. Theres a reason for this. In the ideal world, the people who lose a debate accept it and march along. In the world that i knew which i know has improved since then, the party that gets overruled tends to think it was misunderstood, and that there is a need to carry out the implementation as close to the original overruled. As you could find. So theres a tendency for the departments to slide over into the preference of their members. This is of course maddening to president s whose secretary has settled something and then they gradually slide to come i think his accounts to the fact that more and more got but that function which Stephen Hadley mentioned, to add to policy formulation, the need for supervising implementation, because very often the difference between success and failure is in the nuance, and if you screw that up, even a a grt policy decision can fail. It wasnt the desire to improve, and, of course, i must say from a historical point of view, relations between the operators and the receivers were never better than when i had both jobs. [laughing] which actually was not a good system. Jim, you brought up this question about how technology is changing the nature of the National Security council. I think when, andrea, i think i remember you telling me that when you first opened the channel to china, it was a typewritten note that went through mail channels and it took a while for you to even horrific out there. Is sitting with piece of machinery on their belt that is, or Computing Power than dod used to have four years ago. Our First Channel to china on the chinese side was a handwritten note that was delivered in pakistan and brought to washington by a pakistan diplomat in a sealed envelope. And our reply was typed on paper that had no watermarks on it, and came back the same way. So each exchange took a minimum of nearly three weeks, and in real time was two to three months between these exchanges. So now jim has talked, he said experience where its a battlefield commander can get a phone call from the president. This is hard to running National Security council with that kind of immediacy. How did you deal with it, jim . If i could just make a comment on the size, just to go back for one more second on the previous guess i feel pretty strongly about this. The size of the National Security council is not whats important. Its what the National Security does, National Security counc