President nixon, Lieutenant Colonel marine corps vietnam veteran living in the white house, return with president nixon to san clemente. Retired from the marines and when we had a gift without we would name it the jack sears. When we have distinguished professional of arms we would remind people that jack served and continues to serve it was so glad so many of you are here. If youre a veteran or a member of active duty will you stand and allow us to thank you . [applause] now our guest is admiral james stavridis, graduate from United Statesra Naval Academy in 1976. Hehe went on for 37 year career and some extraordinary stations along the way including as Combatant Commander of u. S. Central command excuse me, seven command from 20062009 and, of course, as nato ally supreme commander. He earned his phd as well and masters of arts from the Fletcher School of law and diplomacy which he subsequently went on to lead as dean after his retirement from the navy. Admiral stavridis is the author of ten books but hes also operating executive with the Carlyle Group witches and is perhaps the preeminent Venture Capitalist Fund in the United States. He chairs boards of the counselors at the mclarty associates. Hes the most treasured guess have a radioue show and im learning personal campaign to get tremont on the Border Police one if not three Big Tech Companies so that google, facebook and amazon bring to the perspective and discussions of view to the National Security of the United Statesth from some oe knowledge n about all these things. Things. For his 37 years [applause] i also like to point out, he spent 11 of those years out of sight of land. So that is quite a recommendation. Please join inof welcoming admil stavridis. [applause] thank you, sir. What we will do tonight is a bit different for audience here and her audience watching on cspan. Would ask the admiralty questions and want to make it a little bit broader. I i do not have a copy of his memoir the accident admiral but my first question, ive never asked you why did you call it the accidental admiral . Anybody who really follows the navy knows the place you would end up in the navy is a 4star is the pacific. You want to be out there where halsey amendments and all the great naval admirals and i was kind of dragged into go into the pacific, and then secretary of defense bob gates called up and said, we need you to go to europe and work at maeda. I said mr. Secretary, i dont really know much about nato or europe. I said im a pacific guy. That did not win him over, and so i felt this was kind of an accident that i ended up in europe. Secondly, because all of our lives are accidents. All of our lives, the big turns come we can never predict of them. And so i wanted a title of the book that emphasized that you can have a brilliant plan for your life but there will be intervening moments. A accidental speeders ive often said the most important words in english language are, have you ever considered, and i know a guy. [laughing] who is that guy and i know a guy who made your career . Admiral mike mullen who was the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff at the far end of his career, but early in his career in early in mind he is probably tenure senior to me which is the perfect distance for a mentor in the military. When he was the head of human resources, we called him in the navy, detailers, he was my detailer and the out of a standard seagoing career and said, you know, stavridis, you get something going on. We are going to send you to the Fletcher School of law and diplomacy and put you in a position to do a phd. Thats very unconventional. He was there at the beginning of my career, and then at the far end when i was getting ready to become a 4star officer, he was a staunch advocate. The the point i want to make is he was a mentor who followed up. So often people talk about being mentors, but they dont have that followup. They dont Truly Engaged again and again. Admiral mullen was there for me at every step. The first book i got to know you and is one im holding up, the leaders bookshelves and her friends were watching on cspan, this is a book you can give to anyone at any time in any career and it will be invaluable for them. I found it to be invaluable. Would you explain you wrote this . The truly excellent. The title tells it, its the leaders bookshelves and its, the idea is to identify 50 bucks that can make you a better leader. R books. Because nobody has time to read 50 books, whats in here is a synopsis of each of these 50 books, and the leadership lessons that followup from them. Its not a bunch of boring leadership books. Its actually novels like to kill a mockingbird, a connecticut yankee in King Arthurs Court for its autobiography like the memoirs of general grant. There is biography of nimitz who will talk about later. A very eclectic group of books, so im like as a gift because you can head have to somebody d they can either do the People Magazine version or read through it, or they can say wow, that when really catches my interestn im going to sit down and read in love and war by vice admiral James Stockdale and his wife sybil. Whats remarkable about our distinguished leaders series, the first two, general mattis who was in your chair a couple months ago has an appendix that 63 books to his memoir, and you both earned, you are adamant that young officers and old be reading. Can you expand on that . I had a chance to have dinner with a handful of the junior cadets who were here this evening, and the asthma can it do to prepare myself for militaryry service . I said a lot of things that are important, physical fitness, knowledge, tactics, all of that. The most important thing is to read. Because the day you graduate from university is the day that you own your education. At the end of your life you will be the sum of what youre you ce to invest in that education. Read, read, read it and to practically answer the question, only through picking up a book, a novel, for example, lets take gates the fire about the battle of by steven preston. You can put yourself in that moment. Its a simulator, a chance to test yourself against the highest standards. I think reading is powerful and important and it is a force multiplier in your life. The next book is seapower sea power. They taught me, first of all i did know about Global Climate change because as you point out whether not your site is, youre going place in the arctic you know it before but its named for a book that has a fairly good pedigree, a good friend of mine commander cook and aviator in vietnam sit on the mentioned going to read a book called sea power because his Naval Academy class of 63. Explain to the audience watch at home what sea power was intended to do and the legacy it carries. The subtitle of the i book is sea power, the instead of writing a book about people i decide to write a book where the characters are thepl worlds oceans, chapter on atlantic, the pacific, the medic, the arctic, the south china sea. I think theres power in that because in each of those chapters i talk about the history of that region of the world and tie it to the important of the seas, and that connection to the admiral youre thinkingth of, the greatt strategist the navy has ever produced who created the idea of a global navy. The reason we have a powerful seagoing navy, a powerful marine corps is because of these vast oceans. 70 of this planet is covered by water. 95 of all trade moves on the oceans. 70 of the oxygen you are breathing tonight comes from photosynthesis in the seat, the oceans matter. Thats the genesis of the book, and that there is we ought to have a strategy for dealing with those oceans, as shown as alfred mahan articulate a strategy 120 years ago. My last two questions before i yield the stage for your presentation have to do with two of the chapters in this wonderful new book, sailing true north and i picked these two apples because chester nimitz commanded Richard Nixon who as you say was one of the millions of sailors on thousands of ships under his command. He wasnt on the ship most of the time, supply officer in the south pacific, and the other one i will ask about is zumwalt because he was a under nixons command. So theres an asymmetry different by first question about nimitz. Would chester nimitz portrayed in the newou movie midway and if people read sailing true north make it in the navy of today . I think the real question is, would even have made it out of the Naval Academy of today . [laughing] when he was a midshipman he was often known to go we would say over the wall, unauthorized liberty, go out to town and buy beer for his classmates and bring it back. Theres a wonderful vignette about nimitz, this sort of evn as a midshipman i picture him as a stately, tall, great executive here, the wholele package. Hesle in this beer shop and he sees what he thinks is a a civilian over there and advise of there beer any moves on. The next day it turns out that civilian is one of the officers at the Naval Academy. So nimitzrs is like oh, my gosh, my career is over. But he gets a Second Chance, and i think theres power in that idea that to get those chester nimitz you have to give people a Second Chance from time to time. I certainly got many Second Chances in the course of my career. S theres power in that lesson. I read with great interest the zumwalt chapter because of the Nixon Library we are curious about when were researching the relationship between the president and the pentagon. There was under admiral zumwalt a very controversial scandal. Can you expand on what that was and whetherda or not but zumwalt really knew that was going on . There was this sort of i dont use the word come all but ill use it, intelligence gathering on civilian officials by thehe military and that souns terrible and it is. It was probably more benign than that. Probably more in the category of well, this person in the white house thinks this way and this one thinks this way. But the appears of kind of gathering intelligence in order to remove move a military agenda was pretty damning. The record is unclear onni whetr zumwalt was fully waiting of that or not. Im going toti give him the benefit of the debtor i met zumwalt. I knew zumwalt. I think he was an individual of High Integrity and ill talk about him in the moment or two. But the lesson here for all of us be careful of optics to be careful how appears because it can drag you down if you are not very careful to maintain yourself at the highest levels of standards. A followup about that. Zumwalt was quote deep selected. Nixon did a lot of deep selected as president. He reached for Daniel Patrick moynihan. He reached for people who out there. He pulled kissinger from harvard and kissinger had never met him. What is the advantage, does a navy need to do more deep selecting or less . I would say more. We just deep selected the current chief of Naval Operations, admiral michael gill day. Mike gill day a couple of months ago was a 3star current thinking about well, maybe if the stars align i might get a fourth star someday and the sect of the Navy Richard Spencer facedd a crisis in the original candidate, admiral bill moran had an issue, had to step aside so instead of going to that 4star bench, sector of the t Navy Richard Spencer reached way down to a 3star officer and elevate him over the entire 4star community. Its happened before. Zumwalt, and before that admiral burke was elevated as a 3star. The advantage of doing it is you really get a rash set of eyes, and y no one who is elevate had any package to pay a off. You get a clean break. That can be very advantageous and i would argue as the navy goes into this very turbulent 21st century, we would be well served to do a little more deep selected. Perfect transition to a clean break. Its now my pleasure to turn the stage over to admiral stavridis to give a presentation. I hope your clicker is there. Ill be back up at the end of. Thank you very much. Well, first and foremost i want to say thank you to hugh hewitt in the Nixon Library and i want to also just sort of spend a a moment while the furniture is moved, which it is. So thank you above all, its great to have you and your lovely wife, navy mom, maybe daughter, got a lot of navy going on the house tonight. I see that. That was arf wonderful introduction and broken when people who the introduction, supreme allied command and all that, and actually see me and they typically have two reactions. One is. [laughing] , i thought you would be taller. [laughing] and the other reaction is, they say well, you know, stavridis, if you are really that cool, wiping you not a navy pilot fighter. To be honest, i desperately wanted to be a Navy Fighter Pilot when i was a young boy but i had a really traumatic experience at an airport that made aviation really difficult forn me. [laughing] so heres all going to do and im going to do this and that one to five minutes so were going to sail fast but i want to talk about the oceans. But what i really want to talk about is character. I need everyone to understand the difference between leadership, jim mattis was here a while back country talked about leadership. Imm a huge talk about leadership. Leadership. Im here to talk about character. Leadership is what we do to influence others and to be out there influencing millions of people as a nato commander but that door swings on a very small hinge of human character you cannot unless it allows that to swing. I set out to write a book about character we are a wash of a lot of books about leadership i want to know about how we lead ourselves with character write about what you know about and using a framework of admirals so we will set back in history 2500 years and pull it up to the present to talk about ten dynamic admirals there has to be a Great American 2500 years ago athens faces a existential threat by the persian empire the persians are the iranians of today they are about to conquer athens the city state with the power of persuasion and convinces his captains to fight a battle in which they are outnumbered ten one with the captains of that day heres the advantage they had all of the rowers were free men that persian fleet was five times the size was run by slaves the mysticallys said tomorrow you must row for your family. For the your city, for your freedom and they destroyed the persian fleet it is the extraordinary story of accomplishment but within three years after that victorious battle, his arrogance overtakes him and he ends up alienating his countrymen is banished from grace and ends his life in the court of the persian emperor it is a greek tragedy and it is a story of how you can be given incredible gifts but if you allow your ego and arrogance to overtake them metaphorically will end up in the court of the persian king. Going to china now in the year 1400 the chinese emperor invests and the admiral is entrusted with an enormous treasure fleet constructed of wood that explores the indian ocean and if you have a comparison of europeans and chinese look at the shift see that massive wooden one that is the scale of 500 feet long do you see that little toy boat next to it . Thats the flagship of Christopher Columbus santa maria which 100 years later in 1492 thats what the europeans were sailing. The chinese were sailing massive ships. By the way that treasure fleet that economic juggernaut of the 14 hundreds looks a lot like china strategy today. There is a lot to learn about their ability to organize and what his boss wants him to so now jumped further forward to the time of the spanish armada sir Francis Drake saves england but the caribbean is known pirate in the rapist and a murderer he burns cities and kills indiscriminately perhaps the darkest character of these admirals he is a patriot if you have been to disney world on the ride pirates of the caribbean . Thats based on sir Francis Drake. Here is my favorite vice admiral lord nelson who fights another existential battle defeats the polish in 18 oh five off the coast of spain i like admiral nelson a lot 5foot 5 inches tall. [laughter] a man of normal height. [laughter] that was fearless in combat he lost his arm in one battle and deny in another beloved by his sailors he took care of his sailors and the captains adored him winning the existential battle was he perfect . Not so much Emma Hamilton a beautiful young actress and adulterous affair with her over a number of years has a child out of wedlock he would never get to her Senate Confirmation today. [laughter] if you see that picture of him in those days you look at signal flags he was a difficult subordinate actually putting the telescope to his blind eye he doesnt like the order of the admiral and says to the flight captain i dont see a signal go starboard. This is the expression to turn a blind eye to something so his moral compass doesnt always sail north so a complex character. Who else . Talk about our friend arguably the most brilliant officer the navy has produced who has a global strategy for america not just the navy but why America Needs the oceans. And intellectual is a man with spectacles on his nose and winter in his heart he is not a loving or giving person. But he does write and pursue the truth wherever it takes him and creates the Naval War College the most important of all war colleges of military institutions so not a warm figure he is a miserable commander at sea he commands badly that he is smart. That make sure that is character. Who else . Thi