Adapt to our troubled times, im glad were doing this evening for nonaspirin, i wish we were all there obviously, thank you for joining me and taking the time, congratulations to you on taking over the Hoover Institution, i hope congratulations is the right way to look at it. I cant imagine how you will squeeze in figure skating in the golfing with all of that but if anybody can, i know itll be you but thank you and nick for helping without book on james baker, you are both generous with your time and recollection to help us make there we got that right, i just wanted to throw that in there too. So im going to start off with some pretty big stuff, this is a tumultuous time in our history, here at home and around the world, big things are happening and maybe its a cliche but it feels like a hinged point and i want to get to talking about that, we remember the claddagh closely covenant when you and president bush and how you responded to the challenge, in terms of american fatalities, we are now experiencing a new 9 11 every two and half days. Others have had flareups lately but its on a different scale, i look at the numbers august 1, france had 11 deaths, australia had seven, japan had one, spain and germany had 0, we had 1244. What are we doing wrong, more portly what is the street american leaders, where is is going to lead us in terms of our place in the world, normally a leader in moments like this as we were after 9 11, how do you see is right now . Thank you for taking the time to do this, im looking forward to our conversation and im really looking forward to your book, james is one of the great figures in american diplomacy and i very much look forward to that. This is really a challenging time, some of us were old enough, i will say weve been through other challenging times, i was a child in 1968, we had two political assassinations, we had riots, we had all kinds of trouble in crisis and i think its important to look back with perspective that we survived other crises before but why is this one different, it is different because this unseen enemy, this unseen threat of the virus is so ubiquitous among the population and its very difficult for government to get control of the habits of 330 Million People, the fact is what we are asking here is because were very individualistic people, we are society that is not that easy to govern, we are actually asking individual americans to make good decisions, i think we sometimes forget, whatever organization of government that we might have, it really does come down to the responsibility of individuals making good decisions, not just the half themselves but on behalf of others. One of the things that has made it more difficult and here i do think we couldve done better in terms of National Leadership is that we have had from the Health Community and from her leadership sometimes mixed messages about what the Good Behavior auto look like. At a time like this, you dont want mixed messages. But i will tell you as somebody who has been in those circumstances under difficult times, i try not to be too hard on those who are trying to manage a circumstance like this. This has been an unfolding sto story, we did not know much about the virus of the start, many of the questions of how a pandemic would have behaved would have said children wouldve been among the most vulnerable. It turns out there among the least vulnerable. We have been learning on the j job, if you put this together, the fact that we are still learning about the virus, the fact that we are very decentralized governing structure, governors had been more important to the story and the federal government, and he looked at the mixed messages in the fact that all americans have to make good decisions, this is much tougher than anything weve ever had to manage. What do you think this is going to do in terms of our longterm, we were already seen a great debate unfolding here and around the world, globalism and isolationism in internationalism versus America First and now were seeing our country and others shutting down borders, trade is falling, travel is limited, we were talking beforehand, you nor i have traveled anywhere outside of this country in four months which would not be normal. International summits have been canceled, nationalism feels like its on a rise. When this is over or received on some level which it will, what are the longterm consequent is do you think . The longterm consequences, i hope are still in our control, let me talk about what it looks like in the short term. I dont think of everything the reader revenge of sovereignty. Let me call it that. And after 9 11, we got Greater International Cooperation on law enforcement, on intelligence cooperation, the un very early passed away to track terrorist financing, we got the Security Initiative to track suspicious cargo across borders, 90 countries participated in the ultimately. After the financial crisis in 2008 2009, the g20 met in washington in november inset guard rails about what policies might make the recession shorter and less fundamental. So they agreed that they would not have bigger trading policies. Did people break some of those roles, of course. There is a sense that the International System new that you cannot control terrorism or the financial crisis within your border. This time around, it has been my protective equipment, my travel being, my citizens, in the early stages of this crisis, it was get my citizens home, i dont care what happens two years, we will leave them on the cruise ship, just get my citizens home. Its been a very nationalist response, maybe thats to be expected when you have Something Like this that people revert to wanting the governance that is closest to them in the internationals interest to should in the International Cooperation largely. There is one exception to that, that is the Scientific Community has continued to operate in a borderless way so the sharing information, sharing data but for the most part, this has been a very national response. The question i would have, but how do we make sure overtime colum,the policy question, how e make sure Going Forward that that is not the permanent state of affairs. In other words we reinvigorate International Cooperation and that we invigorate the national institutions. And i think we have a big moment coming up with the g20 meetings in november and we will either approve International Institutions can have an important impact or we wont. If they do not have an impact, then i think were in for a long period of Just National policy. Can the world come together around issues like what would travel standards look like around the world. When we walk into an airport for an international flight, the procedures arent exactly the same but they are familiar. And they come out of the 9 11. Of trying to deal with terrorists. Is it possible to think about Something Like that that will allow people to feel comfortable traveling again, what do we do about the vaccine, if we are so fortunate and blessed to have a vaccine, we dont want it to be the hunger games in terms of every person, every country for themselves, we would like to think that a pandemic saving vaccine can be distributed on the basis of need across the borders. What are we going to do about trying to reboot a economic growth. Is there a way to do that collectively. This is going to be a big test for the International System and for its institutions but i think we need to focus right now on what kind of response can demonstrate those institutions can have a say in how we move forward. One specific institution, what about the World Health Organization, hes withdrawing us saying the captive of the chinese, it does feel like theres questions that the chinese ought to be asked about how they handle this, is that the right response, should we be leading the World Health Organization . We still have a little bit of time, there is a notification. In a period where we will continue to pay dues. Maybe there is still time, i have to tell you i think the World Health Organization needs reformed, i was National Security advisor doing sars, i dont think it actually reacted very effectively, i think it was very effective during a bullet, that was a responsive of the country doing something. It needs reformed but im personally one that believes in reforming institution and he cant really reform, i dont believe unless the United States is involved in that reform. I do think that there is a reckoning for china in the way that it dealt with the early stages of the pandemic, we also had problem during sars in the same way, we knew something was going on but we did not know what and we could not get answers. One broke test for the International SystemGoing Forward, for the next time, there will be a next time, how could we have better early warnings when something breaks out, how can we share data better, earlier so nations can get ahead of the curve because this time we now know that the chinese new even before they shut down International Travel which is kind of a problem. I do think we have a reckoning but one way to deal with that would be to go to the chinese privately, quietly and say okay, we know what you did, it was wrong, lets fix it next time. You talk about mixed messages, thick about president bush who read john barrys great book about the 1918 pandemic and he ordered the administration to think seriously with a crisis like that in our current president sent mixed messages and said this would disappear on its own, the cases would go down to 0, it was like the regular flu, the country should reopen, processors should liberate, states, you should not wear a mask until recently and tell now. Doesnt matter, seem to be the president ial leadership that matters. I wonder how we should assess the leadership. This is very hard, part of the reason is a story kept changing even from health officials. Once you tell people masks dont help, dont do it, i know they were trying to keep the focus on protective equipment for frontline workers to fully understand that, all we heard is americans was masks dont help. And then all of a sudden, everybody has to wear masks. Lets just say the mixed messages were coming out of 1600 pennsylvania, they were coming in a lot of ways. I believe personally that president s can speak too much. One of the suggestions that i wouldve made early on in this crisis was that the president speaks infrequently, he has something important to say when he speaks and he leads the Daily Briefing to doctor berkson dr. Fauci and maybe the hh secretary and so forth. Because we live in th learned te hard way, you dont want to make the president of the United States. We learn that and iraq frankly. You dont want the president to be the one who is talking about the raw data, its not a good role. So this president is singular and likes to tweet and talk every morning, i understand that. In a crisis like this, message discipline is so key and frankly president s when theyre asked something they will answer it. Even if the not quite certain what the answer should be, that is not just President Trump, that is president s. I think one of the problems in the way that this is structured is too often and commenting on everything. You might remember the mad cow disease breakout over christmas week. Import and at the time who was agriculture secretary was sent out there two or three times a day to talk about mad cow. The president said very little about mad cow, you want the president to be a reassuring figure but i dont think you want to make him an witness. We talk about internationalism inner leadership, what message are we sending right now to our allies the drawdown of the troops from germany. He said a lot of time, what message are we sending to allies around the world . I do believe, there is some truth in the idea that our posture still reflects the cold war. I remember when i became secretary, we had more Foreign Service officers in germany with 8 Million People than we had in india with a billion people. Why was that reflected, its the epicenter of the cold war. It is entirely possible, not inside the analysis but its entirely possible that its time to think about a reduction of troops in germany. But i do think that you do that, first in quiet conversation with the germans and nato about what that might look like, you decide and there is now some talk that theyre not coming back to the United States, they might go to poland given russian behavior particular towards the Baltic States and whats going on and so forth. So this may turn out to be the right thing to do but again in terms of the process, it is helpful to do it in a way that your lives feel not just consulted but a part of the decision. Probably relatively unknown, we did a major restructuring of our presence in south korea in the Bush Administration and he was talking to office of the secretary, he said we needed to rebalance, he was absolutely right, we had troops really close, that was a problem for our relations with the population, we were sitting on the most valuable land in south korea and we found when we braces question the south koreans were very much wanted us to restructure our presence there, very often you can find common ground, it just takes some time to do it and this is where i do think some of the turbulence and turnover Administration Officials is problematic. There has been a lot of people in the various key roles and i think sometimes you get things off between them. We will be taking questions from the audience soon, there is a raised hand function, dont do it yet wait till we get started but this is new for me, will figure it out, i think thisll be fun, one or two more in the mosque about things at home. We have reports that the russians may have been paying bounties or offering bounties to kill americans. And we know in my reporting there is not a complete agreement, they have Different Levels of confidence. , you are very experienced with intelligence that is not necessarily 100 and very little intelligence is 100 , should it be brought to present even if theres not 100 conclusion on this, if so what should you do even if it might not be he is talk to president putin eight or nine times, primly never addressed, how do you look at that . Whether the president should rate as a foreign leader depends on how much confidence there is in the intelligence. Here i think theres a little unfairness. Before you go to the russian president we think youre trying to kill our soldiers, you probably want to have confidence. And maybe this couldve been raised at the level of defense secretary or secretary of state or whatever when the russians but i think you want to be very careful about raising something that then later on turns out not to be true. And from your reporting, this intelligence did not seem terribly rocksolid from reading between the lines. I remember between the hierarch intelligence issues, people were saying, you had one agency that said those were not for that, you shouldve gone for the one agency. Here you have several agencies saying you dont know about this. I do think you need to be very careful in what you raise with foreign leaders about intelligence. I dont know what the intelligence really looks like, i probably would not have done at the level of the president president putin i wouldve done at a lower level and how good the intelligence was and how low the level, you dont want to be embarrassed every Intelligence Agency is a nevermind. You mentioned the rock thing, robert has an intervie book oute decision to go to i war in iraq, he looks at a granular way, very interesting book, we often think of the failure of intelligence into imagine Saddam Hussein did not have weapons, seemed inconceivable to many people, republicans and democrats. They did not have weapons, he think that the other way around that it was the opposite. Imagination rather than facts is policy and we had concluded something and try to look for the things improve what we had already assumed were true. What lessons you take from that . If we had learned that the japanese were buying large amounts of chlorine, we wouldve said they had a lot of swimming pools. But soon on hussein by the large amount of coring, but the active agent in their guests, he does it through military front companies, that piece of data looks very different. So yes the context matters, the fact that he had weapons of mass destruction, yes the fact that he tried to hide everything from inspectors in the Clinton Administration had to have it removed because they were not getting anywhere. So yes, all of that mattered to how you read pieces of data. Because as you just said in regard to the russian bounty issue, you never have something that says here we have 100 confident that this is for that, youre painting a picture and frankly after he told we did not connect the dots with 9 11, i tell you those stocks were pretty scattered too. Too not then connect the dots on a serial a person who serially sought weapons of mass destruction into dom hussein who would actually use them in war, yes, unfortunately from our point of view, the intelligence did not add up to what we thought added up to. But did we have some preconceived notion about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass instruction, of course. Anybody who dealt with Saddam Hussein with ten years since the end of the call for wou