Extend a special welcome to kristens mother and secretary carlucci, his widow Marcia Carlucci and kristens husband, mr. Joshua. We thank you so much for being here this evening. I also want to welcome the chairman of the institute, mr. Fred ryan. Thank you so much for being here this evening. Thanks, fred. Well, here we recognizing kristens for the publication of get me carlucci. And this release is near and dear to our hearts here at the Reagan Institute because. Kristens father, secretary carlucci, had an outsize impact on the reagan serving in a variety of roles both terms. Now, before serving in the Reagan Administration, Frank Carlucci enjoyed, an illustrious and diverse career in the Foreign Service in cold war hotspots, really across the globe in the 1960s, he was a political and a nixon and foreign ministrations he was ambassador to portugal during a particularly tumultuous of time he was deputy of the Central Intelligence agency during their careers and. He was Caspar Weinberger is reagans first secretary of defense his deputy the department of defense during the first term and then served president reagans National Security advisor and then secretary of defense in the second term resume unlike pretty much anyone else, few could compare what secretary carlucci did during those years of government service. Now, secretary carlucci is remembered here at the Reagan Institute as one of the most accomplished and serving figures from the Reagan Administration. And he was a consummate Public Servant. What secretary called, quote, a hero among Civil Servants devoted to service, hard work and statesman statesmanship, which, of course, is unusual in this town. He got things done, as we were just discussing. So well talk about all of this and more. Please join me in welcoming Kristen Carlucci head to the stage where we engage in discussion on get me carlucci. Thanks for being here. Its rather thank you. Well, to our viewers on cspan, heres the book, get me carlucci will do the most important thing i could do for you this evening and tell her to go on amazon. Oh, yes and purchase this book right now. Now that weve dispensed with the most important business for the evening, we can all go back to the reception. Just kidding. Well have a conversation. First of its a great and its i think even better story behind it with Washington Post story right soon after your father became deputy secretary of defense and theyre trying to explain who is this person that is just become the nations deputy secretary, defense and what do they find out in that article . Get me carlucci yeah. So title is from Washington Post, article from 1981. It just my dad had just served in the Carter Administration and was easily confirmed into the Reagan Administration. And in this Washington Post article, they they say that Reagan Kennedy had all said, get me, who is this guy . Get me carlucci. Everybody is asking for him. And thats basically this book is about its about identifying the traits that make my dad so, so wanted. So desired. And in this town, a consummate professional skilled Public Servant that everybody wanted in their corner. Republicans democrats, even though he was a republican. But that he was he got things done. So i thought it was a very appropriate title. Absolutely. And that image, the beginning of the story of president kennedy whos carlucci, get me carlucci. Where and your father sitting . I in foggy bottom, having lunch with carl. And next thing you know, hes kind of brought in and into the white house, meet someone who was a statesman from, well, from congo. Yeah. Back. He was a Foreign Service officer. And he had served in the congo, and hed come back to washington. He was having lunch. Was having lunch. Oh, thats better. And a minister from the congo was sitting down with president. And this who my father had known in the congo during that period of congolese independ since my father had gotten to know everybody in the congo and minister in the congo says with president Kennedy Kennedy louis carlucci, which is whereas carlucci and french president Kennedy Kennedy says, who the hell is carlucci and why is he so his of staff, kennedy is chief of staff, says, go find this guy. You need to go find this guy, ken carlucci. So my dad says he thinks he was shuffling suitcases in blair house at the time. So they pull him in and hes asked to translate for president kennedy and the minister the congo in end, he says he does. He didnt do a very good job. So he was never asked to translate after that. It was i the next time he translated for someone may have been president reagan or something, but yeah yeah it was someone spoke in a paragraph and he translated it with three words i believe. Yeah i think thats right. Lets take a step back for a second because its this is such a unique way to write effectively is a biography biography. You have a memoir that your father kept, but obviously never published. You were around more important parts, but all of of his in Public Service and you really got to your father in a different way through this project. So share a little bit about that background about the memoir you found and kind of how you came to discover your father bit through this through this journey. Sure. So is a very unusual way to write a book. My was so humble he he was not prone to and he thought the idea writing a book was absurd. But in the final years his life, he he considered me the writer in, the family. I had a history of writing. So i was urging him to put his thoughts to paper, put his memories to paper. So he put together a small memoir of his life, and i was grateful. Did he would send me copies, drafts. Hed say is is is this good . And id say, yeah, thats great, dad. Thank you you just put it down and put your memories down. And in 2020, like, of us, i was going through a period of transition and. I had run across this memoir again with a friend and she read it and she said, i knew your dads life was interesting. I had no i had no conception of how interesting it was. Is this available like is this available to buy . And i said no. And that really kind of got me down this path. Okay, i need to convert it. I need to make this into something that is actually a book that people buy. But it was missing pieces. It was missing context. And i had to fill in the blanks, the history of the time as well as he left out a lot of family details in his memoir, i kind of assumed that we would be reading it. So to meld two voices was a difficult thing to do. I became mostly the narrator, and then there was a lot of things i couldnt ask, so i asked other people i conducted interviews. I■x he passed away, another contemporary is of my fathers. And then, thankfully, my family likes to hoard things. So have boxes of his papers and his photographs and newspaper articles in our basement. It was a treasure trove of material to work from, and i was astonished at how many, for instance, newspaper articles there were about and about this time period. So so i go pretty far. I mean, you would expect this sort of newspaper coverage from his time and in a cabinet massacre advisor but in some ways, yes they were captured even from the service and in the Foreign Service. Yeah. Mm hmm. I want to ask you, you know, this about the personalities here because this book is so interesting from understanding what was happening during Frank Carlucci, his career in Public Service. But certainly for people in washington, see the sorts of people he was engaging with and when. Mhm. So going to throw out some names and just tantalize everybody with, with howthem and when. One of my favorites and we didnt prepare this beforehand. So im not violating it here but cheney right. Thats i recall his friend your fathers friend don right from princeton right is working in the Nixon Administration and the office of economic opportunity. And then brings in and in. Yeah. Intern on capitol hill. Yeah. So thats how we first meets him. So so faer now is number two in the Office Taking opportunity and hes interviewing this devil named. Yeah, cheney. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So you imagine mean this is the this was the kind of the that they are getting to know each other is that their young wasnt ionians doing these jobs in in washington i mean in washington and and we know a lot of these names. This is why kind of this is one another reason i decided put this together is that we just didnt know or i didnt have a i think anybody had an appreciation for Frank Carlucci which is why i, i brought lets continue this fun so okay yeah celebrate frank lucy blame Frank Carlucci. He was responsible cheney in early on. It was really don rumsfeld, who i dont think he was. But but then you go from there, and this is one of my favorites in the story. So you ingrain that office, and then hes recruited to omb. Right. Just imagine everybody. The phone rings and whos on the other end of the line. Its is George Shultz right . And he says, id like you to come. To omb to be my deputy. Mm. And then what happens next . You end up working for shultz. Hes hes for weinberger. Shultz gets pulled into treasury, right . And then he ends up working for walmart. Yeah. Who . He had met at ohio, actually, because, you know, weinberger was with reagan. He got into a little spat with thengovernor reagan right at. But he developed gloss over them. Yeah. Where you get that . Yeah. I mean, the context here governor reagan is fighting a particular program when he wants kill a program california, which your father said, no, i dont want to kill this program. Yeah yeah. So my father finds a diplomat way to make both things happen, which i actually think is another a line that that flows throughout this book. So theres a federal program that governor reagan wants to kill. And my dad working in ohio doesnt to kill it. So he says well, why dont we apint a three judge panel in california to, republicans and a democrat to see this program is actually as bad. You say it was reagan was going after this program because its good sample. Governor reagan, a waste or whatever, right . Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the three judge panel says, actually, no programs okay. So my dad says, well, this provides you the political you need to say, you know, this independent says its okay and ended up funding the longest in this programs history. So i do think that you know exit governor reagan for the stage. But yeah hell return exgovernor from this and later chapter. All right lets lets continue having this personality, shall we . All right. Okay. So so that we have George Shultz dont get to work for him he leaves working for Casper Weinberger as a deputy on right. Again, this is kind of just remarkable because he you have a Career Service officer now finding in this number two cabinet level position in the in the executive office of the president. Right and then he continues with lindbergh, right. He goes with weinberger to the 80 w and then goes with weinberger to the and he becomes step secdef at. The and then and then at and now h. W. , of course is what we call now health and Human Services hhs and. Then he returns i love this piece of the story to the Foreign Service because Henry Kissinger because of course we had we talk about this period having not mentioned Henry Kissinger. So he surfaces and he personally, as president. Ford mm hmm. To have well, i guess its get me carlucci to portugal. So us tell us what was going on in portugal at the time and why Henry Kissinger thought that your father was a person w could address, you know, what he needed and right. So during this period of time, portugal was transitioning. The 50 years prior, portugal under an autocracy and kissinger was extremely worried and convinced that portugal was going to fall under communist rule. So he wanted to send tough guy carlucci. He viewed him as tough guy carlucci to portugal to to change the situation. My nominated as ambassador there goes to portugal, and within and does the of the same things that he had done in the Foreign Service. He lands in portugal. He is able to speak portuguese because he had in brazil. So he starts he was the first ambassador there to speak portuguese and he assesses the situation on the ground in portugal and figures actually, no, i dont think this is to i dont think this country is going stay communist. I think theres going to be a democratically elected prime minister. And you sure this is the sort of thing you dont do . Henry kissinger at the height of his power. Ghand saying actually where you see communism as the outcome . I differ. And he did not appreciate. No, no, Henry Kissinger did not appreciate it that my my my dad said im i think youre wrong. And he pretty staunch in that opinion. And he came to washington and i said he said, i youre wrong. And he was proven correct. And i believe Henry Kissinger said something to the effect of, well, then you do it. Yeah, then you do it. And he did. And he did. Yeah. Pretty remarkable. My sense was, is that post ambassador to portugal was was perhaps one of his favorite. I think kind of moments in his career. Yeah obviously, they went on to other more senior and perhaps rivals. But that one it didnt seem to reflect to me kind of his quality and were able to play out and i think and and you know, think about it this way, like for 50 years now, portugal has been a democratic country. So the so the his influence there, he was able to give the portuguese the spirit out and the, you know, the spirit of the United States behind them. Right. And so i think that was that that was the most consequential, you know, position that he held. There were probably more higher positions or more higher positions, the u. S. Government. But i do feel like that that that one, especially, you, my mom was there with him. I think i think that one was the most meaningful there. The residence there is now named after him, costa carlucci and reed and the and the school there is named after him. Soname and i think that you kno, when we think about democracy sometimes we take it for granted and i feel like you for for the portuguese that was quite meaningful. Well i it because it it it in some ways reflected something that president reagan absolutely held very deep and combining point of view that people want to be free. Right and it wasnt ready to write them off as okay, theyre communists. Take the horrible approach, bring them over seem to be the approach he took. And i really wonderful job in terms of giving that insight into you know that portugal look like during this moment the cold war when certainly had and appreciate it. All right well were done with th enter carter we go from republican to democrat what republican Frank Carlucci do now and he actually before becoming taking on his next post at the intelligence agency. There was discussion whether he could take on a more political post. It was that it wasnt going to work right. But he comments that carter really likes and wants him to work at the state department. But he said he laughs at that and says, theres no way im going to get confirmed at the state department. So he goes and works for stansfield turner, the agency, for a couple of years under president carter. So the president carter pieces. You have a great story in. The book, because it wasnt his first time interacting with president carter. No. So not only that, he denied governor reagan or challenge governor reagan. He also challenged governor carter when. He was working as a deputy at right with cash weinberger. Give us a little feel of perhaps his political instincts. Things were slightly off. They were wrong then. Yes. And any midset. So, yeah. And i believe it was. I think you have it in front of me. Yeah, it was a it was a head start program. Yes. And so i read the sense. You go ahead. Yes. I was great. So. So they were going to tell carter that, were going to override your, veto and put push the program in and you weinbergers hesitatin what fran he we hung up, i turned to kevin. Youre quoting from the memoir, really nice device in this book, you know cap hes a lame duck governor, youll never hear from him again. Override the veto. Yeah. Yeah. He was wrong. But whats remarkable about that is our Politics Today and this is a throughout if you would have overrun, you know, a governor who then became president , you would never work for them. Let youd be persona non grata, let you in the town right and he ends up becoming. Yeah. A part of that administration. Yeah. He ends up saying, you know, carter liked me like he me. So i worked for his administration because thats what did he was a Public Servant he always put you know then the Public Service and service to you know the nation before anything else. Well, that did come at a cost little bit, at least, at least with one. Senator jesse helms never forgave. Right. Maybe we can move to there and this is this is really when remarkable things about your father out to the book was his ability to deal with difficult certainly strong personalities. Right and i think the one that is kind of comes out brightest in the book is a relationship between cap