20 years ago, yesterday day, president George W Bush addressed the nation after the Space Shuttle columbia disaster. And its in a moment like following other moments in his presidency, the horrors of 911, the global war on terror, the invasion of iraq, but also high points in the presidency. President bush was trying to bring the together in a moment of grief, but also to try to provide a vision of hope and common. And its in moments like this that the extraordinary resources, the Miller Center and these scholars that you have with you here today provide for us. We have, as you all know, because we released the George W Bush oral history in the fall of 2019, right before pandemic Russell Riley and Barbara Perry with a number of colleagues have brought the oral history of this presidency. And today were here to celebrate one of the first fruits of that project. That is what we call basic research. And from that basic, our scholars take and produce books of scholarship where. They learn new lessons from that administration by having talked to the senior most officials from the administration. And is only the first of many things that people will learn. The bush presidency. We got into this business in 77. There is a picture in the hallway outside of the Ford White House standing on the steps of the Miller Center. Theres young cheney, a young don rumsfeld and brant scowcroft, for which theres not a photo of him ever being young. And a number of people who served in the ford administration, like paul oneill, who would go on to serve as secretary of treasury for for president bush 43, who would back time after time to be interviewed for oral histories, the reagan oral history, the bush one, oral history, and now this bush 43 oral history. We have conducted an extensive oral set of oral history interviews for every president since ford and Russell Riley has been there for, almost all of them Russell Riley is the codirector of our oral history, along with Barbara Perry. Russell has logged. And it says here and its its hard to believe, russell, that youve done 1500 hours of confidential interviews. Senior administration officials, white house staff, cabinet officers and leaders. Barbara perry codirector, who is the jerry belial . Black hills professor here at the Miller Center and the director of president ial studies coleads the oral history program. Over her time, she has conducted more than 120 interviews for. The george h. W. Bush project, the george w. Bush project and barack obama project. In addition to having pulled together and completed the Edward Kennedy oral history project and helping launch the Hillary Clinton oral history project. We dont just do president s. We do other senior officials. And with that, its a great opportunity to introduce our special guest, whos joining us by zoom today, robert gates. As you all know, robert gates served as u. S. Secretary of defense from december 2006 in the bush 43 administration. And he continued his service through july 2011 into the Obama Administration. Hes been awarded the National Security medal, the president ial citizens, and has twice received the National Distinguished service medal. Secretary gates also completed three Miller Center oral history interviews. And for that, we are so grateful the one person who is not here today is other coeditor of this book. This book is coedited by Barbara PerryRussell Riley and mike nelson. Mike is a professor at college in tennessee. He had planned to be with us today, but an ice storm is moving through tennessee and for his safety and and to keep logistical complications to a minimum, mike has decided to stay home. But mike, if youre out there watching, which we hope and think you are. Thank you for all of the work. You do. He is also a senior fellow here at the Miller Center. So with that over to you, barbara. Great. Thank you so much, bill. We have just marked eight years of bills tenure here as the director and ceo of, the Miller Center and so hes served the equivalent of two president ial terms. And we hope, unlike president s, that he can carry on with at least one more term, maybe get up to the fdr mark. We also want to thank him so much for, his interest in oral history and joining us frequently, in fact, this week we did an oral history for the obama project that were now into. And bill joined us with that particular person he has known over years. And its really makes all the difference the world for russell and me to have, who knows the person that were interviewing. So thank you to bill and thanks so many of you here in the audience in person we have a full house today well as online and with cspan, many of you support the work of the Miller Center that is varied and particularly for those of you who support president ial studies and our Recording Program where we go through the secret white house tapes of president s, but also the oral history project, as bill has mentioned them. So, secretary gates, i want to say hello from charlottesville. And welcome you today virtually and i thought i would start with you. First of all, can you me . I can hear you just fine. Thank you. Oh, good. Thank you, sir. When i invited for the interview that you were so generous to give us two days last year for the obama, i went back and i looked at the interview that you did for the bush 43 project. First of all, recognizing that that had been your set of interviews with us, because you were interviewed for the bush 41 project. And as were speaking to our colleague mike nelson for the bush 43 project interview, i think out out at your home, you said you mentioned obama. You you sort of chuckled. And in the transcripts laughter, because you said, i guess youll be back to me a third time. And so how i began my invitation to you, which was were back, were here again tour for the third interview. And that one of of course, was for the obama project so we we hope youll join us when that one is released some years down the road. Having said that, sir, given that you have participated in three of these oral history projects, tell us what you think is the value of given giving, spoken narrative and others who have worked in these administrations with you . What is the value of those interviews for history, for teachers, students biographers, journalists but also practitioners such as yourself . You have served in the administration of eight president s from both parties pressurized pleasure. Well, today i would say that the great value is. It provides the person perspectives and personal experiences that often dont make their way into Historical Research when youre through documents and president ial records and so on things be pretty dry and and you end up sort of this happened and then that happened and so on and so and and when you have these oral histories, just think we would have had an oral history with franklin roosevelt. Theodore roosevelt or abraham lincoln. I think it brings the history light and and provides personal experience, personal points of view. People who can describe what it was like to be in the room when those decisions were made . Who can talk about some of the humor . Who can talk about how people were wrestling with about person, all relationships that that often dont find their way into into the documents. So i think i think it just adds a whole the whole new domain session to to looking at president ial and other experiences. Well we agree with you so much and certainly russell and i, in sitting on these interviews and being part of the interview panel, often with both Alice Spencer back, which is here, he participated with secretary and myself and others on the obama interview. Secretary gates, we attest that just to exactly what you said, sir, and that is that it is it is history come to life, and thats why we enjoy it. So but we also think it adds, as you said that extra piece of the puzzle as historians and others go back to piece together what has truly happened. But one thing, for example, that you will never find, that youll never find in the documents is people sitting in the situation room, the jokes that were being told or witticisms or something sometimes in the in the of circumstances, anything come to mind. But i think theyre in the oral history. Thank you. We like to hear that encourages people to go online certainly and also to purchase our book where we have a number of these stories and they available for those of you who are here today out in the ante room having said that to one also wanted to note it note that based on the bush 41 oral history that russell conducted before i arrived that taking off from that secretary gates and russell and i participated in a partnership between the miller and virginia public media and a recent documentary called state craft about the bush 41 Foreign Policy team, which was a golden group a golden group of people, a plus, and bringing their experience to bear, including secretary gates. And so you can watch that on pbs. You can watch it online and on their passport, i think it is called. So let me turn to russell now and read to you something that will be familiar, because it is as you begin your chapter in book, an introduction and, you say, russell, no presidency, in the lifetime of the republic, referring the bush 43 presidency, george bush will be more difficult for history to get right than the 43rd. Tell us why you think that and why you began your chapter that way. Sure, id be happy to do that. First, i should let you know that having already been presented as somebody who does a lot of these interviews, i feel much more comfortable down and asking questions of people in in a private setting than. I do in front of an audience like this, although its terrific to see people again at the center so thats thats sort of where my bread and butter is. But in terms the question about how difficult it will be to this president , right. For history, there are three factors that i write about in my chapter. The first one relates just to the basic controversies associated with his presidency and controversy and are enemies to figuring out presidency and getting it right. And it takes a while for those passions to die down. I dont think were there yet. I think its going to take some time, but this this was a presidency that was controversial from the very outset. I mean it was the first president who had come to office elected with a minority of the vote since Benjamin Harrison in 1888. We recall the controversy in florida that precipitated his with the you know, the socalled Brooks Brothers riot with people creating a ruckus over the vote count. He came into office on the basis of a Supreme Court that was so improvised optional that the justices said it shouldnt be used a precedent for any other cases. And then once you get him into there are, you know, just a host of really highly controversial conditions, the failure to detect and prevent the the attack of 911. But then after that, the decision invade iraq, the abu ghraib scandal, hurricane katrina, a massive economic in 2007 and 2008. And so all of these are going to be complications. Historians trying to get this right for future generations in terms understanding this president. So thats the first factor. The second factor is the basic that we used to come to understand the presidency, those president ial records in this instance, the problems of history are problems about the east and famine. If you go to the website of, the George W Bush president ial library, youll learn that there are 70 million paper records there, as well as 200 million emails and. Presumably, if you follow caro, the eminent biographer who said his method is to turn every page, some of youve probably seen this as a result of a of a documentary on caro now, but his method is turn every page and i actually went through the calculations and if you turn 2000 pages a day nonstop it would take you 191 years to go through all of the evidence accumulated. And thats just the paper records. There are three times as much in the way of emails, so theres theres a massive needle in a haystack problem in terms of trying to to come to terms with that massive of evidence then beyond that. In the the. Barber. Help me. Yes well so in terms of sort of the what is what are the all the issues that will cause us to continue to struggle with categorizing and and evaluating president bush three the the problems with with famine occur because of the inability of to get these records cleared is a very small staff of of archivists involved getting them cleared. And therefore it will be. By one count, the George W Bush library is 240 years behind on dealing with failure requests. So if we dont have those archival records available, then you have to go to alternative sources. In the best of the alternate sources is oral history. The third point in terms of the difficulties in understanding this administration or getting it right for ironically occurs as a result of a Great Success the administration. And that is the attack of 911 was a one off event and the reality of that being a one off event has a powerful on how we view that administration the germanjewish philosopher Walter Benjamin once that a man who dies at 35 will by remembrance always be remembered in subsequent history as. A man who died at the age of 35. Its impact able to look on somebodys history like that without understanding the and colors everything that went it. We today understand that 911 was a one off event and therefore our views of the bush are colored. That experience which is very different from the lived experience of the people who were in the administration at the time, who on the basis of evidence from people like Condoleezza Rice believed that every day after that was 912 that every effort they were making was geared making sure that there was not a recurrence of that event. And yet from deep historical perspective, in looking back on that, we have a tendency to underestimate how powerful an influence that on the administration. And it will think forever be a problem for us in terms trying to understand the presidency because of that reality. Well thank for that both an introduction for today but also your superb to the book secretary gates let me turn back to you you into the bush 43 cabinet as second secdef as we call it in the business. The second secret of defense coming after donald rumsfeld, another of the people we had the privilege to interview, in fact, right here at the miller. And he brought along the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, the vice chair of the joint chiefs of staff, and paul wolfowitz, his second in command. And as communications people, he brought two of those people. So well we like to point out that we sometimes as we secretary gates and these instances typically for just one to a group of us interview him but sometimes well say to two we say to all the secretaries particularly if youd like to bring a team, feel to do that. So first of all, if you will, sir, tell us what that was like to come in to an administration thats already six years down the road, five years down the road, replacing a secretary of defense who has become controversial in that period. And then if i ask us a second part of the question, which is you then transitioned into the Obama Administration because he asked that you stay on and you stayed in that cabinet for a couple of years. And perhaps if could for us compare and contrast the commander in chief leadership styles of those two president s, 43 and 44. So when i was when i received a telephone on a saturday morning and laid october from the National Security steve hadley, id started working with in the Nixon Administration. Asking and it was just out of the blue, would you be willing to if the president asked, you serve as secretary of defense. Now, the back back story to this is that 18 months, 19 months before that, they had asked to be first director of National Intelligence. I had gone into the white house and talked with hadley and i talked with andy card, who was then chief of staff and and we wrestle with it the is i had opposed the creation of director of National Intelligence thought it was unworkable and and they were asking me to be the first person to occupy the job and. So needless to say, i had a lot of questions. I felt there were a lot of deficiencies in. The law, they basically agreed everything i asked and but still was wrestling with in of authorities and so on. But i was still wrestling the decision then and ultimately i thought i was going to take it. And im pretty sure they thought i was going to take it. But at the last minute after the inaugural, i had told i, andy card that i would call him the monday after the inauguration, after id had a chance to think about it one last time over the weekend. And i called him that monday morning and i told him i decided not to do it. And i think he was pretty shocked. I was pretty surprised myself because everything that had up to that i think had led them to that. I was going to do it. So i told my wife afterward, i said, the one piece of good news about this is that the Bush Administration will never, ever ask me to do anything. So, so fast forward. Hadley calls me, interestingly enough, this time i said, steve, you weve got a lot of Young Americans out there fighting and dying, doing their duty and if you ask me to do this, i will certainly do it. So no hesitation that one. But after i hung up the phone and contemp