If we honored on my view Reagan Administration, so this one will be more informal recollections about what it was like working in the administration for president reagan and the atmosphere at the time. Each of our panelists will offer about 15 minutes of comments and we will adjourn for a q a. For my fellow historians, this is your time to do the expert interviews you have been wanting to do. Introducing my three panelists, this is the man who needs no introduction, because i introduced him three hours ago. Ken adelman. For our purposes here, he served as one of president reagans ambassadors to the u. N. And was also a troubleshooter in another way. I want to talk to you about your role in helping put that together. In the middle here, again, a man to those of us who here in austin we need no direction, bob inman. A very important alumni of the Reagan Administration as well. He was the nsa director and was referenced by one of the speakers in the earlier panel, that was the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for the first two years of the administration. And admiral, i do not know of i have told you this before, but a couple of years ago i came off a debt came across a letter from session urging president elect reagan to appoint admiral inman to be the director of the cia. For our purposes, dr. Henry nau, one of the directors of Economic Affairs for the first several years. And we have a tremendous breadth of expertise represented on the panel. We have henry the work at the whoe house and the others spanned the first and second term, so we have a ambitious breath of experience. Mr. Adelman i will be, as henry viii was with his sixth wife, i will be brief. I will mostly react to things that were said. Let me say and react first to the panel. Before, there was a wonderful, wonderful panel. Kudos for everybody and it and will for putting it together here the clements center. The whole question of agency and how much a president actually does. It is an ageold question. We have on the wall, all the Time Magazine persons of the year since 1927, because i believe that people really do make history. They do change things, and the study of the flow of the times is a good excuse for those getting in and flowing. There is a big difference between transactional president s and transformational president s. A transactional president is an inbox president. And a transformational president is one who really wants to make a change. As i said in the talks, the fact is there were four pillars of Ronald Reagans strategy. Whether he thought this was a strategy or not, i have no idea. Whether he really put this together, i have no idea. But they were very distinct. Number one was the delegitimization of the soviet leadership. That was his First Press Conference as president. They lie, cheat, steal to further their aims, and ended with his speech through the nation when he left office. The suspicion about the soviet leadership and the system was prevalent. No other president had done anything like that. Nixon, carter, nobody had done anything like that. It was not done. It was brandnew. Second, the overall defense buildup. That, i concede, was a republican view than anything at that time. I would say that that was the closest anyone would have done was as ever public and president. Number three is the fbi. That would not have happened with Ronald Reagan. People ask all the time is right to make work best if other people or to talk reagan into accepting that the fbi. Tell you the truth, issue never came up. I think reagan it knew what he wanted. He did not want the fdi to be [indiscernible] in any respect. That was will set with him. These factors were from reagan and from his thoughts. Point was the real reduction in nuclear weapons. Not the limitation of increases. Again, nothing that carter ever thought of or wanted or advocated. Nothing that nixon or ford ever wanted or advocated, but reagan insisted on it. At least three and a half of them are unique to Ronald Reagan. And no one else would have done that. The second overall point i would make is on a very good panel before us, which i learned a lot from, the question of the human rights. A very nice job on that. I would make three overall points. Number one, Ronald Reagan, in retrospect, gets for going after human rights against communism, not against authoritarian, south african, south american bad guys around the world. I think it was totally justified. Authoritarian dictators never massacred tens of millions of people as communism did. Authoritarian governments can change. South korea goes from authoritarian government to a free government. Taiwan does the same. Chile goes to an authoritarian government to a fouryear government. Communism never changes. I think the idea lets really stress human rights against communism rather than against authoritarianism. I think it is justified. Second overall point on human rights is i am sure it is in your paper, but this is a gigantic factor. It is iran. The shot was a bad guy. Ronald reagan comes in, he is sworn in 30 years ago, and that was the day that the hostages were released from iran. There was a trauma in the United States about that. There was a clear evidence that if you go, like carter did, to remove the leader, you would get something a lot worse. And you got something a lot worse. People said it could not be worse, but it was. I was fortunate at the inauguration. I had a blacktie party at my own house, and the night of the inauguration i had my parents in town, my brothers, my wife, rumsfeld, cheney, all kinds of people. That night, i left my own blacktie party and went over with jimmy carter, to welcome the exhostages, who had just been released. So i followed the story very carefully. But the idea of the experience in iran was a gigantic overhang for the human rights situation. The third point i would make is you have the grade on the curve on human rights. Carter spoke about the human rights policy, and i do not know if it was any different than reagans. He toasted the shaw overran iran as a island of stability in a turbulent area. I do not think that was human rights. I do not remember him taking a stance on south africa, south america, or other places in not one that was radically different from the reagan situation. He gave a few more speeches than reagan did on human rights, but i do not see any policy. The only big difference that i dont see any differences and other president s. President obama talked about human rights. He hung on to mubarak for a very long time. And then, he had acceptances certainly the most horrendous Human Rights Violations since world war ii in syria, of which obama did nothing. I cant imagine a human rights situation where you have over half a Million People in a situation and an american president is basically doing nothing but mentioning it a few times. Not actually doing anything. I think that is the most tremendous human rights record i have seen since world war ii. Those are my views on the past. Really quickly, i would have to say that working for Ronald Reagan was a delight. I was very lucky because he was interested in certain things and not interested in a lot of things. Most things he was not interested in were not interesting. There were not situation that he cared about, i was lucky. He cared enormously about my view. When i was sworn in as arms control director leading into the united nations, 1983, a very eventful year, there were no talks ongoing. I went to the white house 38 times to meet with him. Almost once a week. I can imagine what would it be like if we had ongoing talks, but it was always something. The meetings or because Ronald Reagan was interested. He liked to talk about it. If you look at a thousand or so broadcasts he did before becoming president , you think of the hot button issues people use to get elected. To get the nomination of the Republican Party. They were god, guns, and gays. The 3gs. Ronald reagan spoke practically of none of them in radio broadcasts. He mentioned that i think abortion was one out of 1000, gun control may have been one, and gays were none. Those with hot button issues to the electorate. School prayer, but they were not to Ronald Reagan. Over half of his talks about soviet affairs or arms control. He had to choose them, and made a good choice. I was lucky he was interested in this field. He knew what he knew, and knew what he did not know. As i said in my remark, he asked us to get together that night. He gives the overall view, trying to the soviets to go along. Try to eliminate this, and he was happy with whatever solution we came up with as long as it was doing that and the overall guidance that he had. And fdi, the really hot button issue, he did not have or need our opinion. He had his own opinion. That was his program rather than our program. Thank you. Admiral . Mr. Inman gerald ford does not get the credit he deserves on the issue. On the issue of human rights. Because you included that in the helsinki accords. When we talk later to those who survived the time, they said it is what gave them hope that there was external support that would eventually lead to the communist losing power. Very good point. Mine are reminiscenct of a very long individual who is very approachable, likable, easy to work with. I First Encountered him at a place called bohemian grove. I was the guest of george h. W. Bush, who is making a lakeside appearance. This is critical if you are aiming toward hoping to run for the presidency. They were both pushing reagan and were longtime members. There was a lunch after the speech, and the three of us retired as his guest, when governor reagan spotted us. He told the story about the barbary pirates in standing up to fight them, and when he finished, mr. President bush turned to him and said dam, he is good. Fastforward. Next encounter with the governor was after he had taken the oath of office. The day after. I had been approached in late november. What i consider being the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, and it was easy. I said hal, no. I was getting ready to retire. I was passing up promotion opportunities for people i had helped along. I went out to australia for a visit, got pulled out of a meeting, and he said you have to take this job. I said i was not going to. And then i got back from that trip and i had my First Encounter with weinberger. He persuaded me to go to the dci, offered me a job in the pentagon in the process. I thought it was exciting until my wife center are you crazy . I turned it down and thought things were behind us. I was so immersed with president carter on the final negotiations for getting the hostages out. In fact, my last conversation with carter as president as the president elect is sitting next to him in the limo was to tell them that hostages were in the aircraft but not permitted to take off until carter was no longer president. Next morning, the secretary runs in and says the president is calling. I thought it was carter following up, but it was the president. He could not have been more charming. He went through the whole rationale. When they lost new hampshire, he invited bill casey to run his political campaign. He asked him what job you would like in the administration, and casey said the director of Central Intelligence. They laughed, go forward to tuesday night in november, he has won. He turns to bill and says are you ready to be director of Central Intelligence . He said if i cannot be secretary of state. [laughter] about an hour later, the phone rang. It was barry goldwater, winninglating him on the election. Hes utterly at one request. I have a candidate for the director of Central Intelligence. He said i have already given the job to bill casey. There was a long silence. Casey and goldwater hated one another, Republican Party politics. They thought about how to deal with it, and the president said i got more calls generated by barry about you than anyone else running. And someone suggested doing a shotgun marriage where inman was the deputy. I had a conversation with you, and you declined. Now we are in office, and speaking as your commander in chief, i need you and want you to take the job is bill caseys deputy. Under the circumstances, mr. President , i would be honored. Hopefully no more than 18 months, two years. He agreed to that, and set by the way, i nominate you for a fourth star. So that is how this ersatz career ended up. It was very strange. I was confirmed on the 13th of february. I was still the director of the National Security agency until the 30th of march, and we saw more problems between those two agencies in that six weeks. I like about sending letters back and forth by the doe. Casey wanted to run totally different than any past director. Normally, the director deals with the outside world, the deputy runs the agency. That was not what he wanted to do. He wanted to personally run the clandestine service, covert operations, and the analytical side. He did not want to do anything with a science, technology, administration, any of the community stuff. I had been in the job six days and the president wanted to see me. I go down and it was very simple and direct. It was the first time he ever called me by my first name. He said bob become a bill told me you were going to do everything with regard to budgets and the rest, rebuild the intelligence community, and spend whatever you need to spend. Frank, you decide where to put it in the Defense Budget to make it happen. You could not have had clearer or simpler guidance. We made a fiveyear plan and found that the drawdowns have limited the Training Establishments and had no real limits and how much it could rebuild and at what pace. Because he had asked for cabinet status, bill had been granted that, which meant i was subcabinet. Casey never went to a Cabinet Meeting or an nsc meeting in the last 18 months. I went all of them. The only thing he went to was the National Security planning group, where they had the approval of covert offenses that were done. It was fascinating to sit up angle and watch the president. He was an amazingly relaxed man when people were talking. What i picked up by the second or Third Session was the role ed meese was playing. You had 10 minutes ago, and he would ask questions. The president would pick up his pencil, and the president would summarize the meeting. What he summarized would answer his questions. He had not bothered with all the other. He knew he was going to get the essence of what was important from ed. There were so many encounters. He loved to tell jokes. He did not meet joke writers. He was natural. Early on, there was still separate men and womens press cores for the White House Press corps, women had six new members of congress on trying to be funny. Schneider from rhode island wearing a groucho marx mustache. Damato, the senator from new york said that the president knew i was going to solve the budgets deficit and show his old movies at the white house. He would charge people to attend them. They all finished, the president goes up, looks down at them, and says if my movies made that kind of money, i wouldnt he here. [laughter] mr. Inman that was just his nature and his ease. He was not interested in the details unless they were pertinent to something that was on his mind, and he would pursue them, grasped them, and hold onto them. We were meeting about a year in, and he made a comment that nothing useful to the u. S. Had ever come from arms control agreements. Mr. President , i would like to suggest maybe sometimes there were. What . I talked about how they made the decision, given the limit, to do more mobile missiles as you came to deal with. He said no one has ever told me that. He picked it up and used it. It was classic. When he saw something, he would change his mind if he accepted the plausibility, and move with it. The shift in his dealing with the soviet union posed a substantial debt to margaret thatcher. Gorbachev had come to power. The years were finally behind them, and thatcher was the first one to me gorbachev. She called the president and said ronnie, this is someone we can work with. That began a process. At this point, i was out, but my departing week mrs. Thatcher had called. They had concluded that they urgently needed to be able to stage two Ascension Island to be able support foreign deployment. It was an island that had been leased out to the nsa for collection purposes. We were being told this, and ambassador kirkpatrick at the u. N. Said oh, mr. President , you cannot approve that. It would destroy the hemisphere solidarity. Again, one of those unfortunate outburst, what hemispheric solidarity . The british have been with us since the war of 1812. He turned and said sorry, tell maggie she can move Ascension Island. And one final note, it was clear from the beginning he focused on people and what motivated people and what the influences were on people. Knowing he was going to head for dialogue with the soviets, i introduced a character into the mix called suzanne massie. She was the former wife of a naval officer, and had written a book called the land of the fiber. It is a magnificent book on russian art history. The soviets hated they did not get any credit for it. I recommended they bring her in to brief him. He was taken with it, and have her back several times before going, and she was the one who was insistence that the Intelligence Committee was totally wrong, especially on religion. Communism has wiped it out. She says it is still alive, it is submerged in the process. Fastforward to george w. Bush and his First Encounter with putin. He had been briefed that in fact, putin wore a cross th