So rather than the formal academic papers that were having on most of the other panels, this one will be more informal recollections and reminiscence of what it was like working in the administration for the president himself, the atmosphere at the time. And each of our panelists will offer ten to 15 minutes of prefatory comments and then well turn it over to q a. For my fellow mishistorians in the room, this is the time to do the Expert Interview youve been wanting do. Introducing our three panelists first over on this end the man who needs no introduction i mean it lirt rally because i introduced him three hours ago, again ambassador kenned a he willman. I dont mind, go on. All right. For our purposes here, though, was served as one of president reagans ambassadors to the sun u. N. And then head of the Arms Control Disarmament Agency and also a troubleshooter in a number of other ways. I want to talk to but your role in putting some of the pieces together after irancontra. Then in the middle here, again, a man to those of us here in austin and many other americans needs no introduction admiral bob inman, a professor here at the university lbj school. For our purposes a very important alum of the Reagan Administration. He was the nsa director at the beginning of the administration and was referenced by one of the speakers in the early panel. And then was the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for the first few years of the administration. Admiral i dont know if i this but when i was doing some work i came across a letter from senator barry gold ert water to then president elect ronl Ronald Reagan urging him to appoint admiral inman as the director of the cia. The counter fact walz are interesting to see what might have played out. And then closest to me is proefr henry nau a zis distinguished scientist at George Washington university but for our purposes a Reagan Administration alum from the Security Council staff where he was senior director for International Economic affairs for the first couple of years. At final thing to say before i turn if over to our panelists weve got a tremendous breadth of people weve got henry who worked at the white house and admiral inman panhandle add he willman who were at department and agency wheres they also span the first and second term. Weve really got a pretty ka patience breadth of the experience from the administration. Well start with ambassador aed he willman. I will be brief, just because, you knowly my time and so ill mostly react to things that were said. But let me say first react first to the panel before, that was a wonderful, wonderful panel to cued does for everybody in it and for will for putting it together here at the clements center. The whole question of agency and how much a president actually does is an ageold question. Ny our colorado home have on the wall im the Time Magazine persons of the year since 1927 because i believe that people really do make history and really it do change things. And this whole idea of the flow of the times i think is a good excuse for those getting in and flowing, to tell you the truth, who really daont want to chang much. Theres a big difference between transactional president s and transformational president. A transz transactional is an inbox president , a transformational president is an outbox president. One who wants to make a change. My area. Referee the fact is there were four pillars in Ronald Reagans strategy. Whether he thought it was a strategy, i have no idea. Whether he really put the four together, i have no idea. But they were very distinct. Number one was the delegit ma zation of the soviet leadership. Started the First Press Conference had he as president. Theres no mistake about it they lie, cheat, steal to further their aims. Ended with his speech to the nation right when he left office. And the the suspicion about the soviet leadership and the system was prevalent, no other president had done anything like that. Nixon, carter, no one had delegitimized the soviet union like that, just wasnt done. So thats new, brand new. Second was like i say, the overall defense buildup. That i concede was more of a republican view than anything at that time, so i would say out of four thats the closest that somebody else would have done. But a republican president , vast buildup when he got into office. Number three, is, of course, sdi. And sdi would not have happened with Ronald Reagan. People ask all the time, well, at ryka vic were people trying to talk reagan into accepting gore bah chaffs cashiering of sdi . I said, to tell you the truth, the issue never came up . Why . Because reagan knew what he wanted. He did not want the sdi to be cashiered in any respect. So that that was pretty well set with him. So these kind of factors were, you know, from reagan and from his thoughts. The fourth was, of course, the real reduction in Nuclear Weapons, not the limitations of increases, all right. Again, nothing that carter ever thought of or wanted or advocated, nothing that nixon ever thought of or wanted or advocated. Nothing that ford ever wanted or add video indicated. Nothing that we in the business really thought was doable but was startling and reagan instifted on it. Okay. Out of those four things, at least three and a half of them are unique to Ronald Reagan and no one else would have done that. Second overall point i would make is on the very good panel before us, which i learned a lot from, the question of the human rights, sir, very nice job on that. But i would make three overall points, okay. Number one, the rap that Ronald Reagan in retrospect gets for really going after human rights against com mu anything, not against authoritarian south african, south american bad guys around the world, i think is totally justified. Authoritarian dictators never massacred tens of millions of people asco communism did. Authoritarian governments can change. South korea goes from authoritarian government to a free government. Taiwan goes from authoritarian government to a free government. Chile goes from an authoritarian government to a freer kbofr government. Com munists till the end of the cold war never changed. So i think the idea, lets really stress human rights against communism, rather than against athor tear nix i think is totally justified, okay. Second overall point on hum nan rights is, sir, im sure its in your paper but this is a gigantic factor. The gigantic factor is of course, iran. Comade did i is much worse. Ronald reagan comes in, the day tomorrow, that hes sworn in, 30 years ago, was the day that the hostages were released from iran, okay. After 444 days. There was a trauma in the United States about iran. There was a clear evidence that if you go like carter did to remove all too late the shaw, youre going to get maybe something a lot worse. And you know what . In iran we got something a lot worse. People there said, oh, couldnt be worse than the shaw. By the way, it was, all right. I was very fortunate at the inauguration, i went to the inauguration, i was having a blacktie party at my own house the night of the inauguration. I had the parents in town, a few brothers, and their wives in town, gene kirkpatrick, george will, rumsfelds, the chain nips, all kinds of people we were friendly with at that time. And it was so cool because that night i left my own blacktie party and went over with jimmy carter to welcome the ex hostages that just had been released. So i followed the story very carefully, but the idea of the experience of iran was a gigantic overhang for the human rights situation during the Reagan Administration. Third point i would make it you have to grade on the curve on human rights, okay. Carter spoke about the human rights policy. I dont know if it was any different than the reagan policy. He toasted the shaw of iran as the island of stability in a turbulent area. I dont think that was a great human rights. I dont remember carter taking a stance on south africa or south america or other places. There was quite there was radically different from the Reagan Administration. He gave a few more speeches than reagan did on human rights, but i dont see any policy big differences. Nor i do see dig differences i dont want to rap on give a rap on carter, i dont see any differences in other president s. Obama talked about human rights, he hung on mow bar rick a very long time when everybody generally thought, you know, he was on his way out on that. He had, you know, acceptances, certainly the most horrendous human rights violation probably since world war ii, to tell you the truth is syria, of which obama did nothing. Okay. I cant imagine a human rights situation where you have over a half a Million People in the situation and american president basically giving mentioning it a few times tisk, tisk, thats a terrible thing but actually not doing anything. I think thats the most horrendous human rights record i have seen since world war i. All right. Those are my views on the past. Real quickly, will, i would have to say that work for Ronald Reagan was a delight. I was very lucky because he was interested in certain things and he was not interested in a lot of things, okay. And those things he was not interested, he wasnt interested. All right. And it was kind of a odd situation that he cared about i was lucky, he cared about my field and he cared enormously about my field. In the year i was sworn in as arms control director moving in from the united nations, 1983 a very eventful year which of there were no talks of going, i went over to the white house i think Something Like 38 times with meetings for the president. Almost once a week. All right. I can imagine what it would be like if we had ongoing talks during that time. But there was always something coming up, and the reason for these meetings was that Ronald Reagan was interested in the subject. He liked to talk about it. When you look at the thousand or so radio broad cascasts he did those years before he was governor and before president , you think of the hotbutton issues that people use to get elected, especially get the nomination and the republican party. And they were god, guns, and gays, all right, the three gs. Ronald reagan spoke in practically none of them in the thousand radio broadcasts. He mentioned i think abortion was one out of the 1,000, gun control may have been one, i dont know. And gays was none. And, you know, those werent those were the hotbutton issues to the elector rate, School Prayer and all those things, but they werent to ronald ray fwan. Over some half of his talks were about soviet affairs or arms control, okay. And he had to choose them and did so. So it was i was lucky, he was interested in this field, he knew what he knew and he knew what he didnt know. And it was very typical, as i said in my remark, that he asked for the experts to get together, he gave us the overall view, reduce by half, try to get the soef yets to go along on how that would be done, try to eliminate the euro missiles and he was happy with whatever solution we came up with on doing that as long as it was the overall thought and the overall guidance he had. And on sdi, which was really the hotbutton issue in remembering covic, he didnt ask us our opinion, he didnt need our opinion, he had his own opinion and he really led the way on sdi, which was his program rather than our program. Thank you you all. Thanks. Admiral. One note i would add back, jay ford doesnt get credit he deserves on the issue of human rights. Because he included that in the hill sink i can accords. Yeah, that was. And when we talk later to the refuse nick whos survived the time, they said thats what gave them hope, that are there was external support and would eventually lead to the com munists losing power. Fair point. Very good point. Mine are recommend recommend nenss of a man who was very approachable, likeable and easy to work with. I First Encountered him at a Bohemian Grove where i was the guest of g. H. W. Bush who was making appearances. This is critical if youre hoping to run for the presidency. Both bush and reagan for longtime members of the bow heem man grove. Was there a luncheon after the lakeside speech at bushs camp and there were three of us retired navy four stars there as his guests. When governor reagan spotted us, he got the platform, the mike, and told the story about the pirates and standing up to fight them. And when he finished, future president bush turned to him and said, damn, he is good in the process of what you were going to see. Fast forward next encounter with the governor was after hes, in fact, taken the oath of office, the day after hed taken the oath of office. I had been approached in late november, what i consider being director of Central Intelligence, that was very easy i said hell, no, in the process. I was getting ready to retire. I had done sfunplus years. I was blocking promotional opportunities for people id help bring along in the naval intelligence. That was from ed browning. Went out to australia for a visit got pulled out of minister Defense Office by bill mitten dore of. Bobby you turned it down, youve got to take this job. Im not going to. And then got back from that trip and my First Encounter meeting weinberger who offered me wasnt persuading me to go to the ddci, he offered me a job at the pentagon in the process. Momentarily thought that sounded pretty exciting until my wife said, are you kraes crazy . So i turned it down. And thought things were behind i was so immersed with president carter on the final negotiations for getting the hostages out, and, in fact, my last conversation with carter as president and president elect is sitting next to him in the limo headed to the capital to hake him that t tell him that the hostages were in the aircraft but would not be able to take off until carter was president. Next morning secretary says the president is calling. I thought it was carter following pup the it was the president. He went through the whole rational. When they lost new hampshire, he invited bill casey to chair his political campaign. And then asked in his typical manner well, what job would you like in the administration in and casey responded, well, if i cant be secretary of state, director of Central Intelligence. Hed been head of oss operations in europe, world war ii, great event in his life. They laughed. Go forward to tuesday night, november, and its clear hes won. Turns to casey and said, well, bill, are you ready to be director of Central Intelligence . He said if i cant be secretary of state in the process. He was always twoun keep dribbling. And about an hour later the phone rang. The president told me all of this. It was Barry Goldwater congratulating you on winning the election and sid only have one request. I have the perfect candidate to be the director of Central Intelligence, advice admiral bobby inman whos running nsa. And he said i met with him but ive already given the job to bill casey. Long silence. Because casey and goldwater hated one another from public and party politics. Then they theyre sort of sorting out how to deal with this and the president said ive got more calls generated by barry about you than anybody else running, he just wouldnt get off of it. So tic helms suggested, why dont do you a shotgun marriage, have inman as the deputy. We did that and he declined. And i know cap had a conversation with you and you declined. Well, now were in office. And speaking as your commander in chief, i need you and i want to you take the job as bill case i c caseys deputy. Under the circumstances id be honored hopefully no more than two months and he agreed to that. And he saidty and by the way im going to give you four stars. It was very strange, i was confirmed on the 13th of february, took up the job. I was still the director of National Security agency until the 30th of march, and one of my favorite things, we solved more problems within those two agencies in that six weeks, i learned from rick about sending letters from back and forth from navy and doe on how do it. But casey wanted to run totally different from any past director. Normally the director deals with the outside world, the deputy runs the agency. That wasnt what he wanted had the he wanted to personally run the clandestine service, covert operations and the analytical side. He didnt want anything to with science, technology, administration, all of that community stuff, budgets and all the rest. I had been in the job six days and i got a call, the president wanted to see me. So i get in the car and go down, and theres frank car luch which i,d also been summoned. And it was very simple and direct. By the first time he ever called me by my first name. Bobby, bill has told me youre going to do everything with regard to budgets and the rest, rebuilding the Intelligence Community and spend whatever you need to spend and, frank, you decide where to put it in the Defense Budget to make it happen. You could not have had clearer or simpler guidance on what to do. So we laid out a fiveyear plan and got started and found that the drawdowns had limited the training establishments, they were real limits. And how much you could rebuild and what pace. Because he had asked for cabinet status, bill had been granted that which meant i was subcabinet level. Casey never went to a Cabinet Meeting or an nsc meeting in my 18 months. I went to all of them. The only thing he went to was the National SecurityPlanning Group where approval of cov