YouSaid · the spoken record

James Clapper

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72
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2018-05-31
most recent
2018-05-31
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1
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  1. “Well, I wouldn't say manufactured as much as it shows a negative example of the bad impacts of groupthink. The major change we made, though, David, which prevails yet today is examining more critically the veracity of the sources used to generate the analytic product. And we didn't do that. And a lot of the intelligence that the key intelligence in that document was generated by a bad source, a bad human intelligence source. And so the practice instituted, which I followed during the six and a half years I was DNI, was that every time we convene a meeting of the National Intelligence Board, which is a senior representatives of all 16 components of the intelligence community to vet and approve NIEs, the very first thing on the meeting agenda is to review the sources. If you have one report from your organization,”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “That NIE and NIEs are at the apex of the pecking order for intelligence products and they typically always go to the president and other senior policymakers. So they do have, they're important and they do have impact. And then NIE was used by the administration, which kind of wanted that message as a justification for invading Iraq. So it just shows the implications if you don't, if intelligence doesn't get it right.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “You think absolutely. And I say that, David, because my fingerprints were on the infamous National Intelligence Estimate. Of October 2002, which addressed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And of course, we painfully learned later there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So it was a terrible mistake. What I like to point out though is the intelligence community is a learning organization and we went to work immediately after that to improve processes to preclude a recurrence of that.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Although It was in the industry, but basically working back for the intelligence community, and I served on the NSA Advisory Board for four years, and I did cobalt towers investigation and did some other things that retirees typically do back for the government. Then in the summer of 2001, out of the blue, I got a call asking me if I would be willing to come back and serve as director of what was then the National Imagery Mapping Agency. And what I'd learned during my sojourn out of the government was that I just didn't get the psychic income I got from public service The money was great, but somehow making the owner of the company I was working for, Richard, just didn't motivate me too much. So I jumped at the chance and stayed with NEMA, which transformed into the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, which it is today.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Lesson learned there is if you're going to do a reorganization of big bureaucracy, you better get the buy-in of the people that are affected. And I didn't do such a great job of that. So I had to do another reorganization, undo the ill effects of the first one. And so I become, as the older I've gotten, less and less enamored I am of reorganizations as a way to cure. Issues that have stemmed more from leadership or lack thereof than structure.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “No, it was not. And what occasioned that, the need to do something was because we were enjoined by the Congress to reap the peace dividend after the fall of the wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the general judgment was we don't need this huge military and we certainly don't need this big intelligence community. So we embarked on a period of about seven or eight years of reductions. And so what I determined early on was that the organization and structure DIA was not going to have enough people to populate it. So we had to do something else.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “I had when I was in Washington a tremendous example of non-combatant courage was Mike's statement, I think his own statement before, I think the Senate Armed Services Committee, when he highlighted what injustice it was to force people to hide their identities just so they could serve the country. And that was a brave and courageous thing. I cite that quote his exact quote in my book. It was a tremendous act of leadership.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “This is 1964, 65. What a waste that was and what an injustice it was. And sometime later on, I think I had a chance to tone for that You know, the military has always been an institution of social change, and I think the graceful way the military... Openly accepted Gaze was a phenomenal achievement, and it speaks volumes about what a great institution the military is for this country”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Early on in my career, my first assignment after I went through technical training, I was at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, and somebody decided to be a good career enhancing thing for me to learn a little bit about administering troops. And Article 15's non-judicial punishment, supervising the mess hall, inspecting barracks and the motor pool and all those kind of basic military things. And so one of the things I had to do was to discharge two airmen who were outed as homosexuals. And in the day, there was no choice. You were discharged automatically. And the best you could hope for was a general discharge, if not dishonorable. And I remember at the time, I mean, I was a first lieutenant. I was a cog in the big machine. Here's the rules and process the paperwork. And I just remember then.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “In attacking individuals just because they don't agree with them or they're not in the business of adulating him. It's really Well, it's very unusual, very abnormal.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “It isn't a service question, but it isn't just me, it's others that he's similarly private citizens. He was the president of the United States reaching out.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “During the hearing, which I don't think we did. But anyway, I remember thinking to myself, you know, if I'd have showed up at the Oval Office and President Obama had said to me, boy, you really choked on that hearing yesterday. I'd have been devastated. But this president, no.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Exactly. And then, of course, when I served in the military for a total of 34 years, counting my Marine Corps. Reserve time and active duty in the Air Force. So it's just instinctive that just part of my being to want to support and respect the Commander Chief, the President as Commander-Chief. And with this president, it's a challenge. I was asked once during a CNN interview when I got a bad tweet from President Trump, and I was asked, gee, doesn't that bother you? I said, no, it doesn't. And that in itself is a sad commentary. I remember distinctly After on Sally Yates was in the, well, ended up as the acting attorney general, and she and I appeared together for judiciary committee subcommittee chaired by Lindsay Graham. And the president tweeted that both Sallyates and James Clapper choked.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “President Kennedy, when I was at, I happened to be in a rope line once at Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts, where I went to ROTC summer camp. And so he flew in and they've... Filed us out, all the ROTC cadets were in summer camp then, and I ended up in the rope line. And President Kennedy was about eight of us, I think, in the front row, and he went and shook hands with each cadet. And I was about the sixth or seventh one in line, and his typical question was what aircraft you're going to fly since we're Air Force and got to me and what are you going to fly? And I said, I'm not going to fly. I want to be an intelligence officer. And he sort of did a double take. And he said something like, well, we need intelligence officers. And he kept on going. I'm sure he forgot about it, but I never forgot about it. It was quite inspirational.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Well, first of all, yes, it does, but I have to say that Speaking critically of a president's commander-chief, very difficult for me. I was raised To respect the office, and particularly as Commander Chief, that's something I.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “I was fortunate enough. My dad had a friend in the Marine Corps and they weren't quite so picky about visual acuity. And my left eye would not correct to 2020. Pretty close, but not quite. So the Marines took me and I enlisted in the Marine Corps on the 2nd of February 1961. Completed half their platoon leader course down at Quantico. I really did want to specialize in intelligence. Back from Germany, where I was living with my dad, he was assigned there. I went to the University of Maryland and took Air Force ROTC because I could specialize in intelligence. And so that's what I did.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “You know, it was 65 years ago, but I'll never forget the expression on my dad's face. He said, my God, I've raised my own replacement. So that's when I knew I was going to be an intelligence officer.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “And so I kept all these records and I had my map and all that. So about three weeks later, my mom and dad come back to pick up my sister, me. My dad just sort of casually make conversations. I said, well, hey, what have you been doing this summer? So I whip out my map and my 3x5 cards, and I gave him about a twenty or thirty-minute discourse on the complete rundown on how the Philadelphia Police Department is organized and operated.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “So I ran out to the kitchen. I got tired of holding it, got some toothpicks, and stuck the toothpick in this elector dial. So I guess I hacked my grandparents' TV set. So then the next night I got a map of Philadelphia from my grandfather, City Map, I started plotting out where the calls went. Then, you know how the police use 10 codes. So I start listening to them figuring out what they were, and I got a set of three by five cards. I guess we'd call it metadata today. And I started keeping records on this. And so pretty soon. I could figure out just by the way they dispatch police cars what the police district boundaries were. And I also figured out the high crime areas and I figured out just how the Philadelphia Police Department is organized and operated just by listening.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “And no picture, that was strange. So I just stood there for about 10 or 15 minutes holding on to the selector dial, keeping it between channel four and five. And I finally figured out it was the Philadelphia Police Department dispatcher. Well, in those days in Philadelphia, there's a lot of murder and mayhem on Friday and Saturday night, so this is really interesting stuff just to see how the police reacted to these calls for domestic disturbances and shootings and runaway kids. Cars are chasing and all that.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “So, the big thing in the day was television, which was a big novelty, and my grandparents had a television in their house. We didn't have television in Japan in those days in the early fifties. So this is really a novelty to me. So they allowed me to stay up as lazy as I wanted, watch as much still as I wanted. It was great. So one night, one Friday night, I watched a movie and the movie ended, and I was going to do the equivalent of what we'd say today is surfing except in those days you had to go up and actually turn the dial on the TV. And there's only four channels. So I was turning the channel between channel four and channel five and Philadelphia, and I heard talking. On the television”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Yeah, the story, I was 12 years old. My line here is this is when I first knew I was going to be an intelligence officer. So we were on a change of duty stations. We left Japan, northern Japan, on the northernmost island of Hokkaido in the summer of 53, and my dad was being assigned to Fort Devons of Massachusetts. So typically in many military families, certainly in ours, my parents would drop, my sister me off at one of the grandparents, go ahead to the next duty station, find a place to live, get set up, you know, unpack the household goods and all that, and then come back as a retrievist. So that's what they did in the summer of 53. We just come back from Japan, and so they dropped us at my grandparents in Philadelphia. And so the standard line for grandparents, of course, is to spoil grandchildren. I'm doing that myself now.”

    2018-05-31 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 247 — James Clapper · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source