One Of The Toughest Battles In Intelligence

I've Been Very Sensitive For A Long Time To The Repeated Pattern, During Economic Hard Times Or After A War, Of The United States' Essentially Unilaterally Disarming.

I Think That Vladimir Putin Is Certainly Getting A Lot Of Publicity For What The Russians Are Doing. And I'm Not Sure That's Unwelcome To Him. I Think This Is A Guy Who Saw The U.s. Basically Come Out Against Him In His Reelection Campaign In 2012. He Saw The U.s. Being Behind All Of The Color Revolutions In Eastern Europe And In Georgia And Ukraine And So On. So His View Is The West Has Been Interfering In His Politics For Years.

One Of The Big Changes In The Congress Since I First Came To Washington Is That All Of These Folks Go Home Every Weekend. They Used To Play Golf Together; Their Families Got To Know Each Other, Go To Dinner At Each Other's Homes At Weekends - And These Would Be People Who Were Political Adversaries.

And So The Greatest Of American Triumphs... Became A Peculiarly Joyless Victory. We Had Won The Cold War, But There Would Be No Parades.

If Possible, To Be In A Position To Announce Who Is Going To Step In As The Interim Immediately. And If Possible, To Announce Who You're Going To Nominate To Replace That Person. For That To Be Somebody Of Impeccable Integrity And Reputation Disarms A Lot Of The Worst Criticism That It's Some Kind Of A Power Play. It's A Professional Approach To Replacing A Senior Official, Which Is Always Going To Get A Lot Of Attention.