Playboy Interview: Gary Hart

As the world wobbled on its axis after September 11, former senator and presidential hopeful Gary Hart emerged from what had been almost 15 years out of the public eye to talk about a national commission he had co-chaired that had predicted the terrorist onslaught. The commission's report, published in 1999, warned that unless the country reorganized its national security priorities we would be caught as sorely unprepared as we turned out to be. For Hart it was a sort of public resurrection. In 1988 he had withdrawn from a strong race for the Democratic presidential nomination on the heels of accusations that he had been keeping company with a woman who was not his wife. Though the situation seemed to end his political career, Hart did not skulk from the scene. "I am not a beaten man," he said in May 1987. "I am an angry and defiant man." He went on to indict the style of media coverage that has haunted American politics ever since. "We're all going to have to seriously question the system for selecting our national leaders that reduces the press to hunters and presidential candidates to being hunted, that has reporters in bushes, false and inaccurate stories printed, photographers peeking in our windows, helicopters hovering over our roofs and my very strong wife close to tears because she can't even get in her own house at night without being harassed." With that he went home to Colorado to practice law and to write.

Gary Hart was born in Ottawa, Kansas in 1936. He began his college career in theological studies, graduating from Bethany Nazarene College in Oklahoma, then Yale Divinity School and finally Yale Law School in 1964. After working as an attorney for the Interior Department (where he developed a passionate focus on environmental issues), he moved to Denver in 1967 and has lived there since with Lee, his wife of 43 years.

Hart has always maintained that he never envisioned a political career for himself, preferring, he says, "to serve my country as a concerned citizen, a volunteer outside of elected office." Following his work as the campaign manager for George McGovern's 1972 presidential run, however, Hart emerged as a Democratic darling and was elected to the Senate from Colorado in 1974. He was reelected six years later, despite the state's Republican majority, and in 1984 his national recognition as a champion of governmental reform led him to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. In a surprisingly strong showing at the San Francisco convention that year, he came in second to Walter Mondale, who lost the election to incumbent Ronald Reagan. Following the convention, Hart sent a clear signal that this would not be his last run for president. Promising that the party would continue to hear from him, he told them, "This is one Hart you won't leave in San Francisco."

And, indeed, when he announced his candidacy in April 1987, his youthful good looks, his insistence on a campaign of ideas, his strong sense of social justice and his spirited political knowledge made him the man to beat going into the 1988 contest for the Democratic nomination. Then the allegations of personal misconduct engulfed his campaign. In May 1987, he reluctantly and angrily dropped out of the race. That December he unexpectedly reentered, calling it the toughest thing he had ever done and saying he wanted "to let the people decide." In March 1988, after losing several primary and caucus votes, Hart abandoned his run for the final time. "The people have decided," he said. "I got a fair hearing." He then returned to Colorado to practice international law.

It was a sad end to an otherwise successful political career. During his 12 years in the Senate he had served on the Armed Services Committee, the Budget Committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Intelligence Oversight Committee. His style was intellectual without pretense, and he was widely admired for his conservation and military reform efforts. Such qualities made him a strong choice for appointment as co-chair (with former Senator Warren Rudman) for the study group chartered by Clinton defense secretary William Cohen to reassess U.S. national security issues for the first time since 1947 and to recommend changes that would address the dangerous realities of the first 25 years of the new century.

Called the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, the group was made up of seven Democrats and seven Republicans who spent nearly three years taking testimony and gathering research. Phase one of their three-part report was published in September 1999 under the title New World Coming. In it they urged the government to "expect conflicts in which adversaries, because of cultural affinities different from our own, will resort to forms and levels of violence shocking to our sensibilities." And they predicted that when (not if) those enemies attacked, Americans would likely die on American soil in large numbers. Phases two and three of the report, published in April 2000 and February 2001, went into exhaustive detail on the dangers and opportunities the U.S. faced and the governmental changes required to combat them. The report (available at www.nssg.gov) received scant coverage when it was completed, but it gained a new life in the wake of September 11.

So did Gary Hart, at least in terms of public presence. The face, the voice, the cool thoughtfulness of his approach reappeared among the TV pundits, in newspaper articles and in speeches. We asked Craig Vetter to catch up with Hart to talk with him about the report and assess the country's response to the terror, Vetter writes:

"I lived in Colorado when Gary Hart was first elected to the Senate and watched him carefully over his bright, then doomed, public career. In recent years I've kept up with him here and there through his son John, a friend. The former senator is a busy man. He has written 12 books and is counsel to Coudert Brothers, a multinational law firm, and in the course of that work seems to make an overseas trip once a week. Because of that, and the schedule of interviews and speeches he's been called to give since the September attacks, most of our conversations were conducted over the phone from his office in Denver or his home in Kittredge, Colorado. We connected briefly in an eerily empty Washington, D.C. a week and a half after the attacks, where he was testifying with Warren Rudman about the report before a Senate committee headed by Senator Joseph Lieberman. Hart and Rudman were frank and powerful in urging congressional adoption of their commission's recommendations for the long-needed change in our national security approach.

"Senator Hart looks good at 65 years old. He's a personable man with a sense of humor and irony, and he listens carefully to the questions put to him. I began by asking for his response to the images of American airliners flying into the World Trade towers on the morning of September 11."

[Q] Playboy: Given that the reports of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, which you co-chaired, predicted in clear and chilling terms the devastating attack on America a full two years before it happened, the events of that September morning must have been particularly painful and frustrating for you.

[A] Hart: Yes, they were very frustrating. People were saying we weren't warned, when, in fact, the commission had worked for three years to put together a report that detailed threats we knew the country was not prepared for and that we saw as inevitable.

[Q] Playboy: In fact, to quote from the report, you predicted that in the next quarter century "Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers." Furthermore, the commission warned that "major countries rarely engage in serious rethinking and reform absent a major defeat, but this is a path the U.S. cannot take. Americans are less secure than they believe themselves to be. The time for reexamination is now, before the American people find themselves shocked by events they never anticipated." How strongly did you believe those words when they were published?

[A] Hart: We had absolutely no doubt America was becoming increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack on our homeland and that our military superiority would not entirely protect us. And we tried to make it plain that the threat from terrorist organizations could take many forms and would come sooner than later in the next 25 years. We didn't say maybe. We weren't equivocal. Quotes like the ones you just cited were an attempt to bring the country to vigilance before we had to suffer what we did on September 11.

[Q] Playboy: Where were you that morning?

[A] Hart: I was in our house in Colorado at my computer reading The New York Times online and watching television, as I do every morning. At 6:45 Mountain time, local news carried a report that a twin-engine plane had struck one of the Trade towers. My first thought was that a small plane had gone off course, lost control and hit the building. It never occurred to me that it was a commercial airliner. Then, about three minutes after the networks cut in with pictures of the first tower ablaze, the second plane hit, and I knew it was a major terrorist attack. And given my Senate experience on the Armed Services and Intelligence committees and two and a half years working on the National Security Commission, I knew that if terrorists could do this, they could do anything and that this might not be the end of the incident.

[Q] Playboy: And then when the Pentagon was hit?

[A] Hart: By then I was on the phone with General Charles Boyd, executive director of the commission, and despite the fact that he is pretty unflappable--he spent seven years in prison in Vietnam--it shook us. I think the first thing we said to each other was that we did our best to tell people this was going to happen. Then we agreed we could not say anything like "We told you so."

[Q] Playboy: Did you have a moment of anger that morning over the report's having been virtually ignored in spite of its strong language and the urgency of its recommendations?

[A] Hart: Yeah, to be honest, I did, but you have to sublimate that because it doesn't do any good. I've always been frustrated, as long as I've been in public life, with the resistance of our society and its government to anticipate problems and consequences that are as predictable as this horrible event was. We are, I'm afraid, reactive in this country rather than proactive.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you think that is?

[A] Hart: It's tied in part to our resistance to government. There's been such a resistance to government politically in the past 25 years at least that it has almost shut down our anticipatory function. It's as if when we don't have simple answers to things we would rather just not think about them.

[Q] Playboy: The media didn't help much in getting out word of the report, did it?

[A] Hart: Well, you would think that when you predict a major terrorist attack on America, most editors would put it on the front page. But that didn't happen. We got fair to good coverage in local papers, but nothing on the networks, a page-two story in The Washington Post and nothing, I think, in The New York Times. I mean, it wasn't as if our forecast was hesitant or tentative. And this wasn't just another federal commission. We had 14 vastly experienced, bipartisan members, and when the final report was finished, there wasn't one dissenting voice among us.

[Q] Playboy: Did the report get international coverage?

[A] Hart: Actually, some of the international press, through their bureaus in Washington, followed our deliberations carefully because they were alert to the effect that any changes in American security policy might have on them. And we had the report on a website that got something like 2 million hits worldwide. We worked hard to get the message out.

[Q] Playboy: Who set up the commission and why?

[A] Hart: It came about after a conversation between President Clinton and Newt Gingrich--which should give you an indication of how bipartisan the idea was. They were concerned that there had been no ongoing study of national security since 1947. The hope was the commission could generate a report that would recommend the reorganization of the entire government that was clearly needed to face the number one danger to the U.S., which we saw as domestic terrorism. That's why we called for the establishment of a National Homeland Security Agency headed by a Cabinet-level secretary and answerable to the president and the Congress.

[Q] Playboy: What exactly did you imagine such an agency would do?

[A] Hart: Its main purpose would be to replace our fractured, ad hoc approach to homeland security with a focused, coordinated approach. There are now 40 or more activities involved in domestic defense, and they fall under several Cabinet departments. NHSA, as we proposed it, would combine the crucial agencies--Border Patrol, Customs, Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency--under one Cabinet position that would focus entirely on preventing and responding to domestic terrorism.

[Q] Playboy: Why not leave those agencies where they are and just beef them up?

[A] Hart: We certainly need to beef up their resources, but we also need to combine them under one director because their missions have changed. Right now, for instance, the Border Patrol is under the Justice Department because its original mission was a police function to keep people from illegally entering the country. Customs is under Treasury because it was set up to collect revenues. The Coast Guard is under Transportation because it was there to regulate seaboard traffic. But now, if we are at war, a prolonged war--and I believe that we are--these are all frontine defensive organizations, and we need them under one integrated command.

[Q] Playboy: President Bush appointed Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge to head the Office of Homeland Security. Does that Cabinet-level appointment and agency accomplish what the commission had in mind?

[A] Hart: It's hard to know at this point, but I don't think it does. The real fault lines, the gaps and seams between the many agencies involved, are yet to be revealed. As it is now, Ridge is supposed to "coordinate" the agencies. What he needs is the power to control them. The way the position is set up now is in the category of the czar approach, as in the drug czar, a position that answers only to the president and has never proved effective. I'm concerned that it's shielded from congressional scrutiny and is likely to cause greater confusion than already exists.

[Q] Playboy: The commission's final report wasn't published until February 2001, just after George W. Bush took office. Were you able to meet with members of the new Cabinet to lay out the recommendations for them?

[A] Hart: Yes, we were, in late January and early February, so they had really just walked in the door. We met separately with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. All of them had read the report and were very interested in the kind of national security changes we were asking for. Secretary Rumsfeld was particularly engaged. We met for an hour and a half--he asked us penetrating questions and took several pages of notes. In general, they were sincere and attentive. I just don't think any of them had the sense of urgency we had.

[Q] Playboy: Almost no one did, of course, not the administration, not Congress, not the military. But it's the intelligence agencies that are taking the heaviest criticism. Given the information we now know was out there on terrorists, why do you think the intelligence services failed to give us any kind of useful alert to the possibility of attack on our soil?

[A] Hart: The commission recommended a strong increase in the drafting of human intelligence, which has been echoed by many since the attack. We need people who can infiltrate or otherwise collect information we can't get through our technical capabilities. But it's a delicate proposition, because it means recruiting undesirable elements to work for you.

[Q] Playboy: Do you mean criminals and terrorists?

[A] Hart: That's a graphic way to put it, but I think now we have to use every resource we have. We have to be careful, though, that we aren't being doubled by these people, that we aren't having our pockets picked. But we have to find ways to get inside the minds of these people, to think differently. The threat is different. This is not the cold war. We're not fighting enemies in the field, we're fighting people who are demonic and clever, and we're not used to that kind of enemy. We don't have to become like them, but we have to begin thinking like them in order to protect ourselves.

[Q] Playboy: Since the attack we seem to be coordinating our intelligence with that of our allies and even that of former enemies. Were we doing enough of that before this emergency?

[A] Hart: We have to hope that our intelligence network of democratic or even partly Western-leaning countries is woven a hell of a lot closer than it has been. But the truth is that one of the reasons we've been reluctant to attempt wider networks is that if we ask other countries to share intelligence, we have to share intelligence with them--and we don't like to do that. We like to vacuum it up, but we don't like to tell them what we have for fear of compromising sources. But now, we either have to get involved in this kind of network or not. We can't have it both ways.

[Q] Playboy: One of the report's strongest suggestions is that homeland security become the primary mission of the National Guard. Why?

[A] Hart: For a couple of reasons. First, it's what the Constitution contemplated for them 225 years ago as a militia that was organized in a homeland defense posture. And second, as they say in the military, they're forward-deployed, they're here, they can be on the scene much faster than conventional military forces. As we've seen in New York, they were on the front lines along with the police, fire and rescue units.

[Q] Playboy: Would this replace their role as follow-on expeditionary forces for the regular army, as they were used in the Gulf war?

[A] Hart: No, they would still be available for that duty as needed, but I think the chances of that sort of operation are diminished given the character of the new enemy. So what we are talking about is a retrained and re-equipped National Guard for a new primary mission, which, in a way, is more important right now than the regular forces. The commission recommended strengthening the military across the board, including missile defense. But the role of the National Guard as a frontine homeland defense force ought to be the first priority.

[Q] Playboy: In fact, the National Guard now patrols at major airports. Is that the kind of role you have in mind for them?

[A] Hart: For now it's fine, though I think ultimately airport security has to be a federal responsibility. It's an issue of political philosophy. The reason it was privatized is that, as I said, we're coming out of 25 years of disbelief in government and belief in the marketplace. The problem is that when you come to issues of public safety, the profit motive doesn't work. When the airlines were given die responsibility for passenger security, they predictably went to the lowest bidder--that is, people who would do the job for $5.95 an hour. Given that the terrorists in this event didn't take anything through the checkpoints that was against the rules, we can't blame the people who were checking them. Still, I think we need trained federal employees on those jobs to ensure the highest possible security.

[Q] Playboy: The report did not actually anticipate the use of commercial airliners as guided missiles. The scenarios that the commission imagined had to do with nuclear, chemical and biological terrorist attacks. How vulnerable are we to these weapons of mass destruction?

[A] Hart: Let's think about it this way. There are 58,000 cargo shipments that enter the U.S. every day. Customs can inspect only one or two percent of them. Along with that, over a million people cross our borders every day. So no matter how much we increase the resources of Customs and the Border Patrol, we can never be 100 percent sure that we can stop some kind of nuclear, chemical or biological device from getting into the country. Which is exactly why we have proposed a Homeland Security Agency as a way to coordinate the crucial national defense players under one directorate that can anticipate, prevent and respond to home-soil attacks like the ones we have just suffered.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think additional attacks by terrorists using nuclear, biological or chemical weapons are likely?

[A] Hart: Yes. It's hard to know for sure at this point, but I think the anthrax incidents may be a second wave of attacks with others to come. And I think that because of the mentality of these people and because of the briefings we've had with intelligence and military officials. We know that these groups have been seeking such capabilities, and we have to expect that sooner or later they're going to have them. It's unthinkable, but so was what happened last September. The federal government must prepare for it.

[Q] Playboy: Do you include cyber attacks on your list of possibilities?

[A] Hart: The commission talked to an awful lot of cyber experts, and here you get a different answer than to the problems of nuclear, chemical and biological threats. Instead of government action, they suggested that the private sector take the lead--that, for instance, the transportation industry, financial companies, communications industry and the energy sector have a role in protecting themselves. They are private enterprises, but they have a huge responsibility to work with the government to harden their systems. That kind of private cooperation with the federal government is going to be tricky, but we're going to have to pool our talents to protect ourselves. As it is now, I wouldn't be surprised to see a major economic sector shut down sometime soon.

[Q] Playboy: There have been a lot of federal actions proposed over the past several months that you might describe as tricky in terms of the constitutional guarantees we ordinarily count on. Are you at all worried the administration is seeking measures that threaten civil liberties?

[A] Hart: There's always a chance we'll be spied on, that our privacy will be eroded. We said in the report that Congress is crucial for guaranteeing that homeland security is achieved within a framework of law that protects the civil liberties and privacy of American citizens. We're so scared now, we imagine we'll wake up in the morning and have a police state where people are being handcuffed on the street. I'm not sure exactly what's going to happen--and draconian measures aren't out of the question. But whatever it is, it will be done only after deliberation in Congress, the kind of debate that's already begun. I think we have to count on that.

[Q] Playboy: So you don't see us putting Arab Americans in camps, as we did with Japanese Americans?

[A] Hart: I don't think so. I hope not. I would certainly resist any kind of ethnic profiling. It's only the tiniest fraction of Muslims or Arabs who are involved in terrorist business, and we have to remember they are not our only enemies. Timothy McVeigh was not a Muslim or an Arab.

[Q] Playboy: Do you endorse the virtual news blackout that's being enforced on media coverage of our current military action? Doesn't that fly in the face of our free-press guarantees?

[A] Hart: Well, I have some trouble with reporters on the front line because of the reward system in journalism today. Reporters now are after failure; they want to get on page one because someone screwed up, and in the process they don't particularly care what secrets they reveal. It's not the way it was in World War II when the press was part of a patriotic propaganda effort in the best sense of the word. There was little criticism of our leadership that got through the censors. These days the rewards go to those who report on somebody messing up, and anybody who knows anything about the history of warfare knows it is all about people messing up. At the same time, you don't want those who mess up to get away with it. I don't know what you do to strike a balance. It's a tough question.

[Q] Playboy: Did the ravaging you took from the press in 1984 change the way you think about the fourth estate?

[A] Hart: Yes, it did. That was a long time ago and a lot of things were happening to change the media in those days. The ownership of print media was changing. The values of electronic media went from public information to commercial interests to entertainment.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think the way the press handled the Clinton scandal indicates that those values are still solidly in place?

[A] Hart: Maybe, maybe not. I think the media were shocked that the American people gobbled up details of his private life and at the same time didn't judge him for it. Many of them thought he was going to be gone from office out of public outrage. Well, the public wasn't outraged. He stayed in office despite the coverage because the people thought he did a good job. But you know, that's all past, and let me say this while I'm talking about the media: I think American journalism was at its absolute best in the week following the attack. And it was no accident that it was detached from commercial interests, not worrying about ratings, not cutting away for dandruff commercials. From the moment that plane hit the first tower and all through that week, the media did an incredible job.

[Q] Playboy: We know we were lied to by the military and the administration about Vietnam, and even about details of the Gulf war. If the media are kept at arm's length from the horrors of battle, aren't we allowing war to become remote and sanitized?

[A] Hart: That's the risk. But I think the feeling now, with 5000 unarmed Americans dead, is that almost anything goes, and just don't tell us about it. It's one thing for the public to say it's my right to know, those are my tax dollars, those are my kids. But there's such a feeling of vengeance right now that I think if you took a poll probably 75 percent or more of the people would say just get it done and don't give me the details. By the way, that's the reason for the Central Intelligence Agency. The capability of going out, getting it done and not telling us how you did it.

[Q] Playboy: The administration has suggested that the war will be long and fought on many fronts, in many ways, some of them so secret we may never know about them. How do you feel about that approach?

[A] Hart: Well, the military models of the past three centuries aren't going to do the job for us in this conflict. The rules of war have traditionally said that all combatants must be in uniform, or they can be shot as spies. I think that along with the use of small Special Forces groups like the ones we're using in Afghanistan, we may well have to create forces who don't necessarily wear uniforms. There are units of the Mossad who are the prototype of this.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think our focus on Bin Laden and al Qaeda is useful for the struggle ahead?

[A] Hart: It's too narrow. Americans find it convenient to rally against a personalized demon like Hider, or Tojo or Hussein. In this case it's a mistake because the problem is bigger than Bin Laden. He's part of the problem but not the whole problem, and focusing on him in the Jesse James way the president did when he said "wanted dead or alive" tends to set him up for martyrdom, which could make things worse in the long run.

[Q] Playboy: Do you mean worse as in a wider war between the West and Muslims?

(concluded on page 154)Gary Hart(continued from page 60)

[A] Hart: Yes. I think it has all kinds of potential for a clash of civilizations--if not in combat terms, then economically, politically, socially. There's a potential for the radicalization of moderate Islamics who are not fundamentalists but who care about their countries the way we care about ours and who could be polarized against the Judeo-Christian world. Instead of focusing the rhetoric on Bin Laden, or the Taliban, we need to examine the nature of the threat that we face now--why it exists, where it's coming from--so that we can prepare to deal with it systematically.

[Q] Playboy: President Bush said plainly to the rest of the world you are either with us or against us. Can it be that simple given the complexity of international relations?

[A] Hart: Of course not, and the diplomats have since stepped in to nuance the message. We can't expect every country to put itself entirely on the line for us. A little help here, a little there, depending on their circumstances. Our diplomatic efforts are as important as anything we might do militarily.

[Q] Playboy: The commission's final report recommended 50 major governmental reorganizations and changes that it believes are essential to a sound national security for the 21st century. How much of the report do you think will be acted upon?

[A] Hart: I don't know. It's an ambitious road map, that's for sure. But we believe that if serious change doesn't come, the failure will be measured in not just thousands but tens of thousands of American lives. It will be a test of our leadership just how much of an overhaul the system gets.

[Q] Playboy: Would you ever consider running for office again?

[A] Hart: Well, ever is a long time. I wouldn't do it just to repeat what I have already done. I had two terms in the Senate, which is rare for a Democrat from Colorado. I ran a campaign for the presidency in 1984, which went all the way to the convention with 1200 delegates, and in a way that's more than anyone could hope for. I have a compulsion to serve the country, and if I can find ways to do that outside the elective arena, I want to do that. I think the only way I'd run for office again is if I felt I had something unique to bring to the debate.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think the country is up for what's ahead of us?

[A] Hart: Yes, certainly, as long as we are properly organized, educated and prepared. Will that happen? I hope so. Right now the political system is united on what to do. We'll probably see it fracture somewhat over how to do it. But we're facing a whole new world, and we can't expect that to be easy.

[Q] Playboy: What good do you see from this turn of events?

[A] Hart: Well, what's interesting about the report, and I don't think everybody's getting it now, is that we emphasize the opportunities as much as the dangers. We're talking about how realignments can be used diplomatically and economically for our own interest and in the interest of democracy and peace. It isn't just doom and gloom. This new world opens tremendous possibilities in the coalition that is building against terrorism. We now have an unprecedented opportunity to bring nations like Russia, China and Indonesia into what's usually called the Western alliance. That's a huge opportunity, because if they join us in this effort, doors will open for them to join us in others. And the national unity we've experienced since the attack is a great thing, along with the reassessment of values, people turning to their families. And the tremendous feeling of warmth toward our public servants, particularly the emergency rescue people. If only 10 percent of that were to last, it would signal a huge change in the stability of our society that has been sadly lacking. In many ways it's a good thing when we're challenged. Americans are great at turning lemons into lemonade.

We need to get inside the minds of those people, to think differently. The threat is different. This is not the cold war.

We need trained federal employees on those jobs to ensure the highest possible security.