I spent the last three days covering a small meeting held at the University of Virginia. It was sponsored by an oil industry marketer association and an associate dean at the university’s McIntire School of Commerce, and had only 9 participants. From a work standpoint, the material was presented by high-powered academics, the select audience was made up of solid industry players, and I personally learned a lot while covering the event. Though, some of the financial CFO orientated stuff on business valuation might as well have been presented in a foreign language. The board joke about the pilot undergoing Airbus training: “I know how my dog feels when watching television” sprang to mind.
But, on to the fun stuff. The first night featured a private networking dinner, where the professor that was hosting the event invited a guest speaker from the university faculty to dine with us and take part in an informal discussion. The speaker was Philip Zelikow, the university’s director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs. He was also the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission. Yes, THAT 9/11 Commission.
The conversation was “off the record” where I was concerned as a reporter, so I’m uncomfortable providing a great deal of detail particularly where he was asked to speculate about various areas beyond the scope of the report. The last thing I would want to see is some distortion being e-mailed to Newsmax, Drudge or Moveon.org with me as a source. Most of it is really covered in the report anyway, and there was nothing really earth shattering, but he was very talkative. In generally he talked about failures of imagination and bureaucratic communications, the fact that hindsight is not 20/20 -- it’s blinding -- and it can be hard to filter out the small but critical details that can get lost in the shadows. The importance of putting the events in the context of the time to increase fairness and accuracy.
He talked about the 9/11 commission process, the liklihood and timetable of another major attack, Clinton and Bush as individuals (he interviewed bush and took the notes during Clinton) with positives and criticisms of both, opinions on what could have been done and when, provided his views on what would be the perfect president (his center catalogs available presidential documentation) and a variety of similar issues.
I personally asked him about the current level of indigenous risk (from an established terrorist network) vs. hit and run operatives crossing the border. Much more external risk apparently. I brought up Iran (as we discussed recently). He clarified that the reformers were in a down cycle now, with some additional background. I also asked him about Richard Clarke’s book, which I just finished. He voiced opinions on the style and presentation, but not the accuracy of the content. I didn’t ask about specifics though.
But, it didn’t stop there. The hosting professor is a Jefferson fan, and was involved with the people that run Monticello through The Thomas Jefferson Foundation. He arranged for an after hours tour that included the upstairs and the Dome Room. This is usually off limits because of fire code regulations, but…
Really an exceptional few days.
Charon
