Gary Hart

The former senator and presidential candidate discusses the proposed Department of Homeland Security, why the head of the CIA should've resigned, revamping the FBI and the media's obsession with "the love lives of movie stars and politicians."

By Jake Tapper

June 14, 2002 | "We predicted it," former Sen. Gary Hart said when I spoke to him the day after Sept. 11. "We said Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers -- that's a quote from the fall of 1999." The quote comes from the Phase One Report of the U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st Century, co-chaired by Hart and former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H. But, before 9/11, no one seemed to much care about their conclusions. During our Sept. 12 conversation, Hart said he was "tearing (his) hair out" in frustration.

He still has criticisms and strong ideas as to how he would handle things differently. "Within a week after 9/11," Hart said Wednesday, "I would have begun a search for a new CIA director ... It's important to say, if you're running a big institution and that institution suffers a serious deficiency, that you will be held accountable. But if nobody is sacrificed for a failure then nobody is accountable." He also has harsh comments about the FBI's anachronistic worldview. "The ghost of J. Edgar Hoover is still in that damn [FBI] building!" Hart says. "They need to clean it out and start all over again."

In 1998, President Bill Clinton, Defense Secretary William Cohen and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., asked Hart and Rudman to serve as co-chairs of the U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st Century, also known as the Hart-Rudman Commission. Their three-year study and recommendations for a new national focus on combating terrorism and preventing an attack on the homeland, and the creation of a Cabinet-level position for homeland defense, were handed to President George W. Bush in January 2001.

And then ... nothing. Hart met with various members of the administration, including National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, on the Thursday before Sept. 11, to try to convince them that the report should be acted upon and not just serve as a coaster for Vice President Dick Cheney.

"Frankly the White House shut it down," Hart told me on Sept. 12. "The president said, 'Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president. We believe FEMA is competent to coordinate this effort.' And so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day. "

Perhaps no public figure has risen more Phoenix-like from the ashes of Sept. 11 than Hart. Since our interview on that dark and gloomy Wednesday afternoon, he has emerged as a go-to guy for reporters and producers seeking expertise on terrorism. He appeared on "Hardball" this week, and he and Rudman coauthored an Op-Ed in Thursday's New York Times. For a whole new generation of media absorbers, his visage is now a tip-off for a serious discussion about terrorism and the place of the U.S. in the world.

Hart served as campaign manager for the 1972 presidential run of Sen. George McGovern, D-S.D., after which he ran for the U.S. Senate representing Colorado, winning and serving from 1975 until 1987. He unsuccessfully pursued the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 -- losing to Walter Mondale and Mike Dukakis, respectively, both of whom went on to be demolished come November.

In the Senate, Hart was known for seriousness of purpose -- focusing on nuclear arms control, foreign policy, military reform, and information technology, forecasting the demise of the USSR and the end of the Cold War -- and a lack of the hail-fellow-well-met backslapping that endears one to colleagues. Hart may be best known for the tabloid fodder he provided during his latter race for the White House, when photographs -- of him and a young woman named Donna Rice sitting dockside during a Bimini vacation -- emerged and sank his presidential hopes.

After his exit from politics, Hart entered the traditional world of ex-senators: writing books and lecturing, serving on the Council on Foreign Relations, working in international law and business and serving from his home base of Denver as counsel to Coudert Brothers, a multinational law firm. He's also written several nonfiction books and four novels -- including two under a pseudonym: He wanted to see how the books would be reviewed, he says, if his name wasn't attached to them and regular fiction writers -- not political scribes -- were assigned to critique them. ("The reviews were good!" he laughs.)

I caught up with Hart on June 12 -- the nine-month anniversary of our last interview.

After months of insisting that it wasn't necessary, President Bush finally suggested that the homeland security director be made a Cabinet-level position. You and the commission, of course, made that suggestion some time ago only to have it seemingly fall on deaf ears. What are your thoughts about the president's announcement? Do you think, as some liberal critics suggest, that there is something fishy about the timing, coming as it does after a barrage of news of missed signals and dots unconnected?

Well, I think all of us who put in two-and-a-half to three years on the [Hart-Rudman] commission are gratified. It's the right decision. The question of timing is for history to decide; obviously we wish it had been in the spring of 2001. The fact that the president made the decision is a giant step forward. I hope Congress will enact it quickly. I've heard all the arguments as to why it's going to be difficult to do so -- bureaucratic resistance and all that -- but the fact of the matter is it's what's necessary to protect the country.

Next page: "Who should be held accountable? Who would you fire if you were president?"