The Room Where It Happened

by John Bolton;

  Given the experiences already recounted here, and more, why accept the job? Because America faced a very dangerous international environment, and I thought I knew what needed to be done. I had strong views on a wide range of issues, developed during prior government service and private-sector study. And Trump? No one could claim by this point not to know the risks in store, up close, but I also believed I could handle it. Others may have failed for one reason or another, but I thought I could succeed. Was I right? Read on.

  Outside the Oval, I encountered White House Counsel Don McGahn going in with folders on potential judicial nominations. Kelly and I spoke for a few minutes, and I said it was clear to me that neither one of us could accomplish anything unless we worked together, which was my intention, and he readily agreed. I also asked what the timing of an announcement might be, and he thought the next day or the following week at the earliest. I later learned (as did Kelly) that within minutes of my leaving the Oval, Trump called McMaster to tell him he would be announcing the switch later that same afternoon. I went to the West Wing lobby to retrieve my coat, and the receptionist and a White House communications staffer said there was a mob of reporters and photographers waiting for me to exit the north door to the driveway. They asked if I would mind going out the “back way,” through the White House’s Southwest Gate onto Seventeenth Street, and walking “behind” the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to miss the press, which I happily did. I called Gretchen and JS again, and began to think about preparations for starting at the White House.

  On my way to the Fox News studio for an interview on Martha MacCallum’s show, Trump tweeted:

  I am pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor. I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend. There will be an official contact handover on 4/9.

  At that point, my cell phone felt like a hand grenade going off, with incoming calls, e-mails, tweets, and news alerts.

  I now had some two weeks to make the necessary transition away from private life to government service, and the pace was frenetic. The next day, Trump called me during his intelligence briefing, saying, “You’re getting great press,” that the announcement was “playing very big,” getting “great reviews… the base loves it,” and so on. He said at one point, “Some of them think you’re the bad cop,” and I replied, “When we play the good cop/bad cop routine, the President is always the good cop.” Trump responded, “The trouble is, we’ve got two bad cops,” and I could hear the others in the Oval for the intel briefing laughing, as was I.

  Since Trump had announced I would start on April 9, the first priority was the White House Counsel’s vetting process. This consisted of filling out extensive forms and undergoing questioning by the Counsel’s Office lawyers on financial disclosure issues, possible conflicts of interest, requirements for divestiture of assets (not that I had all that much to divest), unwinding existing employment relationships, freezing my PAC and SuperPAC during my government service, and the like. Also required was what baby boomers called the “sex, drugs and rock and roll” interview, where typically the trap was not what foolish things you had done in your life but whether you admitted them in response to questions or volunteered them if they were exotic enough. Since my last government job as UN Ambassador, I had received plenty of media coverage, so I took care to mention even the outlandish things that lazy, biased, incompetent reporters had published at my expense, including that Maria Butina had tried to recruit me as a Russian agent. (I do not think the press is “an enemy of the people,” but, as Dwight Eisenhower said in 1964, its ranks are filled with “sensation-seeking columnists and commentators” whose writings mark them as little more than intellectualoids.) Then there was the mandatory urine sample I provided for drug testing; let’s not forget that.

  I also tried to consult with former National Security Advisors, starting of course with Kissinger, who said, “I have great confidence in you, and I wish you every success. You know the subject. You know the bureaucracy. I know you are able to handle it.” And most important, Kissinger, like every predecessor with whom I spoke, Republican and Democrat alike, offered their support. I spoke with Colin Powell (who had been my boss when he was Secretary of State in Bush 43’s first term), Brent Scowcroft, James Jones, Condi Rice, Steve Hadley, Susan Rice, John Poindexter, and Bud McFarlane, as well as Bob Gates, who had been Scowcroft’s Deputy and later Secretary of Defense. Scowcroft said succinctly, “The world is a mess, and we’re the only ones who can straighten it out.”

  I spoke with former Secretaries of State for whom I had worked, including George Shultz and Jim Baker (Powell and Condi Rice, of course, fell into both categories), and also Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. Finally, I spoke with President George W. Bush, who was very generous with his time, wishing me “all the best.” I asked about calling his father, for whom I had also worked, and he said it would be “difficult” at that time, so I simply asked that he pass on my regards.

  I had lunch with McMaster on March 27 in the Ward Room, part of the White House Navy mess facility. He was gracious and forthcoming in his assessments of issues, policies, and personnel. A few days later, I had breakfast with Jim Mattis at the Pentagon. Mattis showed his flair with the press, as he greeted me at the entrance, by saying he had heard I was “the devil incarnate.” I thought of replying, “I do my best,” but bit my tongue. We had a very productive discussion. Mattis suggested that he, Pompeo, and I have breakfast once a week at the White House to go over pending issues. Although we were all on the telephone with each other several times most days, the breakfasts proved to be a very important opportunity for the three of us alone to discuss key issues. When one might be traveling, the other two would get together, usually in the Ward Room, but often at State or the Pentagon.

  When Mattis and I finished, he took me to meet Joe Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose term as Chairman would last through September 2019. I recalled to Dunford his remarks on the North Korea nuclear issue at the summer 2018 Aspen Security Forum:

  Many people have talked about the military options with words such as unimaginable. I would probably shift that slightly and say it would be horrific and it would be a loss of life unlike any we’ve experienced in our lifetime, and I mean anyone who’s been alive since World War II has never seen a loss of life that could occur if there is a conflict on the Korean Peninsula. But as I’ve told my counterparts, both friend and foe, it is not unimaginable to have military options to respond to North Korea’s nuclear capability. What is unimaginable to me is allowing the capability to allow nuclear weapons to land in Denver, Colorado. My job will be to develop military options to make sure that doesn’t happen.31

  Dunford seemed surprised I knew of his comments, and we had a good discussion. Dunford had a reputation as an outstanding military officer, and I had no reason to doubt that, then or later.

  I broached Mattis’s three-way-breakfast idea with Mike Pompeo at the CIA a few days later. He readily agreed. He and I had already exchanged a number of e-mails, one from him saying, “I’m truly excited to get started as a co-founder of the war cabinet. I will send Sen. Paul your regards.” I also had a chance to meet his Deputy and likely successor, Gina Haspel.

  I had watched Trump closely during his nearly fifteen months in office, and I had no illusions that I could change him. Any number of National Security Council “models” might have been academically sound but would make no difference if they simply spun in a vacuum, disconnected, admiring themselves and lauded by the media but not actually engaging the sitting President. I was determined to have a disciplined, thorough process, but I would judge my performance on how it actually shaped policy, not how outsiders compared it to prior Administrations.

  Several decisions flowed from this analysis. First, the NSC staff (roughly 430 people when I arrived, 350 when I left) was not a think tank. Its product was not discuss
ion groups and staff papers but effective decision-making. The organization should be simple and direct. I planned to eliminate many duplicative, overlapping structures and staff. Since Trump had given me full hiring and firing authority, I acted quickly and decisively, among other things naming only one Deputy National Security Advisor, instead of several, to strengthen and simplify the National Security Council staff’s effectiveness. This critical role I filled first with Mira Ricardel, a longtime defense expert with extensive government service and as a senior Boeing executive, and later with Dr. Charles Kupperman, a defense expert with similar credentials (including Boeing!). They had strong personalities; they would need them.

  On the Saturday before Easter at six thirty p.m., I had a somewhat bizarre conversation with Trump. He did almost all the talking, starting with “Rex was terrible” and then explaining why, focusing on a decision to commit $200 million for Syrian reconstruction. Trump didn’t like it: “I want to build up our country, not others.” As a US Agency for International Development alumnus, I supported using US foreign assistance to advance national-security objectives, but I also knew such efforts had their weaknesses as well as strengths. I tried to get a word in edgewise, but Trump rolled right along, saying periodically, “I know you get this.” He then said, “You’ve got a lot of leakers down there. You can get rid of anybody you want,” which I was already preparing to do. Finally, the conversation ended, and we both said, “Happy Easter.”

  On Easter Monday, Trump called again. I asked, “How’s the Easter Egg Roll going, Mr. President?” “Great,” he said as Sarah Sanders, her children, and others came in and out of the Oval, and then returned to his Saturday-night monologue, saying, “I want to get out of these horrible wars [in the Middle East].” “We’re killing ISIS for countries that are our enemies,” which I took to mean Russia, Iran, and Assad’s Syria. He said his advisors were divided into two categories, those who wanted to stay “forever,” and those who wanted to stay “for a while.” By contrast, Trump said, “I don’t want to stay at all. I don’t like the Kurds. They ran from the Iraqis, they ran from the Turks, the only time they don’t run is when we’re bombing all around them with F-18s.” He asked, “What should we do?” Figuring the Easter Egg Roll might not be the best time to discuss Middle East strategy, I said I was still waiting to get my temporary security clearance lined up. Pompeo, who had arrived in the Oval, said, “Give John and me a little bit of time—” before he was cut off by more children and parents traipsing through. It was pretty clear Trump wanted to withdraw from Syria, and indeed at an NSC meeting the next day (see chapter 2), he voiced precisely these sentiments. Still, much remained to be decided, giving me confidence we could protect US interests as the struggle to destroy the ISIS territorial caliphate neared a successful conclusion.

  On Friday, April 6, heading into the weekend before my first official day, I met again with Kelly and several others to review West Wing procedures. I explained some of the NSC personnel changes I planned and the reorganizations I intended. I had Trump’s authority to do these things, but I didn’t mind informing Kelly in advance. He spent the rest of the meeting, which lasted an hour, explaining how Trump acted in meetings and on phone calls. The President used “very rough language,” said Kelly, which was true, “and of course, he’s entitled to do that,” also true. Trump despised both Bush Presidents and their Administrations, leading me to wonder if he had missed my almost ten years of service in those presidencies. And Trump changed his mind constantly. I wondered listening to all this how close Kelly was to just walking away. Kelly concluded by saying graciously, “I’m glad you’re here, John. The President hasn’t had a National Security Advisor for the past year, and he needs one.”

  I spent the weekend reading classified materials and otherwise preparing for April 9. But as the next chapter will show, the Syria crisis came unannounced and unexpected, like much of the next seventeen months. Acheson had written about Roosevelt’s replacement of Cordell Hull as Secretary of State with Edward Stettinius, which had led the press to speculate that Roosevelt “would continue to be… his own Secretary of State.” Acheson had a firm view: “The President cannot be Secretary of State; it is inherently impossible in the nature of both positions. What he can do, and often has done with unhappy results, is to prevent anyone else from being Secretary of State.”32 Although not written about the National Security Advisor position, Acheson’s insight was profound. Perhaps that is what Kelly was trying to say in his final comment to me before I started. And as Condi Rice said to me much later, “Secretary of State is the best job in the government, and National Security Advisor is the hardest.” I am sure she is right.

  CHAPTER 2 CRY “HAVOC!” AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR

  On Saturday, April 7, 2018, Syrian armed forces, using chemical weapons, attacked the city of Douma in southwest Syria and other nearby locations. Initial reports had perhaps a dozen people killed and hundreds wounded, including children, some grievously sickened by the dangerous chemicals.1 Chlorine was the likely base material for the weapons, but there were claims of sarin gas activity and perhaps other chemicals.2 Bashar al-Assad’s regime had similarly used chemical weapons, including sarin, one year earlier, on April 4, 2017, at Khan Shaykhun in northwest Syria. Only three days later, the United States responded forcefully, launching fifty-nine cruise missiles at the suspected site from which the Syrian attack emanated.3

  Syria’s dictatorship obviously had not learned its lesson. Deterrence had failed, and the issue now was how to respond appropriately. Unhappily, a year after Khan Shaykhun, Syria policy remained in disarray, lacking agreement on fundamental objectives and strategy.4 Now it was again in crisis. Responding to this latest Syrian chemical-weapons attack was imperative, but we also urgently needed conceptual clarity on how to advance American interests long-term. An NSC meeting held the week before Douma, however, pointed in exactly the opposite direction: US withdrawal from Syria. Leaving would risk losing even the limited gains achieved under Barack Obama’s misbegotten Syria-Iraq policies, thereby exacerbating the dangers his approach fostered. Responsibility for this policy disarray, one year after Khan Shaykhun, rested at that iconic location where the buck stops: the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.

  At about nine a.m. on April 8, in his own personal style and the style of our times, Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America, tweeted:

  Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price…

  …to pay. Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!

  Minutes later, he tweeted again:

  If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!

  These were clear, forceful statements, but Trump tweeted before consulting his national security team. Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, my predecessor as National Security Advisor, had left Friday afternoon, and I didn’t start until Monday. When I tried to pull together a meeting on Sunday, White House lawyers blocked it, because I would not officially become a government employee until Monday. This gave the word “frustration” new meaning.

  Trump called me Sunday afternoon, and we (mostly he) talked for twenty minutes. He mused that getting out of the Middle East the right way was tough, a theme he raised repeatedly during the call, interspersed with digressions on trade wars and tariffs. Trump said he had just seen Jack Keane (a four-star general and former Army Vice Chief of Staff) on Fox News and liked his idea of destroying Syria’s five main military airfields, thereby essentially knocking out Assad’s entire air force. Trump said, “My honor is at stake,” reminding me of Thucydides’s famous observation that “fear, honor and interest” are the main drivers
of international politics and ultimately war. French President Emmanuel Macron had already called to say France was strongly considering participating in a US-led military response.5 Earlier in the day, presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner had told me that UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had phoned him to relay essentially the same message from London. These prompt assurances of support were encouraging. Why a foreign minister was calling Kushner, however, was something to address in coming days.

  Trump asked about an NSC staffer I planned on firing, a supporter of his since the earliest days of his presidential campaign. He wasn’t surprised when I told him the individual was part of “the leak problem,” and he continued, “Too many people know too many things.” This highlighted my most pressing management problem: dealing with the Syria crisis while reorienting the NSC staff to aim in a common direction, a bit like changing hockey lines on the fly. This was no time for placid reflection, or events would overtake us. On Sunday, I could only “suggest” to the NSC staff that they do everything possible to ascertain all they could about the Assad regime’s actions (and whether further attacks were likely), and develop US options in response. I called an NSC staff meeting for six forty-five a.m. Monday morning to see where we stood, and to assess what roles Russia and Iran might have played. We needed decisions that fit into a larger, post-ISIS Syria/Iraq picture, and to avoid simply responding “whack-a-mole” style.