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Steve Forbes recently sat down with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to discuss the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, his lingering outrage and what America needs in a president today. This is the complete transcript of that conversation.
Forbes: Mr. Mayor, thank you very much.
Giuliani: Thank you, Steve. A pleasure.
Forbes: It’s a great honor. And one of the things about 9/11 that you pointed out in your book, Leadership, was the irony that you were writing this book just before 9/11 and you felt that it brought together a lot of things you learned over your life. Could you just briefly describe how you drew on the writing of this book when this crisis came?
Giuliani: Well, it was fortuitous that I was writing the book. I had been planning to write a book for years –probably went through three or four different subjects and outline – and finally decided to write a book, finally decided on the topic.
And basically, in the spring and summer of 2000 I did most of the work on the book. Different times, particularly in the summer, where I had a little extra time. And it was about two-thirds/three-quarters done on the morning of September 11th. Then, all of a sudden, this attack happened.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had just reviewed in great detail, in order to tell the story, how I had learned whatever lessons I had about leadership. Where I’d gotten them from, where they came from. I had spent a lot of time thinking about, “What do I do right? What do I do wrong? Where did I get that from? Who taught it to me?” And it was very, very helpful, because it was like taking a seminar, sort of taking a seminar in leadership.
Forbes: Lifetime seminar.
Giuliani: Right. Right at the time when you’re going to be called upon to exercise it under circumstances which you never expected and where no matter who you are you’re not sure – you’re never sure – you’re doing it right. When you’re in a crisis of, you know, tremendous proportions, it’s beyond any human capability to control, you just make the best decisions you can and you just hope that your intuition is correct.
Forbes: Key thing about intuition and drawing on things: One thing about reading about leaders is no matter how good they are or smart they are, they are going to get crises, curveballs, things that you could never anticipate. And you have to draw it on the inside.
Giuliani: Right.
Forbes: And you make a very good point, that people should keep in mind, in your book on leadership. You said, “The events of September 11 affected me more deeply than anything I’ve ever experienced. But the idea that I somehow became a different person on that day, that there was a pre-September 11 Rudy and a wholly other post-September Rudy, is not true. I was prepared to handle September 11 precisely because I was the same person who had been doing his best to take on challenges my whole career.”
And I’d like to first go over what happened on 9/11, and then discuss what you drew on. But first, just a quick comment. One of the amazing things in reading this book is that here you are on September 12th, exhausted. Nighttime. You have the TV on because you don’t know if the phone systems are going to work. And yet, you found the time to read a biography of Winston Churchill. How did you do that?
Giuliani: How did that happen? It probably was part of what I always did. And that was also, probably, just repeating habitual conduct whenever I was into something new or something that I thought I might be little over my head. I would always go look for a book that helped me.
I did it when I learned golf. I did it on sports that I was learning about. When we first had to learn the budget of New York City, I read two or three books on budgets because I hadn’t really studied budgets. I always relied on books to educate me.
And I got home after the events of September, the day was over. It was already into September 12th. I watched the implosions on television, then I decided I had to go to bed. I put all my – I organized all my clothes to get up the next morning, because I thought I might be called out of bed at any time during the night.Forbes: And you learned that from Fiorello LaGuardia.
Giuliani: I learned that from Fiorello LaGuardia, who used to do that for fires, because he loved to go to fires. And he would set up his boots and his fire clothes right near his bed so that he could jump right into them. And I just decided, “I better do that.” Because there coul
source: forbes.com
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