- Jul 12, 2018
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President Al Gore has not had a reputation of shying away from the press or the public, however he has rarely ever granted one-on-one interviews with reporters. These kinds of interviews are often risky for American politicians and can easily bring embarassment, or critical acclaim, depending on how they are handled. Since he was sworn in as President after the murder of President Clinton, President Gore has enjoyed relatively high approval ratings. He has successfully handled international affairs abroad, including leading the country during the war in Turkey which resulted in an allied victory. Domestically, Gore has focused on some of the most impoverished parts of the country and also decaying rural centers like Detroit or New Orleans. All of this has resulted in a popular president who has not needed to take the risk of one-on-one long-form interviews with tough questions. However, now that he is at the end of his presidency, he decided privately that it would be important for his legacy as an American President and for the historical record that he be interviewed before he leaves office. NBC News Anchor Katie Couric, who has been an up-and-coming journalist since the late 1980s, was chosen as the interviewer.
The prerecorded interview was advertised as a special look into the Gore Presidency and would be broken into three parts: the attack on the Capitol in 1997; the attempted assassination of President Gore and the riot in Washington in 2002; and the upcoming election for president and how the President feels about the state of the country and the world. Below is the first interview:
Part One
The 1997 State of The Union Attack
The 1997 State of The Union Attack
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COURIC: Good evening. I am Katie Couric with NBC News, and I am joined today by the President Al Gore. Mister President, thank you for joining us today.
GORE: Thank you for having me, Katie.
COURIC: Mister President, we're going to discuss several topics tonight, at length. I would like to start in the beginning. Can you walk me through your experience on February 4th, 1997?
GORE: I was suppose to be at the 1997 State of The Union. In fact, I had even told President Clinton I would be there. My plan was to be there, in person, and then fly to Tennessee later that night. However, my mother called and told me that my father didn't have much longer; she said that he maybe had a number of hours, not days, and that she wanted me there... I have put politics before my family so many times in my life and... it has led to a lot of regret, let me put it that way. Anyway, in that moment, I decided that I was going to put my family first. I flew to Tennessee and I had someone in my office inform the White House. When I arrived to my family's farm in Tennessee, my father had just passed away. He was laying in his bed and I asked for a minute alone with him. I was praying, and my family was watching the State of The Union, and... that was when the attack in Washington happened.
COURIC: How exactly did you get back to Washington? Were you taken to a secure location, or did you wait longer at your family's farm?
GORE: This has never been discussed publicly, but because the investigation is fully closed I can disclose it... Once the attack on the Capitol in Washington started, the Secret Service at our farm had us shelter in place. Then, there was an assault on our farm. There were a team of gunmen, who had been hastily sent there last minute, to kill me since I was not at the Capitol. The Secret Service held them off as long as they could. Meanwhile, back in Washington, someone had ordered special forces to fly to Tennessee and evacuate me. The special forces arrived shortly after the assault on our farmhouse began. At first, I didn't want to leave.
COURIC: Why is that?
GORE: My mother was there, several members of my family were there, my father's body was still in his bed, and gunmen had just tried to kill us. I didn't want to abandon my family. The Secret Service pointed out in the distance and showed me that more Secret Service and police were on the way to secure the farm, so I agreed to leave. The special forces flew us back to Washington.
COURIC: What were you thinking about on the flight there? Did you have a lot of information on what happened?
GORE: Well, no. You have to remember, this wasn't some ceremonial flight on Air Force Two or with my staff. I was sitting in a helicopter next to special forces. I didn't really know what to say, and they didn't either. We made a little bit of small talk, but that was about it. My first thought was that some foreign actor may have done this and that we could be in the opening stages of a strategic war between the United States and... another country. I started to wonder if it was the end of the world for a minute, and then I reminded myself that we didn't have all of the information and that it wouldn't do any good to worry. I prayed a bit, and I calmed myself down.
COURIC: So you weren't given any kind of update while you were being flown, by helicopter, to Washington?
GORE: Well... I can't exactly say where it happened, but we briefly landed to refuel somewhere in the mountains. That was when someone higher up radioed to the pilots that there was no way that President Clinton could have survived the attack. The pilots told the head of my security detail, and he came to the back of the helicopter and told me that Justice Clarance Thomas, who was the only surviving Supreme Court Justice, was waiting for us at the White House and that I was now the President of the United States.
COURIC: I can't imagine what that felt like.
GORE: It was gut-wrenching. My friend - our President - had just been killed, and from the sounds of it a lot of my friends on Capitol Hill were dead too. Later I would learn that almost all of them were dead... In that moment I felt pretty confident that we were at war with someone. They talked about taking me somewhere besides Washington, but I didn't want the world to see the Vice President hiding in a mountain somewhere while the Capitol burned.
COURIC: So after you landed in the mountains, you were informed that you were now the President. There was some discussion about taking you somewhere else, but you decided against that?
GORE: The pilot was an officer in the United States Army and I had just become the commander-in-chief. I ordered him to fly us back to the White House, so that abruptly ended the conversation about taking me somewhere else. Before we crosse the Potomac River, we could see the House Chamber of the Capitol burning. Helicopters were flying around it. The Air Force and the Air National Guard were scrambling fighter jets to secure Washington's air space and the Coast Guard was securing Chesapeake Bay. We were intercepted once and told not to enter the District's air space, but they cleared that up pretty quickly. Once we got to Washington, I told the pilot to bring us around the Capitol so that we could see the damage from the air. Then we landed at the White House.
COURIC: What did the Capitol Building look like from that vantage point?
GORE: It was utter devastation. The main portion of the building itself was still there, as was the Senate Chamber, but the House Chamber was totally ablaze. The roof had caved in and there was just this massive fire. It was pretty easy to see that not many people would be walking out of that alive... It was also very sobering to see the physical representation of a democratic republic ablaze. We had gone from having about 537 elected members of the United States government, to two... Myself, and then-Senator Benjamin Valentine Sinclair.
COURIC: Did you know Senator Sinclair well, at the time?
GORE: As Vice President, my primary constitutional duty was to be President of the Senate. I had gotten to know all of the Democratic Senators well, as well as some of the Republicans. Senator Sinclair was an independent, but he had respect across the aisle. I had met him a few times, but we didn't know each other well.
COURIC: Once you were sworn in, what was your plan? Did you have an immediate list of objectives or things that needed to be done?
GORE: First and foremost, I knew that we needed to make sure that this wasn't part of a larger attack. For example, there had been reports that a foreign submarine had been detected near Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack. This was especially concerning because the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise was heading to port there for maintenance, but the captain decided at the last second to abort their approach and remain at sea in case the submarine threat was real, or if the country was under attack. The Deputy Secretary of Defense, at the time, was aboard a secure military aircraft. The armed forces snapped to action immediately, and all indications were that we were not under attack by a foreign state. My next objective was to address the nation. The American People needed to know what had happened and that there was someone at the White House who was the President and was in charge. I sat down and wrote a speech with members of my staff and President Clinton's staff. Then we went on the air. After that I stayed up most of the night with Senator Sinclair and the surviving deputy directors of federal agencies to review what had happened, what we were going to do, and how we were going to rebuild the United States Congress legally, and as quickly as possible. The Senate was easier that the House of Representatives, constitutionally, since Governors could appoint Senators, but we needed to have elections for the House of Representatives.
COURIC: Did you have any fear at any point in time that the country would not be able to make it through something like that? That it would change us forever?
GORE: It did change us forever, but we persevered. We're Americans Katie, it's what we do.