Reflecting On September 11th: 20 Years Later

Friday, September 10, 2021

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

 

The Hoover Institution hosts Reflecting on September 11th: 20 Years Later on Friday, September 10, 2021.

Please join a conversation with special guests Condoleezza Rice, General Jim Mattis, John B. Taylor and Karen Hughes as they recount their personal experiences, each from a different vantage point, on where they were during the deadliest terror attack on American soil in history. They will discuss what that day meant for America, how it changed us as a nation, and how we would move forward in the world in its aftermath. They will share their thoughts on the recent withdrawal from Afghanistan and what it means for our national security.

FEATURING PANELISTS
Secretary Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. Rice served as the sixty-sixth secretary of state of the United States, the second woman and first African American woman to hold the post. Rice was serving as National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush and was at the White House in her office when the plane hit the first tower.

General Jim Mattis, US Marine Corps (Ret.), is the Davies Family Distinguished Fellow, after having served as the nation’s 26th Secretary of Defense in the administration. In December of 2016, President Donald J. Trump nominated Mattis for Secretary of Defense. He commanded at multiple levels in his forty-three year career as an infantry Marine. On 9/11, Mattis was serving in uniform as Brigadier General in the Marines at Camp Pendleton and heard of the attack on his car radio. Within 50 days, he would be leading an expeditionary brigade in Afghanistan.

Under Secretary John B. Taylor is the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution and the Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He chairs Hoover’s Working Group on Economic Policy and is director of Stanford’s Introductory Economics Center. Taylor was serving as Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs and was on a diplomatic mission to Japan on 9/11. He returned to America via military transport and began his work on the financial war on terror.

Ambassador Karen Hughes served as Counselor to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002 and was at the White House on September 11, 2001. She was also Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs where she led the U.S. State Department’s effort to communicate America’s values abroad and is currently the Worldwide Vice Chair at Burson Cohn & Wolfe.

MODERATED BY
Peter M. Robinson is the Murdoch Distinguished Policy Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he hosts Uncommon Knowledge. Robinson spent six years in the White House, serving as chief speechwriter to Vice President George Bush and as special assistant and speechwriter to President Ronald Reagan.