The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

confRontAtion And consensus 345
bug—contributed to the epidemic of comity. Soon, however, they retreated
to their fiefdoms and reverted to form. Counterterrorism went
back to being a secret preserve. “But the experience showed that the government
was capable of mobilizing itself for an alert against terrorism,”
the 9/11 Commission would conclude. “Everyone knew not only of an abstract
threat but of at least one terrorist who had been arrested in the
United States. Terrorism had a face—that of Ahmed Ressam—and Americans
from Vermont to Southern California went on the watch for his
like.” 3
Convicted in the spring of 2001, Ressam faced a life sentence unless
he cooperated. He told how he was recruited and trained and revealed
there were al-Qaida sleeper cells in the U.S. and Canada. He knew more,
however, than he was asked about.
President Bush’s briefing book at his Texas ranch on August 6, 2001,
included a report headlined “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.”
Thirty-six days later nearly 3,000 people died in hideous tangles of
twisted steel and crushed walls. Clinton and Bush administration officials
would argue over who had taken the terrorist threat more seriously
and whether either administration did enough to try and prevent what
happened when all hell broke loose on Sept. 11, 2001. 4
Helping uncover the truth would be the most important assignment of
Gorton’s life.
goRton And JAMie goReLicK, a former deputy attorney general in the
Clinton Administration, came to the 9/11 Commission with misconceptions
about one another. She expected him to be “reliably conservative”
and he figured she would be “a really partisan Democrat.” Two astute legal
tacticians quickly realized how much they had in common. “Jamie’s
goal was the same as mine: The commission was vital to America’s safety,
and we both wanted to get it right.” An honors graduate of Radcliffe and
Harvard Law School, the only woman on the commission was collegial
but definitely not compliant. Gorton was impressed when she held her
own against the strong-willed Zelikow. Long before their work was done,
Zelikow concluded that Gorelick was helping Gorton set the bipartisan
bar for conscientious intensity. They would wield major influence on the
commission’s final report.
Invariably working with Gorelick, Gorton was the commission’s consensus
builder. In the middle of a particularly difficult meeting he would
jot down language that ended up serving as the commission’s compromise
position. “Time and again, he was able to bridge disagreements and