Armitage came in to be the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, which was then split into two pieces, international security affairs and international security policy, which Mr. I was military assistant to the then Deputy Secretary of Defense and Mr. It was the beginning of the Reagan administration. PowellĪmbassador Armitage and I met in January of 1981. Yes, the two of you before you actually get to the State Department. I know that we have limited time, but one of the things we'd like to hear you talk about to begin with is your relationship before you got into the Bush 43 administration, so that we'll have a better sense about what your personal relations were. For the record, this is the Colin Powell and Rich Armitage interview for the George W. I didn't have a Torie Clark or anybody, but I have Rich and Peggy. Rich and Peggy are my institutional memory. I was saying to Rich, this really is not about so much my stewardship, it's about the President. Until we get to you, and we're happy for this contribution. So it's the rule rather than the exception, most of the senior people in the foreign policy area. Steven Hadley, so most of the principals in foreign policy and a fair number of people with- Bremer. PowellĪ couple of his media people? Selverstoneīoth Chiefs of Staff-Andy Card and Josh Bolten. Paul Wolfowitz came along and a couple of media people. His entourage came to Charlottesville with him. We hope to interview the President and the First Lady sometime later this year, although the scheduling on that hasn't worked out yet. We've spoken overall with about 90 people we're getting very close to the end of the Bush 43 project. Who else have you spoken to from the administration? Riley That's our purpose and we have an unblemished record over some 20 or 30 years of maintaining those confidences. We always tell people at this stage our principal mission is to get an accurate record for historical purposes, not just to have a conversation with us. We'd rather you edit yourself in the transcript rather than into the tape recorder. If you want to make any stipulations or redactions with respect to the release of the transcript, you have the opportunity to do that. We don't ask you to sign off on anything until you've had a chance to look at that. The transcript becomes the authoritative record of the interview. We'll talk, I hope candidly, into the recorders, but you'll have an opportunity to review a transcript within a couple of months after it's prepared. General Powell, you've been through this drill before with us.