Woodward Bob - Peril (9781982182939)

Peril

Bob Woodward

Robert Costa

ALSO BY BOB WOODWARD

Rage

Fear:

Trump in the White House

The Last of the Presidents Men

The Price of Politics

Obamas Wars

The War Within:

A Secret White House History, 20062008

State of Denial

The Secret Man

(with a Reporters Assessment by Carl Bernstein)

Plan of Attack

Bush at War

Maestro:

Greenspans Fed and the American Boom

Shadow:

Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate

The Choice

The Agenda:

Inside the Clinton White House

The Commanders

Veil:

The Secret Wars of the CIA, 19811987

Wired:

The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi

The Brethren

(with Scott Armstrong)

The Final Days

(with Carl Bernstein)

All the Presidents Men

(with Carl Bernstein)

Simon & Schuster

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Copyright 2021 by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition September 2021

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Jacket design by Jackie Seow

Jacket photographs: (front, top to bottom) Pool/Getty Images; Joshua Roberts/Getty Images (back, top to bottom) Michelle Gustafson/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-9821-8291-5

ISBN 978-1-9821-8293-9 (ebook)

Always for the parents:
Alfred E. Woodward and Jane Barnes
Tom and Dillon Costa

We have much to do in this winter of peril.

President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in his inaugural address, January 20, 2021, at the United States Capitol

Claire McMullen, 27, a lawyer and writer from Australia, worked as our assistant on this book. She was our full collaborator on the investigative reporting and the research, pushing us to dig deeper, ask further questions, and to be more precise. At every stage, she was focused, resourceful and steady, even during challenging moments, and determined to execute each step with meticulous care.

Claires creative devotion to hard work cannot be required. She chose to give it every day, every hour. She readily came in early, stayed late at night, and worked countless weekends with us. She also brought to this project her brilliant insights on human rights, foreign policy, and human nature. Her career is limitless in its promise. She is the best.

We will always appreciate her friendship and dedication.

T wo days after the January 6, 2021, violent assault on the United States Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump, General Mark Milley, the nations senior military officer and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, placed an urgent call on a top secret, back-channel line at 7:03 a.m. to his Chinese counterpart, General Li Zuocheng, chief of the Joint Staff of the Peoples Liberation Army.

Milley knew from extensive reports that Li and the Chinese leadership were stunned and disoriented by the televised images of the unprecedented attack on the American legislature.

Li fired off questions to Milley. Was the American superpower unstable? Collapsing? What was going on? Was the U.S. military going to do something?

Things may look unsteady, Milley said, trying to calm Li, whom he had known for five years. But thats the nature of democracy, General Li. We are 100 percent steady. Everythings fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.

It took an hour and a half45 minutes of substance due to the necessary use of interpretersto try to assure him.

When Milley hung up, he was convinced the situation was grave. Li remained unusually rattled, putting the two nations on the knife-edge of disaster.

The Chinese already were on high alert about U.S. intentions. On October 30, four days before the presidential election, sensitive intelligence showed that the Chinese believed the U.S. was plotting to secretly attack them. The Chinese thought that Trump in desperation would create a crisis, present himself as the savior, and use the gambit to win reelection.

Milley knew the Chinese assertion that the U.S. was planning a secret strike was preposterous. He had then called General Li on the same back channel to persuade the Chinese to cool down. He invoked their long-standing relationship and insisted the U.S. was not planning an attack. At the time, he believed he had been successful in placating Li, who would pass the message to Chinese president Xi Jinping.

But now, two months later, on January 8, it was evident Chinas fears had only been intensified by the insurrection.

We dont understand the Chinese, Milley told senior staff, and the Chinese dont understand us. That was dangerous in itself. But there was more.

Milley had witnessed up close how Trump was routinely impulsive and unpredictable. Making matters even more dire, Milley was certain Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election, with Trump now all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.

The scenes of a screaming Trump in the Oval Office resembled Full Metal Jacket, the 1987 movie featuring a Marine gunnery sergeant who viciously rages at recruits with dehumanizing obscenities.

You never know what a presidents trigger point is, Milley told senior staff. When might events and pressures come together to cause a president to order military action?

In making the president the commander in chief of the military, a tremendous concentration of power in one person, the Constitution gave the president the authority single-handedly to employ the armed forces as he chose.

Milley believed that Trump did not want a war, but he certainly was willing to launch military strikes as he had done in Iran, Somalia, Yemen and Syria.

I continually reminded him, Milley said, depending on where and what you strike, you could find yourself in a war.

While the publics attention was on the domestic political fallout from the Capitol riot, Milley privately recognized the U.S. had been thrust into a new period of extraordinary risk internationally. It was precisely the kind of hair-trigger environment where an accident or misinterpretation could escalate catastrophically.