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CNN Larry King Live

Interview With Rudy Giuliani

Aired October 02, 2002 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight: America's Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, whose inspirational leadership got the World's Greatest City through America's worst terrorist attack.
Now, the private emotions of a public hero one year later. Does he still want to personally execute Osama bin Laden?

We saw him every day for months, and then he kind of disappeared. Where's he been? What's he going to do next?

Rudy Giuliani for the hour next on LARRY KING LIVE.

What a great pleasure to welcome to LARRY KING LIVE tonight for the full hour, my man, Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, dubbed America's Mayor. The new book is "Leadership," published from Talk Miramax Books, Hyperion, written with Ken Kurson.

Rudy, is this a new look? I know the head looks different, the red tie, the black jacket, I mean this is -- is there a new Rudy?

RUDOLPH GIULIANI, FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: No, no, same old Rudy. I just decided to comb my hair back about a month, a month- and-a-half ago, and Judith told me it looked nice so I kept it that way.

KING: And once Judith says it looks nice...

GIULIANI: And once Judith says it looks nice...

KING: ... that's it.

GIULIANI: ... and then other people told me it was OK, so this is a lot easier. My Yankee baseball hat will fit better on top of this.

KING: How's private life?

GIULIANI: It's nice. It's a nice -- it's a nice period of time for me. You know, it's a time to reflect, to think about what you did, develop a business, and a little more relaxing.

And finishing the book was a big thing for me because I spent a lot of time working on it before September 11, had it almost done, then had to, you know, put it down for about four, five months, and when I went back to it it got to be really tough to finish it. So I'm very happy that we got it done.

KING: Yes, as I remember we talked a lot. This book was a contracted deal way before 9/11, right?

GIULIANI: It was, and it was virtually done before 9/11 and then I had about 80 percent of it done, it was going to come out seven, eight, nine months ago, and then I had to put it down, couldn't go back to it, and when I went back to it it got to be difficult.

So getting it out for me is terrific. It was like, it was like therapy, doing the book. Except I didn't have to pay for it. You know, when you go to therapy you have to pay for it.

(LAUGHTER).

KING: Is this biography? With a title like "Leadership," is this how-to?

GIULIANI: Yes, it is. It's a group of lessons that I derived from my experiences running the U.S. Attorney's Office, running a coal company in eastern Kentucky, being associate attorney general, mayor.

It's the lessons that I was taught, how I applied them and then how other people can apply them to running organizations, running businesses, or getting through difficult things in their own life, like I had to go through prostate cancer; how they can use those lessons to deal with their personal problems.

KING: And, of course, once 9/11 happened the book had to change some shape, right?

GIULIANI: Sure, what happened is I put the book down, I started doing the things I did after September 11, and when I went back to it I realized that I was putting into practice a lot of the things that I had written about.

So it contains, then, illustrations that also involve the recovery of the city, September 11, how we -- how you deal with that, how you deal with crisis, how you surround yourself with good people and use them and get the best out of them.

KING: We're going to discuss that book a lot.

I will also say that one of the great moments of my life was the opportunity to MC that dinner in your honor a couple of months after 9/11. That was one of the great nights ever.

GIULIANI: That was a great, great dinner. I remember it to this day, and I really appreciate the way...

KING: No.

GIULIANI: And not only your doing it, but the way you did it.

KING: It was my honor. We had a lot of laughs.

GIULIANI: Yes.

KING: We needed to laugh then. GIULIANI: Absolutely. Probably even more than now. But you always need to laugh. Humor is part of getting through -- getting through the worst parts of life. You know, you got to use humor even more when you're going through tragedy.

KING: There're even great stories of humor in concentration camps.

GIULIANI: You got to. Yes. It's the only way.

Humor focuses you on life going forward, you know, the same way, the same way baseball does, for me, you know. Last year being able to go to baseball games, going to my son's football games, were the -- literally, the only things that got my mind off September 11 and allowed me some relaxation.

KING: When I sat next to you at the World's Series a couple of years back, you were eating all of those, what were those seeds? What is that?

(LAUGHTER)

GIULIANI: You mean eating the peanuts without taking it off the shell?

KING: No, the little things you had...

GIULIANI: Oh, those other seeds? The...

KING: Soya.

GIULIANI: Oh, the soy stuff for my prostate cancer.

KING: You also told me you were doing quite well, you had some weak moments, but from the book we learned that this was a lot rougher than you let on.

GIULIANI: Sure, both dealing with prostate cancer and dealing with September 11 were more difficult than you let on because as a leader you want to show your humanity and you want to show some of your weakness, but you also want to encourage people, you know, you want to show a sense of optimism.

So if I was concerned or upset I would show a little of it and then I'd go off privately and deal with it and then come back out and, kind of, push forward. The advice that I got a long time ago is in a crisis you keep moving forward, and then afterward you can think about it.

KING: But isn't that a harder or tougher -- it's a plus for leadership. Isn't it harder or tougher for the psyche?

GIULIANI: Yes, I'm not sure that -- I'm not sure it doesn't help you. You know, people would say to me, "It's very, very difficult what you're doing now, you know, it's September 11 and the recovery." And sometimes I'd say to them, "It's actually more difficult for you. I don't have a choice. I have to be strong. I can't spend the next four hours thinking about the fact that I just lost a close friend, or there's a person missing, like when I found out that Father Judge was dead."

If I had found out that at any other time, I would have -- it would given me, you know, days and days of soul-searching and thinking and I literally had two minutes to think about it and absorb it.

KING: Is your health OK now?

GIULIANI: Yes, my health is great. I mean, I keep getting tested, I keep getting PSA test to make sure that the cancer hasn't come back. It hasn't.

And I urge every man that's listening to me to get a PSA test from the time of 40 on, because if you can catch prostate cancer at an early stage, you can cure it. And -- but the key is catching it at an early stage.

KING: Are you also now, thus the hints have been printed, going to get married?

GIULIANI: Judith and I are going to get married, we're just going to, kind of, keep it to ourselves, exactly how, when, where.

KING: But can you tell your old friend from Brooklyn, can you say soon?

GIULIANI: I'll tell you when we're sitting in a Yankee game, I'll whisper it in your ear.

KING: OK.

(LAUGHTER)

But would you say soon is a good word?

GIULIANI: I think soon is a good word.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: OK, do you miss public office?

GIULIANI: Sometimes. Sometimes I miss it and sometimes I don't. I mean sometimes when I get a little more of a chance to relax, or I get a little more chance to spend time with my friends I say, "Well, I wouldn't be able to do that if I was in public office."

On the other hand, I miss the daily press conferences and the, sort of, keeping up on everything because you have to be, because if you're not, you know, you're not going to be able to do the job that you're supposed to do.

KING: No one was a greater fighter -- if someone was equal it would amaze me -- the U.S. Attorney's Office, of fighting white-collar crime. So what do you make of the Enrons, et cetera? GIULIANI: Well, I think that part of it is viewing being a corporate CEO or board member in the wrong way; not recognizing the fact that you work for the stockholders and the shareholders, and it's to them that you have to disclose, you have to be open, you have to, in essence, justify yourself.

And one of the things that I describe in this book is that in some ways an elected official like a mayor or a governor or a president actually has it easier: We know who we work for. When I was elected mayor of New York City I worked for the people of New York that elected me.

Well, the CEO of a public corporation doesn't work for the board, he works for the shareholders. And all this talk about transparency and corporate governance, that's where we have to take it, we have to take it to the CEO of a corporation has to think of himself or herself like the mayor of a city, beholden to the stockholders.

KING: Were you -- what word would you use to describe these breakdowns in corporate America when you heard about guys escaping with $20 million, $30 million, $40 million while the company's going down the tubes?

GIULIANI: Well, first of all, you know, obviously I think probably as surprised as anyone. And secondly I felt, I felt really terrible, really about the timing of it.

The American economy was beginning to make a comeback, both I think the cycle was beginning to turn, we absorbed September 11, figured out that we're stronger than we even realized, and this has been a major -- I think, had a major impact on the recovery of our economy.

And, I mean, for that I really feel a great deal of anger that all -- that these people were doing these kinds of things.

KING: When Congress passes it, if they passed it, we're going to have a secretary of homeland security as an embodied member of the Cabinet. You want that job?

GIULIANI: No, right now I want to stay in private life for a couple of years. This is a good time for me. I don't -- I never wanted to be a career public official or career politician.

KING: Really?

GIULIANI: I like the idea of going back and forth. So in the future, I'd love to consider public office again, maybe even running for public office. But for the next couple of years, this is where I want to be. I want to be building my business, being able to reflect, think, and get involved in politics the way I do, which is supporting candidates where I can really help them.

KING: And that business is called what, Giuliani and Associates?

GIULIANI: Giuliani Partners. KING: Giuliani Partners does what?

GIULIANI: We do security consulting and investing. I work with the former police commissioner, the fire commissioner, head of the Office of Emergency Management, and a number of my former colleagues, and we give people advice on security, how to secure your business more effectively, how to prepare for the possibility of biological/chemical attack, how to create more of awareness of what could happen if there was a terrorist attack for both -- mostly for corporations and for some governments.

KING: Giuliani Partners is the company. If you've got any problems, it'd be a good idea to call them.

(LAUGHTER)

The book is "Leadership." And lots more on that and other things with the former mayor -- well, former never applies. There is a mayor of New York, but he will always be mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Before we get really into the book on leadership, a couple of political questions. Do you go -- will you be going anywhere Republican candidates across America ask for you or will you go just those races you're interested in?

GIULIANI: Well, I've gone to a lot of places and supported a lot of people and done a lot of -- you know, a lot of commercials. I do a lot of it with the advice of the White House, places where they think it really makes a difference. And then sometimes it's personal relationships.

KING: Yes.

GIULIANI: I mean, Bill Simon is a very good friend of mine. Norm Coleman, who's running in Minnesota, is a very good friend of mine. Jeb Bush is someone who came and campaigned for me and raised money for when I ran for mayor, so I feel a real sense of connection to Jeb and want to help him in any way that I can.

KING: Could you campaign for someone whose philosophy is completely different; say, far right of yours?

GIULIANI: Well, if they're totally different than mine, I can't. But I can find with just about all Republicans, certainly most Republicans, agreement on the economy, agreement on taxation, agreement on the role of government, agreement on foreign policy and support for the president.

So if we have some differences on social policy it seems to me that, you know, you're going to have differences with just about anyone. And the core philosophy is a very, very similar philosophy, whether you're talking about Elizabeth Dole or George Pataki, who are the people that I've been primarily involved in working with. KING: What do you make of the peculiarities of the Senate race in New Jersey? Senator Torricelli is gone. What now? Will there be a substitute candidate? Can there be a substitute candidate?

GIULIANI: I don't know. I don't know the law well enough to know if there can or cannot be a substitute candidate. I was, obviously, as surprised as anyone that at this late stage he dropped out of the race. And I keep waiting for what's the other part of this deal? There must be something else going on here.

Maybe that's my old role, always looking for what's the angle here, there's got to be an angle of some kind.

KING: Logically, shouldn't the Democrats have the right to put a new name on the ballot or do they just give it up and chuck it and...

GIULIANI: I don't know. In this case, Larry, I don't know the difference between logic and the law. Sometimes the law is logical and sometimes it isn't.

KING: Our guest is the former mayor.

Let's get into the book. All right, are leaders born or can they be made?

GIULIANI: Mostly made.

KING: Mostly made?

GIULIANI: Mostly made. Mostly educated. Not just formal education, but reading, emulating people, having role models, having people to teach you, and focusing on the qualities that allow you to set a direction for other people. I think in most cases great leaders are made.

You look at Winston Churchill, who to me was a hero and a great leader, this is a man who I think was in three different political parties, developed his political thinking over -- you know, over 30 or 40 years, was in and out of office. And then when called upon to act had all of these qualities of leadership that he learned over a lifetime.

KING: Lincoln, I think, lost -- what? -- six, seven elections?

GIULIANI: Lincoln lost elections. Ronald Reagan went from being a Democrat to a Republican, to losing the primary to Gerald Ford in 1976, and then becoming, you know, president of the United States. That's a leader that was made over a long period of time.

KING: All right. Now, when we see a book that says "leadership," written by Giuliani, and it's tips on leadership, who should buy it? By that I mean, what advantage would it be for the post office man to read it?

GIULIANI: I believe that it will give you advice about how to lead your life, how to deal with... KING: Ah.

GIULIANI: ... how to deal with crisis in your own life.

Leadership is often thought of as, you know, running an organization, but sometimes you have to run your own life. If you're faced with a difficult decision about your children or you're faced with a difficult decision about your health, you need to be reflective and to think about the things that are required to be a great leader.

I had to call upon all the same things that I used in being mayor when I was told that I had prostate cancer. I had to organize myself, I had to seek advice, I had to control and manage the fears that I had so that I could make a decision and move forward. And I found that I did that exactly the same way as I ultimately ran the city after the attack of September 11.

KING: So there's leadership in family.

GIULIANI: Absolutely. And leadership in your personal life, understanding that courage is not the absence of fear, but the management of it. And I use examples of that to try to help people so that they can deal with situations in which they're afraid, but can still then go ahead and make a decision, still go ahead and think their way through it.

KING: How about, Rudy, when difficulties are public? Your divorce -- divorce happens -- was public. Did that require some handling?

GIULIANI: Absolutely. It required being able to say to yourself that you're no different than anybody else, that you go through the same personal problems that everybody else goes through, that you're not perfect, that you make mistakes, you do things wrong, and you got to keep focused on your job, that you still have to go ahead and do the job of being mayor, you still have to do that to the best of your ability.

And also recognize the fact -- look, I think that public officials have to give away too much of their private life to be in public office, but you can spend all your time complaining about that; that just happens to be the reality of it. So you go ahead and you try to do the best you can to protect your private life, and you understand that that is one of the prices that you pay if you want to be in public office in America, you know, in this age.

KING: This book could have come out in August or early September. Any reason why we targeted it now?

GIULIANI: Yes. I wanted it to be after the anniversary of September 11, a sufficient amount of time afterwards so that it didn't come out in the middle of all that. Because I knew that I would have a role in that, I would be answering a lot of questions about that. I didn't want the two things to happen together.

This is a book that involves September 11, but it involves really lessons of leadership from my entire life, and it was written before that. And ideally I would have gotten it out last January or February. So I thought it would be better to wait a little longer and have an appropriate time to do it.

KING: I just got my copy here. I've read the excerpt in U.S. News, and I think the New York Daily News has done -- you've excerpted in lots of places.

GIULIANI: Yes.

KING: I expect Sports Illustrated next.

GIULIANI: It should. A lot of sports lessons. And maybe the most opportune time to have it come out is when the Yankees are in the playoffs.

KING: Yes.

GIULIANI: I use analogies to sports quite a bit, because I've learned a lot from playing baseball and watching baseball and football and basketball and boxing. It's taught me a lot about leadership.

KING: It does mirror life, does it not?

GIULIANI: Absolutely. And you know, it has a result, so that you see the effects of good leadership or -- I mean, one of the things I discuss in the book is the success that George Steinbrenner and Joe Torre have had as partners. You know Joe -- if you look at their record before they got together, George had a lot of wins back in the '70s and early '80s, but then there was a big drought for the Yankees. Joe Torre had a losing record as a manager coming to the Yankees.

And now together they have had one of the greatest streaks in the history of sports. And you could look at George and Joe and say, maybe they greatest owner, maybe the greatest manager. You certainly could argue that. But it's the things they combine together that really makes them so effective.

KING: Our guest is Rudy Giuliani. His honor.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're back with Mayor Giuliani.

I had the pleasure of meeting her once. Your mother's death -- there's only one mother.

GIULIANI: Yes.

KING: And I asked a friend who lost a -- I lost mine, she was 76. But a friend lost a mother -- in fact, it was Senator Rockefeller of West Virginia lost his mother at 101 of Alzheimer's and still couldn't get over it. GIULIANI: Yes. My mom -- my mom was 92. In fact, the 26th of September would have been her 93rd birthday. She didn't quite make it to that. And the last couple of years, she was having a lot of difficulties.

KING: Is it easier when they're later in life?

GIULIANI: Sure. It's never easy because your mind goes back to, you know, when they -- when they were functioning and they were with you and they were training you and they were taking care of you and you were taking care of them. But it's always -- I mean, it's always hard.

But the other part of it, maybe it was the perspective of having gone through September 11 and the anniversary coming up just a few days after she died, I thought of myself and I thought of her as being fortunate that she had a very long life when I saw so many people cut off, you know, in mid life or early life and so many kids growing up without fathers and parents who had to go through the unnatural act of burying their child.

So there was great sorrow in losing my mother, but I guess it helped me put it in perspective. I mean, she had a great life. And she would have been the last one -- and I said this when I gave her eulogy at the church. She'd have been the last one that would have asked for people to be sorry for her because we buried her the day before the September 11 anniversary. She would have said, "This is the natural thing that's supposed to happen. A child is supposed to bury their parent. It's not supposed to happen the other way around."

KING: Rudy, you have never been known to shirk from criticism. And one of the -- the only critiques I've read of this book was by George Purnik (ph) in the New York Times and I want to quote -- they headlined it, "Leadership in black and white with few shades of gray." And she says, "In leadership, Giuliani sounds so free of self-doubt that despite the book's mild tone, it will remind readers of the willful years of his mayoralty."

She also raises questions about emergency preparedness on 9/11, including the issue of whether some firefighters who might have been saved died because they didn't know of imminent danger. How did you react to that article?

GIULIANI: Well, it's correct. The first thought's correct. I am a person of strong beliefs. I mean...

KING: And willful.

GIULIANI: And willful. I don't know how you run a city like New York if you don't have strong beliefs and you're not willful. And I mean, I don't know how you'd be a leader if you don't have strong beliefs and you don't believe in yourself and you don't state what you think.

Those are the leaders that I respected. And as I said, Ronald Reagan was one of my heroes and Winston Churchill and there were a lot of others.

The second part of it, I mean, the firefighters on September 11 in New York City -- and the police officers and the rescue workers carried out the greatest rescue mission in the history of the United States. They saved over 25,000 people. And the casualty list, although horrendous, was two-thirds of what people thought it was largely because they sacrificed their lives to protect others.

And I think a lot of the dispute that they're talking about is, should they have abandoned the building? And the reality is, I know them, no matter what they were ordered or what they were told, they would not have abandoned the building.

KING: Even if they were told that the first building has gone done and the chance this building will go down?

GIULIANI: They would make sure they got the civilians out first and then abandon the building, the way -- the way a captain is the last one to leave his ship. That's the way they're trained. That's who they are. That's what's inside them.

How about the firefighters that were off duty? They came there and volunteered and went into the building. One could say that they were violating orders, if you want, right, or you could say that. Except, you know, as far as I'm concerned, they are entitled to the Congressional Medal of Honor.

KING: So you have no doubt in your mind that ineptitude or failing to give information lost lives?

GIULIANI: I have no doubt that they did about as well as any human beings could do under that set of circumstances. We can go back now and Monday morning quarterback it, you know, until the cows come home. The reality is, the way they acted gave this country so much of an example of bravery and heroism that it turned around what the terrorists were trying to do.

If we want to go back from a point of view of, you know, how to improve communications, how to do it better in the future, how to do this, how to do that, that's fine. But if we want to go back and pretend that this was -- this was not very well done by them, I think that's -- first of all, it's wrong. It's incorrect. I was there. I observed it. And the report that the Times is relied on was written without ever even interviewing me.

KING: Really.

GIULIANI: It's extraordinary. How do you write a report about an incident that took place and don't interview the person who managed it, or Richard Scherer (ph) who is the number two person? I guess Bernie Karik (ph), my police commissioner said it best, "To really critique this, you have to have been there and had your life at risk while it was going on."

KING: Well, critics...

GIULIANI: Then you criticize.

KING: ... are never there, are they?

GIULIANI: No, they are usually people sitting, you know, in the background.

KING: Sidelines.

GIULIANI: And you just go around and you move around little chess pieces.

KING: You write in the book -- in the book you say that at your first post-9/11 meeting with President George W. Bush when he asked you what can I do for you, you said, "If you catch bin Laden, I'd like to be one to execute him."

Now, I know you were a tough prosecutor. Is that a joke? Or do you mean that? You would pull a switch.

GIULIANI: No, no, no. It was an emotional statement. And it was a statement that came, you know, three days after. And when I first saw the president and I guess, you know, there were feelings very, very often, and they continue now, of great anger. It wasn't the only feeling, but one of the feelings I had. So it was a statement that came from my heart. It came from my emotions, from my feelings. And I felt that if someone was needed to do that, I was the appropriate person after the damage he did to my city. So it was an emotional, spontaneous statement.

KING: And you've have done it with relish?

GIULIANI: I would have done it with a sense of justice, I think is the way I would describe it.

KING: Do you think he's alive?

GIULIANI: I don't know. I really don't know. I don't have any better knowledge of that than anyone else.

KING: Do you favor the possible going to Iraq?

GIULIANI: Absolutely. I think it's absolutely necessary to remove Saddam Hussein. The question is, how do we go about doing it? How do we get as much support as possible? But the ultimate objective has to be removing him and his regime, to protect us in the future.

KING: More on the book, "Leadership" as we continue with Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Tomorrow night, great show. We're going to have the cast of "Mary Tyler Moore" remembering and showing off the clips. That's tomorrow night.

More of the mayor right after this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, September 16, 2001) GIULIANI: So you're all my heroes. You have been from the time I was a little boy, and from the day I became the mayor of New York City.

And I'm heartbroken that we have to add so many -- I don't know how many -- to that wall back there. I had hoped that there would be no more.

But we're going to take, out of our hearts being broken, the determination to do this job even better; to protect people even better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Our guest, Rudy Giuliani. The book is "Leadership," written with Ken Kurson. It's published by Talk Miramax Books, Hyperion.

You write about -- in the last chapter called "Recovery," about being an ordinary citizen, about going down to that tragic area of your city, to Ground Zero, and what that was like for you emotionally. Were you surprised at your feelings?

GIULIANI: Sure. Yes. I'm still surprised when I go down there. When I was there for the memorial services -- you know, the one-year anniversary, and then, I took President Havel of Czechoslovakia there about a week, a week-and-a-half ago, every time I go there, even though now it's over a year later, there's a whole complex of emotions. There's great anger. There's a great feeling of sadness. And then there's this complex feeling of pride at the incredible effort of the men and women who served there, who gave their lives and the people who survived, but acted in a very brave and heroic way.

I guess I know better than anyone how many people were saved, because I was the one who got the early reports of how many people supposedly died. And I know how they did it because I watched them do it. They did it by remaining calm and by maintaining their post and not abandoning it.

Had there been like a mass abandonment or evacuation by the rescue workers, it would have created panic, and it was created exactly what I guess most fiction writers would expect in a situation like this.

And most fiction writers that theorize a great catastrophe or attack like this, will often say, "More people will die in the evacuation than in the actual attack." Well, here the exact opposite happened. The people who died, died because of the attack. The evacuation moved out, maybe, 20,000, 25,000 people in a short period of time.

KING: Now, do you -- in a surprising aspect in the book and you need some further explanation, you cite the late John Gotti as an effective leader, meaning what? GIULIANI: Well, when you think of leadership we most often think of, you know, leadership for good. You know, we mention Churchill and we mention Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther King Jr. and you can mention a lot of people like that. But then there are also leaders who are very effective, except their purpose is a bad one or an evil one. And it doesn't mean that they're not effective in rallying their people.

So the point I was making about John Gotti was, back when I was U.S. attorney, I related this story of when John Gotti was almost killed. And then, a day or two later, rather than going to hide in caves like this other guy, you know, bin Laden, maybe is doing, he put himself out on the street; took his table that he used to have against the wall of a social club, put it right out on the street, and essentially sat there in Little Italy giving the following message to his troops: "I'm not afraid. I take the same risk you take. I'm not afraid of what they do to me. And, you know, come on and take your best shot."

That's a leader, although in his case, a leader for bad purposes. But it certainly created the kind of charismatic personality that he had within his organized crime group.

KING: Let's run down of the chapter headings. "First Things First," is that obvious or what are you getting at?

GIULIANI: That's my mother's lesson and it's the morning meeting that I used to have every morning as mayor of New York City, that I then used as a way to manage the city from September 11 to January 1 by bringing together all the people that had to make decisions and getting all those decisions made in the first hour, hour-and-a-half of the day. And it's advice that I give to people who run organizations about organizing yourself to get control of your day at the beginning of the day, otherwise it'll get control of you.

KING: So you do that at Giuliani Partners?

GIULIANI: I do. We have a meeting every morning. We bring together all the people that are working together. Many of them, as I said, from city government and we organize the things that we have to do. And very often -- I don't that we get all the work done, but we suddenly get a lot of direction by the time we're finished.

KING: Another chapter is "Prepare Relentlessly." How do you prepare for the unexpected?

GIULIANI: By preparing for all the things you can anticipate. And that's a very, very good point. Because the reality is that things are always going to happen that are unexpected, whether it's an attack that you don't anticipate or something that happens in a courtroom if you're a lawyer that you don't anticipate. If you prepare for everything else, you will find that you're prepared for the unanticipated.

In the case of the attack of September 11, we had prepared for anthrax, smallpox, botulism, suicide bombings, building collapses, plane crashes. We had gone through some of that and we had done drills and exercises. So that that preparation that I just mentioned is the reason why the city's response was so strong. Even though the exact thing that happened was unanticipated, by having prepared of everything else, we were intuitively prepared for the thing we hadn't actually anticipated.

KING: Something maybe Wall Street heads should listen to: Another chapter is titled, "Under-Promise And Over-Deliver." Why do Wall Street firms tend to over-promise?

GIULIANI: Terrible mistake. Until you know that you're going to succeed and the level at which you're going to succeed, don't promise mass success.

One of the examples that I use is, I knew when I became mayor of New York City I had to bring down crime. But I never promised a specific percentage reduction. I never promised exactly how. And we brought down crime, probably, two to three times more than I ever anticipated or would have predicted.

Same thing with welfare reduction. We reduced welfare rolls by 680,000 people. If you had asked me when I started, I would have said 200,000, 250,000. But I didn't over-promise it, instead I tried to deliver it. And then, once you deliver it, then you can talk about it and build momentum.

KING: That's the same as leading a family: Don't tell your kids you're going to bring home three sailboats when you don't know you might only be able to get two.

GIULIANI: That's correct. There are times that you'll set expectations too high, and then even though you've been successful, it'll look like you actually haven't achieved what you want to.

KING: On Wall Street they promised to make $14 billion. They make $12 billion and they sell the stock, people.

GIULIANI: Happens in government, happens in business. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't set goals, but they should be realistic, and then you should be sure that you can reach them. And then if you can exceed them, you're obviously going to create tremendous momentum.

KING: I don't like to predict things, but I have the feeling "Leadership" is going to be a major bestseller.

We'll be right back with more of Mayor Rudy Giuliani right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Maybe one of the best-equipped people I know to help other people is the book "Leadership." The author, His Honor Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Another leadership advice in chapter -- they've done in chapter headlines done very well -- "Everybody's Accountable All the Time." Why?

GIULIANI: Well, if you're going to expect accountability, let's say from the police officer on the street or you're going to expect accountability from the welfare worker who meets with people who are seeking welfare and you want them to find jobs, you've got to start with your being accountable.

I have a name plate on my desk that I've had there since the time I was the mayor. And instead of my name, it says, "I'm responsible," to remind myself that ultimately the buck stops with me. I'm responsible. If I create that feeling in my organization, then everybody else can be accountable. You never ask someone to do something that you wouldn't be willing to do yourself.

That's the reason why I would go to the scenes of emergencies of...

KING: You did all the time, didn't you?

GIULIANI: I did all the time, right. When I went to the scene of the World Trade Center, when I was first told that the building was attacked, I was told it was by twin-engine planes. To me, I was just going to another emergency. This was maybe, you know, the 200th time I had done it, a fire, a building collapse, a hostage situation, a train derailment, a shooting of a police officer or the injury of a firefighter.

So I was just doing what I had naturally always done, which is I would go there. And part of it was so that I could understand what was going on so I could make the right decisions. Part of it was to make sure it was coordinated in case there was some breakdown, because there almost always is.

But also some of it was to give an example of the fact that I'm accountable for this, ultimately if it's done right or wrong, I'm the one that's responsible, and that everybody else should be responsible.

KING: Are you glad or not glad, the way events turned out, that you did not run for the Senate?

GIULIANI: Fascinating question. Well, first of all, I don't know what would have happened if I ran. I don't know if I would have won or lost.

I think there came a point, maybe on September 11, September 12, September 13 when it occurred to me that if I had run for the Senate and I had won -- and I could have lost, but if I had won, I would not have been there at the time the city needed me.

KING: Correct.

GIULIANI: And I -- so I guess ultimately, I said, you know, "God works in strange ways."

At the time that I dropped out of the Senate race, I felt terrible. I felt that I had a chance to win. I wasn't sure. And I certainly wanted to make the race. But I would not have been -- had I been successful in that endeavor, I would not have been there at that time.

KING: How do you assess how Senator Clinton is doing?

GIULIANI: I think that she's did a really good job in supporting us and helping us on and after September 11. And I developed, you know, I think a really -- a good personal relationship with her in that sense.

Politically, I disagree with her. Politically there are many, many areas where I would probably have voted differently, acted differently, supported the administration more. So there are -- you know, there are vast political differences, but I respect the way she and the way Senator Schumer and the way both the Democrats and the Republicans came together to help the city after September 11.

KING: One of your chapters is, "Loyalty: The Vital Virtue." By loyalty, do you mean no matter what?

GIULIANI: No. It's never "no matter what." But I mean loyalty sometimes at a very, very heavy, heavy price.

And my model for that is Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan used to get criticized for hanging on to his people too long. And every time he would get criticized for that, I would say, "This is a man who shed some political blood for the people who were loyal to him. And people are going to shed political blood for him as a result of it." As opposed to the more often seen example of...

KING: Goodbye.

GIULIANI: ... "Goodbye, you're gone," the first little hint that somebody did something wrong, that, you know, "I never knew him, I never met him, I never dealt with him, it wasn't me. I didn't employ him, somebody else did."

(CROSSTALK)

GIULIANI: Look, you're going to make appointments, Larry, as a mayor, a governor or a president. They're going to appoint people. If it works out eight or nine out of 10 times, you're a genius. And the fact is, you're going to make mistakes. But you don't abandon people when the first little mistake occurs or the first little issue occurs. Otherwise, you can't really create loyalty in an administration or business.

KING: Harry S. Truman, great example of that, too.

GIULIANI: Harry S Truman, if I recall correctly...

KING: The buck stops here, and he...

GIULIANI: The buck stops here, and one of the political leaders that helped elect him in Missouri went to jail. And I think he went and visited them actually. KING: Visited him and went to his funeral, both against the advice of Pendergrass (ph).

GIULIANI: And no one...

KING: Against the advice of everyone.

GIULIANI: No one doubts Harry Truman's integrity. He was an honest man. And what he was showing is the kind of loyalty that exists between people.

People make mistakes. People do things wrong. You don't throw them to the wolves as a result of that. Even if you have to remove them from office, you don't throw them to the wolves.

KING: We'll be back with our remaining moments with Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York. A couple of other things to ask, including a title that says that says -- a chapter called "Stand Up To Bullies."

He last appeared on this show, by the way, in January, right on our State of the Union show. I'll never forget that night either, or all the visits we've had with the mayor.

The book is, "Leadership." The publisher is Talk Miramax Books, a division of Hyperion. We'll be right back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, September 11, 2001)

QUESTION: Mayor, what's the situation right now?

GIULIANI: The situation is that two airplanes have attacked, apparently -- what?

All right, well then let's get -- let's go north then.

QUESTION: Do you know, basically (ph), what happened to the airplanes (ph).

GIULIANI: Come with us! Come with us!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I only have about five-and-a-half minutes left, Rudy, so I want to run down some things quickly.

GIULIANI: Sure.

KING: What do you mean stand up to bullies?

GIULIANI: It means that part of what you should develop about your life is not letting people push you around. And not being a bully yourself, never taking advantage of someone smaller than you, someone weaker than you, but make sure that you don't let people start directing you and telling you what to do.

And if you stand up at an early stage to a bully, you'll always back him off. I mean, that's, kind of, what I think we should have done with Arafat at a much earlier stage, rather than negotiating with him as much as we did.

KING: Still think most of the Ground Zero should be a memorial?

GIULIANI: Yes. Yes, I believed that when I was in office. I continue to believe it even more that -- it should be a living memorial. It should be a library, a museum, a grand and beautiful structure.

And it should allow people to relive this extraordinary day that was the worst day in our history, and because of the bravery of the people who responded and the people who were there turned out to be a rejuvenation of the American spirit. Which is, you know, totally amazing to me that here this terrible attack took place, they tried to break our spirit, meaning the terrorists. And instead of that, because of the way these people stood their ground and the way in which civilians acted and everyone else, it became probably one of the greatest examples of heroism that we have in our history.

KING: The coming race between Pataki, the incumbent, and McCall, the first black American to run for the governorship in New York history.

GIULIANI: I consider George Pataki a brother. I was very close to the governor before. He was enormously kind to me when I had to drop out of the Senate race because I had prostate cancer; personal things that he and his wife Linda did to help me that they never sought to publicize, and I include some of it in the book.

But then on September 11, we joined our governments together. And we sat in a room for a month-and-a-half, two months making probably the most difficult decisions we'd ever had to make in our entire lives. So I have the sense of what kind of man he is. And I consider him to be a great leader.

So New York is very, very fortunate to have had George Pataki...

KING: Are you saying -- is he going to win?

GIULIANI: Well, voters know whether he's going to win. If you're asking me, I hope he does. And he should win.

I thought we were enormously fortunate on September 11 to have him as our governor. It could have been very different if we had a different kind of governor.

KING: There is some controversy over compensation and 9/11. What are your thoughts?

GIULIANI: Compensation, you mean for the victims?

KING: The people, yes. GIULIANI: I mean, that is so difficult. I think Ken Feinberg is trying very, very hard to come up with a formula that works and that works for everybody. And he's been -- Ken is a former colleague and a friend, so I have a personal relationship with Ken.

But he has listened to all of our pleas on behalf of the firefighters and the police officers. He hasn't always agreed with the things that we set forth. He's agreed with a lot of it. But he's been very generous and very kind in listening to everything. And I know, I guess having been in a role like his, you just can't please everybody.

I think he is trying very, very hard to come up with a formula that compensates the families fairly and generously, and at the same time, you know, protects the institutions...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: No easy task.

GIULIANI: Not an easy task. I think he's doing a great job.

KING: A hypothetical question, but a fair one. I'm going to come up with a hypothetical, fair question. Bud Selig says, "I've had enough, I'm out." The owners come to you, Rudy Giuliani, would you like to be commissioner of baseball?

GIULIANI: You know, Larry, you know what a Yankee fan I am. Do you realize the conflict of interest that would exist if I were commissioner of baseball?

KING: Selig owns the Brewers.

GIULIANI: I'm like a -- I am a -- but I'm a totally out of control Yankee fan.

KING: Well, but Bart Giamatti was an out of control Red Sox fan, an insane Red Sox fan.

(LAUGHTER)

GIULIANI: So you mean maybe we can overcome this? We can overcome the...

KING: Wouldn't you like that -- George W. Bush wanted that job.

GIULIANI: I don't know. I mean, I guess it's a dream that all of us who love baseball have of being baseball commissioner.

KING: Sure.

GIULIANI: But I don't know if that's a job that I would particularly...

KING: Really. Because of your allegiance for the Yankees?

GIULIANI: No. I don't know -- you really want to know what my fear of that job is?

KING: What?

GIULIANI: I've loved this game so much, I would hate to make it a business. You know, I think -- I see some of the people that are in the business of baseball and I wonder, does it take some of the fun out of it, some of the enjoyment, some of the relaxation? And I really mean this, I mean, the two things that allowed me to relax between September 11 through November and then December was, you know, going to my son's football games and going to baseball.

So I don't know that I'd want to take this -- for me what's a pastime and turn it into a business.

KING: Giamatti had a great line, though. I said, "Why would you leave the presidency of Yale to be commissioner of baseball?" He said, "Because nobody sits in front of you."

(LAUGHTER)

You got a two-book deal. We've got less than a minute. What's the next book going to be about?

GIULIANI: I don't know yet. I'm working on that. It could be about my experiences fighting crime, investigating, the trafficking, the Mafia, white-collar crime, going back to when I was an assistant U.S. attorney.

KING: Good idea. And only Giuliani could do the following: have an audio version of a book, it's an I book about leadership, told and described and voiced by Tony Roberts.

GIULIANI: I do the introduction. And Tony is a lot more professional than I am at doing that.

KING: See you at the ball park. Thanks, Rudy.

GIULIANI: Thank you.

KING: Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York. The book is "Leadership." You'll see it everywhere, guaranteed.

Tomorrow night, the cast of Mary Tyler Moore reunited.

Next, "NEWSNIGHT" with Aaron Brown.

Good night.

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Aired October 2, 2002 - 21:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight: America's Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, whose inspirational leadership got the World's Greatest City through America's worst terrorist attack.
Now, the private emotions of a public hero one year later. Does he still want to personally execute Osama bin Laden?

We saw him every day for months, and then he kind of disappeared. Where's he been? What's he going to do next?

Rudy Giuliani for the hour next on LARRY KING LIVE.

What a great pleasure to welcome to LARRY KING LIVE tonight for the full hour, my man, Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, dubbed America's Mayor. The new book is "Leadership," published from Talk Miramax Books, Hyperion, written with Ken Kurson.

Rudy, is this a new look? I know the head looks different, the red tie, the black jacket, I mean this is -- is there a new Rudy?

RUDOLPH GIULIANI, FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: No, no, same old Rudy. I just decided to comb my hair back about a month, a month- and-a-half ago, and Judith told me it looked nice so I kept it that way.

KING: And once Judith says it looks nice...

GIULIANI: And once Judith says it looks nice...

KING: ... that's it.

GIULIANI: ... and then other people told me it was OK, so this is a lot easier. My Yankee baseball hat will fit better on top of this.

KING: How's private life?

GIULIANI: It's nice. It's a nice -- it's a nice period of time for me. You know, it's a time to reflect, to think about what you did, develop a business, and a little more relaxing.

And finishing the book was a big thing for me because I spent a lot of time working on it before September 11, had it almost done, then had to, you know, put it down for about four, five months, and when I went back to it it got to be really tough to finish it. So I'm very happy that we got it done.

KING: Yes, as I remember we talked a lot. This book was a contracted deal way before 9/11, right?

GIULIANI: It was, and it was virtually done before 9/11 and then I had about 80 percent of it done, it was going to come out seven, eight, nine months ago, and then I had to put it down, couldn't go back to it, and when I went back to it it got to be difficult.

So getting it out for me is terrific. It was like, it was like therapy, doing the book. Except I didn't have to pay for it. You know, when you go to therapy you have to pay for it.

(LAUGHTER).

KING: Is this biography? With a title like "Leadership," is this how-to?

GIULIANI: Yes, it is. It's a group of lessons that I derived from my experiences running the U.S. Attorney's Office, running a coal company in eastern Kentucky, being associate attorney general, mayor.

It's the lessons that I was taught, how I applied them and then how other people can apply them to running organizations, running businesses, or getting through difficult things in their own life, like I had to go through prostate cancer; how they can use those lessons to deal with their personal problems.

KING: And, of course, once 9/11 happened the book had to change some shape, right?

GIULIANI: Sure, what happened is I put the book down, I started doing the things I did after September 11, and when I went back to it I realized that I was putting into practice a lot of the things that I had written about.

So it contains, then, illustrations that also involve the recovery of the city, September 11, how we -- how you deal with that, how you deal with crisis, how you surround yourself with good people and use them and get the best out of them.

KING: We're going to discuss that book a lot.

I will also say that one of the great moments of my life was the opportunity to MC that dinner in your honor a couple of months after 9/11. That was one of the great nights ever.

GIULIANI: That was a great, great dinner. I remember it to this day, and I really appreciate the way...

KING: No.

GIULIANI: And not only your doing it, but the way you did it.

KING: It was my honor. We had a lot of laughs.

GIULIANI: Yes.

KING: We needed to laugh then. GIULIANI: Absolutely. Probably even more than now. But you always need to laugh. Humor is part of getting through -- getting through the worst parts of life. You know, you got to use humor even more when you're going through tragedy.

KING: There're even great stories of humor in concentration camps.

GIULIANI: You got to. Yes. It's the only way.

Humor focuses you on life going forward, you know, the same way, the same way baseball does, for me, you know. Last year being able to go to baseball games, going to my son's football games, were the -- literally, the only things that got my mind off September 11 and allowed me some relaxation.

KING: When I sat next to you at the World's Series a couple of years back, you were eating all of those, what were those seeds? What is that?

(LAUGHTER)

GIULIANI: You mean eating the peanuts without taking it off the shell?

KING: No, the little things you had...

GIULIANI: Oh, those other seeds? The...

KING: Soya.

GIULIANI: Oh, the soy stuff for my prostate cancer.

KING: You also told me you were doing quite well, you had some weak moments, but from the book we learned that this was a lot rougher than you let on.

GIULIANI: Sure, both dealing with prostate cancer and dealing with September 11 were more difficult than you let on because as a leader you want to show your humanity and you want to show some of your weakness, but you also want to encourage people, you know, you want to show a sense of optimism.

So if I was concerned or upset I would show a little of it and then I'd go off privately and deal with it and then come back out and, kind of, push forward. The advice that I got a long time ago is in a crisis you keep moving forward, and then afterward you can think about it.

KING: But isn't that a harder or tougher -- it's a plus for leadership. Isn't it harder or tougher for the psyche?

GIULIANI: Yes, I'm not sure that -- I'm not sure it doesn't help you. You know, people would say to me, "It's very, very difficult what you're doing now, you know, it's September 11 and the recovery." And sometimes I'd say to them, "It's actually more difficult for you. I don't have a choice. I have to be strong. I can't spend the next four hours thinking about the fact that I just lost a close friend, or there's a person missing, like when I found out that Father Judge was dead."

If I had found out that at any other time, I would have -- it would given me, you know, days and days of soul-searching and thinking and I literally had two minutes to think about it and absorb it.

KING: Is your health OK now?

GIULIANI: Yes, my health is great. I mean, I keep getting tested, I keep getting PSA test to make sure that the cancer hasn't come back. It hasn't.

And I urge every man that's listening to me to get a PSA test from the time of 40 on, because if you can catch prostate cancer at an early stage, you can cure it. And -- but the key is catching it at an early stage.

KING: Are you also now, thus the hints have been printed, going to get married?

GIULIANI: Judith and I are going to get married, we're just going to, kind of, keep it to ourselves, exactly how, when, where.

KING: But can you tell your old friend from Brooklyn, can you say soon?

GIULIANI: I'll tell you when we're sitting in a Yankee game, I'll whisper it in your ear.

KING: OK.

(LAUGHTER)

But would you say soon is a good word?

GIULIANI: I think soon is a good word.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: OK, do you miss public office?

GIULIANI: Sometimes. Sometimes I miss it and sometimes I don't. I mean sometimes when I get a little more of a chance to relax, or I get a little more chance to spend time with my friends I say, "Well, I wouldn't be able to do that if I was in public office."

On the other hand, I miss the daily press conferences and the, sort of, keeping up on everything because you have to be, because if you're not, you know, you're not going to be able to do the job that you're supposed to do.

KING: No one was a greater fighter -- if someone was equal it would amaze me -- the U.S. Attorney's Office, of fighting white-collar crime. So what do you make of the Enrons, et cetera? GIULIANI: Well, I think that part of it is viewing being a corporate CEO or board member in the wrong way; not recognizing the fact that you work for the stockholders and the shareholders, and it's to them that you have to disclose, you have to be open, you have to, in essence, justify yourself.

And one of the things that I describe in this book is that in some ways an elected official like a mayor or a governor or a president actually has it easier: We know who we work for. When I was elected mayor of New York City I worked for the people of New York that elected me.

Well, the CEO of a public corporation doesn't work for the board, he works for the shareholders. And all this talk about transparency and corporate governance, that's where we have to take it, we have to take it to the CEO of a corporation has to think of himself or herself like the mayor of a city, beholden to the stockholders.

KING: Were you -- what word would you use to describe these breakdowns in corporate America when you heard about guys escaping with $20 million, $30 million, $40 million while the company's going down the tubes?

GIULIANI: Well, first of all, you know, obviously I think probably as surprised as anyone. And secondly I felt, I felt really terrible, really about the timing of it.

The American economy was beginning to make a comeback, both I think the cycle was beginning to turn, we absorbed September 11, figured out that we're stronger than we even realized, and this has been a major -- I think, had a major impact on the recovery of our economy.

And, I mean, for that I really feel a great deal of anger that all -- that these people were doing these kinds of things.

KING: When Congress passes it, if they passed it, we're going to have a secretary of homeland security as an embodied member of the Cabinet. You want that job?

GIULIANI: No, right now I want to stay in private life for a couple of years. This is a good time for me. I don't -- I never wanted to be a career public official or career politician.

KING: Really?

GIULIANI: I like the idea of going back and forth. So in the future, I'd love to consider public office again, maybe even running for public office. But for the next couple of years, this is where I want to be. I want to be building my business, being able to reflect, think, and get involved in politics the way I do, which is supporting candidates where I can really help them.

KING: And that business is called what, Giuliani and Associates?

GIULIANI: Giuliani Partners. KING: Giuliani Partners does what?

GIULIANI: We do security consulting and investing. I work with the former police commissioner, the fire commissioner, head of the Office of Emergency Management, and a number of my former colleagues, and we give people advice on security, how to secure your business more effectively, how to prepare for the possibility of biological/chemical attack, how to create more of awareness of what could happen if there was a terrorist attack for both -- mostly for corporations and for some governments.

KING: Giuliani Partners is the company. If you've got any problems, it'd be a good idea to call them.

(LAUGHTER)

The book is "Leadership." And lots more on that and other things with the former mayor -- well, former never applies. There is a mayor of New York, but he will always be mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Before we get really into the book on leadership, a couple of political questions. Do you go -- will you be going anywhere Republican candidates across America ask for you or will you go just those races you're interested in?

GIULIANI: Well, I've gone to a lot of places and supported a lot of people and done a lot of -- you know, a lot of commercials. I do a lot of it with the advice of the White House, places where they think it really makes a difference. And then sometimes it's personal relationships.

KING: Yes.

GIULIANI: I mean, Bill Simon is a very good friend of mine. Norm Coleman, who's running in Minnesota, is a very good friend of mine. Jeb Bush is someone who came and campaigned for me and raised money for when I ran for mayor, so I feel a real sense of connection to Jeb and want to help him in any way that I can.

KING: Could you campaign for someone whose philosophy is completely different; say, far right of yours?

GIULIANI: Well, if they're totally different than mine, I can't. But I can find with just about all Republicans, certainly most Republicans, agreement on the economy, agreement on taxation, agreement on the role of government, agreement on foreign policy and support for the president.

So if we have some differences on social policy it seems to me that, you know, you're going to have differences with just about anyone. And the core philosophy is a very, very similar philosophy, whether you're talking about Elizabeth Dole or George Pataki, who are the people that I've been primarily involved in working with. KING: What do you make of the peculiarities of the Senate race in New Jersey? Senator Torricelli is gone. What now? Will there be a substitute candidate? Can there be a substitute candidate?

GIULIANI: I don't know. I don't know the law well enough to know if there can or cannot be a substitute candidate. I was, obviously, as surprised as anyone that at this late stage he dropped out of the race. And I keep waiting for what's the other part of this deal? There must be something else going on here.

Maybe that's my old role, always looking for what's the angle here, there's got to be an angle of some kind.

KING: Logically, shouldn't the Democrats have the right to put a new name on the ballot or do they just give it up and chuck it and...

GIULIANI: I don't know. In this case, Larry, I don't know the difference between logic and the law. Sometimes the law is logical and sometimes it isn't.

KING: Our guest is the former mayor.

Let's get into the book. All right, are leaders born or can they be made?

GIULIANI: Mostly made.

KING: Mostly made?

GIULIANI: Mostly made. Mostly educated. Not just formal education, but reading, emulating people, having role models, having people to teach you, and focusing on the qualities that allow you to set a direction for other people. I think in most cases great leaders are made.

You look at Winston Churchill, who to me was a hero and a great leader, this is a man who I think was in three different political parties, developed his political thinking over -- you know, over 30 or 40 years, was in and out of office. And then when called upon to act had all of these qualities of leadership that he learned over a lifetime.

KING: Lincoln, I think, lost -- what? -- six, seven elections?

GIULIANI: Lincoln lost elections. Ronald Reagan went from being a Democrat to a Republican, to losing the primary to Gerald Ford in 1976, and then becoming, you know, president of the United States. That's a leader that was made over a long period of time.

KING: All right. Now, when we see a book that says "leadership," written by Giuliani, and it's tips on leadership, who should buy it? By that I mean, what advantage would it be for the post office man to read it?

GIULIANI: I believe that it will give you advice about how to lead your life, how to deal with... KING: Ah.

GIULIANI: ... how to deal with crisis in your own life.

Leadership is often thought of as, you know, running an organization, but sometimes you have to run your own life. If you're faced with a difficult decision about your children or you're faced with a difficult decision about your health, you need to be reflective and to think about the things that are required to be a great leader.

I had to call upon all the same things that I used in being mayor when I was told that I had prostate cancer. I had to organize myself, I had to seek advice, I had to control and manage the fears that I had so that I could make a decision and move forward. And I found that I did that exactly the same way as I ultimately ran the city after the attack of September 11.

KING: So there's leadership in family.

GIULIANI: Absolutely. And leadership in your personal life, understanding that courage is not the absence of fear, but the management of it. And I use examples of that to try to help people so that they can deal with situations in which they're afraid, but can still then go ahead and make a decision, still go ahead and think their way through it.

KING: How about, Rudy, when difficulties are public? Your divorce -- divorce happens -- was public. Did that require some handling?

GIULIANI: Absolutely. It required being able to say to yourself that you're no different than anybody else, that you go through the same personal problems that everybody else goes through, that you're not perfect, that you make mistakes, you do things wrong, and you got to keep focused on your job, that you still have to go ahead and do the job of being mayor, you still have to do that to the best of your ability.

And also recognize the fact -- look, I think that public officials have to give away too much of their private life to be in public office, but you can spend all your time complaining about that; that just happens to be the reality of it. So you go ahead and you try to do the best you can to protect your private life, and you understand that that is one of the prices that you pay if you want to be in public office in America, you know, in this age.

KING: This book could have come out in August or early September. Any reason why we targeted it now?

GIULIANI: Yes. I wanted it to be after the anniversary of September 11, a sufficient amount of time afterwards so that it didn't come out in the middle of all that. Because I knew that I would have a role in that, I would be answering a lot of questions about that. I didn't want the two things to happen together.

This is a book that involves September 11, but it involves really lessons of leadership from my entire life, and it was written before that. And ideally I would have gotten it out last January or February. So I thought it would be better to wait a little longer and have an appropriate time to do it.

KING: I just got my copy here. I've read the excerpt in U.S. News, and I think the New York Daily News has done -- you've excerpted in lots of places.

GIULIANI: Yes.

KING: I expect Sports Illustrated next.

GIULIANI: It should. A lot of sports lessons. And maybe the most opportune time to have it come out is when the Yankees are in the playoffs.

KING: Yes.

GIULIANI: I use analogies to sports quite a bit, because I've learned a lot from playing baseball and watching baseball and football and basketball and boxing. It's taught me a lot about leadership.

KING: It does mirror life, does it not?

GIULIANI: Absolutely. And you know, it has a result, so that you see the effects of good leadership or -- I mean, one of the things I discuss in the book is the success that George Steinbrenner and Joe Torre have had as partners. You know Joe -- if you look at their record before they got together, George had a lot of wins back in the '70s and early '80s, but then there was a big drought for the Yankees. Joe Torre had a losing record as a manager coming to the Yankees.

And now together they have had one of the greatest streaks in the history of sports. And you could look at George and Joe and say, maybe they greatest owner, maybe the greatest manager. You certainly could argue that. But it's the things they combine together that really makes them so effective.

KING: Our guest is Rudy Giuliani. His honor.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're back with Mayor Giuliani.

I had the pleasure of meeting her once. Your mother's death -- there's only one mother.

GIULIANI: Yes.

KING: And I asked a friend who lost a -- I lost mine, she was 76. But a friend lost a mother -- in fact, it was Senator Rockefeller of West Virginia lost his mother at 101 of Alzheimer's and still couldn't get over it. GIULIANI: Yes. My mom -- my mom was 92. In fact, the 26th of September would have been her 93rd birthday. She didn't quite make it to that. And the last couple of years, she was having a lot of difficulties.

KING: Is it easier when they're later in life?

GIULIANI: Sure. It's never easy because your mind goes back to, you know, when they -- when they were functioning and they were with you and they were training you and they were taking care of you and you were taking care of them. But it's always -- I mean, it's always hard.

But the other part of it, maybe it was the perspective of having gone through September 11 and the anniversary coming up just a few days after she died, I thought of myself and I thought of her as being fortunate that she had a very long life when I saw so many people cut off, you know, in mid life or early life and so many kids growing up without fathers and parents who had to go through the unnatural act of burying their child.

So there was great sorrow in losing my mother, but I guess it helped me put it in perspective. I mean, she had a great life. And she would have been the last one -- and I said this when I gave her eulogy at the church. She'd have been the last one that would have asked for people to be sorry for her because we buried her the day before the September 11 anniversary. She would have said, "This is the natural thing that's supposed to happen. A child is supposed to bury their parent. It's not supposed to happen the other way around."

KING: Rudy, you have never been known to shirk from criticism. And one of the -- the only critiques I've read of this book was by George Purnik (ph) in the New York Times and I want to quote -- they headlined it, "Leadership in black and white with few shades of gray." And she says, "In leadership, Giuliani sounds so free of self-doubt that despite the book's mild tone, it will remind readers of the willful years of his mayoralty."

She also raises questions about emergency preparedness on 9/11, including the issue of whether some firefighters who might have been saved died because they didn't know of imminent danger. How did you react to that article?

GIULIANI: Well, it's correct. The first thought's correct. I am a person of strong beliefs. I mean...

KING: And willful.

GIULIANI: And willful. I don't know how you run a city like New York if you don't have strong beliefs and you're not willful. And I mean, I don't know how you'd be a leader if you don't have strong beliefs and you don't believe in yourself and you don't state what you think.

Those are the leaders that I respected. And as I said, Ronald Reagan was one of my heroes and Winston Churchill and there were a lot of others.

The second part of it, I mean, the firefighters on September 11 in New York City -- and the police officers and the rescue workers carried out the greatest rescue mission in the history of the United States. They saved over 25,000 people. And the casualty list, although horrendous, was two-thirds of what people thought it was largely because they sacrificed their lives to protect others.

And I think a lot of the dispute that they're talking about is, should they have abandoned the building? And the reality is, I know them, no matter what they were ordered or what they were told, they would not have abandoned the building.

KING: Even if they were told that the first building has gone done and the chance this building will go down?

GIULIANI: They would make sure they got the civilians out first and then abandon the building, the way -- the way a captain is the last one to leave his ship. That's the way they're trained. That's who they are. That's what's inside them.

How about the firefighters that were off duty? They came there and volunteered and went into the building. One could say that they were violating orders, if you want, right, or you could say that. Except, you know, as far as I'm concerned, they are entitled to the Congressional Medal of Honor.

KING: So you have no doubt in your mind that ineptitude or failing to give information lost lives?

GIULIANI: I have no doubt that they did about as well as any human beings could do under that set of circumstances. We can go back now and Monday morning quarterback it, you know, until the cows come home. The reality is, the way they acted gave this country so much of an example of bravery and heroism that it turned around what the terrorists were trying to do.

If we want to go back from a point of view of, you know, how to improve communications, how to do it better in the future, how to do this, how to do that, that's fine. But if we want to go back and pretend that this was -- this was not very well done by them, I think that's -- first of all, it's wrong. It's incorrect. I was there. I observed it. And the report that the Times is relied on was written without ever even interviewing me.

KING: Really.

GIULIANI: It's extraordinary. How do you write a report about an incident that took place and don't interview the person who managed it, or Richard Scherer (ph) who is the number two person? I guess Bernie Karik (ph), my police commissioner said it best, "To really critique this, you have to have been there and had your life at risk while it was going on."

KING: Well, critics...

GIULIANI: Then you criticize.

KING: ... are never there, are they?

GIULIANI: No, they are usually people sitting, you know, in the background.

KING: Sidelines.

GIULIANI: And you just go around and you move around little chess pieces.

KING: You write in the book -- in the book you say that at your first post-9/11 meeting with President George W. Bush when he asked you what can I do for you, you said, "If you catch bin Laden, I'd like to be one to execute him."

Now, I know you were a tough prosecutor. Is that a joke? Or do you mean that? You would pull a switch.

GIULIANI: No, no, no. It was an emotional statement. And it was a statement that came, you know, three days after. And when I first saw the president and I guess, you know, there were feelings very, very often, and they continue now, of great anger. It wasn't the only feeling, but one of the feelings I had. So it was a statement that came from my heart. It came from my emotions, from my feelings. And I felt that if someone was needed to do that, I was the appropriate person after the damage he did to my city. So it was an emotional, spontaneous statement.

KING: And you've have done it with relish?

GIULIANI: I would have done it with a sense of justice, I think is the way I would describe it.

KING: Do you think he's alive?

GIULIANI: I don't know. I really don't know. I don't have any better knowledge of that than anyone else.

KING: Do you favor the possible going to Iraq?

GIULIANI: Absolutely. I think it's absolutely necessary to remove Saddam Hussein. The question is, how do we go about doing it? How do we get as much support as possible? But the ultimate objective has to be removing him and his regime, to protect us in the future.

KING: More on the book, "Leadership" as we continue with Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Tomorrow night, great show. We're going to have the cast of "Mary Tyler Moore" remembering and showing off the clips. That's tomorrow night.

More of the mayor right after this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, September 16, 2001) GIULIANI: So you're all my heroes. You have been from the time I was a little boy, and from the day I became the mayor of New York City.

And I'm heartbroken that we have to add so many -- I don't know how many -- to that wall back there. I had hoped that there would be no more.

But we're going to take, out of our hearts being broken, the determination to do this job even better; to protect people even better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Our guest, Rudy Giuliani. The book is "Leadership," written with Ken Kurson. It's published by Talk Miramax Books, Hyperion.

You write about -- in the last chapter called "Recovery," about being an ordinary citizen, about going down to that tragic area of your city, to Ground Zero, and what that was like for you emotionally. Were you surprised at your feelings?

GIULIANI: Sure. Yes. I'm still surprised when I go down there. When I was there for the memorial services -- you know, the one-year anniversary, and then, I took President Havel of Czechoslovakia there about a week, a week-and-a-half ago, every time I go there, even though now it's over a year later, there's a whole complex of emotions. There's great anger. There's a great feeling of sadness. And then there's this complex feeling of pride at the incredible effort of the men and women who served there, who gave their lives and the people who survived, but acted in a very brave and heroic way.

I guess I know better than anyone how many people were saved, because I was the one who got the early reports of how many people supposedly died. And I know how they did it because I watched them do it. They did it by remaining calm and by maintaining their post and not abandoning it.

Had there been like a mass abandonment or evacuation by the rescue workers, it would have created panic, and it was created exactly what I guess most fiction writers would expect in a situation like this.

And most fiction writers that theorize a great catastrophe or attack like this, will often say, "More people will die in the evacuation than in the actual attack." Well, here the exact opposite happened. The people who died, died because of the attack. The evacuation moved out, maybe, 20,000, 25,000 people in a short period of time.

KING: Now, do you -- in a surprising aspect in the book and you need some further explanation, you cite the late John Gotti as an effective leader, meaning what? GIULIANI: Well, when you think of leadership we most often think of, you know, leadership for good. You know, we mention Churchill and we mention Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther King Jr. and you can mention a lot of people like that. But then there are also leaders who are very effective, except their purpose is a bad one or an evil one. And it doesn't mean that they're not effective in rallying their people.

So the point I was making about John Gotti was, back when I was U.S. attorney, I related this story of when John Gotti was almost killed. And then, a day or two later, rather than going to hide in caves like this other guy, you know, bin Laden, maybe is doing, he put himself out on the street; took his table that he used to have against the wall of a social club, put it right out on the street, and essentially sat there in Little Italy giving the following message to his troops: "I'm not afraid. I take the same risk you take. I'm not afraid of what they do to me. And, you know, come on and take your best shot."

That's a leader, although in his case, a leader for bad purposes. But it certainly created the kind of charismatic personality that he had within his organized crime group.

KING: Let's run down of the chapter headings. "First Things First," is that obvious or what are you getting at?

GIULIANI: That's my mother's lesson and it's the morning meeting that I used to have every morning as mayor of New York City, that I then used as a way to manage the city from September 11 to January 1 by bringing together all the people that had to make decisions and getting all those decisions made in the first hour, hour-and-a-half of the day. And it's advice that I give to people who run organizations about organizing yourself to get control of your day at the beginning of the day, otherwise it'll get control of you.

KING: So you do that at Giuliani Partners?

GIULIANI: I do. We have a meeting every morning. We bring together all the people that are working together. Many of them, as I said, from city government and we organize the things that we have to do. And very often -- I don't that we get all the work done, but we suddenly get a lot of direction by the time we're finished.

KING: Another chapter is "Prepare Relentlessly." How do you prepare for the unexpected?

GIULIANI: By preparing for all the things you can anticipate. And that's a very, very good point. Because the reality is that things are always going to happen that are unexpected, whether it's an attack that you don't anticipate or something that happens in a courtroom if you're a lawyer that you don't anticipate. If you prepare for everything else, you will find that you're prepared for the unanticipated.

In the case of the attack of September 11, we had prepared for anthrax, smallpox, botulism, suicide bombings, building collapses, plane crashes. We had gone through some of that and we had done drills and exercises. So that that preparation that I just mentioned is the reason why the city's response was so strong. Even though the exact thing that happened was unanticipated, by having prepared of everything else, we were intuitively prepared for the thing we hadn't actually anticipated.

KING: Something maybe Wall Street heads should listen to: Another chapter is titled, "Under-Promise And Over-Deliver." Why do Wall Street firms tend to over-promise?

GIULIANI: Terrible mistake. Until you know that you're going to succeed and the level at which you're going to succeed, don't promise mass success.

One of the examples that I use is, I knew when I became mayor of New York City I had to bring down crime. But I never promised a specific percentage reduction. I never promised exactly how. And we brought down crime, probably, two to three times more than I ever anticipated or would have predicted.

Same thing with welfare reduction. We reduced welfare rolls by 680,000 people. If you had asked me when I started, I would have said 200,000, 250,000. But I didn't over-promise it, instead I tried to deliver it. And then, once you deliver it, then you can talk about it and build momentum.

KING: That's the same as leading a family: Don't tell your kids you're going to bring home three sailboats when you don't know you might only be able to get two.

GIULIANI: That's correct. There are times that you'll set expectations too high, and then even though you've been successful, it'll look like you actually haven't achieved what you want to.

KING: On Wall Street they promised to make $14 billion. They make $12 billion and they sell the stock, people.

GIULIANI: Happens in government, happens in business. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't set goals, but they should be realistic, and then you should be sure that you can reach them. And then if you can exceed them, you're obviously going to create tremendous momentum.

KING: I don't like to predict things, but I have the feeling "Leadership" is going to be a major bestseller.

We'll be right back with more of Mayor Rudy Giuliani right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Maybe one of the best-equipped people I know to help other people is the book "Leadership." The author, His Honor Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Another leadership advice in chapter -- they've done in chapter headlines done very well -- "Everybody's Accountable All the Time." Why?

GIULIANI: Well, if you're going to expect accountability, let's say from the police officer on the street or you're going to expect accountability from the welfare worker who meets with people who are seeking welfare and you want them to find jobs, you've got to start with your being accountable.

I have a name plate on my desk that I've had there since the time I was the mayor. And instead of my name, it says, "I'm responsible," to remind myself that ultimately the buck stops with me. I'm responsible. If I create that feeling in my organization, then everybody else can be accountable. You never ask someone to do something that you wouldn't be willing to do yourself.

That's the reason why I would go to the scenes of emergencies of...

KING: You did all the time, didn't you?

GIULIANI: I did all the time, right. When I went to the scene of the World Trade Center, when I was first told that the building was attacked, I was told it was by twin-engine planes. To me, I was just going to another emergency. This was maybe, you know, the 200th time I had done it, a fire, a building collapse, a hostage situation, a train derailment, a shooting of a police officer or the injury of a firefighter.

So I was just doing what I had naturally always done, which is I would go there. And part of it was so that I could understand what was going on so I could make the right decisions. Part of it was to make sure it was coordinated in case there was some breakdown, because there almost always is.

But also some of it was to give an example of the fact that I'm accountable for this, ultimately if it's done right or wrong, I'm the one that's responsible, and that everybody else should be responsible.

KING: Are you glad or not glad, the way events turned out, that you did not run for the Senate?

GIULIANI: Fascinating question. Well, first of all, I don't know what would have happened if I ran. I don't know if I would have won or lost.

I think there came a point, maybe on September 11, September 12, September 13 when it occurred to me that if I had run for the Senate and I had won -- and I could have lost, but if I had won, I would not have been there at the time the city needed me.

KING: Correct.

GIULIANI: And I -- so I guess ultimately, I said, you know, "God works in strange ways."

At the time that I dropped out of the Senate race, I felt terrible. I felt that I had a chance to win. I wasn't sure. And I certainly wanted to make the race. But I would not have been -- had I been successful in that endeavor, I would not have been there at that time.

KING: How do you assess how Senator Clinton is doing?

GIULIANI: I think that she's did a really good job in supporting us and helping us on and after September 11. And I developed, you know, I think a really -- a good personal relationship with her in that sense.

Politically, I disagree with her. Politically there are many, many areas where I would probably have voted differently, acted differently, supported the administration more. So there are -- you know, there are vast political differences, but I respect the way she and the way Senator Schumer and the way both the Democrats and the Republicans came together to help the city after September 11.

KING: One of your chapters is, "Loyalty: The Vital Virtue." By loyalty, do you mean no matter what?

GIULIANI: No. It's never "no matter what." But I mean loyalty sometimes at a very, very heavy, heavy price.

And my model for that is Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan used to get criticized for hanging on to his people too long. And every time he would get criticized for that, I would say, "This is a man who shed some political blood for the people who were loyal to him. And people are going to shed political blood for him as a result of it." As opposed to the more often seen example of...

KING: Goodbye.

GIULIANI: ... "Goodbye, you're gone," the first little hint that somebody did something wrong, that, you know, "I never knew him, I never met him, I never dealt with him, it wasn't me. I didn't employ him, somebody else did."

(CROSSTALK)

GIULIANI: Look, you're going to make appointments, Larry, as a mayor, a governor or a president. They're going to appoint people. If it works out eight or nine out of 10 times, you're a genius. And the fact is, you're going to make mistakes. But you don't abandon people when the first little mistake occurs or the first little issue occurs. Otherwise, you can't really create loyalty in an administration or business.

KING: Harry S. Truman, great example of that, too.

GIULIANI: Harry S Truman, if I recall correctly...

KING: The buck stops here, and he...

GIULIANI: The buck stops here, and one of the political leaders that helped elect him in Missouri went to jail. And I think he went and visited them actually. KING: Visited him and went to his funeral, both against the advice of Pendergrass (ph).

GIULIANI: And no one...

KING: Against the advice of everyone.

GIULIANI: No one doubts Harry Truman's integrity. He was an honest man. And what he was showing is the kind of loyalty that exists between people.

People make mistakes. People do things wrong. You don't throw them to the wolves as a result of that. Even if you have to remove them from office, you don't throw them to the wolves.

KING: We'll be back with our remaining moments with Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York. A couple of other things to ask, including a title that says that says -- a chapter called "Stand Up To Bullies."

He last appeared on this show, by the way, in January, right on our State of the Union show. I'll never forget that night either, or all the visits we've had with the mayor.

The book is, "Leadership." The publisher is Talk Miramax Books, a division of Hyperion. We'll be right back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, September 11, 2001)

QUESTION: Mayor, what's the situation right now?

GIULIANI: The situation is that two airplanes have attacked, apparently -- what?

All right, well then let's get -- let's go north then.

QUESTION: Do you know, basically (ph), what happened to the airplanes (ph).

GIULIANI: Come with us! Come with us!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: I only have about five-and-a-half minutes left, Rudy, so I want to run down some things quickly.

GIULIANI: Sure.

KING: What do you mean stand up to bullies?

GIULIANI: It means that part of what you should develop about your life is not letting people push you around. And not being a bully yourself, never taking advantage of someone smaller than you, someone weaker than you, but make sure that you don't let people start directing you and telling you what to do.

And if you stand up at an early stage to a bully, you'll always back him off. I mean, that's, kind of, what I think we should have done with Arafat at a much earlier stage, rather than negotiating with him as much as we did.

KING: Still think most of the Ground Zero should be a memorial?

GIULIANI: Yes. Yes, I believed that when I was in office. I continue to believe it even more that -- it should be a living memorial. It should be a library, a museum, a grand and beautiful structure.

And it should allow people to relive this extraordinary day that was the worst day in our history, and because of the bravery of the people who responded and the people who were there turned out to be a rejuvenation of the American spirit. Which is, you know, totally amazing to me that here this terrible attack took place, they tried to break our spirit, meaning the terrorists. And instead of that, because of the way these people stood their ground and the way in which civilians acted and everyone else, it became probably one of the greatest examples of heroism that we have in our history.

KING: The coming race between Pataki, the incumbent, and McCall, the first black American to run for the governorship in New York history.

GIULIANI: I consider George Pataki a brother. I was very close to the governor before. He was enormously kind to me when I had to drop out of the Senate race because I had prostate cancer; personal things that he and his wife Linda did to help me that they never sought to publicize, and I include some of it in the book.

But then on September 11, we joined our governments together. And we sat in a room for a month-and-a-half, two months making probably the most difficult decisions we'd ever had to make in our entire lives. So I have the sense of what kind of man he is. And I consider him to be a great leader.

So New York is very, very fortunate to have had George Pataki...

KING: Are you saying -- is he going to win?

GIULIANI: Well, voters know whether he's going to win. If you're asking me, I hope he does. And he should win.

I thought we were enormously fortunate on September 11 to have him as our governor. It could have been very different if we had a different kind of governor.

KING: There is some controversy over compensation and 9/11. What are your thoughts?

GIULIANI: Compensation, you mean for the victims?

KING: The people, yes. GIULIANI: I mean, that is so difficult. I think Ken Feinberg is trying very, very hard to come up with a formula that works and that works for everybody. And he's been -- Ken is a former colleague and a friend, so I have a personal relationship with Ken.

But he has listened to all of our pleas on behalf of the firefighters and the police officers. He hasn't always agreed with the things that we set forth. He's agreed with a lot of it. But he's been very generous and very kind in listening to everything. And I know, I guess having been in a role like his, you just can't please everybody.

I think he is trying very, very hard to come up with a formula that compensates the families fairly and generously, and at the same time, you know, protects the institutions...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: No easy task.

GIULIANI: Not an easy task. I think he's doing a great job.

KING: A hypothetical question, but a fair one. I'm going to come up with a hypothetical, fair question. Bud Selig says, "I've had enough, I'm out." The owners come to you, Rudy Giuliani, would you like to be commissioner of baseball?

GIULIANI: You know, Larry, you know what a Yankee fan I am. Do you realize the conflict of interest that would exist if I were commissioner of baseball?

KING: Selig owns the Brewers.

GIULIANI: I'm like a -- I am a -- but I'm a totally out of control Yankee fan.

KING: Well, but Bart Giamatti was an out of control Red Sox fan, an insane Red Sox fan.

(LAUGHTER)

GIULIANI: So you mean maybe we can overcome this? We can overcome the...

KING: Wouldn't you like that -- George W. Bush wanted that job.

GIULIANI: I don't know. I mean, I guess it's a dream that all of us who love baseball have of being baseball commissioner.

KING: Sure.

GIULIANI: But I don't know if that's a job that I would particularly...

KING: Really. Because of your allegiance for the Yankees?

GIULIANI: No. I don't know -- you really want to know what my fear of that job is?

KING: What?

GIULIANI: I've loved this game so much, I would hate to make it a business. You know, I think -- I see some of the people that are in the business of baseball and I wonder, does it take some of the fun out of it, some of the enjoyment, some of the relaxation? And I really mean this, I mean, the two things that allowed me to relax between September 11 through November and then December was, you know, going to my son's football games and going to baseball.

So I don't know that I'd want to take this -- for me what's a pastime and turn it into a business.

KING: Giamatti had a great line, though. I said, "Why would you leave the presidency of Yale to be commissioner of baseball?" He said, "Because nobody sits in front of you."

(LAUGHTER)

You got a two-book deal. We've got less than a minute. What's the next book going to be about?

GIULIANI: I don't know yet. I'm working on that. It could be about my experiences fighting crime, investigating, the trafficking, the Mafia, white-collar crime, going back to when I was an assistant U.S. attorney.

KING: Good idea. And only Giuliani could do the following: have an audio version of a book, it's an I book about leadership, told and described and voiced by Tony Roberts.

GIULIANI: I do the introduction. And Tony is a lot more professional than I am at doing that.

KING: See you at the ball park. Thanks, Rudy.

GIULIANI: Thank you.

KING: Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York. The book is "Leadership." You'll see it everywhere, guaranteed.

Tomorrow night, the cast of Mary Tyler Moore reunited.

Next, "NEWSNIGHT" with Aaron Brown.

Good night.

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