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American Morning

Two Hundred Years Ago Tomorrow, Jefferson Signed Legislation Establishing West Point

Aired March 15, 2002 - 09:43   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Two hundred years ago tomorrow, President Thomas Jefferson signed legislation establishing a military academy at West Point in New York. In the two centuries since, the famous academy has produced a long list of great military leaders.

Anderson Cooper is there on the eve of the bicentennial celebration and he joins us again with a look at this school's past, present, and future.

Good morning.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks. Good morning, Paula. Thanks..

I'm pleased to be joined by the superintendent of the U.S. military academy here at West Point, Lieutenant General William Jay Lennox. Thanks for being with us.

GEN. WILLIAM JAY LENNOX JR., WEST POINT SUPERINTENDENT: Happy to be here.

COOPER: How have things changed since 9-11 on campus?

LENNOX: Nine-eleven, all of us were shocked. Move the cadets had ties to New York, being 50 miles south of us, and then the Pentagon. A lot of them felt very deeply what went on. They -- we had some of them that felt like they wanted to leave West Point, become squad leaders and get into the Army and be involved what the army was doing. We sort of had to temper that, told them to exercise a little technical patience. There are three leaders for 10 of 20, 30 years in the future, leaders of the Army, leaders of the country possibly.

COOPER: Has it sort of waken some of them up, do you think?

LENNOX: It has. I think they're now focused on why they're here and what they're doing. Infantry went up this year. We had more people going infantry than in a long time. I see cadets asking more questions. They want to know more about Afghanistan, about Islam, about what's going on in the world, and they're a little bit more serious about it.

COOPER: Do change the curriculum based on -- the role of the Army changing. There are more peacekeeping missions. They are obviously fighting terrorism now. Does the curriculum here have to change?

LENNOX: Well, I think we did a review of curriculum a couple of years ago after the Cold War, and put in more of the humanities, more cultural studies, more language, and also more information technology. We figure that this is what these young cadets will need as lieutenants and captains out there, facing a rather ambiguous world, not knowing where they will end up. We're also training flexible leadership for the future. We think that's important. Our chief of staff, General Shensheki (ph), is transforming the Army, making it lighter, more deployable, more lethal.

And right now, we need leaders who can perform in that environment, go into those ambiguous circumstances and get the answer right the first time.

COOPER: Now tomorrow;s founder's day. It's 200 years since West Point established by Thomas Jefferson, the recommendation, I think, of General Washington. What do you do to celebrate?

LENNOX: Well, a number of things. First of all, we start out tonight at Carnegie Hall, a band concert. Tomorrow, we have the stamp and coin unveiling. We have a silver dollar and a stamp that are celebrating the West Point bicentennial, and tomorrow night, we have a dinner in the mess hall here, that Pete Dawkins is going to be our guest speaker, and about 4,000 people, and we're going to beam it out, Webcast it, to the different West Point societies around the world.

COOPER: Really, that's cool.

It's really not just a celebration of West Point; it's a celebration of American history.

LENNOX: It is. I think what we really want to tell America, this is there academy. West Point has been beside the nation through its ups and downs, war and peace, over the last 200 years. We will be here for the next 200 years, and it's that leadership, that connection with the country that we really want to celebrate.

COOPER: Duty of the country is the motto here. Thanks, General Lennox, for joining us.

ZAHN: Thank you.

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