THE RULE OF LAW ORAL HISTORY PROJECT The Reminiscences of Clive Stafford Smith Oral History Research Office Columbia University 2011 PREFACE The following oral history is the result of a recorded interview with Clive Stafford Smith conducted by Ronald J. Grele on June 28, June 29, and June 30, 2010 in Symondsbury, England. This interview is part of the Rule of Law Oral History Project. The reader is asked to bear in mind that s/he is reading a verbatim transcript of the spoken word, rather than written prose. MJD Session One Interviewee: Clive Stafford Smith Location: Symondsbury, Dorset, England Interviewer: Ronald J. Grele Date: June 28, 2010 Q: This is an interview with Clive Stafford Smith. The interview is being conducted in Dorset, in England. Today's date is June 28, 2010. The interviewer is Ronald Grele. This is an interview for the Columbia University Oral History Research Office. I thought where we would begin is where you begin your book [Bad Men: Guantánamo Bay and the Secret Prisons], and that is with 9/11. It is pretty detailed, your first memories of 9/11 being in Louisiana. But I have a couple of questions to ask you. Smith: Sure. Q: It isn't clear in there whether or not you watched the buildings collapse. Smith: Well, when it actually happened, no. I was driving around. I was actually trying to find a pathologist who I had an appointment to meet that morning on a death penalty case. I was driving around and it was just ghostly. This was Lake Charles, Louisiana, and there was nobody, anybody. It was just really weird. It must have been about a quarter to nine, or something -- maybe a bit earlier. I can't quite remember. There was just no one around. I went to his office but there was no one there. Finally I gave up and went back to the little house that we rented in Lake Charles. That was when I started seeing the pictures on television. Smith -- 1 -- 2 Q: By that time the buildings had collapsed. Smith: I don't think they had collapsed at that point. It may be that before I went out I saw the first pictures, where everyone thought it was a small plane that had flown into it, so it was a little dramatic but no big deal. I had work to do, so I was getting on to do what I had to do. I think that's the way it worked. Q: Do you recall having any premonitions about what this might mean or where the world was going to go? What kind of a moment it was? Smith: I remember Emily [Bolton] and I drove back from Lake Charles to New Orleans that evening. And I remember watching television and watching Tom Brokaw and he was saying “Why do people hate us?” And I remember that very vividly because I thought, “Well, that’s a very good question, of course. That's what we should be looking at and answering. Why is it that people around the world want to do these horrendous things to us?” At that point I thought, “Wow, maybe people are going to respond sensibly to this.” I didn't have any sense, I don't think, on that first day, what a dramatic thing it was. In fact, I misjudged that for a long time. I think in retrospect it's because having been born and raised in Europe and having grown up with my parents -- my dad was in the RAF [Royal Air Force] in World War II and my mother used to tell us stories about doodlebugs and being bombed in World War II's blitz and all of that stuff. I underestimated what an enormous emotional impact this would have on Americans, because in Europe this wasn't unique. It was unique in the sense that it was a very dramatic, televised experience. But it was not nearly unique in the sense of the number of people who were killed and so forth. It Smith -- 1 -- 3 took me a long time to work out. When you think about it, how many times has the continental U.S. been invaded, so to speak? It is a tiny number. You, as a historian, would probably correct me if I tried to tell you the exact number of times. Q: Yes, right. No, it's pretty clear. In the book you say 1812. 1812 it is. Smith: 1812. You can't really include Pearl Harbor because it wasn't really the continental U.S. And you can't really include the Mexican Wars, because I think we probably are the ones who started all that. Q: It took place in Mexico. Smith: Yes. And so, yes, this was it. So that took me a while to work out the psychological impact it was going to have on the U.S. Q: Do you remember your initial responses to [George W.] Bush's "war on terrorism"? Smith: Yes. I mean, I remember that very clearly, from the beginning. Q: What did you think that was going to mean? Smith: Well, I had always had a thing about the "war on drugs." I thought the war on drugs was an incredibly stupid title and the idea that we are going to solve the problem of drugs Smith -- 1 -- 4 by banging up a bunch of people in prison was just silly. When he came out with this "war on terror,” I thought it was ridiculous. But it was interesting because before that the core of the American left was so anti-Bush and anything Bush would say people would say, "Oh, you ridiculous thing. How could he possibly --" and whatever. I had exactly the same reaction to Bush's response to 9/11. I just assumed that everyone else would, of my friends. My colleagues. But actually, they didn't and I was very surprised by that. I think that was my mistake, totally. I just misjudged that. I guess this goes forward about three or four months. No, before that, there was the question of Afghanistan. I remember clearly, again, having my own thoughts and discussions about Afghanistan. You can laugh at me if you like, but I still believe this. I had these conversations that we should just go to Afghanistan and talk to [Osama] bin Laden -- [Interruption] Smith: It struck me at the time, immediately, that it was a crime. It was a criminal offense. I remember this. I had conversations with people who thought I was an idiot, of course, that I thought that this is a criminal offense. There was the whole palaver over whether Mullah [Mohammed] Omar was going to allow bin Laden to be kicked out of the country and to face justice, or whatever. It struck me that the thing to do was to go talk to the guy and say, "Look, we'll put you on trial, we'll do it in a Sharia court. I thought that would be a great solution because we Westerners are very ignorant of that. I was very ignorant at the time. Slightly less than now, but still I thought this was a great opportunity. He can put his defense on, why he thought he was justified in doing this horrible thing. We would learn a lot about Sharia law, which would certainly condemn what he had done. Everything would Smith -- 1 -- 5 be resolved the way it should be resolved, as a criminal offense, and let the cards fall as they may. And do that in an international location. Now, look, you laugh, but that was clearly the right thing to do. I think it's plausible that he might have agreed to that, because no one could have anticipated how foolish Bush would be and how Bush's actions would aggrandize, if you will, bin Laden. I think if on September 15, 2001, you had talked about that, I think you could have convinced someone in bin Laden's position that it was in his best interest to go become a martyr in a court and educate the world about his religious faith and about Sharia law. That was my initial reaction. I was against the invasion of Afghanistan because I thought that it was, again, stupid. I did not anticipate the fact that the coalition wouldn't even ever be able to capture bin Laden. I mean, that's extraordinary. But on the other hand, anyone with the slightest notion of history and the slightest idea of what the British had done in Afghanistan knew that it was going to all end in tears. So that was my thing back then. I didn't have anyone on my side. I still think it was right, but I don't expect to win that particular argument. Q: Then when he announced that prisoners were being brought to Guantánamo , do you recall your reaction at that point in time? Smith: Yes, I do. I think there were mutterings before Christmas but this really happened in the beginning of January 2002. It was a very sudden thing and he announced it and it was all done in like seventy-eight hours or something, seventy-two hours. And I thought, “Oh, my goodness, this is ridiculous.” I don't want to say typical but it was an overreaction. Or not an overreaction, because I think people were entitled to react very negatively. On the other hand, it was a stupid reaction to a criminal act.