Philip Zelikow, Condoleezza Rice and the calls from Karl Rove.
The Commission’s executive director, Philip Zelikow, had written a book with Condoleezza Rice in 1995 and, at her request, had reviewed counterterrorism on the Bush transition team; the inquiry was examining how Rice, as national security adviser, handled the al Qaeda threat. In 2008 the New York Times reporter Philip Shenon wrote in The Commission that Zelikow spoke with Rice several times during the investigation, and that the office’s phone logs showed at least four calls from Karl Rove in 2003. [1][3]
Shenon also reported that Zelikow told his assistant to stop logging his White House calls, and that the general counsel told her to keep doing it; that Zelikow tried to strengthen draft wording linking bin Laden and Iraq against his staff’s view; and that Commissioner Bob Kerrey, on learning of the ties, told chairman Tom Kean, “either he goes or I go.” Kerrey stayed. [1]
Zelikow responded that he was authorized to talk to White House officials, that his contacts with Rove were brief and concerned University of Virginia business, and that the Commission had no phone logs to stop. The vice chairman, Lee Hamilton, called him “a person of integrity” and said: “Did he try to sway the report to protect the administration? I think the answer was no.” [1][2]
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