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During the past 20 years, the author has watch China move from being a developing country into an industrial superpower
Money Moves, 5/24: Chocomize Co-Founder Fabian Kaempfer talks with Bloomberg’s Deirdre Bolton about the business of customizing chocolate
The president's campaign has a new rule—no cell phones allowed
In honor of remote control inventor Eugene Polley, we recognize other influential but neglected inventors who have felt the sting of stolen glory
Forget Adderall. Traders now pop chia seeds to stay focused and energized
The Italian automaker and others are adding hybrid technology to elite cars
The storied bridge that links San Francisco and Marin County changed the face of California
Schools cultivate ties with startups before they're big successes
Dave McClure's traveling venture capital show scours the world for promising startups
Get Four
|  | AUGUST 5, 2004
Giuliani: Ignorance of Terror Isn't Bliss [Page 2 of 2] One of the major changes we made was to have a ComStat system that evaluated crime statistically, and then we followed that system in distributing our police officers. And it brought about a 60% to 70% reduction in crime. The same thing is true with terrorism. Terrorism resources should be distributed based on a realistic assessment of where we need those resources. Q: What are people coming to Giuliani Partners for right now? A: They're asking for a lot of things but, relevant to what you're talking about, they're asking us to do evaluations of their security -- to make certain they're aware of the new dangers they are facing. Do their security plans embrace all the things that need to be done? Do they understand how to evacuate a building? A lot of the answers in the past couple of days have been on physical attacks -- the idea of bombings. What about biological and chemical attacks? Are their air-conditioning systems secure? Do they have a business continuity plan? And what are they doing about IT security? We get a lot of requests about that. Q: A number of people are heading out of town during the Republican Convention and some have talked about curbing nonessential travel. Is that a wise move? A: I would encourage people to be here. I think it's going to be great. But the reality is, the same thing happened in Boston. People there described it as a ghost town except for the delegates. I remember, in 1992, when we had the Democratic Convention here in New York, people expected tremendous traffic jams. But they found the city more empty than usual. In part, the selection of the date of the convention was done so that the city would be somewhat more empty than usual to accommodate the delegates. That week happens to be one of the times when Manhattan is the emptiest. That's peak vacation time. In the last week of August, you can get around this city in a very different way than usual. The population of Manhattan can change by a million and a half people. Q: The Statue of Liberty has just opened to visitors again. Is that an important symbolic gesture? A: Absolutely. I think it should have opened a long time ago, but I'm glad it has opened now. Q: As we come up on the third anniversary of 9/11, do you worry that we might become complacent again? A: I don't see that as a current risk in New York. The attack is too fresh in our memory. All of us knew too many people who were killed. For those of us who lived through it, I don't see us ever becoming complacent again. That's a little bit more of a risk in the rest of the country. The further away you get from September 11, people start to assume it could never happen again. Everything points in the direction that it will happen again. Q: Since leaving the mayor's job, you've made this your life -- thinking about how to handle dirty bombs, secure information systems, prepare for disaster. Do you sometimes find it tough to focus on these worst-case scenarios, after what you've lived through? A: I actually find it helpful. Everybody's different. Part of the way that I deal with having lived through all that is by not running away from it. The more I can talk about it, the more I can get it out, the better it is for me. In a way, by doing things like this, it makes me feel like we're turning something bad into something good. We had a terrible attack. Anything that we can learn from it to prevent another one is positive. It also makes me feel we're living up, to some extent, to the legacy of all those people who died so bravely. I wouldn't want to think that they all died -- particularly all those people who were saving other people -- and we didn't learn anything. Q: How do you think people should be acting at this point? A: The first day of the attack, on September 11, I said to the people of New York that I wanted them to become stronger as a result of this, so [the terrorists] can't have a psychological victory over us. And New Yorkers have exceeded my expectations. They are very strong. They are very resilient. At the same time, they are very realistic. There's a great risk of a further terrorist attack on our country. There's relatively little risk for any single individual. Therefore, it should not affect your life. It's a new risk we're now facing. I was in Israel last year, doing a program on the thing that kills the largest number of Israelis. You know what that is? Reckless driving. New Yorkers face a much greater risk of reckless driving. We don't stop driving. We don't stop walking. That's how we have to deal with terrorism. It's a risk that we face. We have to do a lot more about it. But, at the same time, it shouldn't inhibit us from doing the things we have to do. Q: It certainly hasn't affected real estate prices. A: I love how, after September 11, so many people came to New York -- as a sign to the terrorists that they can't inhibit us. That's what I hear New Yorkers say: "Sure, I understand what's going on. But we're not going to let these people stop us from living our lives."
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