From dealing with organized crime to cancer to terrorism, America’s Mayor discussed what he… From dealing with organized crime to cancer to terrorism, America’s Mayor discussed what he believes made him who he is today. And with two thousand pairs of eyes fixed intently upon him, Rudy Giuliani presented his vision for the country’s future.

During his visit to Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Giuliani described how problems in his personal life gave him experience to deal with the unexpected – like Sept. 11, 2001.

“People always ask me if things are more dangerous now [after Sept. 11],” Giuliani said. He went on to explain that Americans are safer because they know about the problems that led to the attack.

Though he described modern acts of terrorism dating back to the 1972 Olympics at Munich, Giuliani expressed the belief that Americans did too little about terrorism before Sept. 11, 2001, because they didn’t know about it.

In April of 2000, Giuliani was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

“I realized that was the safest day of my life. I couldn’t stop it without knowing about it,” he explained.

Giuliani also discussed leadership, which also happens to be the title of his recent book.

“You have to know what you believe in,” he said, describing Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther King Jr. as examples of leadership.

The former New York mayor also held optimism in high regard. On the morning of “those terrible attacks,” Giuliani recalled the leadership of Winston Churchill, the prime minister of the United Kingdom during World War II.

“At the time, I didn’t know if we were going to be attacked again the next day, or the next day, or the next week. I tried to think of how Churchill kept his people’s spirits up when they were being bombed every day,” Giuliani said.

When asked to describe his biggest challenge in cleaning up New York City, Giuliani said, “The hardest part was getting people to believe it could happen.”

On his future as an elected official, the former mayor said, “I think I will run again, but after the cancer and Sept. 11, I’m not as sure as I used to be.”

Giuliani said that his most significant memory from Sept. 11, 2001, was “realizing what I was seeing was a man jumping from a hundred stories, rather than debris.”

Asked whether Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, is doing a good job representing women, Giuliani replied, “I don’t think she represents women. I think she represents the people of the State of New York.”

Rudolph Giuliani was born in Brooklyn in 1944. Giuliani is the grandson of Italian immigrants. He graduated from New York University Law School in 1968, and served as mayor of New York City from 1993-2001. He gave his lecture at Heinz Hall as part of the Robert Morris Pittsburgh Speaker Series.