Slovenia Summit At the closing press conference, in response to a question about whether he could trust Putin, Bush said, "I looked the man in the eye. I found him very straightforward and trustworthy – I was able to get a sense of his soul." Bush's top security aide Condoleezza Rice later wrote that Bush's phrasing had been a serious mistake. "We were never able to escape the perception that the president had naïvely trusted Putin and then been betrayed." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovenia_Summit_2001