announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. charlie: we begin with henry kissinger. may 8 marked the 70th anniversary of the id.. world war ii allies commemorating nazi germany's unconditional surrender. henry kissinger fled the nazis and return to europe with the u.s. army. i spoke to him about his experiences during world war ii at the museum of jewish heritage in new york city. here is that conversation. that me started germany, about growing up. what was it like for you?

give us a sense of what was to be a young henry kissinger. dr. kissinger: this was a town of about 80,000 people. located right at the borders of nuremberg and, in my early use, -- in my early youth, my father was a teacher at a gymnasium. that means he was a state employee and refused to be employed by the government. that was considered to be a very rare thing. we are talking now about the

late 1920's, early 30's. i had a sort of german-jewish middle-class existence until the nazis came. in 33. they began a systematic campaign of segregation dealer did it -- d legitimization and it was permissible for hitler youth kids to beat up jewish kids. you could not go to german schools anymore. they had a law that everyone was entitled to education so it was like suck what -- like separate

and equal facilities we had in the south, so there was a jewish school created to which i went. until i was 15. charlie: did you want to do things or was it necessary to try to not acknowledge you were jewish whether it had to do with sports or anything like that? dr. kissinger: in relatively small towns, and my grandfather lived in a village, so it was not only the jewish people. there were signs all over the place. jews are not desired here.

so that produced a de facto segregation. the only times i violated it was to go to football games. charlie: your love of soccer. dr. kissinger: eight great passion for soccer. charlie: was there much talk about leaving before you left or did something happen and your father says -- dr. kissinger: no, my father came from a little village. to him, it was a spectacular career to come from a village and become a teacher, so he was very reluctant to leave. my mother felt that her children would never have an opportunity. nobody would thought it was possible that the holocaust would take place. my mother prevailed and my

father willingly went along, but he would not have taken the initiative to leave. my mother took the initiative and had an uncle in the united states who sent her an affidavit some assurance of support once we got here. we left inset timbre -- we left in september 30 eight. we had increasing restrictions and life had become increasingly unpleasant, but it was not yet violent. two months after we left was the so-called kristallnacht. most jewish men were sent to concentration camps. we missed that by literally two

months. we arrived here in september 1938 and kristallnacht was in early november 38. then, of course, the holocaust started. many members of my family where there. charlie: including your grandfather? dr. kissinger: no, my grandfather was very ill and he was taken out of his house in the village i described where my mother came from and he went to new york city and he died of his illness. my grandmother died in the

holocaust and three sisters of my father and all of their families, at least 15 members altogether. charlie: and you arrived in new york? dr. kissinger: yes. charlie: you were then what? dr. kissinger: i was 15. charlie: four years later, five years later, you are 19? dr. kissinger: yes. i started working when i was 16. charlie: thinking you would do what? dr. kissinger: at that time, i was working in a shaving brush factory. i didn't think i would have a huge career making shaving brushes. [laughter] charlie: even then he was showing good sense. dr. kissinger: i went to night college.

i studied accounting. i was bared a meat -- i was spared a mediocre accountant. [laughter] charlie: then you got drafted? dr. kissinger: in 43. charlie: and they said you down to spartanburg, south carolina? dr. kissinger: it was a different world. [laughter] charlie: how was it different? dr. kissinger: the draftees came from all over the country. there was an article in the gym and newspaper that called washington heights the fourth reich.

there was a preponderance of german-jewish immigrants, at least a very large number. most of the people i associated with their and in the shaving brush factory, i was in contact mostly with italian immigrants not jewish. but in the army, i met a cross-section of americans and finally wound up in the 84th infantry division which was composed of -- most of its soldiers came from northern illinois or southern wisconsin. the vast majority of people.

that is where we did our training, in louisiana, we got jungle training, and then we were sent to the coldest winter europe had had in quite a while. charlie: you were naturalized as an american citizen? it was a fast track. if they drafted you, they would naturalize you. dr. kissinger: you needed five years living here, so i was close. charlie: you go to serve your country and land in normandy a month after the invasion. dr. kissinger: two months. we landed in a law beach -- we landed at omaha beach. i'd don't know how i did that, coming down the side of the ship. we were all seasick coming in on these flat bottom boats.

when i think of the soldiers who had to land under fire in these conditions it really increased one's admiration even more. charlie: for those who had landed on december 7. what happened then? the battle of the bulge -- dr. kissinger: we were first sent to holland really to germany at the port of germany. my unit was assigned to another division for combat experience. then i was pulled out of there and sent to the headquarters of

the 84th division. to work in the intelligence section. but that is only three miles behind the front. charlie: you went from being a rifleman to being counterintelligence? dr. kissinger: at first, i was reading captured mail of germans and interviewing prisoners. then i was transferred three months later. charlie: when did you meet a man of enormous influence on you, i the name of kramer? dr. kissinger: i met him when we were training in louisiana.

kramer was a german. he wore a monocle, he wore riding boots. he was a ridiculous figure. he was a private and luckily for him there are only two possibilities -- that somebody would kill him or he would get promoted. [laughter] in the general division they pledged him up in germany and made him go give speeches about what war was about. he spoke to my unit and i did something i don't think i've ever done before and i don't remember i've ever did it since.

i wrote him a letter about how impressed i was by his speech. he was much older than i. i was 20 so i got to know him. he invited me to meet him and he probably contributed to my being consigned to headquarters in the g2 section. charlie: fritz kramer? there was a point where he said to you, kissinger, you are historian -- you are a historian. dr. kissinger: he had to phd degrees and was about 15 years were more than i was. i don't know what he was doing in the infantry division to begin with. he took an interest in what i

should be reading, which was not the normal conversations. charlie: he said two things -- you are a historian -- dr. kissinger: he said forget about accounting. [laughter] charlie: that was not a hard sell. he also said you should go to harvard. dr. kissinger: yes. he gave me a list of schools. the problem was i didn't know anything about admissions policies so i applied in april of the year i wanted to go to school. every school except harvard they wrote back in effect saying you must be kidding. [laughter] why don't you go back to city college? but harvard took me. charlie: did he have something

to do with that? dr. kissinger: he certainly wrote me a letter of recommendation. he was extremely influential in my life. charlie: he's got you encounter in television -- counterintelligence and you are interviewing prisoners of war. dr. kissinger: prisoners of four and suspected spies, people out doing the title of the bulge had it -- out doing the battle of the bulge had a unit in american uniforms operating behind american lines because the frontline disappeared for a few weeks. our division came into a town and their word german military police standing there because german tanks had already gone to the town and the military police

were supposed to direct the infantry coming after them. the next thing these mps saw was an american in the division that came to town. it is in that time that i was assigned to counterintelligence because of partly the belief of our general that i could tell it to him by looking at him. like a kind of police dog. [laughter] so i was standing there at the door of the division headquarters, looking at people coming in and there were certain questions we had to ask, usually about a small you -- usually about baseball. what do you do on the base --

charlie: what would they say? dr. kissinger: luckily, no germans in american uniform came in. the americans knew it. charlie: you had enormous power in one of the small towns you were given control of. dr. kissinger: at the end of the war, when the war was over you had to get the people who had held a certain rank. they could not hold any governmental office. if they had a higher rank, they were interned and it was one of the jobs of counterintelligence to collect that.

and to restore public services until he military government could come in. considering i was barely 21 that gave me an enormous amount of responsibility. charlie: you said i had absolute authority to arrest people. we had more power than even the military government. dr. kissinger: it was a question of timing. we came in with the combat units. the military government came in after the combat units. so while the combat units were there, we were moving and taking towns in which we didn't know who was who. right at the and of the war

hitler had ordered to create a unit and there were displaced persons and in one situation concentration camps. that was our principal responsibility, to bring about enough order so the combat unit could exist there and as soon as the combat unit went on to other things, the military came and. ♪

charlie: here's a letter you wrote as a young man speaking of holocaust survivors. >> concentration -- "concentration camps --

dr. kissinger: that's how it looks to me, and that's how it was. charlie: can you take me back to when you were there and what it was like? dr. kissinger: i have made it a habit never to talk about these things. and for people in this audience to know what a shattering experience it was knowing many people i knew had gone through a comparable experience, because this was not a typical -- this was not atypical.

the prisoners were too weak. it was the reduction of human beings to a level of degradation that was inconceivable. charlie: if ever to talk about it this is the place to talk about it. having said that, how do you think it has influenced you? charlie: -- dr. kissinger: it can -- it showed what can happen to a country if if its elements are differently arranged and what can happen through

segregating people, declaring them subhuman and the consistency with which this was carried out -- we captured the man who was in charge of the camp because he stayed there and he turned it over to us because he thought he had his orders from someone else. to him, that camp was a normal part of existence. charlie: what happened to him? dr. kissinger: i don't know what happened to him. he probably went to court. but we moved on. but the camp that was responsible for the whole region, the commander of that

stayed behind and was hanged six months later. he was one of the first war criminals tried. charlie: you stayed, being an counterintelligence, for two years after the war ended. dr. kissinger: yes. the war ended in july of 45 and i stayed about nine months in the area which was then assigned to me. charlie: could you have gone home then? dr. kissinger: i could have gone home may be 10 months earlier than i did but cramer who you mentioned before, there was a

european command intelligence group and i got a civilian job as an at the intelligence school. for about eight months. altogether, i stayed about a year longer. charlie: looking at everything we have talked about this evening so far, tell me what impact, how it has influenced you, a man who went on to go to harvard, become a distinguished professor, write lots of book about nuclear power and foreign policy and diplomacy, about countries. as you have developed

strategies ideas about how the world works what was the influence of this experience we have talked about? dr. kissinger: there are two aspects. one is the experience of evil of disorder, of the breakdown of civilized accords and the vulnerability of society when it collapses. then, at the end of the war, one saw this in and suffering that you have described or that you have asked me to describe. at the same time, there emerged the imperative of how are you going to leave this and what are we going to do to prevent this

from happening again and how can you create an international system and within germany, a national system by which these tragedies could be avoided? first, my duties and in my interests moved from understanding the nature of disorder, crisis, suffering to how you can restore this and prevent it from happening again. and then, it wasn't just my experiences, i started reading a lot. so many of the things i have written may have had the impetus

in this time, but the content of it, i derived from other experiences as well. charlie: what was the big mistake after world war i that the world had to learn the lesson and make for world war ii? dr. kissinger: world war i was a horrible mistake in the sense that here were nations that were living together in a reasonably orderly manner going into a war they thought would last six months and then turning it into a manslaughter so that the civilized structure of many societies was torn up and casualties were so in enormous that faith in government as such was destroyed. then, after the war, the leaders

who made the piece did not ask themselves the question of how the piece they were creating -- how the peace they were main -- the piece -- the peace they were creating was to be accepted. but germany plus strategic position, and before world war i they were surrounded by big countries and after world war ii, they were surrounded by little countries. and so the basis was created -- once germany rearmed, germany was in a strategically better

position. but the statement of the world had not understood the legend that you must have a concept of the objective of your policy and not be swept away by the mood of a moment. so, when hitler came into power there was no framework in which they knew had to resist it. he would make demands that at first seemed reasonable. within an amazingly short time within five years, that put him in a position where he could take all of the european countries.

the lesson to be learned is to understand what circumstances can become so irrevocable that you have to resist them at the beginning when they occur and not wait until they turn into a full-fledged crisis. charlie: who failed to recognize it? dr. kissinger: everyone. charlie: except the german resistance. dr. kissinger: many germans didn't recognize the full extent of what was going on. the surrounding countries, world war i had taken such a toll that the reluctance to faced another -- to face another showdown was overwhelming. it would have been very easy to resist, but the first move he made was at the end of world war

i when germany was to military. it sounds not unreasonable that you put military units in your own country. so every year, he kept escalating his demands and there were a few, like churchill but that was the basic dispute that was going on whether hitler could be brought to reason by making concessions or if we are dealing with a phenomenon that is so aggressive and evil that it had to be resisted immediately. that was the dispute between churchill and chamberlain. charlie: churchill was in the wilderness.

dr. kissinger: churchill was out of power and he had been making warning speeches and had the reputation of being a kind of troublemaker. charlie: i think -- i thank dr. kissinger for taking this evening to share his life. [applause] ♪

es air force. as the highest-ranking officer, he is responsible for more than 690,000 active-duty personnel and also advises the president as a member of the joint chiefs of staff. the role of the air force has changed dramatically in the last years. it has taken on new missions in space and cyberspace. its airmen and women operate the drones that are article in the fight against al qaeda and i soul and it is -- al qaeda and isil. congress is pushing to tight military budgets. he's been called a leading proponent of innovation and says every airmen can be and must be

innovative if we are to succeed in the future. i'm pleased to have him at this table for the first time. thank you. you and i just came -- one of the great things i had a chance to do, i sat in a simulator of the f 35. it's a remarkable experience for someone who had not done that before because there i was and with the able guidance of one of your great officers able to control, take off, able to land -- i would think one of the least of -- least attractive thing about being staff of the air force is that you don't get to fly. general welsh: there are not many things that are unattractive about my job but that is one of them. i'm not as good as i used to be anyway. especially these single seat airplanes. you have to be good you have to be focused and trained for it routinely. i realistically don't have the time and i've lost it.

charlie: take a look at the video of this simulator and we will talk about this plane. major this may surprise you, but this is the first time i've been in a fighter plane are simulator. as i step into this, tell me what the feeling is. what am i about to get into? >> we call it a strapping yourself into the jet and wanting to become one with the jet. charlie: shall i get in? this is like a dream come true. >> what you have on your left is the throttle. then you put the engine into full after murmur -- afterburner and you go as fast as you can. then you can pull the throttle all the way back. charlie: do you do it slowly? >> they high performance aircraft is responsive like a lamborghini. what you hear is the touchscreen.

this is your god's eye view. this is 80 miles away is the top of the screen. if you want to go to 40, you can touch that and it goes to 40. this is what we are going to use to drop bombs. we call that the pickle button. you are good. you're going 90 knots now. pull back on the stick him in nice and easy. and you are flying. pretty easy. we're going to engage a couple of air targets. your jet has already found them. there are two enemy aircraft. this is completely different than the way and f-16 would have worked. i would have had to have turned my radar on i would have to know they are roughly in that location, point my radar that direction and then i could start doing what i would have -- i would have had to have done that manually.

this simulator has already detected those two aircraft. you are traveling at 620 knots. charlie: do you think he is locked in on me? >> he is not because you are stealth. that's another advantage of this jet. push that pickle button and watch this missile. missile is gone after the aircraft and you can shoot your second missile now. watch it come off the screen. charlie: can i play with this for a moment? >> give it an aileron roll and pull left or right on the stick. charlie: have you ever done that in a plane? >> certainly. as long as no one is watching. charlie: this is so extraordinary. you have to totally focus on it. >> you can do a loop if you want. pull back on the stick and go all the way over the top. pull it the other way, to the

right. keep going. you can go all the way underneath. you've got tons of altitude. charlie: this is unbelievable. >> do you think you have a landing in you? we are going toward that triangular symbol. that's our home base. that is the flight path marker and that is where your jet is going. you are about 15 miles away from the runway. now if you are ready to put the gear down, pull back on that and push it down. perfect. you are good and lined up. perfect. that is what you want right there. just told that right there. you are about to land. now put the throttle back to idol. i think you've got it. charlie: make the case for why you need this military aircraft which costs 140 plus million

dollars and has been controversial in its development . we will talk about some of those issues, but why do you need it? general welsh: because the capability gap between our air force and others is closing and closing dramatically. we have been the world's leading air force for some time and everyone else who had an interest in becoming the leading air force has been able to look at the blueprints for this great machine and they have been following this blueprint and trying to build the same kind of capability to counter the advantages we are having. and they are having success. the technology is now being developed by other countries and will be better than the technology we have developed in the past. if we don't stay ahead of the technology we will become irrelevant. charlie: so you have to have this plane? general welsh: it is black and

white, not just in my judgment but anyone who sees the technical parameters. charlie: the proposed cost is $400 billion? general welsh: for the whole program, yes. we anticipate by the end of this decade, the cost of an airplane will be about $80 million apiece coming off the production line which is where the baseline of this program said we should be. charlie: the procurement officer for the pentagon called the f 35 acquisition malpractice. general welsh: mr. kendall is referring to the beginnings of the program, the first x number of years. i'm not sure of the exact time frame. when i got into this job in 2012, i took a hard look at the program and took a look at the re-baseline that occurred. since that time, i've tracked very closely along with lockheed

martin how the progress of this program has moved toward. we have met every milestone, the company knows what it costs to build this airplane. we have held them accountable to the price curves and have lived up to them. i am pretty comfortable with where the program is right now but we would have liked to have gotten here the a different path. charlie: this is a model of the f-305a. -- f-35 a. is this the best plane to fight wars in the future? general welsh: this is all about the future. this plane can do things no other plane has enabled to do. there is information no other planes will have an ways were to digest information, to connect to other sensors and platforms whether it is a ship, radar or

and other aircraft and share information that it senses that nothing else today can do. charlie: there was some hope that the marines and navy might have the same plane with some adaptations. that did not happen. why not? general welsh: it gets down to the individual requirements of the services and the environmental -- the environment they will operate in. operating off of a carrier is very different. the requirements for each of those airplanes went in different directions. that makes the program a little more complicated. i suspect that add a lot to the cost growth and the length the program went to get at today. this thing will be operational a little over one year from now. the air force will have an operational unit of about 35. charlie: will we sell this plane to other countries? general welsh: it has already

been contracted to other countries. canada, australia, the u.k., netherlands norway italy. general welsh: is that a vote of confidence in the plane? charlie: absolutely. this is going to be a great airplane. -- general welsh: absolutely. it's going to be a great airplane. charlie: let's talk about drones. you don't like the term. general welsh: there are a number of people involved in every remotely piloted aircraft. not only is there a crew directly operating the machine but there's also a mission commander, and intelligence analyst and an array of sources behind the analysis of the imagery you are trying mission integration with other organizations that may be doing activities based on the intelligence you are gathering but this is a manpower intensive enterprise.

charlie: we just had an instance in which american hostages were killed, one american, one italian. why does that happen and what are the safeguards preventing it from happening again? general welsh: it happens because it is warfare. there's nothing glorious about it. things like this are going to happen. it's horrible every time it happens. i will tell you this -- when it does, we dissect these things to make sure we do everything humanly possible to keep it from happening again. charlie: what was the mistake here if it was a mistake and what were the circumstances we should have known the fact that these hostages were there? general welsh: i don't know the specifics of this case. but when it occurs it's because you didn't know the people were there. that would typically happen for one or more reasons. typically you don't have the target for a time or people had just been in the building for so

long that you saw no activity around the building except the bad guys going in. but i don't know what happened in this case. charlie: is the thing that worries you in the operational and -- there have -- there has been some criticism around the world. general welsh: i'm going to give you a different side of the story. i have been observing attacks where when the weapon left the aircraft, something has been seen that caused us to slough a bomb or missile away from the intended target and landed an empty field because a child had just appeared out of the building. charlie: so that is the attention to the detail. general welsh: there is incredible detail and if you had a chance to said talk with our operators, you'd see how closely they trained to that standard. charlie: where are we in terms of isil?

a significant percentage of the airstrikes are flown by the u.s. air force. general welsh: about 70%, yes i'm a sir. charlie: what is happening on the ground? general welsh: if you talk to general austin, he says we have been able to the grade them and we've kept them from amassing and taking new terrain identifying new objectives and moving into them as they were doing before we started the airstrikes. we force them to move into defensive sessions which create targets from there. we have clearly disrupted and delayed and rate -- and degraded their ability to take ground and hold it. they are clearly embedded in many areas of the country that the iraqi government is going to have to lead the charge on the ground. charlie: are we striking them in syria? general welsh: we are and have been since last august. charlie: how effective is it? general welsh: very effective.

the scale is relatively small. if you compare this to the scale of the first gulf war, it is not that kind of campaign. the intent is to align the operational activity with the ground activity that must follow. while the ground forces are being trained and equipped, the campaign is intended to degrade, delay and slow isil from achieving their objectives making it tougher for them to finance and disrupt their movement of resources and people. so by the time the ground force is ready to move the air campaign will shift. charlie: you have to have both in different ways. general welsh: clearly -- charlie: you have to have boots on the ground. general welsh: if you want to control territory, there has to be boots on the ground. general welsh: is the target in syria just the terrorist groups? in no way is it the syrian air

force and army? charlie: we are -- general welsh: everybody in the air force is part of the cyber defense mission. we have a lot of systems that we have to understand and prevent them on how to be effected. we have to make sure the right networks are secure in a way that makes them defendable. we have some that involve national control and communication that go all the way to the white house that have to be protected. everyone has a role in the defense side of the business. charlie: there has been increased attention on domestic violence and domestic abuse whether it is civilian life or on campuses or in the military. what is the air force doing to minimize that and make sure

every violation is brought to justice? general welsh: the one thing we do is rely on our people to make sure the right thing is always done. we're a big organization and we have all of the same ugly things happen in the air force as happens in society, though i would argue there's a smaller percentage. if i just use sexual assault as an example, we have 2300 examples in the air force last year. 1300 affecting female victims and 1000 male victims. that is ridiculous. so, we work this problem very hard. do we have all the programs in place and have we found the answers to eliminate this? clearly not. we will give ourselves no credit until we do. there are an awful lot of people -- there are programs in place now that are having an effect. clearly the effect is not

significant enough for us to take any credit. when the number is zero, will have a victory lap. charlie: it seems that the velocity of change in every aspect of life is changing dynamically every year, and every field, whether it's biology or brain science or military activities. certainly all areas of technology are affected by the velocity of change. how does this affect what you do? general welsh: it affects everything we do. if we cannot stay ahead of the pace, we will become irrelevant. we've got to be better at this and this is everyone from the air force to the department of defense to the united states congress, this is a big effort and a major factor in national security. charlie: great to have you at the table. general welsh: sir, it's an honor to be here and keep flying. charlie: you certainly stimulated my ambition. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

angie: down to the wire. greece is optimistic of a deal after talks with creditors described as good. saving europe. the ecb must follow the plan to the end. and kickbacks and corruption. fifa did take bribes over the world cup. welcome. i'm coming to you live from bloomberg's asian headquarters in hong kong.