of my book actually found the grave. and in case anybody's interested in the subject, there are two other books that i highly recommend. one is by an author in charlottesville. she is an historian. cindy burton, her book is called jefferson vindicated. and the other is a small boat called the jefferson hemings myth, edited by iler codes, both of those are excellent books on the subject, especially cindy spoke about the jefferson health, really has the most knowledgeable, technical expertise at the time. [inaudible] >> the jefferson hemings myth. and jefferson indicated by cindy burr. ..

>> there were many, many people frequented monticello, especially when he came back. in fact, he would pick up his daughter, martha, and martha had 12 children. and he would pick up martha and all the grandchildren and take

them to monticello. and that's another reason why i don't think the sexual relationship is really credible. there was always family members around. always grandchildren, always children, always family members around to see come have eyes and ears, so to have a sexual relationship in front of his own family i think is just really incredible. well, i want to thank you very, very much for coming out today. and i'll be glad to sign any books for anybody who wants to come over and talk to me. thank you so much. [applause] >> william hyland, jr. is a trial lawyer and a former prosecutor with over 25 years of litigation experience. he currently serves on the florida judicial nominating commission. mr. hyland is a member of the

new york and virginia historical society's.

>> november 9, 2009, marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. the deputy managing editor of of "time" magazine recalls president ronald reagan's speech in west berlin on june 12, 1987 when he pronounced to a crowd of 20,000 people, mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. romesh ratnesar explores the genesis of the speech and the relationship between reagan and soviet leader mikhail gorbachev. the kansas city public library hosts the event. >> i do want to thank you get a real privilege to speak to you on the eve of the 20th

anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall, and it is particularly wonderful to be here in kansas city, which is such an appropriate setting because it was just a couple of blocks from this building at kemper arena, as many of you remember, that ronald reagan gave a speech at 33 years ago that in many ways i think helped catapult him to the white house. as you recall, reagan had just conceded defeat to gerald ford at the republican national convention here can maybe even some people in the room today remember that ford then summoned reagan down from the sky box to address the delegates on the floor. reagan initially said he didn't want to come down. he said it was someone else's night, but eventually the elevation brought him down to the floor. he spoke for six minutes. and tired and probably without notes. and what he said captivated the room and much of the nation that night. he conjured an imagined future at one point, and he talked about what it would be like to

open a time capsule in 100 years. i discussed this beach because i find it so remarkable in my book, i mention it a little bit. and reagan said we live in a world in which the great powers have poisoned aim at each other, nuclear weapons that can in a matter of minutes destroyed the world we live in. he wondered if the people opening that time capsule would look back and say, thank god for those people who headed off who capped us now 100 years free and kept our world from nuclear destruction. when he finished speaking, one delegate summed up reagan's performance to report for "time" magazine, with what i think to the state is the single best description of break and stout 14 vacation. the man said, ronald reagan could get a standing ovation in the graveyard. [laughter] >> now had it not been for that speech in kansas city that night, which really helped reagan so much a losing campaign, there might not have been a reagan campaign in 1980. there might not have been a

reagan presidency. and there might not have been the tear down this wall speech, which is the subject of my book and my remarks here tonight. what i want to do tonight is briefly, if i can, talk about some of the factors that contributed to the fall of the berlin wall, the end of the cold war, which i think stands today as the high water marks of u.s. foreign policy in the second half of the 20th century. so i'm going to sketch out a little bit, some background of the speech, the context in which it was given. i want to explain why reagan's speech was such a pivotal event, and then i'd like to suggest some ways in which the end of the cold war has relevance to the challenges that face us today. before i begin, i do want to just make a couple of points of personal privilege. i am from new york, and as a new yorker i have developed a thick skin and last night i was in houston, and i told the audience that if at any point i heard

booing, during my speech i would just assume that meant the yankees were winning. [laughter] >> unfortunately, i don't have that excuse tonight. but i hope you will bear with me. the second thing i want to say is in this book and in my remarks, i really tried to be as thorough as possible. but i'm quite certain as all authors are that there are details i will have overlooked or missed or simply got wrong. in my job at time i worked with a lot of different writers every day, and over the years i found the best ones are those who never quite feel satisfied with their stories. they believed they could have done more or read more, or made one more phone call or turned up one more undiscovered fact. now i really admire that attitude and ethic, but as president reagan himself like to say, they say hard work never killed anybody, but i figured why take the chance. [laughter] >> so i am more sympathetic to that view i think. so again, please forgive

anything that i may miss during the speech. i do bring up that famous joke of president reagan's because i think it speaks to one of the things i want to get to in these remarks. to this day, many of you know in both the right and left, ronald reagan is often reduced to a kind of doing character. conservatives remember him as the tough talking, fire who conquered big government, the tear down this wall beginning and won the cold war. and many liberals remember him as an amiable dunce and clarks intimates phrase, who blew a hole in the deficit and was many believed by his advisors, if not his astrologers. there is some basis in reality for both of these caricatures. but as i try to show in this book, i believe both are also incomplete, inaccurate, and misleading. during his presidency reagan was far more adaptable, politically shrewd and open to compromise

that either his champions or his critics prefer to admit. he believes particularly after he survived the assassination attempt against him in 1981 that he had a special mission to spread freedom and fight oppression. but he sought to do that not to the use of force, but through dialogue, diplomacy and persuasion. and it is those qualities, i think, the key to explain both will reagan was trying to accomplish with his famous speech in berlin and why he ultimately succeeded in helping to end the cold war. before discussing the tear down this wall speech in the background of reagan's visit to berlin, i want to just raise and try to dispel our challenge three myths or misconceptions that have arisen over the years about the end of the cold war. the first myth is the notion that the end of the u.s. soviet superpower rivalry was not a particularly momentous occasion. and did not on balance make the world a safer place. the thinking goes, according to this year, that the consequences

of a nuclear war between the u.s. and the soviet union were so great that neither side would ever initiate. and according to this you, the cold war was actually a good of relative global stability, a long piece and some historians have actually turned it. i think this too is misguided for a few reasons. for one thing, we now know there were actually a number of occasions when the two sides actually did reach the brink of a direct military confrontation, either because of deliberate provocations or more often, unintended misunderstanding. in many parts of the world the cold war was anything but cold. hundreds of thousands of people died in conflicts waged by the united states and the soviets all around the world. more than 100,000 u.s. troops died in wars against communist and made in korea and vietnam. 10 times the number of them have died in iraq and afghanistan. and i think it is an arguable that the end of the cold war

actually did make the world a more prosperous place, especially for those living behind the iron curtain. today's financial times i noticed an article on what life is been like for the countries of the warsaw pact since the fall of communism. and the story said living standards have risen 50 percent in the last 20 years and life expectancy has increased an average of four full years following the fall of communism in those former communist countries. from 198922009, the number of democracies and the world nearly doubled and a number of people living in poverty have been cut in half. to be sure the united states still faces threats from terrorism and nuclear proliferation, the fact that there are no longer thousands of soviet nuclear warheads pointed at american cities means in my view the united states is more secure today than it was in its 45 years of the cold war. the second myth i want to just is the idea of the collapse of communism in eastern europe and the soviet union were inevitable. the contradictions are the heart of the social system and it was doomed to fail no matter what.

the collapse of communism was over determined, as economists like to say. but as the historian archie brown writes in his new study, the history of communism, prolonged economic go does not by itself lead to downfall of authoritarian regime. by the middle of the 1980s the soviet economy was in bad shape, and was actually in desperate need of reform. but it was nowhere near as dire as a day after world war ii when that country had to rebuild in the ruins of conflict that killed 20 million of its citizens. the soviet backed governments behind the iron curtain lacked popular legitimacy, but there are many examples today of authoritarian regimes that manage to hold on power under similar circumstances. places like cuba, iran, burma and north korea. it is safe to say that communism would have collapsed eventually but it was by no means inevitable that it would collapse when it did or that the toppling of one communist regime after another in 1989 would unfold as peacefully as it did. this leads me to the third

misconception or myth that i would like to challenge. and that is the idea that ronald reagan won the cold war. now this is abuse that has taken hold since reagan left office and it is grown even more popular since his death in 2004. and a week of his funeral, the economist magazine ran a cover of reagan under the heading the man who beat communism. in the view of many and his admirers, reagan defeated communism through his uncompromising rhetoric that he was the man who was willing to call the soviet union and evil empire. and of course he demanded that transeventy or down the berlin wall. reagan gave tens of thousands of speeches throughout his career from the time he was in college right up until the end of his presidency. tear down this wall, in my view, has become the defining statement of reagan's career. if you visit the reagan library in simi valley, as many of you

have archer, the connection between reagan and berlin is everywhere. everywhere you look, there's a giant slab, a wall there that was bought and installed in the early '90s. you can watch clips of reagan's speech that are played on endless loop. in this connection between reagan and the fall of the berlin wall in fact the statue of reagan was unveiled in the rotunda and congress, actually contains chunks of the wall and its pedestal. the connection and the bond between reagan and berlin in the minds of people is extremely strong. but what i tried to do in this book and what i'd like to do over the next humans is to play reagan's speech in the final context of his presidency and his evolving relationship with gorbachev and i would argue of tear down this wall without seeing it in the context of this relationship between the two most powerful man in the world. and it was this relationship in

my mind, this partnership that was a single biggest reason why the berlin wall fell when it did. ronald reagan loathed communism, and the way it suppress the human spirit. and to him there was no starker embodiment of that tyranny than the berlin wall. he liked to say throughout his career that it's the only wall that was ever built to keep evil and rather than keep people out. as early as 1967 while he was the governor of california, he said the u.s. should have knocked on the barbed wire separating east and west berlin the moment that communist put it up in 1961. when he visited west berlin in 1978 before he ran for president, he was told the story of an east german teenager who went until trying to crawl over the wall in 1962. the border guard reagan was told, left this young man unattended for hours as an example while he bled to death. a longtime aide of reagan was with him that day and told me reagan gritted his teeth when he

hurt his. you could tell that he was very determined this was something that had to go. and throughout his presidency reagan often returned to the subject of the wall even before he went to berlin in 1987. it until most people at this time, including many germans, had resigned themselves to living with the division of the city. when reagan visited west germany in 1985, the occasion of his controversial visit to the cemetery, he said ahead of us may be a time when artificial barrier that divides german are cast away. a time window be no need for weapons or barb wire or walls in berlin. these are not dreams come he said. i believe from the bottom of my heart that we have every reason for confidence. as much as reagan hated the wall, the totalitarian system it represented, he was even more mindful of the consequences and conflict of the ussr. from the early stage of present as we now know from the letters and documents that have been revealed over the last years, reagan sought to establish a

dialogue with the leadership in the kremlin. to no avail, at least at first, remember there was a succession of soviet leaders who died one after another in the art it is. reagan even said at one point, he told nancy reagan, how can i make peace with these people if they keep dying on the? [laughter] >> he did authorize massive increases in military spending and he stepped up support to anti-communist rebels in places like nicaragua and afghanistan. reagan did so because he sincerely believed that by negotiating from strength impression the russians he could convince him to come to the bargaining table and make peace. and reagan and i think this is critical, had a genuine fear that if things did not change, the superpowers were on a collision course that could in any nuclear war. in 1983, the u.s. not to exercise was mistaken by the club as a preparation for a possible first strike. he was aghast when he was told associates have put their warplanes on combat alert and response or a nuclear war cannot

be won and must never be fought out of something he often said. but it wasn't until gorbachev arrives in the scene in 1985 that reagan found a partner with whom he could do business with. when gorbachev was in general secretary in march of 1985, reagan reach out to them by sending george shultz, secretary of state, and his vice president, george bush, to moscow to tell gorbachev he believed they had a special opportunity to work together. i think as reagan's most important breakthrough that he recognized gorbachev was a different kind of soviet leader than had come before them. gober choppers onto a new generation of soviet leadership. who believe that the system the wholesale reform, economically and politically. and that includes eight less hostile relationship with the west that the first meeting between gorbachev and reagan was in geneva in 1985 that even before that the two of them have been exchanging letters. if you have a chance to read them, they are amazing because they show reagan reaching out,

he was writing these letters by hand, and there and currently sincere and heartfelt as he tries to find a way to connect with gorbachev, this man has never met. so in november 1985 in geneva, they had their first meeting. there is that famous picture of the two of him greeting each other. gorbachev arrives at the villa wearing a top hat and overcoat to protect himself from the cold, and reagan walks out and he's just wearing his suit that this is something the white house people loved. this image around the world showed ronald reagan, looking more youthful and vibrant than a man 20 years his junior. but reagan and gorbachev were interested in making political points. they saw in each other a person and a partner with whom they could make a deep connection. gorbachev later said at that moment, we shook hands like we were friends. reagan and gorbachev did come to any agreement in geneva. other than they had to keep talking. but there were a few memorable moments from that.

at one point the two leaders took a walk to a boathouse on the grounds of the villa where they were meeting and on the way back reagan turned to gorbachev, what would you do if the united states were suddenly attacked by someone from outer space? would you help us, reagan asked? gorbachev said, no doubt about it. we, too, reagan said. then the moment pass. gorbachev later said it was an interesting mode. this is something that was actually quite common. reagan often talked about how the possibility of an attack from outer space by indians could ultimately bring the two sides together. the two leaders met again a year later in writing that iceland which was the most famous summit of all. and it was there that they came within a hairs breath of agreeing to abolish all nuclear weapons. so the deal fell apart when reagan refused to limit the development of strategic defense initiative, the star wars missile defense program. at that time, much of the outside world saw the philly to

reach agreement in reykjavík as a huge setback that cause disarmament. george shultz in fact a liberal managers when he discussed the summit with reporters. but again, both reagan and gorbachev saw things differently. their insight, their political instinct allow them to recognize that the superpower relationship was turning a corner that even if others did not. when reagan spoke to the nation from the oval office after return of and he said we're closer than ever before to agreements that could lead to a world safer without nuclear weapons. gorbachev had a similar feeling when he spoke to reporters after the summit and said right if it is not a failure. it is a failure. a positive. then establish a dialogue and understanding with each other about the terms in which the arms race come to an end. now in my book i go to some detail about the anguish that reagan's diplomacy and his windows to do business with

gorbachev was causing among other conservatives, including members of his own administration. who believe that gorbachev was laying a trap for reagan's and trying to trick him into a deal that would give the soviets strategic superiority over the west. for a lot of people inside and outside government, in fact, there was no sign the cold war was going to end anytime soon. and even less indication that the berlin wall the very symbol of the cold war, was going to come down. so when reagan's speechwriters had to insert the phrase tear down this wall into the draft of the address, reagan would give it the brandenburg gate, they met with opposition from a number of the top adviser. howard baker, who was the chief of staff said this line was so realistic it was so unlikely what happened that it was unpresidential and reagan should not deliberate. others in the administration thought it would embarrass gorbachev and strengthened hard-liners in the comment who are opposed to his reform. george shultz, in fact, later denied it, but he did tell one

aide that the speech would set back all the progress we made in u.s. soviet relations that reagan didn't have any of these same reservations. it was just one line in a 28 minute address. but he made it clear it was the one thing he wanted to say. he told a speechwriters when they met him and gave him the drafts and asked him what he thought, that that was the one line. when speechwriters learned this is the one thing reagan wanted to say, that was all the ammunition they needed to send off the attacks, it efforts of people in the administration to take the line out. it's possible reagan was just like on an old actors sixth sense for a killer line. but there may be a simple exploration. he actually thought it would work. reagan believed in reaching out to gorbachev and pushing him to pursue change. and calling on him to open the brandenburg gate and tear down the wall, and reagan's you, it might actually encourage gorbachev to do it. reagan's visit to berlin coincide with the servitude on both sides of the wall. a few days before you arrive the

east german state police had clashed with hundreds of east german youths who i tried to go close to the wall to listen to a rock concert taking place on the other side. this was an almost unprecedented revolt against the government that it was one of the first times looking back that we have the commonest rift was starting to weaken. meanwhile, over in west berlin protest against reagan's visit by west german leftists turned violent and caused running street battles with police that lasted into the early hours of the morning. reagan to into west berlin where he had been attending a g-7 economic summit. in the newspaper reports of the summit, you know, there's a lot of emphasis at this time on reagan's lapses memory, his tendency to get distracted, even falsely. reagan did love being president. i think you loved the trappings of the office. he loves the pageantry of the official events. he loved the public performances, but there's no question, especially at his age,

overseas travel was taxing. early in his presidency on a visit to brazil, he gave a toast and how wonderful it was to be in bolivia. [laughter] >> he fell asleep at inopportune times. once during a meeting with the pope, another time during the moscow summit with gorbachev. during one unfortunate incident in london, he fell asleep during a meeting with a delegation from japan. at the end of it he shook hands with his japanese interpreter and said, well, mr. foreign minister, it sure has been a pleasure. [laughter] >> but reagan could still rise to the occasion. and when he got to the brandenburg gate there were anywhere from 20,000, to 40,000 people standing in front of him. in the weeks leading up to the speech, the secret service demanded that bulletproof wall people behind the podium to protect reagan against the possibility of someone shooting at him from east berlin. the white house advance team which was responsible for the staging of the speech and putting the backdrop together posted that if you put the ball up, viewers watching in the u.s.

wouldn't be able to see the wall behind the berlin wall behind reagan. so what they did is they cut a glass square. you see in the picture you see a glassware behind reagan that was cut into the wall so that when tv cameras showed the reagan's speech you could see the graffiti on the wall behind him. the speech was broadcast on all three networks. they cut into the morning shows to show the reagan address, which frankly, unit, sort of unheard of. i don't think we could imagine that happening today. what struck me listing over and over again to reagan's speech berlin as i wrote this book is the clarity and force of his voice, even at the age of 76. there was one sided so we could make that would be unmistakable. that was the cause of freedom of peace. general secretary gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the soviet union and eastern europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this stage. mr. gorbachev, open this gate. and howard baker what early

opposed the assertion of the next six words, mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall, heard reagan deliver them, he knew at once he had been wrong to oppose it. he later told me that i was glad not to be right about this. it would take another two years for the wall to come down. so what was the ultimate significance of reagan's berlin wall speech? very few presidential speeches, even the most famous one in our history, produce immediate change or inspired listeners to take action. but the ones that stand the test of time do so because of the ideas they represent. and that explains why the words tear down this wall remained so resonant today. the speech was on the right side of history. it expressed reagan's core belief that people could overcome their differences, that the world need not remain divided and that change was possible. that's the vision he was working with gorbachev to realize during all those years when he was president. and my book, i quoted george

shultz, who told me and reflecting on the speech that there are people who thought the soviet union would never change. we are here, they are there. that's why. coexistence is the name of the game. ronald reagan challenged that. if you went to berlin and you look at that wall come and look like it would be there forever. but to go there and say, tear down this wall, was a statement that things could change. reagan's speech also identified berlin as the proving ground of gorbachev intention to open up the commonest block, and in the conflict of the west. if gorbachev sought peace and liberalization and truly want to bring the cold war to an end, than simply signing arms control agreement was not enough. he had to let the berlin wall come down. and in the fall of 1989, as communist powers crumbled and country after country across europe, that is exactly what gorbachev did. i think his great achievement and his great breakthrough was, rather than intervene with military force, as his predecessors did in hungary in

1956 and czechoslovakia in 1958, gorbachev allowed democracy to take its course. four that he won the nobel peace prize in 1990, and though he never intended it this way, by letting eastern europe go, he set into motion a chain of events that would lead to the claps of the soviet union itself in 1991, and the end of the cold war. not forget to some of the lessons we might be able to draw from reagan's success in ending the cold war i want to mention the events, the anniversary the world will mark next week. it's one of the quirks of history that the opening of the brandenburg gate and the fall of the berlin wall actually happen by accident. if you remember in 1989, the summer of 1989, in the months leading up to november 9, the hungarian government had opened its borders with austria and west germany which essentially allowed east germans were coming through hungary on vacation to then travel to the west and never come back. . .

can be dangerous to

challenges that are much different but let me just offer three broad principles that i think, we kang, learn from, from this period. the first in my mind, soft power often works better than military force. reagan believed in pressuring the seven soviets. he believed you had to talk to your enemies

with america, reagan persuaded him it was safe to open up the economist bloc, which in the end bolstered our interests as well. i think the second lesson is related to the first, and that is, that, patience is a virtue. it took reagan five years to find a partner in moscow with whom he could negotiate and took another three years for him to reach an arms control agreement in gorbachev. took his entire presidency to reach any kind of agreement with the ussr to slow the race. that came after four decades of american policy during the cold war during which american presidents missed resolve and diplomacy to defend u.s. interests. in the case of berlin, a

city in its opponent's sphere of influence without ever provoking a actual shooting war with the soviet union. even cold wars take time to win. that is worth keeping in mind as the u.s. and allies try to contain the ambitions countries like iran which at the moment show no inclination to adhere to agreements to limit their nuclear programs. to convince the iranians to give up their nuclear ambitions won't happen overnight if it happens at all but that is no reason not to try. what americans feel about the current struggle in afghanistan and administration deliberation over what to do there is understandable i think it is important to understand american interests is almost always better served through prudence rather than rash and i am action. finally reagan's speech in berlin, for presidents words do matter. i open with ronald reagan's line or joke about hard work but reagan really did work

hard. he worked hard on his. he rehearsed them over and over, even ones he delivered hundreds of times before and he rewrote many of them entirely from scratch. he did this because he recognized as james baker told me, that giving speeches is one of a presidents most important duties. reagan's gift was his ability to speak candidly about realities of the age while still presenting an optimistic vision for the future. in his best speeches, most memmably in my mind at brandenburg gate he found a way to defend america's interests and found a way to ink spire people that the world could become a better place. the challenge for our current president and all those that succeed him willing to be do the same. i spoken longer than ronald reagan did in berlin. i hope you enjoy the book and i'm ready to take any questions you might have. thank you. [applause]

yes, in the back. >> i have a question. thank you very much for your presentation. during this time period, what was gorbachev's vision and expectations and hopes for the soviet union and for russia at this time and how did is relationship with reagan affect his vision and his, his hope for the future for his country? >> yeah. so the question is, about what gorbachev was trying to achieve and what his vision for his country was at the time. you know, gorbachev was a patriot. gorbachev admired the early leaders of the soviet union and their ability to lift a pour agrarian country into the modern age. he believed that the soviets and socialist should be saved. that is what he was trying to do. he believed it had to be

reformed. he believed the country's priorities had become completely out of whack. they were spending something like 25% of their gdp on defend spending. all those things he thought needed to be reined in. and you he thought it was ultimately futile for the soviets to try to maintain their grip on eastern europe. so, i believe that he never intended for the soviet union to dissolve. he believed that perhaps if the stlung shrunk the soviet empire and reined it in and you basically told the governments of eastern europes that the soviet union would no longer come to their defense if they faced some internal threat, that, that would be sort of manageable way in which you could sustain the socialist experiment. you could mend it, not end it. but i think he also did firmly believe and he recognized early on that the

soviet union needed to become integrated with the rest of the world and that as long as you had this hostility between the soviets and the west, between washington and moscow, that was impossible. i think he believed would only be achieved if he could reach some kind of agreement with reagan and i think he recognized that reagan was someone who he could do business with. yes? >> what mr. putin doing during time. >> the question was about what was putin doing. i talk a little bit about that in the book. putin was, as a kgb agent was based in dresden, in east germany. he was basically involved with recruiting east germans who could basically pass as west germans and travel to the west and spy on nato. that was the main, the main mission that putin and his fellow kgb agents were

tasked with. he didn't do a whole lot. i mean he was living at home. he was living well. he remembered that he was, he drove a better car than the east germans themselves but, what happens is, by the end when the wall comes down, putin talked about this in his autobiography, he was at his station in dresden and, after the wall came down, the station was besieged by east germans who basically finally had decided they had any of of the russians and the stazi who they worked with, the east german state police. there's a scene where putin and his agents are basically burning so many of their files they gathered on people that the furnace burst. he actually called the local division of the red army that was in a barracks nearby and asked them to come and defend him and they never came. and he wrote that this was deeply shocking to had. that this country that he

served and believed in, basically had disappeared overnight and in many ways, you know, it is one of those moments that had a formative impact on him and fueled his desire to try to bring russia back. yes, sir? >> yes. i appreciate your informative talk. you've obviously reserved gorbachev's letters. were you able to talk to him or any of his aides to get any background from their side? >> yeah i did meet gorbachev earlier this spring and talked to some of the people who, who served with him. and, you know, gorbachev, i think, feels that his role has been overlooked to some extent i think he feels certainly in russia that he is a forgotten man. i mean he's not a popular figure there, which is unfortunate because, i think

what he was trying to do, as i said, was save the russian empire, not, not destroy it but, he is blamed by a lot of russians for essentially giving away the store and allowing west to turn russia into a vassel of the western economies. but, he has had a little bit of a resurgence now. he has been out front in this campaign to push for a world without nuke weapons, which george shultz and sam nunn and william perry have been involved with as well. so i think he is having a little bit of a resurgence and he has met obama in the white house. so, i think his reputation will rise again as time goes on. let me take one over here. >> [inaudible].

>> well, he was younger for one thing. he was, the youngest member of politburo when he became the general secretary. so he has a different perspective. what made him different? i think, he recognized far earlier than others that the system itself was corrupt and that it could not go as it was and maintain the support of the people if he didn't, if it didn't undergo pretty drastic reform. and, you know, the soviet system was a very complicated place and i think, in many cases people pursued things that were basically in their own interests or in their own

bureaucratic interest but not necessarily in the interests of the people as a whole. i think gorbachev recognized the longer that went on the more and more they would lose the support of the people and that ultimately that had to change. i think he also was willing, happened to be someone who was open to seeing reagan in a different light and, we have to remember that the soviets believed reagan was the ultimate hard-liner. he was the great cold warrior. they thought he was a very dangerous guy and, gorbachev, you know, had the instinct to see that reagan himself was different from the image that people had created of. yeah? >> is vice president bush play any role in the speech, reagan's, just, these events? >> as far as i can televise president bush was not really involved in a direct

way, with the reagan speech in berlin. bush, at least initially when he became president, had a different view of, about gorbachev than reagan did. bush believed that reagan had gone too far in developing this personal relationship with gorbachev and so that the bush people actually, when they came into office, basically ordered a pause or a halt in our dealings with gorbachev because they wanted to review things and they felt we had to depersonize the relationship. the longer we personalized and longer we would be taken for a ride and our interests wouldn't be served. basically by april, may of, 1989 they could see things were just moving at a pace that was, was unstopable, and they realized that gorbachev was very much leting that happen. as soon as they recognized that, i think bush came to

develop a much warmer feeling toward gorbachev and a more cooperative relationship with him and ultimately that bush and gorbachev worked together very closely on german reunification in 1990. bush was an important advisor to reagan but there were a lot of powerful people. george shultz and others and george shultz i think was probably the most influential foreign policy figure in the second half of the reagan white house. yeah? >> what was the interplay between the u.s. and west germany's chancellor cole party? dkohl? i was at the city when the speech was actually given and we traveled out to templehoff and they had a

huge party for president reagan and chancellor kohl. was there any interplay between chancellor kohl and president reagan? >> they were very good friends kohl and reagan. the west germans had an interesting role in the speech in that the, at least the authorities in the city, in west berlin, were very nervous about the speech. they thought that, a, they were very nervous about the protests that were taking place and that there was going to be this huge demonstrations against reagan when he came. there was actually a huge police mobilization. you may remember there were more police called up that day than i think at any time in the history of the city. and they specifically did not want him to give the speech at the brandenburg gate. because, according to the rules established at the end of world war ii, technically berlin, west berlin was

under, the entire city was under the control, legally of the four powers, not, not the west german government. so the united states representatives there could say, well you don't want us to do it at the brandenburg gate, too bad, that's where we want to do it. and they did and that's essentially what they did. kohl is a very important >j]dosv/krñ56bq5mvsów?u7(r of the people who always focused on unification the goal was, was one germany. there were a lot of people in the west and the east who, were willing to live with, and felt that it was preferable in some ways to, to live with two system but, converge. and, cole always kohl always had eyes an evently united germany so that was the

vision that khll shared. i mentioned in the book on the night that any was formally unified. kohl called bush and said, i just come back from berlin and, there were, 100,000 people celebrated on the very spot where president reagan called on gorbachev to open the brandenburg gate. on the crowning night of kohl's career he thought back to the reagan speech. yeah? >> [inaudible]. yeah. the question is about, the role of harry truman and the berlin airlift. absolutely, the first chapter of the book is a sort of a brief history of

berlin and the dispute over berlin that unfolds after world war ii and, yes, if you remember the city had been divided into, into four sectors. the westerners with ended up fusing their sectors and, introducing a new currency. the east germans refused to, or the soviets refused to to allow that currency to be used in their sector. they introduced their own currency and decided to cut off access from west berlin to the rest of west germany. i remember berlin sits in germany which was occupied by the soviets and, at that point, harry truman decides we're not leaving berlin and we're going to airlift goods and supplies into our sectors to, to the people there.

i think that was hugely important because i think it showed that that the western powers were not going to abandon the city. i think it turned a lot of the attitudes of berliners in our favor and against the soviets. and then, this is, berlin became the kind of central theater of the u.s.-soviet conflict and i think a lot of people predicted that if there was going to be a, if there was going to be a war between the united states and the soviet union, it would be over berlin and, but throughout all those years, despite the fact that the city was so deep in the opponent's sector, the west never left them. that is as much a part of the story i think, and explains why, why the wall ultimately came down. yeah?

>> [inaudible]. nothing more stronger than an idea whose time has come. he had that idea long before that time had come. but having said that, what, impact do you think that the pope had with respect to the that idea that he implant poland about nine or 10 years earlier? >> the question is about the impact of the pope. obviously he had a major impact and one that i think we only learned about as,ing a time has gone on. the pope early on after the crackdown on the solidarity movement in poland, the pope established ties to the labor movement in poland and

secretly was lending higgs support to -- his support to the clergy who formed an alliance with the workers against the communist government. i think the pope also, as sort of a spokesperson and a moral example to those living in, behind the iron curtain i think was hugely important. and reagan, before he went to berlin, met with the pope in rome and discussed his dealings with gorbachev and the pope was on his way to make another trip to poland and actually, you asked about kohl's involvement in the speech. shortly after reagan gave the speech, he and kohl met together right before reagan left to come back to washington, and, they were in an airport waiting lounge and kohl brought up the

pope's visit to poland and i said, you know, ronpany, he had a million people come out to see him. and reagan said, if i could get crowds like that i never would have left hollywood. [laughter] so. yes? >> [inaudible]. >> the question was about margaret thatcher's impact. obviously she was someone who shared many of reagan's views about the need for communism to be defeated. she, i think, was not nearly as optimistic as he was about the prospect that you could actually end the conflict. but i think what she did was face down a lot of opposition that was growing throughout western europe to

reagan's policies and the effort to take a more aggressive posture in response to what the soviets were doing in eastern europe. so when the united states decided to deploy pershing missiles to west germany, and to britain, the thatcher was, one of those people who really lead the fight and stood tall and was determined that should be done. she thought actually a lot of reagan's ideas about a world without nuclear weapons and negotiating a kind of end to the arms race, she thought like many conservatives, she thought that was somewhat naive. but, i do think she was extremely important for being so steadfast. i think also, you know, the, recovery of the western european economies in the late '70s and early '80s was very important because it was, it was, not entirely evident that the western

capitalist model, at least in western europe, was actually going to thrive and was actually, you know, going to provide better living standards than socialist model. and there were a lot of questions about it and i think the fact that those economies recovered and, became as dynamic as they did, the '70s and '80s highlighted gap between the western and east and reagan and others called attention to and were able to exploit and ultimately convinced a lot of people on the other side they were better off with a system. yes? >> -- anybody discuss the connection his speech with the speech by kennedy in berlin. >> the question is about whether people connected the reagan speech, the kennedy berlin speech. yes.

the kennedy speech is, you know, remains the, you know, one of the most important moments i think for germ man -- germans since the second world war. it was much different moment. the wall had only recently gone up. it was incredibly emotional moment. kennedy said that he was actually a little worried that people might try to tear down the wall after he gave his speech, they were so whipped into a frenzy. the reagan people were very conscious of not trying to duplicate what kennedy did. they knew they were not going to get a million people in the streets as kennedy did. he had 500,000 people in the city square when he gave his address. the peter robinson, who was the main speechwriter of "tear down this wall", told me watched kennedy's speech

but he was very conscious that he didn't want to invoke. so that also influenced the site selection. they, the reagan people didn't want his speech being compared unfavorably to the kennedy speech so they wanted to pick a location that would look just as grand and have just as much stature, is one of the reasons why the brandenburg gate was so appealing but would be in an area that would not look like, you know, it was empty if he didn't have 500,000 people there. so, the, the west berlin government actually asked them do you want to do it the same place kennedy did and they said no. yes? >> -- presidents previous to reagan during the cold war affected what he was able to do? >> the question is how did the actions of president's

prior to reagan affect what he was able to do? well, as i said, i think this story, the story of the cold war and the peaceful end to the cold war is one that is not just about reagan. it is about a whole set of policies, that were put into place in the immediate aftermath of world war ii, all of which i think formed the foundation for what reagan was eventually able to do. that is everything from the establishment of nato, which i think was hugely important. the rehabilitation of western europe through the marshal plan and the efforts that were really made that were really real by