festival in fairfax, virginia robert dallek and james mann talk about their books on presidents truman and reagan. the event is an hour and 15 minutes.

>> good afternoon. my name is david meyer and i've been asked to introduce our speakers this afternoon. i am a resident of fairfax city and on a the city council in the city of fairfax and as you know the city of fairfax and george mason university to release sponsor of all for the program which is in its 11th year. so as we enter in the second decade it's important to know the origin of the fall for the program. 11 years ago then the mayor of the fairfax, john mason, sat down with bill miller and asked, what could we do to strengthen the ties between the city and university? in and out of those conversations through the fall for the book program which has grown both in quality and quantity of scope and breadth of its programs over the last decade.

and our speakers today following that fine tradition of high quality scholarship, i would also noted that the relationship between the city of fairfax and the university goes back to its very moment of creation because the city of fairfax actually gave the land in the initial acreage of the land which became george mason university so we have over the years tried to foster a close relationship between the two institutions. today's event is sponsored by the gale said engage lifelong learning institute and the german embassy is freedom without walls program. without whose generous support we would not able to present this program and would like to thank them for supporting and participating in paul for the book. we would also like to recognize all of the volunteers who have given their time to help run this festival over the entire week, there are many months of preparation prior two this event and it would not have been

possible without our volunteers. if you are interested in volunteering in the future, there's a mailing list that you can sign up for. also there are a few changes in the schedule for the fall for the book which were beyond the planters control and so if you have mapped out your week to attend certain events please check the most current list to make sure that something is still on for the time you're interested. we're also asking you to fill out a survey of the above all for the book which could be improved, which relied, and that input is very valuable to us. this particular program, this afternoon, is of particular interest to me and i would like to take a point of personal privilege and say when i was a

college student at the age of 19 in august of 1971, i had the opportunity to study in europe and was invited to visit berlin where a week and at that time part of that program was to expose american students to ground zero of the quote -- cold war. i visited the wall, went through checkpoint charlie, and spent an afternoon in the eastern sector. i'm glad i did that at that point in my life and at that point in history because if you recall in 1971 as many college students i had a rather fervent opinion about united states foreign-policy as it related to the war in southeast asia. in seeing the berlin wall brought me back to a greater balance and understanding the nuances of what our

international situation was at the time and i found a it somewhat ironic that we were pursuing a policy of anti-semitism in southeast asia which, in fact, went to the extremes and was two our detriment whereas the evidence that occurred in the decade of the 1950's was certainly a legitimate response to communist expansion and domination. going to the berlin wall for my generation is like going to ground zero in new york for the new generation and the wall became an icon of the entire experience. today our speakers, james man, and robert dallek, have both offered -- authored two recent books professor robert dallek

book on "harry s. truman" is a biography of the man who inherited the results of world war ii and the occupation of eastern europe and put in motion of those events which led to the policy of containment. james mann, author -- recently authored a book on ronald reagan who some have credited with the demise of the soviet union, however i think most scholars will lead knowledge that the evidence that occurred around the dissolution of the soviet union were far more nuanced than that. in let me just briefly give the biography ever to speakers and then i will turn it over to you. mr. robert dallek is a graduate of the university of illinois where he received his b.a., ph.d. from columbia, he has received honorary degree from oxford where he was a visiting

scholar, todd and ucla for 30 years, and has recently been associated with columbia university. is that correct? >> [inaudible] >> dartmouth also appear in the -- in his retirement years you are an itinerant scholar of sorts. he is also producing a number of very, very fine histories, biographical histories of the united states. personages and our history. and has become a expert on a presidential figures who frequently interviewed on national television, especially during the presidential campaigns.

>> james mann comes to this by our read through a career in journalism and he is the author of it to new york times bestsellers, the rise of the time of fantasy, among others. he's currently residence of the john hopkins school of -- school of international theory, a former reporter in washington and and he lives in the d.c. area. thank you both for taking time out of your busy schedules to be here, we're pleased that you're participating in our fall for the book and look for to your comments. thank you. >> [inaudible] >> can you all hear me? good. first, i should think the councilman for his very nice introduction. what a nice introduction, i always think back to one i got a number of years ago when i was lecturing the soviet union.

my host introduced me by saying, he is the author of several distinguished works, they are the kinds of books that once you put them down you can't pick them up again. [laughter] but i think he have an imperfect command of english or at least i hope so. i thought i would say something to you about harry truman and about the cold war. i have written on kennedy and johnson and fdr, a short book on ronald reagan at one point, but arthur schlesinger will have a series of very short biographies of a presidential biographies, asked me if i would do the one on harry truman. i had never written about truman and i thought this would be a very interesting thing to take on, and part of the challenge was to contain it is in 150

pages. harry probably would of complain bitterly had been confined to 100 for dupage is but no more so than when lyndon johnson who had an even bigger ego. truman to my mind is a fascinating figure in the sense that he was the most extraordinary of ordinary men. and he found himself at the end of world war ii burdens with this challenge to transfer american power, the american and in colossus which had a ball that the world war ii into a nation at peace. and the burden on him was in part to to continue what people saw as the franklin roosevelt tradition. roosevelt was seen as someone who had been masterful in

establishing rapport with the soviet union and in particular with joseph stalin. now, roosevelt was a master at smoke and mirrors. he was much more skeptical about the likelihood in a friendship coming easy comfortable relations with the soviet union than he ever let on in public. what roosevelt believed to start with this was that if the united states were going to come through world war ii in a mood to participate in postwar international affairs, he had to convince the public that there was going to be a kind of a love fest between us and the soviets feared he looked at the public opinion polls, looked at the fact that 1943 wendell willkie, his opponent in the 1940 election, republican opponent, was sent on a mission by roosevelt's around the world and produced the book ad that called one world.

if you go back and read that book now it is called -- is a fantasy of fantasies. his description of the soviet union, of china, are so exaggerated, so distorted that he presents a picture of of the soviets, they look like americans, they talk like americans, they act like americans, they think like americans. he says to joseph stalin, your educating your people so well in democracy were going to educate yourself right out of a job. and as he says in the book, stalin laughed heartily as well he might have at this now you american. at any rate, truman inherits a burden in which he has to convince the public that this kind of love best was not going to sustain itself and principally because the soviets were so aggressive about defending their interests at the end of the war. now, as george kennan later

said, the price we pay for soviet domination of east central europe was that they tore the guts out of the nazi war machine. but americans were not excepting of that. they wanted the soviets to retreat back into their own borders, to honor their commitments at yalta, to give freedom to eastern europe and poland in particular which had been a flashpoint of the start of world war ii. but it wasn't going to happen and what truman had to do was convince the public that it was not his fault that we were getting into a bad state with the soviets also henry wallace who was the leader of what became known as the progressive party and declared himself the legitimate heir of franklin roosevelt's world war ii diplomacy, wallace tried to convince the public that truman was at fault for having provoked this cold war. well, truman now, of course, to

flash forward to the presence is seen as at least in your great president. he stands so high in the pantheon of presidents and as the council on senate the beginning, the reason is because he was the architect of the containment policy. the intellectual content was george kennan, the great diplomat and historian, but truman had the wisdom to put into place. yet the contradiction is that to at the end of his term truman left office with a 32 percent approval rating. in the harry truman in the last. a half of his term had a 23 percent approval rating barrett is the lowest, the lowest of any president has ever fallen to. even george w. bush and richard nixon did not fall that low.

and they got down to a i think 24 and 25%. truman went down 223%, so why is it that he is so admired it at this point and why was he in such a bad odor at the end of his term in 1952 and 53? ..

the answer of course is the korean war. in june of 1950, north korea crossed 30th parallel. they had in part been provoked by sigmund re-in the south. both sigmund re-and kim il-sung were going to get at each other's throats. both of them had the vision of uniting korea under their you just, under their rules. kim dill song comecon misstate in sigmon ariva establishing a pro-western unified korea. this war begins and the united states which had largely withdrawn from korea, truman decides that we cannot let this aggression go unanswered and so he makes what seems to make the

wise decision, to enter into the curry and fight. and, led by douglas macarthur, who of course was occupying a general in japan and led by the fact that he reverses military battlefield fortunes in korea because the north koreans overwhelmed the south koreans in the initial fighting. >> stages a landing at inchon, gets behind the north korean forces, traps them and drive them across the parallel and then we make this date will decision. pn truman mead at wake island in the question before them is, should we cross the parallel? should we try in deliberate north korea from its communist control? truman is skeptical. he has his doubts. macarthur assures him that the boys will be home by christmas, that if the chinese, as it is

threatened, come into the war he says there will be the great slaughter because they have no air power and we will decimate them. he couldn't have been more wrong. be wary of these predictions by politicians and military leaders. harry truman's great mistake was crossing that 38th parallel. now, i understand the political context in which that was made. there was fierce pressure on him from joseph mccarthy, from the right wing in america, which said, we had been suffering a series of fierce setbacks. the soviets had conquered east central europe. they had taken over czechleslovakia. they had staged the berlin blockade, and we had responded to it with the berlin airlift. the right wing said, we have

driven the communists back above the parallel. here is a chance for a rollback, liberation. we have one chance not to liberate the communist country from domination by the soviet union. and we had been on the defensive. truman it is worried that they chinese would come into the fighting and he was absolutely right. but, he is convinced not simply by douglas macarthur but he is so pressured by the political context of the times. if you have walked away from crossing the parallel, he would have been eaten alive by the right wing in america. as it was, his fair deal program, which he promised in the 1948 of said election, who had been put on hold because of the korean war. if he were beaten up by the right wing over this failure to cross the parallel he felt he would have no chance at all of getting the fair deal in active.

of course he crosses the parallel. the chinese come into the war. they prove much more resilient than he or macarthur ever believe. they drive is backed down the peninsula. we drive them back up to the peninsula and a stalemate occurs at the 38th parallel. and the country becomes more and more disillusioned with this conflict. lyndon johnson, when he went into vietnam, he should have remembered what happened to harry truman in korea. win george w. bush went into iraq, he should have remembered what happened in korea and then in vietnam. and i will conclude by saying, the lesson, the current lesson that president obama finks about, knows about and i know this for a fact, because to brag little bit i had dinner at the white house with him and eight other historians and some of his

aides and we were raised with him this issue. he is mindful of that. he knows about it. i hope he does the right thing. his administration is on the line the way harry truman's was after he went across that parallel. jim. >> thanks. this is going to be an interesting contrast because know i'm going to take to the last years of the cold war. my book is called "the rebellion of ronald reagan: a history of the end of the cold war," and it is a tough book for people in different ways on different sides of the political spectrum, both liberals and conservatives. it is tough for conservatives because really the thrust of the book after looking through the archives and the evidence, is that reagan really didn't win the cold war, not in the way that is commonly claimed now. it is a tough book because it is

about reagan at all. and, the book does give considerable credit to reagan for his diplomacy with gorbachev, for his efforts in his second term, which i think played a greater role towards bringing the end of the cold war, bringing the cold war to an end then is recognized and i will say little bit about that. but it is about reagan in reality as opposed to reagan dissemble and calls into question whether reagan is, as we commonly take him to be. now, because the history at the time was very different. it is much like coming in a way, like bob dallek describes the truman administration. the fact is, and this is a good part of the book, that from about 84 or so to 88, the

american conservative movement was increasingly unhappy with ronald reagan, and i will come back to that. so, the focus is really to examine the history that is forgotten now of reagan's last really four years in office, and to summarize what happens during that period, reagan conducts four summit meetings with mikhail gorbachev, who'll becomes the soviet communist party general secretary in early 1985. reagan gets enacted the first arms control treaty that can be ratified by the senate in over 15 years. it is a treaty that bans an entire class of missiles, and

forgot now, ed regan's last summit as president in moscow in 1988, he disavows some of his earlier rhetoric so everybody remembers that reagan called the soviet union the evil empire and what is forgotten is that in gorbachev's soviet union, reagan is standing in red square in 1988, july of 1988, is asked, is this an evil empire and he says no, that was another time and another place. that is a history that is now forgotten now. throughout all of this, there is tremendous unhappiness with reagan's diplomacy, with gorbachev, first of all among conservatives. let me give you a representative quote from george will, who was one of the several conservative columnists or conservative

leaders who were pounding away for three or four years at reagan and who now in fairness, acknowledges that he was wrong but that may give you a representative column. for years ago many people considered reagan the keeper of the cold war flame. time flies. for conservatives ronald reagan's foreign policy has produced much surprise but little delight. at the same time, there is unhappiness in washington, really from a foreign policy establishment because reagan is, it begins to talk to gorbachev about dramatic reductions in nuclear weapons. this is in particular at the summit in reykjavik in 1986, and there is great uneasiness within the military. there is uneasiness in the intelligence community about

whether reagan is becoming too romantic about gorbachev. and, in fact, and this is also lost to history, contrary to the way we think about things now, vice president bush in 1988, running for president, bush is the only republican candidates among six or seven that year, who formally supports reagan's diplomacy with gorbachev. gorbachev comes to a summit at the end of 87 and there's a whole wave of republican criticism. bush formally support simm but as 1988 goes on, bush begins to run to the right of ronald reagan, again contrary to the way we imaginist now. but, says in a couple of interviews, that maybe the reagan administration is moving too fast with gorbachev.

bush's close associate and later national security adviser brent scowcroft says there's a little bit too much romanticism and the cold war is not over and in fact after george bush takes office in 1989 there is what is known among a small number of historians as the paws of about seven, eight, nine months really bright up to the fall of the berlin wall, where the bush administration slows down negotiations and diplomacy with gorbachev, really puts things on hold to the point where it seems like there's going to be a break in the momentum of what the rag administration has done. i want to step back and examine. what was the dispute about or what was, what were they really arguing about? there were really arguments between conservatives and reagan over gorbachev, and really between reagan and the foreign

policy establishment. to bring us back to the way it looked in 1985, six, and seven i use as a counterpoint to reagan someone by the name of richard nixon. ex-pres. nixon was really a symbol of really the views of the foreign policy elite. people known in foreign policy schools as the realist, but richard nixon and henry kissinger, brent scowcroft took what i would call the more conventional view of gorbachev and just to give you a couple-- and reagan trice to get nixon's support for his diplomacy and nixon won't give it. i described in the opening chapters of the buck how reagan, even invites nixon down for a secret meeting at the white

house because nixon has never been back upstairs to the living quarters since the day he left after war-- watergate and rights to persuade him to-- and nixon will go along. so, you get, this is a classic role reversal. reagan is the fed to talk of their early 70's running against or campaigning against the policy of detente with the soviet union and now nixon in the mid to late '80s is much more hawkish than reagan. let me give you some of nixon's work. he goes in meets gorbachev in 86. and nixon gloves to compare different foreign leaders he met. brezhnev used to meet his negotiations. gorbachev uses sais talev abutt behind the velvet glove he wears there is a steel fist. in essence he is the most affable of all the soviet leaders i have met but at the same time without question the

most formidable because his goals are the same as theirs and he will be more effective in attempting to achieve them. nixon was not alone. the perception was that gorbachev was as tough as or tougher than previous soviet leaders, and that really it was just a new face on the same old policies. henry kissinger visits gorbachev and comes back and writes, gorbachev and his associates seem less constrained by the past and more assertive with respect to soviet power. so when you talk about misperceptions are getting things wrong, based on the evidence, maybe no one knew at that time but reagan and his secretary of state, george shultz, took gorbachev to be a new and different kind of leader

and decided really that he was really in effect, to build him up, to lend him a hand. they perceived that gorbachev was in a fragile position at home, and they decided that he was worthy of american support, and that he was someone they could and should negotiate with. so, this is a very different period. we naturally now think of the politics of the iraq war. we are by what has happened in the last few years so there's this and let's talk then of the battles between, between neoconservatives and realist. the neoconservative strongly supported the war in iraq. the realists were people again, the same school as nixon and kissinger, or much more, tended to be much more opposed.

well, in this period, both of these schools were united against reagan. the national review, the leading conservative magazine, was publishing essays by nixon and kissinger, quite surprising in the people and weirdly enough, the main supporter of reagan as he proceeds with his arms control treaty with gorbachev, are the liberals. now, ridiculous to call ronald reagan a liberal given his domestic program but you can find, if you look back at the period, cartoons. there is a cartoon of reagan and gorbachev-- reagan signing this arms control treaty with gorbachev, and the underlying is, reagan flanked by his strongest supporters. you look behind him and there

are michael dukakis, jesse jackson, al gore, gephardt all the democratic candidates. now, at the center of these negotiations, and this diplomacy is reagan himself. reagan, to say the least had his own style in dealing with gorbachev. reagan tended to drive foreign leaders crazy by telling jokes, taking them off their agenda. it was jokes, it was anecdotes. it wasn't only with gorbachev, but leaders would come in and they would sit down and they would have a long list of things it wanted to get done. reagan had anti-communist jokes for communist leaders. so, gorbachev would come in and reagan would say, what are the four things wrong with soviet

agriculture? a guy would look befuddle that he would say, the spring, summer, fall and winter. [laughter] this wasn't just to leaders of conmen is countries. helmut schmidt it was the chancellor of germany comes then then sit down and he has a long series, a long agenda to get through and reagan said, tilson the joke about brezhnev showing his expensive foreign cars to brezhnev's mother and she says that is fine but what happens at the comments come and take them away? so you know, these jokes serve the purpose. they distracted people from their agendas and managed to bring people-- the either deflected people from asking reagan for things he did not want to do or really took them off their stride. and, gorbachev himself had a very different style.

gorbachev was a classic the, trained in law school and i spoke to one of the note takers at one of the summit. these summits would be either what were called one-on-one meetings or large meetings of 15 officials per side. the one-on-one meetings, they were called one-on-one because there were no foreign ministers, there was the secretary of state. it was just the president, gorbachev and then each would have a translator and each would have a note taker. and i talked to one of the note takers at the moscow summit to said gorbachev would make what he thought was a brilliant point, a bottle and he would kind of look around the room, looking for someone to. [inaudible] and there would be reagan who would tell another joke. and, this worked well enough that gorbachev really, you can

see by the end of these for years, it is trying to borrow some of reagan's style, so by the fourth of this summit, you look at the nodes and reagan-- excuse me, gorbachev dosof fenty says let me show you some letters i have. i have a letter from ivan. this was reagan's style to read letters. this was not something the soviet leader ever did before. so the underlying issues of this period are, what is the view of gorbachev? is he just a new face for the same old soviet policies? or does he represent fundamental change? the other issue is cutting back on nuclear weapons, and both of these issues are a very divisive both in american politics and in the policy committee and in both of these, reagan in these three

or four years is actually, believe it or not, on the dovish side of these issues, and you can see the fight in the reagan administration. george shultz as secretary of state agrees with reagan. on the other side i will say the leading soviet hand at the central intelligence agency at the time was a guy named bob gates, and he was arguing that the amendment and implicitly reagan. too wrapped up in gorbachev, that there was not significant change. gates sesno himself also a committed that he was wrong in these earlier years. so, reagan's rhetoric in the last years remains the same. he gives the speech, mr. gorbachev, tear down this

wall. i spend about a quarter of the book on the background of that speech because it produces tremendous divisions within the united states government and the state department doesn't want him to give the speech. why? it is not tier down that wall. everybody thinks that was new and in some way new and shocking. it wasn't american diplomats, for reagan had said the walls should be torn down a year earlier. that was old hat. mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall, was new directed specifically at the leader of the soviet union. who did it up said? it didn't really upset gorbachev. it up said eric hunneker, the leader of east germany because after all reagan was not saying mr. honniker, tier down that wall and honecker's certainly was not about to tier down the wall, but he wanted to be asked. because this was a way of saying

he was really not in charge. but, part of that speech is to come to maintain reagan's rhetoric and to show that his rhetoric hadn't changed when in fact his policies are changing through this second term. so, how do we explain this? there are some people who say reagan really never changed but if you look at the policies and certainly lines like the evil empire was another time and another place, there was a change. and, certainly conservatives at the time sauve reagan as changing, and complained and said so. there are people who write off these last years as well. reagan was just trying to

respond to the iran-contra scandal, where reagan's presidency nearly collapses, but in fact these changes on soviet policy go back well before the iran-contra scandal broke. there are some people who say well, he was just doing what nancy reagan wanted but i can tell you, i cite examples for you, reagan didn't always do what his wife wanted part of the didn't always do with the secretary of state wanted. he was a very-- he tended to be very passive for weeks and weeks at a time and he would decide in people who thought that he wasn't in charge would find out sometimes too late that they were wrong. and, so the overall judgment of reagan, i think the common sort of, the left-wing character was

that he was just simply a dunce and unbridling caricature, the flip side of it was he was a man of simple virtues. and, i don't see it that way. i interviewed nancy reagan for the book and she said as she has said before i think, that her husband had no guile. well, i am not sure i agree with that. i don't know whether or not i would call it guile, but he was county. e head farish reagan's things. he did not lay them out to people. he kept-- as i say in the book you don't catch reagan in some machiavellian maneuver. he does not admit he is doing this for some machivelli in recent. that would be like catching reagan dying his hair. it just didn't happen, but somehow this was a guy with tremendous instincts, and part

of those in stings were to get gorbachev right. why did that matter? let me come down now to these last years of the cold war. first of all, it deprived, first gorbachev himself wrote later on that he needed international recognition in order to proceed with what he was doing at home. it deprived the soviet union of a sense of an enemy. it gave gorbachev time to proceed with his reforms to the point where this took over five, six, seven years, where they turned out to be reversible. there comes a time after reagan leaves office in 91 wendy soviet union really tries to mount a coup against gorbachev but it is

really too late at that point. so, reagan's diplomacy gives gorbachev sort of the time to proceed. lastly, it furthers gorbachev's sense of a desire for a new relationship with the united states and with western europe, which proves crucial in 1989. my own view of the end of the cold war, it ended by any-- anyone calculation in 1989, if you want to take the day, the day the wall came down or the whole year in which there is a series of unfolding events throughout eastern europe. what was the key? the key was that the soviet union didn't intervene to stop what was happening. and that was much more touch and go i think then we now imagine. at the time, i think there were

soviet officials, who thought about maybe trying to stop what was going on. i interviewed, while living in berlin, the east german leader after on a career at the time the wall came down. the wall came down as a result of a bunch of screwups by the east germans. they had an official who did not know what he was saying, make an early announcement about the change in chuck-- travel regulation sam before they knew what they were saying, people misinterpreted it as taking effect immediately and started screaming across the wall and the east germans were faced with the question of whether to use force, whether to shoot in order to stop this. and, by his account, the next, as people start streaming across the walls, the next morning the soviet ambassador in east berlin the mancy bright an explanation

quickly to gorbachev. why are you doing this? then the soviet ambassador calls back a couple hours later and says, he notes, we commend you or we understand or something but it wasn't automatic. that the soviets wouldn't intervene. the question is what was in gorbachev's mind? was he sitting there that day your that your thinking, oh my gosh, the united states has a star wars program or a defense buildup? no, what was in his mind was that he wanted this entirely new relationship with the west that he had been working on. we. now that the soviet union might have been broke and it might have decided it couldn't match the united states militarily but things could have gone on in stalemate for a good while. there was nothing inherent in this situation that the soviets

would give up eastern europe, and in fact, what would that happen that the soviets tried to prevent the wall from coming down or put it back up? it is not as though no one thinks the united states would have intervened militarily. you can imagine the other outcomes. you can imagine a stalemate. you can imagine a violent blow up of the soviet union other are all kinds of bad outcomes at the end of the cold war that we did not see. and, so i will just read you my conclusion from the book. in the in the cold war sputtered out without any large-scale violent upheavals are explosions. it was not inevitable that the

climax should've been so anticlimactic. unquestionably corbin suppa the brolan bring in before decade-old conflict to a close to the viet reagan overcoming considerable opposition played a crucial role by buttressing gorbachev's ballou coal position. was in the sends ronald reagan help insure the cold war ended in the tranquil fashion that it did. reagan did not win the cold war. gorbachev avanta nitza by recognizing gorbachev's significance when many others in the united states did not. reagan helped create the climate in which the cold war could end. thank you. [applause] >> i would just for one minute picked up on a couple of points that jim made. you know, jim what is forgotten about ronald reagan is that early in his career, in 1948 for example, he favored one world

solution. he was a supporter not just of the united nations but of the notion of a world government, iucn there was a degree of idealism to him that i think came back into focus when he and was in the white house, was in the presidency and of course to the good and recognizing that he could deal in some effective way with gorbachev. the other thing that's i associate with what you were saying is that reagan also was very much a student of franklin roosevelt's, as lyndon johnson was. reagan after all was the one to reinstituted the idea of radio chats, radio talks and of course it was frank en route roosevelt who pioneered the fireside chat for good to this day beget the saturday brady botox barcode was ronald reagan who began these again because he remembered how effective that they are was on

the radio. he also understood the points you make about diverting attention. if you don't want to deal with an issue, you don't go out and say i am against that and become hard-headed and hard-nosed. instead, he blunt it with humor and i think of the wonderful stories that lyndon johnson used to tell about franklin roosevelt, who was a master at this. johnson when they went into see roosevelt because he wants to convince him to stream wirer across sells central texas to bring rural electrification to this backwater in texas. roosevelt and want to do it, and so johnson gets into see him and before he could say anything roosevelt says to him, lyndon have you ever seen a russian women make it? [laughter] johnson is mystified and he starts telling him about harry hopkins had just been to russia and johnson, what he told them

about the russians etc. at etc. before you knew it roosevelt's eight came in and said time is up mr. congressman samples johnson of a room. reagan was no fool that way. he was a very astute politician who had learned some of his lessons from a master like franklin roosevelt. anyway there is a couple of associations that came to mind from your talk. >> i will tell one other story. it is true, reagan grew up as a democrat. he became fiercely anti-communist in the late 40's and the screen actors guild. he became generally conservative in the 1950's, particularly on economic issues but remains a democrat until 1960. there is a wonderful story. he is a democrat, but he likes eisenhower. nixon is running for president in 1960 and reagan, then an actor, not a politician goes to

nixon and says i am ready to endorse you for president and switch parties. nixon, always thinking two or three steps ahead says, i love your endorsement. please don't switch parties. i would rather have you endorsed me as a democrat because he was looking for democratic foes. i find this story doubly ironic because nixon was never good at getting democrat votes. reagan, years later of course, the phrase reagan democrats applies to many democrats who switched to reagan. >> he mentioned the korean war, when we went across the 38 perrilloux, that is why the-- wasn't there an option nor did they consider stopping in korea just saw-- [inaudible] and would not have antagonize the chinese as much? the there was a lot of talk about that and macarthur was

encouraged not to go up to the elliott river, not to go to a point that the pentagon and the joint chiefs feared would provoke the chinese into coming across the hello into the fighting but macarthur was so hell-bent on the conviction that he could defeat the north koreans and he said, he had seen the chinese fight in world war ii, and he was convinced that they couldn't fight worth a and that they would never come into the war against the united states. you see, what that experience teaches me as a number of other historical examples demonstrate to me, people operate by conviction, past assumptions. that may or may not be accurate or true. now, we historians have degraded standards of course. we can look back in

self-righteous lycee see, you made a mistake but that is our job, is to make judgments because it were presenting a chronicle without explanation or analysis, then anybody can do it. but i think you are quite right, that was a possible option and it might have deterred the chinese from coming in. although we now have a lot of literature, a lot of material about the conversations between the chinese and the soviets and stalin was slowly but surely being convinced to come into endorse a chinese centrism to the warnecke have a lot to do with germany and a lot to do with europe because dahlen i.d.e.a. was at the chinese come to the war and they bog the americans down in korea, it flew really deter them from doing anything more in europe and he is very apprehensive about the possibility that we would attend some type of rollback in europe,

so he saw the korean war as a way to deter us from doing this, and the chinese for skeptical also of going in and doing it, but in terms of prestige, and in terms of establishing themselves as a kind of significant world regime, if they could block the united states down with the war in korea, that would be a huge triumph for them and they sense that was in that the end of that fighting the chinese generals said no longer can any of these western imperialists think they can practice gun bull diplomacy against the so there were all sorts of calculations going on in we probably still don't have this fuller record is we would like to get to find out what was being said and argued at the time and who knows that this document will ever come to hand because the soviet archives are still difficult to penetrate.

we do have a lot of material from them but not nearly as complete the record is we would like. >> from what you have observed, how well have the residents of east berlin and west berlin then reconciled with each other since the falling of the wall? >> i am going to actually correct the question, east and west germany because berlin itself, the wall was taken down so well and so thoroughly that there is a slight movement in berlin to, maybe we have eradicative the wall to much. i mean, i lived in berlin to do the berlin sections of this book, and the heart of sort of

the culture and there is a whole night life's section. east berlin is certainly not distinguishable but west berlin is almost like the old berlin now, so with berlin, the city has come together and there are problems that are funny to an outsider, not funny to them. they have to operas, they have to symphonies. were not quite willing to do away with the competing cultural institutions and it is very expensive. then you turn to the east and west germany and the answer is very different. it is not at all-- not that all the same. the economic level of east germany remains far, far below that of west germany. and there is sort of abandoned

towns. people leave for jobs elsewhere. things are pretty bleak in east germany and as a result they also vote differently. it is much more supportive of, there is a renewed communist party. people come up places are abandoned and they are not particularly happy. [inaudible] the report at the time for perhaps what you were talking about that reagan gave the way it or was about to give away the store. the russians this about some of the things he might have said.

i wondered about the points of his mental prowess at the time. [inaudible] >> did you hear his question? >> the question was-- pardon? okay. that question was, there were reports that reagan nearly gave away the store at reykjavik, and was see in full control of his mental faculties? i would call it the question of alzheimer's, which is people look back first on reykjavik. people-- the uncertainty about reagan after reykjavik was really policy oriented. it was that, if you know, i did talk to people-- it shows up in

the memos from the joint chiefs. we have got to watch reagan, because he may give away the store. it is true that reagan and gorbachev talked about dramatic reductions and he went further than the joint chiefs were happy with and they told him that. i, you know, it anyway you look at the question of alzheimer's, i don't think people go back that far into its presidency. i looked at this and there are a couple of points. first, formerly alzheimer's definitely not because reagan goes, begins to go to the mayo clinic for a couple of visits in the early '90s and on one visit they find, they don't find

alzheimer's and a year later they do. and so if you go back to 88, kobach to the 80s, then in medical terms the idea would be certainly not. you get different, he get to differences on really reagan's lester. by reagan's last year he is really beginning to detach himself. he is in his late 70's. people come to him at the beginning of 88. where would you like to travel? how about australia and he says no, you guys can go to australia. how about india? he doesn't want to travel, accepted the soviet union, and really his aides, his top aides, secretary of state, national security adviser the was colin powell, george shultz began to

make as many decisions as they can on their own and take to him only what they have to. but then, by powell's recollection, reagan not only was, when he lists presented with a decision then when he felt he needed to come and he made the right decision. this is not just on soviet policy. there was a round of disputes about what to do about ben well noriega and panama. this was in the spring of 88 and this was another one of those issues were george h.w. bush was the how can team wants to take tough action against noriega and even if there is a question of military threats, and everything gets brought to reagan or there are a series of interagency meetings and reagan says no.

but, by powell's recollection, by schultz's recollection, he was fully with that but beginning to to not. i found in going through these archives one curious item, which i could take no further. which was, it is december 1988. dragons are planning to move back to california, and there are a series of meetings all in one morning that are really logistics'. they seem to be logistics'. it is about moving feed, moving to a new home. there is a meeting with the doctor, a personal doctor setting up an office and then there is also a meeting described with the alzheimer's foundation formally decided-- designed as a meeting that is about charity. i found that curious. that we sort of a sandwich and with these logistics', but that

is as far as i could take it. >> i would just like to pick up on something you have passed now, because i have this special-interest not strictly in the issue about reagan's health, but more generally about the question of presidential health and i have written about this, and you are so will it buys to ask this question, because there have been a series of incidents in our history in which presidents have hidden health problems from the country. grover cleveland, going back into the 1890's now, had cancer of the job. they did surgery on him. they replaced part of his job. it was never known to the public. woodrow wilson's deteriorating health in the last half of this

term. he was incompetence. franklin roosevelt, there's a new book coming out, some neurologist called me yesterday about this. he claims roosevelt had cancer, that he had this hardening of the arteries in the brain. he never should have run again in 1944 and of course the revelations in my book about john kennedy, in which i got into the medical records and found out how many medical problems he had in the 1950's. so much so that he was hospitalized nine times, once for 19 days and this was all hidden from the public. we have had a series of episodes in which presidents have hidden many medical problems of from the public. i am very warm advocate of the idea that we should know about their medical histories. they have got their finger on the nuclear button. it is very important that peeno

as much as we can, and so i think jim's point, it really raises a red flag, but who knows if we will ever find out about it? getting into the kennedy medical records, they had been sitting there for 40 years and i applied and they-- historians, five for first turned down repeatedly and i was fortunate enough to be the committee that presided over the records. they did not know what was there and what i found became a front-page "new york times" story. so it is an issue which, to me, it is a vital concern and gets very little attention so i am interested you ask this question and i have given you might long-winded answer to it. >> a question on one of the lessons of the past. i suppose reagan and obama have

-- [inaudible] and what is mr. reagan going to tell mr. obama about iraq and iran and the possibilities there , on a similar parallel to vietnam. what lessons have we learned from the past that might come up in this conversation? [laughter] >> there is the answer. reagan is calling. [laughter] well, as a historian i like to think there are lessons in the past that we have learned but you know the german philosopher hagel said the only thing we have learned from history as we never learned so it is pretty cynical but i'm afraid there's an awful lot of truth to it. there was a wonderful book which i recommended to you by richard mate and earnest neustadt called

lessons to pass, the use and abuse of history in the making of american foreign policy. it is really quite interesting because they use history but they abuse it probably more often than they used it effectively. >> i have got to questions. my question for professor dallek is, do you think there is any credence to the view that the united states government did not describe with enough decision the free world versus the communist world in the late 40's with respect to the korean peninsula? and, canon and acheson simply did not think about-- and had they, it might have-- and my

question to you has to do with the chernobyl nuclear accident in 1987 and the fact that the russians needed western technical expertise and had to pay dearly for it in our currency and a short amount of time which revealed that they didn't really have the capacity and the industrial and technical to continue much longer. do you think there is any, and what do you think if any contribution that accident made? >> very briefly in response to your question, this is then widely speculated that in january 1950 dean acheson made a famous speech in which he drew a national security line across northeast asia and left korea out of that and what was clear was that the united states was not eager to sustain some kind

of substantial commitment to korea. we had pulled their troops out. we encourage the u.n. to take over the care and feeding of south korea, but in the discussions that we now have the in the documents between kim il-sung and stalin, he was convinced, they were convinced and possibly because of the acheson speech and because of american behavior that we were not going to respond to a cross parallel attack, that we would let korea slide into the communist orbit. and of course the misread harry truman, because truman was convinced that this would be seen as something like munich, appeasement and he could not afford to do it and he could not afford to do in terms of american domestic politics.

it would have left him in such a diminish political position, so both in terms of international affairs and domestic politics, he had to respond but there was no question i think the run-up to it probably encourage the north koreans and soviets to think they could get away with it. >> just very quickly, two points. chernobyl had tremendous importance and a couple of ways. for the end of the cold war. first, on its face it is a reminder of the dangers of nuclear. this is a nuclear accident much less nuclear weapons and the impact in the soviet union, in europe and elsewhere around the world was, was tremendous, just for the implications, the nuclear implications. in addition, it in a way you wouldn't think of, it had a tremendous impact on the end of

the cold war because it affected gorbachev's internal politics. that is, chernobyl was an eye-opener to gorbachev that he really couldn't trust his own bureaucracy. he really couldn't trust the people were telling him and that was the code, that was the event that caused him to begin to shake things up. he has been the leader of the soviet union for a couple of years, and what, when people tell him everything is fine for don't report news to him, by now he has had it in this is followed very shortly afterwards by a lesser-known incident, when a west german kid, 19, 20 years old named mattei as brass gets in a plane and flies all the way across to moscow in lynn's his plane near red square.

and that prompts gorbachev, soon after chernobyl, to say what is going on with the military and he begins to shake up the military as well. all of these changes play a tremendous role in the final years of the cold war. >> some of you have classes coming up, so we will end here but if any of you have questions that you want to ask our speakers, please do so. their books outside and we want to thank you for a wonderful, wonderful presentation. [applause]

>> robert dallek's books on the history of the american presidency include lone star rising, flawed giant and nixon and kissinger. james mann is the author of the china fantasy and rise of the balkans. he is a former reporter, a foreign correspondent and columnist for the los angeles times. mr. mann is an author and residents said johns hopkins school for advance international studies. this event was part of the fall book festival held annually in virginia. for more information visit fall for the book.com-- fall for the book.org. >> while congress is in recess booktv comes to you live in prime-time. starting this tuesday join us at 8:00 p.m. eastern for the hourlong live call-in programs on the significant books in issues of the times.

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this program was recorded in january. >> host: our guest became general counsel of microsoft in 2002. he currently serves as the company's head of the department of illegal corporate affairs and also senior vice president brad smith, welcome to c-span and welcome to "the communicators." >> nice to be here. >> joining is wyett cash, think you for coming by. >> glad to be with you. >> mr. smith, you are in town to talk about a topic i don't know many know about but maybe some, cloud computing. if you have to discredit to the average person how would you describe it? >> it is about connecting a pc workload with the ability to run data remotely. we call it in the cloud, a data center. if anybody has ever used a web

based e-mail like yahoo! or a ll or hot meal or g-mail you have used cloud e-mail because you the store in your e-mail and a data center. media kept a copy on your own pc as well but you are already using the clout even if you are not aware and increasingly we are using the clout to store more and more model the as consumers because businesses and governments are doing the same. >> here you are in the nation's capital talking about the issues. why speak to the government felt about this? >> this is an important part of the technology because more and more people are going to be using the cloud, storing photographs of line, running applications on line, and it raises new questions, questions we in the industry to address also important questions for government. the privacy rights of consumers be respected and protected in the cloud? well security be strong in the cloud? as the data moves across borders whose law is cui to apply? these are important questions

that governments need to sort out if all of this technology is printed before work and realize this potential. >> if the quality computing is double what servers not located with a person's own personal computer, the current law that govern the information that stays on a server or within the personal-computer but do they not match up to what is needed as far as the cloud computing is concerned? >> guest: in some cases there are differences. let's say you're keeping documents on your hard disk, door pc in your bedroom. if the government wants to take a look at that, it needs to get a search warrant. the reason is because the fourth amendment and the lights come before the net into the constitution says that is what the government has to do. but when you take the same information and give it to a third party, the courts really have not been clear whether the fourth amendment applies. in that kind of situation in the past, congress has acted to make clear even of the constitution

didn't protect your privacy rights, a statute did. but now we have this in this scenario with people store in things in the cloud it is one of the areas we highlighted where we think congress needs to act to make sure the law is queried the privacy rights of citizens indeed remain protected. >> host: wyett cash. >> from the administration they needed big point about the potential for economic savings for agencies. and i think one of the assumptions here is that the cloud computing saves a lot of costs, but i would like to get your sense of why it is more economical. isn't it just another way of remote computing for agencies or is their something more that makes it possible to get real savings for the government? >> guest: i think in many instances cloud computing can have a number of benefits. if for the government, for businesses, for consumers. certainly for enterprises. businesses and government that

are deploying computer resources at large scale. it can create more flexibility and can help people save money. i will give you a symbol like sybil. the biggest day of the year for americans ordering pizza happens to the super bowl. well, domino's pizza has a lot of information technology that it uses to record those orders, even to take those orders. it doesn't necessarily want to have to buy embrum those servers every day of the year just what has the capacity of mechem super bowl sunday. so one of the things dominoes has done his contract with microsoft. we are a cloud computing service provider so they can get extra technology capacity from less and use it for a day. that is a lot cheaper than using it for years. that is just one scenario, one example but it captures the flexibility that this technology provides and that flexibility can translate into real savings not necessarily for everybody,

for everything, but in important ways in the case of lots of potential customers. >> you're saying it gives the advantage of skilling up without holding the computing equipment that times you don't need it. >> guest: exactly. >> the foot side of that is amazon.com has capabilities for christmas they don't use all year so they've been able to take the excess capacity and then say it's pretty inexpensive for us to let others could you on the system so there is an example where cloud computing sob like it is pretty inexpensive. the question is don't we still need to build a lot of new facilities to do this cloud computing, and therefore where is the savings? >> guest: you're absolutely right that if you want to get in the cloud computing business which microsoft is in an amazon and ibm and google are in, you have to be prepared as a service provider to spend a lot of money. i mean, we are building very

large data centers with many server computers and we are building them are around the world. there may be instances where it will be cheaper for a business to continue to have its own computers on site in its own premises. if you are a big flexible and feel of your customers basically use about the same amount of computing resources every day throughout the year, that might be more economical for them to build that themselves or run that themselves. but to take another customer who has seasonality. the business goes up or down during the year, to a retailer. you think what they have to do in november, december. it's more than the dewey in january through october. for them, the ability to bring on extra capacity is definitely helpful. and more generally, we get the economies of scale because we are buying so much equipment we can perhaps why it cheaper and we may be in a position to pass along some of the savings to customers.

>> host: earlier this year, david vladeck, the head of the ftc said a letter to the fcc about cloud computing as part of the plan at this is part of what he said. the ability of cloud computing services to collect and central store increasing amounts of consumer data combined with these which centrally sort data may be shared with others create a risk that large amounts of data may be used by entities and ways of originally intended were understood by consumers. the head of the ftc is saying that about the cloud computing. what does that say to you as someone in the cloud computing business? >> guest: i think it says we need clarity and simplicity so consumers and businesses know what is going on. one of the things we've been talking about is the analogy to the truth in lending act. this is something congress passed in 1968 so that when we go to the banks and engage in a credit transaction there are standards that apply in the banks have to tell the terms of the deal are. in the same way i feel that we need to get to the point where it is clear for consumers if

they are putting their inflation online i think people are entitled. we are all entitled as consumers to know what is the service provider going to do. how are they going to use my documents by want to move to another service provider in the future and i going to be able to do so? and perhaps especially important is the service provider to do to maintain security so that i have confidence in the cloud? and these are things we would probably benefit the either as an industry or matter of law if there is a common set of rules we all comply with. we have different offerings but it will be clear what we have to tell consumers and how we make them aware of what is going on. >> host: some of the speeches you've made on this topic if called for civil, maybe new regulations or laws and updating of current laws. where is the final determinant of making the law and in trading on the day-to-day business of an

operation like yours? >> guest: that's great question. we have laws in the privacy area and the security area of the basically date back to the mid-1980s as we are almost 25 years later and we have this entire internet revolution that has taken place. we need the laws to exist to be updated. the caps need to be felt and i think as much as anything else it is probably right as an industry to recognize anybody is going to that that we get consumers and providers alike if the law creates clarity and establishes a level playing field and gives consumers the kind of information consumers are going to want to have in order to feel confident thinking about this as an option. >> host: does anybody benefit equally? had dorcy technology corporation but google is a search engine. would they be treated equally? >> guest: i think everybody doing the same thing would be treated the same way. microsoft provides a pension,

bing that competes with google. google have some operations that compete with microsoft word and excel for example. if we are providing e-mail services and hosting documents, then we will all have to follow the same rules of the road. >> i would say those rules are put in place, what are the concerns besio is have in addition to basic security issues? of course there's many requirements they have to make but one of the concerns is what say i put the data into a cloud facility but now i need to bring it back or i want to to another vendor. how do i make sure we actually do get all lubber data back and there is a drag in south there that could be used for reasons not intended? >> guest: i think that is the key question and absolutely one of the questions customers should ask. and i think what they should ask is well my data the portable? can i take it with me? does it continue to belong to me? what are you going to do with it while you have it? and those are basic questions i think are quite relevant in this

new era. i will say as one company, the data belonged to you three we will use it only in limited ways and we will tell you what we are going to do with it so you know about and absolutely you should be able to take your data with you if you don't like our e-mail and want to move to somebody else, if you don't want to use microsoft word and you want to use some other product instead, and we are committing and have committed to take a number of steps. and i don't think it is the government will to necessarily tell everybody you must do this particular thing that i do think is appropriate to say make clear what you're doing so that everybody knows and everybody can come. everybody can evaluate. >> one of the short-term faults to get us moving forward to the cloud computing is the fault of private clouds, that is the government would set up their own cloud facilities that would do what you're talking about but be under their greater control. how do you feel the the notion of the plight clouds, and is

that the sort of contradiction to the terms that we talked about with larger public clouds rear you do see the economies of that kind of computing? >> guest: why did the private clouds are an important part of the future. unfortunately it reflects an attribute of the information technology industry. we take a word everybody understands and start to use it in a way that they don't understand. the mouse became a different thing, saddam became e-mail instead of him. now we've taken the cloud and are using it to describe technology and get more complicated by talking about private and public clouds but in essence a private cloud as you described is the way to separate part of a data center or maybe even have one owned data center it know that the only thing on those computers are programs and documents and data that the law to you and it's not going to get pulled the same computer with somebody else's information. if you are a large customer, a bank, government, if you have information that is very

sensitive, a private cloud like a lot of sense for a lot of different reasons. a but the did is entirely possible that a decade from now this notion of private clouds will become the norm, perhaps one of the most normal things especially for businesses and become a agencies of any real size. >> host: what type of information is best served by the government putting the data on the cloud? is it supported formation? is it classified? what level of information works best? >> guest: i think that the whole world is trying to figure that out and we are still a relatively early days. there are areas where there is seasonality, even for the government. the irs is busier in april than a days in october. so there may be areas where the government wants to be about to move its computing resources up and down on a scale. there are other areas where it may want to get different parts of the government to effect

share information and a cloud might facilitate that. there's areas we might have an agency like the national science foundation working with a number of universities across the country. there's many benefits to having certain information going to the cloud. now there are other areas where i would think we are not likely to see the government with as quickly. i wouldn't be an advocate of the navy putting the launch codes for the nuclear submarines in the data center that is run by a company. there's certain things the government should probably keep its own data centers and we will work through all of those questions. >> host: as far as security is concerned with the recent event in china teach about google's system on the cloud system? >> guest: i did what it tells is be as the industry are working hard to improve security, the security challenges continue to increase as well. it's a little bit like putting a strong verbal or your house and

putting a strong your block on your door but then realizing this is a higher crime neighborhood and i thought it was. and the world as a whole, when it comes to computer security has become a higher crime neighborhood than it was a decade ago it one of the challenges is when you put more information in the cloud in a data center it's easier to increase to become build strong stores but they also become bigger targets. they are more inviting targets and it means two things, we've the industry have to keep the lid down our investment to strengthen security. that's something we are doing at microsoft every day and others are, too. it's also an area we think congress needs to act and the government needs to act. there's areas of the law when it comes to computer security where the gaps need to be filled, the law needs to be modernized and we needed for some agencies to do things. they are going to need new technology. congress needs to give them more

resources and they are going to have to collaborate more closely to connect the dots because the security incidents are difficult to investigate. >> host: ideally what would you see as far as the enforcement side? who controls it within the reach of government and what power do they have? >> guest: for the most part will likely to seek enforcement authority reside where it is today. we have the fbi for example of the national level, the justice department, u.s. attorneys around the country. but the work that the fbi does a decade from now, five years from now it's going to have to be larger and more sophisticated than it is today not because it's more sophisticated today but because the target keeps moving. we as private companies are going to have to keep moving forward as well. we need to continue to do more things to collaborate. we have additional crime unit of microsoft that in just these things. we turn information to the fbi or other government agencies. we are going to have to continue to work closely inappropriate

ways to stay abreast of technology and threats. >> host: this is "the communicators," our guest is brad smith with microsoft, senior vice president and general counsel. also joining the wyatt kash. >> i want to point out many people and appreciate that the government is already doing successful working cloud computing. the defense systems to put race, rapid access computing environment where people can actually sign up for 24 hours of computing time to develop new tools for the military and a controlled cloud-based environment that's enough for about a year in the gsa is also doing some work with its usa.gov web site. what we're seeing this sort of the early experimentation to test the waters and i think many should be commended for that effort but i think the larger issues still remain when we go larger scale how do we address some of these security and also some of the privacy concerns,

would be curious your thoughts since the privacy of the public data is a very sensitive issue and probably one of the once congress will be taking a close look at. you mentioned some transparency but let's talk, how do you assure that the data and privacy sensitivity is addressed is the third party handlers are dealing with it? >> guest: i feel it is a key issue and you are absolutely right, the government is very sophisticated in these areas. fundamentally from and and visual perspective, i think that individuals should think about two things. what are the privacy rights, these of the company's that have their information and what are their privacy rights in the government and in particular the government's ability to get their information from the companies that have perhaps without having to all of the door of the individual first and let that person know. we have agreed important tradition, privacy is one of the distantly american values that

goes back to the bill of rights. it has all been protected and it's always been a challenging issue the last century as technology keeps changing the way personal when formation gets used. i think the key thing is for congress to act to keep the locker and with technology. it did a great job the these and it's something that needs to be done again. the balance was set right for the types of communications people were focused on in the 1980's which was a lot around the telephone conversations and early experience with email but technology has changed so much that the law has become quite antiquated. i think these companies, this is an area where the u.s. hasn't been at the forefront, europe has been at the forefront of and i think as americans we would benefit both in our own country for the u.s. to stay abreast and

expect and apply clear standards with companies and we would all benefit because the u.s. would play stronger leadership in the world in terms of coordinated with other governments. our government would have more influence in discussions with european governments for example if the had a more current law which to point. >> herraiz interesting thing there because as we missed the nationally and simply cases global computing centers we are now going across borders in which case the of rights and restrictions on what can happen with the data in those centers takes on a more global nature so how do you see that the evolving over the future and will that be an impediment to the development of global computing centers? >> i think the less government start to act is going to become an pediment and even it is starting to become an impediment. if you are in the cloud computing business it is a catch-22 waiting to happen. ford sibling might have one

country that says you must keep all of your data records about people searches for 12 months, at least 12 months because we want police to give to get access to them. you might have another country that says you better destroy all of that after six months because we care about privacy. let's say we have a diaz center running and ireland for example and the irish tell us to destroy the records after six months but we have the records of italians it the tools to keep it for 123 we cannot comply with both at the same time. this is where we just have a pressing need for government to come together. there will be a day i believe we will see in affect the free trade agreement for information, for data. but unfortunately that is a way off and the sooner the u.s. government can get started, the sooner it can get engaged in conversations with other governments, the suitor we can

start to take a bilateral step and the sooner we will get to a solution on a more global basis because it is a global solution that ultimately would be good to have. >> host: if this is a congressional issue who are you talking to? >> guest: it is for people in the house and senate especially on the judiciary committee's and commerce committees, the two committees that have traditionally past laws in this area. we are certainly engaged in conversations there. the good news is we are starting to have a broad conversation. our biggest point as a company has been to say we need a new national conversation about what technology means. and of course of a ultimately leads to capital will and the white house but it needs to start on main street and it needs to bring in business is and it needs to bring in consumer groups and it needs to bring interest of the industry and that is what we are starting to do and i'm very hopeful that out of that we will see the kind of consensus emerged that will encourage congress to act. what we have said is we think

congress should consider enacting a cloud computing and vince but act. this is an act that would strengthen the privacy law, fill the gaps of the security area and address some of the international issues and put the country back where bup laws of the forefront of the technology rather than at the lagging edge from a quarter-century ago. crusco the topic we talked about, is this a case companies cancel fridley themselves or to the policing itself? i know that in some cases because it seems to coming to capitol hill asking for more legislation and seems counterintuitive. >> guest: herraiz a good question and two lots, by any stretch of the imagination we need to be stepping forward. we need to be assuming responsibility as companies and industry. we need to be proactive and keep doing that day after day after day and did you get to the question what to do we need from government? there's two ways to think about

that. first, we need the government to fill in gaps in the law we are of privacy and security. beyond that, there is an interesting question of whether the industry itself feels a would be better off if there were a law of the federal level about something like the truth in cloud computing where we have truth in lending principles. usually people in the industry say no thank you. but in this case i think that there is reason to think a little bit more. if we don't get the auction at the federal level we will get action at the state level and get states with conflict in laws. if we don't get action at the federal level, we are definitely going to get action and other countries. if we want to have one law in the united states and what our own government to be influential part of the world on this issue there's a good reason to think harder about the possibility that maybe even people in the industry benefiting from federal action. >> mr. kash. >> i think one other aspect of this, too mize we look at the

cloud computing on a couple of different levels. rented infrastructure, its services in terms of software. it's a development platform. so one of the things the cloud is made of different services. do you feel that an advancement act would be able to cover all of the sort of the revolutions of the cloud computing services? >> guest: i think that cloud computing evidence that act could do a lot of good if it is put at the right altitude so to speak not to analogize the cloud even further. if the government tries to dictate a particular technological approaches and will enact a law we that will work for about two years and signed the technology overtakes at but if it takes a broad view and recognizes what we're talking about is moving information of the from the business and the desk to the cloud and thinks about it in that way. if it focuses on a process he's

like providing consumers with information i think it's possible to write a law we the will do a lot of good and avoid the pitfalls one what confront if one tries to do too much. host what is the ultimate goal for companies, you remember the site could own. that computer lost information and if i recall it was it a microsoft device? >> guest: it was a device we didn't have responsibility for, we acquired from another company, so it was a problem we had to solve. >> host: talk about what happens now part of solving the problems it doesn't happen again? what is going on making sure they don't have an? >> guest: there is a set of precautions that one needs to build into the technology as a company in this business. you need to have strong protections for security so other people are not able to hack their way and which was the

incident that google confronted recently. you need reliability said that you're own systems are operating in a strong way. you need to be clear with your customers so they know exactly what they are getting. you tell them are you keeping copies in particular places, as the service provider to you wanted to keep another copy somewhere? these are all questions one needs to work through as you enter a new technological era and deal with a new kind of computing infrastructure. >> host: is there a legal process as far as the legality of you lost my information and i can't find it so what are my legal rights on that? >> guest: they're basically is. it is another good example of the need for clarity. whenever you sign a free service let's say you sign up for e-mail service you will get this agreement that pops up that is called terms of use. it is actually worth reading. it's worth printing out and reading on a piece of paper

perhaps because that should tell you how those kind of issues are addressed. this is the kind of thing though i think maybe we would all benefit if there is a clear set of principles that tells us what information we should provide, how we should provide it. if i and all the choice to automobiles none of this on to see an air bag because if we see it is because we are in an accident but we want the ability to compare with a different cars have air bags and how they work. as long as you get information out in a transparent way you can let the consumer reports politicians of the world go to work and inform consumers about how different companies are offering different things and people can decide what they care about and they can make an informed choice about what they want to do. >> host: time for one more question. >> microsoft is responsible in many ways for people having their own personal experience on computers and servers as well. one of the dilemma is people don't want to give that up.

sign to raise the mcleod computing represents taking that and putting their information and control over in a new place. so how do you envision getting past the cultural inertia of making the cloud computing every alladi? >> guest: to fit on the point is fundamentally we care deeply about. the personal computer revolution made competing personal. it democratized technology. and let people decide what they want to use a computer for, how they want to use it, where they want to keep their it formation, when they want to share it with whom they want to share. people shouldn't have to give that up. we as an industry should do a good job of creating the cloud computing offerings that people to make choices, personalized the computing experience. if we don't, then i think consumers should say wait a second we are not sure we want to follow you to this new country that you're talking about. certainly we at