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nouri critical book as far as u.s. foreign policy is concerned at least with the beginning of the clinton had been a station and then from the second bush administration. you clearly disagreed with the direction u.s. foreign policy director during this period. that is why i was struck with the last sentence in the book and the last sentence says i

began in close despair and one of encouragement and hope. if the nation can face up to its mistakes and correct them, it will prove that the faith in america shared by ronald reagan and abroad, is not displaced. why more optimistic now? >> guest: i'm still optimistic for the last year the months since i wrote that have seen some setbacks but mainly i was impressed by the fact that obama during his campaign and also so far in the administration has placed the nuclear issue back in the forefront of our attention. the issue that reagan and gorbachev dealt with and i thought headed us in the right direction toward bringing nuclear weapons under control and eliminating them as a final thing. so his espousal of that early on

and the negotiation with russia to give me encouragement. also in other areas it seemed to me that the obama administration was taking a turn that was much more in accord with our interest than with the previous at minister since had. for example, in the middle east where i think it is a very clear that israel will not be able to achieve security unless they stop the settlements and began a real negotiations and clearly that has been an issue you also that the obama administration has taken on. >> host: the word registered democrat but almost prominent foreign policy positions under two republican presidents, ronald reagan and george bush. it's also very clear from your book that you admire ronald reagan.

>> guest: absolutely. >> host: how did it happen that you became his foreign policy assistant adviser on all matters russian? the reason i'm asking is you were a career foreign service officer. you were known as a pragmatist. you were registered democrat. and then ronald reagan, welcome here was an ideologue, the ultimate cold warrior. why did he turn to you to have this is very important position? >> guest: first of all, my being registered democrat was never relevant because i never considered foreign policy an issue. yes, i was considered a very strong hard-liner in dealing with the soviet union, but i also had lived there. i knew russia. i knew the other nationalities, and i knew that soviet ideology was not the whole story. and i found in ronald reagan leader who understood how to

deal with people. understood that you need to stay in communication. understood that if you are going to convince other people to do what you would like them to do you must convince them it's in their interest. so in working with reagan, and i think he picked me probably because george shultz recommended a, i was the most senior for an officer of that time who specialized in the soviet union but i think he picked me because they knew that number 1i was a hardliner in terms of dealing with the communist system but also i knew russia and i knew the country and i sympathize with his desire to conduct negotiations the would change behavior. >> host: it's a very interesting point. he came to office with a desire to change soviet behavior.

today a lot of historians ask about many conservatives. they claim that when reagan came to the white house he immediately wanted to destroy the soviet union, the soviet empire. was it his objective? >> guest: note that was not his objective. obviously he considered the soviet union an evil empire that had been. but when it began to change and he was convinced it could be changed because much of their policies were not in their national interest, once they began to change he recognized that and when he visited moscow in may of 1988 he was asked is this still an evil empire and he said no. that was in the past. and when he was asked than who is responsible for this change he said mr. gorbachev of course. he is the leader of this country. this is his aim to anyone who

reads his memoir and the diaries he read at the time that have been published recognizes that that had been his goal all along. he knew very well you can't bring down a country by bringing pressure to bear because if you bring nothing but pressure to bear without giving them a negotiating option you strengthen the autocratic tendencies and the nationalist tendencies. so he was able to couch what we wanted in terms of cooperation and looking at things that we had the common interests that was the essence of his diplomacy. now, of course we had to wait until you had gorbachev to have a responsible soviet leader. if we hadn't had gorbachev this might not have worked.

but also, the hostile policies were not making the soviet union weaker. the soviet union's problems for internal. and by me trying to change the external policies, we made it possible for gorbachev when he agreed to think of internal reforms. >> host: ronald reagan again common perception is that he came to office determined to launch against the soviet union and he said a lot of things which at the time at least found it rather prerogative. today most people would agree with including probably even russian leaders, but at that time it was quite controversial. yet you are telling in the book is fascinating story about president reagan shortly after the assassination attempt writing out brezhnev to the

state department giving it can you tell about that? >> guest: that shows his initial instinct wants to noncontact, to try to deal with the soviet leader's as leaders who were not only communist ideologues but also had the interest of their country at heart if we could explain them. and of course brezhnev turned down that attempt. i'm not sure it was brezhnev, i think it was the foreign minister who seemed to control foreign policy in those last years. and so, but then what reagan tried to do and brought me on the staff to do was to develop a strategy for dealing with the soviet leader's and in effect he developed a strategy to

emphasize cooperation, to emphasize common interest so that we were in place that when you got a reform like gorbachev we already had our policies ready for that sort of soviet leader. >> host: what you are saying the essentially if i understand correctly is ronald reagan had strong convictions which was also a result oriented person and he was prepared to work with whomever was in power even if that leader wasn't as attractive and in net as brezhnev. >> guest: absolutely and many on his staff whenever we had a staff crisis, corrine airliner shot down and over to under 60 people killed including americans, or an american officer shot in east germany their advisers say we've got to stop talking to them. we will show them. we won't talk to them. reagan said we are not going

that route. we do not walk away from negotiating tables and if there are problems in the tension that is all the more reason to talk to them because we are not going to get anywhere by walking away from negotiation. >> host: again if i understand correctly while reagan strongly believe in dialogue with whomever was in power as the states could be he also was not my deep enough to think that the great communications skill alone, accommodation, sincerity would bring results. how did he want to persuade the soviets to move into the direction? >> guest: he believed in negotiation from the position of strength and that was the reason for his initial buildup, military buildup because he felt we needed more strength to negotiate effectively. he did not think of this as

something to use to start a war, but he understood that you need strength to negotiate. you might need poker chips on the table to trade if it comes to that. but in particular he felt he needed the cross to the soviet leader's that number one we don't want an arms race but if you insist on one you're going to lose. this is one of his goals when he went to the last meeting with gorbachev. he wrote in a mill and put forth his goals and the main one was i must convince him if he continues the arms race he's going to lose it and you know two years later less than two years later we know now gorbachev was lecturing the bureau saying their military-industrial complex wants us to get in an arms race because they know we will lose it.

congress, reagan had a right you must convince the other side then they will gain nothing by their military buildup. that gives them incentive to build down which was our goal. >> host: about to ask out when he began to see the changes in the soviet union in this period of the full disclosure on a initially did not expect gorbachev to go very far. i thought here was another russian soviet leader like nikita khrushchev, like alexander ii who would try liberal reforms but at a certain point he would discover reforms lead to a centralization. the centralization empire and then they would stop and they would begin going back. i went to moscow for the first time after my immigration in october, 1987 back to the accompanying secretary shultz as

a journalist. i was working at that time for cbs news, and i was in moscow for a very short period of time but what impressed me, and i could not see it from the distance i could see it only in moscow what impressed me gorbachev started much bigger than he originally intended. there was a process of change, momentum of change, which was becoming almost unstoppable that not only gorbachev wanted change, but people were changing. you came to moscow in 1987. at what point did you begin to think, at what point did you begin advising president reagan and secretary shultz that something significant was happening in the soviet union? >> guest: gorbachev's policies were a moving train and initially i was agnostic. by initially 85 when he became

general secretary, and i suggested from the very beginning a strategy which i call pushing the envelope. let's see how far he will go and one of the first pushes is will he expand exchanges, will he begin to bring down the iron curtain. and when he signed on to a very extensive change agreement in geneva, november 85, we said there may be a possibility. let's keep pushing. actually, i felt my own thinking turned a corner finally in may of 1988. when i read the thesis for the party that was coming up that had no marxism in them. it was purely a design for democratizing the soviet union, and i told reagan at that point, he was on his way to moscow. i read the thesis and i said if he means this and he must

because he put it out officially for the communist party this country will never be the same and so at that point i realized and then when he continued with elections and continued these reforms it became clearer and clearer that he was something different and he was serious. but, you know, the change was gradual and i think that many of us who knew the soviet union were at first certainly a bit skeptical. how far could he go? with a stop him before he got to a certain point? >> host: one of the most important and controversial points of your book is that the united states did not win the cold war. that actually gorbachev had done almost as much to bring the outcome would ever definition you want to offer for this outcome as reagan. on the surface it is

counterintuitive, there is the soviet union no more, the soviet empire is no more. there is no iron curtain. even russia now has a free market economy. isn't this what the united states wanted to accomplish throughout the cold war? why it was not american victory. >> guest: i see it wasn't an american victory in the military since the way many people think. i don't say we didn't win. yes, we won but they did, too, because the agreements we made to end the cold war were also in the interest of the soviet union. now, as you pointed out, yes the system was changing. but i think three things happened at the end of the 80's, the beginning of the 90's that are connected, but they are not the same. the end of the cold war, the cold war ended before the communist rule was undermined in the soviet union and before the

soviet union collapsed. it ended by negotiation and the interest of both parties. the then communist rule eroded in the soviet union not because of our pressure, but because of gorbachev's's policies when he saw the party opposing the reforms, he began to take the party out of control. and once he had done that, then the internal contradictions within the soviet union brought it down so the people who feel that our pressure or that it was something like a military victory got it all wrong because we didn't bring the soviet union down by extra pressure and the soviet union didn't come down because they lost the war. became down because the system itself could not be maintained without force. and when gorbachev took the force out.

so when the people mixup these things, and of course they had been been very quick succession they happened when most people didn't expect them and so they conflict is in their mind as of the soviet union was the end of the cold war, but that is not the case. >> host: you were in moscow as u.s. ambassador during most interesting and important years of a profound change in the soviet union, 1987, 1991. and you build with gorbachev, yeltsin and a wide range of russian politicians. i remember you had not only the official residence, you also had a lot of seminars and you made the house the american club in moscow. do you think these people not just gorbachev but his associates, russian soviet political leaders of the time,

did the understand what they were doing? what was the likely outcome of the effort, the collapse of the employer, of the nation as the new rate? >> guest: we did not encourage the breakup of the soviet union as such. we did all we could to encourage them to move in a space fashion to understand how the market economy works and things of that sort and yes we would bring in the electors who would like your other men russian about things that were internal to the soviet union. including things of history. i had robert, a biography of stalin, come and appear with the general who was also writing a biography of stalin to talk about unanswered questions of stalin and we had fascinated audiences. i had a lawyer from new york

come and speak about first amendment rights at the time they were considering fell law on the press and we had people in front of the thing. so we did try to spread ideas about how democracy works. we didn't try overtly to pick up the soviet union also we did treat each of the republics with respect. when i went to ukraine my speeches were in ukrainian of language for example, but in that sense we were trying to promote democracy without interference. and i think that it made the house at that time a meeting ground of the various fractions. sometimes russians would tell me we work weakish outside but when we meet here we make a lot of political deals because of neutral grounds so far internal politics. so i think there was a very useful thing to do. >> host: do you think gorbachev and his associates,

closest allies, the aide, people who you know very well, do you think that they understood the magnitude of what they were doing and the likely outcome of the collapse of the soviet union? >> guest: not that the likely outcome was a collapse of the soviet union. i think what they were looking for was help towards the democratization cited and help in understanding how you go about dealing with the atomic difficulties that were facing them. and i must say we didn't push it consciously towards collapse. we said all along that the three baltic countries should be allowed their independence but we never recognize them as part of the soviet union. but you know president bush made a speech in kiev in august of '91 endorsing the union treaty among other things coming subside nationalism.

having in mind georgia at that time making the point they should choose freedom and freedom and independence are not synonymous. these were important fox so we were not trying to bring down the soviet union as such but support gorbachev's democratization efforts. what we hope to see was a voluntary federation. one would be voluntary the would-be democratic. and we thought would be totally consistent with american interest. >> host: what was totally consistent with american interest was the image of the united states and the soviet union at the time. you were very popular, president reagan was popular, george shultz was popular, the secretary was popular, and i think there was a feeling that the united states was a force for good in the world and more specifically that the united states was a special friend of

the soviet union as long as the soviet union wanted to have space reform and wanted to be a benign presence in global affairs. as you know very well, it's a little more complicated in terms of america and russia. what does the american image in russia in your view today is what happened in this image has deteriorated? >> guest: of course this is one of the themes in my book is that our policies beginning in the 90's have and then continuing through the second bush administration have conveyed to the russians perhaps inadvertently but conveyed to the russians that we consider them enemies. we don't consider them equals even when they were supporting all of our policies. i think that there were mistaken policies at that time which have been understood in russia as being hostile therefore we now

have a situation that we have difficulty finding the common interests which are out there of the two countries. and i think that if the obama administration has started us back on the to getting back on track but we still have a way to go. >> host: what would you do if you were in the obama administration advising the president with russia? >> guest: first of all, we need to be at the nuclear genie back in the bottle. you know reagan and gorbachev and the first bush administration we made great progress in reducing the threat of nuclear weapons. progress that has virtually stopped. i think it is close to in saying both the united states and russia still have over a thousand nuclear weapons, enough to destroy the world, deployed. why? there is no reason i can see.

it's a danger. we left that whole nuclear danger east cape our attention in the 90's and during the second bush administration, and i think we need to get back and the obama administration is moving back in the right direction. but there are a number of other issues also that if we need to get back and i go into some of those in the book. basically i think that american and russian security interests are much more consistent than in conflict and we need to find ways to get back to the cooperation the reagan administration and first bush administration carried out and get away from the confrontations the developed subsequently.

>> host: you knew boris yeltsin and mikhail gorbachev. could you speak for a couple of minutes about both of them and the relationship and how it contributed to the demise of the soviet union? >> guest: the relationship -- reagan and gorbachev developed of course over a period of several years from one of almost complete hostility to issue their position to a common position of nuclear weapons. they were both nuclear abolitionists. they both felt humankind is not going to survive ultimately if we don't keep these under control and eventually 18 them and i think that you had a true believers in the nuclear issue and they took us a long way to

that particular vision i think has been lost in the 90's and there is a chance that the obama administration is trying to recapture it. but i think that is the big thing that found reagan and gorbachev. the common conviction that we need to eliminate nuclear weapons, that they are a surge of mankind. >> host: and what about yeltsin? >> guest: healton -- you know, yeltsin was a much more elemental figure, and i think you begin to put the destruction of the soviet union ahead of these other issues. and i think that yeltsin would have gone along for the abolition of nuclear weapons if the united states hadn't moved with issues such as the nato

expansion, the bombing of serbia, actions which seem to leave russia out of it and i think those were big geopolitical mistakes and need the clinton administration and they were not corrected in the second bush administration. >> "after words" and several other c-span programs are available for podcast. more with jack matlock and dimitri simes in a moment.