first. it has a lot of the same qualities as broadcast, trusted, fact-checked. we can argue about whether it's transparent or objective or balanced or what -- you know, how to interpret those terms. there's an entire panel of debate on that. but it also has some of these other qualities that we see in the projects that are not only news-based. it gauges people's curiosity. it makes them go deeper, to explore more. it links out to other sources and brings people into dialog. so you can see a lot of that happening on the -- on the websites and apps and games and everything else on the public media sites but you can also see it happening out in the world. and there are a lot of new ways in which people are being engaged online. and so part of the challenge of the next phase -- and even something like the public media platform will change the way that the broadcast productions make their way out into the world. part of the challenge of the next phase is to identify not

just the most obvious things but some of the really kind of -- the things that are going to germinate and turn into something exciting. >> thank you. >> i mean, the only thing i would add to that -- i think that part of the way forward and part of what will instigate a real change is to broaden the pool of stakeholders. i mean, i think what we have, you know, in a lot of instances is us talking to each other. and i think that opening up the communication with the audience or the public or the user, you know, really changes the nature of what we're talking about. i mean, one of the things -- like we approached our project thinking like, oh, we've got these terrific assets. people want them. we just need to make them available. and what we found is we don't have the right assets to engage certain communities. we need different kinds of content. you know, the information needs are different. and through how we've approached it, is how do we as public media

organizations make our content more available and not -- how does that content resonate with people? where is it sailing to meet the needs of people? and how do we really have a two-way conversation so that those needs are reflected in what we do. >> okay. anybody else want to get in on this? okay. we have another question. >> good morning, thank you one and all. i'm jameala bay, former npr, now a freelance journalist. where are the new ideas coming from? we all think public media is wonderful. we all agree with one another about the content and the types of stories and the types of programming that gets done across the various platform. but considering that what

happens on public -- in public media and what happens in media that arbitron and other measures are looking at, there is such a disparity. what is propelling the ideas moving forward so that we can bring more of america into public media with different ideas and different voices? >> well, i would say those ideas are coming from everywhere these days and it's out of necessity. you know, it's not just collaboration. you know, our partners -- i mean, it was -- it was almost -- i mean, it's commonsense the public networks started in the public media space because it, you know, public media already has a strong history of connecting with communities and strengthening communities that's built into our dna. i'm not so sure that is and has always been the case in commercial media. but i can tell you someone who

has visited numerous newsrooms in the last three years, that innovation is there. i mean, it requires a little spark and a little juice to get it going, but, you know, and i'm not just talking about, you know, big media companies like, you know, with the "new york times" and the "washington post." i'm talking about places like, you know, oregon public broadcasting and the center for investigative reporting and, you know, little startups like inews. so the ideas are out there. i think it just takes some willpower and frankly it takes the power of institutions. i mean, we have an obligation, i think, as large media companies, whether we're legacy or we're new, to, you know, bring those ideas to the market and test them and not be afraid to fail. and that's, you know, typically not been the hallmark of commercial media. i mean, there's a lot of capital at risk when you fail. but that's what i think is going to be the key. >> anybody else want to weigh in on that? >> well, i think the earlier

question about why can't public radio and public television be the same thing is that, you know, when i look at -- when i listen to wmau and what they can do on the air and i look at wnet and weta and what they do on the air, it's a really huge difference between the capacity of public radio to be responsive and the capacity of public television to be responsive. i mean, the newshour, you know, is our nimble fish but, you know, we have a lot of theories that take a long time to turn around, that cost a lot of money. and a lot of local stations that just don't have the capacity anymore to produce local programming. and i think that's one of the things that's been lost in the budget debate is that what's happened is the local stations have lost their capacity to be -- the local tv stations to be responsive in the way public radio can be responsive. and i think that's something that we don't really talk about, but that has to at some point find its way into the -- into

the discussion. >> linda is going take -- >> i just want to follow-up on that because i agree with you that the difficulties for this public tv stations at the local level stem from a combination of things, but funding is a big part of it. it just cost a lot more to do television program than it does to do a radio program but that's where i think the platform -- the digital platform comes in. that's what hari was demonstrating that there is a way to collaborate online without spending enormous amounts of money involved in television production and to take advantage of the resources of the radio reporting community as well as the community you're speaking about and the independent producers community. that's where i see the most bank for the buck in terms of collaborative ventures and then everybody takes whatever the

common product is and does something for their own medium. but it begins and flourishes online. >> and janet spoke of a radio station who has cameras to aid their online reporting and npr is doing the same so increasingly we're all coming together. do we have another question? we have one more here. [inaudible] >> hmmm? i'm sorry. we have someone with a microphone. >> i'm linda, cohost of chronicles on pbs and public education and government access channels. and so far i have not heard anybody discuss public education and government access. these are very, very dedicated stations across the united states. there are about 2,000 of them. they're very eager to get programming. they have very talented staff. it won't cost you a lot of money

to get your shows on. and i think that's something as i said where they've not really been engaged from what i can hear from conversations here. and they're an untapped resource so i'd like somebody to comment on these channels. >> okay. you're quite right. we did -- we did draw a line around public broadcasting but, jessica, you've done some work in this area. >> one of the ways in which we've been talking about expanding the term "public media" is to include all of the nonprofit media outlets that -- not just receive money through cpb but have sort of federal support and state support in different ways. and the public access stations have been feeling kind of aggrieved because suddenly the public broadcasters realize oh, maybe we should talk to our audience. that would be a good idea. where they've been sort of pioneering this access and volunteerism and thoughts for voice for many of years. the thoughts they are extremely underresourced. they have to fight for their

survival state-by-state and they are facing the same transition that the public broadcasters are. so to make this shift from analog to digital in a moment of great competition. so part of what we've been examining at the new america foundation is how those access centers can become hubs for moving people into digital access. and become hubs for community news and hyper local news and become viable partners for local tv stations who don't have the capacity to produce things that represent their community. so there's definitely an opportunity there. there are definitely, you know, great examples of invention. and the dialog should be much more robust than it is currently. >> yes. this is going to be our last question 'cause we've promised c-span we'll finish. >> i'm honored to be the last question of the day. my name is dan. i'm an independent producer who in part creates the projects for

pbs and other independent producer programs. i'd like to hear as maybe a final question in the future moving forward -- and we talked about localization and serving very specific geographic audiences and we talked about focusing very deeply on stories, so following a story. and maybe those are potentially two different audiences where there may be a community around a story that is vastly different -- different in its geography. that maybe extends over the borders of our country and how do you balance both your editorial resources and your technology resources to serve those two different audiences moving forward? thank you. >> okay. don't all speak at once. [laughter] >> hari, do you have a thought about that? [laughter] >> i'm sorry the question is how do you balance your

editorial and what resources? technology resources. [inaudible] >> a community that's interested in a topic these days. >> yes. [inaudible] >> well, i think geography, i think, matters less and less over time for more and more people. i know that there are certain issues -- yeah, i have a gas line down. it's in my neighborhood. that's really relevant to me on a geographic moment. if i'm interested in ag journalism it doesn't matter i live in dc i can find her website. i think over time people will gravitate towards -- you saw on the "washington post" trove.com and you're building topics interesting to you. over time i don't know the geography factor is important. you'll have a large consumer base of people outside of that geography that might end up subsidizing the cost of production of whatever it is that you're trying to get done,

no? >> what is the impact of that on local stations? >> i mean, i think that there's a -- i think one of the biggest challenges we have is that geography actually matters a lot. and topics matter a lot. and part of what we are trying to say to stations is to focus on both but to figure out which parts of those two stories so that they can handle distinctly. so when wamu decides to focus on race and class as a niche that they can own in the washington area, that brings them a different kind of audience. it lets them focus deeply on a particular subject matter. and that subject matter actually has a potential national audience that they can also reach out to. the same time, we're in places -- working with people like michigan public radio on broad local news blogs that are focused on owning the region but not in a way that says go chase

every car crash that a local -- or murder case that a local tv station might cover or that a local paper might cover. find the stories that are distinctive that are being missed as dick said earlier in the conversation. go where the competition isn't going and let that help you stand out in this very crowded media world that we're all working in. >> okay. >> i have to say i agree with mark. i started by saying that new york is an incredible newstown and that's true but our biggest most important newspaper the "new york times" have cut back significantly on local coverage and i think it's no accident that hyper local blogs have blossomed over the last couple of years because people both have a desire for geographically-specific local news and a hunger to express what is going on in their neighborhoods and that's the part about what makes digital journalism so exciting is that there's these instantaneous

abilities to connect with your audience. when i think about the most emotional experience i've had as a consumer of public media, it was probably listening to the clinton inauguration and specifically maya angelou's poem in my car in los angeles where i was living at the time. it was a private, you know, emotional -- emotional interaction. if i had been doing that today, in a digital forum, i would have had an ability to express that feeling and participate in a community. and i think that's sort of what the future is. >> well, thank you to our panel. you've all been fabulous. [applause] >> we said that the perfect of this program was to talk about the future of public broadcasting. i think by the end we've talked

about the future of public media and of public information and of the public. so thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> closing out our coverage of this discussion on the future of public broadcasting. a quick reminder that you can see this event in its entirety as well as much of our programming on our website, c-span.org. be sure to join us later when we will unveil another of our first place winners from our recent studentcam video documentary contest. we've been announcing our winners all this week on "washington journal." and you can see the latest award winning video at 7:15 pm eastern right here on c-span2. and we'll have more from booktv tonight during our prime time schedule. we'll begin at 8:00 pm eastern

with newscaster carol simpson and her book news lady. >> the c-span networks we provide coverage of politics, public affairs, nonfiction books, and american history. it's all available to you on television, radio, online and on social media networking sites. and find our content anytime through c-span's video library.

and we take c-span on the road with our digital bus, local content vehicle. bringing our resources to your community. it's washington your way. the c-span networks, now available in more than 100 million homes, created by cable, provided as a public service. >> a discussion now on chinese foreign policy. we'll hear about the interests of various factions within the country and how that impacts china's approach to its neighbors and the u.s. this is part of a day long conference organized by george washington university here in washington, d.c. it's about an hour. >> here we go. [inaudible] >> i'm going to thank -- [inaudible] >> i want to thank henry deepa and david for inviting me here. this has provided me an opportunity to exercise the muscle i haven't exercised in

about two years since i left rand and joined the nsc so it's a real pleasure sitting down with henry and deepa's introductory's paper yesterday. i think they are well-known to most of you in the audience. i can't think of two better people to be writing this paper, to kind of depict the reins of power in china on foreign policy issue. in particular i commend the policy-oriented focus of henry and deep's project. those of us who were in the think tank academic world for a while and when you step in policy, it's easy to forget how much value there is in understanding the kind of intellectual landscape in the particular countries you're looking at. and i thought both henry's chapter and david did a very

nice job not only laying out the debates but then trying to talk about the policy oriented focus of them. i thought what i would do is make four very brief comments about the paper as the chair. and then hand it over to david and mike. the paper is a great paper, as i anticipated. no better people than david to do that. it's comprehensive. it's well documented. there is a second paper in just reading the footnotes as is david's stock and trade. you learn a lot by just seeing who's writing about what within china. it provides for a detailed descriptions of not only the subjects being debated in china, whether that's harmonious development, peaceful developments, but i think the real virtue of the paper is when they lay out the spectrum of discourse in china's foreign policy community.

so it's a wonderful paper and i think the comments will only make it better. i would have four -- i'll make four very brief comments because i'm the chair and i'm not the discussant. the first is while there is real value in being comprehensive. in some ways, you know, this is the story of china. china is a big place. lots of people. it's very diverse. there is real value in analytic parsimony and i finished the paper thinking i have a much richer understanding of what's going on in china today. but on the other hand, there's a lot going on in china today. and for those of you that have studied china or even in a cursory looked at foreign policy debates in china, there's just so much going on that, you know, at the end of the paper you're left with thinking, okay, what really matters. so this is something that all of us as china specialists struggle with. it's certainly not a weaknesses

of the paper but to the extent possible, i think they tried to highlight what were some of the dominant trends that were useful. second excellent, i think the paper would benefit from some comment about what is not being debated in china. i'm often struck by how little discussion there is among both ir specialists and china specialists about what's not going on. the choices china is not making and in the case of this particular paper, what is not being debated. even the most kind of conservative schools of thought which david and renchow rightly term the nativist is not the school of thought in my understanding is articulating a highly revisionist image or agenda of the international system. point number 3, it would be very useful if the paper at some

point linked the schools of thought, this kind of -- this range or spectrum from the knave nativists to the debatists in the first part of the paper and then link these debates to overall behavior. something that i was struck by as i made the transition from the think tank world at rand of the china policy of trying to devise policy was that, you know, sometimes there seemed to be a distincture what's being debated by analysts in china and what you see in terms of foreign policy behavior. that's not terribly surprising because as we all know there are multiple different influences on the behavior of the state. there's bureaucratic politics and i think it would be useful to tie the debates going on in

china to some of the key decisions that we pay attention to in government. chinese policies on north korea, chinese policies on iran. chinese policies on policies on the north sea and the east china sea. in particular, some of us in government were struck by the fact that we know that there's a very robust debate going on within china about this whole concept of hiding your time, biding your capabilities. and what does this grand strategy mean for china and at the same time the debate is going on you see some particularly assertive behavior and just trying to understand that. the last point i'll make is on the policy implications. i thought they did a nice job of sketching out the policy implications. the key issue is how do you shape chinese behavior when you understand the spectrum of reviews. we have evidence to bear on some of this. over the last 30 years, there's

several areas in which u.s. policy, i would argue, has had a defining influence on shaping chinese behavior. in particular, chinese behavior on international trade, chinese behavior on nonproliferation and then, of course, chinese approach toward multilateralism especially in east asia context. and when you look at those cases it's not as simple as, you know, re-enforcing the voices you like in china and being mean to the guys that you don't like in china. it's definitely not that simple. so i would encourage the authors to look at what's the mix of incentives and disincentives as a way to re-enforce those views that we think are consistent with u.s. interests and to do the opposite. so let's see. i'm 2 minutes over. why don't i hand it over to david to discuss his paper. thank you. >> thanks very much, evan, for getting us starting on a good

place. i'm sorry if i gave our panel chair and henry and deepa a little scare by getting her at 9:30. the washington metro system being what it is, not as efficient as the beijing metro system, it wasn't cooperating. i got stuck between a couple of stations. so anyway, i made it. i'm here. and i'm really pleased on behalf of my colleague and co-author who is a professor at the university but for two years at least he's been seconded to the chinese embassy in tokyo which is why physically he's not here. he is, in fact, one of a kind of growing trend, something the chinese had actually learned from the united states in a positive way. that is academics like evan who go into government and then in theory come out. we'll see if you come out, evan. >> eventually. [laughter] >> i promise. >> anyway, it's the real strength of the american system, the chinese have in the last two or three years begun to adopt

that as well. renchow is one or six who have gone from academia to government. and that's why he's not here but he's left it to me to present our paper. so this is difficult to summarize in a 13,000 word 28-page paper in 20 minutes but i'll try and i thank you, evan, for the four points that you've just offered. indeed, this will go into the next, i think, fifth draft i've never written -- in my whole life i've written lots of paper and i've never written more drafts than this one has required and there's one more draft and i'll just incorporate what you just said and what mike is about to. >> the intraslide. i'm technologically challenged and not all accustomed to powerpoint presentations so i'll

do my best this morning. china, i would argue, is -- maybe i'm a little biased 'cause i'm a china specialist, but it's the world's most important rising power. this is a project about rising powers. some rising powers are more important than others. this one, i think, is very important. wherever we turn every day we see this. we see china, you know, gobbling up global resources, soaking up foreign investment, increasingly investing abroad itself as evan just noted. recently pushing -- throwing its weight around the asian neighborhood. being the long sought-after suit suiter in global democracy. and throwing itself in the waters most recently the mediterranean. broadening its global cultural presence and trying -- trying to acquire soft power and managing a mega economy that is the engine of global growth. so this is no ordinary rising

power. in fact, one might question whether it is rising. maybe it's already risen. but how to -- how to deal with this rising power is the grand strategic question of our era. and what kind of actor will china be on the international stage is really the key question before all of analysts and policy practitioners so indeed there are many, many variables who will answer that second question, how china will actually behavior on the international change. this project and this chapter in this chapter is a slide of only one of those many variables, the perceptive variable. and it looks at only one slice of chinese perceptions. it looks at how the chinese see their own international role. that's different than, say, how the chinese see the united states or how the chinese see

brazil or whatever. this paper, this chapter is about how the chinese see themselves in the international system. so that is -- it's a kind of sub-subset, okay? and we argue that china is a conflicted rising power. .. >> in '01. >> 01. 10 years ago, my goodness. he had presence at that time. i refer you back to that very fine volume way which

he noted the chinese foreign policy process was beginning to pluralize. many actors, institutional and others were getting into the act and it was no longer controlled by the foreign ministry. here we are 10 years later, could not be more true. we as analysts i think need to dig deep into this pluralized policy-making process. it's very hard and i don't envy people like evan who actually have to manage a policy to deal with pluralized process. that is what other countries have to do with the united states every day. point number one, china is becoming more like the united states. it is just a pluralized, messy, often difficult, often untransparent, incoherent actor. that's one point. okay. so we look in our chapter at this discourse which is very diverse. you might wonder why in a

authoritarian, one-party state with a strong propaganda apparatus and enormously strong internal security ap -- apparatus exercising itself lately isn't there kind of a coherence of views? answer, no. there is no coherence of views. there is huge, animated ongoing debates about a whole variety of issues. the paper goes into detail on each of these seven issues that are being debated. there are indeed other issues that are being debated but these are sort of the seven principle ones we look at. there is no time to walk ourselves through them but to simply note these are the topics which chinese pundits, policymakers, academics think-tankers, so forth, have been most fixated over the last few years. okay. so just put those on the table. what we then do is try to,

hope you can see that slide. we disaggregate the discourse into seven schools. i think evan just made a very good point in his comments. that we need in the next draft of the paper to marry better the seven issues to the seven schools. and that can be easily done in a matrix. i should have done it already but will do so in the next draft. anyway, we see a spectrum of views that emerge in the chinese discourse about its own international identity. this is a spectrum about china's own global roles and we find that there are these discernable tendencis. those of us who were schooled in the soviet union a long time ago you will remember tendency analysis, skilling and griffith, 1961 or something. but this is the literature i would argue we need to draw upon because these are

tendencies. these are fluid debates. these are not fixed debates. it's not easy. in fact i would argue it's impossible to tie schools of thought to particular institutions or even individuals. our interviews with william individuals for this project shows the chinese strategic thinkers are eclectic. they are not coherent, a bit like us. they will say one thing that will fit in one school. the next sentence will be another thing that fits in a different school. so it's very hard to pigeonhole people and institutions to schools. having said that though, these seven distinct tendencies emerge. and when we get into the rest of the project this morning and if you read henry nao's introductory chapter these seven schools are similar to but different from his three schools. he identifies in the india

paper, colleague written identify three predominant schools. nationalist, realist, globalist. well these seven schools essentially fit that broader template with the nativists realists on the left-hand side what they call nationalists. the three central schools which are essentially regionalists fitting they are realists category. henry and i need to talk a bit about realism. and the selective multilateralists and globalists fitting there, sorry. their globalists category. okay. so we then and this probably you can not see. the print is too small. i apologize for that. it is definitely too small. i told you i'm just learning powerpoint. but what this slide tries to do is just look at each school along three indices. what are the idea ages of

each school and policy goals of each school and what are the tactics each school uses to try to achieve its goals. i tried to do for the chinese. again for the sake of time we'll walk through this but there are very distinct origins and goals and tactics that each adopts. then i steal an idea from dick samuels paper at least in moscow at our last sfwaerting. -- gathering. dick, you had a very nice chart graphic. your position japanese schools were on kind of a active-passive, pro and anti--u.s. spectrum. so i tried to position myself schools on a similar kind of spectrum and what you find is what you hopefully can see, the good news here is that the major powers, the globalists and the asia first-responders are potential candidates for cooperation with the united states.

selective multilateralists to some extent as we argue in the paper the selective multilateralists they're selective. they're cooperating multilaterally only because they have to because they will be shaled in the international community for not cooperating. they do as little as possible with kind of as high-profile as possible. it is tactical though. it is not philosophical. they do not buy into the global, western liberal agenda. you have nativists and realists and global south schools who i would argue not anti--u.s. necessarily although nativists are and realists are but they're certainly anti--american agenda. that is another way to think of these schools in policy terms in policy terms. maybe i can sharpen it. what are the policy implications for the united states if this came through? correctly there should on three colors own the slide. first color being the

school. second color, second sentence, second color being basically, you know, very short and sweet. where do they stand on the u.s. and the third color being what should the u.s. do about it or think about them? so we see here the nativist deeply hostile to the americans. what should we do? ignore them, basically but be aware of them because they represent, i would argue, very deep strands of thinking in chinese society and china's foreign policy is increasingly reflecting strand in society. the realists, they seek to challenge the united states and to above all strengthen china. that is their main goal. and, so, what does that mean for us? well it means that those that argue for strategic hedging argue that's the best way to deal with such a semirevisionist, realist state. the major powers school, this is the good news for the united states. these are the guys we can work with. they want to work with us.

we saw that on display in january with the hu jintao visit which evan was very involved in organizing. so for the i amlycations for the united states is engagement. we work with this school. and fortunately this school has been dominant in the leadership over time, particularly would argue hu jintao grudgingly come around to this school himself. i had one interview last sumwer a very senior foreign ministry official known certainly to mike and evan who said specifically hu jintao has changed in his thinking over time from a kind of global south revisionist, russia-oriented, a little bit of asia view over time to the major powers kind of thinking. finally asia, not finally, we have the asia-first school. they seek to compete with and undermine the united states in asia. they see that as their backyard, not theirs. we are the intrusive party.

so what that means for the united states? well we have to maintain our presence, strengthen our alliance and diplomatic partnerships and soft power i would argue in the region. global south school which we saw on display in hunan province in the "bric" meeting or the brifks i should say now they seek to undermine the united states and western dominance and for us that means we need to play that game. we need to compete with the middle powers and increase u.s. aid and activism in the developing world. we have got to get into the world. under the obama administration development has been elevated to diplomacy two twins of the hillary clinton state department. very good. i hope there are resources and real effort put behind that then we will be in the game but in the last few years, china has been much more in this game than we have been. selective multilaterallists, they seek to use multilateral i'll as i say

tactically to deflect western criticism not doing enough in global governance but also to constrain the united states. what do we need to do? we need to strengthen the western liberal order but pragmaticly cooperate with selective multilateralists with korea and like. we need to praise chinese contributions to global governance when they occur but we y'allly need to expose china's short comings in this area which are many i would argue. i don't have time to go into them. but i think the international court of public opinion is a place where we ought to be talking about what china should and could be doing and is not doing. take u.n. funds for operations of the u.n. china ranks 14th or 15th, something like that in funding for the united nations when they're the world's second largest economy. peace-keeping operations. we all hear about china's peacekeepers abroad. 1855 of them. china is pleased to say we're number one amongst the

security council. they may be number one among the security council but they're 14 overall. that kind of stuff we need to shine a spotlight on china's global governance shortcomings. climate change, i could go on. finally the globalists. they are also a natural partner for the united states. they believe in comprehensive multilateralism. some of them believe in a g2. they believe in contributing much, much more, not tactically but substantively to global governance. we have to realize their a minority and i would argue discredited camp and school in the chinese discourse in the last couple of years. so that's basically our takeaway for policy. let me just close by arguing that we should, that we argue that china's international identity is not fixed. this is highly fluid. it remains very contentious. very much under debate.

very much a work in progress and therefore the united states and others can influence these ongoing debates through both actions and words on our part and we can do so both negatively and postively. we can reinforce some of the more negative trends, the nativists realists, through certain nativists and realists actions and words on our own part and we are highly capable of that i would argue. in fact what i really worry about is that the american realists and chinese realists are just going to really clash together. we need a much more sophisticated strategy on the american side than to push the default, what i call the default realists button. we've seen this movie before. it's called the soviet union. that is not the movie we're looking at today. but there are those in this country and in this government who i think believe that. so you know, this is a work in progress. it's fluid. it's dynamic. we affect their debates. we have to recognize we're

the center of gravity lies which is down towards the left hand end of the spectrum anchored on realists. that is not good news for the united states but it's reality. we have to recognize that and there are institutions particularly the peoples liberation army tied to that school. okay. so this is fluid but that helps explain, i think, some of the kind of multi-ferrious actions on the part of chinese government in the last few years. we see china out in the international arena acting seemingly in contradictory ways. evan says we're puzzled seeing action a and action b. my argument the chinese are puzzled because they have this debate internally. at least that's one reason for the seemingly contradictary behavior on the international and regional stage in asia. so these roles, are going to evolve as the perceptions evolve. they could harden actually.

they could get worse. as i say it's already the realists and major powers are already the center of gravity but there's a strong pull from the nativists and china can become much more truck you lent, much more assertive and difficult for us to deal with. not necessarily the movement is going to be toward the right hand end of spectrum. we all hope that it is but there are strong powerful forces at work in china argue to me that may not be the case. we therefore have to foresee multiplicity of voices and advocates over the years ahead. that's going to sustain china's multidimensional and omni directional foreign policy. so with that i will stop and leave it to my friend and colleague mike lampton where i've gone wrong. >> [inaudible]. >> okay. can i put this lid down here?

>> actually why don't you leave that up there. >> they can digest. well thank you very much, david. convey my thanks and appreciation for a great paper. of course discussants are supposed to focus on areas for additional clarity. let that not obscure the fact that this is a fascinating paper as evan mentioned. thorough research. it does a lot just to map the landscape which is a welcome thing certainly to me and i think many of our colleagues. so this a terrific paper. let me say first of all, i think it raises a couple of very central developments in chinese foreign policy, one of which david already mentioned and that is this is just one expression of the plurallization of the chinese foreign policy process.

also i think it's a reflection broadly what i would say is a weaker chinese leadership and a stronger chinese society in the policy process. and this really raises a number of questions that i would like you to at least, because i think this paper is more important in a sense even than it appears at first blush. first of all, it raises the question, who speaks for china? i mean i don't know how evan would feel about this. i'd like his comments at some point but who do you listen to as authoritative on various policy issues? authoritative most closely linked to actual behavior of the system? there may be more than one. hu, and group here. but h who speaks for chinese policy? this bears on the whole question of, when we say the

chinese have intentionalty, a lot of times in the paper the chinese kind of formulation. but in fact, that's hiding a lot there. who are the chinese? where does intentionalty within the system reside? different policy issues and different places and so forth. all those issues can't be answered in this paper, i fully understand. but when we talk about the chinese have intentionalty, who are we talking about? who is authoritative and so on? secondly this questions raises or a this paper raises a fascinating question to me. i think as americans we think all good things come from democracy. there is kind of a proclivity there but in facts as you look at the range of views, if they have all are going to be given more expression in chinese society, in fact what comes out in your paper is actually the leaders, the

top leaders seem to be the moderates frequently in this situation. well if broadly speaking over time leadership becomes less salient and society more salient, you have to wonder where chinese policy, at least, behavior, is headed. and finally, i say this as somebody who is interdependence guy. i think interdependence and globalization raise the costs of conflict and therefore, i would have thought in some sense reduced the probability of at least system-disruptive conflict but in fact i'm beginning to wonder if increasing interdependence doesn't breed resentment and conflict and that so there are these big questions that your paper raises for me which i know wasn't your design necessarily to answer them but certainly flag them as major questions. secondly, i would just call your attention, not david's, but the audience's attention

to what i thought were some interesting charts and tables. you have mentioned your policy-oriented one and spectrum of tendencies and so on. but i thought some of the other charts were fascinating as well on your page 13. you had a figure 1, which talks about the frequency of articles on soft power. and what seems so interesting to me is that these articles peaked in about 2008 and then dropped precipitously. now i know all the problem with content analysis and frequency counts and all of this stuff but it seems to me there is a relationship between perception of the strength of the u.s. and the popularity of the idea of soft power broadly speaking, the weaker the united states is perceived, the less attractive and relative terms it seems soft power is. anyway, i think some explanation for what your hypothesis, if any is with respect to that but i thought that was a very

interesting thing. your figure 3 on page 21 did a similar kind of frequent count on the china model, which i would basically say is the expression that china has found the path to development and provides a model at least for others in some broad sense if not in specificity. and what's interesting to me is that shoots up by more than 200% in the 2007 and 9. once again seems more related to the assertive character that evan and you talked about of chinese foreign policy and so forth. and then you've got figure 4 on page 23, and i thought this was fascinating. it's the relative frequency counts on different areas of the world that chinese academics are looking at, and of course far and away the united states, although we dropped in percentage terms quite substantially in 2008, but what struck me

more than anything is how off the radar screen europe is, to the chinese. i mean it is just totally, just disproportionate to any fair reading of the importance of europe. also you raised the issue of russia. and i guess i conclude from both what you said and what i believe is that russia in the long run is not a terrific strategic partner for china. but, in any case, i thought that chart about the relative attention that china's paying to different areas, seems so disproportionate, i think the chinese are underestimating, actually, europe, japan and the united states in some sense in terms of resilience. but any case, the implications of that, some discussion i think would be useful. now, it seems beyond the data, i have some questions, and that's what i want to focus a bit about and that is your, on page 16, your

710 densies chart, the -- seven tendencies chart. may be my lack of clarity ands you said those boxes are aren't exactly comparable units. it seems to me there is some lack of clarity between identities, the use of the word identities perceptions conceptions of interest, conceptions of capabilities. then we have theoretical orientations and regional focia. those, boxes are put on the same line but they're different things and i was trying to think how, how it would make more sense to me. and it seems to me that you've got really two three red call orientations. one is the realist and i would say just for the other end of the spectrum, the interdependence globalists types. and then below that, you

have, i would say, more comparable in each of those theoretical orientations you have those other boxes can fit under your realists. you've got major power orientation. that seems to me pretty consistent with realism. asia first, would seem to fall there. global south would seem to follow there. so you've got that heavy realist but, realism is a theoretical orientation into which these other things seem to fall. and then interdependence under that is sort of a theoretical orientation. you have globalists and selective multilateralists. we are still left with the reality you describe. lots of people don't fit neatly into one or the other. but in any way, this seems to put these, boing in a little -- boxes in little more comparable kind of way. any way i didn't, these seven boxes all on the same line didn't quite clarify things well for me.

second broad comment, i'm still wondering how important are scholars? because this is essentially documenting how chinese scholars view their own circumstance and role in the world and that raises the question, how important are scholars? and in the policy process. so at some point i think you have to have a little section on the chinese policy process as i understand it and deals with that because on several occasions and one was on page 24, you said a majority of senior leaders and policy-makers still endorse a major power orientation. i agree with that. but then that raises then, how do i set all this discussion of scholars within that reality that the leaders are still more important and how do these scholars relate to what a leaders may -- and under what circumstances do scholars have more or less importance in the policy

process? i would argue in a funny way seems it me, jiang zemin and hu jintao accord a significant amount. it is not suspicion that they're irrelevant but i would like to see how more they fit into the process. let me end with a couple of questions. on page 32 you made an interesting statement. china wants to please everybody but is only out for itself. well i guess i'm left with that first question, who's china and does it have a single intentionalty? in other words you decribed a very diverse situation but in the end you summarized it as a unitary actor in a sense. i'm not saying that circle can't be squared or whatever but it isn't self-evident how those two con separate shuns fit together.

the other thing and this is sort of the big policy problem that, i don't mean your paper creates, it describes and which evan and his colleagues have to deal with is, you say in a sense as a policy prescription we have to, i think your phraseology was ramp up our activity in the world, our global presence. you mentioned just a moment ago, development assistance and all of these things. of course how we do that in the current circumstance economically is an interesting question but beyond that, you also say it's important to avoid a competitive dynamic with china gets the cold war spiral. you mentioned the soviet union. and i, seems to me the policy process is, how do you ramp up activity, how do you increase activity around china's periphery of all sorts without setting off the competitive dynamic? i mean that seems to me to be the policy problem. thank you. and thank you for writing

such a great paper. >> and, mike, thank you for being on time. we have, it is 10:10. it we have 2010 minutes. happy to open it up for q&a. i'm slightly blinded by the lights but. >> i'm gilbert rossman of princeton university, and i found this discussion fascinating but i'm wondering whether there isn't more strategic coherence? that this is a country after all, david, you've described as learning the lessons of the soviet union as intensely interested in devising a strategy for responding and yet here you're presenting a kind of chaotic discussion. their propaganda department, the census of process, the intensification of the criticisms of the u.s. and japan and so on in 2010 all suggest there's more of a top down direction,

instructions and some had to hold their tongue for a while. now we're seeing some response. just last week for instance, in the global times. is there more of an overlap in these anti-u.s. and these anti-interdependence views and are they coming more from the top and is it more of a struggle to try to overturn that because the dynamics have already shifted sharply in their favor? >> go ahead. >> well, i thank gil, very much for the question and i invite both my colleagues also to respond to the questions from the floor, not just myself because they have views on these questions too, that are quite illuminating. you yourself illuminated a lot of this in your recent writings which i benefited

for this paper and more generally. but i guess my brief response to the question you just posed is the one that in a sense mike started off his commentary with. the plurallization of the policy process and the influence of society, it's bottom up. . >> not to mention views of themselves. i mean, this is a country that has gotten rather "squawk box"uated -- intoxicated on its own ease.

mike posed the question about leadership transition. so if we have an increasingly plural iic policy process and influential society, what impact is that going to have on leaders? well, to date, the leaders or have been the pragmatists, the hu jintaos who buy into the major power school and want to manage china's relations on a more pragmatic, you know, rather steady basis. but they are fighting against a tsunami -- [laughter] to use that term, a societal tsunami coming up from below that says don't compromise with these americans, don't compromise with these japanese, don't, you know, let's teach the southeast asians who the power really is as was said at the meeting in hanoi last summer. dismiss europe, that came through loud and clear not in article publication, but in interviews i did last year. the e.u. has just fallen

completely off the chinese radar screen. so my answer to your question is it's really not a top-down issue, it's bottom-up. so mike's question, the point he made in the commentary is going forward. how can the system which is still a single-party, you know, dominated system of this electorate where they choose their own people, how can that be insulated from, how can the pragmatic tendencies of leaders be insulate prd the kind of nativism we all experience when we go to china? this is the big question when -- and it's not encouraging, i have to say. but i'd be interested in both mike and evan's view on this, too, if you can speak off the record, i don't know. [laughter] >> i don't know, so i'll defer to mike. >> speak off the record -- [inaudible] [laughter] >> well, i, it's interesting. when you interview chinese leaders, and i don't mean just

senior leaders, but, you know, upper level sort of vice minister-type people, in china and practically the first thing out of their mouth is the increasing importance of public opinion and the internet. it makes you wonder where the idea of an authoritarian system came from so hear them talk in such a reactive way. and it's so pervasive, i take it there can be some reality. and i try to understand why and how does public opinion, and by that i would include this as a subset of public, a particularly important subset of public opinion. and i go back to the public opinion work of a man named daniel yank low slip who came up with a very interesting concept of boundaries of be -- of the permissible. the basic idea is every political leader, doesn't matter the system, has a sort of broad idea of if i go beyond this

point in this policy issue, i'm going to really elicit a reaction i don't want to have to deal with. and different systems, different times, different people have these boundaries, but it doesn't mean they don't have them. may mean we don't fully understand where they are, but they've got 'em. and i think there are some implicit red lines in the leadership that make them very relate sent to move -- reticent to move in other directions. taiwan in one, the dalai lama in another, i don't know. it just seems to me they spend an awful lot of time on public opinion monitoring. it's actually very extensive and often quite objective, the internal following that's going on. so i would just say they're sure spending a lot of effort to ascertain opinion if we presume they don't care about it and aren't guided by it. so, you know, that's not to take

away that on certain key strategic issues the chinese leadership can assert itself. i think still can. but there are many issues where it chooses not to or is itself conflicted. >> you want to answer this? >> let's see. um, any comment i make is entirely my personal opinion and completely off the record. [laughter] that's a serious comment on my behalf. i agree with what david and mike said, and, i mean, i've written about this as well, the growing role of society in foreign policy debates within china, the growing attention to public opinion. but that said, let's not forget this is a leninist political system. it is very top-down. there's a poll lit borrow, there's a standing committee, it's a consensus-based decision making.

and so, you know, even though there is an enormous amount of -- i shouldn't say an enormous amount, even though there is a greater role for scholars, a greater role of public opinion, there are growing numbers of actors within china whether or not it's state-owned enterprises, the pla that are affecting decision making, there still is a process. it's regimented, and it is top-down in which the leadership makes decisions and implements them. so, you know, even though what actually gets us to the decision involves a greater diversity of voices than before, this is still a leadership that's capable of making decisions and going forward and implementing them. so i guess i'm just trying to provide a slight balance to this notion of, you know, what is china, how do you do business with china? i can assure you we do lots of his on a daily basis. we have -- business on a daily

basis. we have a clear view as we manage the u.s./china relationship. and even though there are this diversity of voices that the system in china still functions, it functions well, it functions clearly, and we're able to, you know, manage this relationship in kind of a stable way given all these factors. >> now you have to go back to your moderating role. >> right. back to my moderating, there was a swre man over here. gentleman over here. >> stanley with the cato institute. that is precisely the point i want to get at. i couldn't help noting that in photographer shambaugh's presentation there's no mention of a communist party line. you have this debate. mr. medeiros says it's still top-down, but when i talk to younger chinese, they never bring up the communist party. never. and i've been struck by this. and i'm wondering if we aren't seeing a gradual transition

here. so i want to press this issue further. how important is the communist party now, or with the tolerance of these schools of thought in which they're allowed to debate regardless of, you know, the official position are we seeing the emergence gradually of a multiparty system? something evolutionary rather than all at once? >> we have ten minutes, so i'm going to take two more questions and then -- right here. >> hi. i'm from the east/west center. a couple of questions related to this paper but maybe to the project as a whole. frequently talk about schools of thought and focus, essentially, on international issues of foreign policy. but the making of foreign policy, domestic politics, domestic issues, state making

the type of political system, all of that plays into domestic foreign policy debates. so where does that actually figure in this in terms of understanding the debates within china in terms of it foreign policy? in that's one question that i have. and second, i think would it not be more useful, in fact, to talk about issues and goals rather than talking about schools of thought? because i don't think these flow from particular schools of thought, particular issues. they are issues of concern and how they're expressed and who expresses them and what are the goals that china seeks. and there, also, i think links to u.s. and, of course, the conference has been here, so it's a u.s. focus. but i think focusing on u.s. tends to skew the project rather than what does china want in the international domain, and how does that impact upon what u.s. wants? in that way i think you get at the much broader sense of what the issues and goals are rather than simply being skewed to whether it's anti-americanism or

pro-u.s. and so so forth. thank you. >> thank you. third question, ambassador pickering? >> tom pickering, hills and co. i'm struck by one set of phrases that david used. there is no personal coterie that clusters around a particular set of ideas, and there is no institutional base which seems to me to be, if i can remember my logic well, post-hawk that we have, in fact, created schools out of differing views but without any institutional base and with no coterie of people. and so it becomes, in a sense, an analytical tool that has some relevance, but it seems to me to

be very distant from policy formulation or policy influence in any way related to a group phenomenon. and i wonder whether, in fact, that attacks the basic purpose for which we're here. or maybe it doesn't matter that these institutionless, peopleless schools have no at least foreseeable policy implications other than on an individual basis. i'm struck by the fact that evan says we have a leninist process, but almost everybody here believes we have no leninist policy. we have a communistless approach to policy in terms of ideological rigidity and even debates surrounding ideological faithfulness stemming from

readings of the historical text, if i could put it that way. and i think that, also, is interesting. finally, i haven't heard the word "pragmatism" been mentioned at all whether it's a school, an approach or philosophy. but it seems to me at least from what i've been listening to to be not unrelated to what it is we're dealing with in current-day china. >> thank you. we have six minutes, and i'll ask david and mike to fill it in. >> well, a couple of questions related to this leninist character as a system and yet a description of it is pluralized and maybe carried to an extreme leaderless. i think there's at least a theoretical which i also take to be actually not a bad description is you're getting more locus or foci for behavior in the system.

you now have multi-national corporations acting in the world, you have retired military officers who seem more empowered or feel more empowered to talk about grand strategy even if in the end it isn't authoritative. and it seems to me with the media and the internet and all of the information revolution that all of these views and interests and behavior are getting out will. and frequently the system rejects some aspect or the consequences of this behavior and is in if a reactive mode and then can get very leninist pulling it back disciplining people. so i, i don't disagree there's a leninist system. there is a policy process, there are people who can decide. but in a sense it's becoming reacting to behavior to a greater extent than initiating behavior in the system. in other words, it seems to me there's something between denying the leninist character of it and denying what's obviously pluralization of the process.

and i think we're trying to understand how these come together, but when you -- in the end, if the chinese aren't happy with the concept of core interests as it was out in the world for a while, they try to reel this thing back in and put their own stamp on it and discipline the system to be more consistent. so i think we're all groping for that kind of accurate description -- >> fragmented authoritarianism? >> yes. [laughter] >> we keep going back to -- >> we can view intellectual property rights. [laughter] >> great idea, mike. >> david, do you want to -- >> okay. well, i'm not sure in what order to take these. maybe i'll start with ambassador pickering's final observations about schools and institutions. um, you know, i tried to make the point that you cannot, that we didn't find that we can

chosely identify institutions and schools, but, in fact, in the paper there is an explanation of how certain schools are more institutionally-based. i just didn't orally have the time to go through that. the nativists, for example, some of them are free-floating pundits, you know, writing books with very catchy titles that sell tens of thousands of copies because they're just hypernationallist. but institutionally they are rooted in the academy of social sciences and in institutes under the central committee of the party. you can go through several of those institutes which i've done and find lots of evidence of nativist thought. the realists are really across the spectrum although i think i did say the one institution that comes through singularly realist is the pla. you don't find evidence of pla views this other seven schools with the exception of some discussions of nontraditional

security, what they call military operations other than war which you might want to put over in the globalist camp. but, basically, the pla are hard realists. i disaggregate, in fact, the camp into defensive realists, offensive realists, and the pla are hard, offensive realists. it's a bad combination. but we find realists in various academic institutions. thing wi university seems to have more than their share. this is not, by the way, only a study of academic writings. it is primarily. i did a lot of interviews with officials in the international department of the party, in the foreign ministry, in the pla, and it shows up in some of the footnotes. but the leaders are very much pragmatists, you're right, that's where the term pragmatism comes in. i would associate that with major power orientation.

the asia firsters were primarily in the foreign ministry about ten years ago when ying and kai were running asian policy. now they're running the ministry today. they're both vice ministers, as you know. and so one would imagine that, you know, do we attribute china's regional assertiveness in be '09-'10 to ying and kai? no. what weave seen a -- what we've seen is a recalibration away from the assertiveness back to more confidence-building, whatever you want to call it. that one good hypothesis is attributable to them. but there were foreign ministry people associated with that school. anyway, you can go through the schools, tom, and find, in fact, there are some institutional bases for different cools. for the sake of -- schools. for the sake of time, i won't walk through the other three. but it's not completely

willy-nilly. there are then, you asked, and evan did in his opening comments, what's not talked about? this is a really good question. there are no-go zones. there are things that does not emerge in this discourse at all, the most important of which is china's own behavior and policy. that is the product of a leninist system. they can't criticize themselves. they have a complete incapacity to kind of look in the mirror and say, well, our policy towards x was not correct and produced y, deleterious y consequences. or maybe we should do, you know, their policy-descriptive but not policy-proscriptive. they don't write op-eds, foreign affairs articles and so on and so forth saying the u.s. should do x. the chinese don't do that. so that's no-go zone number one. dprk, pla modernization, humanitarian intervention and genocide are other no-go zones.

you don't find any writing about or very, very little. lastly, well, time has come. i didn't catch the first question, so i'm going to have to talk to you about that subsequently. your second question, though, about the emphasis on the united states skewing the project, well, that you can blame on our organizer, professor now, who asked the paper writers to tease out of their papers, what does it mean for america? this is america, after all, and we want to ask that kind of policy-relevant question. l it's not what does this mean for indonesia, it's what does this mean for the united states. and so that's why we tried to get to that last slide. but i take your point that it may be more appropriate to ask what does china want from the international domain. and then once it constructs a mate tradition with the united states and find out where they match up and where they don't match up. that might be an interesting thing for us to do. last point on the ccp, i'd just

say read my book, my last book on the communist party. [laughter] i spent five years working on the evolution of the ccp and argued, in if effect, that we were seeing an adaptive party that was pluralizing and moving in, you know, some encouraging directions. not multiparty democratic directions, i can assure you. but in some more pluralistic directions. while i would argue we've seen in the last 18 months along with china's more assertive external behavior and its increasingly draconian internal behavior, we've sals seen a stagnation of internal reforms since the 14th congress in september 2009. so, you know, the pluralization of voices does not equate with the pluralization of the policy process. this is one of those funny things about china where lots of things go -- and i agree completely with evan -- this is still a leninist system. and at the end of the day it

has, still has a lot of power. so let us try and close more or less on time there and thank you both for your comments. >> great, thank you. >> and help. >> thank you, david, thank you, mike. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> all this month we've been featuring the top winners of c spam's student cam documentary position. -- c-span's student cam documentary competition. meet the winner live during "washington journal" at 9:15. stream all of the entries anytime at studentcam.org. >> hive saturday, the -- live saturday, the red carpet arrivals at 6:45 and later remarks from president obama and saturday night live's seth meyers. our coverage includes highlights of past dinners and can your comments from facebook and twitter streaming at c-span.org and live on c-span. you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs. weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watch key public policy events and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can see past programs and get our schedules at our web

site, and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> to indiana university, now, for a speech by jenna bush hager, the daughter of president george w. bush delivered the women's history month lecture in late march. she talks about memories of the white house during both her father and grandfather's terms, teaching in washington, d.c. and interning in latin america for unicef. her experiences with unicef inspired her to write the book, "anna's story: a journey of hope." this speech, plus audience questions, is around 45 minutes. >> in celebration of women's history month. the union board is honored to continue this exciting tradition with tonight's featured guest, jenna bush hager. this event would not be possible without the help of our generous co-sponsors. we would like to help you recognize the beta chapter of capita alpha -- kappa alpha

theta, the center for evaluation and education policy, the indiana university college republicans and the department of political science. furthermore, union board wishes to recognize the tireless efforts of off our outstanding committee members whose dedication has made tonight's event a reality. lectures and union board are proud to present indiana university and the community at large a keynote speaker whose actions speak far louder than words. she is a teacher, a "today" show correspondent, an author, a literacy advocate and an avid supporter of unicef. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage to indiana university and indiana memorial union jenna bush hager. [applause] >> thank you, guys, so much. i have to say, we had dinner with some of the students before, and i've never seen such

a student-empowered and student-run group. so that's pretty terrific that you have that here at your university. thank you for having me and for your kind introduction and all of the work that you guys do to get speakers here on behalf of your students. and i'm really honored to be here to speak with you on the women's history month. you know, we have three women in my family, and we always gang up against my dad. [laughter] and when you have a grandmother like i have, you can't help but be a real supporter of women. and i'm thrilled to be here today and tonight to share some stories about some of the places i've seen, the people i've met and especially the remarkable children and teenagers who have deeply affected my life. in fact, the first time i saw the white house it was through the innocent, optimistic eyes of a 7-year-old. for the four years my

grandfather, or gampy to us, was president my cousins and i would play house in the east room and sardines on the south lawn. our imaginations were informed and excited by the beauty and the stories of this truly magical place. but a little bit over ten years ago -- i'm not going to say exactly how long because i don't really want to age myself at a college campus -- when my mom and dad sat my sister barbara and me down to tell us that my dad was running for president, barbara and i thought about trying to veto that idea. [laughter] we wanted to be normal college kids. but we quickly realized the amazing privilege of living history. during those eight years in the white house, we were lucky to meet extraordinary people; politicians and great philosophers, heads of state, royalty like prince charles. i met the pope and even managed to see the texas longhorns -- my alma mater -- after they won the

national championship. i think in indiana you understand how i put pope and texas longhorns all in the same sentence. [laughter] i met a personal hero, wendy copp, the founder of teach for america, and i was fortunate to travel to foreign lands and was deeply moved by what i saw. and, in fact, it was trips to africa and latin america that motivated me to begin working with hiv/aids and the rights of women and children all over the world. i've come to see the platform i resisted a bit at first as an opportunity. because i believe the more we know about the plight of people all over the world, the more likely we are to help others. i even recently joined my family's amusement and support the media. last fall while teaching my middle schoolers part time, i started working as a contributing correspondent for nbc's "today," a new job that allows me to tell of the people that are making a difference.

one of my first pieces was about a woman named delia. she grew up in the texas border town of edcouch, a tiny one-road town set against the rio grande plains. it's rich in heritage but mired in poverty. many of its residents are migrant workers and, in fact, when duel ya was a -- delia was a young girl, she was leave school and migrate with her family to work in the fields. when delia was growing up in the '80s, many of her peers didn't graduate from high school, and few even considered the local community college. but during her junior year of high school delia had one teacher who was determined to raise expectations for his students. he urged them to apply to college and to pursue their dreams. and he bravely rented a 24-person passenger van during their spring break and drove all

of his kids from their rural town to the east coast ivy league schools he said that they should apply to. his faith in his students empowered delia to do something no one in her family had ever done: apply to college. she was accepted at yale university, one of the schools she visited on her spring break. after graduating, she returned to edcouch to teach. she told me she could have taken a number of high-paying jobs, but she couldn't think of anything more worthwhile than helping others in her hometown the same way her beloved english teacher had helped her the years before. last fall i visited delia at that same afterschool program her teacher started which she now runs. of the 150 students in the program each year, 100% go on to college. and many of them to top-tier schools.

in fact, in the years since delia attended yale, at least 50 students from this tiny, tiny community have gone on to ivy league colleges. i met one of her students, angela, who spoke with me about the importance of the program. she told me about just returning from the midwest where she'd migrated with her parents and her sister to work in the sugarcane fields. she told me with determination in her eyes that she is going to college. harvard is her first choice. because she wants to be able to decide what she is going to do with her own life. she is tired of working in the fields out of necessity. as delia helped angela with her resumé, i could see how much angela was in awe of her mentor, and with a role model like delia, i have so much faith that angela is going to build her own future, a future away from the fields. and delia is leading all of these young women and men on to

college. as she told me, one teacher took an interest in me. one person changed my life. now i want to instill in my students the confidence to pursue their own dreams, to build their own path. i've seen firsthand how a quality education can give students a chance to excel and break the cycles of poverty they were born into. after i graduated from college, i taught in a charter school in the inner city washington d.c. i loved teaching my third and fifth grade students. however, this wasn't the glamorous career i envisioned as a little girl teaching a room full of quiet and obedient dolls. [laughter] my mom did the same when she was a little girl, and we used to joke that based on [audio difficulty]

>> hello. >> okay. we'll switch to a hand mic. and i'll go back to the doll part. we had the best educated dolls in america. but i didn't look as lovely and composed as my mom did in the worn photo of her days as a teacher and a librarian in texas. throughout my first year at stokes freedom public charter school -- yes, that was the name of the school -- i was a mess. despite my best effort, my clothes always seemed to be wrinkled. by noon my sweater was covered with ink and my pants full of chalk. due to a lack of rest, i felt like i had a perpetual cold, and i lived on instant coffee. even when i did sleep i dreamed of my students. ask any teacher, there are some here tonight, teaching can take a lot out of you. but the good things in life are

often hard won, and after that first year of exhaustion and sometimes frustration trying to herd 30 kids on the metro subway in a field trip or mopping up the half-digested lucky charms all before 7 a.m., i was rewarded with the creativity, joy and internal optimism that you can only learn from seeing through the eyes of a child. and by the end of that first year, my kids had begin me the gift -- had given me the gift that every teacher wishes for, that in some small way i'd helped them become curious, independent, eager workers. most of my students were immigrants from latin america, and the more i got to know my kids and their families, the more interested i became in exploring the places they once called home. so in the fall of 2006 i volunteered to intern in the educational policy department for unicef's latin america and the caribbean office. latin america and the caribbean have become places i cherish. these are areas of great economic and social contrast

where affluence coexists with terrible deprivation. the children i met are dealing with staggering levels of poverty, dislocation and disease. they don't have adequate food, clothing or shelter, and many lack even a basic primary education. far too many have hiv/aids. i recently returned from guatemala where i told the story for nbc of the devastating state of malnutrition in the poorest and most malnourish area in the country. guatemala is a lush country, fruit and vegetables are plentiful yet 50% -- one out of every two children -- has chronic malnutrition. in the town at least 70% of the kids are chronically malnourished. by the age of 3 their brains will have stopped grow withing. they will never have the chance to grow physically strong or mentally, and they will never

develop into successful learners. in this a small rural village, i visited a 26-year-old mother, lydia, and her five kids who live in a one-room cliffside hut made of twigs. she proudly showed me her dirt floor home that tightly fits two cots where she and her babies cuddle for warmth in the night. she creates the cloth for the local clothing and brings in $5 a week. $5 to feed six people. her youngest son ludwig's stomach had begun to swell. there was no light in his eyes, no energy in his step. he was chronically malnourished. lydia was terrified. she knew the symptoms all too well. unfortunately, she'd already lost a child due to complications of malnutrition. luckily, lydia is now part of a program that helps to keep her babies healthy, and she walks four hours every week to receive educational classes and these

packets of micronutrients called sprinkles. sprinkles look like sugar packets, but they contain iron, skinning, follow lick acid, vitamin a. the powder tastes like nothing. therefore, she spreads this on their unfortified tortillas, and they unknowingly get the vitamins they need to develop. i sat in the tiny hut with lydia as she cradled liewd wig. she told me there are nights and days she has nothing to feed her kids, so she has to put them to bed early, sometimes long before the sun has gone down. she continued with tears in her eyes. i don't care about the pangs of hunger i feel. i just care about them, my children. when i have food, i give it to them. at the end of the interview, i asked her if she could say one thing to the people in the united states, what would she say? she immediately looked at me and said, thank you.

thank you to all of the people who care about our plight. thank you to those who donate to unicef so that i have these packets that keep my babies healthy. i want you to know i appreciate all of their help. i appreciate everything that they do. gas whereas, thank you. finish gracias, thank you. when i worked in latin america, my job for unicef was to do what i just finished doing in guatemala, documenting the lives of children, their mothers and the programs that helped them lead better, healthier lives. my personal mission has been to bring these kids to the attention of as many people as possible so that they become more than just statistics. because the truth is numbers don't provide a real insight into the way that people live. it's the details of people's lives that resonate with us. their life stories are what encourage us to change, to learn and to take action. during my time working with unicef, i worked in the caribbean. it's, obviously, a well known

vacation destination full of pristine beaches and fine resorts. yet there is another side. many of the people who live there must contend with backward, imbalanced economies, poverty, violence and other social issues. for example, the caribbean is the part of the world with the second highest prevalence of hiv/aids. only exceeded by subsahara africa. i returned several months ago from haiti where i spent a week meeting remarkable haitians who want to rebuild haiti and want to rebuild it better. until i went there, i was unaware of the dire circumstances there before the earthquake. 50%, one out of every two children, was not in school, and 80% of the population made money from an informal income. i know that we're still in shock by the massive loss of life and the terrible devastation brought on by the 7.0 earthquake, but as

i visited i was still -- the state of haiti now that is truly devastating. port-au-prince is a remarkably beautiful place where the ocean meets the mountains, and it is still covered in rubble. remains of houses, cars and other debris still cover the streets. tented cities are scattered around the capital. many schools, churches and homes have yet to be rebuilt. so where is the hope in this haiti? it resides in the giving and the compassionate nature of it people. of its people. over the week we met heros everywhere. a woman who started a clinic by herself when she saw that there was no medicine in her tented city. a man who helps his neighbors rebuild their houses after work for nothing. a young girl who even though she lost her mother in the quake sings songs of healing around her community. in a tented city that serves

over 20,000, we met a 35-year-old woman named lucinda. lucinda is a nurse at the only clinic in the city. she provides relief for all the people there. before the earthquake she and her policeman husband were part of haiti's small middle class, and they lived in a home with their two children. her house was ruined in the earthquake, and can like others, she was forced to move her life to a tent. but she was happy and relieved, she said, knowing that her whole family had survived. as she said, we made it out pretty good. my kids are still here. but during that first month living in the displaced city, lucinda met 74 kids who had lost their parents. they were orphans wandering the city alone. she knew she must do something. these kids could not grow up wanderers. so lucinda built a tent next to

hers where all of the kids now live. she calls all of them, all 74, her children. and they call her mom. her husband told me he thinks she's crazy. [laughter] but she's now in the process of either finding them homes or adopting them herself. she even opened a school in the tented city so that all of the kids, hers and those who have not lost their parents, could get an education that they so deservement lucinda could have just taken care of her family of four, but as she said to me, these kids are my kids tooment tooment -- too. and i hope others in the community would have done for these kids, for my kids what i am doing for these kids. we must take care of haiti. if we don't, who will? when i worked in latin america in 2006, i attended a unicef-sponsored conference for women and kids living with

hiv/aids, and i met a girl named anna. anna changed my life. she was only 17, but she had lived the life of someone so much older. she had lived in extremely difficult -- had lived an extremely difficult life. at birth she was infected with hiv/aids. she is an orphan. her mom, dad and sister all died from aids by the time she was in the sixth grade. she's been shuffled around most of her life, abused, abandoned and neglected by the people that she cared about most. and she was forced to drop out of school at the age of 16 after she had her baby, beatrice. one thing is really amazing, we've talked with the students earlier at dinner about the power of education. and i understood it, working in washington, d.c., but i understood it on a much more global level when i was working with anna. anna's mom was abused, and she didn't know she had hiv. she didn't have the education to know that she had hiv living in her body, and so she unknowingly

passed it on to anna's father and to two of her three children. but anna got the education she needed. she attended classes with a local not for profit that helped young mothers get the information they needed so that their babies would be born hiv-free. and when we first returned to latin america, the first thing we were able to do was to take anna and beatrice to get her hiv test, beatrice's hiv test, and i'm really happy to say that education has the power to break the cycles of illness as well as poverty, and beatrice has tested negative for hiv. when i was at this conference in latin america which was four or five times the sides -- size of this, a huge room filled with tons of people, anna stood up with beatrice wrapped in the her arms and told the crowd so bravely, i want everyone to know we are living with hiv. we are not dying from it. we have to get the information.

this isn't the '80s. i was so moved by her confidence and maturity and humor that for the next month that i lived in the region, we began meeting daily, and i listened to the tragic and the beautiful details of her life. and though i didn't go to latin america with the thought of writing a book, i was so moved by anna's stories and the dozens of children i had met that were like anna, they all wanted their stories told. so we worked together, and we ultimately titled a book called "anna's story: a journey of hope." she wanted other kids to learn from be her experiences and understand that they have the right to protect themselves. she wanted kids in the u.s. to get the facts about living with hiv. one day when i was interviewing her, i had written the word "sickness "in my notes. she looked at my binder and asked, infirmidad.

i thought i'd spelled the word wrong, but it wasn't the spelling. it was the word that bothered her. she told me, i was born with hiv/aids. please, don't characterize me as sick. no. don't call me sick. hiv cannot be a sicknd to me. that's -- sickness to me. that's too negative. it's the situation in my life. and she lived with it the best she can. these are stories of courage and hope, and they are stories being written with the help of the american people. i was so fortunate to visit africa with my parents, including the fawn hospital in senegal. it's a hospital saturday started by an american named steve bowlingier who arrived in dakar as a peace corps worker, and he saw the need for hiv patients to receive good nutrition and treatment. he used his life experiences growing up on a kansas farm and called the nonprofit project he started development in gardening or d.i.g.. he created a communal guarden at the hospital that offers

patients fresh vegetables as well as a fun social activity. gardening. at the fawn hospital, my mom and i joined a circle of women infected with hiv/aids and listened to each talk about their life. two young women were new to the group, and they told touching stories very similar to anna's. they were both young and beautiful. and they both had been abused by men in their communities and, therefore, were hiv positive. it was hard for them to hold back tears as they courageously told grim tales of abuse, stigma and isolation. but after they finished my mom held them close and told them about anna's story and that with the proper medication anna was doing very well and that her baby was healthy. one of the girls lifted her head and looked at me with glassy eyes and said, why didn't you choose to tell our stories? can't you, please, tell our stories?

so today here in indiana i'm doing just that. i hope by telling you these stories it will inspire at least one of you to act. i want to thank you for everything you already do. i know that you guys are very active here on your campus in making sure that you give back. you're already making a huge difference in your community. kids like anna don't just live in other countries. i was in kansas recently, and we were talking about that, and we were talking with a group of public school teachers who said, you know, there's kids just like anna that live here, and that's, of course, true. poverty, violence, illness transcends board earth. so there's plenty of ways you can give back. you don't have to go to latin america to find ways to do that. whether you pledge your time or your money, you teach or tutor, sponsor a team, whatever it is you do, there are practical steps you can all take to help others. you have the chance to change people's lives. every small act will be an

investment worth your while. if there's anything that the people i have met have taught me, it's that life is a precious gift, and it's a privilege and an opportunity as much as a responsibility to give some of yourself for people in need. i've learned invaluable lessons and, in fact, i've found that sometimes we'll find teachers in the most unexpected places. thanks so much for having me, i appreciate you sharing your tuesday night on a college campus. i'm sure there's more fun things to do. but thank you so much for having me, and i think we're going to do some questions and answers. so thanks so much for coming, i appreciate it. [applause] >> thank you again, jenna. i'm george thomas on the union board lectures director, and we brought jenna tonight, and we have a few questions we're going to ask from you all. we've selected eight of them, so

we're going to do that. following that, we're going to have the opportunity, if you want to talk to jen that after the lecture -- jenna after the lecture, she can sign a poster for you. so stay for that. we're going to do questions now. >> a poster. am i on that poster? >> your. >> oh, could be scary. [laughter] >> it's a good picture. the first question. how do you think college students can best get involved in humanitarian efforts? >> well, there's a lot of ways you can get involved. you know, i tutored in, when i was in college. there was an amazing program in east austin, i went to university of texas -- like i said before -- but there was this amazing program that a college student started, actually, partnering with a school in one of the most marginalized parts of austin, east austin. and we would, everybody would go. i mean, it was what you did. you would go and spend time and tutor these kids, and it was so successful that it really

changed the trajectories of these children's lives, and it changed the school. i mean, the it's one of the best schools in austin now in one of the poorest neighborhoods. and a college student started that. you know, there's so many ways. my sister, i have to brag a little, has just started a nonfor profit called the global health corps which uses a teach for america model to get recent college graduates into health clinics around the world. and we started this, i was at an aids conference in san francisco at google, and we met -- i met, i mean, she hadn't met him yet, she was still in new york, but i met two kids from stanford. and they were the founding team. it was two kids from stanford who were seniors, and then my sister, we'd been out of college a little bit longer, but that's okay. nobody judged us because of our age. and they had already, johnny dorsey, who is one of the founders of global health corps,

had already started a very successful nonfor profit called face aids in college. you know, i think a lot of people underestimate how dynamic college students are. and i'm sure that there are -- i know that unicef just being one example and c.a.r.e., another organization i'm vofled with -- involved with, has college campus clubs all over the country. i'm not sure if there are any here at indiana, somebody would have to help me out with that. but there's plenty of ways to get involved. you know, it's hard for me to say what you guys have here at your school, but i'm sure we could even ask somebody in the audience that knows. but there's so many ways. i would say my one piece of advice that somebody gave me when i was in high school, actually, but it was still really great advice is find what you love. i worked at a children's shelter in high school in austin in high school, and i loved it. i loved being with kids.

and, you know, people will say to my sister, wow, that's so good of you to do that. she didn't do it because it's good, she does it because she's passionate about it, because she really wants to change the face of global health. and so she's not doing it because she thinks it's good. i mean, she works 4 hours a day -- 24 hours a day. she does it because she's passionate. and so i would say find anything you're interested in. you know, if you're interested in sports, coach a team. if you're interested in art, there's so much art therapy that goes on all around the country. there's so many ways to get involved. >> next question is, as a public schoolteacher do you feel like the public education system in america is in need of an overhaul? >> yes. [laughter] yes. i mean, there's no, no doubt about it. we -- i don't want to get too controversial here but, yes. i mean, i've taught and only in urban schools, in west baltimore, also in d.c. i have just recently interviewed

wendy copp who is the founder of teach for america and michelle rhee who is the chancellor of schools in d.c., and everybody that believes in our public school system and that wants reform believes that there's a crisis going on. we talked a little bit at the dinner that we attended before that, you know, when i started teaching in washington, d.c., they needed more teachers in the area that i taught. because it was marginalized because it was a really poor area. and that's such a sad saw the u.s.ic -- statistic, that kids that are living in a poorer area can't get as good an education as those live anything a wealthier area. that's not typically american, as michelle rhee said, which i was, you know, we promise good education for everybody, and that's not what's happening. i interviewed a teach for america teacher recently who told us, told me the reason why he thought and he does what he does is because he thinks the

biggest social injustice in our country right now is the education system. and i have to say that i'm in agreeance. there's some really amazing teachers, don't get me wrong, and teachers working really hard to make sure every child gets a good education. but there's a lot that needs to be done. and i think we talked about it. the answers are pretty simple, making sure that every teacher in every class room in america is highly effective. that's important. and, you know, michelle rhee tried to do that in washington, d.c., and she laid off teachers that weren't being highly effective, and she lost her job. so it seems like a simple solution. highly effective even thers and excellent principals -- teachers and excellent principals, yet it's a little bit more complicated because, you know, the it's a political issue, and it's a hot button issue, and people are, you know, conflicted about it. but i would say ask any effective teacherrer. i met with some before we came here. you know, they want what's best for kids.

and what's best for kids is for every child no matter what your color of your skin or what neighborhood you live in, your religion to get the very best education. and that's not happening. >> how do you find your stories for the station? >> that's really fun. i love doing that. one of -- i'm shocked when i got the job to work on the "today" show it was really kind of crazy because it's nothing that i ever wanted to do before. you know, i was an english and a creative writing major, and i loved teaching. and when i wrote "anna's story," i was on the "today" show. the executive producer kind of tracked me down and said we think you'd be really good on tv. and i was, like, no, you've got the wrong person. but i kept kind of coming pack to it because there's so many ways to make a difference, and i think one of the ways to do so is to make sure that, you know, that we're getting really great information out there and telling stories of inspirational people that are doing terrific

things. so i, my husband was like, you know what? just give it a chance. do it for a year, do it for six months and you can always, you can always stop. and so i've really liked it. and, you know, it's -- i love finding the stories. one of the stories i just did was on a charter school where i met a teacher who studies here who taught at solesville right before we came here. and it's the amazing charter school that teaches music education, and it's rigorous, really rigorous curriculum. and the kids -- in a really poor part of memphis. and the kids are just thriving. they were so much fun to be with, and they're brilliant. and so to be able to document a school like that, and i had just read about that school in the one of, you know, just heard about it through friends in education. to be able to make sure that others knew about that school and to, hopefully, get it some publicity so it can go on to do really terrific things, it's a privilege.

so really just reading. of course, i have a lot of friends that work in education and hiv/aids. my favorite stories have probably been when i've gotten to go to ethiopia and haiti and guatemala and tell stories there. i mean, that, those were such amazing experiences. and because i've worked in that world kind of with unicef and cm a.r.e -- c.a.r.e. and other organizations, you know, i'm constantly on the lookout for stories that, hopefully, will change our world, make it a little bit better. >> on a more serious note, what was it like to be in the white house during the time of 9/11? what were the emotions like? >> be on a more serious -- i thought he was just going to say on a serious note, what was it like to be at the white house. [laughter] i wasn't, i wasn't, i was not at the white house on september 11th. so i was away at college in texas. but, of course, you know, we can all remember what september 11th

was like, and, you know, it was hard because my parents were there, you know, and i was away from them. we actually, i think we came back the week -- my parents got us plane tickets, and we flew home the weekend after or two weekends after. to make sure that we could all be together. because, you know, i couldn't hear -- i didn't hear from them. i got taken to a hotel. i lived outside my apartment -- i looked outside my participant and there were, like, a lot of secret service, and i didn't have a lot of secret service, so i knew something was wrong. it was early in the morning, and i turned on the tv and saw. my sister and i both got taken away to different hotels, and we could talk, but my parents -- we didn't hear from them until later on in the evening. but, i mean, we all remember what it was like. and living in this new york right now, you know, i constantly am meeting people that have lost someone in the world trade center.

and so i think it's something that will stay in our, in our culture, of course, will change us. and living in the new york, too, you know, new yorkers haven't forgotten. and that, you know, i think most of america hasn't. but it wasn't any different for me than it was for anybody else. >> how was your college experience? and specifically, how has it shaped your life? >> i love college. [laughter] i miss college. you're all very lucky. just remember that. i was telling some of the students before one of the things, a piece of advice that my mom had given me that both my sister and i tried to do and i think it's a good piece of advice is really, a, treat college like a job because you're going to eventually have one, and the harder you work, the more you, you know, the better you'll do. and then, also, take the hardest classes. you know, find the best professor. i saw friends not do this and, you know, i know the mentality,

like, i just want the easiest class so i can go out with friends. but really you're in college to learn, and you're in college, and you don't have that long. i mean, four years goes by so fast. and i would always, especially junior and senior year in my major, i would try to find out who wrote the book or who was the best in this poetry class, who was the visiting writer. because i wanted to write, you know? and there's no other chance until you go back which, you know, hopefully, i will do soon. ..

>> i still write and the professors that were there when i was learning, that i wanted to write and i was in a creative writing program, you know, really shaped me. i remember what they wrote on my papers about finding my voice and i was slowly doing it. and i still hear one of my professors who i loved who's a published writer and studies a lot of texas literature, dr. graham, in texas, you know, he was at my wedding. i love him, you know, i think he was -- he's really instrumental in helping me understand that i, you know, had the talent and not to be worried to put it out there. so enjoy college. >> jenna, do you see your mom and grandmother as role models your teacher career.

>> my grandmother wasn't a teacher but she's a firecracker. i see her as a role model as a strong woman. and my mom, she's strong teacher. i was saying, you know, when somebody is so passionate about what they do, you can feel it. and so when she would tell us stories about her kids and teaching, you know, i always wanted that, to have that passion for something. and it was really fun because my first teaching job was in dc and she was living there at the time. so we would -- i would go over, you know, like 7:30, 8:00 straight from school and talk about my kids and talk about my kids and talk about my kids. and, you know, a lot of people would be turned off by that much talking about education. but if you're extremely passionate about it, then, you know, she loved it. she would always love to hear the stories and she gave me some great pieces of advice working with patience as every teacher

needs in their first year. that was a really memorable time be that first year of teaching being able to share those times with her. >> as a humanitarian, what do you feel is the most important or more challenging problem and which specifically college students further the humanitarian efforts taking place in >> i think education -- i mean, we talked a little bit about it. but i think education, you know, when you look at all of these issues, like health, malnutrition, nutrition, disease, everything, poverty -- every single thing -- even violence can be broken, all of those cycles can be broken with education. you know, that's all there is to it. that education has the power to literally change people's lives but it has to be a great education. unfortunately, in most of the world, kids aren't getting that. and even when i was in kansas

talking with school teachers, you know, you see it on a larger level when you see lives being saved. when i'm telling you about some of lydia in guatemala, i mean, she had saved her son's life because she's got an education about how to keep him healthy and the program to help him do it, the nutrients, the supplements to help him do it. you know, there's nothing more powerful than that. i think education. i'm also very interested in hiv/aids but, you know, i think -- there's a lot -- there's a lot, there's 1,000 different issues in our world. and i think we're becoming more of a global society too. when i talk with young people, i'm sure you guys will agree than i do with the internet and with feeling really connected to people in other countries, you know, global issues are more important than some of the silly things we think about here in

the united states. >> this is our last card my parents told me that you are a jem exclamation points. >> you know, grandparents love me. [laughter] >> i thought i was supposed to bring "the today show" audience, but everywhere i go my grandma loves you. i'm like, wow! not the young person i was going for but that's better than nobody. well, thank you whoever said that. i appreciate it. >> and that was our last card so i want to thank jenna coming. we're all very proud to have her. >> thank you. [applause] >> and we're going to move outside now. we have posters again and you want to see a picture with jenna, you can. stay here for a moment so we can make our way out there and again, thank you for coming.

[inaudible conversations]

>> be sure to join us later today when we'll unveil another first place winner from our studentcam documentary contest. we've been announcing our winners all this week on "washington journal" and you can see the latest award-winning video today at 7:15 pm eastern right here on c-span2. and we'll have more from booktv tonight during our prime time schedule. >> all this month we've been featuring the top winners of c-span studentcam documentary competition. now meet the grand prize winner and see his video tomorrow morning. watch his documentary at 6:50

eastern and meet the winner live during c-span's "washington journal" at 9:15. stream all the videos online at studentcam.org. >> live saturday, the white house correspondent annual black tie dinner. and later remarks from president obama and "saturday night live" seth myers. our coverage includes highlights of past dinners and your comments from facebook and twitter streaming at c-span.org and live on c-span. >> this past march 30th neil barofsky withdrew from tarp. and became a new york university professor in april. in his final speech as t.a.r.p. inspector general he had a speech on public corruption. he talks about whether t.a.r.p. has disproportionately benefited wall street over main street.

>> at this point, i am very pleased and privileged to introduce our second keynote speaker neil barofsky. as i mentioned at the outset when i introduced ann, neil, too is a graduate of nyu school of law. he graduated from here in 1995. and very early in his career after some time in private practice, he came to the u.s. attorney's office for the southern district of new york where he worked as a prosecutor for eight years. and during his time there, he oversaw some extremely significant prosecutions, including overseeing the successful prosecution of the top officers of refco incorporated, a major securities fraud case. he investigated and indicted and prosecuted the top 50 leaders of the facc which is the revolutionary armed forces of colombia which is the largest narcotics organizations in the world and an extremely violent organization and he headed the

then-new mortgage task force, mortgage fraud task force or mortgage fraud group in the southern district of new york at the time of the mortgage meltdown. i had the pleasure of being neil's colleague there in the southern district and we spent several years together in the securities unit and i can tell you firsthand and also from the reputations and our colleagues that neil is an extraordinarily talented lawyer. he's a very, very quick thinker. he has amazing strategic judgment. he's a fair and ethical prosecutor. and he is certainly one of the best, perhaps the best trial lawyers i have ever seen. certainly among prosecutors. he delivered what was the best jury address i have ever seen a prosecutor deliver. over an hour without a single scrap of notes other than a crumpled up piece of paper in his pants which was actually a prop. [laughter] >> he's an incredible trial lawyer and an incredible lawyer. in late 2008, despite the fact that he is as has been reported i'm not revealing anything, a

lifelong democrat who donated money to the obama campaign, he was appointed by president bush george w. bush to be the special inspector general of the troubled asset relief program and in that position he is still the chief watchdog over that $700 billion government program that addresses the subprime mortgage crisis. in that position, he audits, n n- -- investigates t.a.r.p. programs and investigates waste fraud and abuse in the t.a.r.p. program. he started off in a smelly mildewy basement with one only employee in a position where he had extremely powerful opponents who were dedicated to frustrating his mission. and in that environment neil created from scratch, literally from scratch, a law enforcement agency that now has 140-plus

employees and that since its creation has won 18 criminal convictions, kept over $550 million in taxpayer funds from being lost to fund, provided the treasury department with 68 recommendations to protect taxpayers from further losses and programs. and that office continues to work today against starting from scratch several years ago on 153 civil and criminal investigations. half of which involve executives and senior officers in financial institutions who applied for or received t.a.r.p. funding. but above all these statistics, leading commentators in the field have described him and these are quotes as, quote, easily one of the most impressive and courageous political officials in washington for his willingness to stand up to some of the most powerful people and institutions in washington and on wall street and, quote, he vigilantly fought for his independence as a t.a.r.p. watchdog and has been relentless of his criticism of treasury officials and especially of tim geithner. neil has constantly earned many

accolades for what he does and does well which is really speak truth to power and stand up for all the citizens of the united states to root out fraud and abuse in this massive government program. and it's not surprising to any of us neil would succeed in this way because neil is absolutely undeterred by having powerful people angry or upset at him. if anything he thrives on it and whether it was the members of the farc who had him killed when he was prosecuting them and even today the most powerful people on wall street and really in the world he has an unrelenting commitment to pursuing the public interest to pursuing and preventing misconduct, crime and fraud and to doing the right thing. and we're especially pleased to welcome here today -- welcome him here today and welcome him as the newest addition to the center because next week he'll join us as a senior fellow and return to nyu school of law so

please join me in welcoming my friend and past and future colleague, neil barofsky. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. especially when your new boss says such nice things to you. so thank you, tony. and this is -- thank you for inviting me here today. i'm thrilled to be here back in law school. thrilled to be coming to the law school as tony said next week. a lot of pressure on me. this is my last speech as special inspector general and in many ways my first speech here at nyu so i'll try to do good. what i want to talk about today in the next 40 minutes or so is specifically talk about t.a.r.p., its success and its failures and specifically its failure on main street. and within the context of today's conference and symposium, a possible explanation of how we got here compared to where we were in 2008. and before i talk into the meat, i think it's important -- i shouldn't assume that all of you have an intimate knowledge of

what t.a.r.p. is, that colorful acronym that we have in washington. and i think it's helpful to start with what we're not. and this went around the internet in late 2008 and some of you may have seen it before. it's sort of a pictorial depiction of t.a.r.p. it starts here in scotland. i think this is a lock and you see a little small white car is being bailed out, if you will, from the water. and let me go back to the spring of 2008 and we'll call that bear stearns. [laughter] >> and this is frb and wise efforts to bail out bear stearns and it worked out pretty well but as the year went on, it was ultimately not as good. so the federal reserve came back in september of 2008 with an even bigger crane. this we'll call aig. we all know that that, too, was not quite big enough. so in came the really big crane. that's t.a.r.p. that's the troubled asset relief

program. that is not sigtarp. that's congress's $700 billion to bail out the financial institution. what was sigtarp, what was our role. we were created the same time when congress gave that authorization to spend that money. we have different roles. we have transparency and reporting roles and we have law enforcement role so again to use this picture, we're like the photographer who's snapping the pictures and making the historical record and the regulator and the crane operator and make sure he's not drunk and following the manual for operating that crane. we're like the cop who's walking the pier to see if there's any criminal activity behind it. that's the perspective that we have approached our role as overseeing the t.a.r.p. for the last couple of years. so one question we get and i think it's an important one to start? did t.a.r.p. work? when considering this there's no easy answer to that question, although you will hear from washington a lot of very simple answers and simple responses but like anything it's a little bit

more complicated. when you look at t.a.r.p., you really got to look to whether it works. what its stated goals were. as with any government program. and here -- and it's a little bit of a cliche but sometimes cliche work because they're right. t.a.r.p. had goals for main street and wall street. if you go back to the actual legislation itself, as well as statements made by treasury in late 2008, you see a number of goals. of course, avoiding a financial collapse is the one they're almost all familiar with but there were very specific main street goals as well, increasing lending, promoting jobs and economic growth and perhaps most importantly, preserving homeownership which we're going to talk about at length. and so that's -- that's what t.a.r.p. was supposed to do. now, like any -- anything that happens in washington, unfortunately, unlike as you would want a program to be managed well, which is you have goals. you measure progress against those goals. you acknowledge when you're failing and then fix it to meet those goals. with treasury, t.a.r.p. is different. they looked at performance and then have redefined the goals

and declared success for the goals that have been met. and this is a statement what i would call the revisionist goals that were set a couple of weeks ago in testimony that the only real goal of t.a.r.p. was to promote the stability and liquidity of the financial system. and these other main street goals, window dressing. only to get taken into account we never really had the authority to do them anyhow. i reject that. you should reject that. that was not part of the legislative bargain that gave treasury the ability to get this really historical remarkable effort. so let's look and see how they did. i think that, you know, treasury has said that with respect to its wall street goals of preventing a financial collapse, the t.a.r.p. was an unqualified success. from a wall street perspective i think we'd agree. we revented a financial collapse. we put hundreds of billions of dollars in financial institutions and kept them for failing and that's a significant achievement for t.a.r.p.

you can see that today. you can see how successful has been the return to record profitability the record bonuses are back bigger than ever. the federal reserve offered the reserve of capital to shareholders and indirectly through the same directors through increased derivatives and buyback. yes, t.a.r.p. has been very successful. there's another added benefit of this concept of too big to fail which is another concept of t.a.r.p. when i'm talking about too big to fail i'm not thinking of what immediately to comes to mind. a media that's so epic that failure is truly is not an option. i'm not talking about charlie sheen. [laughter] >> but like charlie, the largest banks are winning. and what i'm talking about is the largest financial institutions. the reason why t.a.r.p. had this

impact is that when secretary paulson in late 2008 and then secretary geithner in early 2009 -- the reason why t.a.r.p. worked is they stood before the international market, the national market, the banks and said we will not let our largest financial institutions fail. and these were not mere words because they had $700 billion to back it up. and that was instrumental in preventing the collapse. that was really important in bringing us back from the abyss. banks felt comfortable to lending from one another again. the system was saved. but there was a downside. by explicitly saying we're not going to let these banks fail, we branded them as too big to fail setting the stage for moral hazard that we will do so again. and predictably that has led to some negative results. the banks now are bigger than ever. more concentration. the top banks have grown 20% since t.a.r.p. in their total assets under control in part because of

trigger trigger funded mergers and acquisitions. this is from simon johnson they control $8.6 trillion in assets. in 1995, the big banks controlled 17% the equivalent of gps. you're seeing massive concentration. why should we care? why does this matter? chairman ben bernanke mentioned this in a speech earlier this week. it grossly distorts the markets. the presumption that the government will bail out a bank because it's so big and so interconnected completely distorts the market. shareholders, investors, counter-parties, creditors they cut the banks a better deal. they don't do their due diligence? why? because they assume they will be made whole much as they were in the financial crisis in 2008 because of t.a.r.p. because the government is going to come in and bail them out. it creates horrible effects on the market and it gives them a very significant unfair advantage over their smaller

counterparts who are not doing well because they can borrow money more cheaply. it has an impact on executives. senator kaufman -- i was testifying with him just last week. it removes the discipline or the thought of the truly considering risk when making executive decisions. he described it as a rational decision for an executive at a too big to failed bank because its because heads i win, tails the taxpayer bails me out. the taxpayer loses. and this has to incentivize taking excess risk without having to worry about the consequences of failure. and we're seeing this. and it's actually getting worse and worse. and some studies the advantage a that the bigger banks have even the smaller banks is getting larger the distance between them. but this is a very, very significant problem. and if this sounds familiar, the idea of implicit government

guarantees combined with market distortions and impact on decision process, it should. this was fannie mae and freddie mac. we're in an almost nearly identical situation. it's the same toxic cocktail that let us put these companies in conservatorship in 2008 and without fixing it there's no way to think we won't have the same problem with big banks. and with dodd-frank and regulatory reform but to date it's not working. so much of too big to fail depends on perception. perception becomes reality for all the reasons that i just mentioned because of the shareholders, because of the cred creditors. because of the way these markets -- and in some ways of dictating market perception in jan both s&p and moody's

rejected dodd-frank and nevertheless these provisions that they're going to continue to give enhanced ratings on the large banks on the assumption that the government will bail them out. that was something historic. before the crisis there was never an explicit added ratings after the government bailout factor. after dodd-frank this year they indicated that's exactly what they will do. spu's more muted language. moody's was more blunt and basically said that they did not believe the dodd-frank provisions and the way it's being executed is going to solve that problem. so for wall street, yes, t.a.r.p. was a success. it saved them and it's put them in a position, frankly, for the big banks to make more profits than ever. what about main street? well, it's more of a mixed bag. i don't want to underestimate in any means of how important preventing a financial collapse was to main street. we were on the edge of the abyss. and while it's difficult to say, okay, the $700 billion of t.a.r.p. is the reason why we didn't go into the apocalypse

versus the trillions of dollars that were provided by the federal reserve and the fdic. you can't isolate one program and say that's the one that worked. it was an important part of the mix. and if there was a financial collapse, it would have devastating consequences for main street. rejections of unemployment in the 20, 25% range. people it up, in

essence, of what the banks were doing they refused to accept our recommendation on my eighth day in office that they make the banks account for how they're using t.a.r.p. funds and report it. this level of transparency would have helped let us know exactly how they're using the money. and they received -- they refused to do so only doing a voluntary survey a year later after the large banks have left the program. as to preserving homeownership. i'm going to talk a little bit more in detail but we've not succeeded there. this projected 10 to 13 of foreclosure filings over the life of the administration's mortgage modification program. and again, going -- disagreeing with treasury statement early on redefining the goals of tarp

i'll point to joseph stiglitz. he's a nobel laureate and i'm not. he describes t.a.r.p. is not an end but a means to the end in the recovery. t.a.r.p. has not been a dismal failure but the way the program was managed he believes have contributed to the country's programs. these main street goals were part and parcel of the t.a.r.p. let's talk about preserving homeownership. now, this was not a throw-in. this was not a political bone from some progressives. this was part of the bargain that was -- that was made to get t.a.r.p. passed. if you remember back in late 2008 when the first t.a.r.p. legislation was proposed it was a three-page bill that secretary paulson sent up to the hill. it was widely rejected and there was a second bill which got voted down triggering the single biggest decline dow jones averaged in a day.

what happened in order to get those votes the progressives democrats, the house and to a less extent the senate demanded something about homeownership. 'cause remember what t.a.r.p. was supposed to be. it was supposed to be taking $700 billion of taxpayer money and buying toxic assets. what were those? mortgages. mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. and the idea as the treasury pitched this, we're going to buy $700 billion of mortgages and part of the legislative bargain we're going to modify them. we're going to modify and sell them back into the mortgage. there are two sections in the act that enabled t.a.r.p. specifically dedicated to governing the modifications of mortgages once they were purchased. but what happened? well, as we all know, the government didn't buy toxic assets. they did capital infusions in banks and this basically got ignored for about five months. then in february of '09, the treasury and the president announced the home affordable mortgage program, modification

program, or h.a.m.p., and it started with great promise to live up to that promise. 3 to 4 million homes, families were going to get permanent sustainable mortgage modifications which roughly comes out to what you would do if you bought $700 billion worth of mortgages and modified them. the results, i have here horrendous. i started out more charitably. i said the results of the program were disappointing and we moved to dispiriting, anemic. i've got three days left. it's horrendous. [laughter] >> it is -- it is just heartbreaking the opportunity that was lost by a poorly designed program. fewer than 540,000 permanent modifications to date. treasury actually has acknowledged -- secretary geithner acknowledged they are not going to come anywhere close to 3 to 4 million but treasury actually refuses to even provide its projection of what this program is going to do even though there's legislation that's in the house to kill this bill. the number -- i think we can assume that their number must be so abysmal that they're

embarrassed or unwilling to released to the public in a lack of transparency. others have stepped in the congressional oversight panel, moody's has done an estimate. they put it around 750,800. ..

>> the reasons are deep and different but essentially it was a voluntary program that the structure didn't work. i'm going to defer to secretary geithner in his description on the hill. there's a way the program was sent off to offer incentives to mortgage services. they controlled. the idea is going to give them a few thousand dollars annual get them to modify mortgages. as secretary geithner resilient knowledge, those incentives were not powerful enough. the carrots were not big enough. even worse, there's been no fix, no compliance by treasury. even to secretary geithner again, i will use his words, found it into a terrible job. other officials describe what they been done as abysmal as far as followed the guidelines of the program, not a single financial penalty or withheld payment to single mortgage service for any other reason then faded to provide data.

it's not terribly surprising when you have an incentive-based program that carrots are too small and sticks are hidden that the program is not working. even worse, notwithstanding the fact that secretary geithner acknowledges the program is not going to meet these node, the incentive structure doesn't work, and that the services are performing terribly. just a couple of weeks ago a senior treasury official said to a conference like this, only full of applauding mortgage servicers, applauding when she said we're not going to make any major changes to this program, other than tweets around the edges. treasury celebrates the status quo of the failed program and that's what i think on this goal they have failed and there's very little reason to suspect it's going to be successful. so how did we get here? and since this is a symposium not just on my rantings about the home affordable modification program but on corruption and

the issues, it's been often suggested that the makeup of those running this treasury's program, on t.a.r.p., is somehow responsible, there's an element that have been corrupted. and it starts with hank paulson who is alumni of goldman sachs and the suggestion there. let's look at who are the people that run t.a.r.p. and with the kid from. it starts with hank paulson and tim geithner. hank paulson former ceo of goldman sachs. timothy geithner is former president of frbny. that's not as much of reagan as we think they are today. secretary geithner once testified said when he was president he was not a regular and had never been a regular. the bank itself defines itself not as an entity of the u.s. government. it says it is a private corporation, that is owned by its shareholders which are the commercial banks that are within its district. its board is made up of at least a third from ceos and commercial banks, and assist in

the selection of its president. let's dropped him to go are the people who run the t.a.r.p.? senior officials who run country. herb alison whose former president of merrill lynch and went on to the ceo, and currently the acting president, a corporate transactional lawyer here in the city. go down to the chief investment officer. he came from an import export bank. david bittner from goldman sachs. a new person will be from maryland. head of the housing program, she came from bank of america. other senior advisers on the program officials who were important in building the program, came from lazard and bear stearns. this in part has led to this perception that this is a program that is built and run by a alumni of wall street. this is some flag that it was some protest. so is perception reality?

is this tuba is this accurate, is this an inside job? and here's where we take the idea of corruption, no is my answer. this is not actual corruption. these people, and i don't always disagree with them, i mean, well, maybe i do disagree with them. maybe i don't always agree with them, but these are dedicated public servants. i differ with them. i think their perspective is often wrong but these are people are serving the country, who are walking away from very lucrative high-paying positions to serve their country. this is not an actual corruption. hank paulson is not trying to help his buddies on wall street. it's a different type of corrupting influence. some people called regulatory capture. they become so enthralled in industry they're supposed to record a start to identify with it. so maybe it's part that. maybe it's part of just a lack of diversity of viewpoint. isn't surprising a program that is built and run by people from

wall street so disproportionately helped wall street? what if instead of having all of those folks, elizabeth warren, instead of being fellow oversight person as chairman of the oversight panel, was working inside that bubble and helping to make those decisions. do we think t.a.r.p. would look the way it was today or would have more of a consumer focus, more of a main street focus? so is this the reason, is this really weird a program that is so disproportionate benefited wall street over main street? i can't really answer that question but what i will show you -- share with you is a couple of anecdotes. what i've seen and heard. let's talk first about talf. it's worthy programs that was designed to deal with asset-backed features. some of the actual toxic acids that sort of got us into this whole mess in the first place. these are loans that are chopped up, sliced up and sold to

investors and security. the idea behind talf is you take 200 billion, $1 trillion of taxpayer money and lending to hedge funds and investors so that they can go out and buy a security guide is to bring this market back. when i took office in december, i think and she and your '09 i had a meeting with some very senior officials at federal reserve bank governor. not a regulator. and during that conversation i asked the question, okay, so we'll be giving these loans and they're not recourse loans which means you don't have to pay them back, hedge funds to these investors. what's in a very toxic potentially toxic assets. was the protection for the taxpayer? i'll never forget this. the response i got was well, they're all going to have to be aaa rated by the rating agencies. and we will rely on investor due diligence. this was not my most professional moment at sigtarp. i think my -- after a pause, i think i said really?

like really? isn't this exactly what got us into the financial crisis was a reliance on aaa rated bonds and investor due diligence? the response i got, i think this is telling you what we're saying, about the rating agencies, they will not be embarrassed again. they're not going to embarrass themselves again. this was the perspective of the people running this program, was that these wall street institutions will not be embarrassed again. now i have to give the federal reserve and frbny all the great in orbit after this we made a series recordation. they work with us and inhibit i think the translator not to be one of the best protected programs from attacks their perspective but from a broad perspective is that a successful program and he worked with his hand in hand. and again, i can't give them enough credit for building that program. but acacia a sense of perspective. another t.a.r.p. program going out and buying the worst of the

toxic assets, residential mortgage-backed securities. these are the things that got us into the hole. the idea that this program to try to bring that market back is if you will marry what turned out to be about $3 of taxpayer money for 1 dollar of private money. we're going to hire and work with an asset manager to go out and buy these troubled assets, these toxic assets, these old legacy residential mortgage-backed securities. we put out a report on mr. quinn treasure was designing this program, they went to get advice to the asset managers. the people who eventually they ended up hiring to run the program, companies like blackrock. and to be clear, i'm not saying that's a bad idea. you can write program like this without getting input. just like i don't think it's a bad idea to all of those wall street people involved in building and running t.a.r.p. it's important people from the market. my problem is the lack of diversity. it shouldn't be too surprising to that when a program is

designed by wall street and by the very people are later going to participate at managing the program, that it was the model of taxpayer protection. the program as we cite had very severe and significant problems of conflicts of interest. the fund managers who eventually got the deals to do this, had a tremendous potential advantage from having the benefit of the information of these fund. we suggested they have ethical wall that way the fund manager who has this market moving information about being able to spend tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money to purchase certain securities, the prices will go up, so they can't deal with other funds that they managed to with the basic concepts. i didn't come up with a. it's what the federal reserve was doing in similar programs that it was running, was having these to even treasury had it on one of its other programs. i thought this would be an easy sell. i was wrong. the first response i got back was, you know, we do this on.

we went back. they went back from all the fund measure as if we do it with an ethical wall? they said no, no, no. we won't do. no one will put your cities. this the information they got back at basically the managers are saying we're not going to participate unless we can get the advantage of this market moving information in these conflicts of interest. after the program was announced, recommendation was not adopted, one fund manager put in their own ethical wall because they thought it was the best practice. clearly at least one was willing to do so. even though they were willing to do so at other federal programs. the of the response we got, not just on this program, across the board, was saying like look, banks will see a profit, tried to make money, no, no, no. no, we. the banks. they would never risk their reputation. at some point i think in july of 2009 i sat down and i said, guys, don't ever use the word

reputation risk to meet again. it will never work. like, i don't believe it. you're relying to protect the taxpayers by shaming the shame is to look at what just happened in these past few years. but again i think it's helpful. very briefly, i will wrap up with the hamp program. two examples are i think that demonstrate this wall street versus main street bias in those running the t.a.r.p. program. moral hazard. moral hazard is described everything i talked about before about the too big to fail, it's the idea because they know they're going to be bailed out, they're going to take these types of risk in rewarding those who got into trouble in the first place by either not punish, reported by protections, moral hazard. i put it here because while that didn't seem to be an overwhelming concern when shuffling hundreds of billions of dollars into bank of america, c. and aig, boy did that come

up. for those lucky few in the hamp program who survived the goblet of service or misconduct in the rules and regulations, we thought that those come in those instances where it's in the best interest of the homeowner and the best interest of the person who owns the mortgage, the investor or owner, that principal reduction should automatically happen. oh, no. moral hazard. we're going to encourage these homeowners to walk away from their loans, strategically default. god forbid of some individuals in ohio who is struggling to his loan gets some advantage because of moral hazard or potential strategic default. when we pointed out this protections we could put in place, to avoid moral hazard, verified hardship affidavit and things like that, no interest. are pointless having already jumped into the deep end of the moral hazard pool with t.a.r.p.,

that this was an interesting area for them to suddenly raise a moral hazard flight. finally, on the compliance issue, again, you see a stark difference. inward to get -- lunch, right? i get to stop before lunch. but the compliance issues. get a hamp modification. you have to do -- you really do have to run a. i'm not critical of that because i think that this helps protect taxpayers from front. but treasury, really make sure your vacation documents et cetera. how about the big banks? what happened to them? i'm not talking about the hundreds of banks that are participated the really big ones, the ones that the extraordinary a systems. i'm talking about cd, b of a, aig, also the other countries, chrysler, gmac. we did a report on condition of

the extra in ss and they have to follow certain rules prepared to file certain reports but they have to comply with their rules. so we did an audit of what treasure was doing in the compliance function. and what we found was somewhat staggering. there was no compliance. it was entirely reliant on self reporting. no testing, no plans to do independent testing at the time. basically they said to the bank here's the rules, let us know when you break them. even worse, we don't want to know about all the times you break them, only tell us when it's a material breach of one of our rules. oh, and also by the way, you decide what's mentored or not. we're not going to tell you what is material. just use your own discretion. we made a recommendation that maybe they shouldn't do that. they strongly disagreed with that recommendation. they later backtracked and are doing some on the. so again i think that again gives you a sense of different perspective and approach of main street versus wall street.

i don't have time for questions myself, but i think when a couple of minutes, i think ann would ask questions of the audience. [applause] >> thank you very much. if you want more, come to our website. [applause] >> coming up next to on c-span2, today is the 25th anniversary of the chernobyl nuclear accident. up next we'll show you a form looking at that disaster and what lessons were learned.

specs in the the bill in its present form, i will sign it. okay. any questions? [laughter] >> are you still here? spent almost every of the president journalist meet at the white house corresponds to to make a little fun of themselves at their own expense the president obama will have it again this saturday.

watch live or go back and watch a pasadena. search, watch, click and share online at the c-span video library. every probe and since 1987. watch what you want when you want. >> now available c-span congressional directory, a complete guide to the first session of the 112th congress. inside new and returning house and senate members with contact information, including twitter addresses, district maps and committee assignments. and information on the white house, supreme court justices in government. order online at c-span.org/shop. >> today marks the 25th anniversary of the chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster. up next part of a recent day long form looking back at the history of that disaster and its short and long-term effects on the private and public health. speakers include the ukraine ambassador to the u.s., along with authors, academics and nuclear scientists. this is just under two hours.

>> let me first introduce our panelists here today. to my far left, to your far right is arjun makhijani, president of ie are pickled a ph.d in engineering with a specialization in nuclear fusion from the california at berkeley. he has printed many articles including weapons production, testing and nuclear waste over the past 20 years. and i know most recently he has co-authored a book. next to my left, next to your right, is doctor jeffrey patterson. jeffrey patterson, dr. patterson is here on behalf of of physicians for social responsibility you are a professor and department family medicine at the university of wisconsin school of medicine and

public health in madison, wisconsin. been he has visited chernobyl and sites nuclear testing in the former soviet and special interest the fx medical effects of radiation, nonviolent alternatives to war in preventing war, sustainable means of ameliorating climate change. immunity to my right, is janette sherman. i'm looking for your. here you are. doctor sherman is a specialist in internal medicine and toxicology. she's published more than 70 articles in scientific literature and also writes for the popular press to provide information for the concerned public. she's recently completed a very important translation and editing of the book at chernobyl, consequences of a catastrophe for people and nature. this was written by someone many of you know i'm sure and with

colleagues. published by the new york academy of sciences in december 2009. and then to my far right into your far left is an old friend and colleague from russia and soviet union, natalia mironova. natalia and i have met many times. she's also hear any figure she's a prominent leader in human rights and anti-nuclear in varmint movement in russia. she founded the movement for nuclear safety and is one of the first organizers to press government openness on pre-chernobyl nuclear catastrophes. through her work in regional power should make public information on a 500,000 victims affected by the activities of the first plutonium production in russia, and on the catastrophes and some of you know about in the miner act plutonium production plant. i was also as natalia got involved in the construction of

a plutonium storage facility about 15 years ago. as a member of the supreme environment accounts or the russians departed from 1997-2006, she organize broad public case against our discussion for federal reference on radioactive waste. so with that as the short bios on all the panelists, i will turn over to arjun makhijani. >> thank you very much, paul. and ambassador motsyk, thank you very much for inviting me. i'm very pleased to be your though on the anniversary every somber occasion. after chernobyl, it was often said in the west that such a thing could not happen here. and by the west i mean always

including japan. and it was not explained much why it couldn't happen here, but it's supposed to be safer, better, and i was the soviet union. it happened over there and it couldn't happen here. and i used to remind people that the same accidents sequence couldn't happen here because that was a different type of reactor. but the same scale of consequences could certainly happen here. and tragically we are, look, we don't know the skill of the consequences yet of the fukushima tragedy, but we know that it is far worse than any nuclear reactor accident in the west. and much more comparable to scale than the three-mile island. so it's important to understand them my charge is to give you some technical background sal tried to do that and throughout, i will try to give you some perspective between what went on

then and what is going on now. ironically, the chernobyl accident started with trying to fix the design problem in the emergency core cooling system. that's the system that you need if you have a failure of the regular cooling and power and your emergency generators must come on, and immediately cool the reactor because there's so much radioactivity that even when the reactor is shot, the fuel rods may meltdown, the water may boil, and then you get pretty severe releases of radioactivity. and the designers of the chernobyl type reactors aren't bmj reactor, which was very different from the light water reactors in the sense that there was a huge graphite block in the core of this reactor used as a moderate. it is carbon and carbon can

burn. there had been an accident before the fire in britain in 1957. and somewhat different type of reactor, but also had graphite. so they wanted to make sure that they would not be a gap between loss of power and the emergency diesel generators coming on to supply the cooling. they decided that the emergency generators would take too long, a minute or more, to supply full power to start pumping emergency water into the reactor. and they were doing an experiment as to whether the residual power and the steam turbines and a generator could supply power to the pumps. and so they actually did an experiment in the reactor full of radioactivity, 1000 megawatts, 1000 megawatts is 1 million kilowatts to

1 million kilowatts electrical is 3 million kilowatts. just to make it real, e21 of us generates about one-tenth of a kilowatts of heat, just from the food we eat. so that's our metabolism rate is one-tenth of a kilowatts. chernobyl is 3 million kilowatts. so 39 people worth of heat was being generated in this reactor. the experiment went terribly wrong. it was supposed to be carried out at a certain power level. it was supposed to be done in the daytime, but apparently it was a demand for power in the daytime and they were told to do it at night. that people have the unfortunate job of doing it were not fully prepared to do the experiment because they were not supposed to have done it. and the experiment, the whole procedure started around midnight, and they were supposed

to do with the power enough but leaving a power in a turbine generator that it could power the pumps for about a minute until the diesel generators took over. that's the system they were testing. emergency core cooling continuously, essentially without a break. the first problem that happened, the reactors controlled by control rods, in this case you lower the control rods to decrease the rate of reaction and you raise them in the fukushima reactors, the reverse, the control rods are inserted from the bottom but the idea is the same. the control rods were inserted too far. the reactor power dropped much farther than would be necessary to do the experiment. then the control rods were withdrawn too far in the reactor power increased, and you had an

unstable regime in which steam started being generated in the reactor, and a runaway reaction started to take place because the power started to increase. now, i told you that the power in the reactor, the maxim rated thermal power of the reactor was about 3 million kilowatts, and in a few seconds the power increased to about 100 times the rated capacity. is that right? i think i think 100 times is correct. a virus ate up my notes about half an hour before i came here so i don't have all the numbers. but i believe that's right. tom, do you remember? okay. when the power increased so suddenly, you had an explosion, a steam explosion, the reactor building was destroyed. there was not a secondary

containment building that was robust as at three-mile island. and then there was a second explosion shortly thereafter and a fire. ..

>> to this day in the united states, we continue to consider licenses for adding reactors to existing sites without revisiting the fact there's already reactors there, and you could get major damage. the firefighters put out all the fires except the main fire by about six o'clock. it was a pretty huge and heroic effort, but there was another major problem that is less known which is at the bottom of the reactor there's diagrams and the pool at the bottom of the reactor, and once the fuel

melted, melting through the concrete, if it had reached the water at the bottom of the reactor, there would have been another explosion, and three people went down into that highly radioactive water and opened the gates so firefighters could put in hoses and pump out the water otherwise it would have been a much worse accident. i want to reflect a little bit on the contrasts and comparisons. fortunately at chernobyl there was not a multireactor explosion. there were very brave workers with a great deal of presence of mind to replace the hydrogen with nitrogen, and it's because of the alertness of those workers that it was not much, much more serious than it was.

at fukushima sadly, there was an accident with seven sources of radioactivity and trouble. there's something that happened there for the first time which is a spent fuel pool con taping radioas wellactive waist and a core that lost cooling, generated hydrogen, and there's been a hydrogen explosion, and you have seen the destruction of the buildings. yet, we are not really learning the lessons from that, at least as rapidly as i would like. we have spent fuel pools in this country, and i'm sure that the second panel speakers will address this, but i just want to note that in the middle of the fukushima crisis, the nuclear regulatory commission relianced vermont yankee which is about the same age and design as unit

one in fukushima for another 20 years, and vermont yankee spent fuel pool has more spent fuel in it than all the four spent fuel pools at fukushima that are in trouble put together. most of that fuel can be removed into dry casks, but the nuclear regulatory commission did not order that. the larger lesson for me and one of the reasons i wrote my book, "carbon free and nuclear free" on a dare essentially of my mentor who is in the energy policy commission of this country, and he said five years ago at this time, he's run the los angeles water and power and so on. he said we should get rid of coal, oil, and nuclear and go to solar. i didn't think it was feasible. he challenged me to actually do

a study rather than offer instant opinions, and so i did, and i concluded that actually we can have a renewable energy future, and that, i think, should be part of the debate. maybe we should consider whether we can make nuclear energy safer, but i would suggest this should be an occasion for us to consider whether it makes sense to make plutonium and fish products just to boil water. that's what a nuclear reactor is, gist to boil water. i believe this idea of boiling water is firmly planted in the middle of the 20th century, and maybe we ought to think new. at least i think it ought to be a fresh debate. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, arjun, and now we'll hear from dr. jeff patterson.

we'll keep all questions until the end. thank you. >> thank you very much. it's a pleasure to be here. it will be a trick for me to run this and my computer so i don't have to look back. >> you want me to do this for you? >> i think it'll be all right if i can coordinate my efforts here. we'll see. i want to talk about the medical effects of radiation, and basically i feel that nuclear power, and indeed the nuclear industrial complex which includes nuclear weapons and power is severely hampered by the three poisonous p's of nuclear, and those are, pollution, price, and proliferation, and we're again seeing the example of the pollution today in fukushima. we know about price and the ambassador spoke about the cost to the ukraine which continues on and belaruse as well.

we have to keep the connection in mind between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. i first want to talk about the by logical -- biological effects. there is no safe dose. you hear this all the time, no effect on humans, safe dose. it's arrogant to think it's just us. what about the plants, the fish, what about the insects affected by this? we know by the bilogical effects report and the epa that even low doses of radiation cause cancer. it's a direct linnier relationship from lower to higher. the more radiation you get, the higher chance of getting cancer. every cat scan you get, that effect accumulates just like

taking small dozes of arsenic every day, which you wouldn't do, so why increase the amount of radiation we get every day? we get raid yition from three sources, one is background radiation. we evolved with this. you hear radiation is all around us, in the water and rocks. indeed it is. that's why in wisconsin where there's high radon in basements, they put in ventlation systems because otherwise that causes an increase in lung cancer. again, there's no safe dose of radiation. there's no free lunch here. it's what we consider acceptable . one single dose of radiation is equivalent to cancer years later. for example, a 70-year-old man getting a cats scan that can

give him radiation as a 1 and 100,000 chance of getting cancer. a baby getting that cat scan has a 1 in 200 chance of radiation because there's longer time to accumulate and live. these are increased after doses of radiation and the effects are again accumulative. one individual in a thousands will develop carnet from a 10 -- cancer from a 10 mill seifer. the cat scan amount of radiation varies up to 13 times for the same procedure. there's not a lot of standardization in medical redduation. we get this from background radiation and medical radiation which may be necessary and helpful for us, and then the third source is the unwelcome radiation that we get from the

nuclear industrial complex. that's what we're thinking about today. we know low dose radiation is not good for us. when i started practice more years ago than i like to admit, it was more common on pregnant women. women come in in labor and we do x-rays on the baby and measure the head to see if she could deliver the baby. that's a worthless procedure. doctors showed through studies that one x-ray of the fetus and utero causes an increased incidence of leukemia in that child. this is corroborated by other studies since. recent study in the journal of the american medical association showing dental countries where a woman wears a shield causes low

birthrate infants. i wonder how many low rate infants were born in ukraine, just a dental x-ray because of the radiation to the thyroid gland that amounters the ma tab lism affecting the fetus. it affects the fetus by lower iq. those studies have been done from the effects of the chernobyl situation and babies born at that time have lower iq levels. again, it's important for us to dispel the myth that there's a safe dose of radiation and low dose radiation is good for you, good for your children, ect.. we're not worried about x-rays here. we're worried about a longer term picture. most of the data comes from

hiroshima. that was a one time radiation. it was like a large doze that the population got. here, there's a continual dosage. people continue to digest it because of the iodine and plutonium that came from chernobyl and now the japanese plant. we don't know what the long term effects are. we're looking at an experiment where we have to watch the environment and the population for hundreds of years to know what the effects are. this is a very, very cruel experiment. because it enters the food chain and the food chape starts with a deposition of the radiation and works its way up through grass that the cows eat, concentrated in the milk and the children drink the milk and in the meat then, chickens, cows, and grains which we'll show pictures of in

a few minutes. we're at the top of the food chain. again, we don't know the long term effects of it. this leakage comes through the conversion of fuel, and there should be another arrow here, a diversion to nuclear weapons because that's another big source of radiation we all have gotten all the way to the reprocessing as we know the fukushima plant has some reprocessed plutonium used in it and waste storage which we have no idea what to do with the waste storage. we don't have a clue, and this is mind pailing. these omit radons and other products for thousands of years into the environment where the people breathe them and animals burrow into this, and, again, this is occurring all over the world, part of the leakage of radiation out of the nuclear industrial complex.

we know about the radiation and 100,000 people died immediately from thermal effects and another 100,000-plus died of radiation injuries. there's new cancers and strokes and heart disease, and, of course, that doesn't say anything about the psychological effect once again visited on the pap jeez -- japanese population again now in many, many ways. we then continue to do nuclear testing with over a thousand nuclear tests set off in the atmosphere and psr and other organizations found this is children's teeth and that led to the gum testing treaty. that radiation lives in the ground and atmosphere today. it's blown up when dust is blown up. it's measured around the world for nuclear testing, and, again, this continues today as long as we don't sign a comprehensive test ban treaty.

well, that last explosion blew a lot of coral up in the fallout, and that's the difference again between hiroshima. these children were playing out in the rain or the snow that was coming down. they thought it was snow, and it was coral that was radioactive. this young man had his thyroid checked and then died of leukemia. there was a lot of japanese deaths from the fallout of that particular explosion. again, this effect goes on and on. this is, you know, what we can look at in terms of the environment, we know what happens to the environment. look at the pumpkin grown after radiation effects had been done. they scraped off 17 inches of soil, added potassium and some of the sealite, it's a rock

product, on the soil to bind, and this is pumpkin grown in 1985, 30 years after that explosion we just saw, and you can see this guy is wearing a glove because there's so much raid yition in the pumpkin. you can see what it did to the pumpkin 30 years later. well, we also have the example of kishdom and my colleague is familiar with that. in 1957, one of the tanks like this, these are in hampford, a tank blew up because hydrogen buildup contaminated a huge area of land, some 350 miles down wind and 800 square kilometers i think is the -- and people still can't go in. there's signs everywhere that say don't come into this area, and yet the animals don't know that. they don't read the signs.

they go in, get contaminated, and as you drive along the road as i was a few years ago, you see these signs that say don't come into this forest, it's too radioactive here. this looks like my home in wisconsin frankly. then we're driving along, and there's a field and they're growing crops here. how can they go crops here when the contamination is next door. don't the crops get contaminated? of course they do, you -- but we have to eat. they mix the crops together with others and that happened in ukraine as well. dilution is the answer to pollution. when do we reach the level where that's not acceptable? do you want your animals, children eating crops that are grown in this area even if it is diluted down? again, it accumulates. this is the deposition in ukraine and during the break, we'll play a movie.

it goes everywhere. it doesn't stop at the borders, and so one of the tenants of this is when we have an accident like this and radiation leakage all the time through the fuel cycle, it's not just ukraine involved, it's all of us that are involved. well, i visited hospital number six a month after chernobyl went up. i was doing a speaking tour in east and west germany and what people were told in the two countries, and it was amazing. in germany, a university town like madison, wisconsin, after my talk, the mayor said to me what should i tell people? should i tell them to stay inside? do we have the cows out? what do we do? i get different answers from my engineers, the scientist, the physicians, i don't know what to tell people. the county next door the cows are out, and we keep our kids in. we found puddles that kids play

in are highly radioactive. this settles in areas, and you can't get it off. i said, i don't know. this is the dilemma that the government is facing in fukushima and sure they faced in the ukraine. what do we tell people? we are trying to manage the unmanageable here. this is an engineer a level below the reactor and heard the explosion, helped put out the fires. he's had burns on his legs from the radiation lofting up hawaii pants. he's bronze from liver failure and his hair fell out and he died because his blood cells quit reproducing. this is a firefighter in an isolation tent who also died. these are the acute radiation injuries that occurred. you heard not many people died, just 56, and yet we'll hear about the other effects that go on and on and on from this.

well, this produced chernobyl, and in this case the trees were dead and the land scraped off. when i was here, two years after chernobyl, and road graters were scraping up dirt. i said what are you -- how do you know how much radiation these guys are getting? oh, they are monitor. i said where's your monitor, he opened his coat and said he left it at home today. that's what happened with the information from the people who were working there, here we are in front here, trying to build a new one now, raise money, which was a good effort, but we're short on funds, and japan can't give any because they have their own problems. how do we know economies will be able to support this? well, we're looking at the situation where we really don't know the long term genetic

effects of this. we look at the new things coming along, and we know very little of what's happening here. as this says, he's grown a foot since i last saw him. there's aberrations in animals and plants in the area. natural disasters have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but radiation goes on and on and on. it contaminates, befouls, and the fear lingers on and on. it's truly the forever pollution. the nuclear industrial complex we must remember to tie it because nuclear weapons and nuclear power go hand in hand. they are like a hand on a gleave and we see many, many examples of that around the world, and so we need to keep this in mind as we think about both nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants. as einstein said, the splitting

i did not translate, so that is a little correction. i was asked by lexi after the book was published originally in 2007 if i would edit the book. he said we need this in english, we have nobody or no money. i said, yeah, i'll work on it figuring it would take four months. it took 14 months. this is an old side from the talk i gave in september, and this is the copy of the book and next please? as with fukushima, this is a polar view of the world, and it

shows that chernobyl went around the entire northern hemisphere, and unless we stop the world from turning, then every single nuclear event will go around the entire hemisphere in which it occurs. so far, these have been in the northern atmosphere, but you can see that chernobyl went around asia and reached greenland, north america, and canada. also, there were fallout in africa, so when people -- when fukushima happened, i said it's just a matter of time before we're going to have contamination worldwide. next please. i'm -- these are just a few of the slides from the book. this shows the number of thyroid cancer cases among persons from newborn to 18 years of age at the time of the meltdown, and you can see there were few in

1986 and it continues to go up and up and up. one of the greatest concerns about fukushima is the free amount of iodine 131 given off and iodine 129 which has an extremely long half-life. we're concerned about the unborn and obviously the pregnant women because iodine 131 goes to the thyroid gland of the unborn, and you are then dealing with lifelong problems, loss of mentality and low iq, and this is of great significance, and i don't know what is being done worldwide as far as taking -- giving medical advice to pregnant women at this time. next one, please. this is an estimate of the number of cancer deaths resulting from the radionuclear

134, 137 and 190. this is in the book, and it's been the most controversial criticism that we have received on the book. the statistics are laid out in the book clearly. i won't go through them because i'd put you all to sleep, but we know that now between 800,000 people worldwide have died as a result of chernobyl. a new book, a new chernobyl book is being published this next week in the ukraine and where the estimate is now over a million, so this is the latest bringing up to date up to 2010. next please. this is a trend of the mortality

of ukraineian lick day tores who worked there from 86-87 from nonma lig inapt diseases. now, most think about cancer as a result of exposure to the chernobyl disaster, but we found that the commonest cause of death was heart trouble, and one of the biggest problems was brain damage in the lick -- liquidators. the book documents illnesses ranging from brain damage, cat rat development in children, lung disease, heart disease, and now any woman who had radiation for breast cancer knows about the development of heart disease. it turns out these isotopes are

picked up in the respiratory system and circulated throughout the circulatory systems, and you wind up with damage to the vessels of the blood system and the heart. now, one of the scientists who was ultimately arrested and charged with serious crimes was in prison for at least four years in ukraine, and had done studies on animals. he was a pathologist and he examined the tissues of children who died and found the heart decide in the children was the same who had high levels of seize yum 137, the same as the animals he studied before chernobyl. we hear that this is radiophobia and people are really, the reason they are sick is because they are worried about radiation

and compensation and other political problems. well, we see the anomalies in plants in chernobyl, so these are birth defects in plants. it's not just humans who have been affected that we've been able to document the effects. next, please. these are barn swallows with abnormal feather development, and once again, multiple systems have been studied of domestic and wild animals, birds, fish, trees, bacteria, viruses, all of them without exception developed changes. it's not just humans, and the book goes into the flora, the fona, and the human effects that we've seen as a result of

chernobyl and believe me, we'll see that as a result of fukushima to. believe me. this is some of the nucleis in fish, and you can see it. these were measured in finland, ukraine, poland, the baltic norway russia, various kinds of fish so this is enormous fallout throughout that entire area. the greatest concentrations from the chernobyl disaster felt in the ukraine and european and russia, but the greatest amount fell outside -- it fell in europe outside of the those three countries. next please. this is an enormous concern right now. this is from a ukrainian publication, and it shows that

the amaresium241, a break down product of plutonium, and this is increasing in an amount as time goes on, and unfortunately this is water soluble and therefore is picked up by plants and gets into the food supply. next slide, please. this shows the distribution in the year 2056, note that this -- this is going to go across the entire southern border of belle reduce, ultimately into poland and the baltics and down the napir river into the black sea. the half-life of this is about 400 years. i think it's 484 years, so it takes ten half-lives to

completely disappear, so we're talking 40 centuries before this is gone. next, please. one of the big problems in the whole situation with chernobyl and with other nuclear problems is the agreement that was written and signed between iaea, the international atomic veermt association and world organization was to promote the health of all peoples to act as a directing and coordinating authority on health work and assist in developing an informed public opinion among people on matters of het. the iaea is different to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health, and prosperity throughout the world. next slide, please. now, i'm not going to read all

of this word by word, but what's happening the iaea and the who have this agreement in place since 1959 that neither one can write or discuss anything without the agreement of the other. it's like having drake -- dracula guard the blood bank. [laughter] this must cease. i was encouraged that the secretary of u.n., ban ki-moon, yesterday said we have to we think the whole issue of nuclear power, and i hope that all of you will contact him and urge him to stop this agreement because this is interfering with data. we are not getting data out of hiroshima that we need, and, indeed -- i'm sorry, i misspoke, out of fukushima, and if you notice, fukushima has not been on the front page of either the

"washington post" or the "new york times" for the last week, and we need information. we need to continue research of the chernobyl people. we need to continue -- we need to initiate research on the fukushima disaster and we need to have this information transparent and available to everyone. now, one of the things that they did as an organization called belrad was to measure the levels of radiation in food and also measure the radiation levels in children and make this information available. we need to have this in place now. i think that's the end. oh, this is a picture of -- on the far -- this side here is lexi, and on the far side is him

before he died sailing outside the world health organization in geneva saying we need to get rid of this agreement between the who and the iaea. these are heros as far as i'm concerned. i think that's the last point. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much, dr. sherman. now we'll hear from natalia mironova. i'd like to introduce my associate, who has been involved in the whole process. she speaks fluent english and russian, and she'll volunteer as the translator, but natalie speaks good english as well, but we wanted consecutive

translation if necessary. thank you, marina. [inaudible conversations] [speaking in russian] >> translator: my first question to the audience if the authority that really takes and makes the decisions, do they know what we're talking about here today? [speaking in russian] >> translator: if they know, why do they make those kinds of decisions and based on what information they make those decisions? or based on what values? [speaking in russian] >> translator: so i tried to ask in those questions, i tried

to actually write a book about what's the title? the civil association in the mod earn government. she knows the english better than me. [laughter] [speaking in russian] >> translator: let's see how connected we are in this world. in my region where i live, they made the bomb that was then exploded in kazakhstan in the nuclear test field. [speaking in russian] >> translator: and then russia started building nuclear plants and build them first in ukraine. [speaking in russian] >> translator: they also brought nuclear fuel into my

region which, and all that fuel turned out to be in the river. [speaking in russian] >> translator: and so we can see all the military problems they ruined it for the society. [speaking in russian] >> translator: i want to talk about social and political lessons of chernobyl. chernobyl accident has not become a political lesson for the government. [speaking in russian] >> translator: it doesn't depend on the kind of government, authoritarian as used to be in the soviet union,

democratic in usa, or whether it is a traditional government as we see it in japan. [speaking in russian] >> translator: but for the soviets, for the people of the former soviet union, the chernobyl accident has become a different kind of lesson. [speaking in russian] >> translator: it has become a lesson of the negative social experience of environmental unjustice. on one side -- [speaking in russian] >> translator: on the other hand, it reveals failed systems of governments and management in that state. [speaking in russian]

>> translator: maybe that is why all information about chernobyl accident was immediately classified. [speaking in russian] >> translator: and also the information about consequences of chernobyl accident was classified as well. [speaking in russian] >> translator: and, of course, in 1990s, they sort of -- they were hiding information, using the mechanisms of business relations, new mechanisms public relations, ect., and communications. [speaking in russian] >> translator: go back to the

history of the chernobyl accident. [speaking in russian] >> translator: it is important to understand that the way service system operated at that time, it really contributed to secrecy of the information. so the way that the ministry of health and ministry of then responsible for nuclear energy, they were all in sort of staying within the state themself. they had their own bureaucracies and their own systems of classification of information. [speaking in russian]

[speaking in russian] >> translator: so the chernobyl accident contributed into basically collapse of that system. [speaking in russian] >> translator: when i write about what's going on in jay pap, i'm -- japan, i'm asking myself whether we have the same situation in soviet yiewn yon, and why vice president we noticed -- why haven't we noticed that?

[speaking in russian] >> translator: what we see in fukushima and japan is basically collapse of, you know, all kind of systems, the economic system, the financial system, but also transportation system and public health system as well, food supply. [speaking in russian] >> translator: we have exactly the same situation after chernobyl. [speaking in russian] [speaking in russian] >> translator: so what happened actually is that chernobyl accident actually became one of the reasons why we had major changes in the soviet

union, and what happened is that we haven't really analyzed and noticed what was going on in the aftermath of chernobyl because of the changes that were in partially caused by chernobyl as well. [speaking in russian] >> translator: therefore, we can say that the lesson of chernobyl was not really defined or identified, and therefore was not really studied. [speaking in russian] >> translator: decision makers in the soviet time became decision makers in the new state as well, in the new russia. [speaking in russian] >> translator: so it didn't really allow to identify the

dysfunctions of the system and also the mistakes in decision making as well in terms of technical and political aspects. [speaking in russian] >> translator: i remember the information the examined. [speaking in russian] [speaking in russian] >> translator: he was the chief of the? [speaking in russian] >> translator: all right. the commissioner in alexander in

charge of the chernobyl nuclear plant, he was also in charge of basically dumping nuclear waste in my region. >> he make decisions and was responsible, but he had no responsibility. he he retired peacefully from his position. this again about decision making. glt -- >> translator: the social lessons. we can say that nuclear accident or catastrophe really destroyed social, political, and economical -- economic system of the states. [speaking in russian] >> translator: it's really, and the critics of the social

welfare of population, but also increases the dramatically increases the coast of public health -- cost of public health. [speaking in russian] [speaking in russian] >> translator: the way the isotopes contaminate the territory of iran, contaminated the food, air, and water for hundreds and thousands of years which really, you cannot use this territory for that amount of time and also many people have to reel -- relocate from that territory. [speaking in russian]

[speaking in russian] [speaking in russian] [speaking in russian] [speaking in russian]4a2

>> translator:y live in an area with a bunch of political leaders now? [speaking in russian] [speaking in russian] >> translator: now i would like to speak about three points which i think are very common for chernobyl and fukushima as well, so first of all, the delay

and also the specification of information about released isotopes leads to the increasing number of people who were affected by radiation, also among the liquidators and the population. [speaking in russian] >> translator: basically, the nuclear operator is basically released of any kind of accountability. [speaking in russian] [speaking in russian] >> translator: so basically those taxpayers and victims themselves who are paying for all the consequences of any kind of accident. [speaking in russian]

>> translator: and, of course, there's no national budget that would be enough to cover all those expenses. [speaking in russian] [speaking in russian] >> translator: so basically, because there is not enough money in the budget, in order to save that kind of -- in order to save that money, all these organizations who are supposed to protect the population, they usually reorganized quickly and changed their status and then they become organizations and some kind of social relation, and they actually go into the courts with the victims of the

accident. [speaking in russian] >> translator: so we can say that all countries and all victims around the world have basically the same experience with this accident. [speaking in russian] [speaking in russian] >> translator: so how come we have this situation if we do have iaea which is supposed to regulate the nuclear safety? [speaking in russian]

[speaking in russian] >> translator: so when we say to them, victims of russia and other victims of chernobyl accidents that we're looking into the situation, we found out through all the agreements and mentioned only one agreement with the world health organization, but there are many more. [speaking in russian] >> translator: it is an agreement with the u.n. food and agriculture organization. [speaking in russian] >> translator: world ecological association, also

international labor organization which is sort of responsible for the situation of liquidators, and, of course, unesco. [speaking in russian] [speaking in russian] >> translator: so all these organizations, they practically gave up their rights of -- to do a truthful research of any kind of consequences, and -- of the nuclear accidents. so only scientific sphere with no application to real people. [speaking in russian]

>> translator: so we can say that all these agreements which were signed in 1950s and 60s, they are definitely all for nowadays, and they have to be reviewed. [speaking in russian] >> translator: let's talk about today. [speaking in russian] [speaking in russian] >> translator: so if -- if the aftermath of chernobyl accident was sort of in the shadow of all social and other big changes in the post-soviet territory, we can see that today basically the interests of business -- of the industry, is trying to down play

all effects of nuclear radiation and nuclear resonance. [speaking in russian] >> translator: and that is why russian and kazakhstan government are trying to play a big role on the uranium markets. it is probably the most dangerous thing that we can witness today. [speaking in russian] >> translator: i especially worry about basically collapse of nuclear monitoring systems. [speaking in russian] >> translator: regulation of. i was surprised to find out that

it is basically almost the same situation here in the united states. [speaking in russian] >> translator: they announced about the ambitions to build 35 reactors in 15 countries including bangladesh, vietnam, egypt, jordan. [speaking in russian] >> translator: countries that have almost or no experience of managing nuclear energy or nuclear plants. [speaking in russian] >> translator: another problem is that russia is trying to

increase its lobbying -- lobbying capabilities within the iaea so they will now train the staff for the iaea. [speaking in russian] >> translator: so iaea is basically balancing right now between the fear of people against a nuclear energy or nuclear weapons and interests of the nuclear industry. [speaking in russian] >> translator: and is basically turned into the lobbying agency for a nuclear renaissance. [speaking in russian]

>> translator: and he basically confirmed that announcing that there will be 30 countries that will have -- where the nuclear plants will be built before 2030, 2030. [speaking in russian] >> translator: that is why i think the role of the iaea should be reviewed, and the general assembly of the u.p. should consider it really seriously and play a major role in it as well. [speaking in russian] >> translator: and i wouldn't really like to see the situation

when the relationships between the countries about nuclear energy or construction of nuclear plants would remind you about corruption situations. [speaking in russian] >> translator: thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, thank you very much. thank you very much, marina too. there's a few minutes before the break. we'll take questions and answers for probably another 15-20 minutes, i think, and then we'll break and come back and form the second panel, but i first wanted to pose a question to all of you. what does the -- and i'm sure you're aware -- but what's the actual situation today around the chernobyl plant? in other words, do you know what

area is the, you know, prohibited for long term human living and are visitors still permitted to the area? i think there's actually some -- i'm told there's chernobyl tourism as well, and to what extent is it a danger to go through those areas today? >> well, yes. tourism around the nuclear issue is verging in nevada and there as well. people are touring the test sites in nevada, and there's the museum in nevada as well, and i think that's probably going to happen in chernobylment i think for a short trip in the areas it's not very dangerous to people, and i don't know that i would worry about it a lot if i

were going there. i don't know that i would be taking children into the area frankly, and i'm not sure how that's been thought about. you know, you go to the nuclear test site in nevada, and there's a place where they did a bomb about 100 feet under the ground to dig canals with bombs, and the russians did this too, the peaceful use of the at tom. there's a sign that says don't stand here for longer than 15 # minutes because it's too radioactive still. that was back in the 1950s. it's relevant to how safe it is. ..

the main risks, i think, are being faced still by the workers. one thing i did want to say in the technical perspective of chernobyl is that, actually, it is a nuclear waste repository. most of the fuel and most of the plutonium, i think 90 percent is still in debt multan reactor core that has been buried in the sand and concrete. i am very glad that and new sarcophagus will be built and that you have an agreement with the french. that is a very good thing. but actually it will have to be monitored, and the workers who work there will continue to face some risks. i don't know how we are thinking

about monitoring the site for, you know, beyond actually. >> i think we can take a lesson from of monitoring that was done previously. 600,000 liquidators, maybe more, maybe a few less. i spoke with one of the chief monitors recently, a gentleman from the kiev institute of radiation prior to this. his job was to go in and find hot spots around the plant and tell workers you can go here for ten minutes, here for 15 minutes. he has been back. he said the records on all of that radiation monitoring are gone. he doesn't know what has happened to them. they were taken to moscow. we have monitored some of the liquidators, but many of them we have no idea where they were, and we certainly have no idea how much radiation they got. after this tournament, you were a monster. irradiation physicist, how much radiation did you get a mac he said i have no idea.

and so i don't think the situation is going to change a lot now. we are going to see the same kind of stuff happening in fukushima. >> and i think that it is social and cultural phenomenon. we did not know this phenomenon enough for the first contamination. we did not know of this phenomenon starting from hiroshima and nagasaki. and from chernobyl and from fukushima. that is why information was collected inside of technical establishment and nuclear establishment. we need to involve more humanitarian social scientist to understand this phenomenon because some people love risk.

120. 120 million. i stayed because i was deputy. i need to understand what is phenomenon. dumping of nuclear waste. but this is also, i remember myself. shoes walking on the field contaminated because i have no knowledge in the beginning. so how many people have knowledge about this. the knowledge also connected inside closed cycle of scientists. nuclear industry -- nuclear industry is not interested in spreading real and honest knowledge about health effects. >> the only thing i would like to add is that radiation is not a new science. it was 60 years ago that radio

x-rays were done and found the cost genetic defects. we have known about the biology of the radioisotopes for decades. this is not new science. we have ignored it saying, well, we have to look and we really don't know. we do know. we do know. we know where cesium 137 goes in living matter. we know where plutonium goes. if we ignore it its at our peril. >> thank you all. with that i want to open it up for questions and comments. i will recognize people. please, when you stand up, state your name and organization and to whom you would like the question directed was the whole panel for that matter. [inaudible question] when you are talking about the political and social consequences you said that it

contributed to the falling apart of the soviet union. we know that because 93 percent of ukrainians voted for independence five years later. but unless i misunderstood the translation to you in the beginning say that there is no difference between what type of government has to deal with this issue to mac i think if we compare japan to what happened in chernobyl i would like to remind everybody that five days after on may 100 the children were asked to parade in the streets of kiev. it was more than ten days before the most elementary and precautionary information was given to the citizens. also it was more than a year before any humanitarian assistance was allowed into ukraine which is completely different than what we see today in japan. i think that is also one of the reasons that we have never been able to give that ukrainians the amount of money that we have pledged to solve the problem.

it happened some time ago and we are always confronted with new disasters. i want to make sure i understood your comment. >> yes. when i talk about -- fukushima day-by-day since the accident was announced using the in hk channel. what i saw in general, only one nuclear establishment self organized and produced the same kind of arguments relation in chernobyl about safety level of radiation. so yes, of course, fukushima was happened in another context. this is informational society and society self organized

enough to control what is government doing and what is government response. that's why government was quickly and then end chernobyl situation. delay of truthful information was obvious. delay of about number of isotopes. when japanese government start to discuss caesium 137i call and ask him what about. immediate reaction. immediately of how immediately information to population, how they need to protect themselves. was delayed. still don't know nothing still. must be in the water around and

in the air. no one. only one about plutonium, but plutonium was exploded. plutonium is also very important because of air and breath. didn't have enough information. it is have information and it is the same mistake what we saw in the chernobyl and in maybe three mile island also. delay of information. when japanese discussed 20 kilometers zone, 30 kilometers around it was ultimately from chernobyl experience that it is only model. exclusions. it is only model.

solution for immediately came. it was obvious from the first hour, but it was government followed the same what it was in ukraine. i talk about the same nature of the government's. so even we have the different type of the governments and our three countries. that's what i tried to explain. >> we have to face the fact that the historical reality of the nuclear industrial complex is secrecy, minimization, and cover-up. those three things. maybe different whether it is in the soviet union or the united states, but there are blatant examples in the united states. for example, when we were setting off nuclear weapons in nevada, the cuddy a corporation

discovered their film was being fought in new york when rain storms came down. the government alerted the kodak corporation but did not bother to tell me anything about it. so there is example after example after example. it doesn't matter whether you are in a democracy, the soviet union, or anywhere. imagine what is going to happen when something like this happens in dr. rhea. it is the same worldwide phenomenon, and it is the hallmark of the nuclear industrial complex which is secrecy, cover-up, and minimization. >> twenty-five years out from chernobyl. i remember trying to communicate back in the 1980's and 1970's with colleagues in the former soviet union. almost impossible. we place a phone call, waited your telephone for a return call for eight hours. so the information regime internet e-mail telephone cell phones and all is also very,

very different today than it was back then. you have a question. >> thank you very much. i am a professor at the university of southern california. i am also secretary of state leicester. you mentioned. i am also a member of the national investigating the accident. i wanted think mr. ambassador for hosting. i have been to your beautiful country, the city that has stayed. reactor number three for three days. i spend time with your reactor operators and to the plants. implementation. i have two questions and one question about your comment. i've followed your great work. but what of the major

contributing causes, the investigating nuclear safety collapse. has the nature of the safety culture and a lack of an independent regulator, safety culture has been an identified by the international atomic energy. and one of the biggest problems that we see in fukushima, i have followed the problem of japan nuclear safety from the time of 1999. independent nuclear safety agency. they don't do their job. even though we criticize you have to be thankful for our nrc. at least it does a better job. my question also, that confidential memorandum of understanding with who, i became ten years ago.

i was pleased to see. also the attention of the major investigative reporter. in the context of fukushima. because i was complaining. he asked me have very interesting question, and i'm posing that question to you. asked by graduate students, and they could not find anything. besides one chapter in french on the internet and then your thoughts, here's the question he asked me. has there been any evidence that that memorandum has been used for cover-up of chernobyl can act any evidence to back thank you. >> well, as is and the chernobyl book which, by the way, was published originally had $150 by

the new york academy, we now have available for $5 also on the internet in an e-book for $2.909. the information is at the back. yes, in the book that pointed out that the chernobyl which was released by the ia, e8, and who said there may be 4,000 people that died. there really weren't very many problems. we may need to move on and forget about chernobyl. in that document they used about 300 citations, scientific citations, mostly published in english. the book went through -- they collected well over 30,000 documents. they cited about 5,000 articles, many of them never before

published in english, mostly published previously in belarus, ukraine, and russia. most of these articles were published in peer review journal. the books include information from the british literature, sweden, norway, greece, italy, france, united states and in the slavic languages. so, a big difference was the who iea chernobyl forum covering very little literature, did not cover any of the slavic languages and was very limited in what they're -- what they found. they also said of the need to get over this and go on and forget about chernobyl. i think this is the difference. thank you. >> just to respond briefly. i was actually going to say something about the prior comment. i think there is some truth to

both the prior commager said. in a way, the nature of the nuclear establishment established by the context, so if i look at the u.s. history, the general groves before the very first test was afraid of lawsuits. he thought there would be property damage lawsuits and somebody's window got blown out. in this country that agee was afraid of congressional investigations, lawsuits, journalists, and eventually may be the nrdc. a lot of independent. you know, whistle-blowers in the 1960's. they may have lost their jobs and had a difficult time inside the establishment, but they did not lose their heads as they might have under stalin. so, i think that is one reason there is more of a safety

culture and more of the idea of independent regulation. although, i think some of the atomic energy commission culture continues. i think there was an improvement in how the nuclear regulatory commission operated after three mile island. what you said is a relative statement. i do think today that the u.s. nuclear regulatory commission is far too reluctant to impose costs on safety, and its record of vigilance on behalf of the american public is not very good. maybe -- there are plenty of examples like the recent inspector general report about self assessments and self reporting and so on. so, why have would not disagree with your relatives statement i am not very sanguine that there is an adequate level of vigilance in the united states.

[inaudible question] >> consultants here in washington d.c., but i grew up in ukraine. i did my research on chernobyl disaster. first of all, i appreciate such high attention to this issue 25 years later. the lack of interest and some lack of support for this issue, huge problem for ukraine. i was with chernobyl disaster very closely during my life. my son was born in chernobyl disaster year. i know. they keep our children healthy after that. i worked for the presidents of ukraine. they dealt with chernobyl disaster. one of the results of chernobyl disaster for dear graphic

development was published in 1994. my question is demographic now because very bad prognosis for death rate, birthrate, and other issues. what do you think now teaneck you spoke about health issues. can you summarize it and give us a picture about demographics. thank you. >> i would like to respond or begin. >> the health data in the area is terrible. we have learned that only -- according to the belarus government only 20 percent of children are considered healthy in belarus. so 80 percent are not well. we are talking about immunological problems, genetic problems, birth defects, heart

disease, brain damage, loss. it is a tragedy, a tragedy. who will be the hardest and the teachers and the musicians to mac 80 percent of the children are sick. now we are facing the third generation. >> i would like to add. i participate last november and the confidence organized by who. the department of the special medical biological problem of the russia. so this is like core of the nuclear medicine. the question was, is a statistic -- statistical -- population statistic approach for estimation of nuclear disaster.

this is a big question. so, the big question about methods of estimation. what i saw in my region about kids, they demonstrate illnesses among the population. kids, teenagers, and adults. kids and teenagers. twice, three times more on this is then with adults. and also we talk only about this and we talk only about cancer. we did not talk about genetic. i talk with professors. he explain how difficult to published genetic information in peer review journal before this

information came to the north to be used as an international level. it need to be publicized, but it is very difficult for this kind of research to be publicized. calculate the world health organization. >> i will just add to this, when you think about this burden, the economic burden, psychological burden, physical burden of all of this, look at hiroshima and nagasaki. a onetime dose of radiation, it took us years to figure out what that was. we set off bombs in nevada to figure out what neutron flux is work, figure out how much radiation people got. this is an entirely different situation. you have people getting ongoing radiation, psychological and social factors that feed and. we know that now we are looking at pesticides.

what is the combination can act you think about the money that went into hiroshima and nagasaki. millions and millions of dollars. ukrainian budget was, as i understand, as a sixth of the ukrainian budget was dealing with chernobyl for a while. now it's five to 7%. the world has not come in and stepped in like we did in hiroshima and nagasaki and said let's figure this out and follow with. again, that is the secrecy, that is the cover-up that is going on today. it is huge and it has ever been. if you look at it that way and think about it, how much of this money is counted in to the cost of nuclear power today to map to you hear people in the nuclear industry saying, we have to add in the cost of the budget that went to the ukraine to the kilowatt-hour. no.

it is just not done. this is part of the tragedy, frankly, of all of this. it is going to happen again. >> i have a question in the front and then i will take two more in the back after that and then i think we should break. i mentioned to everybody that we will have a second panel. there will be additional time for questions and answers. please feel free. our speakers will all stay and will be able to ask it of them in the second panel. >> my name is marcia smart. i am a social worker by training. i have been concerned about environmental health. my concern is for future generations. almost 50 percent of women have unplanned pregnancies. that means there going off to visit a contaminated area and don't know they are pregnant. we know that if the thyroid is affected it will affect the brain of the children and perhaps you can talk about this.

i mean, we have one out of 110 children with autism. we have an increase of alzheimer's. there is a wonderful book which stated what the problems are. we really -- ibm, the future is very grim if nobody has a brain. >> i agree with you. probably the greatest concern in the exposures to children to the chernobyl fallout is brain damage. how are we going to survive as a society on this earth if we -- if our children are born brain damaged. we do know that the thyroid is key to delivering a healthy child. >> well, you know, i will start and end with this. if this were an experiment at my university it would have been stopped long ago.

this is a cruel, poisonous experiment that we are carrying out on our environment and ourselves that we are never going to know the end of pity in the news today about pesticides and measuring pesticide levels in pregnant women and finding that their children at age seven have a lower i.q. is and much more difficulty during particular tasks. this is now well documented. but what are the synergistic effects of pesticides and radiation. you know, the answers to these questions, we don't know. they aren't good. again, i would say, you know, this is a cruel, poisonous experiment that we are carrying out on ourselves that needs to be stopped. >> could i have one thing. the famous ph.d. in the said that nuclear power was a random

murder. we don't know who is going to fall upon, how old they are or their status. >> i work for city hope international. relief and development ngo working in belarus. i am going tomorrow. we will be commemorating chernobyl and delivering medicine. my question is particularly for dr. sherman and patterson because you both convincingly have given evidence that the long-term public health consequences we don't even know yet and will be lingering for many, many years. i was curious what your predictions are for what will the international medical and humanitarian community will play. these issues are back in the spotlight because of the 20th anniversary and because of fukushima and the tragedy there.

especially given folks downplaying, why does it still need to be an issue of public concern. i am curious what your prognosis is of what international medical community will continue to do in this region in the years to come. ..

>> i think history's probably the best predictor of future behavior, and that is inadequate response at best. you know, i worry about the new car cough gus ha is supposed to last for 100 years. this was supposed to last for 10 years, and now it's out 25 years. we don't have the money yet, and we have people promising, but the world economy, and how it is, are we going to get the money? you know, are the french pulling out of this because they are not being paid? these are all factors into the future. that is only going to last 100 years. what happens 100 years from now? where's the money come from? i mean, these are some of the dilemmas, and i think it relates to your question. we're trying to manage the unmanageable here, and i think we don't want to create more unmanageable situations, and so

the answer is we all have to work as hard as we can to abolish nuclear weapons from the world because we have to prevent nuclear war and to move away from nuclear power because we're beginning to see more of these things. >> yes? >> you all know that natalia mironova -- i should use the mic. it's just north of kazakhstan, a three hour flight southeast of moscow. we have done a lot of work in that region, but somewhat separate from the issue we're talking about today. unbeknownst to most people, that region houses one of the world's largest serve agent chemical weapons stockpiles. we have been this that region now for 15 years as green cross and global green usa as long as the u.s. government, the russian

government, and other global partners to try to safely destroy that stalk pile. -- stockpile. we had outreach offices near the local vim lags, formally very top secret. we also have other offices, and when we opened the offices as natalie may know ten years from now, the russian colleagues said to us it's fine if you talk about chemical weapons destruction. we are agreed that we have to abolish the weapons, but don't talk about radiation or bring any counters, so there's very high sensitivity obviously about the accident at mayak and all the radiation and manmade radiation. >> let's turn to the last question, and then we'll break for coffee. yes. >> i heard the german ambassador give a speech among other people on green energy and nuclear

power came up and he indicated they wanted to eliminate nuclear power in the nation by 2036 due to chernobyl. you have to have other sources to at least maintain the power that you have at the moment and the general increase in population, and where's it to come from? others claim nuclear power is fairly safe and green energy. the recent events in japan clearly show it's not. >> are you asking about this country or globally? >> any country. >> any country. well, i've researched this country and wrote that book that i mentioned earlier that you can download free. you know, five years ago i didn't think it could be done at reasonable cost, but i do think it can be done at reasonable cost. i'll give you one specific number.

the cost of wind energy in this country is about 8 or 9 cents kilowatt hour. the compressed air is 3 cents. the open market we can't determine because wall street won't finance, but assuming junk bond financing, the only thing it could get, is somewhere between 12-20-plus cents. we know how tuesday it cheaper than nuclear without the risks of nuclear. the wrs that can happen with a wind turbine happened in north dakota the other day and a blade fell off. nobody was hurt, but at worse you can imagine a few people could have been there and been seriously hurt and killed, and then when it's over, it's overment you pick up the pieces and move on. with nuclear, you don't pick up the pieces and move on. we have more wind energy in this country than all the opec countries have oil, and we have

more solar than that. there's absolutely no reason not to do it, and we just don't have the guts and vision, although we talk about it all the time, and in regard to germany, i like to remind people this country is a trade deficit company. we complain about cheap labor in china. germany doesn't complain about cheap labor in china. they run hard to stay ahead of the technology race, and they just export bmw's to china and make a lot of money because as chinese get richer. everybody wants bmws. i don't have one, but -- [laughter] but really germans installed more solar panels than anybody even though they have a rather wet country more so than seattle because they are determined to stay ahead of the technology race, and they are. they will become a world leader

in offshore wind energy, and we're worried about the view. that's the problem, i think. >> i think the other thing that we don't talk about, we talk about wind and other things, is conservation and efficiency, and we could do that today. it would produce jobs, and it would save 30% of the electricity that we'd use by 2020 and that would ofuate the need for 100 new plants. this has to become a part of our man -- montra. >> i want to add is how many armed guards have you seen around a solar panel? [laughter] we will never, ever stop using armed guards to guard the nuclear waste and the nuclear power plants. >> or how many terrorists think about destroying a solar panel.

[laughter] >> yeah, exactly. think about that. >> we'll have time to get into these interesting questions. let's take a coffee and tea break now, and we'll be back in about 15 minutes. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> here's what we have coming up for you on c-span2. up next from today's "washington journal" a discussion on the federal aviation

administration. later from the constitution center in philadelphia, a look at civility and democracy. be sure to join us later today up vailing our first place winner from our student documentary contest. we announced the winners all this week, and you can see the latest award winning video today at 7:15 p.m. eastern here on c-span2. more from booktv tonight. we'll start with carroll simp stone and her book. then the focus is on iran with the book called "the shah," and then wild bill donovan, the spy master who created the oss and american espionage. that gets underway here tonight at 8 eastern on c-span2.

>> meet the grand prize winner and see his video tomorrow morning. meet the winner live during c-span's washington journal at 9:15. stream the videos any time online at studentcam.org. >> a discussion now on recent frool aviation -- federal aviation administration items in the news. from today's "washington journal," this is about 40 minutes. >> host: the former faa administrator, current the president and ceo of aerospace

industries. thank you for being here. >> guest: glad to be here. >> host: controller fatigue divides unions. there's an article by mark rosekind, a fatigue expert. they identify fatigue as an issue with the schedules. he says science is very consistent about the importance of permitting naps abruptly a half hour during breaks to feel more alert when they resume duties. what's your take on this? >> guest: well, i'll tell you i think the key thing that professionals working any kind of shift work, particularly with safety, they have to be fully rested, and that does mean they have to approach this with schedules that allow enough time to sleep appropriately. whether it's naps or good eight hour a night sleeps. one of the problems with the schedule as it's currently set up now is it's loaded in a way,

culled a 2-2--1 schedule so controllers can have the maximum amount of time off. it crams the schedule together and makes the last shifts when people are the most tired the latest, the midnight shift. that's the sort of thing that could be change the even though i will say the unions have for many years wanted to hold on to it because it does give the most time off. >> host: so, then, because the quote here says for 30 years this has been a problem. can you speak to the history of this a little bit more? >> guest: i don't know about 30 yores. i mean, i think when you realize we have been running the safest system by far for a long, long time and controllers are really cognizant professionals and on the whole do a very good job. i'm not sure you can sort there's a fatigue issue all along except in some cases. as we learn more about the science, and believe me, we know more about rite ms and fatigue than 30 years ago, i think it is

time to examine some of the underlying practices because we can't change them. >> host: there's been a long talk about the train that faa controllers go through before they are allowed to sit in those towers. can you speak to that? what sort of training do they have, and does it include, you know, sleep depp -- deprivation training? >> guest: they go through months and months of rigorous training on technology and human factors on questions how to alert yourself when you are too tired and what kind of sleep and eating habits, what kind of relaxation and exercise, all those things do go into a controller's training, and a lot of it is common sense as they go along. i don't think it's a question of the lack of training. i think at times it may be a question of complacency and assuming because they are cognizant professionals that

they somehow can make do with less sleep, that they can be a limit less rigorous in the way they approach focusing on the job, and that is something that we all have to go out against. >> host: what is the quality of their training? >> guest: the quality of the training is excellent. it begins with schools and universities, and then they go to oklahoma city, oklahoma where they spend months in training both on technical aspects of the job, radar, how do you work with pilots in terms of control, voice control, all of the kinds of separation techniques that are used. there's extremely sophisticated technology now that assists controllers. that's a great deal of the training, as is training about what are the habits of a good professional in this kind of job? these are a-type perm anies on

the -- personalities on the whole, high energy folks, they have to get oriented to using their energy and best ability to focus, and a lot of that is something that mentalists also help with on the job. >> host: what it's like to be in a tower? is it an adrenaline rush fitting into these personalities? >> guest: i think it does fit well with those personalities and it's a job for people who want to be on their feet all day, and it is one highly oriented towards the pilot's experience to. they talk to pilots in the cockpit, and in many ways the training they both have focuses on this professionalism, this ability to hone in on exactly what is being done at that time, close out all the distractionses and really, you know, wok together closely. that's something that there's a lot of training in on both sides

and they have done a good job. pilots have done an extremely good job on the fatigue front by the way,. something they addressed for years. >> host: of those who go to faa training to be in the control room, how many of them graduate versus how many want that kind of job? >> guest: well, there's a washout rate, so, yes, you do not have everyone who goes into it. i don't know what the current ratings are. it's been three or four years since i've been responsible for the faa, but it is true there's a sorting out process because again, only certain types of people with certain skills make the best controllers. >> host: could the private sector do the job better than having the government do -- run the control towers? >> guest: i don't necessarily think so. i don't think there's anything magic about the responsibility with the public or private sector, but i do think the private sector has a great deal in the best technology and often

good crossover techniques on things like federal aviation administration -- federal aviationfatigue. there's a lot that can be learned from the private sector. the private sector in most air traffic control system is in charge. we can learn from what others are doing, but i don't think there's somehow a magic answer that says government versus private. >> host: we're talking about the airline industry who ran the faa from 2002 to 2007. what sort of clients do you represent now? >> guest: manufacturers. we manufactures everything that flies. we're talking about everything from boeings knew plane and represent space and all the way through commercial and military aircraft. >> host: big companies like

boeing, but what's the other companies? >> lockhood, i could go on. it's pretty much all the names you've come to know and rely on because so many of them are what are keeping troops safe. >> host: cay, a republican in maryland. good morning, kay. >> caller: my haws has done -- husband has done shift work for 30 years working the midnight shift, and it's his responsibility to make sure he's well-rested before he goes in and i think the problem with the controllers are their splitting the shifts. they are working two days and a day shift and then a couple on the night shift, and if they would just make a night shift and a day shift, it would probably work much better for those working at night because it throws off your body rhythms

if you bounce back and forth. >> host: what do you mean it's your husband's responsibility to be well-rests? is that part of an agreement that he has when we took on this job? >> caller: absolutely. he works in communications and the work he does requires, you know, the businesses to be closed so when he goes in, he's got work to do, and he needs to get it done in the eight hours. >> host: what does he do for a living? >> caller: telecommunications. >> host: can you translate what your husband goes through to the experience of the controllers? >> guest: it's parallel. i think kay is making a good point. the more your body is able to remain on a given schedule, gets used to it, and, again, you sleep adequately between shifts, the better it works. she's referring to split shifts. it's the 2-2-1 schedule with air

traffic control. under certain circumstances, they stack it up differently, but in a given week you shift from working early morning today, then moving into an afternoon and then into the overnight schedule. that means your body is constantly trying to catch up with sleep and live with doesn't feel normal at that point and federal aviation fatigue sets in. >> host: how much time off then can the control operators get after they worked this type of shift? >> guest: well, they had the schedule for a long time as they choose. again, it's a preference, but it usually is a three-day weekend or a three daytime off, and obviously, that's variable. >> host: pittsburgh, president trick, democratic line. >> caller: good morning. this is what we're encountering, and it's not just in the airline

industry, but across the landscape in america is we declared war on the workers. we have turned corporate welfare and the looting of the national treasury into an absolute obsession by corporate america, and virtually every cooperation that sheáo by corporate america. every corporation she highlighted has their fingers in the treasury of the united states. we need to cut back the military-industrial complex, and corporate welfare, and invest in the workers of this country, which are under absolute assault. host: we have your point. marion blakey? guest: i am not familiar that -- of many companies in the aerospace industry that are involved in corporate welfare. these companies manufacture technology that keep our fighters safe. one of the things that is best about the u.s.'s we do not have

a plain field that is not level. -- is play >> guest: their work, frankly, their spire corporate life is into that, and i consider that public service. >> host: the caller mentioned defense cuts. what impact does that have on the industries that you represent and he mentioned jobs, the american worker. >> guest: well, the defense industry, of course, is a source of a tremendous number of high paying jobs, 800,000 jobs are what are represented by these company's work. i also would point out that in terms of the overall economy, we are the largest contributor to a positive balance of trade. when we talk about our economy, look at the fact that that is industry that exports very fine technology and helps to boost the economy. we were part of what helped pull us through this recession in a

very big way, and defense cuts? you have to be very careful about that because secretary gates, himself, has said that we really cannot afford, while we are fighting two wars and now it looks like the president is taking us into a third to begin talking about slashing defense. it's a very dangerous thing to do because we will not have that technology edge if we're not able to invest in new programs, and that's really at the heart of things. research and development and new advances are what will keep us safe in the future. >> host: vick, a democrat in pittsburgh. good morning. >> caller: yes, good morning. first of all, i -- first of all, i had the privilege of my mom and two sons that were involved in the carter tower in long

island, and so i was able to tour, and it's a very, very stressful job, and also i had a neighbor of mine, a friend of mine, involved in it as well as an air traffic controller. it is one of the most stressful job on the face of this earth, and to imagine that you're covering approximately about in the neighborhood of maybe about probably -- especially in new york, probably about a good 200 planes an hour that you have to be responsible for at different levels and different heights, and the stress level needs to hide the voice rate as well as high alcoholism, and i really believe that that was one was reasons they were protesting in

the early 1980s when ronde -- ronald reagan had fired all the air traffic controllers at that particular time. >> host: your reaction to that caller's thoughts. >> guest: well, i certainly believe it's a job that involves a lot of intensity and has stressful moments no question. the caller is talking about the new york area, the most congested air space we have. yes, i think there are issues from the stand point of being very much a profession that takes that degree of ability to tolerate intensities in long period of time. i don't know about the alcohol or divorce. i'm not sure about that. he goes back to the reagan era. >> host: this debate over air traffic controllers spills over into congress.

the house and the senate has to come to an agreement on an faa reauthorization bill and congressman chairman of the transportation committee says i think this will affect the negotiations adding he may seek new provisions in the bill are disciplinary remedies for the worst type of mistakes made by air traffic controllers. what do you think the impact of that would be? >> guest: i don't know, it depends what he has on his mind of the i don't think this is a question of for the most part intentional misbehavior. when it's willful, frankly, there should be no tolerance whatsoever so from that standpoint someone who goes into a control tower knowing they are not devoting their full time and energy to the job should be dismissed and dismissed immediately. when people make mistakes, the question is how do you address those and get rid of what may be a broader problem and one that

needs to be addressed across the work force? i think the fact that the current administrator is going out and visiting towers and talking with controllers in groups about the question of professionalism and what does it take to do this job with a full ability, full attention, and he's doing that with the leadership of the union. i see that as a very positive step. >> host: let's go on to housen, texas, nancy, independent, you're on the air. go ahead. >> caller: good morning. i used to manage a small office, and i can't believe how complicated the government makes everything. with the controllers, all you need to do is hire some senior citizens that would love to pick up an extra $100 a week, have them sit with the person that has only one person in the control room, and then they'll make sure that they stay awake

or if they take a nap and something comes up and lights are flashing or whatever, they wake them up. that's all there is too it, and it would cost the government so little money. i don't understand why you have to make it so complicated. >> guest: well, it's an interesting idea without a doubt. i'm not sure i would support it because control towers are small places. they need people there who are highly trained who really know what is going on, and that is a something that takes months and months and months of training. extra people and people who are lay people up there could be more of a distractions than an asset. >> host: republican line, jay, go ahead. >> caller: i'm a former military flier and radiocontrol tower operator, and actually the reason why i don't do control tower work anymore is directly related to this exact issue.

the issue is scheduling, and the issue is the science associated with normal human sleep rhythms. it's really simple. the science is very good on the aviation side, on the flying side of this industry, they do have it working out very well. i was interesting to hear your guest going down that road, and in the military flying, there's very clear guidance and in the army they call it the career resource management manual about what's required to be ready to fly in terms of how you deal with your sleep cycle, and the 2-2-1 schedule you spoke of is absolutely murderous to the way humans actually get restful recovery and sleep. ..s get sleet.