like that, where medical marijuana and things -- people have been trying to use to help people and years from now, historians will look back at this era and wonder why we did so many of the things that we do. i would say, for you and i get questions like this all the time actually from people, you know, have seen my movie and need help. because of the medical problem. or their hmo will not pay for them to see a specialist and remember, these insurance companies want to provide as little care as possible because that is how they make a profit. and so i would say to you, sir, definitely, get behind -- there's organizations that are trying to free up the studies, use these drugs, there are people who have been fighting, the fda for a long time because

they take so long when treatments that are being used in europe and other places are not being used here. but, remember, the fda, of course is controlled by the lobbyists of the pharmaceutical companies and others who have a vested interest in making a profit and in "sicko" i told the story of jonas salk and, i told the story in my last film, "capitalism, a love story" and he invented the polio vaccine and people were shocked that he didn't want to trademark it or copyright it. that he decided to just give it away for free to the american people, to the world and he said he thought it would be immoral if he were to own that or make a profit off it. he said, you know what? i'm a doctor, i'm a researcher, i get a great salary, i live in a big house. what more do i need?

i did this for the people. where is that? where is that sense of -- talk about where is that? where is that? you talk about patriotism not just for america but the world. we don't have that much. i would like to see more. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. up next on booktv, afterward. an hour-long program where we invite guest hosts who interview authors. foreign correspondent honor of cleary and his book moscow, december 25th, 1991, the last day of the soviet union. he details the day mchale gorbachev resigned as president of the ussr in the failed coup that led to that day. he discusses the historic transition from communist superpower to open market republic with thomas blanton, director of the national

security archives. >> author of moscow, december 25th, 1991, last day of the soviet union. described it as a miracle day. we ended and empire without firing a shot. there are all kinds of versions of that day including geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. can you give us a sense of that historical importance? your big picture take? >> when my publisher asked me to write a book about the fall of the soviet union to mark the 20th anniversary i came to realize that this day was a day of human drama because of the conflict between boris yeltsin and mikhail gorbachev but also it goes pretty well unrecorded in most histories of the time, i came to realize this they marked

the end of the superpower when you consider that gorbachev as president of the soviet union could say he was leader of the superpower as long as he held on to the nuclear communications device. as long as he had that in his possession, he was president of a super power. on that day he had to give that up to boris yeltsin who was president of russia. that meant russia, nuclear power. when you think of it, it was the end of one of two totalitarian systems of the 20th century. it was last day of a totalitarian system. >> within the system still totalitarian by that point? >> it wasn't as totalitarian.

you could call it authoritarian at the time the soviet union -- this was because of the reforms gorbachev introduced as general secretary and the communist party in 1985. >> back to the moment, the nuclear briefcase moment. a powerful opening section and almost a comedy of errors and conflict and vanity and comeuppances at an end. there was a plan for the handoff but it all goes to not. >> details worked out a couple days before that. one of the agreements was after gorbachev made his resignation speech on television at 7:00 in the evening, boris yeltsin who was watching television in a nearby building would make his way to gorbachev's presidential office and received the nuclear

suitcases and it would be recorded from russian tv but also by abc, ted koppel was there and rick kaplan. they were there to record this. boris yeltsin walked mchale gorbachev's -- mikhail gorbachev's speech and threw a tantrum because he got very angry that gorbachev had not credited him with any of this. >> it was all perestroika and glasnost. >> guest: at this stage he had developed a slight dislike for gorbachev. he was ready to be offended. he also was annoyed that gorbachev as much as said this was not a democratic think and was pointing the finger at boris yeltsin who was instrumental with the whole thing falling

apart. he called someone sitting in another room who was supposed to accompany him and bring the two colonels to boris yeltsin's office. he said i am not going over there. you collect. if there are problems here the documents are with us. he said you go over and collect them and if he doesn't come -- give it to you we will sort it out another way. then he changed his mind. kathryn auld -- and do the exchange. catherine hall had a residence where gorbachev humiliated a crucial point earlier in the perestroika era. and gorbachev for once had the upper hand. it was all sort of, the

documents, interestingly, this moment not only symbolized but in effect meant the end of the soviet union as a superpower was to be recorded on television but only a set of generals walking away and they handed over to boris yeltsin and the only witnesses worthy cnn crew filming gorbachev's resignation speech live. wikipedia 19 could get pictures of it. >> guest: don't go any further and they saw the general exchange of this obvious -- >> host: extraordinary moments. in reading the book i have to say it is so struck by the variety of sources, memoirs and diaries, you credit when of the

top aides for boris yeltsin, later the prime minister, giving you a minute by minute blow by blow or in journalism we call the check talk. at the same time, the press secretary did the same kind of -- providing some insight. can you say a word about where you got this incredible detail? by that time you already left the soviet union. >> guest: i opened a bureau in moscow 1986. i was there until july of 1991. than i was transferred to washington as white house correspondent. >> host: editorial timing. >> guest: i felt i had been trimmed for four years but a new correspondent had taken a look at this. >> host: going back and reconstructing and doing reporting you wish you had been

there? >> guest: back in the story as much as a journalist and finding out about that day, i had a wonderful -- not only gorbachev's spokesman but very close and spend the day with them and joined a small group with goerge of that evening in the kremlin drinking -- cognac. discussing -- her with love and sadness which was unusual in the kremlin. and interviewed a few weeks before he died and was extremely helpful. appointed by yeltsin to bring in price reform. up to them prices in the soviet

union had been decided by the politburo. they decided everything from the price of bread to a bottle of oil. once prices were freed, liberal capitalism and one of the effects, a few days after bringing prices up was walking along the street, a line of people and he realized what it was, people for the first time engaged in private sales. people along the roads selling things to make some money. this day, december 25th, 1991, marks the loss point in the lives of most russian people. nothing in the shops in economic terms. miserable time for them. one of the commentators on the radio advised people don't look

for things in shops. count yourself lucky. that is how bad things were. the commentator described the scene as a war zone. people were so desperate -- >> host: wonder if that was given by the revolt of the nomenclature. you have a meeting of the mob bosses come together to plan how to rip off the property is. you have a description of the plant owners and party secretaries busy enriching themselves in that last year or two of the soviet union essentially pulling aside, almost privatizing before there was a formal program and how much is that driving the economic collapse? >> guest: part of it was these products didn't exist. a few shortages in the country of flour, of meat and people who

had these stocks were holding back for price reform. wiesel pound of flour today at 10 kopeks if you can get it for 100 kopecks the next day. >> host: why wouldn't the other is -- you have a premonition in your book where you describe in that day, meeting with the international monetary fund in former communist party headquarters planning this process. you give one of the predictions that prices will only rise 70%. why wouldn't they be better off doing a swedish scandinavian style soft landing or is it that they believe you had to do that because there was no other way out? you presage it in part because among others things you talk about your in-laws because you married into a russian family losing other savings and not

being paid for month at a time and personal knowledge. >> guest: on the point about the big bang. he told me he was very much of the opinion they had to destroy the system so they couldn't come back but had to create a situation in russia where they could not bring back communism but everything would have been freed up in the western market type economy. >> host: like the american general who says we have to destroy the village to save it. >> guest: it is pretty weird. my wife is a flawless and former deputy, and -- [talking over each other] >> guest: i was the first westerner all-out to visit since the second world war. things were changing. cities were opening up.

when the price reform came, my wife's sister who is director of a musical -- there wasn't a central system of paying for salaries. institutions -- just didn't have any resources so she would go one month and in another month gets something in lieu of salary. like sachs. >> host: what did she do with that? >> guest: go by the side of the road and sell these. if you drove near a tire factory, workers from the factory starting up the road trying to sell tires, that sort of chaotic situation people suffered from after price reform. >> guest: doesn't that partially undermine your thesis that the main driver of the collapse and

breakup is personal tension in a way, conflict between yeltsin and gorbachev. in a way you are also saying that one of the key causes is the center did not have the resources to by anybody off. the soviet praise we pretend to work and the state pretends to pay us. some security at a low-level. wasn't that part of the driver here. >> guest: the tension between yeltsin and gorbachev was how quickly this should move to a market economy. a year before the end gorbachev and yeltsin got together and agreed to given the task to a couple prominent economists. to bring these reforms and a period of 500 days. >> host: fall of 1990.

>> guest: gorbachev came under pressure from the military industrial conflict because there were subsidies within. yeltsin was furious. yeltsin was absolutely furious when goerge of the cited -- goerge of is a social engineer. he liked to feel his wisdom was superior to others. he decided to adopt the plan rustled up by former prime minister who is a real old bureaucrats. this obviously wasn't going to work for anybody. these of the tensions between gorbachev and yeltsin and why they diverge so radically. >> host: yeltsin was described as a visit to america, seeing the shopping malls and rose restores, thousands -- suddenly he comes that we have to do that here. >> guest: it was an eye opener for yeltsin. it was true what he describes in

his own memoirs. he was being driven through texas and said stop here. i want to have a look of this grocery store. he was still a little old soviet mentality that foreigners were only shown what the host country want them to see and he thought he was being conned by being shown other aspect of american life. >> host: he was going to take them by surprise. >> guest: he was to use an irish expression got smacked. something like air dryer to record prices. there were all sorts of different varieties of cheese and meat. from there to miami, he turned to his aide and said that is why the iron curtain was there. to keep us from learning how good things were in the west.

>> host: he was ready when younger people would come in and say all at once -- >> guest: there were big bets on his instinct. very impulsive politician but was very courageous when he thought he should do something, he did it and he reckoned that the soviet union should end and that should be a very quick transfer and trusted that have to two others, one to pre price and the older two to privatize. everything was don't. >> host: probably goes back, talking about yeltsin and impulsive this, even his own rise to power was marked by the impulsive gestures in the communist party central committee or the politburo,

which at the time looked devastating for his career. >> guest: he was a very conflicted person. the politburo meeting, candidate member of the politburo which meant he was one of 15 top people in the soviet union or 20 so they would have meetings and he would work up the judge courage to challenge gorbachev and say you're bringing a cult of personality on yourself and not moving fast enough on reform and taking off from gorbachev who rallied his aides to take them off as well. and then looked terrible to say i am sorry. to sail the things i said. you are right. please forgive me. this went on until it reached the point where yeltsin very seriously challenge gorbachev and resigned from the politburo.

a very fraught meeting with gorbachev and others attacked for his populism the way he was going about things. he was so upset by this that he claims he tried to commit suicide. gorbachev thinks he was faking but he did cut himself on the chest with a pair of scissors and rushed to the hospital. gorbachev called another meeting of the communist party to relieve boris yeltsin of his post as moscow party chief. at this meeting -- before this meeting he rain boris yeltsin in the hospital -- come from the sick bed. he said i am not allowed and the -- gorbachev said we will look after that and the doctor came along and injected him with a

sensitive and he was taken by his bodyguard by car to the inquisition and he was made to suffer four hours of abuse from gorbachev on the committee. this was a central committee meeting of 300. he never forgave gorbachev for that. >> guest: he did not push back. that was not a time when he was physically able to get up on the tank like he did later. >> host: i don't think anyone ever made the connection that years later when boris yeltsin was president and the prime minister was born amid and he discovered that the doctor who injected him -- yeltsin was difficult for what he did and he was a private doctor and he said don't you realize who this man

is? he was quite annoyed but discovered that shortly after that, the doctor was shot down in the streets. this a medical clinic inject all those years before. the only recording was the task of the agency that said he was shot dead by the government. nothing was ever reported since then. i looked up the statistics. something like 250 people were shot dead in the street in moscow that year. could have been for any reason. i am not drawing the conclusion which one might suspect. people around yeltsin -- there are so many different reasons. the doctor may have not paid protection money or something.

it is interesting. >> guest: >> host: after he is told from the hospital bed and spend hours marshaling criticism, does yeltsin tend to the reeducation camps? i am setting you up in a way because in your book your mark on the irony is that it was exactly gorbachev's democratizing procedures that allow come back for boris yeltsin. not like the old days when it was a bullet in the head. >> guest: in the old days it would be a bullet in a head or exile to mongolia or something. i need to give a bit of background. yeltsin was pretty much excluded from coverage in the newspapers but he became a bit of a hero. [talking over each other] >> guest: the word spread that he challenged gorbachev and made

a secret speech attacking gorbachev and there are all sorts of copies of this speech. >> host: the glass nose period. >> guest: under the thumb of the communist party and forbidden to report anything about yeltsin and what he was doing. but they advanced so far that gorbachev -- this reflects gorbachev's democratic post as well. he was not of the mind to punch a further so he gave a desk job as deputy head of the construction ministry which meant very little [talking over each other] wikipedia and member of the central committee which made it possible to attempt meetings. yeltsin claimed gorbachev meted him to show the reactionary

comrades, there are people who think like yeltsin. [talking over each other] >> guest: for whatever reason they prefer to think it was gorbachev. gave them a job that allowed them to stay in moscow and didn't expelled problems but also to bills on his political reform as elections came apart, yeltsin was given the decision to flourish as he did in those elections. >> host: the moment you were commenting on gorbachev's reticence to use the old method where you quote one of the deputies in the congress's supreme soviet, people's deputies after the election of march of '89. something about gorbachev that you didn't have the political scene. it was interesting. he never wanted blood on his hands even when dealing with

yeltsin. this antagonist for that hole period from 87. the first outburst in the central committee through december 25th, 1991. >> i think >> guest: i think yeltsin's finest moment was at a time when the people around gorbachev were cracking down on the baltics in january of 1991, 12 or 13 people were shot dead by kgb unit in the capital of lithuania. the crackdown was proceeding and all three baltic republics, yeltsin flew and match three presidents who had been elected under soviet rule but they had local parliaments and encourage them to resist and also encourage the soviet army to not obey orders to crackdown. but gorbachev had a blind spot

about the independents. >> host: and elsewhere in the soviet union. >> guest: we see the baltics as semi detached from the soviet union. after the second world war or during the second world war. but c-span2 never came to terms with the nationalist symbols of the baltics. in lithuania sometime before that he was trying to persuade them. the your role is with us, comrade, in the soviet union and he was taken aback when people dared to challenge him. >> host: the top aides to gorbachev said gorbachev was blind to it. he would say things like don't they understand if they leave the soviet union they will be lost? there will be no anchor, no economy and he doesn't get it.

>> guest: democrats in russia at the time, what happened in the baltics, they blame -- with people like boris bugle and others, the head of the interior ministry and the kgb who were real hard-liners. he didn't immediately condemn what was happening in the baltics. especially very bloody but he pulled back partly because he was going to lose all his credibility in the drug world. president george h. w. bush put on a meeting with them. and also because of his results in to bloodshed. and the closest they, could say anything but traveled everywhere. he disclosed that he wrote a letter of resignation to

gorbachev saying you surround yourself with these people and they will destroy you. he didn't deliver his letter of resignation because his secretary said you can't do this. this is what gorbachev needs you. he put it away for a week and decided not to. he believed in gorbachev and that gorbachev was not cut in the mold of the old soviet leaders, that he wanted to affect democratic change. >> host: he does quote the line from gorbachev in your book that he wanted to get rid of those hard-liners and old communist party and war apparatus and something like i've got to keep that loud rabid dog on a leash, otherwise it will turn on us and turn on the reforms. what do you make of that? >> guest: an interesting moment in 1991 when gorbachev was confronted with rebellion in the communist party and he said i am

quitting. it was or ploy. he was quitting. he was just saying to them i am not president. i have presidential powers. if i quit, you can't do anything about that. a connection with me -- >> host: they wanted him to say please don't quit. >> guest: he was familiar with the caliber of the people holding him back. the rabbit dog, keep them on a leash. when one wants to take a positive view of gorbachev's actions that explained what. he allowed the hard-liners to stay close to him. to bring them forward to the point that they could succeed in staging a coup which happened in august of 1991. in retrospect that is his defense. i'm not so sure. and belong to a generation of

correspondents who were there in early 1991 who were very critical of gorbachev and could see that yeltsin was doing the right thing. doing the courageous thing which was to stop the crackdown in the baltics. yeltsin was looking for than independent russia. >> host: in your book you have these wonderful details on both of those personalities. some of them jumped out at me that i hadn't realized. you save for example gorbachev was the urbane sophisticated man of the world but swore a blue streak of profanity at the drop of a hat where yeltsin was a hard-drinking siberia is how you describe him. will really dislike the use of swear words and the people who did it and hated when gorbachev would swear at him. >> guest: i have a lot of fun finding out the personalities of these two men who dominated by reporting life for so many years. yeltsin as you say hated

profanity. he wouldn't allow anybody near him to swear and also smoking. he hated people to smoke in his presence and he would take cigarettes from their lips and he did that to the wife of helen coal. snubbed out her cigarette in front of her. gorbachev when he was relaxing -- the soviet poet, linen will live forever. when he liked to drink, we know about that but also the spoons. if you was in the mood he would play the spoon on his head. yeltsin was partying -- [talking over each other] >> host: extraordinary dynamic. so many of these episodes including that long nine our

meeting you describe two days before the day at the center of your book when you work out a plan for the transition is accompanied by large quantities of vodka for yeltsin and 20 for gorbachev to be point -- >> guest: that is one of the most fascinating aspect of the dying days of the soviet union. he and gorbachev retired which was very important. one of the fathers of perestroika was a witness to what went on and they started -- >> host: was tv umpire? >> guest: the umpire as well because folks respected him. yeltsin respected him because he spoke out on issues that yeltsin

was passionate about, opening up the history of exposing -- that sort of thing. >> host: got a number of ideas of class most from that. >> guest: he did that too much. introducing perestroika. but no doubt he was a very powerful figure beside gorbachev but at this meeting, the waiter in the kremlin would bring in -- cognac--at one point the meeting to 9:00 at night and 6:00, gorbachev left to take a call from the prime minister of the united kingdom and arranged to call for commiseration. they it noted that --

[talking over each other] >> host: drinking with yeltsin all afternoon. >> guest: a very froth day for mikhail gorbachev in terms of his hand over. and also deciding whether he should have a house or two cars and staff so it was a pretty emotional day. >> host: give three versions of that meeting. according to yakoflove it was cordial and gorbachev same as businesslike and these guys were illusionists, and -- >> there cold meeting. the best behavior, they couldn't start squabbling at this stage.

yeltsin held cards and was dictating the terms -- >> host: how did he hold the cards? >> guest: three weeks earlier he had met the leader of russia, leader of the ukraine, voted to go independent, leader of belarus, at a hunting lodge near the polish border. >> host: did gorbachev know about this? >> guest: yeltsin had told him it was to try to persuade them to keep the soviet union packed through the treaty. at this meeting they agreed to collapse the soviet union on the basis that these were three republics that set up the soviet

union. the soviet union was finished. in 1991, all the leaders of the republic in the soviet union, and agreed they would settle the soviet union, a commonwealth of independent states but no common center, nobody in charge of their foreign policy. it would literally be no role for gorbachev anymore. gorbachev still felt he was in the soviet union in some form, that they would see and wrote a long letter that they would all day in the kremlin as a figurehead in charge of foreign

policy and -- [talking over each other] >> host: delusional. >> guest: james baker was secretary of state at the time went to see him. other foreign visitors. this was two days before the end. they saw gorbachev expanding on possibilities of the soviet union expanding on a role in the world. and with a deadpan face, not literally but figured raising eyes to the rising heavens this guy doesn't get it. >> guest: >> host: addition to the yields and/gorbachev tension you have a group of communist party functionaries leaping for power. of that bunch, probably yeltsin was the only one who had democratic legitimacy.

can we say that? >> host: if you look at the leader of the independent ukraine, at the meeting of the conference of independent reform group which was set up at the end of the soviet union i was at that meeting and he was observing a balcony and he was a dark figure in charge of all the repression in the ukraine and when that happens he was still head of the communist party and the crew happened in august of 1991 he went along with that and overnight he switched being a democrat. he realized the population of the ukraine -- he ruled that way. one of the things that really upset gorbachev was when he resigned, not one of the leaders

of the 14 republics called him, send him a letter, sent word, good luck in the future and these were people who worked with him and negotiated. not one of them had the greatest--the grace to say you are resigning. good luck in the future. i don't think he ever met any of them again. they didn't want anything more to do. to say gorbachev, everyone is laughing at him and also said after independence, and going to his holidays. not be allowed to set foot in it again. without indication of how deep

the feelings wind, what these people had for each other. gorbachev didn't like yeltsin and yeltsin didn't like some of those who were grabbing power and they didn't like him because they had seen him threatening their hold on communism and whenever the soviet union -- able to make the jump and reinvent themselves as capitalists and nationalists. >> host: at the time you were doing the reporting, in '87-'88-'89-'90 in moscow you said earlier you had a lot of sympathy for yeltsin like so many journalists seeing him as a courageous person trying to do the right thing representing a democratic surge and perhaps--but your book, when a reader comes to the end of your book, one actually has an impression of the enormous erech and impulsive and make up as you

go along quality that so much of yeltsin's government, and one ends the book with a fair amount of sympathy for gorbachev as a tragic figure. was that a transition you went through as you did this? >> guest: it was a bit of a transition. i was very much -- like a lot of my colleagues at the time of the crackdown in the baltics when you see gorbachev was not doing anything to stop for a few days and we saw yeltsin at his desk and had a friend in washington who was very noted commentary on the soviet union and i remember the dinner party having an argument with him about a slogan that people have used to attack yeltsin's enemy in the politburo where he says you are not correct and started wearing badges saying you are not correct. i remember going to one of those

parties wearing a badge saying -- was gorbachev. to get back to what you asked, i went into the book with the baggage i carried about yeltsin and a lot of things in my mind from my reporting days about gorbachev. i finished the book with more sympathy for gorbachev. the scope of gorbachev's reforms and what he manage to do for example in bringing about the election to the congress, people stepped into the soviet union. he almost use slate of hand to get the motion railroaded through the meeting of the communist party but he manage. he presided over the first democratic elections in russia. since the soviet union was formed. >> host: before the polish elections. remember solidarity sweeping to

power in eastern europe. >> guest: this was in russia. the soviet union. he reserved 100 seats in the congress for communist party officials. he created the conditions for gorbachev. created conditions where boris yeltsin could stand for election to represent before moscow and he got nine million votes. so gorbachev created a democratic conditions for democrats to advance and i think that we must see gorbachev in that way and yeltsin as an opportunist with the right impulses. >> host: opportunist with the right impulses. incredible moments of courage. >> guest: on his instincts. carried a lot of courage to do that. history proved that he was

right. the time had come to wind up the soviet union and he was the one who realized that and went about doing it. pays tribute to yeltsin for bringing freedom to russia. >> host: what about the what if? gorbachev looking back 20 years says a couple big mistakes were not breaking the communist party earlier on. perhaps and perhaps not signing the union treaty in such a way earlier to head off the coup. if ahead done that we could have had a union and the demilitarized, more democratic unit -- soviet union. >> guest: a legitimate exercise and one of gorbachev's what ifs was what if i hadn't gone on holiday in august of 1991 and allowed the coup to take place? he regrets he went on holiday because he had arranged with

yeltsin and the republic leaders to sign a new union treaty coming back from solidarity. stay didn't want this union treaty which would rob the communist party of a lot. the dynamic of history was such that the soviet union was finished. different ways brought it about. gorbachev by creating circumstances for socialism couldn't survive. tried to contain socialist these those in the country and yeltsin took a big bet on wrecking the system that wasn't working. >> host: what if yeltsin had not had that shock therapy, immediate privatization piece? was there a possibility for a soft landing or was the economic

reality -- let me phrase that different way. if gorbachev had had the same luck with oil prices that vladimir putin had over the last decade, would the republicans have been so eager to depart from the center if the center with a gusher of oil wells? >> guest: i don't think so. even if we try to increase the system it was brought over on the edifice -- was -- one could look at a lot of what ifs. what if yeltsin hadn't succeeded and someone been close in the russian parliament which enabled him to become president? what if a year after december 25th, 1991, the russian parliament which had been elected in the days of the soviet union contained a lot of communists?

what if they had succeeded -- which he very nearly did because of the hardship people were suffering? if they had succeeded by a few votes prompting comments that they decided they didn't want to go back to the great communist future? >> host: communism is the interim stage between capitalism and capitalism. >> guest: there are a lot of what ifs but i am convinced the soviet union could not have survived. say the treaty had been agreed to, i think the draft was still for all the republics with a chance to freedom would still have gone for that. >> host: what if yeltsin had showed a different form of change? that is to say as soon as the coup and failure of the coup and his own courage stand on the tanks of his own popular acceptance, he chose at that moment to go into decree mode.

he decided to change the whole system by decree. producing ten decrees the day. some of your episodes where the mayor of moscow comes in and yeltsin-is of ten degrees to nationalize and take over this or that. was there any possibility for something that was more democratic leaders and less autocratic? one can see the seeds of today's authoritarian russia in the lack of any transition. >> guest: one of the big bets yeltsin made was he made a wonderful speech, very forceful speech about a month after the coup. he had gone to write his memoirs. there was a pattern he would do something very courageous and need to countdown the rest for a while but came back and made the speech in which he convince the russian parliament that he had

to be given the right to rule by decree because big decisions had been made and made very quickly. his speech was powerful enough for that. and i think -- it was still a very democratic society that existed on the last day of the soviet union due to gorbachev's reforms. igor guyhard made an interesting point that on this day, you had the freest press russia ever had. it wasn't subservient to the party or shareholders. people could write what they wanted. it couldn't last. we have seen that it hasn't lasted. certainly television and control of television had reverted to the kremlin. at that point in history on the

twenty-fifth of the summer of 1991, the situation in russia that demonstrated or read anything they like in the papers or fawn political parties as they did in the 1990s and the reelection of yeltsin as president in 1996 was a free election. he had a lot of support from the oligarchs who emerged at that time and the united states advertising agency, and -- >> host: david hoffman and his book the oligarchs had a wonderful portrait of that. how does a guy go from meeting yeltsin to 6% popularity in the spring to getting -- >> guest: it was democratic. votes were cast and counted democratically. if you want--the communist party got 35% of the vote. gorbachev ran for election that 32%. if you want to form a political

party in russia the authorities will find some way of finding -- identify a problem in your application papers. you don't have free political association in russia today but you did have during the early yeltsin years. >> host: you had the collapse in the early 1990s in december of 1991 and the collapse in 1992 and the boom years and attack on the parliament in 1993 at the beginning of the chechnya more and the international economic collapse in 98. sort of an unending series of disasters for the russian people. i am wondering how much that colors in russia the debate looking back december 25th, 1991, you describe some of the nostalgia people feel. >> host: the day the russian parliament declared they wanted

to be sovereign was celebrated under yeltsin as independence day. a national holiday. but vladimir putin changed that to russia day because he didn't want -- independence from what? they weren't independent. they were head of an empire. people today in russia, i know this from my own family and frequent visits back there. they look at the soviet era as an era when people were bombing airports, when the nationalities were reasonably well together, there was a degree of education for every body, when there was little in the shops but everybody suffered in the same way except for privileged members of the party. and -- >> host: connections matted but there wasn't the pervasive corruption that runs daily life. >> guest: and the national pride of being a superpower.

one of the two great powers in the world. the 7 twenty-fifth, 1991 marks the day they ceased to be standing in the world. one of the reasons vladimir putin as president brought back some of the symbols of the soviet union, the red flag on that day, he allowed the russian army to adopt the red flag again as their emblem without the hammer and sickle of course. he also, the russian national anthem which russians remember of an age in the second world war was part of their pride in defeating nazi is some. they were changed by yeltsin. and the tune was set. the and was changed but vladimir putin brought back to words because he realized people felt

pride when they heard this. all sorts of emotion about the defeat of hitler and sacrifice, he did this for the best reasons which was to calm people down and help them get over the embarrassment of what happened on this day. this day is not celebrated at all in any way or commemorated in russia. i went through the russian bookstores and secondhand bookstores and could find nothing about the handover from yeltsin -- from gorbachev to yeltsin. >> host: yet there is a very live debate today. in the last month you had gorbachev giving interviews in germany where he criticized vladimir putin and the current sort of -- he described the

exhaustion of the project, the petersburg project and the spokesperson snapped back with a front-page interview, gorbachev is the guy who lost the soviet union, lost us to our standing and almost lost russia's entire sovereignty. what are you talking about? the lie of debate in today's newspaper front page, over your day, december 25th, 1991. what do you make of this? >> guest: gorbachev has been saying for some time that russia took a long turn, turned towards a authoritarianism. he has been critical for some time. he has become the one person in russia who can say this and vladimir putin can do nothing to stop him. he got rid of a lot of ngos. coming from within russia, this

obviously got to vladimir putin but he knows he has created a situation now where people enter politics not for public service but for what they can get out of it. where the judges obey the kremlin and also times when the police obey the kremlin rather -- it is part way there but it stalled. that gives gorbachev a lot of credibility when he criticizes vladimir putin. >> host: let me bring the discussion back to the united states. she remarked on this dramatic change in u.s. political rhetoric about december 25th, 1991. you are making a larger point to president george h. w. bush saying he wasn't going to dance on the berlin wall because he

was more concerned about a cautious and prudent and stable process. he wasn't going to do any of this triumphalism because he saw it would backfire. same was true up to this day where he cautioned the white house folks, don't be declaring victory. don't be triumphal list and as you point out in your book, within a month there is george bush in front of the halls of congress say we won, we won. what is the effect of that on the american discourse and russian perception? >> guest: he wanted the soviet union to survive. a soviet union that was supplicant to the west to survived. that deferred to western interests. he wanted that to survive rather