we don't understand how the rest of the world works as much as we're used to having our way. we need somebody to give us a reality check. so i went on the board, and i must tell you i was astonished at the d a., the commit0. these very busy people, and, b., the discipline that they brought to how they give away their money. they pay all the overhead for robin hood. they have metrics in which they go to agencies, very professional staff, take the measure of an agency, for, say, unwed mothers who are abused family members, and they'll say, come back and say, that one is not going to work, not very well -- or at it doing something really important but we need to help the staff. and they pay for everything. all that is done. now, this is the most generous country in the world. there's no other country in the world that gives money as freely as the united states does for a variety of causes, and no city

will ever compare with new york when it comes comes to raising . i do at love 0 events at the waldorf, and for sometimes for causes that almost no one knows about, and it's now routine to raise 1.5, $2 million on a night at the waldorf. one of the things that when we first began to have some money in our family -- and my girls sometimes were even more generous than i wanted them to be about what we should give away and when. i had grown up with no money, and when i found part of the attractiveness of it, it gives you freedom and you can help out worthy causes. but robin hood is a model but. >> lots of models. >> share another one with you i'm taken with now. and this has to do with education. which i think a lot of how we reform education in america will depend on the public-private

partnership -- >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> conor o'clery, author of "mostly cloudy, depth 25, 1991, the last ai day of the soviet

union." you call it the end of an empire without firing a shot. there are alternative versions of the day, including being called a geo political catastrophe of the 20th 20th century. can you give us a sense of the historical importance, your big picture take on the day? >> when my published asked me to write a book to mark the 20th 20th anniversary, i came to realize this day was a day for a human drama because of the conflict between boris yeltsin and mikhail gorbachev, but also goes unrecorded in most histories at the time, and i came to realize this day marked the end of the super power if you consider that gorbachev, as president of the soviet union, could say he was the leader of a super power as long as he held on to what was called the -- the nuclear case, weighing three

pound, the nuclear communications device. so as long as he had that little suitcase 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, and that made russia the nuclear power. so it was important from that point of view. when you think about it, it was the wend of one of the two totalitarian governments. the last day of that system. >> wasn't that system still totalitarian by that point? >> it wasn't as totalitarian. in fact it had -- i think you could call it authoritarian and partly democratic at the time, the soviet union, and this is because of the setup of the reforms that gorbachev introduced to the secretary of the communist party in 1985. >> let's go back to that moment, that nuclear briefcase moment. it's a very powerful opening section in your book and it's an

almost a comedy of errors and conflict and vanity and comeupanses at the end. where there's a plan for that handoff, graceful, almost in front hover the tv cameras, but it always go to not because of the tension that's the core of your book. >> the details on the handover were worked out a couple days before hasn't, one of the grandmas is after gorbachev made his resignation speech at condition in the evening on television, he would then -- at 7:00 in the evening on television, and boris yeltsin would make his way over the presidential office and would receive the nuclear suitcase and it would be recorded by a team from russian tv and also by abc. koppel -- >> ted koppel. >> ted koppel and his produce are were there to record the. the problem was boris yeltsin

watched the resignation speech from his office in a nearby building and he threw a fit of -- a tantrum because he got very angry that gorbachev hadn't mentioned him in the speech, hadn't credited him with any of the advanced that happened in the sowf jet union in the last few years. >> it had been gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost. >> he developed an intense dislike for gorbachev. so he was ready to be offended. he also was annoyed that gorbachev, as much as said this was nondemocratic thing, breaking up the soviet union and was pointing the finger at yeltsin who was instrumental in the thing palling apart. he called a marshal sitting in another room who was supposededo accompany him for the handover of the nuclear suitcase and bring egg the two colonels to yeltsin's after but he ran to him and said, i'm not going over

there. you go and collect it. the marshal said, if there are legal problems here, the documents have to be witnessed, et cetera. he said, you collect it, and if he doesn't come -- if he doesn't disit to you, we'll sort it out tomorrow. then he said, let's make this thing in catherine hall and do the exchange. and st. catherine is where he was meaningful in the perestroika era, and yeltsin good-gorbachev said, no, he can come over here. the whole thing was sorted out when they agreed to get people to witness the documents and the suitcase could be brought over to yeltsin. interestingly, this moment that rather symbolized but in effect meant the end of the soviet union or the superpar was to be recorded on television but now

it was only changed walking away with the -- and handed over to a general for boris yeltsin and the only witnesses were the cnn crew who had been there filming gorbachev's resignation speech live and they had packed thick equipment -- they're we stopped in the corridors and said, hold on, don't go any further, and they found these generals exchange this object, which is clearly the nuclear suitcase. >> extraordinary moments. in reading the book, i have to say, i was so struck by the variety of sources. memoirs, diaries and others, aides can it sounds in the book -- you credit one of the top aides for yeltsin, the prime minister, as giving you almost a minute-by-minute blow by belief or in journalism phrasing they call is a tick -- ticktock, and gorbachev's press secretary

provided you some insight. can you say a word about where you got this incredible detail? by that time you had already left the soviet union. >> i opened the bureau for the irish times in the soviet union in moscow in 1986. and i was there until july 1991. and then i was transferred to washington. i was white house correspondent. >> what impeck cal timing. >> extremely ford looking of my editor. i felt i had been trained for four years to cover -- and awe knew correspondent had taken my place. >> to an extent this book and going back and reconstructing and doing the reporting, you really wished you had been there are to it? >> like in the story, as much as a journalist in going back find out what really happened that day, i had a wonderful four-hour plunk paris -- lunch in paris, who was close to him and spent

the whole day with him and joined a small group with gauche chief -- gorbachev that evening in the kremlin, drinking cognac and discussing what had happened and looking back on the years of perestroika with a lot of sadness. they were drinking until midnight, which wasn't unusual in the kremlin. i got the last interview with igor before he died. interviewed him four weeks before he died. and he was extremely helpful. he decide st. had been appointed by yeltsin to bring in price reform, which was a big bang. up to them, prices in the soviet y.en had been decided by the politburo and its manipulate -- ministries. everything from the price of bread to a bolt of oil. chance prices were freed that meant you were in capitalism, and one of the effects of that,

a few days after freeing prices up at the end of 1991, he was walking down the street and saw a line of people and he felt it was just another queue. then he realized it was people for the first time were allowed to engage in private sales and these were people standing along the road selling things that they had to try to make some money. this was -- this day, december 25, 18991,probably marks the lowest point in the lives of most russian people. nothing on the shelfs -- >> meaning in economic terms. >> a miserable time for them. one radio commentator said look for stuff in shops, and count yourself lucky. another commentator described the scene in the shops as a war zone. people were so desperate to get basic necessities. >> how much of that was driven

by the revolt of the nomenclature. in effect the efforts you describe in the back, you have a meeting of the mob bosses who come together to plan how they're going to rip off those state properties. you have descriptions of some of the plant owners and party secretaries busy enriching themselves in that last year or two years of the soviet union, essentially pulling aside, almost privatizing before there's a formal program. how much is that driving the economic collapse? >> i think part of it was the fact that these products people needed didn't exits. there was -- huge shortages in the country of flour and meat, but also i think people who had these stocks were holding back for the price reform because why sell a pound of flour today at 10 coe pecks if you can get it for 100 the next day. >> why wouldn't -- you have a premonition in your book where

you describe on that day there's gidar meeting with an international monetary fund official. >> in former communist party headquarters. >> planning the process. you get one of the predictions from the imf that prices will only rise 70% and actually it was more like 7,000%. why wouldn't they have been better off doing a more socialist, swedish, scandinavian style soft landing, or did they just believe that you had to do shock therapy because it was no other way out? you presage it in part because, among other things, you talk about your in-laws because you married into a russian family, losing all their savings and not being paid for months at a time and you have personal knowledge in this. >> first of all, i'll make the point you raised about the big bang. gidor told me he was very much of the opinion they had to destroy the system so it couldn't come back. they had to create a situation

in russia where they could not bring back communism after being freed up in and the western market type economy. >> sounds like the american generals in vietnam saying we have to destroy the village in order save it. >> as regard my own experiences, some were pretty weird. my wife is a former deputy in the parliament -- >> married in 1989, about a year -- >> 1989. in fact i was the first foreigner, westerner, allowed to visit since the second world war since it was a closed city. but things were changing and cities were opening up. when the price reform came, my wife's sister, who is a director of a music school, stopped getting her salary because there wasn't a central system of paying salaries. institutions looked after people. factories looked after panel, and they just didn't have any

resources. so, she would go one month without salary and then another month she would get something in lieu of salary. one month it was box of men's socks. >> what did she do with that? go and sell them on the road. >> you can stand beside the road and sell these and good luck to you. if you drove near a tire factory, you would see people, workeres standing on the road selling tires. it was that situation people suffered from after price reform >> doesn't that partially undermine your thesis that the main driver of the collapse and breakup is the personal tension in way a, that conflict between yeltsin and gorbachev? in a way, you're also saying that one of the key causes is that the center did not have the resources anymore to buy anybody off. it was always the -- what was

the soviet phrase, we pretend to work and the state pretendses to pay us. but there was certainly some security, although at quite a low level. so, wasn't that part of the driver here? >> the basic tensions between yeltsin and gorbachev was how quickly this should move to a market economy. a year before the end, gorbachev and yeltsin actually got together and agreed to give the task to a couple of very prominent economists, to bring these reforms in the period of 500 days. >> the fall of 1990, roughly. >> about then, yes. and then gorbachev got cold feet. he came under a lot of pressure from the military industrial complex because this would mean their subsidies would end. yeltsin was furious, absolutely furious, when gorbachev decided to -- gorbachev is a bit of a social engineer. he liked to see what his wisdom

was superior to others. and he decided to adopt a plan wrestled up by a former prime minister, who is a bureaucratic type. and that was basics tension between gorbachev and yeltsin, one of the reasons they diverged to radically in the last year. >> because yeltsin became -- how would you describe his visit to america, seeing the shopping malls and grocery stories full of towns -- suddenly he comes back, we have to do that here. >> that visit to america was an eye-opener for yeltsin. i believe it's true what he glide his own memoirs which i researched. he was being driven through texas and he said, stop here. i want to have a look at this grocery store. this supermarket. he was still of the old soviet mentality that foreigners were only showing what the host country wanted to show them, and

he thought he was being conned. >> he was going to take them by surprise. >> and he entered this market and just was -- he described how he saw somebody in the checkout using something like a hair drier to record the prices. and he found out that there were all sort office different variety of cheeses and meats and on the plane from there to miami, he turned to his aide and he said, you know, that's why the iron curtain was there is to keep us from learning how good things were in the west and how much consumer goods were available. >> he was ready when some of the younger ideological economists would come in and say, all at once. >> gorbachev -- yeltsin made big bets on his instinct. a very -- he was very courageous.

when he thought he should do something, he did. he reckoned that the soviet union should end and there should be a very quick transfer to the market economy, and he entrusted that task to two of his aides. one to free prices and the other to privatize -- state properties. >> everything was owned up to that point. >> probably goes back -- you're talking about yeltsin's impulsiveness. even his own rise power was marked by impulsive gestures in the communist party central committee or the politburo which look devastating to his career. >> he was a very conflicted person. he would sit in on the politburo meeting. he was a candidate member, which meant he was one of the 15 top people in the soviet union, or 20. so they would have meetings, and

he would work up the courage to challenge gorbachev and saying you're bringing a cult of personality on yourself and people are -- you're not moving fast enough on reform, and then he would get a ticking off from gorbachev, who would rally the institution to tick them off as well and then yeltsin would feel terrible and say, i'm sorry, didn't mean to say all the things i said, and you're absolutely right, please forgive me, and this was all until it reached the point where yeltsin was very seriously challenged gorbachev. he resignedded from the politburo and then he faced a very tight meeting where gore chef and others attacked him for his poppism and the way he was going about things and he was so upset by this that he claimed he tried to commit suicide.

>> gorbachev? >> yeltsin. gorbachev think his was faking but he did cut himself on the chest with a pair of scissors and rushed to hospital. then gorbachev called another meeting meeting of the moscow communist party to relieve boreis yeltsin as his post of commune party chief which he was then. before this meeting he rang boris yeltsin in hospital and said i want you at these meeting this evening. >> come from your sick bed. >> and yeltsin, by hit account, said, i'm not allowed by the doctors to leave my bed. gorbachev, said, that's okay. we'll look after that. and the doctor came long and injected him with a sedative, some antispasm agents, and he was taken by his body guard, by car to the inquisition, which it was an inquisition, and he was made to suffer four hours of abuse from gorbachev and other members of the central committee. this is a central committee

meeting of about 300. and he never forgive gorbachev for that. and -- >> given his health conditions he did not push back at that moment. that was not a time when he actually was physically able to get up on the tank, for example like he did much later. >> one of the interesting things -- i don't think anybody made this connection -- years later, when yeltsin was president, and -- he discovered that the doctor who had injected him, and the yeltsin family hated him for what he did. then he was a private doctor, and he said to the doctor, don't you realize who this man is? and he was quite annoyed he didn't get rid of him. i discovered that shortly after that, the doctor was shot dead in the street outside his surgery, the same surgery, the same medical clinic where he injected yeltsin all these years before. the only report of the killing

was in the news agency and just said he was shot by an unknown gunman. nothing was ever reported since then, and i looked up the statistic. something like 250 people were shot dead in the street in moscow that year. it could have been for any reason. i'm not drawing the conclusion which one might suspect happened. people around yeltsin might have had a hand in it. but there were so many killings for so many different reasons. the doctor may not have paid protection money or something. so one can't draw any conclusions but it's interesting. >> extraordinary. so, after this humiliation moment where gorbachev hauled yeltsin from the hospital bed and spent hours marshaling the criticism of him, does yeltsin get sent to the reeducation camps? what happens to him?

i guess i'm setting you up in a way because in your book you remark on the irony that it's exactly gorbachev's democratizing procedures that allow a comeback for yeltsin. it's not like the old days where it was bullet in the head -- in the old days a bullet in the head or ambassadorship to mongolia or somewhere. i need to give a bit of background here. yeltsin was pretty much excluded from coverage in the newspapers but he had become of a bit of a folk hero in moscow. >> by being the party chief and being active -- >> the word spread that he challenged gorbachev and made a secret speech attacking gorbachev and there were copies of the speech circulate. >> the glasnost peered -- >> papers were still under the thumb of the communist party, and editors were forbidden to report anything about yeltsin

and what he was doing, but at the same time perestroika and glasnost as -- advanced so far -- was not of a mind to punish him further so he gave him a desk job, ostensibly head of the construction industry, which meant very little. meant he had an office and a car. >> a job, was still in moscow. >> was still a member of the central committee of the communityist party which made it pop for him to attend immediatings, and yeltsin came when gorbachev needed him, to show the reactioner in comments that there are people who think like yeltsin, and i and they represent some force. >> so we have to pay attention to them. but for whatever reason, -- they prefer to think it was gorbachev thought it was the right thing to do. gave him a job that allowed him to stay in moscow.

didn't expel him back to the provinces and gave him a base to build on his political career as the performance proceeded and elections came about. yeltsin was well-positioned to flourish as he did in the elections. >> there's that moment in your comment on gorbachev's reticence to use the old methodded. there's a moment in your book where you quote one of the deputies in the congress, the supreme soviet after the -- people's deputies after the elections of march of 89 and say something about gore chef didn't have blood on his hands somehow. and it was interesting. he never wanted blood on his hand even in dealing with yeltsin, this almost -- this antagonist for that whole period, from '87, the first outburst in the central committee, all the way certainly through december 25, 1991. >> i think yeltsin's finest moment was when he flew to estonia, as a time when the

people around gorbachev were cracking down on the baltics. in january 18991, 12 or 13 people were shot deed by a kgb unit outside a television station. a couple of lithuania, and the crackdown was proceeding in all three baltic republicans, yeltsin flew and melt the three presidents of the countries. that it were under soviet rule but had local governments and he encouraged them to resist yeltsin and to not obey orders. gorbachev had a blind spot about the separate, as he called them, the independence-mined people in the baltics. >> and elsewhere in the receive union. >> of course, we all see the baltics as semi detached republican inside the soviet union. they were annexed after the

second world war -- during the second world war. gorbachev never could quite come to terms with the nationalist impulses in the baltics. i went with him to lithuania, sometime before that, when he was trying to persuade lithuania, your role is with us. comrades in the soviet union. and he was really taken aback when people in the crowd dared to challenge him. >> that was in a top aide says gorbachev was basically blind it to. gorbachev would say, don't they mud if they lead the soviet union, there will be no an cor and no economy, and the aide comments, he doesn't get it. >> and you know, the democrats in russia at the time, from yeltsin to the intelligence ya, they were outraged by what happened in the baltics and blamed gorbachev.

he surrounded himself with people -- the interior memberster and the head have kgb, who were hardliners. and he didn't condemn what was happening but he pulled back because he was going to lose his credibility in the world. ...

he really did want to affect a change. >> and he does "that line that is in your book that covert tough, when pressed to get rid of those hard-liners and the old communist party and the repressive apparatus to something like, have to keep that lousy rapid dog on the leash. otherwise it will turn on us and turn on the reforms. what you make of that? >> that happened at a very interesting moment in 1991 when he was in front of with rebellion in the communist party. he says according. it was a ploy. he wasn't. he was just saying to them, look, i'm not presidents, but the presidential powers, you can't do anything about it.

>> what he wanted to say, oh, please, don't quit. >> and that is what they did. use the old. >> she was pretty aware of the calvert of the rabid dog. his to keep them on a leash. that actually, was to take a very positive view. that explains a lot. he allow the hard-liners to stay close and so that it could bring them forward to the point when they could not succeed in staging a coup which actually happened in august 1991. in retrospect i not so sure of launches generation of russians who were there in 1901 who were very critical. conceded he was telling the right thing, during the courageous thing, which was to stop the crackdown. of course he was looking toward

an independent russia which helped his case as well. >> in your book you have these wonderful details on both of those personalities. some of them jumped out of me. that did not realize that you say, for example, gorbachev was the urbane, sophisticated man of the world, yet swore a blue streak of profanity at that drop of a hat. the peasant faced hard drinking siberian is how you describe in your really dislike the use of swear words and hated it when gorbachev would swear at him. >> love of fun finding out about the personalities of these two men who dominated by reporting live for so many years. as you say, he would not allow anybody near and to use where words. he also headed smoking. he hated people to smoke in his presence. he would take the cigarette from their lips and stop it out. to do that.

he likes to "poetry. he would "mine costly. when their lives. len will lives together. he likes to drink. we also like to play in this thing. defeat was in the blue-collar of one of his aides and play the spoons on the set. so when he was partying -- >> watch out for the spun spirit >> the move away. >> extraordinary dynamic because you mentioned we know that he liked to drink. it was like so many of these episodes including that long nine hour meeting described to this before the day of the center of your book worried their work out a plan for the transition is accompanied by large quantities by vodka and cognac.

>> i found one of the most fascinating aspects of the dying days of the soviet union. he just garsten. he and gorbachev retired to the walnut room which was a very important room in the kremlin where big decisions were made. there were joined by alexander jack flood, one of the followers of for the striker, who was a witness to what went on. and they started drinking. >> just a witness, was see also sort of the umpire? >> a bit of an empire as well because both respected him. >> why? >> because he spoke out on issues that yeltsin was passionate about, opening up the history and exposing the crimes and that sort of thing. >> obviously there account they get a member of the ideas. >> so, this is a contentious issue.

feels a little too much for introducing. know that he was a very powerful figure. who bring in trace. connect and vodka. at one. the meeting one on from midday to 9:00 tonight, and at 6:00 or which of left the meeting to take a call from john major who is prime minister of the united kingdom at the time and had arranged a call for what was happening. under noted that he was -- gorbachev. >> yes. >> had to form his words very carefully. very friday. harry was, the nemesis. also deciding whether he should

have a horse into cars and staff. so it was pretty, you know, emotional day. >> three different versions of that meeting. you say, according to him that it was friendly and cordial. you have to force a, well, it was businesslike. and did you have him saying these guys are illusionists. it was actually condescending and triumphant. >> a very cold meeting. >> other than the cognac. >> both of their best behavior because they knew they could not squabbling at this stage. he handled cards. he was dictating the terms. >> explain why he held all the cards? >> because a few weeks earlier he had met the leaders of russia, yet met the leader of

the ukraine, independent, whatever happened. the leader belarus. and at that a hunting lodge near the polish border -- >> did gorbachev know? >> gorbachev knew the reid was going to take place, but he was told it was to try to persuade them to keep the soviet union in an intact for a new treaty. but they agreed to collapse the soviet union, three republics had been set up the soviet union , so now they could collapse it. from that moment on the soviet union was finished. they went to the other republics and got them to sign on. three is before december 25th all of the leaders of the republic civilian, they all agree to that there would set up

vons independent states but would have no common center, no center, nobody in charge of their foreign policy : note : each policy. it would be which early no role for gorbachev anymore. but interestingly read up until a few days before that he still fall that he could maintain the soviet union in some form and it would alcee sense. he wrote a long letter. there would alcee sense and agree he should stay in the kremlin at least in charge of foreign policy. >> the national standing. >> absolutely.

>> this of an expanding of the possibilities of the soviet union, some role in the world. and with the dead parents face. figuratively raising his eyes to heaven. you know, this guy doesn't get it. >> extraordinary. here you're describing a process where in addition to the real tension you have a group of what was really come his party leaping for power. of that whole bunch was the only had to that democratic legitimacy. >> if you look, the leader of the independent ukraine, for saw her at the meeting of the congress of and been a reform group with to set up three years

or for the end of the city in. he was observing from a balcony he was a dark figure in charge of all the repression in the gain. then he was still the head of the congress party in an. with the coup happened in august 1991 he went along with it until he saw it was going to succeed and then overnight switched to being a democrat. he realized that the population wanted nothing more to do with the soviet union. one of the things that really upset gorbachev was that when he resigned now one of about one of the leaders of the other republics call them, sent a letter to lessen word, yeah, good luck in the future. and these were people who had worked with him, negotiated with them, not one of them have the grace to say you're resigning,

good luck in the future. i don't think he ever met in the again. he may be met one of two. he did not want any more to do with them. went so far as to say gorbachev, the tragedy of gorbachev, and laughing at him. really petty. but that is an indication of how deep the feeling swept, how much the state these people up for each other. gorbachev did not like yeltsin. yeltsin did not like trying to grab part. and they had seen in threatening their communism. of course never the soviet union

was disbanded their rig to make the jump and reinvent themselves as capitalists. >> and nationalists. >> extraordinary. when he set out . . eighty-seven, 8289, 90 in moscow you said earlier he had scored a lot of sympathy like so many journalists seeing him as a courageous person trying to do the right thing representing a democratic surge. but your book, when a reader comes to the end of your book one has an impression of the enormous erratic and impulsive and make it up as you go along quality to so much of his governance.

the houston to attack. but direct. people who started when back. a rubber going to one of his parties. to get back to what u.s., i went to the book with all these, about yeltsin and a lot of

criticism and my mind. i finished the book. i think i have more sympathy for gorbachev. the scope of his reforms were actually amends. what he managed to do, for example, in buried about the election to the congress, the whole soviet union, he almost had to use sleight of hand to get that martian rover did through, a meeting of the communist party, but he managed. he presided over the first democratic elections in russia since the soviets knew was formed. >> that was before the polish elections. we remember solidarity sweeping. >> it was in russia. >> the soviet union. >> the soviet union. but he reserved 100 seats up in the congress for top communist party officials. in fact committed not want to face election himself. he created conditions for boris

yeltsin as the representative from moscow. he got something like 9 million votes. so gorbachev created the democratic conditions for the democrats to advance. i think that we must seek gorbachev as a statesman and yeltsin as an opportunist with the right imposes. a thing that would be the best with some without. >> opportunist but with some incredible moments of courage. >> a good bet on his instincts. it required a lot of courage to do that. history proved that he was right. the time but come to wind down the soviet union, and he was the one who realize that and to went doing it. for bringing freedom to russia. >> what about the way, gorbachev

to be looking back toward the years, well, a couple of big mistakes were not breaking the communist party earlier on and perhaps not signing the union treaty in such a way earlier so that it would head off the coup, and if i had done that we could have had a union and the demilitarized more democratic union, soviet union still. >> the legitimate exercise in history. one of the what ifs was what if i had not gone on holiday in august 1991 and allowed the crew to take place he regrets that he went on holiday. the republic leaders signed a new union treaty. that is what took place when it did, because they did not want this treaty which would rob the communist party a lot of this traditional power by think of

that dynamic of this tree was such that the soviet union was finished, and these two men in their differ waste. gorbachev by creating circumstances where socialism cannot survive. really tried to entail the socialist the those in the country. hilton who took a big bet on wrecking the system that he sells going to work. >> on the what ifs, what if yeltsin had not had that shock therapy aachen and privatization peace? was a possibility for a soft landing? was the economic reality -- let me phrase that question a different way. if gorbachev had had the same look with oil prices that led mayor pete had over the last decade with the republics have been so eager to depart from the

center if it was a gusher of oil wealth? >> i don't think so. even if the oil prices have increased, the whole system was on the oedipus. one could look at all lot. if he had not succeeded and some of the very close votes in the russian parliament which enabled him to become president gamal what if the year after dec. 25th 1991 the russian parliament which have been elected in the days of the soviet union contained a lot of hard-line communists. but if they had succeeded? it very nearly did because of the people who suffered. if they had succeeded, and the only filled by a few votes, prompting comments that they decided it did not want to go back to a communist future.

>> the old joke. communism is the interim stage between capitalism. >> i am convinced that the soviet union could not have survived -- say the treaty had been agreed, i think the draft was still for all the republics having got a taste of freedom fellow we still would have gone for freedom. >> and what if yeltsin had chose a different form of change? that is to censor as the coup and the failure of the coup and his own courage in standing on the tanks and his own popular acceptance, he chose, at that moment got to go into decree mode. he essentially decided to change the whole system by decree. he was producing ten per day. some of your episodes where the mayor of moscow comes in. he dashes off to a decrease in

nationalizes the takeover of this and that. was there any possibility for something that was more democratic, less autocratic? we can see the seeds of today's authoritarian russia and the lack of transition. >> one of the big bets that he made, he made a wonderful speech, very fortunate speech. about a month after he had gone off to write his memoirs. he would do something very courageous and then he would need to call down and rest for a while. he came back and made a speech, which she convinced the russian parliament that they had to be given the right to rule decree because the -- this is said to be made in mid quickly. and i think that -- when he

ruled by decree, it was still a very democratic society that existed on last day of the soviet union due to the reforms of gorbachev. a very interesting point. he said to or remember that on this day he had the three is the -- freest pressure that russia ever had. was not subservient. people could read what they wanted, criticize. of course he said, it could not last. and we have seen that it has not lasted, certainly in television and the control of television. but at that point in history of the 25th of december 1991 he have a situation in russia where people could demonstrate, they could form political parties, as they did in the early 1990's. and the reelection of yeltsin as president in 1996 was a free

election, but mind you, he had a lot of support from oligarchs emerging at that time, support from the united states for advertising agencies year. -- >> david hoffman has a wonderful portrait of that election. >> he does. >> how does a guy go from 6 percent popularity in the spring -- >> it was democratic. the votes were passed and counts a democratically. no the communist party, 35 percent of the vote. when gorbachev ran for election they got 2 percent. know if you want to form a party in russia the authorities will find some way, identifying a problem in your application papers. you just, you don't have free political association in russia today.

you did have it during the early years. >> would you also have the collapse in the early, not only december of '91, but the collapse of 92, you have these boom years, the attack on the parliament in 93 at the beginning of the wars in 94 and the the indigenous of collapse. i'm just wondering how much of that colors in russia of the debate looking back at december december 205th 91 to lead describes some of the nostalgia that people do feel over there. >> it's interesting. the day the clear they wanted to be someone was celebrated as independence day. vladimir change that to russian day because he did not want --

people today in russia, and none of this from my own family, they look back at the soviet era as an era when people were bombing the railway stations, the airport's, the nationalities all go along reasonably well together. there's a degree of education for everybody. everybody suffered. except for the privileged rivers of the party, of course. >> and bribery. connections matter, but there was not the pervasive corruption >> absolutely. and of course you have the national pride of being a superpower, one of the two great powers in the world. this day marks the day of the standing in the world. one of the reasons why as president he brought back some

of these symbols of the soviet union, for example, the red flag came down on that day, but he'll of the russian army to adopt the red flag again as their emblem with of the hammer and sickle. he also, the russian national anthem which is wonderful. there remember in the second world war it was part of their pride in defeating nazism. the words were changed, but -- and the chin was changed. sorry. the income was chased call what he got it back with different words because he realized that people felt pride when they heard this. all sorts of the motions about the defeat of hitler. he did this, but they, for the best reasons which was to do --

to help people get over the embarrassment of what happened on the state. this day is not celebrated at all in any way or commemorated in russia. i went through all of the stores the second-hand bookstores and i could find nothing about the handover. people don't want to know. >> extraordinary. and yet there is a very live debate today. for example, and the last month you have interviews in germany where he criticized -- he described the exhaustion of their project, the petersburg product. the spokesperson step back the next day with front-page interviews. the guy that loss the soviet union to lost as are standing. almost lost russia its entire 70.

a live debate in today's newspaper front page n, over your day, december 25th 91, what do you make of this? >> that gorbachev has been saying for some time now that russia has taken the wrong turn. the turn towards authoritarianism. he has been critical for some time. he has now become -- one person in russia and consensus and it he can do nothing to stop them. but coming from within russia obviously this got to him. but he knows that he is greeted a situation no where people enter politics up for public service, but for what they can get out of it.

the judges obey the kremlin. its par with there, but it stalled. that gives gorbachev a lot of credibility. >> let me bring the discussion back here to the united states. in your book your mark on the dramatic change in u.s. political rhetoric about december 25th 1991. really there's a larger point. george is of the bush said he was an affront to dance and the berlin wall because it was more concerned with a cautious and prudent and stable process. he was appointed to any of this triumph was a busy time that it would backfire. it is true all the way up to the stay. he crosses the warehouse to not

declaring victory. yet, as you point out in your book, within about a month there is bush up in front of the halls of congress saying, we won. what is the effect of that on the american discourse, maybe even on russian perception? >> you're absolutely right he wanted the soviet union to survive. a soviet union that was subjected to the west to survive deferred to western interest. he wanted to survive rather than having 15 independent republics, some with a clear weapons. that was the prospect. so right up until august 1991 he was lecturing other republic leaders, particularly in the ukraine against nat