paid as well as the producer sector. the other thing is public employment compensation as risen dramatically compared to the general population. more teachers with higher degrees, more degrees equals higher compensation. you are right. when questioned they acknowledge public is 40% higher than private but the public employee is also on average much more educated in today's world. >> i think if you will break it out you would find lower skilled governmentm employees -- or lower skilled persons in the private sector whereasin the higher skilled level the government employees tend to do well in the private sector.

>> when you look at the details and they have details in the report. every category and level of experience within that category is the salary paid to somebody in the local government is higher than people in private industries. >> thank you, sir. >> we have time for one more question. >> i am just barely old enough to remember word sentinual. there was one word never brought up. madden, public enemy number one. the reason i don't share your optmism is the redistricting initiative and i would like to know what you think about that and the implications.

>> i think we both feel strongly the redistricting issue should be on the ballot. we recommend it in the book. >> i think it is number 97 or 98 in the book. >> it is one of the proposals we make in the corruption chapter. we support an independent redistricting commission and it needs to be done to have better accountability and more competition. with more competition you will have greater voter interest because people will debate different points of view and seeking the same office. we don't have that today in part because of the legislative process because of the lack of independent redistricting process. it is absolutely something we have to achieve one day. >> you could have done tease. you could have said if you want

to know the answers, read the book. thank you for attending this fo fo fo forum. >> thanks everyone for coming. their book "fixing illinois: politics and policy in the prairie state" on sale now in the main lobby and they will be signing copies outside of the auditorium. thanks, everyone. enjoy lit fest. [inaudible conversations]

what we were calling the news ticker series, featuring prominent authors. i'd like to thank everyone connect it was listener who helped to organize this evenings event. the guest of honor is done primarily of course for her political goals as first lady, u.s. senator from new york in the 67th secretary of state. she's also just published her fifth book and has several previous best sailors to her name. so added to the list of credits after hillary rodham clinton should certainly be accomplished author. "hard choices," her memoir about her four years as secretary of state recounts how she came to accept a cabinet position offered by her former political

rival and led the effort to deny nations standing around the world. the book also reveals some of the last want cash, less battle hardened side of her not, like wimps in the public humor as come as self-deprecating, maternal, maybe even grant maternal. although hillary credits a small team of people for helping with the book, she carved out months on her calendar to write and rewrite it herself and there is told to say work that is undeniably in her voice. but also clearly leaves room for future chapters in one worn by more someday. [applause] this evenings event is particularly special.

it is particularly special for me because i not only get to introduce the main speaker, but also my wife who will be appearing conversation with hillary. the two of them go back together to the early days of the clinton administration and lissa has sent served with hillary in various roles as white house and state department speechwriter, communications or to the first lady. campaign advisor and collaborator on hillary's white house memoir, living history. these days when hillary and lissa talk, they spend most of their time discussing the latest great novel, mystery or biography they are breeding. ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming hillary rodham clinton and lissa muscatine. [cheers and applause] >> thank you.

great. [cheers and applause] thank you so much. [cheers and applause] >> well, that was very nice. it is great to have you. thank you so much. >> thanks to you and brett are running such a great bookstore, politics & prose. >> speaking up hooks, you got it out for four days now. >> is right. for. >> it's been one of the spaces that was more like when your secretary and you start your books are all over the place in doing these interviews. you keep a pretty frenetic pace. i have to ask you because her

the first time i read this book and i read it several times now, i was struck by a kind of lightheartedness. it's a serious book. it deals with obviously very serious issues. but there's a lighter side that comes true. so i am wondering if i've watched you in the first four days and it has been tough interviews to me seem like you're having a good time. >> well, i am having a good time and that is in part due to the enthusiasm that i have experienced as i've traveled around in the last couple of days. it is a great feeling to everett in a book about for years that were consequential in my view we can talk about that, but which for me were both a personal journey and a very heavy responsibility. and what i tried to do in the vote was write it so that i could give you, the readers, a bit of a peek behind the curtain

because the headline certainly tell some of the story, but not all of the story. and it is more difficult to even get information about the so-called trend line. i wanted to combine both. the hardest part for me about writing this book was that it was, believe it or not, three times longer when i first finished it. i wanted to put every funny story, every bizarre adult. i mean, whatever i could remember and wanted to share. the publisher did say you've got to cut two thirds of this book. and so, i worked hard to keep the combination of seriousness because obviously there is a lot of that, but also the human diet. not just me, but what i saw and learned as i traveled around the world. >> you've never been shy about your opinions, but it does seem to me you are pretty free to speak your mind these days. >> i think that is true.

from some of the reactions i've had the past few days. [laughter] i say in the book that a beard is just a wonderful wealth of x. but i've now had. ap it is because i am totally god with, you know, being really careful about what to say because somebody might think this instead of that just gets too exhausting and frustrating. it just seems a whole lot easier to just put it out there and hope people get used to it. whether you agree with that or not, to know exactly where it coming from, what i think about what i feel, i really believe that is missing in both our government dialogue and of course many of you probably are some houses heated in some way with our government certainly in our political dialogue. there's so many big issues and i talk about some of them, both in

nationally and nationally. and i don't agree dean either shouting matches for finger-pointing or biting one's tongue. i think we really need to have an open and straightforward conversation and maybe i'm trying to model that. i don't know, but that is how it feels to me. it feels a little bit liberating to me. >> and it's great to watch i have to say. it's nice to see. >> you know, there are occasions when people go up a little, including myself to be fair. but i really want to share the experiences that i've had. i came to this job, as i write in the book, and quite an unusual way and that was incredibly surprised when the president asked me to serve as a little surprise when i finally read too. and then it was just from the very first moment a mad dash because we inherited a pretty

serious agenda of problems and challenges. so the perspective that i've gained a sink has encouraged me even more to speak my mind contribute what i can to whatever debate is occurring. >> let's talk about the process of writing the book before we get to the substance of it because i remember from the last book you had a day job. you were in the senate and this is really true. honest to goodness truth because i was working with you on the boat. he did a lot of the work between midnight and 3:00 a.m. and i remember having routine meeting to run your dinner table at 3:00 a.m. we did that for a few months to get it finished. he carved up more time to really focus on it. i think it is interesting. you had a great team working for you, be you or not somebody who's ever taken a draft of a book, speech, chapter and say this looks good. it's been between a cover or publisher right now. it's fine. you've always played over here

fighting. you write, rewrite, you still write in longhand on a legal pad and anybody who's been with anyone writing a book knows it's like watching someone go through labor. it's an incredibly painful process, but there's great joy at the end. on the scale of pain and joy, what was the process of writing this book like for you? >> i should preface what i say by making clear that lissa has been my part or in some of the most portentous writing and speaking that i've done going back to the white house years when she was a speechwriter at the white house. nsa point out in the chapter called unfinished business about women's rights and all gpt rights and other human rights, lissa was my partner in the women's speech and beijing. fast forward, she was also my partner in the living history

autobiography. what she has described because the ways this day job that i loved, but i bet and sign the contracts are obligated to produce a book. so i would come home and lissa despite her responsibilities including her wonderful family with bandit dining room room table with me as we struggled over the chapters in living history. this is different in that i left the state department. i had for the first time in many years much more freedom and control over my unscheduled. i had a third-floor attic study in the old farmhouse that we live in a new york. and i would go up there early in the morning and i would make as many detours as i possibly could. it was always time for something else. it was time to walk the dogs.

it was time to go down and get my water because you have to be really well hydrated. i just came up with a million reasons. and then of course i read you really should not set for more than an hour. so that became my favorite excuse. but it was a great experience despite how difficult it was. it was difficult because there was a massive cheerio that we were trying to condense. it was also hard to relive some of what happened and also to make sense in retrospect about what had occurred. i don't rate advisors and people who would take me scraggly handwriting and trans payday combat with the chechens. it was a terrific process in that way. even though i had more free time to do it, i found it equally

intense because once you start writing a book and you're putting yourself in to it, and in my case, as sort of an idea there might be some people who would read every word, looking for something i said that might not be entirely one dozen% true or accurate. so it was painful and i had a great backup with the researchers who helped me. so i enjoyed it. but if i were to put it on a scale, sundays were off the charts wonderful and sundays were not even on the chart terrible because it was hard to write. and then of course i wanted to make sure it was a fair reflection of what i experienced is what i learned. i had to at some point let it go and hold my breath and i'm

pleased with the way it came out. >> the reviews have been really good. >> much to my amazement. >> you may or may not be done with your public life. >> when i finally got >> i did impose upon lissa because she's great reader as well as great writer. i did hold my best because she has never minced words. that's not what she meant to say. she came back and she had some very good soup sessions. read some positive reinforcing reactions. i have to say that help me breathe a little better.

i'm worried i may have totally missed the point of trying to communicate and it's a nice combination of personal, particularly in the beginning when i talk about the creation of this team of rivals with the president and then pretty wonky and dad. there were some chapters i felt called to include, like a chapter about the economic challenges we face abroad and how that affects us here at home and what it means to be could eating if you're an american business are an american worker against a capitalism. i know that some ice in the editing process and the publisher is kind of rolled a little bit. i said i really need to talk about that because one of my primary jobs that i became secretary given where we were economically was to try to help with the work the president and the secretary of treasury to restore confidence in our

economy as well as our political and foreign-policy agenda that. >> i loved it for the first three. any manuscript can be improved on. it may have seemed like there were some denser portions. it's fascinating, entertaining. it's a terrific book and as i said earlier, you come third in a way that not as much in some of the earlier books as an earlier time in life and career and i think you said you feel more liberated now and i think that comes through. we do and should talk about the substance. he said a minute ago that when you assume the secretary should come to you and president obama came into a raft of problems. clearly there is a perception in this country and around the world that are broad influence was diminishing.

our economy was sputtering out fast. some other key alliances were afraid or afraid. karen was making no bones about its interest in acquiring or building a nuclear weapon. china was on the rise and you have the yarn the challenges of climate change in poverty and human rights. and so, i'm wondering if the secretary of state is in somewhat of an exercise in triage. >> that's an interesting way to put it, lissa because i think it is a multilevel job all at the same time. there are crises that require immediate attention in the intensive care unit. i mean, you have to put everybody together, both physically or virtually. you have to be building those alliance is in tending to those partnerships in the midst of a crisis in order to deal with the crisis. but then there are the

emergencies, but not as serious as the one they tend to care unit. if you continue with this metaphor, a big emergency room with all kinds of injuries. people who are there representing countries, representing individuals, nonstate is in the light, all of whom need tending. they are not going away. they are expect to the united states to show up and to make a move however we define that. and of course there are the longer-term chronic problems, the words filled with people who are struggling. i saw my role primarily to do all it could to restore american leadership. and that meant several things to me. it certainly meant that i had to figure out how to deal with the emergencies and how to 10 to

over a broad array of complaints about our country from the prior eight years. it was not just iraq. it was not just the war on terror and the pieces that came to light. it was not just the economic collapse, although that is a trifecta that was waiting on our doorstep. it was the feeling that somehow america had violated our own values, the rules we had help to construct and pushed for compliance and how countries were supposed to be behaving, whether it was conventions that we assigned against torture or it was the anti-ballistic missile treaties or whatever it may be in that there was a sense of that some parts of the world. that was the message that came through to me when i began making a series of phone calls to leaders in no whom i caught

in a show were very clear that they believed america had abandoned her traditional role as a pacific power and wondered whether the obama administration would reassert our presence in a show. we were struggling with the negative reactions with iraq of the on terror. but also the attitude of old europe versus new europe in the sense that somehow america no longer value this critical relationship across the atlantic. and there is so much bubbling below the surface. we came into office as one born gossett was ending, a new roland israel be informed. we had a very serious set of decisions facing the president and the national out what to do about afghanistan since it appeared the taliban had regained momentum and the gaffer's to try to create some

stability with a stronger base for the afghans themselves and govern themselves, it was a long list. triage is a good description and it required other things simultaneously in responding to that analysis. one, it required my presence. when the president asked me to serve as secretary of state, he said i'm going to have to focus the vast majority of my time in detention on an economic base because as bad as it is, it could get a lot worse. and he said we have to demonstrate that america is no longer going to be bleeding with our military. of course we will maintain the strength of our military, but we need to demonstrate more clearly our values and that we can form partnerships and mobilize common

action. that is why i'm asking you because i know you can get on the airplane and start traveling the world. he was a bit of a division of labor to the, which i totally and eventually agreed to kerry. and it was quite striking to me. i made the decision, which are explained in the book to summer break tradition, go to asia in february 29 because half of the trip was just showing up, and demonstrating they just precut treaty alliances. brief adventurous, political strategic alliance. there were no longer going to be absent and then we worked to pay that in a very public way to send an unequivocal message that the united states would be part of asia's future where so much of the consequential decision-making for the world would be made. i quickly turned around and went

to europe in march because i wanted to reassert our relationship. i quote this old brownie girl scouts on making friends but keep the old. what a silver and the other's gold. i wanted it to be a real statement of our commitment to our european partners. and there was so much going on there as a because right before president obama took office, gas prom, the russian gas utility cut off gas again. they had done that in 2006 and it came apparent to me that the europeans would have to take a look at how dependent they wanted to be on a single source for their energy. sounds familiar. from that very first meeting, we began talking about what could he done to find alternatives. so it was a multitasking of the

highest order to try to be president, reach out, come up with new ideas and make clear that america's presence and leadership is going to be front and center once again it would be listening, not just talking. we would work multilaterally, not just unilaterally. and we would use the 3-d policy. not just defense, but diplomacy and develop and to promote our values and worse receive our interests and protect our security. >> reading the book, one of the quotes you have often used came to mind to me. i think i to see you at one time. politics is as strong and slow boring of hard words. but really comes through in this book is sort of the day-to-day experience of being secretary of state is not just what is the most visible, the sexiest, most interesting even issue. there's an issue and it's very

labor intensive and there's a lot of cultivation. you mentioned the asia trip. he lived an important groundwork in indonesia that later paid off in burma with democratic reforms there and all those little things that aren't in the newspaper that nobody knows about bettering your schedule. i should have been a bilateral with the foreign minister some country that we got where it is on the map but must we are extremely well-educated. so i think there really does come through in the book. >> i'm glad you said that because i wanted that to come through. one of the virtues that i think we americans need to cultivate his patients. and that is true probably in our lives, but it is particularly true in our diplomacy because so much of what the matters in the world is based on building relationships and looking for areas where you can bush some level of trust.

and one of the examples in the book, which was quite dramatic actually is how we were able to navigate through the very difficult crisis over wind dissident in china and not endanger the substance of the framework for the relationship we had been building with china. when i came in, i knew from my time in the senate that we had very good economic discussions with china about currency, about trade. and those had been carried out primarily by the treasury department. but there were so many strategic issues that maybe we would deal with anyone off way. but we could see the chinese are much more common herbal talking about all of the concerns around

the economy than they were on political or strategic issues. so one of the first things i did was superposed up in the administration that we combined economic and create the strategic dialogue that would embody all the various individual discussions we had with chinese counterparts. tim geithner agreed and presented it on that first trip. they responded to it. i'm not that we put together teams from our government and dares to talk about everything unsanitary hygiene standards for food and produce for safe your choice to environmental, clean energy, joint projects to student exchanges. we put it all out there to build a much more comprehensive connection between our two governments that i hoped would

not just last for one president, but be part of building a framework into the future. we had intense meetings throughout the year. that would have an annual strategic and economic dialogue rotated between washington and beijing. i spent a lot of time with my counterparts, the counselor david rohde and foreign minister jan cici and lots of in-depth discussion. so fast forward to tonight i am home here in washing 10 and the phone rang and i am told by dissident has escaped from house arrest and he is trying to make it to the u.s. embassy in beijing for safety and refuge and also to be given emergency medical treatment for the foot that the answer. the question was what i direct our embassy staff to go out,

meet him, pick him up and bring him in. now, by any waiting of values and interests, you can see why a call this book "hard choices." i'm the one hand, we have this comprehensive relationship. we were making progress in a number of areas. others were solved, but we had developed very candid discussions of which in another's alphas this that forward. and i was supposed to be leaving in just a few days for the annual meeting in beijing. that had been the cornerstone of our efforts to develop a more strategic deeper understanding of china. yet we have this human rights activist who thought to himself, i am being unjustly imprisoned in my house. i need to escape. and where would i go? the one place in the world where

he taught the values of freedom and human rights would be embodied come and namely the embassy the unit dates of america. and so there was a way and i have to do it in a very short period of time. and i concluded that we would go out and pick -- to fulfill from the very beginning. it was a consequential. there were people who disagree with it, but i felt comfortable throughout the difficult period of negotiation ecocide.at the end of the day we were able to negotiate with the chinese over

the outcomes with respect to mr. chen and his family. we also kind of has strategic and economic dialogue. but we would not have been able to do that had we not in best at the time and the patience and developing those relationships. and it is some pain that i have to be reminded my colleagues in government or elsewhere, we often as american show up with an agenda. here's a way to, then they ought to do that and then we're out of there. that still is not the way most people in the world behave. they want to take your measure. they want to have a meal, maybe a cup of tea, talk about other

things. a rubber coin into a meeting with the king of saudi arabia, king abdullah. and we were in a huge meeting room and i spent about 15 minutes talking with 10 and talking with the foreign minister about camels. i describe it in the book because i had driven up from the airport with the foreign minister and we have been all these callous that were out in the desert as we drove i to the camp of the king and the foreign minister was telling us how much we just liked campbell's. that's not liking kangaroos. there's just so hard to imagine. but we are having a bit of a banter back and forth every guide to the meeting i was a large formal setting. i turned to the king and said your majesty, the foreign minister says he doesn't like camels. the king says what is wrong with

him? we started having this conversation. so when we got to the real meat of it over lunch, where just the king and i could hear one another any of these two television that is hollow square table that was going away so no one could hear were seen except each other, we then get down to business because we have actually interact this to people, not to officials in a hurry. and i try to make a point over and over in the book that we just have to invest more time and that takes patience and it takes people willing to do that, to build those relationships. but i don't think we can achieve our goals without that. >> either way, the chen story is one of the cloak and dagger life imitates art kind of stories in the book. it is amazing when you read it. can't possibly have happened the way it did. i also want to say you've improved dramatically in your pronunciation of foreign names.

[laughter] i was impressed used both ends of the chinese leaders. not just the easy one syllable one. >> well, lissa traveled with the often as first lady and in the beginning of my time in the state department is ahead of my speechwriters at the state department. and it is true. i have absolutely no ear for language and its rate regret. i took latin when i was in high school and i think it's healthy with my vocabulary or least i hope it did because i took four years. and then i took french when i went to wells lake. i was enjoying it. i was not good at it, but i was learning and i loved the literature part. i got it down that if you're writing critiques of french literature i could say things that love is hate, hate is love and the professor what say french.

when i went to the army to see my french professor i said thinking about this course or that coors. he has not a result, your your talents lie elsewhere. [laughter] >> but she's pretty good now. >> are so many other things i want to talk about, but it's been a few messy days in iraq and i wish we could get your quick reaction to that. >> well, let me back up and start where we were when president obama took office. president bush had established a timetable for american withdrawal in 2011 as i recall. unless the iraqis agree to what is called a status of forces agreement that gives the necessary protections to americans soldiers. there is a great deal of work done to try to figure out what the iraqis what if any follow one american force would be

necessary and accepted. they needed intelligence. they needed trainers. they needed the kind of leadership's guild inculcated in the reconstituted iraqi army after it had been dissolved in the bush administration. well, it came down to the fact that maliki would not present a status of forces agreement and have made the decision inevitable. there is not going to be an agreement for american troops to stay, even to perform limited noncombat functions. the underlying problem here is not one of military preparedness and security although we've seen neither is present in the

conflict. the problem is the conception of government that maliki brought to the job of prime minister should. he would not commit to an inclusive government. he would not share power except with a very, very small circle. he was often quick to attack, even investigate, charged with crimes those who politically disagreed with him. and as a result, the inclusive governance structure that reached out to the elements, particularly the sunnis in iraq to try to overcome yes, very deeply felt historic differences, but necessary changes if there were to be stability in iraq never happened. and the result of that failure

at the governance level combined with the extraordinary success islamist extremist groups in syria and in particularly the one now known as the islamic state of iraq area has made this latest craze says especially dangerous. you don't have a government that can inspire loyalty even among its army and certainly not among its disparate group. and you have well-trained, very savvy fighters coming out of syria, coming out of iraq, often aided and abetted, perhaps we

are learning by former officers in the disbanded saddam hussein iraqi army. and it is a recipe for a horrendous conflict. they request that maliki is they came the president to provide support i know are being carefully can better. but i think that it's also imperative that maliki be presented with a set of conditions if you are to discuss seriously any kind of military support for the site again to jihads s. and that's a delicate and difficult task for our government because we certainly don't want to fight their fight because he would be fighting for a dysfunctional, unrepresented,

a rotarian government. and there is no reason on earth that i know of that we would never sacrifice a single american life for that. [applause] it is a however serious potential crisis with broad regional and even global goods. the capture of the turkish took not, the threat to all the embassies in fact, most particularly ours. the discipline of the patchwork, the kurdish forces as they does protect kurdish areas, but also a fair to take over some of the cities, particularly clear-cut,

which they have always believed should be buyers. what role will they ran play if you read and then cuts force -- cuts force troops to assist maliki the way they assented both quds forest to support assad, then we're looking at a war in the middle east that is going to cross borders and potentially threaten the larger region and beyond. the latest figures i've seen is that there are more than a thousand fighters on behalf of extremist groups in syria comment from just europe. and with open borders, no visa restrictions, somebody wrote in france or germany or britain or the netherlands were ever will be able to come home and will be

able to travel. so this has been vocations far beyond what if anything we think we can and should do to try to stave off a total collapse of the maliki government. i would just add one other note. if you look at where we are in the region, the conflict in syria, which right now is still a stalemate, but i thought this control in large parts of the country. but there is many hundreds of thousands of refugees in jordan, lebanon, turkey, erratic and you have the tensions that are pervasive throughout the region be really fat on fire in iraq right now. it could draw in other countries because of the tax or because of

the decision on the part of other governments that they have to defend either the sunnis or defend the shia or go after the kurds. lots of competing interests. ..

>> you write about a lot of the sort of comedy. there are a lot of dark days, obviously, benghazi being the h most obvious, but there are as lot of funny things that happened, and i'm sure inthin retrospect they seem even'm funnier, sort of comedic moments. of course there had to be a hair story, right? there's a hair story in bulgaria, a shoe coming off inin france, there is a you need to floss moment when president obama billions you aside -- pulls you aside at a meeting and points out you have food in youe teeth. [laughter] and one of my favorite is the a funny thing happens when you're at the end of the trip, and you're on the plane, andntio everybody can finally relax, and so your staff turns on a movie. >> yes. >> tell us about that. >> well, the first thing i would

say is the choice of money was u often really low grade. fir [laughter] and i think that's because by the end of those trips, which were very long moving from time zone to time zone, everybody was exhausted, nobody wanted toti think. everybody just slumped back in their chairs and voted for the most mindless entertainment that was available on our plane. [laughter] but the, the movie about the spy, breach? is it called breach? yeah. and there's a scene in which the actor playing the character -- i can't remember, robert something. anyway -- [laughter] he says, you know, we don't need any more women in pants like hillary clinton. [laughter] more women in pants like hillary clinton. [laughter]

>> i love that story. >> and the whole plane just burst into laughter. but lissa is right because they are all these things going on while i am you know wading through briefing books that are 3 feet high or on the phone arguing with some foreign minister i am about to see about something or consoling someone who has had a terrible incident in their country. so i don't know half the things that were going on but we had a lot of misadventures. now one which is kind of consequential and it ended up being fine. [laughter] but we would also go on the strips and we had a great press corps in the state department. many really experienced journalist who had covered the state department and stationed

overseas and it was really a pleasure working with them because they were always asking very substantive questions about how does this compare with what secretary powell did or what do you think if you would take what madeline albright said? they knew the whole landscape but they too were kind of letting down their hair so to speak. so we are in lima peru and we are trying to, i'm trying to work. i had to go to the meeting of the organization of american space oas and i'm trying to finalize the conditions that are going to be posed by the u.n. security council on i ran. we came in with our two-part strategy and we knew it wasn't enough for the united states to be putting the pressure on. we need to get the international community and that meant primarily convincing russia which i think we succeeded in which the president i and national security jim jones told

medvedev and sergey lavrov and a three on three meeting that the iranians had elton underground facility and the russians didn't know it. i think that surprise them and made them much more amenable to going along with the security council. the chinese who needed oil and gas from everywhere did not want to see that supply cut off so they took a lot more convincing and working and working. the chinese ambassador very able diplomat ambassadoambassado r to the united states was covering the oas meeting in lima and i was trying to get a meeting with him to see if i could get them to sign off on the final language because he had been authorized to convey that back to beijing. he had meetings and finally we were worried we wouldn't get to the meeting so the press was having a day piece goes sour happy hour. [laughter] and apparently piece goes sours

in that very happy especially these that were made in lima. so we where looking for the ambassador to try to find a time and i went down to the bar in the hotel and we were trading stories and chatting each other up and i'm having a piece goes sour. pretty soon things are looking really positive and optimistic. [laughter] and then all of a sudden one of my core service officers comes up and says madam secretary the chinese ambassador is here. i said where? right there. oh mr. ambassador please come in. i taken to a back table and we pull out all the papers. mark wendler the excellent, now he is a white house reporter for the times and went to the state department he sees me sitting with his chinese man and we are looking and he comes over varying too big piece company sours.

here is one for you madam secretary, here's one for you. ambassador, yes there he is. you had to be flexible and agile and roll literally and figuratively with whatever was running. >> i want to take a question from the audience and this is from jersey anderson. this is really a hardball. did you really autograph all these books? [laughter] >> you know what? i really did. i really did. [applause] and between the time that i finished the book and went in and set it to printing i had a three-week period and they sent me 21,000 pages so i started signing hillary rodham clinton.

i thought this is going to take me until labor day. i talked to lissa and some other people and they said they'll personalize it. you say hillary. that i can do so i sat in the turn down the old movie channels because it was relaxing and just sat there inside. the ones that you are getting have all been personally signed by me. [applause] >> you mentioned beijing. the 20th anniversary this year and i want to tell a quick story and it does want to ask you about this. you almost didn't go. you almost didn't go because the chinese had arrested a naturalized citizen saying he was an american spy but we ended up going and worked really hard on this speech. i think i've told you this once but there was an amazing thing that happened personally which was that i walked up and we had

gone from washington to why he. we met with the president of white and then we flew to guam and went from guam to beijing and we were on the last draft of the beach that have been closely held. i took it up to him and you obviously obviously knew this speech inside out. i will never forget this. it was very corny but a experience for me. i gave you the speech and you didn't say anything for a moment moment of any set i just want to push the envelope as far as i can on human rights and women's rights. [applause] i was so struck by that. this is the corny part. i was so glad to be in america and to have a first lady who is going to go into what was kind of the diplomatic minefield at that time and make this assertion. you went on to say after that that women's issues and women's rights are the unfinished business of the world. i'm just wondering where do you

think things stand now? >> listen that speech which you worked so hard on an madeline albright was with us and she provided great feedback as we were going to the drafts, was so important to me personally because i thought the united states needed to leave on women's rights and this was the opportunity to do so at this international conference. and it was very important to set forth an agenda. out of the conference despite all of the difficulties 189 countries agreed on what was called the platform for action, the full participation of women and girls. i use that oath as first lady and then a senator and certainly secretary of state to refer to and to engage with leaders and groups, civil societies all over the world to say your nations

signed up for this. how far have you come? then when i left the state department i went to work with my husband and my daughter at the clinton foundation and there were a lot of the important programs that my husband had established and chelsea was instrumental in. i wanted to add three more. one of them was what we called the no ceilings full participation project. what we are doing in partnership with the gates foundation and many other partners, the u.n., is gathering all the data that we can find. i was just at the world bank two weeks ago with some important announcements that the bank was making with president jim kim and try to put it all together in one place where we can measure the progress we have made but also makes make clear that gap that still remain. it's been already a very

meaningful experience for me because we still have lots of countries with laws that are women from many professions. we still have countries where they don't even record all the girls births because it's just not that important. we have made progress under the millennial development goals on primary education and then we just drop off dramatically with secondary higher education. we are doing a better job of combating maternal mortality but we still have hundreds of thousands of women die every year and on and on. what we want to be a is a centerpiece for a robust discussion in the next year as we approach the 20th anniversary in 2015 about what we have achieved, what has worked in other countries and how much more we have to do. there is a divide.

there are countries where law still need to be changed. laws in the books need to be implemented. cultural and religious barriers to women's participation need to be questioned from within, on and on. in the developed world we also want to look at the disparities that still exist between the opportunities for women and girls versus men and boys. a lot of those are what we call internal barriers. my friend cheryl sandberg in her book lean and writes about a lot of the research, the famous research of two resumes exactly the same one is labeled by henry brown and one is by heidi brown and people are much more favorable toward henry and raising questions about heidi. the same information. the same profile. these deep cultural psychological internal barriers that people have about women and girls and the women and girls

have about themselves. that's a more difficult area to explore and to measure but you look at political participation in our country and you certainly know we are near half. we don't have half of the appropriations for corporate officers held by women on and on. so i think it's going to be real food for thought for both countries where there is so much work to be done to just in the oppression and the abuse and the dehumanizing of women and other countries like our own where we made so much progress but that we still have so much more we can do, no question. just to go back for second you were talking about melekian what a frustrating leader he was. you have traveled almost a million miles a secretary not to mention as senator and first lady and probably the only foreign leader has been kim

jong-un speaking of bad pronunciation. the question i want to ask what i'm going to put it out there and we are going to go to another question because we are almost out of time is when you look into vladimir putin's eyes. [laughter] do you see the soul of a man who cares deeply about his country or the soul of a kgb agent? just asking. [laughter] do you want me to come back to that? >> fascinating. [laughter] [applause] he and i have exchanged a few verbal volleys going back to the last several years. his most recent was to call me weak but then quickly adding weaknesses probably not so bad and a woman. [laughter]

yeah me too. at. [laughter] [applause] when i wrote about him what i tried to do is demonstrate obviously that he is a very tough person who embodies a lot of hard choices. but the real sadness and i do say that deliberately is that his view of russia's greatness is rooted in the past, not the future. think about how well-educated and how successful so many russian immigrants are in europe and the united states and elsewhere. one of the cofounders of google. think of what could be happening in russia today if you had leadership that wasn't trying to extend a sphere of influence, dominate central asia,

intimidate central and eastern europe, prevent countries like ukraine from making their own decisions, impose a few of greatness that is rooted in the past instead of working to create a modern economy, diversified beyond oil and gas, create more opportunities for people but that's not his goal. his goal is to as much as possible re-create the past. that to me is yet another chapter in the missed opportunities that we have seen time and again suffered by the russian people. i have a couple of stories in my chapter about him. i do talk about why we really did push to get the so-called reset done when medvedev was president and we were successful in the security council sanctions on iran getting a new

s.t.a.r.t. treaty to limit nuclear weapons between us and restart inspections and transport important material and troops into afghanistan across russia. but when putin made his announcement he would be president and odd sort of presidential campaign if you stop and think about it. they were both standing there and i think they both had on like black leather jackets. poured medvedev who really did try to expand russia's horizon and went to silicon valley and saw what was possible and putin says i will be president you will be prime minister and then they had parliamentary elections for the presidential election and they were filled with irregularities and i criticized the elections but it wasn't my opinion that counted as much as the tens of thousands of russians who filled the streets. putin attacked me for having caused the protests.

when i next saw him i said you know mr. president that's not the way it works. he is a determined, relentless pursuer of his vision of a russia from the past and it is as i said unfortunate. the united states and the west has to make very clear that whatever his vision is a cannot upset the stability and order that was established in europe first after the second world war and then after the collapse of the soviet union and it's going to again take patients but firmness to send that message unequivocally to him so it's a complicated situation and one that we have to watch very closely. >> there are a lot of stories about leaders and semi-really connected in the book and is one of the most fun parts of the book to learn what these people are like as real people and not

just as figureheads. we are actually i hate to say it just about out of time so we are going to have one last question and i'm going to take it as an audience question but i just want to sort of ask a little set up to it. that is that you acquired a new title during four years as secretary which was mother of the bride. you are about to acquire another new title, grandmother. [applause] you suffered through some difficult losses including especially if your mother too many of us knew that she worked with you at the end of her life. she was adored by her staff. i was struck by the memorial that you held of the number of chelsea's friends who spoke about her and her staff who spoke about her. everyone she came in contact with and now of course a grandmother to your daughter in

chelsea was so close to your mother, to her grandmother. you have a lot to play looking ahead which gets to the last question and it comes from tyler smith via twitter who says what do you want your legacy to be? >> for the state department or my life? >> he just says what you want your legacy to be. >> well i guess one way to think about it might be as we look ahead as a grandmother and you know better than most people the world that this child will be born into. you have to think about your life and caring for your grandchild and you probably have given a little thought caring for our collective. [laughter] so how do you balance all of that. [applause] >> well i don't think about a legacy. i think about my life because i

have had quite an unpredictable life and i thought a lot about that when i was writing the book i could never when i was growing up in cambridge illinois have imagined what i have had the great pleasure of experiencing, the challenges and difficulties along with the extraordinary experiences and opportunities and i think that really is at the core of what i care the most about both for my own family my future grandchild but also for our country i want young people particularly to feel as though the future may not be totally clear to you but it looks like it's full of promise for you, that you have the opportunity because you are acquiring an

education, because you are willing to work hard, to be given your definition of the american dream. that is how i was raised. my mother who did live with us during the last 10 years of her life was the product of a very abusive neglectful home but all along her much more difficult life of her childhood she would encounter people who showed kindness and who are part of a broader community than just the family is so let her down. so she learned how to user education even though she only graduated from high school. she was incredibly intelligent and kept taking college courses almost into her 80s. she was supported by the community and really nurtured by

her belief in what this country meant. she instilled that in my and everyone that she touched. but you had to take responsibility and you had to have a good work ethic but you were part of a community. it wasn't just either the individual or a member of a community. it was be an individuaindividua l within a community and in a larger community of our country. so what i hope is that my grandchild when he or she comes into the world this fall, will have that same view of what america means and why america matters. i had such a perspective from outside for those four years, i saw us once again using our innovation, our energy and our resilience to come back from a

terrible economic crisis that is still not fully resolved. but i also saw so much disagreement and argument about what we were doing and what we stood for and what were the right decisions and one particular moment that i read about in the book happened to me when i was in hong kong in july 2011. it was during the first serious effort by some in the congress to default on our debts. i had a pre-existing speech and there were all these asian business leaders there. they stood in line to say to me what's happening in washington? what is going to go on there? is the united states really going to default on its debts and i said oh no of course not. we will figure it out. we will work her our way through the politics of it and i had my fingers crossed behind my back.

what i noticed on that first occasion was bewilderment, confusion. how could a great country do this to themselves? this is about paying debts that they are devoted for whether they agreed to or not it was voted for. fast-forward to last fall and we have a government shutdown that prevented the president from going to important meeting in asia where the president of china, president putin of russie united states was absent. and once again talking seriously about defaulting on the debt. i asked my team to give me the news coverage about what people were saying around the world reticular leann asia and not exclusively europe and latin america and it was no longer be wildermuth. it was contempt. it was how can you trust americans? i can even run a government anymore. one chinese official said it's time to de-americanized the world. let's move toward a different

reserve currency besides the dollar. those are consequential assessments of us because we cannot be strong abroad we are not strong at home. we cannot continue to try to argue for and implement a rules-based order in the global economy where people have to play by those rules and where there are measures of accountability if they don't if we can't demonstrate that our economy is working for everybody. so the book is about my time as secretary of state that i carry with me all of my life experiences. i'm not ready to stop and think about the legacy because i want to keep thinking about what my life has meant and what my obligations are to my grandchild and everyone else and i'm going to do that through the work of the clinton foundation in other ways. but it is --

[applause] [applause] [cheers and applause] >> i will hasten to add, it is a question in the responsibility for all of us and a hard choice and a very hard choice. it is a very hard choice but i think all of us have some hard choices about what kind of citizens we are going to be, what we are going to ask of our leaders but also we are going to ask of ourselves and what has always made as strong as americans goes back to that incredibly astute observation by de tocqueville when he came to walk around and understand what this country is about and understand with his countries

about any look at how we organized herself and how we were democracy and the institutions we were building. he said he came down to the habits of our hearts. i think we have got to ask ourselves what it means today to be an american in the 21st century and what we expect from each other, what we expect from our government and what we expect from our businesses are academic institutions. because i'm more optimistic and confident about what our potential is but i know we have some hard choices to make to try to realize that so thank you. [applause] >> thank you so much. i'm sorry we don't have more time. thank you all very much. [applause] thank you. thank you all. [applause]

hello, how are you? hi create thank you. how are you doing? how are you? nice to see you. >> secretary clinton is on a book tour. booktv was there to capture some of the sights and sounds from the event. the former secretary of state signed more than 1,000 copies of her latest book, "hard choices." here's a portion of the signing. you can see more online at booktv.org. [inaudible conversations]

>> hi, everybody. [cheers and applause] okay, let's get started. >> hi. >> okay. all the way up, all the way up. >> hi, how are you? [inaudible conversations]