fuel pools at risk, the possibility -- not all of these reactors have been shaken and flooded and battered by natural disaster. it was like wow we never thought this would happen. and so you have got the best and brightest in the government going now what do we do? and i know there's a lot more to it than that. i do think that it was a little offputting to me that there was such a pushback historically on we don't have a plan for worst-case scenarios. you have got a lot of computer modeling and all these probability risk assessments and all of these estimations of what would happen that were consistently, consistently consistently pushed down, watered down.

also to probabilities were going to factor in so many things that the risk keeps getting smaller and smaller. so computer modeling aside here you've got a real like accident unfolding and the computer models to my knowledge aren't really providing that much reliable information, good information and i gather there was a fair level of disagreement of decision-makers as to what the best course of action is. fortunately it doesn't appear that the west coast could have been affected and if that was the case then that probably was a worst-case scenario. prosco i think going through a lot of what the challenges of working with the models was really the lack and the models are built around knowing where you start. it's almost like playing a game of the novel he and everybody

puts their pieces randomly on the board. that was the failing in that situation. people just didn't really know what was coming down. >> guest: is that because you didn't have the basic information from japan and you came in at at midstream? or was it the japanese just didn't have the information or sharing the information? >> guest: initially primarily there was not the right information because i should talk about in the book you loose power to all the reactors. you primarily lose all your instrumentation and the things of value with the temperature of the reactors and what the water levels are. without that basic information it's difficult than to know where to start the models from. that was a lot of back-and-forth discussion that went on. what do we assume is really going on? we can measure the large distance and how much radiation is coming out but again it goes

back to the assumptions that you talk about. everything is built around the assumption that we won't know what's going on with the reactor because we have extensive programs to require licensees to tell us the condition of the reactors and when they are undergoing an abnormal accident or something like that but again at fukushima all of that was lost. >> guest: how forthcoming were the japanese? >> host: i get asked that question a lot and i think they were pretty forthcoming with this given all the circumstances. >> guest: us meaning the usrs meaning the nrc? >> host: they are a sovereign country and there's a quote in a book that says this wasn't our accident. it was ultimately bears to deal with first and foremost and i think in the end the real question is how forthcoming were they with their own government and their own people and that's a different question? i wasn't there so i can't tell you.

we are getting near the end i did want to ask you one last question. you ended the book with a quote from one of the characters that you talked about which is a very poignant quote. talk a little bit about that and tell me why you chose to end the book bear. >> guest: i think chuck casto is a good character through the book and he is the guy who is saying we have had tmi and fukushima daiichi and we have not learned our lessons. what we need is to be able to say to the american public we are doing everything we can. we don't want any more heroes. and that to me is the message that we have to all take out of fukushima and what i think is

the message that the nuclear industry and regulators in this country have to work toward and that is we are never going to put a plant operator, workers in po risk their lives to do if what they can to stop the severe accident. >> host: with that last comment i appreciated and i have enjoyed very much this discussion. >> guest: i have to matter. thank you very much. >> host: thank you very much.

booktv sat down with former secretary of state hillary clinton in little rock to discuss her book hard choices. >> getting to the point is never easy because you don't make peace with your friends. you make it with people who are your adversaries who have killed those who care about, your own people or those you are trying to protect and it's a psychological drama. you have to get into the heads of those on the other side because you have to change their calculation enough to get them to the table. i talk about what we did in iran. we had to put a lot of economic pressure on to get to the table and we will see what happens the path has to be the first step. what we did in afghanistan and pakistan trying to get the taliban to the table for a

conference of discussion with the government of afghanistan. in iraq today i think what we have to understand is that it is primarily a political problem that has to be addressed. the sunni extremist so-called lysis group is taking advantage of the break down in political dialogue and the total lack of trust between the maliki government, the sunni leaders and the kurdish leaders. >> two representatives of iraq's semi-economist kurdistan region where the washington institute today discussing the escalating conflict in iraq and the potential for an independent kurdish state. this is an hour and 20 minutes.

>> ladies and gentlemen good afternoon and welcome to the washington institute. i am rob satloff director of the institute's and i am delighted to host today's event. welcome all of you to this very special gathering. i see that the audio is a little bit low, if we could raise the volume in the back. let me try that again. is that better?

let me just first begin by asking everyone if you could please turn your cell phones to mute. today's event is being livestreamed out. this is their last major event with guests from kurdistan. president barzani was their most highly watched livestream event in history. we expect today's event to perhaps even break that record. perhaps there is a presidential directive that you have to turn your computers to this event if you are in kurdistan. friends, we are here today because the topic of the future of kurdistan is at the top of the global agenda. it is one of the key issues that is swirling around an entire set

of issues triggered by recent events in iraq. of course the issues regarding the kurdish people are not new. they have been a subtext to politics in the middle east for many years and america's connection to the people of kurdistan is not new either. it's a story that has its ups and downs over the years. hopefully our government and the government in northern iraq, the government and the kurdish regional government is now entering a new era of partnership, cooperation and perhaps even alliance and we will hear more about that from our guests. i do want to before we begin i do want to acknowledge the

guidance here at the institute on all things iraq related offered by ambassador jim jeffrey. our distinguished fellow. we are delighted to have gem offering his wisdom on all that is connected to this issue. today's program will be moderated by my colleague dr dr. david pollock. david is a man of many hats. one of those hats is a kurdish hat for he spent quite a bit of time, many years not just mastering the language but understanding the intricacies of kurdish politics and with that i am delighted to be able to turn the podium over to him to introduce our very special guest. dave. >> thank you very much rob rob and thank all of you for attending.

and especially thanks to our two very distinguished guests who are coming here as rob said at a critical moment in the history of the region as a whole of iraq and kurdistan and the kurdish people. i will be extremely brief in my opening remarks. i do want to begin with a shameless plug for the blog here at the washington institute. this week of summer you may have seen in your electronic inboxes we have some rather special pieces about the iraq crisis, too written by arabs within the region, close observers of what's happening in iraq and one written about me about the very same kurdish issue that we are here to talk about today. i commend those articles and

generally for your attention and of course we would be delighted to have contributors from kurdistan writing for us and we have had quite a number of kurdish contributors over the past couple of years as well. it's bilingual meaning it's both in arabic and in english and someday as your president said when he was here someday perhaps we will add a kurdish language version of the book. it's time, i know. [laughter] rob was very generous in saying i had mastered the kurdish language. that's a bit of an exaggeration. but let me just introduce our guests. we have mr. fuad hussein the national security adviser to president massoud barzani of the kurdistan regional government, chief of staff and we have mr. falah bakir who is the head of the internal relations

department at the kurdistan regional government. they are just coming to us today from meeting with secretary kerry following on the heels of secretary kerry's recent visit to the capital of the kurdistan region in the wake of the current critical developments. i look forward very much to hearing what they have to say about the situation. in their own region and in the region as a whole and about u.s. policy toward these developments. .. developments and fa willuff up -- musta speak about external relations.

they have both graciously agreed to speak very briefly, probably only about 10 minutes each, and they even asked me to stop them to,hey have to -- if i have so that all of you will have more than enough time for questions and comments and discussion. i'm grateto the >> i am very grateful to them.fe they have been very gracious and kurdistanve on my annual visit since 2006. so we are delighted to have them here in delighted to have all of you here as well. with that, i'm going to turn the or over. >> david, i would like to thank you. >> okay a lot.

[inaudible question] [inaudible]. >> thank you so much. it is so important to be with all of you and thank you for coming to all of this event and the gathering. and so we are thinking about the situation and analyzing it in this includes the future of thei am tal countries and so i have been asked to take care of this

situation in iraq. nowadays i am talking about these events. so what does it mean? because with all of the events f that started at on the ninth of june, we have gotten to become a different country. >> so we have had officially become one country with an army. and we have the so-calledre wern

disputed area and so what has a happened here is the following. in the state was born and we have a terrorist organization which became a state now and we have groups acting here andannon there and they became a state. and 80% of them has collapsed and there are six and all of them collapsed and we are talkinweg about six to be iraqi

army to follow them.al force. and they had been controlled by isis. is that correct? >> yes. >> the islamic states. are and so they control the sunni area as well.ent, this includes most of them don'm have a basis of the area. so they don't have a basis in a because they believe it is under the control of islamic states. and baghdad is different than ml that and so the army, we have

such a militia and so they area. officially after because of a bc collapse of the iraqi army especially with the iraqi confusion is completely in control of this.that itheir prog

and that is their plan. and we have that as well. h

and we had done this with islamic states from 1060 in only iraq.th and the race is decided to a compete. so there is a state between us and baghdad and then we have nonfunctional government in baghdad.t baghdad. thd we have [inaudible]h so this is a new reality. and what are we going to do. first target is to defend ourst.

world so that we have forces would stay on the border to defend and from any islamic or t terrorist group. the second target is to protect our population and people with the full command and some arabs are there and also the muslims and the christians and others in the society and we arethis i protecting those people. and the third one is to help frome refugees who are coming by the thousands. thousands of people are runninge

coming to the country and thousands of people coming as well and almost all of them are trying to reach the area and we are talking about 1 million people in this place. now have and now we have a population of

about 70 million people and we are now responsible to take care of cell -- 7 million people, the kurds and also managing security. and this is a new reality. but there is also a new reality in baghdad that had a new quality process and so we have a new political process in baghdad, is that possible? and are we able to do that inirq

the last 10 years we have tried to succeed.ave thei and so as soon as they can have that pair, the shiites can have. their area and baghdad can be for all of us. and they are different than what we know.

so next week and so we have the president of the country and the prime minister ofof the countrya andbo we reached the speaker of the parliament and they didn't reach an agreement.kurds anthe r

and this includes the prisoners of the country or the kurds and. shiites. big par andt so [inaudible] a big part of that country has been hijacked by terrorists. and then the question for all of

us and for the government of cot iraq inri the future government, and also for neighboring it ia ths as well and for the united states, how are we going to deal with this sector? for sa how are we going to deal withthe this threat? it is a threatat for baghdad and the threat from syria in the middle eastern countries as well and so they have some international support. so this new islamic state to doesn't belong to the area, but it belongs to an international

terrorist organization and it means working together with various countries so that they would be defeated and thatm kur, includes defeating the terrorists from iraq and fromon baghdad. so we are going to follow this as well. and this includes protecting ouo people andli this is our policyn ts we hope that people here in r washington understand that these

two parties are not contradictinopg each other. but in the end the people have the right to decide about the future and we hope that we can reach that understanding here and those are the understandings in baghdad. and especially if you want tostt bring iraq together and was then

10 minutes?>> [applause] >> thank you. >> ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be back here.i wo i would like to focus on the situation here today and alsotot what has happened on the ground and how do we convey that interc in thee to theti outside of wor. es course, we believe in theas r actions that we need to take in the outside world. sometimes we would be blamed for things that we have not done and accu we were these only ones who have to determine what was going towe happen for the success of her b rack. this includes winning the kurds

that isolation to interaction and not be the scapegoat. and so the open door policy we have tried to reach out for and second, we try to bring things into corporations. we try to have a big cooperation with everyone. power that includes additional powers within the additional community. in if you make this good, you sd will see the neighboring at lare countries is not necessarily a state like iraq. were not and they were not able to benefit from this.ne but as aw new democratic expedient, there has been a

parody of mission. so some of the problems that have happened have gone back to the constitution and not accepting the principles of power. so therefore we, the kurds, a partially to blame for the failures. but what is it happen? it happen for a number ofpp reasons. we have political challenges and economic challenges and we would like to appreciate this wish alr were there we talked about iraq as if worse and we have to consider the two fax so that we will not lose what we havechievo achieved so far because it is the only-- success story in ira.

if we were able to depend onat this. at the same time we want theitye international community to know what it stands for. and so we are talking about this in iraq and baghdad and the international committee has tod recognize that that has been a big change in iraq. so it's certainly different from the previous era and there is a new reality that is in charge of an area that used to be before june 9 including economic challenges and the security is the islamic state of having

155 kilometers of changes. including the refugees and whenc you add to that through the beginning of the year the federal government has a constitutional commitment and it's not only the refugees, but also the commitment to recognize the government for the people.te and this is a challenge. could this political process be conditional? conditional that it has to be in my of those threats and also press we do not want to go back to the same stories of 10 years ago. and either we would be respected for who we are because of international minorities. i believe we will be equal

partners and therefore i willl call upon the united states and the international committee and that includes last decade or two il youen go back to 1991.ive stb no we have proven to everyone pe that we are a factor of stability we succeeded in forming his cabinet. that last the last cabinet thatt was formed is a broad-based cabinet in the region, which wed would expect and that is why we have waited longer than expected.ne next te o that, we have firm untransformed a kurdish are negotiation team so that i we cy speak with. one voice and be united. so thanks to the leadership in

the region, there is a plan of how to deal with the challenges we are facing.periencehat and so we don't want to go bac't to a field experience that has o failed.prom we do not wantis to go to unsay promises. it was a constitution that the not impl majority hasem voted for. shall we go back again and see that nonimplementation of the wy constitution, that is a question. also these changes require a new e ive from the internationalbagb community. so it has to be seen equally. because today there is publicn s opinion and tota generations hae been born in the freedom of kurh

democracy and they have not seen good intentions for baghdad. that is why it's not only thelic leadership, but the public opinion that baghdad is a better baghdad. the first while they have not seen that. so going back to that, racket i. important. iraq is an official state. anything that is built will not survive unless it is voluntaryah and the communities. and we have never felt that we are partners in this country.

and we would come the on the limits of the constitution in one asked for it. and we have inherited this by the regime. we would expect that the federal government wouldd come forwardn order to help us rebuild. compave inherited this and we are expecting that the federalt0 government comes through to compensate them. we handled 82,000 people in these operations and we expected them to come forward and ainst apologize. so indeed what we have seen is theop iraqi army to be movedthat against the kurdish people and that was a true minor.

and so that shapes our policies and it is a feeling of uncertainty that we have that we would like the international community to understand. if you years ago we had the chance to visit with turkey ande we were hopeful and n optimistic that we would be able, given tha opportunity to communicate the message, we would be able to establish a good relationship. and i'm very pleased to say that today that we have a good relationship with turkey and wel are optimistic about the relationship and we see them as. long-term and strategic and we with our oan interaction to communicate the message and likewise we have good relationsh withave our other neighbors ano have been able to reach out to the other cultures as well and

today we have 31 diplomaticve oe representation based in five of them are from the arab countries and the united states. and so the are making progress and we do not want to put that on hold. they will be an international community that we have done everything we could with this political process in iraq as we continue building the democratic institutions and the rule of law and the civil societies and we do not want to live isolated either. and so we have given enough to baghdad. potical contributed positively to protect iraqi in terms of the

political process and that was not reciprocated. and we need to see a newfo foundation and there has to be a new foundation and a new basiswc of this relationship and certainly we have not the sovereignty. and this is the least we can do and so also and so we would

welcome any questions as well. >> thank you both very much. >> the first picks up on an important comment especiallyof 0 with the newly expandednot withu territory over a thousand kilometers not with iraq but a new islamic state, as you put at. as i want to ask what should be the next steps in defending

yourselves against that threat l to what dc is the role?t only ag and thanaik you.given their lea >> in the statement which hasthr been given yesterday, it is obvious and so what can we do?sa

and it is a threat to all of use so it's a threat to the interests and to every individual and also those who irreleasedthe islamic state. and so he divided the world into two. in the world of war and theto he nonbelievers.the and so the rest is the world of fighting in the world of war.

and on the other side they have syria and so when we are talking about the threat we can help. and we have the most sophisticated weapons and now they are in the hands of terrorists. and so this includes another reality so the kurds can defend

their tori territory. so if we want to liberate the other areas we need to end the,s population. to include their military power and also allowing them because , we cannot receive money from baghdad anymore. and so and so we must take carel

of 7 million people. so how can we do that and that is all. especiale are defending our country. but we need. >> yemen, thank you so much.

>> could you please describe th, differences between the two of p you. and first we had a two principar policy. and we are going to stay inn and baghdad and we are going to build our nation. [inaudible] >> we believe in this and it is

the same in baghdad, of course. so it believes within these values and we must build a it d democratic iraq that they didn't believe and they didn't do that. so is it possible for them to do that? and especially restructuring oft iraq and we cannot be a part of

that. and at the same time we are talking about the second half an well and self-determination of exercisestani people. and our people will decide thisl aski well.ish parlment t and we plan to make efforts with the parliament, the kurdisht mew parliament tomorrow.lt that and having that doesn't mean that ween would implement the result of that directly.oing to there are people will vote andde select save the result depends on the situation and that

depends on the negotiation that we are heading towards ahave the different direction and determination and one day wet ao willrd implement that. gordo >> onn my list. >> i will recognize and get to that in just a moment. renaudible]rsue it bit mo >> a question very similar to that of rob, but they pursued a bit more deeply. what are the specific things that you have to have in the way

of automatic payments or relative independence or whatever you want to call it from baghdad. kurdist so what do you think you could sell and they are not violatingd the constitution and if it will

stay between them and us in baghdad, we know how that is. we must be in that together. and we can have different relationships with each other. and having said that, i am betwn talking about the stay between

us. and having a nightmare as a neighbor next to you, so we can cooperate and that is why we are talking about the tea party andn other parties as well and the future of iraq so that if we cat cooperate with each other.

>> and these are the least that the people can accept bribes. >> michael, you are up here. please go ahead. [inaudible] >> we are following on the previous question.ground. there needs to be a new iraq anh they have acknowledges these new facts on the ground.,

and forever to be a part of thir on the negotiating table and piuld you negotiate thisis to territory. and you made the point that there needs to be a new prime minister and did you mean to sah that you'reir ruling out nouri al-maliki is a potential prime minister for a third term? >> and it's about implementation lation process.

and i think it is a population and the importance of that population to vote. de they can decide their futured and it's not that our negotiation is all about baghdad, but it's about the

votes and the desire of those people through the future of this to be decided as well. and as soon as they move on andi they don't want to do it in thar way.will be

>> we didn't say which question. so tomorrow he is going to be in aryou gett. and certainly as long as i'd have known both of you gentlemen. and so are you getting a more receptive response from the obama administration for the? obama of not just more economy

but you can have more economy and we don't want you to break away entirely. because we knew that they had ronsiderable kurdish populations and we have more poverty and sovereignty and more independence. >> i'm askingto you. and so is the u.s. government okay with that. >> well, indeed the right tound independence is so important. and we are to be blamed and weet recognize the minorities in

these countries. but we want to live in peace and in partnership. and we have our ownkutan wa international relations and thes economy was different and it was different than the one that was what the rest of iraq.we hav and we were in the front to support the united states liberation of iraq and so weere have said publicly that the united states provided an approach for all of them to i build a democracy. and so the community in the united states, via france or frc

italye, or turkey. so it's not like it has to be te never. and so there is a lot ofh leades reception to that. so the kurdish leadership does not rush to a conclusion and wea do notver the jump. c and so we are doing everything we can to do things peaceably and understand the negotiations and we understand that withoutsr the support of the neighboring countries and without the support of the united states included, we cannot come at the end of the day -- we need international recognition. we dwe do not want people to suffero more and so that is why we are trying to build thearityf

momentum and the support and we want to show our friends that we have done everything to help the process in iraq. and so even if we decide to be o independent, that is why we want to have an understanding. admins and the administration has been rather cool to the idea, obviously and they have been emphasizing the importance of maintaining the centralthcentra government and its power.ng a de so are you hearing a differenteu message and it is more receptive

to the to pass the you have laiu out. so within iraq you see alternative energy for those who might look at those when they come to baghdad? [inaudible] first are n >> well, first of all i am not speaking on behalf of american communications. and as the secretary of state indicated, everybody knows that there is a new reality iitn ira. and i mean everyone. so it is a new reality movements

to understand this new reality. this includes our discussion l here in washington. undetand wat they are ready to listen and to understand what is oing on and look into ourly whg opinions about not only what is going on now but about the future of the country and we ary still in discussions with them and we have a feeling that thene understanding here is different compared with what we have in i. washington and now it isthat an different. and so i think within a short

time and so also we are dealing with this islamic state. and the whole area has been con. changed and it will continue anp so there could be people at thef same time as it offers opportunities and we have this f with the right of the kurds ande

we are trying to deal with that. to try to convince others thatre there must be a new policy. and there is baghdad and there is tel aviv, and there is the united states. and so we must work together. >> there must be a recognition of the kurdish past and there has been a change from the united states within theher memt international community and it'.

not about changing of the personality and for example we have other partners in baghdad u and we don't want that to be do. phind it. to putub pressure on us in the national community from theaghdd united nations to provide this in a timely manner and there had to be a change because the teality on the ground posesthe n health and we have to adapt toag thee. change. >> i had the honor in baghdad

until let's face it. what kind of mechanisms could ki you employ are having a clean break and how could you alleviate this and how do you abe ing happening? >> it shows the reality that we are facing and so how are we o ing to deal with this rematchh who is going to united again?te.

and so we are doing the best we can and we don't have the iraqi army because the army unit has collapsed. so is the united states ready tt send us to iraq again? the answer is no. state there are those that understandt how we can view liberated. and so we are trying to understand how it works here. no

>> i don't think so. so are they ready to send this to other areas?but further th and further than that i don'to . e ink they would do that.kurds,w so can we do that? [inaudible] so it will be ifdifficult for us in some ways. so this is the reality. be and wain question is how this

will be and if we are not goingf to fight, all of us together, then it will bridge many other places and so that is why we arn saying in this is reality and a new or dimension with securitymd tod military and other forces s and so we will talk about the united iraq and the goodonship relationship and equal

relationship that is in our interests and in the interest o baghdad asin well.rabia. we can invest his relationship so that we can protect ourselves and then build our forces as well. and not on the basis of agreement, but of security lines.

>> in talking about who is going to fight this new state, could nnu tell us whether you think iu agaiossible to turn this against isis, and if so, would that be enough and where does this fit into the mix?-- where dthe and so is there an inner iraqi dynamic or. secondly, do you want them to give you weapons to fight, and lastly theto threat who was part of this with iran, or is this up to the current structure between nouri al-maliki? >> that's a good question. many questions in one, just likr

the country of iraq. and so, many are frightened for those who joined isis but they know the area and people, as i mentioned, thousands of peoplea. th means t through. from movement were from above.a?

and so who is going to organize? and we can depend on the american army. c including how they can create ac resistance of this area.

and most of them are presenting this within the parliament. that way they could not go back to their own area. and so this is part of working ath isis.

and we have a lot of mixed market dealings [inaudible] we are talking about thelution u revolution and this movement from then until now and the information that we got isare al almost controlling this field. and we have an organization andt

they have leadership. and this will be a big organization and so for some it will be easy to destroy this estate. so there's a lot of pressure from outside to which i have, mentioned and they will be in conflict with isis and there b will be in a bar me and support.

>> u.s. weapons, we don't know.e in the u.s. weapons as well.gs. so we must think about these things. and that is when they became a large part of this and they hav this army.

>> so we are not talking about this as well. but it's very interesting. and so we have a lot going on in iraq. and i think that they fight terrorist groups and its not just a threat to national security and so it is part of

the threat. >> and so i'm confident they would have awo better future. >> so do we not have the potential even outside thiseadel area.

in the door would be open for all of these neighbors and of there's a lot of bickering about the situation. do we have a win-win situation in the interest of this as well. >> i apologize to the people. to others, i would like thank both of you for your hospitality.

i want to ask first, your judgment of the vulnerability of baghdad itself at this point to further advances by the islamic state. second, i take from your remarks that, in response to the last question or several of the most recent questions, you post the question of whether the islamic state will be durable. it seems from what you say that you expect it to be fairly durabl it seems to me you expected to be fairly durable. whether or not the current -- is in charge are one of the other perhaps islamist groups. in that event, if it is going to remain on the scene for quite some time, do you think it will be there -- therefore necessary

for there to be a series of long-term relationships between the kurdish regional government and the united states forces? because as you pointed out to the questioner who was going to address a threat this large. >> baghdad is under threat sti still. still i think, i believe that the target of the islamic state is to reach baghdad and they are not so far away from some areas especially from south of baghdad from anbar and areas which belong to salahaddin but they are there and one thing we must not forget in the past we have seen terrorist attacks inside baghdad so sometimes 10 attacks

in a day. so that means they are also in baghdad. baghdad is still under threat. there are some areas in baghdad which i think the long to the targets especially the airport. but people in baghdad and the government they are well-equipped and people in baghdad are going to defend baghdad. as far as this state, i think if this state would be safer long time it would be a threat for all of us so we must sit together soon as possible not to allow it to be -- otherwise it could be afraid for the whole area.

the question for us is every going to deal with this and accepted or are are we going to reject this reality and this is not a reality that you can deal with. it's not a reality that you can negotiate. it's not a reality that you can live with. it's a reality that will kill you. so it is dangerous. one of the reasons why we are here and we are trying to talk about this new reality is this. it is dangerous for all of us. perhaps they are not attacking the kurds. today they are tagging part -- baghdad. today they are not attacking the turks but tomorrow they will do that. today they couldn't reach the iranian border but tomorrow they will reach the iranian border so it's dangerous for all of us. >> for a long time we have had engagements with the united

states and this is an issue we have made it clear that we are against terrorism and we will to fight terrorism. this is a threat and we want them to be able to be there to provide stability and security in the long term. >> on that sobering note i want to say is the kurds say -- mike thank you very much. [applause] i thank all of you and i think our guests very much for this very important discussion. [inaudible conversations]

>> so i tell the story about how i, whose every aspect of whose identity is in one way or another a threat to israel. my gender is male, my religion is muslim, my citizenship is american but my nationality is iranian. my ethnicity is version my culture is middle eastern. everything about me sends off all the warning signals for

israel and so the experience of an iranian american single man trying to get through ben gurion airport in the 21st century is a reminder to everyone that despite the way that globalization has brought us closer and has diminished the boundaries that separate us as nations as ethnicities as people and its cultures, despite all of that all you have got to do is spend a few minutes trying to get through ben gurion airport to remember that those divisions, those things that separate us are still very much alive. >> best-selling author and -- reza aslan will take your phonecalls he mustn't take on islamic fundamentalism the war on terror in the current instability in the middle east live for three hours sunday at noon eastern on booktv's end up part of a three-day holiday weekend of nonfiction books and authors starting this friday on

c-span2. booktv, television for serious readers. >> next on "after words" ken adelman director of arms control of the reagan white house. he has written a first-hand account of the historic 1986 nuclear arms talks with the soviet union in his book support. he is interviewed by journalists romesh ratnesar. romesh ratnesar. this is an hour.

>> host: ken adelman welcome and congratulations on this great book book. looking to start by asking the most obvious question which is quiet now? what made you decide to revisit this chapter of the cold war 28 years later? >> guest: well because i've been thinking about it for 28 years. someone asked me the other day how long did it take you to write the book and i said about 28 years. i was there. it was the most important weekend of my life. it was in many ways the most thrilling weekend of my life and i've been telling people about it for a long time. in the movie started to be produced and i was executive producer of a movie with ridley scott the producer and michael douglas playing reagan and christoph waltz and that started eight years ago. so i was involved in that way and then the movie stalled in this happen in that happen and you know on and on and i was thinking it such a good story by the magistrate it up? the counterargument is i had

written five books before and that was enough for moses. that would be enough for me. he retired and his sales were higher than my sales. someone said the most valuable copy of one of which there were think virtually none and unsigned copy with a receipt from a bookstore was in their prayer books section. and then this kept going in my mind as i said why not? so i decided to do it and that morey looked into it the better it looked. let's go you said at the outset that reykjavik has been sort of relegated to being a kind of footnote history largely forgotten and mostly to the general public vaguely aware that this summit took place. what is it that has been misunderstood by historians and by the general public that may have caused people to kind of underestimate the importance?

what you clearly believe is an extremely important than the modern history, wiser than sober look? >> guest: was overlooked because the general paradigm that the soviet union fell and the soviet union following is a gigantic thing. the end of the cold war is a gigantic thing. nobody disagrees about that. the conventional wisdom is that the whole system of the soviet union, the economic bankruptcy of the soviet union and the fact that it had a succession of dying leaders in the soviet union and nothing from the outside mattered at all. >> host: so when you started to look into writing this book i mean are there other books and other historians, other participants in the events of reykjavik that it done their own books and is there much body of literature about this particular summit out there that you found?

>> guest: there are memoirs by george shultz secretary of state but no one really did a deep dive into what happened and the best thing is no one had the notes. there were american notes and there were russian notes. that enabled me to see them raw and to peek through the keyhole of the little conference room, put your ear to the door, listen to what they said for 10 and a half hours. i don't know about you but i have never talked to anybody for a 10 and a half hours. fiber types of my wife for that long i think she would walk out screaming. they talked about the most important issues in the world for 10 and a half hours and without notes, without talking points, without staff involvement without memos and so they must have felt, ronald reagan must have felt this is more like me than anytime in my presidency. and mikhail gorbachev must have

thought this was more like me than anytime in my prime-time as general secretary. michael reagan ronald reagan's son said he had a real insight into my dad from this book. why? other books are saying he did this on this day and sent us on this day but they don't show his mind at work. this shows his mind at work. minute by minute and his character and play. >> host: these notes from the summit in addition to the other documents that you consulted, where are they? where do you find the archival materials? is available to the general public if they want to look at this stuff or did you have to -- >> guest: some of it is that the reagan library. some of it has been put on line and some of it isn't reykjavik and it's been scattered around. what made this the more i looked at it the more wonderful story but what made this such a wonderful story is first of all the story. this is a little weekend in a

stormy weekend in october with rain lashing at the windowsill in a creaky old house in the middle of nowhere at desolate spot in a desolate place isolated. and it was said to be haunted. the neighbors called at the haunted house or the ghost house rather than a haunted house and even in the summit the prime minister said that his family believed in ghosts. and if the house was sponsored he thought that ghosts would be most welcome there. so over the weekend in this kind of agatha christie like setting the most amazing things happen and they happen to two characters to kill gorbachev and ronald reagan who were among the most interesting and intriguing and charismatic of the 20th century and besides the setting in the storyline the ups and

downs and the emotions and the ins and outs and besides the two characters is the consequence. 48 hours that ended the cold war. >> host: let's get to reykjavik in the second and i would love to allow people to hear some of the stories that you have but of course this is a memoir and a journalistic history of this summit and the ending of the cold war. when you are working in the reagan white house and were at the reykjavík summit in a very prominent role did you believe or did you anticipate that you might someday want to write a book about your experiences? >> to keep a diary and agreeable to consult notes from that time? >> guest: no, and it was the most important weekend of my life. i just went on in my business to do whatever he did and what was then what was marco is a chase down wonderful documents and reykjavik the reagan library washington d.c..

i found after the book went to press and i had in my files because we were moving ahead in my files a letter that ronald reagan wrote me about reykjavik saying the nice job i had done etc. etc. and it's not in the book. the most personal document of reykjavik, ronald reagan's letter to me a few days later is not recounted in the book while i go chasing all these documents all around. i save nothing. >> host: i imagine many of your recollections from that weekend you may have found some discrepancies when you finally went back and actually looked and research the details. >> guest: i'm telling you i mean i can go for years and not tell you anything i did a year or decade but when something like this happens you remember remarkable number of things.

and when you trace it, and you look at the photos for example. i will give you one example, okay? the summit was a surprise. everything about reykjavik was a surprise and so the kgb and the cia and the secret service knew about the summit but for the state department mail. so they go and to reykjavik and a rant all of the rooms in the house. then the secret service goes to the u.s. ambassador in reykjavik. nothing happens there and so that he enjoyed deep-sea fishing so is a perfect appointment for an ambassador. he was told that the president was going to be in the house on october 9, 10th, 11th and 12th and the ambassador was quite excited about it. he says that the bad news is you aren't.

the ambassador by that time try to find a room and he could not find a room and he left. so i remember thinking to myself it was pretty shabby treatment. the only thing in all these hundreds of years that have been between iceland and the united states, the only thing that ever mattered in the u.s. ambassador's network to be found. so that was my memory. years later i hear that his wife said he was at reagan's side and he was doing all this and you know, his widow and i thought gee maybe my memory is just wrong. in the research of this i looked at you no frames of photographs of the white house photographer and those little whatever you call snapshots, those rolls of film that people used to have for the white house photographer

and there were very few taken inside the house but a lot taken at the ambassador's house. he appears in none of the pictures and even when we had lunch with the president twice at the ambassador's house, his own house, so i'm thinking to myself that was right. he was there and his widow, i'm glad she thought he was but he wasn't. >> host: well, let's segue in minutes into the start of the summit. it's october 11, 91086 and reagan and gorbachev this was this second face-to-face meeting. they were in geneva one year earlier. what had transpired between that first meeting in geneva and the start of the reykjavík summit? what were the expectations of the american side going into this second meeting between gorbachev and reagan? >> guest: expectations were very low in gorbachev -- reagan

was thought to be an out of the control hardliner that put the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation at that time, that you know things weren't panning out. his main priority was to negotiate with the soviets and to show that he was a great negotiator and to bring peace. it's remarkable. one of the remarkable parts of the research i did was on the plane to detroit in 191980 to accept the republican nominati nomination. stuart spencer and old adviser said ron, why are you doing this? reagan says to him to end the cold war. i mean who in their might mind -- right mind thought anybody would in the cold war? and as it happens he had a way to do that. he had an outcome he said. we win and they lose.

and his approach of really reducing nuclear weapons having star wars bsdi expanding military might and delegitimizing the soviet union with the evil empire with the focus on the evil in the modern world with the ash heap of history that communism was going to end up on the ash heap of history all these things were deliberate, six-year attacks before reykjavik on that. so he had a strategy. i don't know if he thought about it because i don't know what he thought about but you know what he did. it was thought to be a summit reykjavik that was not going to be a summit. their remarks on the south lawn in the white house when the president was going to reykjavik said this is a meeting to prepare summit. >> host: they came together very quickly. >> guest: it was 10 days time. we spent six months preparing for the geneva summit. this was 12 days. >> host: and yet a huge amount

of attention to send on this tiny place. you have got 3000 journalists he said. >> guest: 3172. >> host: anchors from all three network show up in the 18 so that areas television broadcast networks. and you were there in your role as arms control director. so tell me about what your responsibilities as you understood them would be going into this weekend. >> guest: as i understood i responsibilities would be nothing because there was not going to be anything substandard happening. this was going to be a grin and grin at kind of, grin and grab kind of summit. it was going to be a media event and thought to be that gorbachev needed to elevate his stature

within the soviet union and how better to do it then today with the present of united states in the middle of nowhere and to offer meeting on that. that is what we expected and that is what the cia told us. that is what the american ambassador and the soviet ambassador in washington told us so we were going along with the photo op summit of fat and all of a sudden boom, and we knew the moment came the first morning when reagan and gorbachev met. we were sitting in the pulpit -- a bubble. a bubble is that room within a room. it's totally secure and it has big latches on the outside so that it can't be boxed. bubbles generally are pretty big and when we had the arms control talks we had 25 people in the bubble. in reykjavik they ordered the smallest bubble ever.

so we have eight of us the sitting side-by-side right back to each other, folding grey chairs, the kind that walmart would be ashamed to sell and all squeezed in almost knee to knee, side to side so we are in this bubble. schultz is telling us what he knew about the first meeting and all of a sudden -- is good george shultz. >> guest: george shultz secretary of state. all of a sudden the latch opens up in the george things open and we look up and there's one of these seven-foot eight-inch secret service agents who says the president of the united states. any grid -- and we did what any red-blooded american would do, we stood up and we were were all pelleted table -- belly to babil. reagan said this would make a grade a query method folded up with water.

there were nine of us and their worst chief of staff of the white house and the secretary of state and the national security adviser and the arms control director. i knew if i was going to stay by god i knew i was going to stay. i needed to do something fast to what i did was offer the president might share and i said sit right here mr. president and i hit the ground. i was on the floor and meanwhile this gigantic secret service guy had latched the door once again so we were in there. it was a great great moment because reagan cracked a a few jokes and he said gorbachev is really serious about doing things and be set in what we? he kind of tried to tell us the approach that gorbachev was taking and we sat there for about 30 minutes and i was gently leaning against the

presidential knees and we knew that oh god our assessment was wrong. the intelligence was wrong in the reports were wrong. this was going to be the real thing. >> host: reagan and gorbachev at this point don't know each other that well. they had the meetings in geneva and exchange the pro forma letters in that kind of thing but they haven't had a lot of heart to heart time so reagan is basically gleaning this from a relatively brief meeting with gorbachev that morning. >> guest: he picked that up. >> host: something is different here. >> guest: something is different here because the geneva summit was very well scripted. everything was very well scripted, very protocol minded and nothing much comes out. this was just the opposite. nothing was ready. it was calm as you are and there's no protocol. one of the things i missed that i should have put in the book

was during the whole weekend we never shared a meal. we never shared a drink. we never shared a social time. it was like they were double dating around the city. neither one of them was that busy outside of the main talks but it never occurred to anybo anybody. >> host: back to the bubble. what's it like in a setting like back? is he in command of the issues? is being gauged what you guys were talking about? >> guest: what he did was he told his gorbachev was serious and told us that gorbachev really wanted to lower nuclear weapons and he didn't seem flexible on sdi and he was worried about it. all that was good and all that was right and that he tried to tell us exactly what proposals gorbachev came up with and those were a mishmash. he told -- turn to schultz

trying to figure out what it was that gorbachev set as well. the whole lingo of arms control was awfully specialized and awfully complicated. very few people knew it and even fewer people needed to know it. they got all screwed up that reagan then said oh my god and he gave me a piece of paper. he brought out the paper and reagan thought that was a very kind thing for gorbachev to do. we all thought that gorbachev knew he and he wasn't going to take away those numbers. so we dove for the paper and then talked about it. >> host: you deal with a lot of the sordid details of what was discussed in terms of how many nuclear weapons each side

is willing to cut and to what size. the main bone of contention at reykjavik as many people remember and he detailed in the book is sdi strategic investment and star wars as it was known then. just describe again what was sdi? why was this some port and the reagan and white gorbachev opposed it so became that we? >> guest: is so important important to reagan because it got us out of the nuclear impasse that we have been in since the 1940s and 1950s. as reagan thought about it two too gunmen with two cowboys with a gun to each others had and there was mutual annihilation and he wanted to get away from that. he was very a value-based and just wanted to get away from that. gorbachev got oh my god sdi is

going to be real. it's going to negate soviet power and it's going to try to compete and ruined the soviet union. so reagan had this mystical deal of what sdi could become. gorbachev had a frightful view of what sdi would become and all of us knew that it was a small and at that time relatively insignificant research program at the pentagon that these two guys just elevated it and i think gorbachev's view of it that it was going to bring down the soviet union broke down the soviet union. >> host: reagan didn't necessarily conceive it is such or did he? i guess this is a big source of contention. what did reagan really and tend to achieve with this pursuit of

sdi? >> guest: he intended to protect the united states against the incoming missile. >> host: it becomes this really big source of discussion during these two days. i was very interested to learn some of the details and you really get a sense in your book up a granular back and forth between these two leaders. >> guest: without touting the book too much although we are here to tout the book, chapters three, four and five back-and-forth of what these two men are discussing. and what you do is to see them raw. you see them enough by themselves. you see them with their real halftime. >> host: how many people are in the room with them? >> guest: they are the two foreign ministers schultz and shevardnadze. there are two notetakers thank god to write down what they say

one russian and one american end but they by and large agree and there are two translators. so that's all. so during this time those of us who aren't of the room that met before and after get the general idea of what happened but not very much. there's only 25 years later when i'm going to these notes that i say holy cow, it's amazing what these notes show. reagan is just as knowledgeable as gorbachev which everybody thought at the time was impossible. gorbachev was the hot kid in town. he was a whiz kid. he was a generation younger than reagan, so much smarter, so much younger. reagan didn't know the issues very well and he just spoke with cards and was kind of doddering around. you don't get that from the at

all. you get the idea that there is no intellectual gap between the two. there is no knowledge gap between the two in terms of the negotiations there is a gap. one of the wonderful parts of looking at these notes both the russian and american notes is that over those 10 and a half years gorbachev says to greg and i think it's 11 or 12 times, i am making all the concessions. you have given me nothing. do you know what reagan says? each of those times that gorbachev complains, he says you are right. he says absolutely nothing. these must be sitting there thinking what's wrong with back? it suits me just fine. i knew i was a great negotiator so what are you complaining about? i like it that way. so they never answer's gorbachev and gorbachev gets madder and madder and we have thank god we have the notes of gorbachev on

the plane from reykjavik back to moscow. he has his staff on the plane and he says to the staff you know i gave away things in reykjavik. i made all the concessions and reagan gave nothing. the staff must have must have thought well who is the dummy here? why did you do that? that's the way it was so i was really lucky to a be there and have the memory of what happened there but p to have these notes. >> host: i want to talk about the climax of the summit in a second but some of the details are wonderful. your own experience in reykjavik. one image that you paint beautifully is the site of the two military officers from each side holding the nuclear football as is the case with the codes that will launch a nuclear strike. you said it's actually the most

memorable sight that you recall from that summit. why is that? >> guest: the idea that these two men were as close as you and i together and holding each of them in their smartly pressed uniforms standing there never looking at each other that i saw, over the weekend holding a briefcase, clutching it hard with their hand very they have the codes to blow up each other's countries. my god, that is what they are talking about in this room. the coffee house is small. it's a small little house and so they didn't have any room to spread out. we were upstairs in one of the parlors. there was a russian parlor and an american partner and a a dmz a demilitarized zone between them and then there was a conference room on the first floor and these two guys in the hallway. every time one of the leaders left of course the fellow left

holding the football left as well. to go and see the two leaders go into the room as i did and then to see their guy standing right outside not looking at each other and there wasn't that much to look at, holding the football gave me the willies. i looked at them several times and we kept thinking that is what this is all about. >> host: the dmc the upstairs parlor that you write about as well what was happening up the there, you and basically the two negotiating teams from both sides are up there and you don't know what is being discussed down below. he said it was sort of a kind of congenial atmosphere. >> guest: on the second day, on sunday of the summit which is october 12, 1986 they were gathering in the hallway the top

leadership of the soviet union, the top leadership of the united states. we had just gone all night. we had started in the coffee house at 8:00 at night and ended at 6:20 the next morning. i walked back and showered and reported in the bubble and the president came in at 8:00. we had more talks about arms control in one night than we had in seven years. while the two were meeting that sunday morning all of a sudden from both parlors the diplomats came out in the officials came out. they had the most extraordinary conversations. i talked to at per may offer to lead the team that night the ford create both had two daughters and he was telling me about his daughters and i was telling him about mine. he asked me about the chairman of the joint chiefs and i asked

him about his prior service and told funny stories about washington. you know it was like normal people. we had never -- i had never had conversations with the soviet leaders like normal people. we weren't searching for each other's secrets or trying to find anything. it was amazing. >> host: i suppose that's part of the unscripted nature of the summit. >> guest: everything was unscripted. [laughter] you wouldn't believe that a meeting, to ceos in the united states would not meet together without some agenda without who is going to attend on both sides. that is kind of standard for me. there is no who was going to participate and there was no

time set for it. >> host: the only limit as we are getting tried the end of the summit and this may be a proper for all or may not be the president said he needed to get home sunday night. the first lady did not come to reykjavik but the president said he promised he or he would be home for dinner. >> guest: it was not apocryphal. he mentioned it several times and it was very distinct to my mind because it was so unusual. she just preened around the city. she changed changed her up its four times a day at the summit which i thought was a little robust but anyway she used the gangplank they were staking out aboard the ship. they called for the soviets and not trusting her whose signature song was the impossible dream.

who could make this stuff up? so she used the gangplank getting off the boat like a fashion runway showing her new wares are it nancy reagan did not she was going to be there and stayed back in washington and fumed the whole weekend because she was prancing on the world stage. the summit had just a lockout on all the news so there were no leaks, no briefings at all. she had this stage to herself on that so she just used it like mad. so that was a lot of fun words just gave it a little nice part to make it a festive event. >> host: so the very last session in reykjavik there is no deal. the two sides are at loggerheads still over sti and then gorbachev makes this sort of

surprising statement. what did gorbachev put on the table and how did president reagan responded? >> guest: they had both agreed saturday night during the almighty push nations the soviets finally after 20 years agreed to equal limits of strategic arms. that was a big breakthrough that would make the summit one of the most important summits in history by itself. the next morning to intermediate missiles in europe that were the main threat to nato gorbachev said let's illuminate them from europe. another enormous breakthroughs that we had on the nuclear front breakthroughs like we have never had before. it was christmas, it was your birthday comment was the greatest. all of a sudden on sunday he said the i would did all that but we had to give up sdi. he didn't say give up sdi. he said combined their research to the laboratories.

interestingly enough he never used any of the preparation meetings to the politburo. it popped into his head so he stuck with that. reagan said i have nothing to confine to laboratory and the president at one point said no one would fly an airplane that was confined to laboratory. sdi is far more complicated than any of these so understand what you are doing. i had experts on sti which i was not later tell me when i got back to washington that some 80% of all the tests that scheduled for sti would have to be scrapped. and the congress would not funded the program like that. reagan said no and koerber say says -- gorbachev says you've

got to. they went back and forth in both of them really one of the summit to be a success but there was a part that they wouldn't compromise on. so they ducked each other and reagan was serious. he was just fuming and according to two possible explanations right at the end when gorbachev said oh wrong i don't know what we could have done different and reagan jabs his finger into his chest and he said you could have said yes. we saw reagan five minutes later and his personal aide years later, 20 years later gave an oral history in which he said he never saw the president matter or more depressed except for nancy reagan was going in for her cancer operation. we saw him at the house and we talked to him. he was going back and forth. he was furious.

he was furious all the way out to reykjavik, other reykjavik to the airbase. there he was going to spend five minutes talking to the troops there that were stationed for nato deployment there and he scheduled back for a long time. he was furious until he got to the base and stood in front of 3000 troops. whenever he was in front of troops they just lit up. you could see from his speech he was back to ronald reagan but for that hour he certainly was not. >> host: the way he was portrayed in the press as she detailed the book in the immediate aftermath of the summit is that reagan had walked away from the deal of the century. gorbachev had effectively proposed scrapping all nuclear weapons and reagan said no. but you agreed with reagan's turning to deal down and you still agree with that i take it.

>> guest: i did. i did not know how important was going to be. i thought on balance he was right that we would go back to the nuclear side and we should keep our options open on sdi but you know i thought sdi was going to be important to reinforce the tradition. reagan did want anything to do with deterrence. he wanted to protect the united states with the shoe against incoming missiles. i had no idea and i said that in the book. i had no idea that is was going to start a chain reaction that was going to -- no one would have imagined that because what happened was orphaned child gets back into sissoko my god two things. number one sdi this guy really is convinced there's no way because gorbachev strategy wasn't going to make reagan a make reagan a deal on sdi that he can't refuse. he finds out much to his horror and misery by reykjavik there is

no deal. so this guy is convinced. a convinced. number two copiers we can say there has been great progress on sdi so he goes back and he says okay i can't make a deal to kill sdi with reagan. i've got to compete in the high-tech area. within weeks he calls a meeting of the supreme soviet and tell them there has to be far more rapid reforms he reforms are very poorly thought out. they are rushed in their print. they probably would not have succeeded anyway but you know gorbachev left no doubt about whether they would succeed because he did in the worst way possible. i say in the book gorbachev wanted to reform the soviet union and the worst way possible and that's just how we did it. from those reforms the soviet union just blew up.

>> host: so you talk about the implications of sdi or the implications of reykjavik and how contributes to the end of the cold war and the second half of your book is all about that. i did want to just ask you to talk about your first assignment when you get that from reykjavík to washington. probably not one that you expected to take. it's a great little anecdote in the book. what did you have to do when you got back? >> guest: there were a series of mishaps. thursday night we got to reykjavik and i didn't sleep all that well. friday night we were busy doing stuff. saturday we pulled an all-nighter from a to clock until 6:20 in the morning. i don't know about you but i never did an overnight during college. and then sunday i'm just exhausted. i got probably six hours in the last three days just absolutely fit to be tied.

and don reagan asked me to fly the press plane back to reykjavik. i get home about 2:00 in the morning and monday the 13th of october 1986 and i find out the freezer had broken down and the car wasn't working. and so i wake up in neighbor and we take the wagon and take all the meat that's melting and he's going to loan me the car to get to nbc today show at 7:00 in the morning. i get back and all i want to do is close the curtains and get the girls off to school and everything like that. all of a sudden i get calls from bill krause from the joint chiefs and don rumsfeld with whom i had worked many times and dick cheney and kirkpatrick and

others. during one of these calls you only have one line. all of a sudden i get a call and it's a call this number from the white house. it's don reagan chief of staff of the white house and he said can i need a favor from you. i said oh god this is going to be bad. normally we would go to staff aides and then he says no the president needs -- oh it's worse. he said the president just hung up from talking to australia's prime minister hawke and promise that you would be there to greet him. i said i can't go. i'm going to be catatonic you know and i'm on death row right now. i got five hours of sleep in the last three or four nights whatever. australia's australia stand of

the world. he says i know and everything else that the president mentioned you to hawke and the cars coming to take you to dulles for the 4:00 flight. i go out there for a day. >> host: and he even write back. use ad hoc just wanted you to tell stories about ronald reagan. >> guest: he wanted me to tell stories about ronald reagan and he wanted to show me his new sailboat. it looks like a great sailboat. he wanted to do that and then we agreed the press which was going hysterical as assignment he said after we spent time telling stories about reagan and he showed me his sailboat which was over half-hour i think pictures that he had gotten and so forth. and he went out and told the press that he had only budgeted

an hour for this meeting but because of the importance of reykjavik we had spent an hour and 40 minutes or something like that at which time he spent at reykjavik. it showed that he was a good ally and showed that the united states cared about him so i understood all that. he did know that much about it and didn't care all that much but he did care because he had been very cooperative on an issue that was more the hawks then the liberal part of the wanted arms control. as the director of arms control i could satisfy that. >> host: before we get back to reagan and gorbachev wanted to ask you about a character that is placed throughout this book. some of you have already mentioned sergei grumet off. tell me about him and what his role was at reykjavik and a

little bit about his story and we decided to feature it and have it as a running secondary character throughout the theater. >> guest: he was tremendous. he appeared suddenly saturday in none of us expected him to be there to head up the sacred -- secret negotiation. he was the most decorated men and soviet history one of the few to be a hero of the soviet union and he appeared. all of us have heard about him but none of us had met him. he controlled his delegation in such a way that was magnificent. we have been dealing with karpov and all these guys who were basically you know would take an anonymous amount of time giving propaganda speeches. that night at 8:00 akhromeyev

said i want to do business. they started haranguing him and what he did was amazing. he put his hand on the guys arm and looked at him and gave him a five-star stare, looked at him and he said simmer down. akhromeyev went back and he said okay as we were saying. two or three times a night when one of these guys would fire up in normal propaganda ploy he would stare them down and tell them we are not doing that. and he made the greatest concessions to what i consider a reasonable point of view. so that was for me to clock at night and saturday night until the next morning. we talked some the next morning. then he appears in geneva for next year in 1987 and we have

been negotiating all day with the soviets, the foreign minister of the soviet union and shevardnadze has us over for dinner george shultz secretary of state and we are talking a little bit about arms control though we had arms control coming out of our ears. so i decided to break the ball than i said marshall grumet o of -- akhromeyev i read that you were the last soviet in uniform who fought in world war ii and you had an amazing time in world war ii. can you tell us about that and he just lit up. and what he told us was he joined when he was 17 years old starting when he was 18 years old his tank battalion was stationed outside of leningrad and the german north commission was attacking on the road.

he was not in the building for 18 months to and during the russian winter 22 degrees below zero here the little pup tent and was never in the building for 18 months on the road to keep the german -- from taking leningrad. meanwhile more than a million, a few million people were dying in leningrad. he told us that story and all of us were just blown away by it. powell asked him some questions on the tanks and it was nice to see those two soldiers talk about their lingo and their events. and then like every good thing in life you say okay, this has been about 40 minutes we have got to go and schultz secretary of state george shultz said marshall's akhromeyev thank you for sharing. that kind of determination, that kind of grit is what americans

so admired in soviet people and civilized by what you did. akhromeyev looks at him and he says mr. secretary i appreciate that but the truth is that had we moved from that room stalin would have had a shot. [laughter] i'm thinking to myself isn't that amazing. schultz is mystifying this and complimenting him and doing it perfectly fine but he's telling him the realities that stalin would have had them shot. stalin came up with a great phrase, there were no people that surrenders they were just traitors so anybody in a p.o.w. camp was killed. then i saw akhromeyev at the signing ceremony in 1987. he said it was his proudest moment of his life. two of his proudest moments were

on the road to learning guide -- leningrad and signing that piece agreement with the white house. he and the chief of staff when around visiting military bases which was unheard of before reykjavik and then while the wall was falling in 1989 which was a year and a half later i was out of government by then but i was in a conference in moscow with robert mcnamara and a bunch of people and akhromeyev was then then not chief of staff of the armed forces but he was gorbachev's military adviser. i sent him a note and he's said come on right over. his office was right down the hall from gorbachev. we had a wonderful hour talking. and that power he showed me around his office and he showed me his chandelier and his phone bank of six phones with the different colors, shapes and

sizes that attracted more attention and we said goodbye and i thanked him for all of his cooperation. it was wonderful at reykjavik and getting to meet the hero of reykjavik and the soviet union starts to fall and on september 26, 1991 i'm reading in "the washington post" an article about michael dobbs who committed suicide. in his office, with the chandelier, took the rope from the drapes, tied it up and with the chandelier committed suicide right on the hall from gorbachev's office. and then as if that wasn't bad enough, something happened a week later but when i read that paper on september 26, it was early in the morning. by that time colon powell was

chairman of the joint chiefs and i called him up and it was before 7:00 in the morning. the secretary said well he is in the briefing already. i said just tell him that ken adelman called him when he gets a chance to call me back. she said oh hold on. the phone rings, kenny. he called me candy. only my grandmother called me candy. it's unbelievable what happened. i didn't even say what i call for a we have both knew and it was amazing. a week later akhromeyev's funeral takes place and no one shows up. no military honors, no one from the foreign ministry. just his daughters and his wife and a few friends and this is the most decorated man in the history. this is the man on gorbachev side for years and a few days after he was buried some vandals

came and dug up his body and soul the uniform into the body away. a story like that you just can imagine. i was in a way devastated. i said there is an honorable man in the dishonorable cause with somebody i really admired and we shared special moments. he wrote to him possibly three suicide notes. one was published into the book, another to his wife that was personal and according to what i just heard a few weeks ago a third one to gorbachev that gorbachev was going to release after his death, gorbachev's death. i asked his assistant who i had breakfast with two weeks ago i said why did you release it now? he said i don't know i will ask gorbachev would make it back to moscow because i'm waiting for him to tell me. but the storyline i have had friends tell me who read the book that storyline of

akhromeyev is probably the most emotional and intriguing part of the reykjavik story. >> host: in the last few minutes we have a wanted you to just reflect on this extraordinary inflation should between reagan and gorbachev in the cover of your book with this photo that has become iconic. there are so many photos from the summit in the last two years in the cold war that sound so familiar and you can see in the photographs there was a chemistry between these two men. what was said and how do you explain it and how much of it was forged in that weekend in reykjavik? >> guest: it wasn't entirely, there wasn't a great deal of friendship between the two of them. there was a mutual admiration and it was kind of a mutual need for each other because reagan had gone through the iran-contra episode at the