taliban-controlled northern pakistan. and wrapping out the list a history of the underground railroad in "gateway to freedom." and that's a look at this week's list of nonfiction bestsellers according to "the new york times." >> now on booktv christopher hill. mr. hill appeared on colorado public radio's "colorado matters" program that was recorded in front of an audience at tattered cover bookstore in denver. this is about an hour and a half. ..

his new book is called outpost life on the frontlines of american diplomacy, a fascinating look at treaties, sanctions peace conferences and the microbe door the dilemma of whether to shaker leaders hand, how negotiating -- bigger -- shaye government and our negotiating room is decorated. let's welcome them. [applause]

your father was a diplomat and certainly an inspiration to you. he's he's been your childhood in places like belgrade's yugoslavia where home was attacked and port-au-prince, haiti where you had to be evacuated. i think it is fair to say in the event event occurred on march 11961. you were a. it would come to shape your life dramatically. let's listen to this. >> i think you are talking -- >> we have some audio. >> zero, my gosh. [laughter] >> i today signed an executive order regarding the establishment of the peace corps on a temporary pilot basis. trained men and women sent overseas by the united states government to help foreign countries meet the urgent needs of skilled manpower. it will not be easy. none of the of the men and women will be paid a

salary. they will live at the same level as the citizens of the country which they are sent to doing the same work eating the same food speaking the same language. >> that is pres. president kennedy on the day he signed the executive order creating the peace corps which at them -- at that time was just a pilot program. you served in the peace corps traveling to tiny villages on a motorcycle with a handcranked adding machine helping local credit unions keep the books to make reputable loans. that experience was formative. >> absolutely. my 1st motorcycle. [laughter] you know coming out of college the opportunity to work be on your own command to work with all these people whose life savings -- they were relying on you to make sure their savings were

intact. i had about 48 credit unions, somewhere in these tiny villages, others implantations and basically i went around checking their books. >> and where you are. >> this is in a country called cameroon just east of nigeria. southeast province in a place called bago division and i lived in town called week. i had a little house there. every morning i slept off to a credit union to see how the books were doing. >> and how different was that experience what you experienced before? >> it was totally different because you are totally on your own. that little that little clip from president kennedy, you were not paid a salary. one thing i learned notwithstanding my wife julie who is a nutritionist you can live on the same meal every single day for two years.

manage it quite nicely. i lived was on rice and beans for two years occasionally eating something else, but rice and beans. it was a good lesson good lesson that you don't always have to have something different. >> kind of a yam paste. >> yes. you eat it with your hand but you have to kind of needed independent assaults too much sense. >> yeah. >> i been on a foo foo free diet for quite a while now. >> i love the detail in the book that kids in cameroon will rub your skin to see if the white pigment would come off. >> yeah. well, your in a village. in my case i was on a mountain which i i have to say in colorado was only 13,000 feet high. for west africa it was up there. you go to these villages

where their would be a coffee cooperative and people would save there money off the coffee receives but otherwise would've never left the village. they just they just thought that i was suffering from some kind of skin disease. >> how often in your career with the foreign service did you think back to cameroon? >> well, quite a lot. first of all of all i was in college until june. by july i was in the peace corps. i entered the peace corps command by end of august i was off living by my own. and i had to kind of get around. and i learned responsibility in a way that i had never quite understood before when people come up to you and say is everything okay, is my money they're command you

realize you're it. you are taking care of there money and making sure that their life's ambitions, whether it was to send the kid to school needed credit union money, needed savings for that are buying one of those foot pumps on machines or putting corrugated roofing other house was huge for them. so the sense of responsibility and then for me for people who knew about americans, i kind of realized that know one is indifferent. everyone has an opinion about our country. that was a lesson that lesson that i took to heart. but the biggest lesson, i had a credit union and a number of credit unions, the board of directors basically kind of made off with most of -- they had most of the

loan money. 5% of the members of 50% of loans. so i raise this with the general membership. a big meeting. it was a big meeting. it was actually a tea plantation. the members were probably two thirds women. and so spread out over this meadow, and people standing up to thank me for bringing to light the fact that this board of directors had kind of miss behaved. they were then turned to the board of directors checking their finger, you can do this. so i was very pleased that i have pulled this off, know one was panicked. the money wasn't money was missing is just that these people had too many loans. so finally i said, and now i i want to present a reform board and proceed with elections. very polite. i got my reform board. the way they did it was not by show of hands but they fall in behind me. you can't heads. and within a couple of seconds i realize the old board one like 90 percent of the vote. a couple of relative standing next to their hapless relatives who were my reform board.

very nice people, by the way. some of them actually spoke english. i had put together a great reform board. absolutely no one -- they get know support. very nice about it. it. i felt totally humiliated. don't worry, it's fine. i took that to mean i didn't have a clue as to who, you know, why people get elected to board a credit union in rural cameroon and who was i to presume that i understood it? who was i to presume that i understood i understood it and could come in with another government. they were very grateful for my bringing this up but i learned that just because they are grateful for bringing this up and for telling these did not mean that they wanted to collect other people.

it was a different dynamic. we had this view in the us you throw the rascals out. they did not necessarily have that. you bet i took that to heart. i got very grouchy with americans who think, we don't like that government. we government. we should get rid of it. not that easy. >> let's fast forward a bit. among her many diplomatic assignments was albania in 1991. not long obviously after the fall of the berlin wall and the us was opening new embassies. this embassy was in a hotel ballroom 215 and the five, and the ambassadorial residence was room to 16. >> that's right. >> and one week into your service -- >> there was only one telephone so you had to gone the other romance the phone. >> so a week into your service you meet an ethnic albanian, mother teresa. tell us about the encounter. >> well, i was in room 215. we had a couple -- i tried a

couple of albanian assistance and one of them was on the phone and said, it's mother teresa. i said mother teresa, and i learned not to be surprised. what you have to know about albania was, this was the sort of north korea of europe. they have been under a guy named enver holger who had basically isolated the country for the rest of europe and had been hermetically sealed. i mean, they had had banned religion, bend automobiles club and everything that wasn't compulsory. so it was a kind of strange place to be, but we were opening our embassy for the 1st time since 1946. service assistant says it's mother teresa. teresa. well, what a coincidence. it's fine to have the same name. so i got on the phone and

introduced myself and then recognize the voice, i had heard it on tv. she asked if i would come over and discuss whether the embassy could help restore some of the medicines for her health clinics. she had an orphanage. so i go over to her little clinic. there she is. it is the mother teresa. i sort of study. everything is kind of round. round. she is tiny. and then she asked me if i would do that. i'm not going to be the 1st person in the world the same no the mother teresa. this this is one where i just have to trust in the old aphorism that it is better to beg forgiveness in washington that asked permission they would have some meeting, can we get this private nongovernmental organization, what about others? screw that.

i said yes. and then her assistant said, zero, could you kind of widen the gate in the back so that we can get our truck in. we'll talk about that later what i did we are sitting talking and i kind of made this up on the spot because i knew the next day we had an american plane coming in with some mrnas. >> meals ready to eat. >> meals ready-to-eat. i have been eating them myself. myself. you can go to the hotel restaurant at your peril. i preferred meals ready-to-eat. and so i told her we had some food and some for one

of the cold rations. larger cans of things like peaches and such. and i said, we have some stuff and i want to present it to your orphanage or give it your orphanage. and if you would not mind coming out of the airport i would appreciate it if you would receive the 1st if you would receive the 1st parcel. i go out to the c-141, military airlift command. they had run for the us base in signal italy about a three-hour run. this is this is basically extra food from the gulf war. it was a little shorter than the military planned for. and so this group were based out of mcguire airbase and all have hispanic names like martinez and rodriguez. i told them to expect a a vip because i was not 100 percent sure she would show up. and i told him to expect a vip. i thought i was bringing a health minister or something a little jeep comes out and it's her assistant behind the wheel and mother teresa riding shotgun. she gets out and these guys for mcguire boys drop to there knees, just drop to

their knees at the side of her. she walked around giving them is little madonna figurines. >> pendants. >> things you would put on a chain she says to the pilot, this is too big to fly. the c-141 pilot said, no, it's not. we managed a flight here. we are fine. she says, all the same, same, i better do a prayer. she gets up in the plane that characteristic prayer she did a prayer a prayer on the plane was able to take off. >> there is a picture of you at our website with mother teresa and cpr news.

>> i was one of those deals where i didn't feel like i should turn her into a touristy thing. i didn't want to take any pictures. for example no pictures of the guys dropping to their knees and her going around giving the virgin mary medallions. i kind of regret that today, but there's a.at which you really ought to show a little past sometimes and not without -- we do now iphones of the time, but i felt it was the right thing to do. when she was up in the hatchway of the plane the picture for the book is me standing next to her with the pilot but there is another picture which was not of good a good enough quality which has are silhouetted with military airlift command insignia next era should praise. there are a couple of pictures as we said you

spent time as a kid in the former yugoslavia. your 1st assignment with the state department was belgrade. you served in albania and macedonia. suffice it to say, you become an asset in the balkans as that region was torn apart by war. i am i am particularly interested in your meetings with melissa fitch. he would later be tried for torture and genocide for his role in bosnia and kosovo though he died before the trial ended. is it hard to negotiate with someone you find is repulsive the right word? >> repulsive works. there are some other words as well. you know you looked at him, he didn't believe in anything. he was in the serb nationalist, communist, he disbelieved in power.

you know when you go back in history the serbs and not always an easy time. the reasons why they feel oppressed. they felt that they were the ones who bore the brunt of the ottoman turkish empire. they felt that they were -- the germans made sure they had directly and roots the germans were extremely rough so they have this tremendous sense of victimhood. like all victims, there there is truth to the narrative. the problem was, we were in a situation were essentially it was the carve up of the ottoman empire the hundred years delayed. it was basically 1890s

1890s balkan wars interrupted by a century of international conflict struggle, the two world wars the cold war. there was this car going on. the other peoples in yugoslavia, croats, slovenes, bosnians, macedonians all felt that yugoslavia was a giant conspiracy to somehow enshrine serb domination. after all they have the capital, basically the basically the army, the secret police. they kind of ran the place. they all had some justification that they were kind of behind everything and wanted to get out. meanwhile, they had a view that yugoslavia was a giant contraption to keep down there aspirations. after all, the france have friends, the germans, the germans of germany.

we have won eight of this little thing. the net of all of this, especially in bosnia miserable, hideous wars where they essentially control the army, was a bit cynically succumbed did people from the yugoslav army to something called the bosnian serb army. army. we are talking about velcro insignia on the shoulders where suddenly people would emerge as generals in the bosnian serb army. and so the dynamic of that war -- and most of its new fully well that was going on. if on. if you want to kick some muslims out of an area in that terrible expression ethnic cleansing, the way it worked i don't mean to ramble on, but it is important to understand the bosnian serb army, yugoslav army, a big kind big kind of circle around the village and then these various paramilitaries gangsters really would go in their and

murder people. the people had know escape. most of its new this, but by the time we were engaged in dealing with him he basically understood the gig was up. i mean, serbia was a pariah state. he had made his.trying to hold on the bosnia in keeping with the serbs. it it just wasn't working. think of an old mafia guy trying to go straight. and that was the context of dealing with veloso bridge. he wanted the war ended. ironically, the most hideous person in this whole drama became a kind of de facto ally as we try to come up with governing structures to make bosnia okay. a country with international borders, divided into two entities, but entities, but

those entities would be united by an overall parliament. so we worked on these governing structures. can i just add, know one has done a thing a thing to do this in syria. they have never taken a lesson a bosnia, to try to come up with some kind of governing structure. but to make it work we had to get the president of croatia i got an impeachment, and he's not a guy a guy you necessarily want on your christmas list either. and so he embolus of its and then the people from bosnia themselves tried to cook a deal and succeeded. >> and the take away from that is you can't say there is good and bad and we will negotiate with bad. >> well, they're is but often but often there is bad and worse. you have to negotiate because what are you going to do? but the alternative? you can't kill them all.

and that is not a particularly a particularly appealing approach. and in the notion of unconditional surrender. these wars are not about unconditional surrender. they all end up at the negotiating table. you have to kind of do that. as a diplomat in order to do that you have got to sort of be willing to not look behind as much as personally you may want to the rather look forward to see how you can divide structures that allow people to live together. if you spend all your time looking back you will never get to the.when you're looking forward to look at new structures for how they might live together again. >> well, serving in the balkans several of your colleagues died when their jeep went over the edge of the road. one of them was bob fraser.

you wind up visiting his widow. she asks you about serving in war zones. how can you do this to your family? and elsewhere in the book you read that your daughters, i'm proud of you but you ruined my life. >> that was one of the nicer things. [laughter] >> you know, you know, and i and i want to answer this without sounding to model, but i want to answer truthfully. when you start into these situations we are doing it for our country. you really -- and i think anyone in the military feels this way. i can speak from a foreign service colleagues. you feel very proud. you want to get it done and know that know one is indifferent. when you get involved you want people to know playtime is over.

we're going to nail this thing. this is over. we are sick of it, and if you think we're being patronizing tough. you just killed 200,000 of your own countrymen and we are going a step in we are going to step in and kind of stick this governing structure on you. if you don't, we we will call you a rejectionist and come after you the rest of your life. this is the kind of thing you have to do. i felt it was absolutely the right thing to do but you making sacrifices. you know, you call home and have been on the road for weeks because these trips would go on and on. you go up. issued on down. we have to go to moscow. my boss mentor, tormentor. before you no it you've been on the road for three and a half weeks. i would call. my daughter would answer the phone.

she's got a sense of humor. daddy who. so it was tough. it was tough. what i saw bob fraser's widow and she asked me that question, that was a tough one, really a tough one and it came to mind later on in my career in baghdad. at the same time bob was really one of the best foreign service officers i ever met. you know he was maybe 51 years old. so bob you know bob i think would have gone on to use things and then died. so i'm not going to just drop it. i will finish the job.

>> was during parts of your book. the kosovo conflict spills over. an angry mob attacks the embassy with you and your staff inside. just read from that portion. >> you know know, we had one of these small embassies and i remember they say where your marines. someone from washington, tom pickering. i said we have no marines because we are one of these new embassies and were outfitted well enough. we didn't have the necessary marine contingent. offenses were not embedded enough.

there are certain standards. you go down six feet, poor a lot of cement. we had nice-looking fences. we just and have the proper level of security. we had macedonian perimeter guards. it is managed risk. macedonian needs an embassy. we need to make sure there is not a spillover. the kosovo war. we need to make sure that macedonia stay safe. the trouble was it was just a few miles away. the day the bombing started the yet these massive demonstrations in favor of the serbs. it's not that they were all proserv they just simply did not accept the idea that for the sake of the albanians that nato should have started conducting air operations. they they were upset. at a certain.that afternoon a large mob that the police had blocked from attacking

the main hotel where all the journalists were and they turned to the next target quite by surprise and came up to the american embassy in schofield. so what i had to do was kind of -- we saw that the started throwing eggs at us which was fine. it turned in the and the stones and before you no it we were being hit hard. these these molotov cocktails started coming out. we saw how buildings. so i ordered all hands down to the vault in the basement, checked all offices and rooms to make sure everyone was accounted for. the scene outside scene outside was terrific demonstrators were everywhere in the process of torching vehicles. we our vehicles. we had some 20 embassy cars personal cars.

people take a rock smash smash the back window enthrall molotov cocktail red, gasoline and in the bottle. and then the scene outside was terrific. i saw one person not particularly young. the idea of attacking the american embassy take a large rock. he he lit a molotov cocktail and threw it in the back seat. about 545 falstaff were accounted for and locked up with me in the basement safe from. the vault had an enormous steel door the seal that offer the rest of the embassy. so they sealed it. we had a seal seal it off, this huge metal thing.

we pulled these huge metal locks. so there were some 42 members of the embassy staff together with me down in this vault. you can tell a lot about people in a vault i found. some remain totally calm retaining a sense of humor while making sure others were fine. others seemed lost in the thoughts. no one was panicking. i told a couple of my staffers we need to keep an eye on those not doing well. one of our staffers gave people things to do. you know when you are -- it's like dealing with anyone who's upset give upset, give them a specific task and have them keep doing lists. i got a lot of lists. so all but three in the vault were embassy employees. one exception was my 11-year-old 11 -year-old daughter who had come to the embassy earlier that day before any signs of a crowd. the ultimate foreign service trooper and she was fine chatting up people to keep

the minds of the situation. situation. it was not a take your daughter to work day but she managed it and used it in college essay writing some ten years later. >> did you become addicted to adrenaline? >> yes. that's a big problem. i think people think people coming back from war zones really kind of -- it is really kind of tough when you don't have those kinds of challenges. you don't have this kind of life and death things. there are other things in the book about a riot at the camp. and then when you go back to washington and you're supposed to get all excited about someone not clearing a memo not really interested. it's so interesting how frequently it comes up in the book that being a diplomat and especially an ambassador is not just about managing a relationship with

your host country. it is as much managing a relationship with washington >> yeah. and that's hard because you have people in washington, the communication is pretty extraordinary now. i could be in a village in kosovo and my cell phone rings and it would be the state department operations center patching through some senior official and asked me about what i was doing that day and what i was going to say to some group of kosovo liberation army fighters. fighters. it is an amazing capacity to pass information. what does not get past is a a feel for the situation. no matter how much you can give verbatim reports or colorful explanations on the phone people back in washington don't necessarily understand what is really going on. you have to be there. so you can watch a hockey

game on tv. you really have have to go to one. i think it is for dealing with washington herbert holbrook once said to be the only thing -- the only worst thing about not having guidance washington is to have guidance washington. often they send you this kind of stupid stuff. are you really supposed to read it to some local warlord that you are dealing with? bob fraser looked at some set of talking points is some genius of the national security council of the together and bob said you know a wheelbarrow full of the stuff isn't going to change most of which is mind so often you begin, you're supposed to read them and then they would you know, people in washington figured out. they would say, and please

record the reaction. it would always start off ambassador vigorously carried out reference talking points to emphasize all points but especially .4 and what you try to do is keep the door open. i mean that is your number one. this idea that we meet our -- need our ambassadors to be out emoting like there's some senator from arizona -- can we strike that? i mean you don't need this kind of -- you don't need your ambassador emoting because they're are plenty of people back in washington willing to do it. what you need your ambassador to do is keep the door open the matter how bad

the local government is. what you want to be able to do is make an appointment go in and say i told you this was going to happen back in washington if you continue to imprison those human rights advocates. i told you this is what would happen. if happen. if you keep doing this there's nothing more i can do to help. you try to pretend you are helping them get through the hour of need. you know often they will work because you give him credibility but you have no credibility if you tweet something this is the most miserable government are seen in my life. lo and behold people don't like to talk to you when you say things like that about the and especially not when you say things like this government must go and i'm going to support the opposition. it happens. >> think before you tweet. the whole.is not to think.

you are supposed to remote. give your views. give your feelings. i had a question about question about how social media transformed diplomacy. you later became ambassador to poland and were they're on september 11. poland committed troops the invasion. let me read read from that section of the book. i worried about -- i worried about what invading iraq would lead to. i believe the reports about weapons of mass distraction but could not see the link between september 11 and saddam hussein nor could anyone who understood the region. you region. you go on to write, the runner-up in 2,002 had me in every other us ambassador ground -- around the globe making the case for the undertaking. some might criticize you for caring -- carrying a banner you had only did believe in

but was factually incorrect. >> i think what i felt 1st of all the notion that somehow saddam hussein had been in league with al qaeda was not widely believed. a certain vice president at the time wouldn't let it go. but i don't think -- most people do not believe that. certainly to to understand al qaeda's origins and understand the origins militarized baptist regimes .-dot people understood that was different. i never made that case to anybody. most serious people didn't. the case i made an polish television, polish television, on polish radio to polish audiences was the idea that they had weapons

of mass distraction and were seeking to build stockpiles of it. and so you bet you pronounce that i and low. our secretary of state when up to the un in february and held of vials of anthrax. you know, when your secretary of state says something you want to be able to take it to the bank. but i think notwithstanding what i just said about the lack of any linkage at all i think you have to go back to the fact that we were brutally attacked brutally attacked. and the thing about al qaeda, if it wasn't 3000 3,000 they would've been happy if it were 30,300 there was no end. how how many deaths they want to inflict. at the time the feeling was

not so much that we thought saddam hussein was behind that, but at the time there was certainly a feeling that our country has some enemies out there and we better be careful. so i don't think there was quite a feeling that we all have today. >> it's hindsight. people were seeing fairly clearly at that time. >> well i think the attack for me had to do with the fact that we had this dictator who had invaded his neighbors before, had brutalizes people. when you live in iraq and see what happened you happened, you know they would have 200 political prisoners rounded up on a saturday afternoon for execution and bring a a little pillow with a gun. he would shoot the 1st five. it was a pretty hideous

regime. so certainly the idea that there is so much evidence for weapons of mass distraction. it wasn't something that i had. i worried about it. i especially worried about what comes next because you pick the war, whether it's the civil war we are not good at that kind of post- conflict stuff. and. and i certainly worry about that. the president of poland told me i have know doubt please tell a president that is needed. very clear to our present. you know it's not for an ambassador in the field.

reappointed under bush, not for you to start parsing and second-guessing what the administration is doing. i was never in that kind of mold. >> let's talk more about your iraqi experience. in late 2008 your foreign service career was coming to an end. then comes a call from secretary of state hillary clinton asking you to serve as ambassador. you said yes. >> let me slow that down a little. i just spent four years dealing with all these lovable north koreans. during that time -- you are going to circle back to that? >> based on the kind of time we have. >> what happened there of course was that the president and his secretary of state coming into the

2nd term understood that they had a war. they wanted us to calm the situation down in northeast asia, work with our partners in the region especially the south koreans were really upset with the way the us had failed to enter any negotiations during the 1st term. so we engaged on it. secretary rice was very much supportive of the negotiations. i can't say that the vice president was behind this 100 percent. in fact, he was opposed to it but if he had a problem a problem with that he should of been talking to the president. anyway, we got some things done left some things undone. to this day day it remains a threat, but when the secretary came in she was very of the view that the north koreans essentially stopped negotiating in the fall of

2,008 because they thought that they wanted to deal with the incoming administration rather than the bush and ministration. so that was a theory as good as any other. dollars was that kim jong eel have become kent john very ill because he had been incapacitated in the summer of 2,008 command we can see a a real difference in how they were handling things especially for our need of verification. there verification. there were a number of theories. secretary clinton was asking me for memos thoughts on how we could restart the north korea talks. when she asked me after office i was convinced it was in the context of asking for what we could do. instead i sat down. she had she had a nice big wing chair and she asked me these nice -- she said all

these nice things about my service and i sort of felt like frodo. then she said just one more thing i would like you to do that's other places built. she said i would like you to go to iraq. i said well, i'm flattered. i know how important it is, but i have to think about it >> in a chapter called the longest day you talk about arriving at the embassy in baghdad. would you read this passage? >> sure. i come out. i arrived at the airport hoping to arrive on the civilian side to show there was a knew era. they were not interested. the corkscrew landings.

basically the same thing that had gone on for seven years. they did not want to -- we cannot take a helicopter because they're have been the sandstorm. a motorcade of armored vehicles. not a lot of progress. i got into my kevlar my helmet, flak jacket and we headed into town looking through the sandstorm, the situation. finally we arrive at the embassy. it was the biggest embassy in the world. the joke being like the great wall of china was visible from our space. to the military it was no larger than many of the forward operating bases that dot the green zone compared to the giant military bases that house the major army formations. even though it was a

diplomatic establishment there are legions of uniform military working on the knew embassy compound. to many it was another farm like camp liberty and union. >> and this points to a key tension you encounter between the us military which had such a presence their and diplomats. who really ran the show? >> well when you have -- when i arrived there were some hundred and 45,000 us troops. i think i think if you are an american ambassador in that circumstance and think you run the show you probably ought to do some rethinking. but what i found was even in the effort to begin a civilian as a process within the embassy it had not even begun. i i went into my 1st briefing for a bunch of governors. about four governors there

and check on the national guard contingence. and so i went into the embassy conference room, and everyone in the round except for one person, one political officer, everyone was wearing uniforms. the general leather brief. he led the brief and then of course they have the slides all set up. they had a powerpoint. and then on slide 17 they mention this kind of follow-on agreement between the us and iraqi, this concept that we would have a normal relationship governed by some bilateral agreements he turned he turned to me and said ambassador, maybe you would like to brief on that. and so i explain slide 17 and then went up to my staff and civil was that all about so our staff -- i i said

look, for starters and we're going to have coffee cups that i'll have the military insignia on it big coins that were all military military, can we put some embassy to rescue there? and i said well, we have to figure out who would pay for that. i i kind of realized it was like an embassy that i had never seen before. it was tough. i mean, the military, there military there was this kind of sense that the war had been one because of the surge. you have to remember, the surge they're were good things about the surge, but they're were a lot of things that had nothing to do with the surge. some of the shakes turned against some of the al qaeda elements.

nonetheless a narrative. certainly the music the war had been one. and so what were the civilians? they became in this notion of whole of government overhaul jargon of this thing the embassy became a follow-on force to what the military was doing. and the perception that somehow the embassy was late to the action and was in into the war never went away there were always these kinds of tensions. >> of repercussions mission that was approached so heavily militarily as opposed to diplomatically. >> you know know, i don't think that so much as the situation. were seeing the

repercussions of not understanding that we were dealing with a complex political issue for which no number of combat troops could necessarily solve. when you create a democratic situation people have elections and when their political identity is sectarian sunni or shia the two major sex, if you we will they never voted for shia. these were the fundamental political identities, not issues -based politics issues were political parties would coalesce around the idea of low taxes or something. and for us essentially to whistle past that graveyard and not understand that that is what was going on it had gone on for a thousand years and it would not be changed by seven years of american efforts. a failure to analyze

properly the situation. and that failure to analyze things has had consequences. our troops it is amazing what these guys did. i saw this in the villages the troops who had no training packages designed to help them deal with these situations. they were improvising day after day, figuring out ways to deal with the. i remember rereading the book citizen soldier which is basically about these kids figuring out stuff that their commanding officers didn't know about. they figured out how to work their way from normandy to berlin. you know, when i saw what some of our kids literally our kids had done in places like amber and makes you proud to be an american. and so it just you know a

a relic. at the same time these are fundamental political problems that the iraqis have to sort out. i don't want to dumb it down to say it's all about tribalism. a lot more more going on, but it's all about politics i didn't understand as a peace corps volunteer. i don't think we ever quite figured out the politics. to this day you have a situation where they don't want to live under government. a a tough, unpleasant kind of guy no question about it i submit to you that the problem isn't just about malik you not being nelson

mandela as we would've liked and be. he understood that this minority in south africa ruled the place for centuries. and in and in order to make them comfortable in the new south africa you needed to do a lot of outreach. outreach. well, there is no iraqi named nelson mandela. so you no and i don't think the sunni arabs who were surrounded by other sunni arab states it's important to understand. every single arab state is sunni led. every single arab state is sunni led. so they are surrounded. how can how can you stand living under these? that's the basic problem. very honest in his book and have been some of the high profile people you work with.

and you have complimentary complementary things to say and not soak up the many things. hold discussions and remarkable. she was riveting. i marvel that are capacity. but a former defense secretary you write he seemed to be an old-fashioned midwestern conservative with one huge difference. he he had an ego the size of mount rushmore. >> one more. the most stinging peace of criticism, the failure of the neoconservatives and their fellow travelers to explain what they were

trying to accomplish remains one of the most this graceful performances by a foreign-policy class in america. i want to no if it feels good not to have to be sold on diplomatic. i called the book outpost. i wanted to talk about people out their in the field often having to make decisions on the fly. you don't have time to get some clear guidance. i really wanted to be about being out of washington. i really didn't want it to be about score settling. i had to make an exception. >> cheney. >> i just think -- you can think what you will about the bush administration and the problems but i just

didn't feel that cheney showed the requisite loyalty that a deputy should show. and i just felt that the pres. was trying to calm some things down in the 2nd term. he knew he had a tough situation because people in the no knew that afghanistan was in peaches and cream. so he's trying to work stuff with the chinese. north korea, trying korea, trying to close the gap that we had the south korea. a a vice president who seem to have his own foreign-policy. the deputy has to have your back. i still feel it's president bush's fault but i think he chose wisely -- chose unwisely for his deputy. you

deputy. you have to let me have a few of those thoughts. >> do you hope that the former vice president reads the book? >> i was thinking of sending him one. in his book which i'm sure is in this bookstore, but please don't buy it he takes on after -- he goes after condoleezza rice and the by name. he goes after both of us were being naïve as if we are naïve. there were a lot of things going on in the context of those negotiations. he goes after a spy name criticizing us in a memoir that's written for years after the fact. and i'm thinking he is someone who could walk a few steps to the oval office sit down and say i don't like what risa whatever that guys name is are doing.

certainly had access to the pres. to make his. he makes his.of the memoir four years later. i have trouble not responding to that. i did my best to keep people's interest. you know my editor help me. first i had his beefy chin. in my editor, she cleaned that up. >> in all seriousness he was suffering our problems at that time. i felt bad about that for a 2nd. [laughter] >> we digress. in a rare status

spaciousness. that is bad for radio. >> the obama administration is coming under fire for nominating ambassadors who are not career foreign service. critics service. critics say this is the administration thanking donors with diplomatic jobs. what do you think they are? >> i think it's justified criticism and not to say that they're aren't good political appointees as ambassadors. ambassadors. there are good ones, but i think it's been too much of the notion that somehow these positions should be rewarded for raising money. i think we live in an increasingly complex world. the military figured this out early on in the civil war were they used to sell general ships. the 2nd day it's way out ahead. ..

>> the administration has put forward some people who i can charitably say were simply not quite up to it. but then when you see the senate holding up people for bodyships as if it doesn't -- for ambassadorships as if it doesn't matter that you have a country without an ambassador for months on end i mean, we need ambassadors in these countries and we need good ambassadors.

and i think that whole process is turning into this kind of campaign fundraising mess that i think is getting our country into a lot of problems. but, you know, i don't feel that strongly about it. [laughter] >> elaine, do you want to go ten more? >> [inaudible] >> five more? okay. and then we'll take questions from our audience. do you believe in evil? >> oh, yes. oh yes. [laughter] oh man. i mean, saddam hussein he qualified. slobodan milosevic qualified. but the issue is -- and the north koreans qualify. that north korean regime is about as evil a regime as i've seen. but then you have to start looking at, you know, what are you trying to accomplish? and when you go into any negotiation with anybody, you have to keep in mind what is the purpose of this negotiation. what am i trying to accomplish? and if you think accomplishing something by calling the other guy "evil" is going to help, fine call the other guy evil.

but it usually doesn't help. so i think what you have to do is put aside these views. i mean, certainly milosevic was as evil as they come, but you couldn't get any kind of stability on the ground anywhere without his, you know without talking to the guy. so i think this issue, these morality questions um, you know, they're there, but they should not be used as a reason not to talk to people. you're not talking to people because of their interests, you're talking to people because of your interests. and i'll make one other point on that. occasionally, the serbs do some egregious thing and we get the word, all right, we're not going to talk to milosevic anymore great, except he just talked to a bunch of munchkin minions he had. you have no choice, you're eventually going to have to talk to him. he's had a whole month of listening to sycophants in his

staff and then you'd spend half the time just talking him down from these ridiculous positions. so i find that getting into someone's face and making very clear where we are on these issues and what we need to get done, i think, is the way to do it. and there are times to be angry, but the anger really should be -- as i said about secretary about ambassador eagleberger a matter of performance art. i mean, if you want to be angry, if you want to pound your fists on the table, do it for effect but don't do it because you've allowed your emotions to get the better of you. if you're interested in emotions, i don't know become a football player or something. [laughter] but if you're, if you're interested in trying to get people to do things they don't want to do but you're going to come up with a means to encourage them to do those things, that's another matter. >> is that something you impart to students now as the dean of the joseph corps bell school of

international relations at du? there's no amount of evil that isn't at least worth talking to? >> yeah. yeah, i mean, you know, no amount of evil -- i don't, i don't support any kind of diplomatic process with isis. i really don't. i think they need to be defeated on on the battlefield. and there's a huge role for diplomacy, but that has to do with building up an alliance against them and getting some of their de facto supporters to stop supporting them. so there are moments where you cannot deal with people. so, you know again, i hate to quote slobodan milosevic for inspiration here -- [laughter] but he once, you know i once said to him, look, i know you think we have a double standard. he said a double standard? no no, you have multiple standards. and he's absolutely right. you have multiple standards. some situations are different from others, and you have to

kind of disaggregate that and understand what you're dealing with. and, you know, so people say, no, wait a minute, how can we have done x in country y and now you're asking us to do y in country x, and i go look these are different situations so don't think that this kind of comparative politics is really going to get you very far. >> thank you so much for being with us. [applause] >> my pleasure. [applause] >> so we're going to take some questions, and if you could, please, say your name and where you're from, your full name, first and last and where you're from before you ask the question. and, elaine i'm going to let you navigate. okay. [laughter] >> i'm going to hold onto the mic. >> my name is bill stansfield

from denver. ambassador hill picking up on one of the last points made, given your vast experience and talent how are you focusing that at the korbell school of international relations? >> first of all, we've got a great program there. we've got a masters program, we have a ph.d. program, we have a lot of undergrads there. what i strive for there is a program that really pull fills our mission -- fulfills our mission as a professional school. i want people to learn theory to be sure, but also learn practicality and to -- so that when they enter job market and they have their first job they're not going to be shocked by the fact that you end up talking to someone like milosevic even though you don't like the guy. so i think it's very important to kind of make people in a sense realists but there need to be certain -- people need to

be guided by a certain set of values. and i think you can square the circle of these things. in terms of careers, and we talk a lot about careers at korbell i think it's very important, yes, i had four ambassadorships and, you know, i was pleased to have those. but, you know, i enjoyed a lot of things when i wasn't ambassador. i wasn't an ambassador when i was dealing with mother teresa or dealing with thal wane january -- albanians in a country that had been hermetically sealed from 1946 until 1991. i wasn't the ambassador there. it was a fabulous opportunity to really really create a relationship between albania and america. so i just want people not to think that, you know, the entry-level position in the foreign service is being ambassador. [laughter] you know, they need to understand there's just a lot of other things that people do at different stages of one's

career. and, again, i often say to people my favorite job was the peace corps. there's a reason i say that. wow, that was such an opportunity to represent our country and to represent what i felt, you know here we were all these friends of mine out there dealing with these circumstances, and, you know i think to this day the cameroonians feel very appreciative of what we did. and i just want people just to, you know, i get it, this is a country where you want to, you know get to the top of everything. it's wonderful, but i think, you know, there are a lot of other ways to contribute. >> if you could say your first and last name and where you're from. >> hi. my name is shaun morris and i appreciate your long service. i am a korbell graduate, so thank you for that. >> all right. >> yea. you mentioned serbia briefly. i'm wondering if you could, if you have any ideas for our wonderful diplomats out there or

politicians about the so-called islamic state, how we might -- >> oh. isis you're talking about? yeah. well, as i said earlier, i don't think there's any scope for diplomacy in dealing with these people. there may be at some point as you see the movement start to fracture and as you see isis begin to have setbacks on the battlefield, and then there may be some capacity to peel off certain supporters to it. but right now i, i'm sorry to say -- i say this in sorrow more than anger, that we just have to confront this thing and deal with it. i do believe that diplomacy has a big role in terms of building a coalition, especially within the arab world. and that is what is so worrisome, how isis got support from within the arab world. why did they get support? because the arab world is more worried about the shia-led iraq -- i should say some are more worried about a shia-led

iraq than they are an isis-led caliphate. so i think we need to, we need to work on that. and what really pains me in syria to the point of being angry is this is not about finding weapons to give to so-called moderates. i just don't see that as a strategy. what would be a strategy is to answer the question, what would we like to see in syria a few years from now? all wars end, so what are we looking more? and i would think we're looking for a syria that has its current borders. and by the way, for people who say, oh, let's change the borders, show me a border change and i'll show you a war. i mean, it's not that easy. [laughter] so i would say a syria that's within its existing borders, a syria that may be a very loose confederation where there's a local autonomy, build it from the inside to to da damascus so create kind of constitutional processes, have some kind of upper chamber of parliament

consisting of the various identities in syria christians etc., and some combination of which could veto a lower chamber which would be primarily sunni because they have 60%. so some kind of political arrangement. i'd like to hear our secretary of state outline those rather than just talk about, you know we're arming 5000 people who, by the way, would have to first defeat al-nusra, then go over and defeat isis and then defeat bash shower al assad -- bashar al assad's forces and then organize a victory parade into damascus. it's kind of been, for me a long shot. >> my name's -- [inaudible] i currently live in longmont colorado. my question is less dramatic, it's just more about if someone is interested in going into the foreign service what either piece of advice would you give them, or do you feel like an international relations degree is the best way to go about it?

>> you know, i think an international -- i think going to korbell school's the best way to -- [laughter] we have a pretty good track record of people passing the exam. but let me say scholarship's for everyone. -- scholarships for everyone. [laughter] >> i wish i wish. that is huge the issue of scholarships. i think what the foreign service is looking for is not necessarily people steeped only on diplomatic history, but, you know, people who know a lot about the world around them. my suggestion is when you pick up a newspaper realize it cover to cover and, you know, read the style section, i mean read the parts about culture. the foreign service doesn't want to just have some id yacht savant -- idiot savant on diplomatic history they want somebody who has a broad gauge. and then take the exam. i'll say two things about it. one, it's free and there are some free things in life. [laughter] and the second is that you can take it again.

so do, you know, do a lot of reading. because, you know, you're up against english lit majors who don't know what they're going to do in their life -- [laughter] so do a lot of reading. be good at english lit and everything. i mean read constantly. and i don't mean twitter accounts. [laughter] i'm talking deep reading here. so read a lot, read that newspaper cover to cover take the exam and then have a look at where you are. if you find in the english section you're still not up to competing with those english lit majors you better go back at it and read some more because you've got to get to a certain level. it may not become your highest level, you may have done better in some general knowledge section or something else, i but that english thing, you know, people always say what's the most important language to learn in the foreign service? that is an easy one, it's called english. [laughter] i mean, that is more important than french or spanish or

anything else. just -- you know, don't even worry at this point, learn english. 99.9% of what you write in the foreign service happens to be in english. and by the way, that was the challenge of writing this book. i had only written two-page memos -- [laughter] and then, you know, by the way in the government they don't even read page 2. [laughter] so, you know, i got onto page 3, and there i was incognito. i just didn't know what to do on page 3. so, or you know like that forest gump movie i just kept on going, and then i got to page 400, and i stopped. [laughter] >> my name is rosalynn -- [inaudible] i'm from denver. would you comment on the israeli-palestinian situation? >> yeah. well, i'll try to comment on it, but it's, you know, i don't think either the palestinians or the israelis feel they have an

interlocutor who's interested in peace right now. so i think it's bleeding on without an end in sight. i think our secretary of state took a run at it, and i commend him for doing that but i don't think there's a kind of momentum there for peace. and i think these peace deals you know, sometimes you have a momentum behind you, and we had that at dayton and sometimes you don't. so, you know, it's tough to. let me also say to you what i said to a palestinian journalist who, essentially, answered -- or asked the same questionment i told this palestinian journalist, i said, you know, look, she was going on and on about how she didn't like israel. i told her i know you don't like israel, and i e know you can get a lot of sympathy for that view, but that sympathy is not going to help you. you need to take the platform that you have of this palestinian authority take the platform that you have and make the best of that platform. start worrying about how you can

attract businesses to that platform. start making sure that you have a police force that can keep public order in that place and begin to if you want a state start acting like a state. acting as a state doesn't mean getting someone killed or getting into some spat with israelis, someone gets killed and then calling, you know cnn or someone to come and record you know, the tragedy that's just taken place in the street. i really think the palestinians need to focus more if they cannot get any kind of momentum to a peace process, they should certainly focus on trying to develop the accoutrements of a state. and eventually when there is momentum for the peace process i think they'll be in a better position if they can show some success in running themselves. and i think that is, that is a

problem. i've had so many people -- not necessarily palestinians, but lots of other people in the world want our sympathy. you know, sympathy is a nice thing to have, but that's not going to solve your problems. >> hi, ambassador hill. my name's jason crosby from denver here. i was -- [inaudible] when you made that visit you talk about in your prologue. we did follow up on the promise to the -- >> you were at the prt in day carts? >> i was, with the infamous doctor -- [inaudible] >> and so you went to that hospital visit we did with those kids? >> yeah. >> and then did you go to the -- this is in the prologue of the book, did you -- >> i wasn't on the visit, but i was on prt when you came. >> oh, yeah. >> my experience, i'm sure yours too, there's a real tension between, you know, protecting our diplomatic personnel and then allowing them to take the risks that they have to take -- >> yeah. >> -- in order to be effective

in their job. >> yeah. >> i wondered if you could comment on what you think about how the state department, have they struck that balance -- >> yeah. >> the right side or not? >> you used the term "taking risk." i prefer the term "managing risk." and i think you really meant that. my own view is you're not doing your job if you're not getting out there. and you've got to get out there. but it's got to be in sort of managed risk. and so i worked very closely with my security officer, derek de la cruz replaced i remember by ian pavis. i knew these guys very well. if derek were here tonight, he'd say, look, i would have preferred if the ambassador had stayed in his office day and night, but derek understood that i had a job to do. so what would often happen was i would come up with some idea, i'd say, deark, i want to -- derek, i want to go down to basra and spend three days in basra. and derek, he was a real smart

guy, went to west point played lacrosse, and derek looked at me and said, mr. ambassador, that's a brilliant idea. he'd always start with that. [laughter] and then he'd explain to me how he could get us down to basra, we could do a full day there and then we'd get -- we'd go back up to baghdad and if we needed more time, we'd go the next day. he always wanted to avoid these overnights in these constituent posts. so that was his concept of managing risk. you can manage basra, you go to basra during the day but don't overnight there. you know? and i, i always accepted huh advice. -- his advice. i mention that in a few places in the book i always accepted his advice. and if i didn't want to accept his advice, i'd get a new security officer. it's very important if you're going to have someone do a job you need to respect how they do the job. if you don't like 'em fine fire 'em. but don't ignore their advice

because they're trying to do their job. and, you know, i did get into some situations as you allude to in darak, we had this ied attack on our motorcade. there were a couple of things that i remember calling julie my wife and julie gave the advice to me -- which i think you've given occasionally to a school child which is stay indoors. [laughter] but, you know, you've got to be willing to take some of those risks. but, ryan as you pointed out when mrs. praise your when katarina said to me how could you do this to your family, she really got me with that. i never forgot that. >> my name is fred -- [inaudible] from denver. of i've got two quick questions. number one, what is your feeling of the snowden revelations, the nsa capability and its effect on our diplomatic corps. and second of all, would you describe your relationships with

former secretary of defense gates? >> yeah. with regard to the snowden revelations, to me there was entirely too much, you know listening in on people. i mean, i don't think we needed to be monitoring some of the things we were monitoring. just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something. and i think in every intelligence operation op let me say, there's a blowback. and so a blowback possibility -- that is, if you are found out what is, what is the level of blowback? how bad is it going to be if you're found out? and so you have to do a kind of analysis of what are we getting out of this versus what are the risks of being revealed? and i think some of these things the risk of being revealed was far greater than what we're gaining out of it. but i don't think people should take that into their own hands, and i take very seriously the

oaths that i took and the papers that i signed not to reveal classified information. and so for that reason, i know snowden is, you know perceived by some as a whistleblower but my feeling is, you know, when you go into a job like that, you are fully briefed at the outset of what, you know, you're going to be seeing a lot of things that you don't like necessarily. and my feeling is if you can't take it, if you -- if this is of such a level that you just will not accept it, you should resign. but i don't think taking the law into your own hands and revealing things that you want to reveal are quite quite acceptable. same goes for private manning who was in the middle of iraq and leaked all these telegrams. now, there's another element there which is the state department -- we have a -- i keep saying "we," i've never quite gotten over it. [laughter] the state department has a classification system and distribution system.

so something that's very secret gets very little distribution. and i was very disappointed that when our ambassador in seoul would write a telegram, a guy in the middle of iraq was able to read that telegram. i feel there's something wrong with how the military was distributing seasonstive telegrams -- sensitive telegrams of the state department. so i think there needed to be much more coordination between state and defense in terms of how they distributed each other's telegrams. i mean when -- i hike to think -- i like to think it's a matter of respect that you don't distribute the other, the other agency's telegrams to just anybody. you keep it very restricted. i was kind of disappointed to hear that this private manning had been reading traffic from beijing, because i don't know what definition of situational awareness for someone in iraq required that he read political reporting from beijing or seoul. and as for gates, i didn't know

him very well. i certainly spent time with him. i, you know, in the backseat of a, you know, armored personnel -- armored chevy suburban. he, you know, i think was -- he, i think, managed things pretty well at defense department. i think he really instilled some greater sense of responsibility especially in his moves after those revelations came out of walter reed hospital. you know, i i haven't read his whole book, so i don't really want to comment. it'd be like someone reading my book and just seeing the one comment about cheney or something -- [laughter] and, you know i wouldn't want them to summarize my book that way, and i'm sure gates doesn't want people to summarize his book by one or two stray comments. >> okay. one more question right there. i'm sorry there's so many folks eager to the ask.

elaine? okay. >> hi. my name is erin mcmillan, and i'm a senior at lakewood high school, and i was just curious, i know you haven't talked about it tonight about your opinion on the united nations and if it's still a relevant and effective way to an effective tool of diplomacy. >> yes. it is absolutely relevant, and how effective it is kind of depends on us. it depends on the member states. you know, when i hear u.n. bashing, what are they bashing? are they bashing the countries in the u.n. who are voting in the u.n. and making u.n. decisions? so i feel that sometimes people blame the u.n. when what they really should be doing is blaming whoever, you know, the security council voted on something. so i think the u.n. takes a lot of grief that it doesn't really deserve. they have very dedicated people, many of whom have been killed in the line of duty. and i've known some of them. and so the u.n. is only as good

as the member states make it to be. and there are many occasions when you want an international presence because to have the u.s. there in and of itself would not be helpful to the situation. so you need other options. and i think having something like the u.n. is a very good option. and i happen to know the secretary general he's a former korean foreign minister when i was ambassador there and i have the outmost respect for him and his team. >> i'm going to attend to a few quick radio things. we'll do the drawing, and then the signing will begin. you don't have to buy your book before he signs it but please buy it before you leave the store. [laughter] so the c-span folks, my introduction was awful and probably best for a blooper reel. would you like that in the clear without the pickups or you're okay? okay. okay. thanks for being with us.

[applause] >> thank you. [applause] >> somebody just asked me about putin, but i'd take a couple of hours to answer. [laughter] >> okay. the drawing, we have the names for the book. do you want to -- [inaudible conversations] we have the names for the, for the winner. i guess those have to be collected which seems like a rather cumbersome process. how about we inform you of the winners after the fact. i think that'll be easier. >> and i want to turn the -- if you could all hang on for just a second, i want to turn mic over to our hurt at the tattered michael, and he's got a couple words for you about how to get your books signed. >> all right. if you're here and want to get a book signed, great. as you can tell -- >> booktv is on twitter. follow us to get publishing news scheduling updates, author information and to talk directly

with authors during our live programs. twitter.com/booktv. >> here's a look at some of the upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. >> let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area, and we'll be happy to add them to our list. e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. >> you're watching booktv. next, author and journalist richard parker reports on the transformation of texas into a population center and argues the state will have as big an impact

on the country in the 21st century as california did in the 20th century. this event is from bookpeople bookstore in austin texas. it's about 40 minutes. [inaudible conversations] ..