this is booktv on c-span2, live coverage. [applause]

>> dr. rice is going to be >> and dr. rice is going to be interviewing for us by one of the best interviewers to have his own show on bloomberg, our national book festival cochair and very generous reporter, dr. david rubenstein. please welcome both of them. [applause] and pain and enjoy. >> well, thank you very much for coming. spinning to make for having me. welcome to everybody. thanks for being here. great event. [applause] >> hard to believe that you've been out of government for nine years. before we get into your new book, "democracy," which ite highly recommend and law talk about coachella such events since he left government otherng than creating best-sellingk. books. other than that you're teaching at stanford and what else?

>> i've gone back to my real profession, i have had to question washington, but i started there is an assistant professor and so i returned to stanford. i teach both business and undergraduates.n i have been able to do a little bit of work in the private sector, a little consulting in the private sector and i'm spending a lot more time than i did when i was in the government because that's really a great love and i'm trying to improve my golf handicap. that is a lot harder than playing the piano. >> you are one of the first two women to be elect to do the national golf club. was that none are expecting? >> i was done. a good friend came not to tell me that i was being invited to join against it. i just sat there dumbfounded and

he said you are going to say yes, right? a i said yes i am. i was completely taken by surprise. >> what is your handicap? >> well, it's not really a stata secret. are those of you who are golfers, there is something called an index and you take the index and go to different courses and depending on the difficulty of the course youe establish your handicap. some might index is the 11.6, which means that of course i'm about a third team or 14 handicap. >> did you ever put president george w. bush? >> i have played on a number of occasions. he plays really, really fast. you have thomas run your golf ball to keep up with him. >> a music company did train to be a musical pianist. i have seen you perform with you your mom among others. you do a lot of those?

>> i do at least one concert a year. i was fortunate to play at its music festival at the kennedy center, which you are such a great leader. one thing here i play a concert with a professional quartet called the mere string quartet and we do a benefit for a charity we started called classics for kids. musical instruments in the school. i'm a great believer likeha everybody that you need to stem. science, technology and mathematics but i'm also great believer that we need the yard. our kids need exposure to the th arts. [applause] >> for some people who may not know, there may be one or two in your biography. you'd grew up in birmingham. when you were growing up, how long does it take before you

realize you are not being treated the same as everybody else? >> i grew up in birmingham, thet most segregated city at theime. time. it was the place where the police commissioner who isis well-known for his brutality towards blacks and it didn't take long to note that your parents were a little embarrassed because they couldn't take you to a restaurant or movie theater. there were never people in the community i grew up in, which was mostly schoolteachers. they never let us feel in any way that we were victims. when you consider yourself a bit then you've lost control. joe never consider yourself a big tent. they also said you're going to have to be twice as good if they didn't say that as a matter of debate. they said it as a matter fact because education was supposed to be your armor against prejudice. the very first time i really

came home to me. you know how it works. you take a little kid and santa claus but the kid on the knee and since both of you have for christmas? this particular santa claus has taken the white kids in putting them on his man holding little black kids out here to talk tors them. my father, who was a former football player. my dad was six, three, 240. he said to my mother, angelina come if he does that to condoleezza, i'm going to pull all that stuff off of it and expose him as the cracker that he years. girl an [laughter] so there is this little girl in your five and the santa claus daddy, santa claus, daddy. santa claus must've read my father's body language. when it came to me, he put me on his knee and said little girl, would you like for christmas? it was the first time i this is really terrible and over santat: claus beard

>> wednesday near a rating as you had an unusual first name. where did that name come from? >> condoleezza is my mother's attempt to and close by contest, which in england means with sweetness. i don't know, maybe she missed the boat bear, but that's what it meant. her name is angelina and i have an uncle also, in chenoa, but i think that she wanted an italian name and she first thought about andante but that meant walking slightly.th allegro met fast. that definitely wasn't good.e and so she came out withost: y condoleezza.a. >> your parents moved to denver and you also went to school at the university of denver were you graduated phi beta kappa phi beta kappa. minuit to notre dame. the mac that is right.

>> the you're a graduate student at >> yeah, i loved football. are you kidding? of course i went to notre dame football games. everybody does. >> you in fact a university ofnd denver, got a phd from the reported to stanford.os >> that's correct. >> soviet and russian affairs. where did you happen to pick that? >> i was a failed music major. i started in college as a piano major. i studied piano at the age of three. i learned very young. about the end of my sophomore year in college i went to the music festival score that summer and i met 12-year-old, things would've taken me all year to learn. i thought it would end up playing piano in places where you shop or whatever.

i had no major. i took a class in international politics -- albright's father and i knew i wanted to study things soviet, eastern european, diplomacy, and that kicked me into international politics as a major and ultimately as a degree. >> host: madeline albright told the story that her father once said that his favorite student was you. >> guest: yes. >> host: she was surprised that you had been his student ship had not known that. >> guest: that's right. >> host: so, you starteddor academic career at stanford and then ultimately you got involved in the george h.w. bush the

was the second year professor at stanford and he got to know me and said i want to get to know you better. i like your work. i was getting anyone for work on the soviet military. so he started taking me to conferences like the as -- as spend strategy group and he mentored me into the field. therapies another lesson in that. we also say you have to have role models and mentors who look like you. it's great if you do but if i'd been waiting for a black female soviet specialist role model i'd still be waiting, and instead my role models and my mentors were white men. they were old white men. those were the people who dominated my field and so i always say to my students now, your mentors just have to be people who believe in you and who see things in you that you don't necessarily see in yourself. >> host: so he helped you get a

job on the bush 41 -- >> guest: when george w. bush was elected, he asked front be his national security adviser and brent called me and said, this fellow, this 1988, remember. he said this fellow gorbachev is doing some interesting things in the soviet union if the president's going to need somebody to help him sort it out. want to be the white house soviet specialist? and as a result i got be the white house solvee spiey, at the end of the the cold war. >> host: do you speech russian? sunny do. >> host: so, after that administration, was over, you went back to stanford. >> guest: i did. >> host: then when george w. bush was running for president, how did you get involved with that? >> guest: i went back to stanford. i was provost., the chief operating officer of the university and a very happy academic but george h.w. bush called me who said my son is governor of texas, thinking about running for president and i'd like you to talk to him about foreign policy. i spent a couple of days with

him and after a little while he asked me to organize his foreign policy in the campaign, and that's how i got involved with george w. bush. >> host: so were you surprised he asked you to be in the national security adviser at the beginning of that administration. >> guest: by the time we get to his election, i figured i would probably go into the administration and national security adviser, identity been to the national security council staff before, seemed natural. >> host: how many women serveds a national security advise before you. >> guest: none. [applause] >> host: okay. so, let's talk about this book. democracy. why did you feel compelled to write a book about democracy? >> guest: i think in many ways i wanted to write this book for a long time because it is in some ways an expression of my own life. i am a firm believer that there

is no other system that accords the kind of dignity that human beings crave than to be able to be free from the secret police at night to be able to sigh what you think, worship as you please and for those who govern you to have your consent. when agree up in segregated birmingham where my parent's relatives were half citizens but still believed in the american democracy dish relate one story in the book, i was with my uncle alto and be picked me up from school and it what election day and i was sixish, and i knew in my own six-year-old way that this man, george wallace, was not good for black people, and so there were a long lines of people going in to vote, and it was segregated. said if all these people vote

then that george wallace man said can't win. he said, oh, no, we're a minority so george wallace is going to win anyway. i said to him, so why do they bother? and he said because they know that one day that vote will matter. and i never forgot that. and i thought, as i wrote this become of the extraordinary story of the united states of america, this constitution that was given to america by its founders, these high-minded words about equality, and yet a country born with the birth defect of slavery, but how this same constitution that had once counted in the compromise, my ancestors were three-fifth's of man and i would take the oath of offers as the 6 of secretary of state, under the portrait of benjamin franklin, sworn be any a jewish woman ruth bader ginsburg, and that for me is the

story of democracy. >> host: now, we point out in the book that you are african-american but actually 40% of your blood line is white. >> guest: yes. 40% is european. >> host: and ten per is asia. >> guest: something other, yes. some other. >> host: in birmingham, the young girls that were killed in the bombing, were they people that you knew? >> guest: absolutely. birmingham black community, professionally the professional class wases small, and denice mcnair. one though four girls killed in the 16th street baptist church becoming in september of of 63 had been any father's kindergarten. i'd gone to considered with her. there's a picture of my fewer give michigan are, her kindergarten diploma. her father was the photographer at everybody's weddings and

birthday parties and so, yes, my -- adi me a collin had been in my uncle's home room, and i remember him saying that day, that monday when they went back to school he just looked at her empty chair and just cried. >> host: when that happened, did you family say we should move? >> guest: no. no. i do remember the first time seeing real fear in my parents' eyes about what they could do to protect me. but, no, we stayed there. birmingham began to change. again, the story of democracy. that same constitution would be used by the naacp and thurgood marshall and others starting back -- i describe it in the book with the marlowe report from 1937, and they would sit there on friday morning and they would decide what cases they would take to try and break down segregation and inequality, and and that would eventually end up

in the civil rights act of 1964, the voting rights act of 1965, and the first time that my parents and i could go to a restaurant, two days after the sift rights act passed my father says, let's go out to dinner. we went to a hotel for dinner and the people sort of looking up from their food and then maybe realizing, now it was okay, we had dinner. >> host: so in your book you point out that we have had a birth defect slavery, but when slavery was ended in 1865, we went to jim crow laws. so how do you as an african-american woman rationalize what our country did after the civil rights amendments occurred in the constitution? we still went for 100 years of discrimination. how do you say that democracy is such a wonderful system and our country is so great when you had to live through that? >> guest: because there is no perfect system that human beings

have ever created. ever. and yet because of the institutions at that time we are bequeathed, the constitution, the courts, independent judiciary, slowly but surely the rights of the descendent of lives would be won throughs the very institutions when martin luther king and others took on the struggle, dr. dorothy height, the only real woman mook the great civil rights leaders, they were asking american e america to be something else. they were saying, america be what you say you arement now, you're in a much stronger position when have on the instituteness place and you can appeal to those institutions. so in any system, the bring offering rights to people is a difficult and sticky and hard process, and our has been extremely hard but i look how far we have come, still with a

long wayay to go, and i think we have actually done better than i think of anymore in the world has done it. >> host: so, you're a very accomplished person, very famous do you feel any discrimination anywhere in the world, anything that you do, you're discriminated against. >> guest: i always say if by the time you're a senior professor at stanford or secretary of state, somebody treat iowa bad badly because of your race, your gender, it's your fault, not thursday. no. i feel very strongly that i am able to achieve what i want to achieve, and i try to tell my students to feel the same way. if you -- goes back to what my parents said. -under you consider yourself a victim, then somebody else has control of your life. now, we all know that there are grave inequalities in our society, and we know that our great nationalness doesn't matter where you came from, matters where you're going.

you can come from humble circumstances, you can do great things. it isn't true for all off our people. so, our goal, our job, is a citizens of this democracy, has to be to use these institutions to demand of these institutions that they deliver on that promise, not shun them. because they're still the best option for getting there. >> host: now, did your parents live to see your great success as a professional? >> guest: i lost my mother very young. my mother was only 61. i was 30 when she died but she did get to see me as a professor at stanford. the christmas before she died, gave her my very first book which was not a "new york times" best seller. it was called the czech army and soviet union mitch desert addition. neither of those countries exist anymore. and so i gave her the book so she saw me become a professor mitchell father knew that i'd become national security adviser

and died shortly with left for washington. >> host: you were an only child. >> guest: yes. >> host: so am i. >> guest: that's why i'm a sports fanatic because that was my father's passion and a music fanatic because that was my mother's passion. when you're an only child you have to satisfy both. >> host: let's talk about democracy in the rest of the world. the united states has a democracy, not perfect. you talk about the soviet union and russia. obviously a subject you know about. you point out that democracy broke out in roche i russia after the bolshevik resolution and after gorbachev lost pair. why did democracy disappear from russia? >> guest: well, one thing i seek to do in the book is dismiss one of the explanations you sometimes get about russia. that the russians don't have the right dna for democracy. i just don't believe that there

are any people on the face of the earth who aren't capable of democracy. david, you know that we have used cultural arguments so the germans were once supposed to be too martial. the asia were too confuse shoes. the africans were to tribal but you have ghana, bat about wanna. latin america is men 0 hornsback and champion african-americans were too child like to care about the vote but we have had black president, black attorneys general, black secretaries of state. so, i just reject this cultural argument. and with the russians you get it all the time. they just like strong men. but really, what the story is, it's the story of the failure of

institutions to take hold under enormous pressure. if you think about the collapse of the soviet union and the kind of effort to build capitalism 50 fors of the russian population fell into poverty probably overnight. the country broke apart overnight. and unfortunately, their first president, yeltsin, who id a mired for a lot of loaned but instead of strengthening the institutions and working through them, he starts to rule by decree help weakens the legislature him weakens the independent judiciary. now, that presidency really strong presidency in russia, under boris yet since -- yeltsin is one thing. but when putin is in position, it is a awer to tarean instinct show. russian failure is a story of the importance of institutionses

of can't depend on a single person you. have to depend on the institution. >> host: deep down you don't see putin as jeffersonian democrat. >> guest: i know him well. >> host: does he speak english. >> guest: he was learning english from the time he came into office. his english is i understand passible but i would chit-chat with him in russian. he liked me at the beginning because i was russianist but i remember once sitting with him toward the owned therefore my time as secretary, and he said, condi, you know, russia has only been great when it's been ruled by great men. like peter the great. and alexander 2en. you want to say vladimir the great but you can't said they because you're secretary of state but he thinks he i reunite thing russian people in greatness and i think that

instinct has led him to destroy constrains for portland si, independent judiciary. >> host: the chance of his volunteer terribly stepping down is slim? >> guest: i think so. the thing about regime -- they're vulnerable. and you don't know that they're brittle until something happens. we have to remember that the only district that putin did not win in the fraudulent election of 2012 was moscow. that tells you something about how he is viewed in the city. >> host: let's talk about another country that joins russia, poland. poll land democracy did break out in poland. what do you think state of democracy is in poland today. >> guest: poland is a store that we should try and emulate. poland is the store of having institutions in place when what call the democratic opening comes.

solidarity and nationwide labor union under lech walesa had actually been underground from the decoration of martial law at the beginning of the 1980s. it had been sustained by the vatican and village priests, the afl-cio, the labor union, and reaganry's cia. an interesting troy troika. when gorbachev comes to power, poland halt that institutional infrastructure in place show to democratic transition was ease glory poland than in almost anymorees now in poland it's still a young democracy. it has for the first time a very strong centralized executive, and you're starting to see a kind of erosion of the independence of the judiciary, the independence of the press, but people are fighting back. civil society is mobilized on

social media, against the move of the -- call the law and justice party, the president's party, and the president, ended up having to veto a law he sponsored that would have gone a long way to undoing the independence of the judiciary, so don't count out polish democracy. >> host: you next write about ukraine. what is the state of democracy which ukraine. >> guest: ukraine is a kind of sad situation because if you are trying build a democracy with a very watchingful exactly assertive and aggressive neighbor in the process of take your territory and making the eastern half of your country unstable, it's kind of hard to build a democracy. but they've made process. the president now has launched an anticorruption campaign.

a great check on democracy, challenge, is when you have corruption, and they have made some good moves on corruption. there are some young people there in the legislature that are determined to deliver democracy and it's a vibrant society in its western part. the problem for ukraine is that with the troubles in eastern ukraine -- you don't read much about them in the newspapers these days but people are dying every day in eastern ukraine as the russian separatists who are supported by the russian armed forces are causing all kinds of problems. so ukrainian democracies on a knife's edge but it's not an authoritarian regime either and that's something to celebrate. >> host: as long as putin is in charge of russia you don't see eastern ukraine all of a sudden going back to ukraine and crimea going back to rain crane crane. >> guest: crimea is going to be very hard. here's one point i want to make. one robe i wanted to write the book also was to talk about the role america can play in

supporting democracy. we have a tendency -- i take some responsibility for this -- to associate democracy promotion with what happened in iraq and afghanistan. those were extremely stressful situations where we had a security problem and later on, trade to help build democracy. but most of the time democracy promotion is much simpler and mump less complex. if you think about the way that we dealt with the baltic states, the 45 years that they were under soviet occupation, when i was a special assistant for soviet affair its had a stamp and it said, the united states does not recognize the corporation of the politic states into the soviet union, whenever you mentioned lithuania latvia or estonia you stamped it with that. we couldn't do anything about the fact that the soviets had enforceable incoverage operated the ball stick states but we

stood for the principle. in crimea we have to stand for the principle. even if we can't do anything for it that says annexation of crimea is illegal. >> host: you mentioned iraq and afghanistan and i want to talk about middle east but where were you on 9/11? >> i was the national security adviser on 9/11 and if you were in a position of authority on 9/11 every day after september 1st. was at my disk any youngest assistants came in and said a plane hit the world trade center. thought that's a strange accident. called president president bush who was in florida and i got him on the event and said that's a strange accident. keep me understand. a few minutes later i was having my staff meeting and somebody hand met a note and said a plane -- second plane head the world trade center and we knew it as would terrorize attack so i went in the situation room to try to reach the national security principles.

colin powell was in peru. george tenet, the cia director ins in a bunker and we said we can't reach rumsfeld. >> then i called president bush and i said you can't come book here, the united states is under otack. the rest of the day was dealing with the reality that americanam security would never be the same. >> on afghanistan that's been the news lately. our longest war, 16 years.

do you see any solution near-term? >> i worried about afghanistan. i have always said that the point we have to get to sum up in afghanistan, is the afghans were able to prevent the taliban from an existential threat against the afghan government. i've always thought he would have remnants of the taliban that would be hit and run tears here and there in the country. but as they been able to carryey out bolder attacks closer to the capital, even in the international zone, you have to wonder how well we're doing in getting to the place of stability. i think the decision by the president and by secretary mattis to try to really stabilize the military situation is one that i support. but eventually there's going to have to be a political solution in afghanistan and i suspect that's going to have to involve pakistan, which is a really big

part of this problem because thr pakistanis are not convinced a a stable afghanistan is in their interest. they've got to be made to help stabilize the territory.demo we are talking about democracy, look, it's very tough. afghanistan was a fifth poorest country in the world at 9/11. but it is at least a place now where girls go to school in large numbers. it is a place now where women are not beaten in a soccer stadium that was given to the taliban by the u.n. it is a place where men are not lashed because they don't wear beards. it's not a place that harbors terrorists, and so i think we've had some achievements inm conce afghanistan but yes i'm concerned. >> democracy in iraq. do you think we may progressnd very? what do you think went wrong at invasion of iraq? what went wrong?

>> i talk about the iraqis case because i lay out several different scenarios of what the circumstances are when the democratic opening comes. the best place is like poland were yet institutions in place, or colombia wary of institutions that were weak but were there. the worst situation is when you have a cult of personality, tyrannical leader where everything had been at the service of the leader. that was saddam hussein. there were effectively no institutions to think of, or we thought, underneath him. and so the distance between peoples desire now that you've overthrown the dictator, we've overthrown the dictator, and the institutions there could jam ale of those passions.ea there's a great distance and yu don't have much time. i relate in the book we made a lot of mistakes.

we undervalued the potential for the tribes, the sunni tribes to play an important role. we didn't understand the tribes. when we got back with the surgeon 2007, the tribes were a big part of the region that were able to defeat al-qaeda in iraq. i think we didn't fully understand the implications of the disbanding of the army, which wasn't supposed to take place by the way, and i described it in the book. so in the fog of war a lot happen. one thing i want people to understand about iraq was we did not go to iraq to bring democracy to iraq. that's an urban legend. i was in those meetings. it's not true. we went to iraq because we thought we had a security problem in a saddam hussein to it revealed his weapons of mass distraction.ru i would never have said to the president of the united states, usability -- american notary forced to bring democracy to iraq or to afghanistan. y once you've overthrown the

dictator you have to have a view about what comes after, and the president and his advisers believe we had to try to give the iraqi people a chance to build their democracy. now, a lot of bloodshed, a lot of lives lost. that will never be able to bring those people back. i will say that as the iraqis are now on the verge of defeating isis, you begin to see that the iraqis do have some democratic institutions. they have a prime minister who is accountable to them. they're people protest and they're not shot in the streets. they don't have mass graves at the kind saddam hussein put people in.le. in ir iraq's the challenge is going to become the country altogether with the kurds who come for long time, have wanted to be an independent people. that's the big challenge for thr iraqis but they do that institutions that i think can help them. >> the arab spring was supposedu to produce democracy throughout

various parts of movies. talk, doesn't seem to be having to vo block is any kind of sin. >> by the way, i would rather be in iraq even syrian. syr bashar al-assad is unfortunately, it's going to be hard to getting out of power because the russians who have people on the ground want him in power. eventually it is going to go it will have to be the russians to make the decision he goes. the rest of the middle east, i'm not ready to give up on the middle east finding a place towards a democratic institution.in we give very impatient with people when they're trying to find the way to democracy, and we say either they just don't get it or look at all those, you know, the muslim brotherhood and all. we forget as we talked about,al our own history of democratization is a pretty long with and a pretty tough one. so i would say use the polish example. try to plant some seeds for democracy.

there are entrepreneurs who are people on whom you might build further democracy. there are civil society groups.. women's groups. tunisia is an example of what an national labor union and women civil society groups have actually managed to bring about something that looks like democracy. i'm not ready to give up on the middle east yet. >> egypt, hasn't been a real move towards democracy in egypt? >> no. the egyptian military rulers look an awful lot like egyptian rulers have looked for a while, mubarak, anwar sadat, et cetera. but underneath again, there are civil site group so we ought to be supporting to try to help.th what happens in the middle easta is that at the moment when you have a chance for a democraticee opening, the strongest institutions are often the radical islamists.

why is that? it's not an accident. it's because leaders like mubarak destroyed the foundation of more liberal institutions and parties, who might've been a foundation of democracy. but they didn't destroy the radical islamists who organize in radical mosques. so they were the best organized with elections came. we have to have more liberal forces the organize when opportunity comes. >> i have two other questions in the middle east before go to the far east. israel. there's either one state solution or a two-state solution. if you have one state solution you think you can go have democracy? >> i think for israel to remain a democratic jewish state, it has to have a democratic palestinian state. i'm a believer in the two-state solution and eventually they will have to get there. [applause] >> let's talk what the gulf states, the gcc states, the gulf

cooperation council countries. you don't think, i soon democracy will break out there or should. >> these are monarchies, and they have varying degrees of liberalism toward issues like women's rights and varying degrees of liberalism toward the marriage of religion andgion and politics. but interesting things are happening there even a place like saudi arabia. saudi arabia has really basically the set a generationad shift, and a majority of the people studying in university in saudi arabia in the great university built by king abdullah are women. they will have an interesting kind of test. can you educate women at this level and still tell them they a can drive? [laughing] >> find out. [laughing] let's go to the far east.

>> in your book you point out the governments while not perfectly jefferson democracies can have some democratic features, and you cite singapore. what do you admire about singapore? >> singapore first of all is very small. what i want to say is when people say authoritarians,s sometimes two examples. china, the largest country to world and singapore one of the smallest. singapore is fortunate it had a wise bandleader. it was at a time when democratic values were not very obvious and he turned to be a truly wise benign leader. but the problem with that there is in you to hope the next one is benign and then that his son is benign and that his son after him is benign, because you don't always get lucky.

the singaporeans got very lucky. we have this tendency to hold democracies to hire standards than we do authoritarians. there are all kinds of reallyki bad authoritarian leaders. venezuela. the idea that authoritarians are some a better because they deliver for the people. the chinese have delivered, although that particular model is kind of running out of steamr now. singapore delivered but there are so many authoritarians that didn't deliver that a think we sometimes hold democracy to a higher standard. >> china, you don't expect jeffersonian democracy will break out there anytime soon come right? >> no, i don't expect jeffersonian democracy will break out there but i will say something about china. china is also not have an interesting test. china's economy grew rapidly. 500 people out of poverty. it's a miracle with her able to do. but they did it with heavy exports, led economy being the

low-cost labor provided in the international system. they did it with kind of commanh economy, a lot of state-owned enterprises. that model has run out of steam. they can't get growth out of that any longer. now they have to free of market forces. when you free of market forces there's a kind of mismatch between those market forces andw a top-down authoritarian political system. the question is how long is it going to be before you have a clash? just as an example, china had 186,000 rights over the last couple years, reported right. not because somebody was out protesting for democracy but because a peasant would find a party leader and developer woula seize their land. they have no courts to go to so they would go right. so even chinese leaders will say we need independent courts so that doesn't happen. how long is it before independent courts become independent judiciary? d

now you're starting to get a difference in institutional landscape in china. i'll tell you one of the story. i gave a lecture at their great university. they affectionately call it their cross between harvard ande stanford. i wanted to give a talk was not of of a u.s.-china relations.ss i decided to get the same talk of a 50 stanford students, find your passion, do something hard, et cetera, et cetera. the questions blew me away. the questions were, well, i'm an engineer, why do i need to take a literature? what do you do if your parents don't like the major that you chosen? i thought these are chineseese kids? they are questioning in this way? how long is it beforey? questioning your parents choice of your major becomes questioning your government? i think there are a lot of trends in china that may ultimately need at least two liberalization is not to democratization.

>> you didn't write about in your book but i cannot but ask you about another place where ia don't expect jeffersonian democracy to break at which is north korea. >> yeah, that's a ways away.h, >> if you are advising the president today, the current president or any president today, what would you tell him to do about north korea? >> this is the most dangerous situation that we face. when i was secretary we try to negotiate with kim jong-il to denuclearize the country. we made some progress but ultimately they wouldn't live up to decree that and we walked out of the talks. since t ever since they have been on a rapid course of improving their bomb design, harvesting the fuel, and increasing the range of their delivery system. no american president can tolerate a somewhat unhinged north korean leader.

because he is not crazy, he's reckless. this is somebody who reached into malaysia, killed his half-brother whose under chinesf protection, so he's reckless. i don't think any american president can tolerate that leader with the capacity to reach the united states. and what the administration is trying to do, and i support what you're trying to do, is they are painting of a bleak picture for the chinese. that's the only country with any real leverage on the north koreans. the chinese have never really been wanting to use their leverage fully because they worry that those regimes could collapse and then you have unstable bar and order and they would have refugee flows. what the administration is saying to them is, your choice now is either we do something y about the north korean problem or you do something about the north korean problem. hopefully that will get through to the chinese because the military solutions are not very pretty. >> so if the missile went and came near guam, would you thinkk we would still have to wait for the chinese to do something?

>> i think at some point in the american president, and a not in such a note what he's being told about how long he has, but athet some point, if you're threatening guam, and already firing missiles over japan, we are getting pretty close to thee present having to make a decision. i will note that when kim jong-un k mehta said he wasm going to attack guam, the chinese must have talked to them because within a few days he came back and said maybe he wouldn't attack guam. i think we do the chinese attention. it's just a question of what they want to do. >> africa, you talk about kenya and there's an election going on it. let me ask you about south africa. you met with mandela. why do you think democracy hasn't worked as well after mandela as it was expected? >> mandela was remarkable man. i don't think about anybody who

i was more inspired or found more impressive. in fact, he said to george w. bush when president bush asked him, why don't you run for another term?you he said i want to my african brothers to know it's okay tofr step down from office. and on a continent that had so many presidents alike, this is really an important statement. it's again a story of institutions. it is essentially a single party system under the african national congress. somehow mandela was great authority was never transferred into institutions which could then survive him. they've had considerable trouble sense, but the institutions are still there. just that it's been hard to really deliver to the. the first presidents better. the united states of merrick waa pretty lucky george washington actually didn't want to be king. i don't how many of you that's seen hamilton. it is really a great show.

but it becomes very clear that we got lucky with the particular combination of founding fathers that we have. many places have been a fortune. >> you write about latin america and talked about columbia, how democracy has made progress. generally the 60s and 70s military are gone but what happened to venezuela? >> hugo shop as happened to venezuela. you can get a really bad leader who doesn't get checked vitalsec ran up -- hugo chavez -- with considerable more wealth. the oil curse is real.th when i was secretar secretary o, the price of oil went to $147 a barrel. it empowers people like shop as to try to buy elections. he single-handedly step-by-step destroyed all of the really important institutions of the opposition. he was succeeded by somebody who

will, shabbos was out charmed and he was without streetsmarts and madero has taken the country down. i hope that this is one for the organization of american states, the latin american states need to be all over maduro to do. something because it's sad too see a middle income country whose people can't find food and to get on medicine. >> with an african-american president but we've never had a female president, never had an african-american female president right. female [laughing] >> have you ever thought --laus] [applause] >> welcome thank you very much but no. [laughing] you have to know your dna. you have to know your dna, and i was on the campaign to with george w. bush. i'll never forget, we would go to five campaign events.we at the end of the date he wass raring to go.

i just didn't get back to the hotel. there are people who draw energy from the process. i don't so much and i've never liked politics particularly. i do love policy. the other thing is my calling is what i do. i love being a professor. i love teaching millennials. they are a challenge. they are wonderful. [laughing] w they come to me and they say, i want to be a leader it and i say not a job description, and it's not a destination. let's talk about what you're going to learn and know so somebody will follow you. then my other favorite line, i want my first job to be meaningful. and i say, your first job is not going to be meaningful. it's going to be a first job. what would be meaningful is somebody will pay you for the first time to do it so that's meaningful. i've got my work cut out for me. [applause] >> if you don't want to run for office, though some president came along again said he did a great job as secretary of state

why did you do it again? >> you should never try to go home again. i had an amazing alignment of the stars. i had a president who would tell leaders don't we go out together he would say because we started out when he was just leaving texas an and he trusted me and i admired him. it was a time of consequence for the country. i have great admiration for people in public service. i don't think we admire enoughwe people who do public service. it's hard work.ar [applause] i just hope -- i tried so hard not to let my student be cynicay about public service. i served as secretary of state, the foreign service and the civil service, people who work in the state department, not to mention the more than 30,000 foreigners who staff our embassies around the world are some of the most dedicated

people you'll ever find. i was honored to leave them and. i loved being the nation's chief diplomat. there was nothing like gettingic out of the plane that said the united states of america, thinking what can i do to represent this great country, but i'm done. [laughing] >> when you step down, you handed the reins over to another woman, hillary clinton. what was it like one female secretary of state handing the reins over to another female, were you saying we don't need these guys anymore? >> so madeleine, colon, myself and then hillary, it'd been exchanges since there'd been a white male secretary of state. so we were saying you know, i don't know, maybe we'll have to do a little affirmative action and see what happens. no, it was great. it's a nice little club, the secretaries of state.

being secretary of state, the dean, george schultz was 97 years old. [applause] still one of my great mentors. i will tell you a little story. he had a birthday party not to long ago for henry kissinger who turned 94, and the two of them did 20 minutes walk around the world no notes completely coherent.or i don't know but i'm sure hoping it was something in the water at the state department. [laughing]ow just amazing people. >> as a member i heard from thee party george schultz said something, to be 94 again. [laughing] >> yes. he said from his point of view and he was still a promising young man. [laughing] >> as you look back on your career which was extraordinary what would you say them most proud of having done?d you sau >> well, with the caveat that history takes a long time to ti judge, i think i'm most grateful that we stood up for the right of people to live in freedom.

i know that the were a lot of cynics and a lot of criticism and some of it totally justified about the freedom agenda and declaring that one of america's most important purposes was to work hard so that no one would live in tyranny. but it think america is at its best, its highest calling whenlg it leads both from power and from principle. when we stand for the proposition that the rights we enjoy are indeed universal, and if they are universal that there are no people for whom they shouldn't be secured. and so i'm very grateful that we were able to do that. when i think back on some of my travels it was always when it was about people. a couple things to get in particular.s i went to china after the great earthquake there and a little

boy, couldn't be more than 12 his old walk up to me and said jubilee from the united states, aren't you? i said i am. n and then just people of asking what was it like to be a womanwo representing the united states in middle east where women are second-class citizens? i had a difficult meeting with shia clerics who couldn't touch me because i was a woman outside of his family. at the end of the meeting is very difficult meeting in iraq, he said what you do me a favor? to the transmitter he simply to me a favor?d a favor, really? i said sure. he said my 13-year-old granddaughter watches your television and she loves you, and she and her mother are coming to the place. when you meet them? this little 13-year-old girl comes in and a pink t-shirt that says princess. [laughing] and she walked up to me in perfect english and says i want

to be foreign minister, too. and i thought, there was something in the moment because her very conservative grandfather being when you thought about this little girl. this problem, this progress that we tried to bring to democracy through justice and equality, it's a long, long, long road. and people have traveled that road for a long time. america has traveled it for a very long time and we are still working at it. the thing i'm most grateful for is that even with her own troubles here in the united states, we stood for the proposition that every man, woman and child should live in freedom. >> i want to highly recommend to everybody here this book which i enjoyed very much reading,wh "democracy.", "d [applause] >> and i want to thank you for your service to our country for

the many, many years. >> it was an honor. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> tuesday we're live in charleston, west virginia, for the next stop on the c-span bus 50 capitals to her. governor justice and lieutenant governor mitch carmichael be our guest on "washington journal" starting at 8:15 p.m. eastern and join us for the bureau starting at 7 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> here's a look at some of the current best-selling nonfiction books according to the "washington post."

>> some of these authors have

will be appearing on booktv. you can them on our website, webmac. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv, television for serious readers. >> next on "the communicators" the conversation with verizon senior vice president kathy grillo, then look at saturday's march for racial justice. after that government and industry leaders on cybersecurity efforts, and live at 1215 thymic and discussion on the growth of isis. >> host c-span, which history unfolded daily. in 1979, c-span was cratered as a public service by america's cable-television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite