starting now it is our summer series that features programs with well-known authors from our archives. tonight best-selling historian margaret macmillan talks about the lead up to world war i and pleased that the historical subjects. but first, in 2007, she appeared on the interview program q & a to discuss the relationship between president richard x. and and chinese communist leader m mao. ♪

♪ this week on q & a, our guest is margaret macmillan, author of "nixon and mao: the week that chnaged the world." c-span: margaret macmillan, but if you think a book about "nixon and mao" would so? >> guest: my father was a good subject and i love the good storiestoriesof history and thou have two extraordinary personality is with great falls and talent and it was an interesting moment that ended the period but in the united states and china and started something else so my next book i

wanted to do something manageable has a good story. c-span: did he rely on to tell you what that moment was like? >> guest: that the documents. there's a record now of all the transcripts of the first memoirs. bob haldeman did a diary that is helpful, henry kissinger wrote them and there've been lots of interviews, so i gathered whatever i could from those that have been there. c-span: did you learn anything they don't already know? >> guest: i learned something i didn't know. i think i learned a great deal more about richard nixon, which i had to do. i learned a lot more about his capacity as a statesman, which i think i never fully grasped. therthere were a number of thins that surprised me. i was surprised how anxious the americans were for the meeting and to have that opening to china and i was surprised how far they had to go in reissuing the chinese and the sort of material the americans handed over to the, top-secret

information for example. that did surprise me. c-span: meeting was february 21, 1972. >> guest: yes, i got the anniversary. c-span: what was the world like? >> guest: it was a troubled world and particularly for the united states and china. the united states was still in vietnam and that was overshadowing the nixon presidency and he was concerned. he wanted them out of vietnam and that wasn't easy because he was given with a north vietnamese said victory wasn't prepared to negotiate at all and he was under a lot of domestic pressure. the united states has been very hurt by vietnam and very badly divided, so i think that was a concern. a lot of economic trouble because inflation was running high and partly because of the expenditure on vietnam. so nixon was conscious of the position and the world had been damaged by its own internal troubles and its involvement in

vietnam. he was concerned about his relationships with allies and this was also one of his main concerns about the soviet union, which was of course enjoying the americans coming to greece india non- and then proving to be very difficult in dragging its feet on arms negotiations for example, so i think for the united states it is a troubled time and there is a loss of confidence because of vietnam. nixon was very concerned about this and that is one of the reasons he thought it might help to rebuild the position in the united states. c-span: was the relationship in 1972 between the united states and china but actually to draw back a little bit before the, but i assume the uae is on start and how did it start? >> guest: >> guest: there was no relationship before then. from 49 up until the end of the 60s there was virtually no contact. no trade and in fact they had an

establishment in hong kong which is a purpose to make sure they were not exported to the united states. no trade, tourism, they came to the united states because even at the un and the chinese representation was held by sitting in taiwan so it was an extraordinary situation. no contact occasionally the american and chinese diplomats had to talk about prisoners of war or some unfinished business that they would usually talk in warsaw at the ambassadorial level. up until the end of the 60s when contact began to be made, there was absolute gulf between china and the united states. c-span: what is your relationship at the time between china and russia and the soviet union? >> guest: it is an interesting question, because it was a bad relationship. the two great communist powers

have had a complicated relationship anyway, but they've fallen out of the split very visibly at the beginning of the 60s and i think like a fight within the family. because they were in the same family, and each of the soviet union and people's republic of china accused the other of being bad communists and they became rivals, supremacy in the third world for example. so it was very unpleasant. by the end of the 1960s it was more than unpleasant and have a potential for major conflict. soviets started moving troops to the common border in the far east with china and they moved bombers outfit were capable of carrying nuclear warheads and there were armed clashes between the troops in 1969 and towards the end of 69 for the fall of 69, there were rumors and i think well-founded rumors that it is very seriously contemplating a strike on china to knock it back a few decades. c-span: did they have power than? >> guest: they have nuclear weapons, they exploded their own

nuclear bomb i think 1964 but they didn't have nearly the means of delivery of the soviet union had. the soviet union was very much military power. and also mao and his own folly and the cultural revolution and mind you that it has left china very badly prepared to fight off a potential invasion. the armed forces were occupied most of them trying to keep order in the cities of china was friendless and in a very dangerous position at the end of the 1960s. c-span: when we bought him as a 1971 and is made in china, it was in taiwan? what is the relationship between taiwan and china and china and hong kong, those three entities? >> guest: hong kong and taiwan had a relationship no relationship with china. the government of the remnants of the nationalist governments that have ruled china in the 1930s and up until 1949 and its leader sat claiming to be

the real government and refusing to recognize the government actually held power in beijing into the united states for a combination of reasons have supported that position and supported taiwan, so they held the un seat was reserved for china for example and represented these other international bodies and every so often the relationship between taiwan and the mainland chinese threatened to boil over into the more. taiwan is about 100 miles offshore of china but very protected from a possible seaboard invasion. taiwan had taken violence and right off thwrite off the coast. one is in the harbor. they would sit there heavily fortified, occasionally sort of lobbing shells at the chinese mainland and yelling insults over the speaker is saying horrible things of mao. the chinese would retaliate and it would be a very serious

crisis in 54 then again at the end of the 50s when the chinese government started showing and threatening to occupy them and so the relationship between taiwan and china was dreadful and have a potential to flare up into a nasty war. c-span: you are canadian. if canada had relations with the people's republic of china? >> guest: we were moving to establish relations. as canadians we have to be careful about what the united states fought. it'fought. its ways been difficult for canada to take a part that is too divergent from that of the united states and on the whole, we tend to agree with the united states, certainly during the cold war on the major foreign-policy issues, but i think we never felt as committed to taiwan as the united states did come and visit certainly anti-communist as many in the united states did. and also sort of a practical people, w we have a lot of weedt the end of the 1950s and china have a famine and the chinese came to the government and said we would like t to play the lead

and represent the hard currency. so we started trading with the people's republic of china brought to the pleasure of the united states. the united states wasn't pleased about this but he established a trading relationship and at the end of the 1960s, our new prime minister trudeau reviewed the policies anthe policy thinka conclusion, and i think he was right, that is absurd not to recognize the people's republic of china in 1970 actually, we establish a diplomatic liaison office in beijing and the chinese established one in ottawa and we move towards full recognition. c-span: bring us up to date in your own career. i see on the jacket of the book you are moving to oxford. >> guest: very happily ensconced at the university of toronto and head of a college. i wasn't thinking that that i d do in my term ended, which is ending in june. i got a phone call about a year and a half ago from a place at oxford saying that i'd be interested in being there for them which isn't quite what it

sounds like. it doesn't mean running it like a prison. i did my graduate work there so i know it. c-span: how big a college visit? >> guest: about 250 all graduate students and 50 fellows and adidas international relations. so it's sort of write up my street and i thought it would be too good an opportunity to miss, so i'm moving over there for a few years. c-span: user at oxford to get your masters or doctorate? >> guest: i get a two-year degree first with politics, political science and then back to history. that is my field and then i get a doctorate in the british in india. c-span: oxford has how many colleges? >> guest: 43 i think. i should know this but i think it's 43. brian macklin is the biggest? >> guest: at it new college which is one of the oldest. c-span: is saint anthony's one of the smallest? >> guest: it is graduate which

makes it different from the others. brian macklin d. to start? >> guest: end of june. c-span: will you be able to teach and write? >> guest: i hope so. i hope that they will likely do a bit of teaching which i would love to do and i do want to keep writing. i like writing and i have a few projects in mind so i'm going to keep going. c-span: back to this book on "nixon and mao." what is the first moment that you could remember this was even a book or article? >> guest: my progress both the publishers didn't expect it to do as well as it did. it came out in england and won a prize and the day after, my publisher said to me by the way what is the next going to be, we would really like to know. i thought quickly and i hadn't thought about it much. i said a possibility if the nixon trip to china. i thought tha that it would be a

fairly contained story and it wouldn't be too big of a which made sense because i was taking on a new job. to my amazement is a great, here's an offer. i said my spur of the moment idea of the good one because i taught chinese history so i knew quite a bit of background and i also taught and still teach the history of the cold war so at least i have a feeling for the period. c-span: to bring people up to date i have the paperback version of paris 1919. recently 21 in great britain, 2002 in the united states, 2003 the paperback. want to talk more about this. how many copies did it so? >> guest: i've tried to round them up but i think it must be around 240,000. going in mac how often is a history book sold? >> guest: i don't think that often. they are not in the same league as the da vinci code. i'm very pleased about it. c-span: you thought about the idea of the book. what is the first place they

went to study up on what happened? >> guest: i started with reading the nixon memoirs and the stephen ambrose. i don't know enough about him. i thought i knew about him because i was growing up in a nixon was president and i remember watergate but when you are a historian you've got to study more in-depth than having these impressions. so i started that. i then found a wonderful archive here in washington at georgetown called the national security archive. they had declassification of all sorts of documents including the transcripts of the conversations between nixon and mao and kissinger. i started reading all that and gradually stuff was declassified because the foreign relations here in the united states during the nixon years and so a whole bunch of stuff was coming out. so i began to collect whatever i coded in north america.

then i don't read chinese, so i got a couple of chinese graduate students to start going through the chinese sources and translating those for me. c-span: did that make a difference? >> guest: it did i think. they still haven't released as much of the united states. the united states is very open generally about what it will release so there was a tremendous amount on the record. the chinese still have the habit of secrecy that come from the old communist party days when they were an underground organization and they don't like to release stuff. particularly if it is a sensitive area or recent history. taiwan is still a sensitive area and the relationship with vietnam, the relationship with the soviet union and now russia is still sensitive, so i didn't find out all that much although there are some memoirs and biographies and if you sort of authorized histories of these relations that have some in twisting stuff. c-span: do you have evidence of between henry kissinger and richard nixon or somebody else possibly thought about this idea first?

>> guest: there is conflicting evidence because this is a good story and i think everyone involved would like to take credit for being the one who pushed it through. i think it was richard nixon who got the idea. he'd been talking about it before he became president, before he won the election in 68 he'd written an article for the foreign affairs in 1967 in which he said sooner or later, china must be a part of the community of nations. he had given talks in which he said i had interesting conversation with someone who knew him the other day who said he remembered talking to nixon about this and 68 and nixon said i'm going to go. so i think that it was nixon who had the grand strategic vision. henry kissinger, the record at the time is henry kissinger was surprised when nixon said that d decidesaid thatand said to halds the president wants to go to red china, what is going on i think he's lost his senses. kissinger now says in his memoirs that he and kissinger are always on the one on this

and i think it is true that when kissinger realizes this is an nixon thinking, he saw the possibility and advantage of opening up to china and worked hard on it, but it was nixon who was there and pushing it. c-span: you said in the back under interviews and oral histories that you interviewed kissinger in paris may 152003 and may 182003. what were the circumstances? >> guest: i was at a conference. i'd been invited to the conference by a friend of the new kissinger was going to be there and knew henry kissinger and very kindly said to kissinger look, this historian would like to interview you and don't worry, she will not ask impossible questions or whatever anyway, she vouched for me. i met him at the conference at a cocktail party and he said people talk at the end. then he started to tell wonderful stories. so i rushed back to my room and jotted them down and then we had lunch at the end of this

particular session. we have i thought it very interesting conversation. i made all sorts of notes and heat i don't think told me anything he hasn't already said in his memoirs or other interviews, but it was just the flavor. it's wonderful to be able to say to someone what was mao really like and what was richard nixon really like and what did you feel when you were in china and that was fascinating. brian macklin is the moment when they met? >> guest: it is a funny moment. i thought when i started writing thwritinga book about one hour y met, nixon's first day in beijing the 21st of february, 35 years ago. i thought the meeting was going to be absolutely fascinating. clearly one of those great momentous meetings. like fdr, franklin d-delta roosevelt meeting stalin. i thought it would be an extraordinary meeting and then i read the transcript, and it's not what i'd call it a fascinating conversation. nixon had come very well

prepared. he liked to be well prepared for these important occasions. he had all sortthey have all soe wanted to say. you see at the beginning of the meeting a little bit of chitchat, nice to see you, thank you for coming out how was your trip. then a number of things i want to say, mr. chairman, and goes through this and back. that. he doesn't get very far into mao says no, no, let's not talk about this stuff i don't deal with those sorts of things. let's just chat. you see nixon trying to get to stuff like relations with the soviet union he wants to talk about and mao sort of avoiding it, so it is a rather unsubstantial inconclusive and meandering conversation. and mao isn't well mannered. and apparently kept checking his watch, the prime minister, and finally said i think we've had enough i think chairman and mao has had enough and he agrees so they go out. and at first, it was nixon, henry kissinger and winston lord who were there were rather

depressed. they said this didn't really go anywhere and wasn't much of a conversation but then they began to think about it and they decided what they persuaded themselves that in fact it was a brilliant conversation. kissinger had a wonderful passage where he says we realized that it was like all the motifs were there, mao was in direct to everything we were going to hear him discuss. my answers were a bit optimistic when they read that back into the conversation. i think the important thing about the conversation is that it happened. it took place and then appeared in the media. c-span: how long was richard nixon in china? >> guest: seven days. c-span: he never saw him again. why didn't they get the chance again? >> guest: heat had been indicated that there would be another meeting and he probably wanted to speed debate as he mao again to carry on the conversation because rather

embarrassingly they haven't taken the secretary of state the first meeting and so i think nixon was hoping for a second meeting so that rogers could be included in the photograph taken. they didn't have a second meeting because mao was too sick. he looked okay at the meeting that he had really been at the store about six weeks previous previously. he'd been resuscitated and they sort of prop him up and he looked okay but he wasn't well. c-span: did he have lou gehrig's disease yet? >> guest: i'm not sure when it started but that is what he was going to die. he had congestive heart failure, emphysema, he was retaining liquid. one of the recent mao had a new suit made is because he couldn't get into his old ones because he was so bloated. i think also possibly, mao although communists had taken on the attributes of a member, he accepted his position. and they always tend to live in splendid isolation and very few

people got to see them very much. so, the idea of mao woul but hae long discussions and negotiations with nixon i think wasn't something mao intended to do and it didn't fit this concept as the leader of china. c-span: interesting thing is both mao and both died within four years. and john, at one point you writy write -- who is he by the way? >> guest: also like mao, a dedicated communist. he'd been a communist as a young man and came from an upper-class family, one of the families that have provided so many of the civil servants in china boun doo the century. he had somehow survived not just the chinese nationalists tried to kill him and invading but the ambitious and dangerous parties within the party. he had a knack for realizing which way it was going and

choosing which side it was going to win. fairly early on he saw the mao was a rising figure and he became his long serving secondhand. he was the second in command. he never challenged to mao and that was wise because he didn't like anyone challenging his authority. c-span c-span: did i understand you to say that john got cancer and mao didn't want him treated? >> guest: i don't know whether it was a sheer cruelt the sheero didn't believe in doctors is why mao himself got so sick. we have an interesting memoir by one of his doctors. mao wouldn't take his medicine or ordinary precautions can simply refuse to believe in medicine &-and-sign he got cancer, mao said he shouldn't have an obligation. he's too old and it will cause too much trouble. maybe just malevolence but i think if they have also just been mao didn't believe in

doctors. finally a pretty young technician and mao like pretty young women, persuaded him to have the operation but by the plaintifthatpoint it was too lae cancer had spread. c-span: anybody else of importance, you mentioned winston lord, but in this whole event? >> guest: those are the four key figures, but there was also a skilled man who was the deputy foreign minister who did a lot of the negotiations for the shanghai communiqué that was a statement both issued at the end of the visit. buying a mac and you put that in the buck. >> guest: guess >> guest: yes i put the communiqué and i mentioned something about who was very isy capable, the foreign minister of china was not. he was an entity that cam carolo the meetings and they talk about actually not very important things. the other figures that i think are interesting, richard nixon's

wife and the wife of mao. past i think was a much less controversial figure, a very loyal wife and nixon hated it and went to model firms and approved and looked at the model kindergarten and get all this stuff. mao's life was more controversial and after his death was blamed for a lot of his crimes and almost put in prison. she i think was a terrifying personality. she had been an actress, very pretty in her youth and had made her way up to the hill where in the late 30s attracted mao's attention and he'd fallen for her and left his other wife at the time. she and her colleagues said to him, and this was the nature of the party, we will only give you permission to divorce your wife and marry is pretty actress from shanghai as long as she stays out of politics.

mao accepted the deal but she resented it. when mao wanted to start the cultural revolution, this event to turn china upside down which led to him attacking his own communist party among other things and she became his right hand man. when she was tried as the right-hand woman, she shouted out i by with his dog and whoevr he told me that i fight it. but she used it to get revenge on people, people that haven't given a part from the old days in shanghai. people who knew too many details about some of her less savory goings-on when she was young. she had affairs and may have worked for the nationalist at one point or the police. a lot of people suffered because of her and she became the great word-of-mouth piece of mao and took particular responsibility of the culture that almost none were made and she produced these

dreadful revolutionary office which the parties were taken but she was a dangerous, dangerous woman. c-span: you told us earlier that was no relationship between china and the united states when all of this started. i want to mention some figures just today. we'lwe will put them up on the screen. they are trade figures. but start with the balance of trade. you'll see this on this screen from 2006 at the end of the year we were exporting to china $55 billion worth of goods. they imported 288 billion to this country. that means there is a trade imbalance to their favor, not hours of $233 billion. the next slide i want to show is the u.s. treasury securities as of december, 2006.

china holds $349 billion which is second only to japan. none of that would have happened in 72. what do you think that they would think meaning mao and joe and richard nixon and all if they saw the numbers today? >> guest: i think they would be spinning in their graves, not so much because of the trade, although i don't think they would have understood it but because of the way china has moved on what they would see as capitalist. the way in which this shanghai is putting up these offices. it is antithetical to everything they thought was an event. kissinger said at the time in the negotiations the state department is going to insist on me putting something in the communiqué and what we've talked about with trade and cultural exchanges. you and i know they'll never amount to anything. one of the few times perhaps doctor kissinger was wrong.

nixon lived to see at least the beginning, nixon went on till the 1990s and he was pleased by it. he said on one of his last trips to china i like to think i helped make this possible meaning of the extraordinary burgeoning chinese economy. but whether nixon would be pleased toda today of the endows and the fact that so much of american debt is held by china, i don't know. it could be seen as a weakness or vulnerability for the united states. on the other hand, the fact china holds so much american debt we have an interest in maintaining a healthy relationship in the united states. c-span: that is the downside of the figures? >> guest: it's the loss of jobs in the united states and that is really getting american workers quite hard. americans are workers and also consumers and so the advantage for the united states is cheap to made in china. wal-mart is the single biggest trading partner. c-span: something like 60% of

what they buy comes from china. >> guest: between wal-mart and china, it is extraordinary. but the other downside, the other downside of course is the chinese will continue to try to get into the american market and continue to try to protect their own. in a trade imbalance will always lead to political tension. c-span: than owning so much of our debt? >> guest: they own so much of the debt means in a way they have a vested interest in a healthy united states and what they don't want is to become less so if the american dollar begins to collapse or work to begin to lose value, that would hurt the chinese, so you could argue that the nature of the relationship actually makes each country has to think about the prosperity of the other. c-span: is a picture in the book that had a bigger impact on me probably then you although you gave it prominence in the buck and their names, i saw

faces i remembered. some of them have passed on. and i will just mention some of them, back then with "the chicago tribune," stand, mutual network, david, don .-full-stop, the un ambassador, bill small ran the washington bureau of cbs and became nbc news president. .. >> teddy white wrote the book making the president 1960 - 64, 68, dan rather, bill buckley is out the back, john chancellor, barbara walters, faye wells who

was was store broadcasting and helen thomas was still sitting in the newsroom is in this, not only in this picture but another picture that you have. where did you find that picture and did you know any of those names and the folks when you sell them in the picture? >> i knew very few of them, we found the photographs and the national archives in washington but a record of the nixon trip which is taken by both chinese and american photographers and i cannot match names to old faithful, i did not know enough of them but i did recognize i'm sorry and i recognized a few others and this is the american profession. >> is he in that picture? >> i think he is, all the gentlemen that were there, the picture was taken in nixon said let's have a picture taken, i imagine they are all there.

max. >> he is in the picture, also interesting which would mean most of our viewers, there are all kinds of valuable people, mainly technician, lightning people and camera people are in this picture, the whole american press. >> i suspect the rural vice president because they cannot get permission to go so they said they would come along as lighting experts and they got themselves in as technicians, even an amazing crew and the chinese did not know what hit them, nixon and kinzinger will negotiate the trip when they took place and they said i like to bring some press and coming from society when there is not a free press, what do you think of two or three journalists and he says no, we were thinking 700. so they had to negotiate and they finally got an agreement to

about 100. to the chinese that was unprecedented. >> the fact of pakistan for kinzinger to go secretly into china, how did that come about? >> once nixon decided that he wanted to have an sense of opening to china, the mistrust and suspicion and hostility on both sides was so great in being there for so long the americans cannot simply say publicly to the chinese that we want to talk, nor do they have any way getting to the chinese, what nixon did was talk to people had good relations with the chinese and for example in 69 he talked to charles in paris and paris rd had a relationship with china saying would you let the chinese know that we want to talk. he did that with a lovely dictator romanian indy finally found a route through pakistan, pakistan was on very good terms

with china because china was an enemy of india's pakistan was also hostile and pakistan was a country who had direct flights into china and pakistan have the further advantage for dictatorship and he could do what he wanted and the president of pakistan, that's a channel that was established in the americans would send a message saying we'd like to talk in the chinese with send one back and say possibly another message to go back, no direct communications and no pieces of paper went from washington to beijing or washington, went through an intermediary and pakistan and sometimes through the investor pakistan and beijing or in washington and it was very important, that's the way the invitation to send henry kinzinger. >> assuming you look through the press, what did richard nick nixon get overall when watergate

did not happen, that was in ju june, what kind of press was to getting. >> he got really good press, nixon always thought they hated him and had to go on and this was one of his constant themes. in fact the press was pretty favorable in the china trip got amazing coverage, i think a lot of it was live on primetime television in the u.s. 8:00 o'clock in the morning and beijing and 8:00 o'clock in the morning in the u.s., quite often as people were having supper, they would see the live footage from beijing or they could see it in the morning, the banquet for example when he was in beijing showing on live primetime television, was the most watch and recognize event in american history up to the point and nixon got the press reports every day while he was in china and he was pretty

pleased. >> what role did bob play? >> i think was frankel from the new york times, it was john chancellor from cbs and nbc said that the nixon trip was a masterpiece and i think he planned it meticulously, before he came to work in the white house and he planned parties and technicians and beijing a month before he arrived and reporters and when i had the day before and he planned the angles, where the plane would stop in the beijing airport and the planet is much as they possibly could and they would have to install a satellite fee because the chinese did not have the facility to feed up to a satellite, the americans had made meticulous preparation. >> to do anything go wrong? >> soon details and has done a

lot of getting ready for the american visited the hotel the journalist or statement had been done and they had wooden toilet seats and they varnished him with a very shiny varnish. some people are very allergic to that in a number of the press corps had a very unpleasant and very uncomfortable place. there was no major things that went wrong in the chinese tried to do stage management and when nixon went to the main tube outside of beijing which is a historical monument of china and heroes february pretty cold and average family having picnics and listening to the shiny new transistor radios and one noticed at the end of the nixon they collected all the average families and got away and i think sometimes they see the same average chinese family with

a different start and this is someone that was very alert and embarrassed. the big hitch that was took off the rails was a shanghai community. >> one small note in the back in our history section where you list everybody, i count one, two, three, four, five people that you talk to from canada. john small and ottawa, larry seabourn and ottawa, robert edmonds in toronto, john frazier and ottawa, what with those folks told you about this trip? >> what they told me with the canadian negotiation and canadian recognition, i was interested because it preceded the american one and what they can tell me the number being on foreign affairs, they could tell me the reaction of the

americans, they did not know nixon and kinzinger were thinking about the opening in the initial reaction was we wish you would not do it. what a couple could tell me in beijing when the nixon party a ride and he also knows chinese and you can tell me wonderful stories, the night nixon arrived and they give a cool reception because they did not want to look excited they did not know whether they will give you approval in the night the nixon party arrived there was new broadcast in so-and-so is done really well and attended new high in the production record. the last item on the news, by the way president nixon paid us a visit today. i got really nice color from the canadians. >> the book. 1919 which i have here is a

bigger book than this, you told us that it could be sold well. there's a lot about the ottomans and the independence of the arabs on palestine and for those who did not read this book and did not hear our first chat, what's in it. >> it's about the conference at the end of the first world war, i looked at the various issues which those three men which is georgia britton on the left and the middleman in the taller man on the right and those three men had a huge range of issues settled because the first world war had left, your -- >> the man on the far lef left s your great-grandfather. >> yes it is. >> i'm sorry, go ahead. it is my great grandfather. the world was in a mess, what

they had to do is try to figure out and they spent a lot of time worried about europe and germany but you mentioned the ottomans and what happened they had control the huge empire which included turkey and parts of europe and including most of the arab territories in the middle east, suddenly they had fallen to pieces and they were basically cut loose annoying what you needed to do, people had an idea but this conference and those three men began to work out what to do with the arab world, not really taking much account of what the arabs themselves happen and might not happen to one. and what in the end they did, they drew the borders. >> when i last talked the war was not going on and i watch this, what can be learned from her book. 1919 about what is happened over there. >> what could've been learned

was problems that iraq can pose because there is an uncanny in a rather disturbing parallel between the british experience in iraq and the british created iraq and some justification, you cannot argue that iraq is a geographic unit but they created a country with many people that we know about this yet in the sunnis but we know about the cruise religious divisions, ethnic divisions and people with different historical traditions and people tend to be more influenced by iran or the people in the north be ten to be influenced by turkey. they created a country which was a tricky country and they thought this is after the first world war and they thought they could rented tree plea, they thought they could find a local were a few locals and they also thought with the superior technology they would have no true getting the resistance of

the opposition. history never repeats itself but you see rather disturbing analogies and i think we can say in retrospective toys easy but perhaps united states and the coalition would interact think it is good to be be easier than it was and perhaps they should've been more wary because of the precedents. >> what impact and what happened with the conference in 1919 that led to the world that was in 1972 on nixon. >> what the paris peace conference, appears these among other things marked the emergence onto the united states which is a significant player, the powerful country but it was only the getting as the first world war went on, i think the united states moved onto the world stage in 1919 really

determine and really determine that it should use its power to make a difference in the world and so you're seeing the emergence of the power of the united states which becomes a superpower in the years after the second world war and in the case of china, what happened to the peace conference gave us birth to communism because the chinese were an ally in the first world war a great name under britton and france which went to help build the trenches, the chinese had hoped they would get back german territories that germany had taken from china in the first world war and they did not get them back, those territories were given to japan which is an ally of the west in 1914 and 1918 in chinese felt this is a cynical betrayal and they felt the west was hope with thinking that the west was going to be a friend and that included

the united states had turned on them and betrayed them, a number of the more radical chinese in the other direction for inspiration, that was a two the new revelation will became a communist revolution in russia. i think you can argue the chinese communist party has its origins in the conference of 1919. >> on the cover of your book paris 1919, we were targeted by david george who is over here on the side and would be britton and in the middle clement so france and next to clement woodward wilson, if you put the current people that run those countries in the spot and you relate that what happened in a relationship between france, great britain and the iraq war, had me out of here. any relationship, where they can

stay o or fort? >> they did not want to see france and britain behaving like colonial powers, woodward wilson said we did not fight this war to hand over people to bee colonies of the european empire or another. so he insisted whatever settlement was made in the middle east would be in a form of mandates and legal nations. his was the league of nations in which is his hel hope for the wd and the institution that he brought into existence, is the league of nations that was supervised by rick under britton in france and anyone else running for the benefit of the people in the middle east. woodward wilson felt and he had some reason to think the large part of the middle eastern are not ready for government, that is not true of egypt which is a different question, their apartheid no experience of

self-governing and had you turn into countries, you cannot create countries out of nothing. woodward wilson insisted the middle east be read by the benefit of people but it's very different ideas, the british and the french wanted to make sure that their interest with the middle east would stay guarded in their interest in strategic to provide colonies in india, egypt and what they are also concerned is oral which is a very important commodity, it's also for industry in the british because the now running the navy, oil which everybody knew, some in the middle east and did not know how much and it was something to become very important in the british and the french go along with woodward wilson but what they want to do is run the middle east to suit themselves. i'm trying to think of the present-day, i think britain and

france have a different attitude towards the middle east, i think certainly they are critical of the american involvement, as far as the relationship between the leaders, i think there is always talk of a special relationship between the two english-speaking leaders in great britain, with the united states in iraq today. i think lloyd george tried very hard to develop a relationship with the united states and the united states was more suspicious at that time. >> we also see britton pulling out, they had 40000 troops and it will be long before they have 5000 troops in their and will end up being by ourselves. the french have not supported our efforts there. you say 1919 they got syria and lebanon. >> the french got syria and lebanon and the british got iraq and palestine which they divided into palestine and jordan in the palestine became israel and the

rest became the palestinian territories at the west bank and so on, eventually jordan became jordan. i think the political sense is different today, the british are pulling out of iraq and the americans are saying that i very pleased about it. cheney was on television and you see this is a necessary move in the victory. and i suspect this is british public opinion, it was in the labor party and turning very much against occupation in iraq. >> go to palestine and then to israel and in your book you discuss zionism in the place where the jews wanted a place to go in the world. >> it was a very powerful movement among the jews of the world, it's clear at that time not so much american jews, i think it became a result of hitler and the second world war

but there was a lot of pressure among the jewish communities in britain and france and elsewhere to have a homeland of their own, europe had very unpleasant anti-somatic in the reports in russia where you do not feel safe from a very badly treated and understandably the movement came to looking for homeland for the jews and understandably the place to look for homeland and toyed with the idea of africa but in a place to look for homeland was a historic birthplace of the jewish people in the palestine of those days. >> who was interested in uganda. >> the founder of the movement was interested, that was in the 1880s of western imperialism, why not just take a bit, some talk at one point of buying latin america as well but the religious ties and the ties of

memory back to the province and palestine which contained all the holy places. >> did the brits want israel. >> british opinion was divided into was a foreign secretary. israel maybe not but they wanted to jewish homeland in palestine and i think the reason was partly sentimental, george and a lot of them have grown up in the bible and the jews returning to their homeland was something that was tremendously emotional for them, i think they also felt that a jewish presence that is a very important link for the british and they did not think in order the designers think the population of the empire would matter, they do not think they had an opinion and consulted the jewish settlers coming in and very few of the problems in the

british also thought during the first world war if they could promise a jewish homeland it would win over lunch will jewish bankers in the united states, would help to make german jews were very important in germany and critical their own governments, they did it for a whole variety of reasons. >> what was france's attitude about israel. >> they were never enthusiastic but they went along with the british, when they say they approve a jewish homeland. >> he was a british foreign secretary and he came in the form of a leader of a british jewish community and he said his majesty's government upon the establishment of the jewish homeland in palestine and that i think who by this point was a leader of the movement they got it written and for a lot of the supporters of the jewish

president and palestine that was a promise of the state and they knew it, they knew the jewish homeland have the potential to go into a state and for a lot of the support, a lot of the jews in europe, this was the beginning of a return to the homeland and the possibility of jewish state where there would be a majority and be safe. i think the british foolishly did not recognize the juvenile into difficulties they were getting to and they promised our leaders if they rose up, they were fighting with the germans, they would be an independent arab state of states. so from the arab point of view of the british and our dependence in arab territory to this group for coming in from outside, that leaves to the feeling that the arabs have been betrayed and it's a poison relation between jews and arabs and indeed poison relationships between arabs and blessed.

>> what your sense of what will happen in a place like iran or the middle east more broadly or israel? >> israel is a deeply divided society, i think they have a huge demographic problem, and has led to the occupied territories of the west bank and gaza is growing. i think israel will have to make hard decisions in the near future. it's difficult because is very politics and not so complex and hard to get clear decisions. there are a lot of things to know what the best solution for israel what is the way to go ahead. i think it's a very gloomy prospect and icy iraq sliding into civil war and we should not forget lebanon had 16 or 17 years of civil war and a big distraction, the awful prospect that will take that long to play

itself out, were already seeing transfers of population in some of this has been driven out of sheer. it's very, very hard to see what will happen, one prospect might be if it's in a major regional player. she's conducting to try to look up political solutions for iraq, i don't see that happening tonight is to the united states and iran talking anytime soon, that seems a great problem. >> when do you start again at saint anthony's and ochsner? >> i start the beginning of july so i'll spend the summer moving. >> what is the average age of students to come to the 250 person. it would be 21 - 22, 23 and our oldest usually has people when it comes in and just think and

write. there will be history and i think it's often misused. >> by? >> national leaders who try to agree history where people have always been right and everyone else is been wrong and they have the right to the land and nobody else has it, to create history of potential enemies which i don't think china necessarily exist in states people who use history and say we must do this now because look what happened in the past when someone did not do something similar. that is my next project, one day i'll do something on the altar. >> you say the little book, this book which is a must for hundred pages long, the other book i've not looked at the numbers but it's about 550 pages, what is a little book. >> is under 100 pages and i'm really going to stick to it this

time, i always write too much. >> our guest has been margaret, canadian taught at the university of toronto for how many years? >> about ten years. >> on her way to oxford again, the great granddaughter of the prime minister of great britain and the author of nixon in the bookstores now. thank you ♪ ♪ >> for a copy on dhs tape call 1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or comments about the program visit us at q&a.org. q&a programs are also available on c-span podcast. ♪

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