for president and lost, but changed political history. this sunday, the great compromiser henry clay. >> his famous comment, i would rather be right than be president, i think still speaks to us. it's a clarion call to people all across whatever we're doing. whether we're in politics or something else is to do the right thing. he also said that in a sense that politicians need to remember the country and sacrifice for the country. i think that is still something that we need to remember as well. >> also this weekend, we'll feature the history of wichita. as part of our visit to the largest city in kansas. american history tv this weekend on c-span3. each week at this time american history tv features an hour long conversation from c-span's sunday night interview series q and a. here's this week's encore q and a on american history tv.

this week on q and a, our guest is the author of second chance, three presidents and the crisis of american superpower. >> author of the grand failure, the birth of death and communism in the 20th century. why this new book? >> why not? i write books. it seems to me in this particular one i'm dealing with a truly momentus historical development. something that has happened before our very eyes and yet has been touching us all, for all these decades ideology that was so dominant in the course of the century, literarily before our very eyes is disintegrating as a

system and dyings a a doctrine. that's a very important development. >> that was 18 years ago almost to the day. that was our first book notes program that lasted 16 years. and when you see yourself, do you remember the mood and what's happened in the last 18 years? >> i remember the mood. and in fact, my book most recent book refers to that in a sense because the whole purpose of the book is to relate the present to what happened then and what happened then was a tremendous opportunity for the world, but especially for the united states. and my book alas, argues that we haven't really exploited that opportunity very well. >> what is that opportunity? >> in fact, we haven't led very well. the opportunity is to really shape the world more congenial

to our values, more in keeping to our interests, more responsive to fundamental human aspirations. >> let's go over your own personal background for a moment so people that see you all the time and don't know where you came from, born in poland. made your way eventually to canada. how did that happen? >> not entirely on my own. i was a kid. a small kid. my father was a diplomat. and we came to america. i've been thinking about that lately because we came by boat in those days and we arrived first in new york. my family were diplomats it was a nice, comfortable trip. the first thing i saw then was the statue of liberty. i remember being told that this is the symbol of america. and i cannot help but think off in these days that to so many people around the world the symbol of america today is

guantanamo. >> what does that mean to you? >> what has happened in the course of 15 years since my previous appearance on this show namely that we have adopted a position in world affairs which isolates us, alienates much of humanity from us and i think it's dangerous to our interest and values. >> how long did you live in poland? >> a total of three years. >> how long did you live in canada? >> i lived in canada for a total of 12 years. >> something i remember reading somewhere that something happened in canada that had you gotten what you wanted you might not have ever made your way to the united states had to do with education. >> that's true. i was qualified, i don't remember precisely the details and i don't to misstate them. but basically i qualified for some fellowship. i graduated from mcgill. and i qualified for some fellowship that should have sent me to oxford for graduate

studies. and then since i wasn't canadian born or yet a canadian citizen, i forget which, i think canadian born, i did not get the fellowship. but my grades were good enough that with some help from some friends of my father, i was able to go to harvard with enough money to pay for the first two months. and that's all. and i was admitted to harvard. soy went to harvard and got my ph.d. fortunately things worked out for me extremely well at harvard. after the first two months i had no problem whatsoever. >> you pointed out again, i think it was in our first interview that you and henry kissen are the only people who have been national security advisors who had a political science degree. has that changed in those 18 years. >> that's a good point. i don't know. i haven't really looked at it from that standpoint.

brent skull craft of course taught at west point he must have an advanced degree. i'm not quite sure what it is in. it may have been in international affairs or political science as well. so he certainly in one fashion or another would be in that category. of course, kondy rice, condoleeza rice had a ph.d in politics. at least since us there were some others. >> what's the importance of having a political science ph.d and being in that kind of a position? >> not very much to be perfectly frank. not very much. my sense has been for quite some time and certainly it was already the case before i became national security advisor that too much of american political science overstresses the word science and not enough the word politics. politics is an elusive process of exercising influence, acquiring power. causing events to happen.

science is a kind of more abstract and rigid notion of how to analyze reality and how to cope with it. and i think that part of political science doesn't really prepare you for the kind of a job that the national security advisor has to undertake. >> you taught at harvard for how long? >> i got my ph.d in '53 and i taught until 1960. >> taught at columbia for how long? >> well, i taught at columbia that becomes much more difficult to analyze. i accepted a professorship at columbia in 1960. and i taught until 1966 and then took two years off to be in the state department. then came back to columbia. then took a year or so off in the easterly '70s to be in japan. then in 1967, early 1967 i took

a leave of absence to take a government job. then i came back to columbia in '81. and then i think i resigned from columbia maybe four years later because i didn't want to commute so much from washington to new york city and i liked staying in washington. >> you're at johns hopkins still? >> i'm connected with johns hopkins. i taught at johns hopkins i still have the title of professor, but my primary base is the center for strategic and international studies. >> you just had your 79th birthday. >> so they say. >> you're still as active as you've always been? >> well, my tennis is as good as always. >> you married when and who did you marry? >> i married in 1955 a graduate of wellesley college. emily anne bennish. she's of czech origin. we met at a harvard wellesley

mixer or jolly up, i forget how they were called quite by accident. one thing led to another. i do know this that the week after we met she told her brother that she was going to marry me. i did not learn that reality until a year later. >> what year did you marry? >> '55. >> how many children? >> three. >> where are they? >> they are here and in new york. my oldest son is a republican. and he's served in the senate. spent some time in ukraine. he volunteered for the military at one point. became a reserve officer. he was a deputy assistant secretary of defense under rumsfeld and then he resigned. my second son is a democrat. very active politically. currently engaged in the presidential campaign. he served on the clinton national security council staff. he also obtained a ph.d at

oxford. my other son got an m.a. from the kennedy school at harvard. the first one went to williams, the second one went to dartmouth. my daughter is a television reporter, anchor. she was doing that for cbs for a while and then after the upheaval there she left and she's now connected with msnbc or nbc. >> that's mika prison inski. >> that's right. increasingly people identify me as being the father of. >> now back in 1989 when we -- i haven't seen you or interviewed you since then. in '89 here's what you said a little bit about the media. >> what kind of a job do you think the mass media does in this town as it relates to foreign policy? >> mixed. mixed. i can't say frankly that it's topnotch. i don't think it's terrible.

i think there are elements of both. there are some people, i don't want to mention names, obviously, who write very perceptive thoughtful analysis or focus their stories on significant truths. but there's always enormous number of people in mass media who are first of all devoid of any ideas of their own who just follow the pack. who are essentially digging for sensations and who because of the experience of the '70s more often than not automatically assume that anyone who's in the government is either a crook or an enemy who has to be exposed and attacked. and we're not prepared to believe that most people in the government are generally dedicated patriotic people who in many cases are honestly making a major sacrifice doing what they're doing. >> any changes? >> not really. not really. i think perhaps i will be less

critical. but basically it's a mixed picture. there are some topnotch reporters and commentators and world affairs in this city. and they're as good as any and in some respects i wish some of them would serve in the government occasionally. i think they would infuse a sense of reality into the thinking within the government. but by and large i don't think the problem is that the mass media as a whole don't educate the public about world affairs. television is replacing newspapers as a source of information. the television news so-called gives you practically nothing about the world. gives you a lot of trivia about the world. and as a consequence the public of what is now the only superpower in the world of whose policies i'm very critical, the public of this super power is not very well informed about the

world. i have some data in my book on how few americans know even the fundamentals of geography. that people about to go to college couldn't identify in significant numbers were great britain was or afghanistan. close to 30% couldn't locate the pacific ocean on the map. and don't ask anyone about the history of other major nations. that to my mind is becoming a more serious problem because the special role of america requires america to act in a way that affects the rest of the world to an unprecedented degree. we shape our policy on the basis of public attitudes. if these attitudes are ignorant it becomes all the more difficult to fashion a policy that is responsive to what i call the historical moment. >> correct me if i'm wrong on this, you were involved with the john f. kennedy campaign. you were involved with lyndon johnson's campaign. you served jimmy carter as his

national security advisor and then you served george herbert walk herb burr. >> i also directed the foreign policy task force for hue better humphrey. i supported bush one against dudu dukaki dukakis. i sensed that the issue with the soviet union was getting deep. i endorsed bush incidentally when he was 17 points behind, i emphasize that because it was not a political opportunistic step. but i felt that dukakis would not be able to handle the new complex realities and that bush would. and i think i was right. he handled the disintegration of the soviet union extremely well. even though on some other issues in my judgment and i argue that in my most recent book he didn't quite seize the moment. he didn't quite seize the opportunity. >> go back to your family. you have a son that's a

democrat, one that's a republican and a daughter that's a journalist. how did that happen, do you think? >> well, i think it has a lot to do with the fact that we are an engaged family that is interested in issues, talks about the issues. we traveled a lot with our kids. we went abroad a lot. we're engaged in a lot of discussions. and i hope that my wife, and maybe i too, help to stimulate their interests but also help to stimulate them into making their own judgments. and we always try to respect their judgments. and i'm very proud of my kids. i enjoy talking to them. one thing we try to do is to discourage overly intensified political debates because they can escalate and create tension. but short of that, we can have wonderful discussions about different subjects. and i think that the kids

formulated their own ideas, took their own paths and we're very proud of them. >> what kind of labels would you put on yourself at this point in your life? >> i'm engaged. >> are you a democrat? >> i am a democrat fundamentally. that is to say, when it comes to a domestic choice i'm automatically a democrat. when it comes to choosing presidents i lean towards democrats, but i make my judgment on the basis of the person. and i don't feel myself wedded to the idea that i have to support a democratic candidate for president if i don't agree with his policies. so for example, if, you know, there was someone on the democratic ticket that's in 2008 who was saying we ought to stay the course in iraq. thank god there isn't such a candidate. but there was one, there could be some political figure in the democratic party who might take

that point of view, but that person's not likely to be the nominee. and if the republican candidate, for example, was chuck hagel i would have no hesitation in supporting chuck hagel. >> so on iraq your strongest feelings. >> i think the iraq adventure is a profound misadventure. who was hoisted on this country by demagoguey from the top down. it involved basic misjudgment of what was needed and how to go about pursuing what was needed. and the consequences are visible to all. our credibility worldwide has been shot. our legitimacy has been undermined. and last but not least, global respect for our power has been much reduced. >> i want to go back to the videotape from 1989 and what you had to say about mr. gorbachev

and the soviet union. >> i don't have to dif resht between mr. gorbachev the human being and the fate of the policy he's promoting. he certainly is a very intelligent person. he makes a very good impression. that's why he's so attractive he stands in such contrast to those who proceeded him. his policies which are based on two russian words which have come to be well known. are designed to promote a reform of a system that he recognizes has become stagnant and uncreative. my own judgment regarding his policies which i try to express in the book is that first of all there has been much more --

meaning they talk much more and they ventilate issues much more openly than they ever have, but reforming the system has proven to be very difficult. my own expectation is he will not succeed in creating a spontaneously self-energizing, increasingly pluralistic or generally open soviet union. that there are too many contradictions, legacies of the past within the soviet system to make that kind of success possible. his major historical significance will be that he will have dismantled stalinism, probably not dismantled leninism which means this one party rule legacy kind of a dc troinal orthodoxy. and that he will have initiated a protracted systemic crisis in the soviet union. which will last for many years

as all of these internal contradictions and legacies of the past work themselves out. >> that was april 2, 1989, how'd you do? >> i think i did pretty well until the last sentence where i talked about crisis running over several years. it moved much more rapidly. and the disintegration of the soviet union occurred faster that be i was predicting. >> if your own book on page 49 international chronology january 1989 to december 1991 it starts off with february '89 soviet troops withdrawn from afghanistan. september of '89 v 89 solidarity forms the first non-communist government within the soviet block. june 4th, tin men square protests. november 9th, 1989, the berlin wall comes down. big year. >> very big year. >> what's the result of all the happened in that one year today? >> a lot of things still speak,

the berlin wall doesn't stand. but subs kwebtly reunioned europe and the soviets left afghanistan and defeated the soviets in began tan per sip tated this accelerated disintegration of the soviet conviction, self-confidence and the system. tin men square, the suppression of the students did not resolve the long-term problem. china still has to resolve this kind of divergent trajectory of the economic development which is plurallistic, increasingly capitalistic and political change which is much slower. much more reliant still on the authority of the single dominant party. and the legacy of the square is still to be confronted by the chinese leaders. >> go back to 1977 to 981 when you were national security advisor.

what was the best decision you made back then and what was the worse. >> if i say my decisions i have to qualify that immediately. they weren't my decision, they were the president's decisions. though i had some input into some of them. more in some cases and less in other cases. i think the right thing that were done were of course the decision to resolve the panama canal problem. we would have had guerrilla warfare on panama canal even though the republicans opposed it. i think we were right in moving firmly on the middle eastern peace process. and we accomplished at least one major breakthrough. we broke the solid phalanx of the arab states surrounding israel by facilitating the first peace treaty between israel and egypt. that was a major accomplishment of the president. and i was helping in that, but that was his decision, i repeat.

but we agreed that we have to apply the pressure. if the united states hadn't done it, it would have never happened. we were certainly important in normalizing relations with china. which created a new situation in which is chinese and we were able to cooperate. and that was an aggressive, ambitious soviet union. but we had a very major set back in iran. and that of course poisoned last year. i recently attended a conference on the carter center at the 30th anniversary of the presidency. someone there very aptly said that carter had three excellent years and one bad year. and i played a role in those three years, i also played a role in the bad year. >> what happened in that bad year? >> we got stuck with the iranian issue. and we were not able to resolve it. the iranians were manipulating

us very effectively while holding hostages. they were always holding on the to a little bit of a carrot. wurp not able to cut the cord. we finally undertook the rescue mission which we felt we ought to try because the summer was coming and we wouldn't have had the nightfall long enough to do it. we were worried that at some point it would put some of the hostages in trial and execute them. we felt we had to try it, but it didn't work. that rebounded very negatively on carter's political fortunes. >> at the time were you and cyrus vance on different sides of the issue? >> we were on different sides of the issue really only on -- well, not -- i was going to say one issue, two issues, basically. we were on different issues regarding the soviet union. i felt that we, that is to say

the president of the united states and the leader of the soviet union did not have the same goals and the same aspirations which is what the secretary of state believed was the case. and that there were we had to be tougher and more responsive to their sense of dynamism and self-confidence and secondly how to deal with the iranian issue. he was more patient and eventually freed the hostages. iflt that the protracted steal mate was doing us enormous damage and that at some point we ought to force the issue. but those were two different views and the ultimate decision maker was the president. >> did it ever get personal between you and vance? >> no. contrary to what was said publicly, never. we had a good relationship. we played tennis from time to time. and we had a congenial relationship. we had meetings several times a week. and when there was some

dissatisfaction with him at one point in the press but also in the white house, i went to the president and said that would be nice in the president went to the airport to greet him on a return from a mission that he was undertaking abroad. so we had disagreements. we had some real conflicts. some real sharp discussions, but no personal enemies. >> why did he resign? >> because he disagreed fundamentally with the decision to make the hostage rescue effort. he thought that was a mistake. and he felt strongly and he decided to resign. but i suspect though i cannot really affirm that with any categorical conviction that he also did have the feeling in the internal balance on a number of important issues like relations with the soviet union, like relations with china, like the military renewal, build up of our strategic capable the is that his views were receding in

influence and my views were becoming predominant. >> historian robert dalic has a book that's out very soon on henry kiss jer and richard knicksson in their relationship in. the book itself he's gone to the nicks. the tapes from the oval house. you can see the ferocious dislike that kiss jer had for william rogers the secretary of state. and the reason i bring this up you think back and i wrote four of them down, the difference between william rogers secretary of state and henry kiss jer the national security advisor, the differences between weinberger and george schultz, difference between colin powell and don rumsfeld just recently and then your differences with vance. does that work? is it better to have -- for president to have them think alike or be that different? >> first of all, i think it

really is useful for the president to have different opinions. we see a situation these days in which is inner decision maker circle around the president is very small, very tight. and it's very unanimous. that is part of the explanation for mistakes we have made in iraq. i think disagreement within bounds is useful. it becomes motivated to the point of personal and mos influences the positions people take that is counterproductive. i am not the one that can say that the conflict between me and vance did not have that personal in it. i think there may be some interview when you were interviewing president carter you can ask him because carters remember when i used to tell him. he certainly remembers how vance conducted himself. my guess is that carter will confirm what i'm saying.

namely i did not go to the president and gossip against vance. quite on the contrary, i preferred him to be secretary of state. i preferred him to remain secretary of state because it was easier for me. in the competitive relationship over policy i felt i could handle him. for us if someone else came in he is very assertive, dynamic, i might have had a much difficult time. but also i liked him. and i think the president would confirm that i never sniped against him. to my knowledge he never did against me either. he zell times raised some serious objections to the role i was playing and we had it out. sat around the table and slugged it out. and that was it. >> what about these other cases? you know all these men in history. where the different groups began to leak information out to try to embarrass the other side and the staffs do this often. >> well that happened in our