destruction of soviet nuclear and chemical weapons. next, a panel discussion featuring former senator sam nunn and richard lugar marking the 25th anniversary of the initiative. in historic kennedy caucus room on capitol hill. the program and awards ceremony was co-hosted by the national security archive, the carnegie corporation, the carnegie endowment, and the nuclear threat initiative. it's an hour and 15 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, just a few words of welcome today. i'm tom blanton. i'm director of the national security archive at george washington university and honored to be one of the organizers of today. this is the day, 25 years ago, that president george h.w. bush signed the nunn-lugar legislation into law.

now, being document fetishists, we scanned the bush library for the photographs of that extraordinary moment, and none exist. there was not even a signing ceremony, which gives you a sense of the kind of mixed opinion inside the bush administration about this congressional initiative in foreign policy. but the judgment of history is in. the "wall street journal" called the nunn-lugar legislation one of the most prescient pieces of legislation ever enacted. and today on the national security archive website you can see the declassified documents showing the real danger of that time, the first ever declassified list of the 3,429 soviet strategic nuclear

warheads that were outside the boundaries of russia at the end of the soviet union. rounding them up, securing nuclear weapons, cleaning up the legacies of the cold war arms race. that was, and it still is, a heroic task carried out by russians, americans, kazakhs, and many others. and many of those heroes are here today with us. not least richard lugar and sam nunn. you have their biographies and many others in your program. others couldn't be with us today but send their greetings, such as general evgeni perovic perovich maslin, a real hero of the nuclear withdrawal, who's in the hospital this month recovering from surgery. but also greetings from friends and colleagues like rose gatemuller and ash carter. there are many heroes. our tommy franks also to senator john cornyn, the majority leader

of the united states senate, who secured this historic room for us. he's a champion of the freedom of information act and one of our close allies in opening the u.s. government. i wanted to thank him for the staff of the national security staff, not least our extraordinary project director svetlana savranska and all the others who've made this work, bringing this usable history to the president. we also really appreciate the nuclear threat initiative founded by sam nunn. its first president charles kurt sis here with us. joan rolfing is hereby today. fantastic organization. my thanks to the luring center which continues richard lugar's terrific leadership.carnegie endowment for peace. george berkowitz is with us today. but most of all i need to say a thank you to the carnegie corporation of new york. carnegie's visionary funding back in the 1980s created, built

the research on preventing nuclear war and on methods of cooperative security that gave rise to the nunn-lugar idea. the carnegie corporation was present at the very first meetings when the legislation took shape. and carnegie is with us today, not just david heimberg, the incredible president at that time, and vartan gregorian, they're with us today supporting this effort to understand what we did right and what we did wrong and bring that history to now so we can really build mutual security in today's dangerous world. so it's a particular honor for me today to introduce dr. vartan grigorian to bring the nunn-lugar award to light. vartan. [ applause ]

>> thank you very much. join me, george. i have the easiest job. i have to introduce two people who need no introduction. how about that? dick lugar and sam nunn. i'm not going to introduce the other two who need no introduction. bill perry is here. our o'other nominee is not here but we'll present him. i feel at home here. all these organizations, nuclear threat initiative, archives, carnegie endowment, all of them are grantees of carnegie corporation. but most importantly of all, usually successors don't give credit to their predecessor. i want to give due credit to the only one who started this. maybe david hamburg. without him this would not have happened. so thank you, david, for being

here. [ applause ] last but not least, andrew carnegie was against war. as a capitalist he thought war was not necessary. there's plenty of competition available, opportunity available for everyone. so he said -- he labeled war the foulest blot that has ever disgraced the earth. his ambition was to eradicate war and force all conflicts into arbitration. therefore, he found carnegie corporation of new york, carnegie endowment for international peace, carnegie council for ethics international affairs. so it's my delight and pleasure to introduce a distinguished social scientist who's done so much on nuclear non-proliferation, george perkovich, vice president of carnegie endowment for international peace, who will say a few words for other distinguished leaders today

who's pursuing this with great effort. george perkovich. >> thank you, vartan. [ applause ] i've learned it's a fool's errand to try to follow vartan. so i will be very, very brief and just adding the ak nolts he made to dr. hamburg and others. and many of the others in the room. bill burns can't be here today but he sends his regards in respect to all, especially the honorees. i would just say i remember when the legislation was passed i was working in the senate, in fact in this building for senator biden, and as i was thinking about it coming over, in particular senators nunn and lugar and i was thinking what exemplars you were then and you

remain as are dr. perry and general maslin of the integrity and commitment to ascertain facts, to understand deep zealoted challenges in a bipartisan way and in an internationally cooperative way. and that program and your leadership truly were then exemplary. and i think all of us now are hoping that something like that could be rekindled as we go forward even as we're worried that perhaps it may not be the case. so i again am so grateful for you all to be here and to vartan for making this happen. >> yeah, carnegie corporation of new york and carnegie endowment, they established this honor, which comes with $50,000 award to two individuals. in the past founding offer was made to none other than dick lugar and sam nunn.

later dez brown and who was the other one? i forget now. general -- foreign minister ivanov. and today two other extra important individuals. but i just want to also tell you, we were given four minutes for two of us and we've spoken only three minutes. we've saved one minute for the panel. and i'm going to introduce steve del roseau who's here from carnegie corporation who's handling our projects. and dion arsenian who's work on universities could not be here. i'd like to give a hand also to steve del roso who's doing the real work here. [ applause ] with that thank you very much.

>> senator nunn, i believe you have a citation perhaps to read, and then we will have senator lugar read his citation, and then we will turn the panel discussion. i think the remarks by both awardees, and then david hoffman will take control of the proceedings. >> well, thank you, tom blanton, you and your team have done a tremendous job of looking at the history of the nunn-lugar program. and i'm sure that when we get to final edition dick lugar and i are going to be surprised with a lot of things that are there. and you've done it all legally without any leaks. these days that's pretty darn significant. so i'm delighted to be here. and it's also a wonderful privilege to be able to say thank you to so many people in this audience that played such a big role in this whole history of the nunn-lugar program.

so it's a great honor to be with carnegie. vartan, you and the whole team have done a tremendous job. not only did you have the analytical studies done that enable dick lugar and me to convince the united states senate to pass this in december of 1991, but i also, when i first came up with the idea we had to do something, i was at a conference in budapest, hungary. and my friend andrei kokoshin left when gorbachev was taken captive. and he went straight back. it was the first day of the conference. straight back to the soviet union. and he called me right after gorbachev was released and asked me to come. and i spent five or six days, fascinating days and sergei rogov was one of my escorts and interpreter when i was there, and that was when it became apparent to me that we had to take action.

so carnegie played a huge role all the way and vartan, for you to bestow this award on dick lugar and me to begin with and to award it to dez brown and igor ivanov and now we have two honorees today is indeed i think a tremendous thing for carnegie to do. i've often said the only down side of all this in partnering with dick lugar is that like his wife, shar, when i partnered with him i had to give up my last name in many parts of the world. that's the only down side of being a partner with dick lugar. it's my great honor today to be able to present an award, this award to general maslin, but i'm going to be making it directly to general yessen, and it's appropriate he receive this award, as tom said, general maz lynn has had surgery and he could not be here but general yessen himself has played a huge and constructive role in

u.s.-russian relations and the management of the nuclear arsenal. he headed the russian strategic rocket forces and also provided strong leadership. and will be accepting the award on behalf of general maslin. general maslin served in the soviet and russian ministries of defense for over 40 years. he was the commander of the 12th main directorate, russian general staff from 1992 to 1997, acting as the authority responsible for all aspects of nuclear munitions security. in 1993, when president boris yeltsin ordered military forces into the parliamentary building, russia and the former soviet republics were in a volatile state of upheaval. ever vigilant, general maslin conducted aggressive testing of the nuclear emergency response

program throughout russia, ensuring that any terrorist aggression would be countered by exhaustive safeguards and ironclad preparation. general maslin's absolute accountability for the testing, rail transport, storage, protection, dismantlement, and repatriation of every single nuclear warhead for the duration of its service life cannot be overstated. his comprehensive expertise was instrumental in successfully transferring thousands of nuclear warheads by rail to russia from belarus, from kazakhstan, and from ukraine. general maslin provided compelling support for the nunn-lugar disarmament mission in the 1990s. although he stepped down from his official post in 1997, his commitment to nuclear non-proliferation has been unwavering. as one of the world's leading authorities on nuclear security verification and weapons

reduction, his contribution to the cause is immeasurable, even continuing today. he is an executive board member of the center for policy studies in russia, a director of the aspect conversion group of companies, an adviser to the center for energy and security studies. general maslin has offered several publications on nuclear non-pro liveration, security, as well as the -- most recently adding his book security arsenals in the russian federation to his acclaimed roster. his accomplishments have been acknowledged with multiple governmental honors including laureate of the russian state, the order of the red star, and order for service to the fatherland. today we give tribute to this distinguished leader and guiding force behind russia's international nuclear

non-proliferation efforts. we honor his expertise. we honor his service. we honor his wisdom. we honor his conscience. and we honor his integrity. and we are eternally indebted to his remarkable ability to perform literally with grace under fire. it's a great privilege and honor to present the third annual nunn-lugar award for promoting nuclear security to colonel general maslin. [ applause ] >> accidents happen. that's why we have to be so careful with the nuclear arsenal.

>> [ speaking foreign language ]. [ speaking foreign language ]

>> this year is also the the 20th anniversary since the last nuclear warheads were withdrawn from ukraine and belarus that stayed there after the dissolution of the soviet union, which cleared the way for these two states as well as kazakhstan from which nuclear weapons were withdrawn earlier to join the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons as non-nuclear states. the technical means of security weapons and materials provided

with the help of the nunn-lugar program played an important role in this task. it won't be an exaggeration if i say that in terms of its importance to piece and security the collective work within the framework of the nunn-lugar programs, especially in the early years, is comparable to the military and economic cooperation between moscow and washington during world war ii. let me express my gratitude and appreciation for the award. i'd like to note that i see this award as the praise for the work of all russian military officers, workers and servicemen who mated directly in the project of destruction of nuclear warheads. . intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines and chemical weapons. sure, russia could have carried these tests out on its own.

just like the soviet union did create and test the atomic bomb in 1949, just four years after world war ii. but it would have taken immeasurably more time. it would have increased the danger of environmental catastrophes and would demand colossal financial expenses. that's why thanks to the joint effort we were able to complete the task with maximum safety and in a very short time frame. in the new year p new opportunities will open up for reviving relations between the two countries. in my view one of the priority tasks in this context would be the kraefgs a joint mechanism to prevent accidents in the nuclear sphere in the air and on the high seas. alet me express the hope that

these opportunities will be used effectively. in human history russia and the united states never have been at war with each other. [ speaking foreign language ] [ applause ] >> it is now my privilege to give an award to a great man. let me just say as has been said often today, we owe a great deal to the carnegie corporation for wonderful ideas. we owe a lot to those who carry forward those ideas. i appreciate especially my partner sam nunn who is conducting hearings, looking for partners that might be helpful.

i appreciate especially even five years before that president ronald reagan asking 16 members of the senate to go to geneva, switzerland. there were eight republicans, eight democrats. president reagan knew that not only was bipartisanship important but you needed 2/3 majority to pass a treaty. it turned out that 1986 was not the time for an arms control treaty that we anticipated and time went by until this year of 1991 that we celebrate today. but the facts are that have been suggested on this -- pardon me. on this day of december 12th of 1991, exactly 25 years ago, there may not have been enormous enthusiasm in the white house in signing the legislation.

as a matter of fact, sam and i found out fairly rapidly that there were some who felt that we had overstepped our bounds altogether. that the president of the united states was the person that deals with the grave situations of this sort or the secretary of defense, secretary of state. to have two senators putting together a coalition of senators and passing legislation of this variety it seemed a little upsetting. it is reassuring to me today with bill perry and to see david hamburg here, andy webber. ash carter was on the trip. we took a plane trip back to russia, ukraine, and belarus in april of next year. and we all got religion

together. we saw the problems that were faced by the former soviet union and now by the states that two weeks after the signature of the nunn-lugar bill had divided into 15 countries and four very large nuclear powers. action didn't occur right away. some would point out that the first 800 million or so that was appropriated by the first two congresses that dealt with this resulted in only about $50 million of expenditures. this was not easy to get under way. this is why it is so important today we recognize those who really helped it get under way, who knew the nitty-gritty of the proble problems, who were with us on our trips to russia, to ukraine, to belarus, to kazakhstan and

other countries. and so it's a real privilege to be here today with all of you, with so many who played such an important role in russia and the united states in the reduction program and all that followed. specifically, it's my privilege to recognize bill perry. i would start by saying william j. perry's extraordinary career ban in 1947 when he joined the army corps of engineers at the age of 18. then he moved on to the army occupation in japan and his efforts in the reserve officer training corps earned him the rank of second lieutenant. after his time in the army secretary perry became one of the original silicon valley pioneers. further broadening his knowledge of technology.

trained as a mathematician, his eventual specialization in digital and satellite reconnaissance systems caught the attention of u.s. government officials who sought his counsel and most importantly during the cuban missile crisis. in subsequent years he applied his high-tech expertise to ambitious business and entrepreneurial initiatives. by 1977 as undersecretary of defense for research and engineering secretary perry brought the united states military into the stealth area, not only equipped with smart weapons and gps, american forces were preparing to stand tall in the face of adversaries. in 1994 secretary perry became the 19th secretary of defense

and the first enlisted man to serve in that role wp with a range of expertise drawing from his experience as a soldier and his time in the highest ranks of the pentagon, he was instrument al in the dismantlement of 8,000 nuclear warheads, 4,000 in the united states and 4,000 in russia. throughout his career secretary perry has devoted himself to protecting our nation's interests. his book "my journey at the nuclear brink" chronicles his endeavors with equal measures of eloquence and startling alarm. he also continues to generously share his wisdom with the next generation of nuclear non-proliferation advocates. this commitment to the cause is steadfast and unstoppable. secretary perry has received countless awards and decorations

from the heads of state around the world. ironically, it is his thorough understanding of war that makes him today's consummate peacekeeper. his visionary leadership has been highly beneficial in the objectives of the nunn-lugar mission. hence it is a real privilege to present the third annual nunn-lugar award for promoting nuclear security to secretary william j. perry. congratulations. [ applause ] >> thank you. i'd like to say how pleased i am to see so many long-time friends here today. i'm especially proud that dick

lugar, sam nunn, vartan, gregorian, and david hamburg, who are all in my opinion great, great americans. i also want to acknowledge the extraordinary actions of the team that implemented the nunn-lugar program. i see two of them here today. gloria duffy and susan cook. there maybe others here but i see those two at least. and i know the leader of the team ash carter is off on a victory tour around the world now as he ends his tour as the secretary of defense. i just want to make a few very brief comments about to me a very troublesome problems about the deterioration of releases between the united states and russia today. when the cold war ended we had a

brief shining moment. a brief shining moment was impossible to conceive that the united states and russia could become not only friends but possibly even allies. some of us believed that was going to be possible and worked to try to make it happen. we started in that direction. i remember the first time i invited the russian defense minister to a nato defense ministers meeting and just to make sure he got the point he was really welcome i invited him to a dinner with the defense ministers the night before. which is a warm, warm gathering. anything at that time seemed possible. later on, when we confront ed with the problem not of writing

the nunn-lugar legislation but of implementing it, i found i have to advise dick lugar and sam nunn when they were writing this legislation. i soon found out it was easier to advise than it is to implement. it was a tough program to implement. we had this extraordinary team to do it. but we could not have done it without very close cooperation from russia and from ukraine. and i still remember the last meeting when the last warhead had been dismantled the ukrainian defense minister, the russian defense minister and the american defense minister all posed for a picture with a three-way handshake. very hard to imagine that today. but that's where we were in 1996. i also recall vividly

negotiating with the russian defense minister the piegs of russian troops in a peacekeeping operation -- peace enforcement operation in bosnia. where america was sending a division of troops then russia wanted to send a brigade of troops in. france and germany and other countries sending troops but we were insisting there be a unified command unlike what we have in syria today. so after a long intense negotiation we ended up with the russian brigade working cooperatively with and under the direction of an american general who was commander of our first armored division. and that worked so well. that worked so well that after

the third month of working together they presented the russian general the most effective brigade in bosnia. as i said there was a brief shining moment when it actually seemed to be working. this isn't the time for me to go through my sad story, my litany of what happened after that. what caused it to go down so discouragingly. but the conclusion that i come to is that it can happen, it has happened, and if we can not find a way of resolving the disagreements that keep us apart today we still have several key issues which drive us together. one of them being our strong desire to prevent nuclear proliferation and the other is our strong desire to prevent nuclear terrorism. certainly a nuclear terror bomb

is as apt to go off in washington as it is in washington, d.c. and certainly our countries working together would be the most effective way of reducing the probability of that catastrophe ever happening. many people both in russia and the united states tell us it's impossible to work together because of other issues that are separating us. i had my training in mathematics. and mathematics, when you're trying to solve a very difficult equation, there's a technique known as the separation of variables. separation of variables. so somehow our diplomats in russia and the united states have to find a way of separating out the problems we can agree on from the problems not only we can agree on but it's very important we agree on and work together. the separation of variables i think can work in diplomacy as well as can work in mathematics.

thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, secretary perry. thank you, senators nunn and lugar. thank you, victor ivanovic. now we're going to try to have a panel discussion, revisit some of these issues and perhaps lift our spirits a little bit. but i would like to begin in the hopes that we learn some lessons from the past with a reminder that in 1991 and in 1992 senators nunn and lugar took a gamble with history. back then there were many skeptics who told journalists like me it would be best to let the soviet union drown in its own soreos. there were high-level officials

in the government who said the soviet union should be left to freefall. senators nunn and lugar did not agree. they helped russia and the other former soviet republics cope with an inheritance from hell. this was probably the most successful congressional initiative in foreign policy since the marshall plan. and today i would like to ask them to start off this panel given the difficulties of '91 and '92, including the political mood then. the american people were not interested in another program helping a long-time adversary far away. the american people had a cold war sensibility about our security. they didn't understand that what happened over there could affect us. i'd like to start by asking senator nunn and then senator lugar. how did you make it work?

and how do we get it to work again? sam. >> the answer is to begin with we didn't make it work. dick lugar and i formed a partnership after we -- les aspen and i had tried to put the -- what became the nunn lugar bill into the authorization, senate authorization bill. i was chairman of the senate armed services committee. les aspen was chairman of the house armed services committee. we'd already passed both bills. we went out on the august recess. that's when i was in budapest, hungary. when i went to the soviet union, which was collapsing at that stage. and when i came back, we took the essence of nunn-lugar and put it in the authorization conference roar. now, that happened to be out of scope, so to speak, because it had not passed either the senate or the house. we knew that but we thought we could persuade our colleagues that this was urgent.

we could not explain that to them because as you said, david, they were still in the framework that the soviet union is the enemy, let them fall, why should we help them, why should we use american tax money. so we saw so much opposition that we had to put pull off the authorization bill from the floor to the senate and take it back to conference, take that provision out of it and go with the authorization bill without it. so we came back in december and passed it in the appropriation bill as an amendment, persuading senator robert byrd, lugar and i both did, that it was urgent and he'd cut it from 500 million to 400 million but we were grateful to get that. it was an authorization. it was not an absolute manned yailt. but the reason we wrabl to get it passed was two very important factors. one i mentioned the carnegie work that had been done by ash carter, bill perry and others. it was analytical. and most important, i recruited dick lugar, who joined in.

he brought republicans to the table, the round table in my office. we met over and over again. ash was there for many of those meetings. we persuaded people twos and threes and fours and we went from september to december, we were able to persuade a vast majority of the senate that it was in their interests. it was in our interest and in the soviets' interest and the russians' interest. and so that was the way it happened. we really turned around the sentiment in a 2 1/2-month period. but that was back in an era where people let facts lead to conclusions. i'm not sure that that is always existent in washington today. but that's the history of it. and of course dick and i worked very, very hard on it not only at that stage but the other thing that we did, we spent several years yaefr sight, giving oversight to the implementation and to the folks in this room that were in the executive branch, having been in the legislative branch i

understand it's much easier to pass legislation than it is to implement it. and it would not have been a successful program without an awful lot of folks in this room and other places that really made it work. and a lot of those people were in russia. and a number of those people were in kazakhstan. a number of those people were in ukraine. a number were in belarus. and all of them -- i'd like to see at some point maybe tom blanton and the archives are going to do that, sort of an honor roll of the people who were out there in the field that implemented it. but that's the way it came about. i remember in february or march after we passed the legislation bill perry, david hamburg and i and ash carter and dick lugar went and traveled to each of ose countries and talked to the leaders there about what was coming, what they could expect and why it was important to their own countries to fully cooperate. so it was -- the implementation as well as the legislation itself.

and it wasn't easy but it had to be done on a bipartisan basis and it was -- and the analysis that was furnished was absolutely key. >> senator lugar, share with us, when you joined sam at that famous luncheon and decided to back this, what made it so urgent? what did you see? >> well, i was a student of the subject and i had observed sam's work and admired that. adi mentioned, we had been together five years before in geneva. i got to know sam pretty well at that time. and we went right over to the russian consulate and we got to meet some russians. i can't cite all the russians we talked to in the next five years, but there were quite a number because frequently we went abroad and we went to russia on some occasions and we became acquainted with the situation in russia, at least that things seemed to be

deteriorating and difficulties were coming, so that it was not a total surprise when 1991 came along the trail. i stressed as sam did that the importance of what occurred then was in part political. quite apart from technical. the dilemma that we faced and that sam has described is that there were a great number of senators, many in my party, who said not a dime for the russians, not a dime. that's ridiculous, to be in fact even considering such a thing. this was a very strongly felt sentiment by many of their constituents. that sentiment didn't go away altogether. after nunn-lugar passed and the struggles in the first couple years to get things going. we had an appropriation bill to face every year. every year. to come up with the 500 million

or thereabouts that would be required. and even as i've stated earlier, the first two years when we got 500 million more or less, only about 50 million was spent. the implementation was very, very difficult. i mention this because this went on for 20 years. it was not a one-year situation. and for all the warheads to be taken down and the destruction that occurred and safety measures and so forth, endless numbers of new ideas and endless numbers it seemed of new senators. new members of the house that came aboard that really hadn't been there from the beginning. and yet each one had a vote. each one really had to be dealt with. so the politics of nunn-lugar here in the united states were very, very important in the success ultimately of all of

th this. but i would say finally that it was also important that we had opportunities to travel, to visit russia and ukraine and belarus and kazakhstan and to get to know a lot of people in those countries throughout the years. in addition to countries in europe and asia who were affected by all of this, we came across a time in the senate and some of you are aware of this that had been working with us. in which some senators, members of the house, said i'm not even going to get a pafrpt, i osspor my time to my constituents back home, and the states and the districts. it became almost a matter of pride that you were not involved abroad. and we continue to face some of that even presently.

i mention that because as we reach out today in our understanding, as we talk about russia-united states relations or any other we're going to have to find at least members who are going to share that enthusiasm and then that vision and we hope we'll be backed by scholars in the room and elsewhere who have really good ideas. they can be implanted in the minds of those who are negotiating. let me tell just one story. and that is that after the election of 1992 in which president bush who had signed the bill in december of '91 and two weeks later the soviet union came apart. bush lost that election to bill

clinton. sam and i went over to russia after that election. we saw the russian leadership. and the russian leadership said in no uncertain terms what they were prepared to do to ukraine if it would not give up its nuclear weapons. and i'll try to repeat the translation of the profanity that came in that particular conversation. sam and i did go to see president kravchuk. kravchuk had been in washington about three weeks ago, and i had an opportunity to review this. so i think my facts are right. we went to a dinner in kiev when we were out there. we were at a table with kravchuk. the united states is prepared to spend $100 million to help you get rid of your nuclear weapons, which i know you want to do. i knew also members of the legislature in ukraine did not want to give up. they said we're the third

largest nuclear power in the world, my goodness. but kravchuk understood the separation that's had occurred with russia, the dangers of having that around. he was so excited by that thought that he grabbed sam and me, took us outside to the hallway where he knew there was a press corps which amounted a press corps which amounted that day to two reporters. captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008 captioning performed by vitac

be sure to watch c-span's live "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. saturday morning. join the discussion. next, a look at the u.s. soviet cold war summit meetings

and then a u.s. information film on communist propaganda. after that, the use of u.s. jazz musicians to foster diplomacy in africa. next, a panel of historians talk about the cold war supplements between the united states and ussr from 1985 to 1981, using classified docume documents, they explore american and soviet perspectives on arms limitations and diplomacy. they also debate when the cold war actually ended. the woodrow wilson center hosted this event. it's an hour and a half. >> i'm very glad to have the opportunity to introduce our two distinguished historians. skaya is director of russian programs and tom is the executive director at the national sit