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television for serious readers. ♪ host: stuart eizenstat, when did you first meet jimmy carter? stuart: in an unusual way. i had worked for a year in the linden johnson white house and then for six months i was hubert humphrey's research director in the company against richard nix nixon. when he lost i went back to atlanta and made a beilein for

sanders, a very wealthy, prominent lawyer and i told him i'd like to work for him. high school friend of mine, henry bours said you need to meet this man named jimmy carter who's running for a second time for georgia. but i finally agreed and it was the opposite of the sanders interview, which was a beautiful law office, mahogany, coat and tie. this was in a bare-bones office. he came wearing khakis and work boots. we met on a metal polling table with metal chairs and my initial reaction was what am i doing here? it took me about five minutes to realize that he was the real thing. here was someone from southwest georgia, a farmer but who understood urban issues.

he favored mass transit for atlanta. he fared education reform. he was a moderate on civil right and i still felt called with my commitment to sanders. he called me a second time and said he really needs me. i said look, karl sanders is the odds of on favorite, i'm going to go with this underdog. i was his policy director and of but it was that initial interview that really did it for me and he also had a quite charisma. very handsome. almost the john kennedy look. big smile and then on the presidential side, peter, in 1974, he had asked me to do a project for him when he was governor. this was in the 1972 hex. off-year elections and that was, he had been appointed by robert

strauss, the head of the democratic national committee, to be chairman of a new congressional campaign committee and he took it. others have took it and made it honor risk. he didn't. he spent months campaigning for democratic candidates around the country but he also asked me to present 20 policy papers critiquing the knicksen administration and giving alternatives for democrats and i used people on the hill and others who became part of administration. when we finished i said governor, i'd like to they can to you lunch to celebrate. at that lunch, which was in underground atlanta as a restaurant called dante's under the half. i said i have a wild hair. you can't succeed yourself as governor under constitution. you're going to get some credit for what i think is going to be

a big democratic year in 1972. and i think you should run for president. if you get that couple of states like north carolina and florida, you could be a vice president on somebody's ticket and he gave me a big smile and he said i am running for president but i'm not going to be the vice president. i'm running for president. will you join by budding campaign? peter: what attracted you to hubert humphrey in 1968? stuart: hubert humphrey had his office right next to mine. i knew his staff. i got to know him. he was a brilliant speaker. had been a courageous civil right fighter going back to 1948 at the convention. in fact, caused the dixiecrat walkout. i had great empathy. he was warm, friendly.

charismatic in his own way. he did speak a lot and too long. his wife once said hubert, to be memorable, you don't have to be interminable. but i became his research director. i was there from the first day of the campaign when he announced at the fay flower hotel in washington to the hotel in indianapolis when the returns came in and we barely, barely lost. but he had the great disadvantage of a divided democratic party. kennedy was assassinated. there washe big anti-war nt and i was in chicago for that 196 convention with mayor daley and the police and the tear gas with the demonstrators and it ripped the party apart. after the convention he slowly began to build support up and here's a story that very few

people know. in october, he gave a speech in salt lake city in which he appeared to break from johnson on the war. he was the sitting vice president. he could only go so far but it was a different tone and so he started to elevate. the party started to come together. mccarthy left and endorsed him and then critically, l.b.j. had a bombing halt over north vietnam and sent herman to paris for peace talks and we got a peace balloon effect and lou harris, the pollster, called us the saturday before the tuesday election and said for the first time you're ahead of nixon 45-42. the undecides are breaking 2-1 for you and you're going to win overwhelming. we didn't. what happened? that was saturday. on sunday, the president of

south vietnam announcedest not going to go to paris for the peace talks and we now know why. that is that campaign manager, john mitchell sent madam which he matt, a sort of taiwan lobby to see her friend, the president, to tell him don't go to paris. it will elect hubert humphrey. he's going to pull all the american troops out. we're going to keep them in. you'll be toast otherwise and that's how history got made and l.b.j. knew about that and he gave a transcript that f.b.i. director hoover had a wiretap on nixon's campaign and gave it to hubert. hubert called in his aides and said what should i do with this? they said you have to leak it to the press because it's treasonous. he said i'm from minnesota, i

believe in clean politics, i'm not going to do it. peter: that story about not going to the peace talks, the nixon side has denied that. stuart: it's very well established. we actually have the transcript of the wiretap. peter: stu eizenstat, how'd you get from washington to atlanta in the first place? stuart: i think in high school i would have been voted to be the least likely to get into politics and public policy because i was maybefully shy and very bookish. first i got involved in student government and u.n.c. had a very well establishedtudent second, i went to keenan footballtadium in 1962 to hear president john f. kennedy challenge my generation to get involved in politics, to make

the country your mission. that had a tremendous impact and third, in the summer of 1963 i applied with an internal internship with u.n.c. to be placed in congress for that summer. that had a transformative effect on me. i got to see how government worked. and there were four others of us from u.n.c. and we met with everyone who was crazy enough to meet with kids from college. but we learn that had people were unbelievably open. we saw the majority leader. david brinkley, the former sect of state afterren son and i got to see how washington worked and i was excited and supercharged and then the summer of 1964 i worked in the political office of john granowski. he was the first bullish american in the cabinet, then a

postmaster general. it was the 64 presidential campaign against gold water so after that i went to harvard law school. bob calls me in 1967 and says stu, do you have a job? i said i'm applying for federal clerk ships. he said how would you like to work for me? i said i don't want to work in the white house. he said i'm not working in the white house. i'm working for my friend l.b.j. so things happen like that in your career. you make choices and take risks, meet people, you do your best in every job and people take notice of it. peter: this is a little indelicate perhaps but did growing up jewish in a so you were city affect your world for you? stuart: it. did and in an unusual way. the jewish community in atlanta when i was growing up in the 19

fifth and early 1960's was very cohesive by quite small. today it's like 174,000. there were only four synagogues. everyone inhe jewish community department their head down on civil right. they remembered the leo frank hanging and the holocaust was never discussed. i had two semimalthings that transformed my life. i went to a high school in which i was all-american but never would have had i not been in an seems to be frustrated league. i'm 1 years old, i get on a bulls to go home from atlanta, downtown and the only seat left is the last seat on the last row and i sit down and an elderly black lady comes laden with heavy shopping bags and every i

think sting i had was to give isaac herzog seat and i remember like it was yesterday. i said to myself, wait a minute, if i do this, i'm going to get arrested and she's going to get? arrested and i didn't do it. fast forward to 19 2. i'm a so much manufacture at u.n.c. our fraternity closed on sundays. we went to howard johns's between duke and durham. my fraternity fellow was from new york. he drives me there. we get out of the car and go to eat and black stu from north central are sitting in. can google this. that's when the sit-in started in greensboro and durham and i said nigh i'vely to my fraternity brother and i said why are they doing this? he said because they can't be served. it lifted like a veil.

i became active in the civil right at u.n.c. then when i served with prosecute carter we set aside minor funds for black contractors. these kind of formative event when you're young can sometimes bill over into your career and they did for me. peter: you spent four years as president carter, domestic policy divider. what kind of issues did you work only? stuart: i was 32 years old when i had that job. chief policy advisor to the president. i had made policy a passion. in college, at harvard law school, i read everything i could. i told my boys when they were older if you read "the new york times" or "washington post" or warren wall to wall, you'll --

"wall street journal," you'll know everything you need to know about. i was steeped in politics. and everybody says about jimmy carter he's the greatest former president we ever had after he left office. i wrote a book equaled president carter: the white house years in 2018 and then a revision in 2020 to show that he was also one of the most congressen consequential one-time presidents. first of all with the e's, he was a great education president. he created the department of education. we formed programs lie title i for low income college students. ethics, financial disclosures, lobbying restrictions. limits on gift, rainstorm of the c.i.a. all of these things emanated

from jimmy carter. the environment. he was a great environmental president. the clean air act amendments of 1977 was the most important was he doubled the size of the whole national park system with the alaska lands fill. we also de regulated all the airlines, all the rail transportation, buss, trucks, made them much more efficient and we not atized air travel. i get a thrill every time i go on a plane and i see how packed it was. the pre-de regulation days those seats were not filled because they were in competition for prices and the camp david accords, historic between asia and israel and still -- egypt and israel and still last to this day. one thing he's not credited with -- every knows his human rights campaign. is he actually reversed the post

vietnam decline in defense spending. all the major defense systems that president reagan get credit for started with jimmy carter. the cruise missile. the m.x. mobile mitchell. the nuclear weapons in europe, the stealth bomber. these all start with jimmy carter and he get no credit for it. that's why i wrote this book. i wanted to show -- yes, we made mistakes. iran was a terrible burden on us. inflation was a terrible burden but he did many, many good things. not just a grt ex--president. peter: i'm sure you saw on president carter's 100th birthday, phil gram, former senator from texas had an op-ed praising jimmy carter's de regulation policies. stuart: i did and i was thrilled that had senator gram -- gramm

did that. i nu him when i was in the administrations, both clinton and carter and i thought it was very important that a republican said say what i had said years before in my book and that is that he made the american economy more competitive. de regulation meant allowing private enterprise to compete on prices, on routes to air lines, de regulated banks, de regulat ed railroads so that companies using railroads had price competition and it lowered costs. it was tremendous and very unusual for a democrat. after all, you associate f.d.r. and democrats, the great society with regulation. he was, i think, peter, what i call the first new democrat. very similar to what bill clinton became and what barack obama came, which is fiscally responsible. when i was deputy secretary of

the treasury under clinton, we had last two balanced budgets in our history. fiscally responsible but socially progressive and liberal on things like environment and civil right and education and sort of liberal interventionism. trying to promote democracy and hyman rights. that's an odd combination. for carter at the time, he started this whole movement. again, he's not given credit for 1/2. peter: your new book is called "the art of diplomacy." how'd you switch from domestic policy advisor to foreign policy advisor? stuart: that's a very good question. as a volunteer and i got to know several of hiseyfficials like sandyberger who became his national skutteruditessor and i

they thought that i could do a job in europe as ambassador of the european union because that was heavily in a way domestic. there were issues, trailed issues that i had worked on in the carter campaign and it opened my eyes to a whole new world and from then on i've done almost nothing but foreign policy and one of the things about being ambassador, in this case to the european union but it's true for all ambassadors is that it's a thrill to represent your country. as much as i love the white house and i loved the white house jobs, it's a thrill to represent your country abroad. you are the embodiment of the quiet. what you say and do reflects on your country. you also see something that i think people don't recognize. first of all, you see your own country from 3,000 miles away truth eyes of foreigners and that's really interesting, gives you a more objective view but

second and really most important, you recognize how important american leadership is. yes, there's grumbling in the europe about the u.s. and being heavy handed sometimes. they look to the united states of america for leadership, for support, for military assistance, for defense and for the promotion of democratic values and i got such a been on how important u.s. engainment was in the world by being ambassador that i ended up becoming ambassador of trade, secretary of state and deputy secretary with the focus, again, on foreign issues. peter: the forward for your book was written by henry kissinger. the preaches by james baker, two republicans. stuart: yes, because i wanted to show that what's critical about diplomacy is that it be bipartisan. if we're going to be successful, we have to show a united front and one of the concerns i have

really in today's world is there's so much domestic polarization where your opponent is not just the honorable opposition. they're your enemy and when the foreign countries with whole american diplomats are negotiating see that kind of division at home, they are strengthened against us and we have less leverage so, for example, putin now in ukraine. he looks at the fact it took six months to get in panel of funding and he feels like he can just wait us out so this polarization is tremendously i think, a weight on the shoulders of di policemen city and to have a very good diplomatic posture, the u.s. needs to be strong militarily, economically but also politically. i wrote the book really for three reasons.

the first is, we're living in an era of seemingly insolvable problems and i wanted to show how over the last 50 years, american leadership, american diplomacy had faced similar difficult challenges and been successful so we can do it again. second, you and i have lived in anker rey of wars that were not always successful. vietnam, the two iraq wars, the war in bosnia and kosovo, the two vulcan -- balkan wars. afghanistan, the longest war in history, 20 years. libya, which president obama said was his biggest mistake and we have worst going on right now with gadsa and ukraine and the threat of war always hovering over taiwan. so i wanted to show in this book

when, whether and how military force can be used as a positive force for diplomacy and when it shouldn't and then third, i'm very concerned that we're beginning an era of isolationism in which we're retreating behind our two oceans as we did between world war i and world war ii and i wanted to show how u.s. involvement in the world was so important and if we don't engage, we leave an enormous rook call in the world in which is china and russias and iranings will fill. and it will be a much more difficult, conflicted war for our children and grandchildren if we do that. peter: what about the old truism, politics stops at the waters's edge? stuart: the problem now has gone from just domestic issues to

foreign policy as well. it should stop at the water's edge. we should support our president as commander in chief and his chief diplomats when we go abroad but we're break down on that because partisanship has been so pervasive and ten becomes that's a problem. we don't have the kind of unity on ukraine we should have. on how to deal with the iranian threat, on the nuclear front and this is a very serious problem. peter: in your book you refer to henne kissinger at the master diplomat, why? stuart: first of all, he atedhe end of the vietnam war. he negotiated the disengagement with egypt and israel after 19 3. he negotiated the opening to china. those are specifics but what, in the great scope of things made him so successful? the master diplomat? first, he had a great sense of

history. he wanted to know and did know the history, the culture, the politics of the countries with whom he negotiated. like china. he was a europeanist when he was at harvard teaching. he got to know china inside-out. what makes them tick, what makes their leadership tick, their 3,000-year history. so knowing history. second -- he had what i call the capacity to look around the corner, to see what was happening today but how it was going to influence happened happen tomorrow and that's a very unique feature. he also had the capacity of standing in the shoes of his opposition. he realized that diplomacy has to be a win-win situation. both sides have to come away thinking they've won and here is a great example. 1973, the yom kippur war. israel was on its heels with a combined attack against the arab

states. the counter attacks after getting arms from dilger and nixon and the united states and now going to mair, the prime minister who's taking huge political heat for not being prepared, as the entire army surrounded, eliminate them. kissinger said golda, you can destroy that third army and you'll never have peace with egypt. you'll humiliate is a dat. and that ended up when she agreed leading up to the agreements and ultimately to camp david. peter: the subject of your book is how american negotiators reached hinge agreements, the importance of personal relationships. stuart: there is no substitute for human relationships.

after the actually of the berlin wall in 19 9, which, by the way, was a surprise to everyone. here george h.w. bush and his secretary of state baker, who wrote the press to my book. seized the historic opportunity to unite the two germanys, eaves and west. one controlled by the soviets and the other controlledded by the western allies. and it was a huge lift. even margaret thatcher said i love germany so much, i want two of them. he had to get the soviets to accept the united germany in nato. personal relationships were critical. he took the soviet foreign minister away from washington, away from moscow, away from the negotiating table to jackson hole, wyoming where he had a lodge and the two of them bonded

over two or three days. they talked about their children, their grandchildren, their hopes for peace and that led him to be willing to break with his own foreign ministry and convince his president, gorbachev that it was better to have germany united in natea than as a separate entity. president carter's personal relationship with is a dat and camp david was really important. he took the two leaders toth gettysburg batfield to show them that fact that war is not the solution. more wars will gust lead to more deets. begin, by the way, he was so moved, he gave the getties burling address with no notes. secondly, he went to an chabot

dinner that he arranged as camp david and stayed the whole time to try to bond. these kinds of relationship are very important. when i was doing the holocaust negotiations with germany. i bonded with my german opponent who had a great feeling that hey had to atone for their world war ii sins and that was very helpful. having these perm rhythms which shall when you don't have it, then you're in trouble. somp david ii in 2,000. the second camp david with prosecute clinton, arafat of the p.l.o. and barat. barat and arafat was like oil and water. clinton wasn't able to bond with them the way carter bonded with

sadat and that lack of personal chemistry was a real problem. peter: let's go back to 1978. we have some video we want to show with president carter, prime minister begin and anwar sadat. >> whenever there was a danger that human energy would fail or patience would be exhausted or good will would run out, and there were many such moments, these two leaders and their abel devisors in all delegations found the resources within them to keep the chances for peace alive. >> the signing of the framework for the comprehensive peace settlement has a significance far beyond the event. it signals the emergens of a new peace initiative with the american nation in the heart of the entire process.

>> we will still have problems to solve. camp david proved had in any problem can be solved if there is good will and understanding and some -- some wisdom. stuart: let me give you a perspective on this. jimmy carter drafted -- no president in american history has ever done that kind of personal diplomacy. 22 separate peace agreements over 1 days. 22 personally. going from sadat and begin and their staffs. the last day, 1th day, sunday. begin comes to carter and says i'm sorry, mr. president, i can't make any more come promices. i want you to -- compromises. i want you to get me a limb seen. i have an air waiting to take me to israel and carter realized

this would undercut things and he might be assassinated when we came back and be a plight on his own administration. reading federal, k.c.i.a. profiles of biggen he knew that begin ease soft spot was his grand chirp. he gets his staff to make eight copies of the origil aders on day one. finds the names of those great grandchildren. writes their names and homes to peace to camp carter. the bags were packed. begin was already carrying he is suitcase and me reads we've one of the grandchildren by name. his eyes start to tear, he starts to quiver and says, mr. president, for the sake of my grandchildren, i'll make one last try and that's why we ended up with that instead of a total

failure. peter: were you at camp david? stuart: i wasn't at camp david personally but i was the official back channel between the white house and the israeli ambassador in washington transmidding information about where giggen stood, giving them information about where carter stood so when the two met they would have the beginning of an understanding so i was that back channel between the israeli embassy inngton and the white house. peter: anwar sadat was assassinated three years later in egypt and. was it as a direct result of these peace accord? stuart: i believe that it was. when he we want to jerusalem the first time and declared no more war, his own foreign minister resigned. at camp david. at camp david, a second foreign minister resigned. in the middle of the talks, he

didn't make it public but he resigned because he thought that was giving away too much and he was killed by islamic radicals who opposed his peace initiative so he took his life in his own hands when he went to jeers lem. it was a courageous affect and one of the attributes i mentioned for a great associate? air and statesman was courage. the political courage to break from the past. example, again, sadat going to jerusalem. crown prince of uae. making peace with israel. that was not popular with his public. and most i think telling was the good friday agreement between the catholics and potest analysis in northern ireland. mediat by former u. nator and majority leader journal mitchell and from you had a situation where, again, courage

was used. leaders of the catholic and poststandpoint communities who had -- propertiest instant communities who had spent 20 years in what was called the troubles. they said enough is enough. even though our public may want to keep the battle, we have to find a way to reach peace. that kind of political courage is tremendously important. peter: in the "the art of diplomacy" book you talk about regime change, human rights, economic sanctions. you're a lawyer. is there a role for the legal community in all of this. stuart: i think being a lawyer is extremely important in diplomacy. you need to be able to analyze both sides and you need to be able to write and speak.

i'm glad you mentioned the economic sanctions because i mention this the book that the united states has economic sanctions on more countries than all the other countries in the world combined. economic sanctions which i was basically in charge of under president clinton, it has a place but in this 21st century role it's less effective because we don't have a monopoly on product. so we have sanctions against venezuela. he's still there. heavy sanctions against putin because of ukraine. he's still on the offensive. we have sanctions against china because of their trade practices. they haven't changed. he we have sanctions against iran and it hasn't hasn't had an effect. so when you have oil as a weapon on their side it's very difficult and, again, the supply shapes are very difficult to

monitor so what the rush pes have become brilliant at -- and by the way, the sanctions against russia over ukraine are very expensive but they create fake companies. they have trance shipments on boats with different flags that look like they're not their flags. they've become masters at evading sanctions. they have a role but not the role they used to have. peter: that was the thought in the white house in 1979 when the shah was sick and he was allowed to come to the states for medical treatment. what was the debate? stuart: the most fateful decision thedentade in iran was twofold. first, after the hostages were taken -- after they were taken, i was in the situation room in the basement of the white house and i recommended we do what president kennedy did over cuba and that is blockade the harbors

of clark island where most of their oil was exported to show that this was unacceptable. this was not accepted. there was a fear that they would kill our hostages and i said no. there was a risk of world war iii and the president doesn't want to take that risk. the president said you and your health and welfare are my number one priority. that shifted the leverage to iran and second was the actual decision to let the shah in, which is the one you're referring to. is c.i.a. reports were so bad -- i think it was one of the worst intelligence affairs in american history. ey said six weeks before the slah was forced to leave his country, and he was our darling

for six prosecutes. there's no revolutionary or even preview revolutionary state in iran. everything is fine. they didn't know that he had cancer. our principal ally so how can a president make good decisions? president carter was the last holdout. secretary of state, his secretary of defense, his political guisers, his vice president mondale all said as a humanitarian jess culture to a former ally of 30 or 40 years, we have to let him in for cancer treatments and here's what president carter said. he was the last holdout. he said suppose if i let them in to the either, they'll try to capture our diplomats. what do i do then? there was public pressure by henry kissinger and david rock fell and john j. mccoy saying you have to do this. he could have gotten the same

medical treatment in mexico. he could have gotten it in canada. it didn't have to be in the united states and carter took one other precaution. he asked the prime minister of iran, appointed by khomeini and the foreign minister, will you do the same thing you did in february of 1979 when there was an initial effort to take over the u.s. embassy and they repulsed it with iranian police and they said we'll do the best we can. well, in end, they didn't and khomeini allowed the hos stages to be taken to help his own political pace. but carter was the last holdout. it was a brutal debate and every instinct he had was no, i can't do this but he knew if that were the case, he'd be blamed by the republicans and rockefeller and kissinger and his own administration for turning his back on an ally. peter: those 444 days or so,

what was it like to be in the white house with the iran hos taj -- stuart: those were the most painful days i have ever gone through and certainly that the president ever went through. there actually were several times where we had an agreement and then khomeini would overrule his own diplomats. he was really trying to use our hostages as political pawns and we now have good evidence -- not conclusive but good evidence -- just as we talked about in 196 with president tu in the humphrey campaign that the campaign manager for ronald reagan, who became the c.i.a. director, secretly went in the midst of the campaign to mexico and met with the iranians and said you'll get better terms from a reagan president. don't release the hostages before the election and he ended

up only releasing them the second that reagan was sworn in. although he'd made the agreement beforehand. carter negotiated the agreement in the last minutes of his presidency. literally the last minutes. peter: where were you at that point? stuart: i was in the white house waiting to get the news to see what was happening and then we went on the bus to take us on the plane to take president carter home and we were still fix stated on what was going to happen to the hos stages and then they were released and it was like rubbing salt in a wound. here we had spent 444 days and they would be released on president reagan's watch rather than president carter's after we had reached the agreement ourselves. peter: what was the role of the algerians during that? stuart: oftentimes you have to use what we call back channels.

the most recent is happening now, when the original israeli hostages, the hundred were released, it was through a back channel negotiation, not between israel and hamas who couldn't get in the same room with each other but using qatar and egypt as back chanls. when we negotiated nuclear agreement with iran in 2015, john kerry, first senator then secretary of state, used back channel of the sultan of oman who had good relations with both, to get the negotiations going. the famous 1993 oslo accords, which were the only time israel and the palestinians really agreed was done through a back channel. the prime minister of israel, a great man, didn't realize those talks were going on. now in the case of the hostages, we court negotiate directly with

iran. they didn't recognize us and we didn't recognize them after the coup that took over so how did we do it? we had to do it through indirect means through algeria and algeria played had in role of being a functioner of taking our offers to the iranians, their offers back. it was never done with the two participant neither same room. warren christopher deserves a lot of credits for that negotiation. he was deputy secretary of state but so does jimmy cart every. again, his attention to detail, which was at one level a weakness but in another a strength. he went into every detail of that agreement. how much would he unfreeze and how much would he keep frozen? during the beginning of the 444 days, he said if you putt my diplomats on trial, if you do --

hurt one hair on their head, i'm go engine to use military force against you and they didn't. that's why, by the way, i thought, that if we had threatened military force we could have gotten them out to begin with. we'll never know that peter: given what happened in 1979-1980, what do you think our policy toward iran has been and has it been successful? stuart: it's been one of difficult -- because they have been the chief supporters of terrorists in the middle's. hezbollah. the eudes and remember lon but there was an opportunity in 2015 to change that and here's happened. we reached a nuclear agreement which john kerry and president' bob: negotiate with iran which would have boxed in their --

bram for 15 years with. yes, it had flaws in it but it cut 2 thirds of their centrifuges out, it disabled their pew tone yum plant in iraq. he had 24/7 surveillance with cameras. and then president trump when he came into office, withdraw drew, just as he withdrew from the paris climb changes talks and said we're going to do even better with this than obama has negotiated so what did we end up with today, 2024 as we're talking? what did we end up with? iran with 60% enripped uranium when they had to go down to.5% but within two and a half weeks,

those sentry funerals had been replaced with the modern centrifuge. the plutonium plant is back up and running. the inspections are more limited so when you withdraw from an agreement that hour predecessor reached, you have problems. let me give you an example. ronald reagan. the land slide. one of the criticisms from the 1980 campaign was our salt 2*r agreement which he said gave too much to the soviets and we didn't get enough buff he had the wisdom after he was elected as president, even though it was never ratified by the senate, to maintain that salt agreement. for seven years he honored that salt agreement because he realized his predecessor had putt the good name of united states brine it. peter: is there a rarified club of henry kissingers and warren

eizenstats? is there and do you talk with those folks? stuart: yes, with the kind of think take place you have in washington. the talks held at bookings or an effort i.i. -- e.e. iror sites on johns hopkins. you always are on panels with people that you revered in previous administrations and you might have been a political opponent when they were fighting for their man but there is a club that recognizes that we've all gone through a common experience. we've represented united states in very difficult negotiations. at kyoto, i negotiated a climb change agreement in 1998. with 190 countries. it was a very tough negotiation. i think it started us on road to dealing with climate change but unfortunately, again, we're --

at keeping agreements. who democratic presidents wereelected we're all in for climate change. when republicans are in, there oftentimes is a reverse. so when we go to china, you need to reduce your emissions. you're the number one emmitter now of greenhouse gases. we don't know what's going to happen with your next election. you may withdraw from in. somehow when we get in office and a president is elected, he looks at the guy he's just beaten and says i can do better than him. peter: it's often said about congress that there are 535 secretaries of state up there and about 100 presidents. how do they impact

negotiations? stuart almost there's always a domestic political component to foreign policy negotiations. you don't negotiation in ice lace. international trade is an example where it's build into the process. you have labor and negotiation on the advisory boards of negotiations so you can't escape the politics but there is a difference by congress to the president of the united states. he is under the constitution the commander in chief and there's a certain amount of room. if he says, as george w. bush said, that there are weapons of mass destruction in iraq even though we know there weren't at the end. there's a department of republicans given to him by democrats and republicans some president still mass huge flexibility, much more than he

has on the nest domestic issues. yes, obviously there were hearings head. every one thinks he can be a better expect than the one occupying office. peter: mr. eizenstat, at what point are the levers of power cob used. at what point do you get mean? you're a very nice man, it's easy to talk to you but at some point you have to lay down the law, right? stuart: absolutely. there's positive and negative. if you're not willing to walk away from a bad agreement, if you give a signal that you want agreement more than your opponent you've lost your leverage. so kyoto, after two weeks, final agreement comes before the lenry session. they go through 190 countries.

they come to u for the united states and i say, in the plenary, we vote no. and investigation shock and i said i told the european join that we were willing to make these deep emissions cuts but only when we could go it by trading credits, which would reduce the cost normally. they didn't believe us. there was a pause. the head of the u.a.e. negotiation in may and we came up with a solution. you have to be willing to stand firm. also be prepared to use economic and positive incentive. for example, when the united aaron emirates in 2020 was borschting under the abraham accords, ash peace agreement with israel, what they wanted

was not just from israel. they wanted the united states to give them f-35 fighter jet. just as with the normal association work the united states, they want a defense treaty with us. we have that kind of leverage to use. you and i use level every day with our spouses, with our partners, our children and grand children but you have to use it in diplomacy as well and as the greatest country on either, the most powerful, we have a lot of leverage to use. peter: when you read "the new york times" today or "washington post," etc., can you see when a story has been leakeded? can you see the source behind million of the information we need? >> yes, in fact, in most cases the newspaper will say a source who chose not to be recognized.

and even worse, and this is really unforgivable effort just a few weeks before our interview today, there was a leak of the israeli plan for counter attacking plan. this u.s. intelligence community lad -- that's unforgottible. -- forgivable. really unprecedented to do that to after ally and it really has set back the wrong says because now iran knows what is going to happen. it's unforgivable. peter: was the withdraw from afghanistan intelligence or foreign policy failures? >> yes, dennis ross, who is an ambassador and middle east negotiator and windows where are

briefed by two israeli generals who said that gaza was one of our worst intelligence -- because we didn't realize that hamas has transformed myself a terrorist group to a full blown tryst army. 40,000 strong, well trained, armed by aaron. yes, we knew that they were tunnels from egypt. we debate know that there were 20,000 tunnels. so consult get the intelligence, you're going to have to make decisions that are incorrect. that's happened on october 7. it's interesting that there was, in the hands of a young family defense intelligence person who were actually planned that hamas

was going to use and she handed it up through the chain of command and they said there's no way that hamas, this sort of rad tag group to can do this. they didn't follow their own potential and they didn't have great intelligence. how did they allow 300 miles of tunnels? you don't build them with a pick abc, you have to have heavy -- just like we had an junior college failure on iran not showing the shah had canser and telling us six weeks before the shah was forced to leave that iran wars neither a revolutionary nor pree revolutionary state.

peter: in your mind, what's the issue we're not talking enough about? stuart: i think we're not talking enough about climate change i think there's a general awareness that it's a problem but now whether we see the hurricanes,izing of sea waters. the fact that people are going to have to be uninsureeds if they live near the water. that will play with the whole future of the planet. from needs to be more discussion and more bipartisan support. second, how is this going to impact us on foreign policy and on jobs. majority leader schumer got 100 senators together were a closed door breaching on a.i. what impact it's going to have our our activities, on america's strength, so question need to have more thought about our --

how artificial intelligence is going to change the world. at almost 100 years old, decision jr. wrote the forward to my book. but his last book shortly before his died was on artificial intelligence and foreign policy. peter: the book is "the art of diplomacy:" how american negotiators reached historic agreement. unfortunately we didn't get a chance to look at a lot of the issues you talked boob in there. stuart eizenstat served as policy advisor for four years under jimmy carter. mr. eizenstat, thank you for an hour. stuart: it is a pleasure and honor to be with you and

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