with the plot -- sean vitka. be sure to watch "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. et. join the discussion. >> in about 35 minutes we will have live coverage of a discussion on how president trump used freedom of the press. included on that panel will be marvin kalb previously worked as a news reporter for cbs and nbc. he joined us unwashed journal -- on washington journal to discuss his book about russia. this is 35 minutes. as peter the great." we want to talk about the book but let's talk about russia today and vladimir putin. him based on your experiences, how can you best understand him

and the russian government in general? putin is an it -- traditional leader, he is an autocrat, that kind of a leader and russians are used to that kind of leadership. they had it during the czar, st alin's time in the soviet period, and now. he is very crafty, smarts, and he knows how to use all of the tools of modern society to project an image which suggests he is trying to be a democrat and he is not. host: is the president for the foreseeable future? guest: there is going to be an election last year, he says he is not yet officially running, and he obviously is. i think the greatest threat that putin has us from the russian

people. i think he is a frightened leader. i think he is surrounded by a small army that protects only him. troops, a000 remarkable little fact, why would you have that kind of detection question mark against whom --? protection? against whom? his own people. i think he is a frightened, little man, with you at the moment, has enormous power. host: a lot of question on what he did or did not play in 2016. based on what you know about him, do you think he was involved in russian involvement in the 20 16th election? guest: absolutely. he was at the top, he knew it all, he was at top of it all and that is the way the russian system works. host: let's talk about your book. i want to talk about your dedication. tell us what is happening.

guest: i feel that very strongly. me, that was my first year in the soviet union and russia. i lived there one year and i believe anyone who starts out onto a new assignment, i was there working for the state department, but even working for the state department before the united states, a newspaper, a network, the most important thing -- you were there to cover the news. you want to see or hear what is going on, you want to filter through your own intelligence and tell it to us straight. do not give me a song and dance. tell you what you see and hear. tell me straight news. host: stalin dies in 1953. guest: yes. host: the korean war comes to an end, and khrushchev rises to power, under what circumstances? guest: when stalin ran the

soviet union, everything went through him. he was the absolute leader and dictator. he dies and there is uncertainty. khrushchev rises to the top. he once to do something that she want -- he wants to do something different and he knew it was going to collapse. he wanted to reform it, and he attacked the legacy of joseph stalin in 1956, cutting loose tremendous energy and people wanted to know, what is up? it was their first spattering of personal freedom. they had never had it before. they loved it. it was intoxicating. khrushchev was writing that end ing that but how far would he go? would he really give us our freedom? towards the end of the year, in

hungary, when the hungarian people brought up the issue of said, weempire and believe you, we want our freedom from you, and khrushchev had a choice. he could have given them their freedom or he would crush them. he chose to crush them because that is also part of a soviet ruler's makeup. you want to retain as much personal power as you can. khrushchev tried to do the impossible. of tearingckless act down the stalin legacy without having the guts to go all the way. he started but he could not finish the job. 1956,i want to go back to a couple years later in 1959, khrushchev comes to the u.s. for a visit, 21 days, where a famous debate took place with vice president richard nixon, and he

was hailed as almost like a rock star in the u.s. in the 1950's. guest: at that time, we had no idea what a soviet leader was like. we only knew stalin and he never left the kremlin. khrushchev, because of that speech against stalin in february, an historic speech, really the beginning of my first adventure in russia, from that moment on, khrushchev and russia were in uncharted territory. but he was trying to do at that time was reform a system without giving up communism and he was not able to do that. samechev tried to do the 30 years or 40 years later and he could not either. host: in the book you write "russian people are much too imaginative to look for amber in the toss out servants. they are no longer the illiterate, in our peasantry

that stalin ruled with an iron discipline. they know how to read and are beginning to think. in a dictatorship, thinking is dangerous." take us back to that time. guest: in 1956 -- [clearing throat] -- the russian people had lived essentially as modern-day serifs and then khrushchev comes along and says, we are going to modernize this entire society. but he does not give them the energy and the resources to really cut loose and in the final analysis, he would not give them the ultimate freedom necessary. the russian people had been educated. they had been made literate. right now, -- in my judgment, areay -- the russian people fine people and good people, except they live within terrible political system and they did under khrushchev's time and now under proven 's -- underp

putin's time. they have degrees of freedom but not to the extent of having a second political party, of having a truly free press, all of the kind of things we take for granted in this society. they never had. i believe they are capable. i really do, they are capable of being a 21st century people and nation if they have the freedom to theire to give natural talents. host: what led to your journey in 1956? guest: this was my first time, i lived there a year. it was an adventure for me. host: i was 25 beers old. we love the pictures, by the way. and the glasses. guest: i was having a great time, i was an attached, part of

the u.s. embassy, going for my in russianard history. they asked if i wanted to go to russia and i said, you bet! they said you had to leave immediately. i said, i'm ready to go. my mother wasn't happy but my father was. i left. it was an attempt at humor with the title because i was nicknamed peter the great, and i met him at the july for party at the u.s. ambassador's residence. bureau when khrushchev arrives, i was one of the embassy people who spoke russian. the ambassador says, you look after the minister of defense, world war ii hero. pfc in afc -- i was a the u.s. army and it didn't seem right. we talked about the battles, russian history, and he was

drinking one vodka after another and the headwater, so after about 45 minutes, he was tipsy. i was not. he walked over to khrushchev and said, i have finally found a young american who can drink like a russian and khrushchev love that burst into laughter. am -- she was6, i about five feet, six inches, i am six feet,' three inches. he said, how tall are you? peter the great was in my mind, so i said six centimeters shorter than peter the great. he was about six foot, eight inches. khrushchev heard that, roared with laughter and whenever he saw me, he would, a peter the great, which opened a lot of doors for me. [laughter] host: our guest is marvin kalb. guest: this is my 15th.

host: you are outhost: tomorrow with the kalb report. thet: you will feature executive editors of the new york times and washington post. i believe they had never appeared together and they are in a competition but also the two most important editors in america. host: that report takes place in washington, d.c. and you can check it out on this he spent at work. let's go to tim from wilson, north carolina. independent line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. what concerns me most of all about putin -- i am hearing an echo -- host: that is ok, we can hear you. caller: what concerns me is the america, stepping into and the uneducated part of our

population. host: tapping into the uneducated americans. guest: i think he is doing that but also the entire system, which includes the uneducated and educated. i think most americans are educated in the politics of our nation. at the same town, i think we have to be mindful and worried that the fact that any foreign government can come in and sort of try to make a mess of the american political system, that is a horrible thing to do and unacceptable. host: many of us grew up watching you on cbs and nbc. you are also famously on richard nixon's enemies list. when did you find that out? guest: the funny thing, steve, i did not know about that. that happened in the early 1970's and i learned about it in 1973, when somebody called me, a reporter from the new york times, and said, did you know you are on the president's enemy

list? i said, no, i did not. he gave me a list of other people on it and i felt rather flattered to be among the finest journalists in the country. host: you wrote a piece recently that was critical of the president, this president, saying, first, drawing analogies to richard nixon, saying donald trump is threatening press freedom. how so? guest: i believe every president has had quarrels with the american press. it goes with the turf. where president trump is different, and i believe he whened a bright red line he said that american reporters were the enemies of the american people. quite the contrary. american reporters, for the most part -- not every single one is fabulous, but most are doing their jobs and doing it well,

and they are part of a free press. that goes back to the founding of the republic. in my judgment, democracy and a free press go together. reinforces thess essence of democracy. press,do not have a free you don't have a real democracy. i learned that in russia way back then enter today. in any kind of free society, you have to have a free press. when the president makes moves against the free press, calling them enemies of the american people, humiliating them, seeking to de-legitimize them, when he is trying to do is denied the american people the opportunity to get information. the president may call it "fake and" but most of it israel probably critical of him and he doesn't like it. host: why do you think khrushchev blinked during the cuban missal crisis?

guest: he blinked during the cuban missal crisis because what was his original intent when he tried to put missiles into cuba in 1962? his original intent was not to use cuba as a launching pad to attack the united states. it was berlin, which was a divided city, and he wanted the eastern part of berlin to be recognized as part of east germany. berlin, to him, was what he something in my throat, and the way to get rid of it to him was too frightened the president of the united states into a deal that would get us out of west berlin. it did not work. when he realized that, he was not an idiot.

keep old back. he host: did not want a nuclear war. our guest is marvin kalb. our phone lines are (202)-748-8001 to republicans. (202)-748-8000 for democrats. a personal question, how many red ties do you own? guest: [laughter] about 10. host: between you and your brother, this famous red ties. from connecticut, good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. i am a little bit computers about four and if -- i am a little bit confused about foreign affairs. it is better to have a foreign policy with russia, in particular. is a rex tillerson, he good guy, but the state department does not seem to like him because he seems to maybe but he is nother

building a whole team. where do you think we should go with their foreign policy? guest: look, the first thing we should do is to have, in the president, someone who recognizes the important of the state department, someone who will allow people to be appointed to key jobs, which are now open. someone who will get the secretary of state the authority and dignity that that office requires and if you have a secretary of state, like tillerson, who is trying very hard on the one hand to do a good job and deal with the north korean problem in a sensible way, but on the other hand, he denies himself the opportunity of being surrounded by experts on korea. in other words, he has not allowed the state department to provide him with the intelligence and experience that it has accumulated over many

years. he is trying to do it the way president trump would like it done but it is not being done well, and i think the nation as a result suffers. host: let me follow up on that, jackson deal in the washington post is writing about the committee, available on wheregtonpsot.com, corker says -- washingtonpost.com. it reads -- guest: as chairman of that committee, he has, corker does, a close relationship with the secretary of state. and tillerson has made a point of being very close to corker,

corker to tillerson, they work together, and what corker has found his he cannot get anywhere, anywhere at all with tillerson because he has a problem with the president. story,is a shameful steve. is sos point, everything uncertain, not just within the u.s. but entire world. the u.s. is still the leader, but if the u.s. is not meeting and only confusing things, we are not doing ourselves a great favor or anybody else. our number one diplomat. he is supposed to have dignity, the support of the president. he is not getting it. host: do you think he called the president of the united states a more on? guest: apparently -- a moron? guest: apparently he did, because no one is denying it. host: on the republican line,

good morning. jim, you with us? caller: i am. host: we will go to oscar in california. good morning. caller: good morning. in the old days, we could go to supermarkets and we could buy fake news, the national enquirer, silly newspapers, which we knew were fake. then we could by l.a. times, new york times and we expected that to be the real news. octor ande a media d distinguished between the fake and real news, would there be a way for us, as americans, to defend our precious democracy from these countries that would cause problems? is there a way for us to know? it was hollywood in one

i'll and then we had legitimate news in the other -- in one aisle, and we had legitimate news in the other. how do we know? guest: i think that is a legitimate question and thank you for it. most americans who read newspapers, watch television, more or less know what is the real thing. if you read the new york times or any other major papers in the country, chicago tribune, l.a. times, you are not dealing with fake news. is fake newsit now, and the only reason it has currency now, is president trump decided any criticism of him he dismisses as fake news, and he is hoping that enough americans will lose their respect of the news, the newspapers, the news networks, and dismissed them. in other words, when you have a -- noent, -- president

president likes to be criticized. this one, when criticized, dismisses and humiliates the people doing the criticism. criticism is justifiable in a democracy, heart of what we do for a living. i think most people in this country appreciate that label is something president trump is not like. host: let's go to thomas in new york, republican line. you are next. caller: good morning. guest: good morning. caller: i am curious why the media producers, and i suppose i am talking about major platforms that broadcast print, radio, do not do a better job in controlling the content of the stories with respect to mr. trump or i should say president trump, i guess. for instance, one example, this situation about football players

kneeling for the national anthem. to some extent, they're probably should be coverage, but there is too much coverage of that when you consider the fact that the president of the united states has far more important and critical things to deal with than weatherford players meal or stand -- the weather foot wall players meal or stand for the anthem. guest: i agree with you, sir. i think the president of the united states ought to be concerned with more important issues in professional football. the original problem had nothing to do with kneeling at a football game. it had to do with what was theeived as injustice in way in which police are dealing with minorities. especially african-americans. that is the issue. the president turn that around into a question of kneeling, not kneeling, and because he is

president, and he commands attention, and he is a genius at attracting attention, he knew he would turn the story from something he did not like into something he could, for political reasons, deal with and exploit. by the way, he has been completely successful in that because most of the owners of professional football teams and athletes themselves are slowly being obliged to do what it is the president wants. host: and the players and owners meet this week in new york city. did edward r. murrow higher you question -- hire you? story.yes, great in 1950 six after my assignment in russia, i went back to harvard and worked on my phd in russian history. at that time, i was riding a couple of articles based on my articlese -- writing

based on my experience in russia and one had to do with soviet it appeared in the new york times. edward murrow called me, liked it, and i was in the library doing my work on a monday. the librarian says to me, there's a guy on the phone who says he is edward r. murrow and would like to talk to you. i said, edward r. murrow is not calling me, that is the silliest thing i have heard. hang up on the guy. back three hours later and says, the same guy is calling and says he is edward r. murrow. this thing in the back of my mind says, why don't you answer? the minute i heard his voice, steve, i realized what a total jerk i had been because what he was doing was complimenting me on the story i did and asking me if i wanted to join cbs. and would i come down to talk to him the following day -- which i

did. rented threeeeting hours. we talked about everything having to do with the soviet union. he was a fabulous journalist, curious. he asked me one question after another, right up to khrushchev. at the end of it, he says, what do you say? cbs?ant to join i said, oh, yes, sir. he put his arm around me and said, you are one of us. that was one of the greatest honors of my life. host: did you finish your doctorate? guest: no. [laughter] i went to cbs. next let's go to our caller. caller: hi, how are you? guest: good. caller: i have a question. what can be done about people who not only already have an opinion and talk to people to support their opinion, but they

?re almost like groupies supervisors, stockholders, and they do not have a right to pursue leads they might have, and when you talk about the national anthem, the human beings who wing -- instruments on the fields, and everybody else on the field has a right and deserves the respect of everybody there. guest: i totally agree, they all deserve that respect. we should also respect the first amendment, which gives the right to every reporter to give his or so labeled opinion. news is one thing, opinion another and it got to be separate. host: in tennessee, good morning. democrat line. caller: getting back to russia, this is about the russian mafia.

ok, i wondered to what degree you think that all those years -- i have to turn my volume down of being suppressed under the dictators ride to the development of the russian mafia thinking of things like the park and what horrible thing happened at the break of the soviet union when there was a chance to go semi-capitalist and the russian mafia moved in and took over everything, and now runs everything? host: thank you. guest: it was not just the russian mafia. that does exist, but what happened in 1991 was more complicated than an effort by the mafia to take control of everything in russia. russia at that time was a totally disoriented, corrupt system. it had to be changed.

gorbachev tried to change it. he failed because he would not go all the way. and the people who took over did not have a clear plan for how to move from a collapsed communist system into the beginning of a budding capitalist system. they were all kinds of ideas at that time. a lot of good people were involved but a lot of dreadful people were involved in the project essentially failed when putin came to power. host: robert from tennessee. republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you. kalb, i would like to ask you to explain to the american people all these the partys, explain when theycomes from

wrote their communist manifesto over their beliefs back in the 17th century and 18th century. don't you think if people will trump's cabinet of using the amendment and they say, we have unnamed sources, shouldn't they be forced to name them with such an important event taking place? host: thank you. right.you are the important events taking place and how one resolves them is not clear at this time. your earlier point about the communists, let us remember coming as a is now a totally failed and discredited ideology. there are only one or two places in the world which take to being communist or marxist. that is a failed 20th-century way of doing business. i am delighted to say it was a

dreadful political system and when i first went there in 1956, i had a theoretical understanding of communism and how it would be applied in a society. when i saw the damage it could do to individuals, the way it would imprison their minds and turn them into fearful, frightened subjects of the state , of a distant leader, i was totally turned off by that. and certainly agree that what we could have done at that time could conceivably been more aggressive but i think the way it worked out at the end, it collapsed from its own internal corruption. host: is russia today superpower? guest: no. no. russia today has some of the makings of a superpower. they have a lot of nuclear power. a lot of missiles, nuclear

weapons, but a few went into a small -- but is you went into a small russian town today 100 miles from moscow, i bet it is very similar to the town you would have seen 100 or 200 years ago. st. petersburg and moscow and a couple of the provincial capitals have been modernized and st. petersburg is a marvelous city and moscow is making efforts to be a marvelous city, as well, but it isn't. today lacks russia one very fundamental think, and that is political freedom. host: last call from washington, d.c., thanks for waiting. you with us? one more time, why did you write the book? guest: i wrote the book because i kept a diary in 1956 of this

extraordinary year in russian history. revolution. russian , the communist experience died. 1956, i was lucky to be there. i kept a diary of these major moments in russian history, the way in which they played around with the idea of freedom. i had an opportunity as a young, unattached american, to travel the places that were just opening up. i went everywhere and talked to a lot of russians and decided i wanted to put it down between hardcovers and let people understand the adventure that goes along with being the younger american with the idea of freedom, going into a country like russia. what do you find? it is an adventure story. host: for years, you hosted

"meet the press." if you had a chance to sit down with quart chef, today, -- with course just, what would be your question? guest: why did you crush the revolution and was it that important [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: coming up on tuesday morning, we're live in missouri to the next top on c-span 50 capital stewart. talking about -- his decision to turn over state voter information to the president's daughter rights commission. then, -- the president voter rights commission. policylso with us council for demand progress, to talk about his group's efforts

to limit government surveillance under the foreign intelligence surveillance act also known as fisa. be sure to watch washington journal live at 7 a.m. eastern. join the discussion. atare live now on c-span the national press club in washington where marvin kalb will be hosting. uet,guest, dean baq executive editor of the new york baron executive editor of the new york times. this is just starting. -- marty baron, executive editor of the washington post. [applause]