>> rose: welcome to our program. tonight, rick stengel, the managing editor of "time" magazine who earlier today had a conversation with julian assange, the founder of wikileaks, about who he is and what he is about. >> he's a kind of anarchist but an anarchist who's also an idealist who believes that what he's doing rather than damaging world security or individuals is actually making the world more adjust. that he feels that there's an information disequilibrium in the world and he wants to rectify that. that's what he would say his philosophy is. >> rose: are you admiring him? >> um, i think what he's doing is extremely destructive. >> rose: and to put this story in perspective, a man who has operated at the top levels of the american government, admiral dennis blair. >> there is nothing in these documents that is providing

ah-ha, they're doing something completely contrary to what they are. but it provides tactical detail that can be used by our enemies against us and sews distrust in our friends because some of them took chances to work with us and now it's all out there. and so it's not just you're informing the american people about the inner workings, you you're informing our enemies and causing problems for our friends. so it's very bad. it fits the definition of that we have of secret information which is information the disclosure of which would cause grave damage to national security interests. >> rose: stengel and blair next. maybe you want to provide meals for the needy. you want to help when the unexpected happens. whatever you want to do, members project from american express can help you take the first step. vote, volunteer, or donate for the causes you believe in at membersproject.com.

take charge of making a difference. additional funding provided by these funders: captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we continue this evening with our ongoing conversation of the information released by wikileaks, the "new york times" and four european publications continue to publish articles. here is what some of the leaks contained. cables sent from the u.s. embassy in pakistan describe that country's refusal to return bomb-grade uranium to the united states. others sent from beijing and seoul show that china has often been wrong about north korea's nuclear program.

iran, the cables reveal, has obtained from north korea 19 advanced missile capable of striking cities in western europe. tonight we begin with a look at the man behind the web site, its founder julian assange. earlier this evening, interpol issued an international warrant for his arrest in connection with w alleged sex crimes in sweden. federal authorities are investigating whether he has violated criminal laws, including possible charges under the espionage act in the u.s. joining me now is rick stengel, mangle editor of "time" magazine. earlier today he conducted an interview with assange who spoke via skype with an undisclosed location. i am pleased to have rick stengel back at this table. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. good to be here. >> rose: so what happened that leads you to have a phone conversation with the one person that all of us want to talk to? >> well, it's a huge story and it's a story that's much bigger than just the gossip about world leaders or what diplomats say about conversations, it's a story about the nature of secrecy and what role it plays

in our society, what benefits it has. and so obviously we want to talk to him. and it really was very simple. i'd love to say there was a lot of cloak-and-dagger, there wasn't. we e-mailed mr. assange and said "i'd like to talk to you. in whatever way, shape or form." >> rose: did he respond or someone else respond? >> someone else responds. i never dealt with him directly until we actually were on skype. and even then about a minute before the actual conversation began they blanked out the visual portion of skype so it was just audio. which was a little disappointing but that's how the organization seems to work. i mean, it's a decentralized organization, so various people are making decisions in his name and then suddenly he pops up. >> rose: this had to be done this way because of time pressures or because he's not about to allow somebody to come over from "time" magazine, a reporter or foreign correspondent, and talk to him? >> i presume that's the case.

although here... i mean, you have to immediacy of an actual interview, somewhat like this, you know, over the internet. and he is in an undisclosed location. we don't know where he is and he's very, very, very protective of his... >> rose: secrecy. >> privacy and crecy. it wasn't like you could knock on the door and say "hey, let's go out and get... >> rose: but i do know people have seen him and taken his photograph over the last three or four months. >> i parently he's changed his appearance in some way and dyed his hair. so in that last second when they said "no video, only audio" i thought they wanted to protect something about his appearance or where he is. >> rose: so what's the headline of this? how long it was conversation? >> about 35 minutes. >> rose: wow. so you had a real go at it. >> yes. >> rose: so what did you think about it? >> yes. he's very bright. he has a lot of bandwidth. >> rose: a lot of bandwidth? lafs >> a lot of bandwidth.

you've heard that, charlie... >> rose: (laughs) i didn't know it's made its try the east coast. >> i'm sure he knows the expression. he has a very articulated world view where he is a person who sees the world in a certain way and can fit everything into the way he sees the world. in some way, he's a man of the times in the sense that he's anti-authority, anti-central government. he's a kind of information vigilante. he's a kind of anarchist but an anarchist who's also an idealist who believes that what he's doing rather than damaging world security or individuals is actually making the world more adjust. that he feels that there's an information disequilibrium in the world and he wants to rectify that. that's what he would say his philosophy is. >> rose: are you admiring him? >> i think what he's doing is extremely destructive. it's certainly lessening u.s.

security in all kinds of ways. on the other hand, he is a kind of revolutionary figure and there are bound to be all kinds of people who admire him, who see him as somebody who is trying to rectify this inequality in the world. and he would say... you know, he looks at things not so much in terms of hard power but soft power to use da that calculation. soft power is information. so he looks at the u.s. and says the u.s. is a hyperpower in terms of the amount of information that america has from its diplomacy, from its espionage, from its intelligence, from its human intelligence. and he sees that as creating disequilibrium in the world. he looks at everything in terms of that kind of information. so he would say that he's trying to equalize it. >> rose: he essentially says "i'm on the side of..." >> he would say he's on the side of the common man who is cut off

from any kin of authority over his own destiny. so he's somewhere... >> rose: so he's giving a people a power to have leverage against the system? the establishment? >> yes, the system, the establishment. i mean, he... he is against centralized power. he's an anarchist in that sense. >> rose: so he's an anarchist or just in that sense? >> you know, the definitions all kind of blur. i think he... i don't know what he would say in terms of what his ideology is. i think he's an anarchist in the sense that he wants to bring down institutions, bring down centralized power, bring down governments. i don't know... >> rose: bring down governments? he wants to bring down the u.s. government? >> you know, charlie, i'm not going to say that. you know, that would be for the attorney general to decide. but... >> rose: did he say it? did he say that "my goal is to bring down the u.s. government?" >> no. i one of the things i asked him, for example, we talked a lot about american exceptionalism these days for all kinds of reasons and you seem to be an

american exceptionalist in the sense that you feel that the u.s. is exceptional for being a source of all evil and damage in the world. do you accept that? and he said... he said, no, i don't. he said the u.s. for centuries was actually a source of good in the world. he talked about the constitution. he talked about it coming out of the french revolution. he talked about federalism and the united states as being a great model for governments around the world. but he sees the u.s. since 1945 as being a source of harm throughout the planet. >> rose: because of... not imperialism. >> he would say imperialism. he would say culturalism perlism information imperialism and diplomatic global political imperialism. >> rose: how did he become who he is? >> he was born in australia. >> rose: moved 30 plus times.

>> his mother was a kind of anarchist. >> rose: yeah, exactly. >> and she taught him to distrust authority and centralized power. she succeeded admirably. he would... he believes that centralized power disenfranchises people and that in so far as he can undermine that power, he's helping people. >> rose: and he believes america's evil? >> he believes, i think... i think he is an american exceptionalist in the sense that he believes that the u.s. more than any other country is a force for this disequilibrium in the world. i asked him... >> rose: disequilibrium has to do with power. >> with power but power for nefarious purposes, he would say. i mean, looked at what he's talked about in terms of what he's trying to expose. he's trying to expose american hypocrisy, american lies, american deception. that's what he would say the leaks are about. >> rose: what is the most egregious thing he has exposed? i mean, exposing the fact that people talk to america about how they view other rulers and

leaders and all of that is one issue. >> well, i would make a distinction between this trench of documents from the state department versus the previous ones that involved iraq and afghanistan. those were much... >> rose: months and months and months ago. >> those were much more dangerous, i think caused much more harm. i think these undermine american power, trust in america, but i think the other ones were more deleterious, were more harmful. >> rose: okay, so what else is in there and are we seeing the easiest up first or... >> well, let me just say that... i said... i said mr. assange, the u.s. has been... is the most open society on the planet. what about china? what about russia? so he said look, there is much more danger from a closed set to an authoritarian society having the power that the u.s. had. he said if russia had the same power that the u.s. had, they

would do much worse things than the u.s. does. and he said he... next among his targets indeed are china and russia. and he said, you know, they are also forces of harm in the world and he is looking to undermine them as well. i mean, the reaction from russia and china to what he's doing to them will be a lot different than just the attorney general saying we're looking to prosecute him. there's a reason he's hiding out. >> rose: well, another reason he's hiding out is, i guess... i mean, i think i heard very recently that interpol has issued a warrant for his arrest based on all these sexual allegations about relationships with some women that he took out socially. >> right. we didn't talk about that. you know, again, he sees himself as... he has a bit of a martyr complex. he sees himself as being persecuted. but even paranoids has enemies. he has genuine enemies so i think he's right to be careful. but there's another point near

has come up and that we're going to explore in our story about him, which is that it is the roll of classification in our society. i mean, pat moynihan, a hero of both of ours used to say the problem isn't leaking secrets, the problem is there are too many secrets. it's the overclassification of information. one of the things... and the fact that it's available to too many people. i think one of the things... one of the unintended consequences of the wikileaks will be re-evaluating what we classify and what we don't. i mean, there's too much that that's classified and there are too many people who have access to it. there's no doubt about that. in that way, we make julian assange possible, right? because we're hiding things that shouldn't necessarily be hidden. and we're using technology that's penetrable. and so in effect we are creating him by our own policies. so, you know, that's another way of looking at it. >> rose: did he tell you he thought hillary clinton should be fired? >> he said... i said... i asked him, i said there's a lot of people that are sort of circling

around the secretary of state and i said do you feel that she's responsible for any of this in such a way that she should either resign or be fired? and he said yes, she should resign if she is responsible for having broaden it had definition and this was part of the wikileaks-- that the state department had broaden it had assignment of diplomats and was asking them to do things that some people would regard as espionage. he said if that's the case then the secretary of state should resign. but, again, because he is basically an anarchist, his first response was well, it doesn't really matter who's in charge because the system connives against individuals and the system manages the process. he thinks that the people who are running things, people in power, the authorities are interchangeable. >> rose: how did he and bradley manning come together? if bradley manning is the

person. >> i don't know the answer to that. >> rose: did you ask him? >> i did ask him. >> rose: and what did he say? >> again, it's one of the interesting sort of hypocrisies of julian assange. he said, well, i believe in keeping sources secret. >> rose: so i believe in having secrets? >> i believe in having secrets. one of the questions i asked him is there a time which secrets are useful or necessary in diplomacy for journalism and he said yes. we're a secret-keeping organization in a sense that we protect our sources. so i had asked him both how the leaks from p.f.c. manning came about and i asked him whether, in fact, all of the recent leaks this dump from the state department and the ones months ago from iran and iraq was that they all came from p.f.c. manning and he said "i can't answer that, we protect our sources." >> rose: do we know whether p.f.c. manning has spoken on

this issue? >> he's in custody. i believe he's even in solitary confinement. that would be an amazing phone call to actually have. >> rose: this is a great story. i mean, just from the sheer... i mean, every aspect of it. the personality of julian assange, who was p.f.c. bradley manning. what damage has really been done. >> and even the technological side of it. because, i mean, that's a whole story in and of itself. because the world that we've created enabled things like this to happen. even that old-fashioned term of cable. remember how that used to work. only a few eyes saw it. diplomats wrote their reports in quill pens. there were no copying machines. we've enabled this kind of information overload to happen and for it to circulate in realtime. i spoke to him just a couple of hours ago and now it's all over the world. >> rose: what he told you, yes.

>> right. i mean, that makes julian assange possible, the fact that we have this kind of technology that can reach the the end of the planet instan... instantaneously. the speculation was that p.f.c. manning had a tiny thumb drive which which he downloaded 750,000 documents and then was able to pass that to someone else and then have that go around the world. >> rose: did he pass it directly to julian assange? >> i don't know the answer to that. >> rose: so he didn't tell you that, either. protecting sources. he wouldn't even acknowledge that yes i received it myself from somebody. i'm going to protect who that person was but that's exactly what happened. i received it from somebody. >> right. but again he would say that it's wikileaks, right, so it's a kind of crowd sourcing idea. he would say that they're getting documents everyday from people all around the world in government and out and that they have to protect those sources.

>> rose: do you believe that what he did will cause life-and-death issues for people because of the leaks that took place? do that you believe? >> you know, i don't know the took place that. i know what people say. >> rose: what do people say? >> well, people say particularly the leaks having to do with afghanistan did put allies of ours in harm's way. >> rose: lives. >> lives in harm's way. i did ask him that question directly. >> rose: and what does he say about that? >> he said categorically in the four years that wikileaks has been in existence we've never jeopardize add single life. again, i question that as much as i question the... sometimes the people who... >> rose: and how would he know? >> i agree. nobody can know. >> rose: and have there been... but does that mean... >> but there's no doubt this information... we can all agree this information that he has put out in the public domain that was secret and was unknown to

people and therefore the identity of people that wasn't known before who are doing things that are dangerous is out there. so that clearly puts people in jeopardy. and i think he also... >> rose: but he clearly doesn't agree with that. if he made the statement to you that i don't think we have put people in jeopardy, then he doesn't believe that. you just set put him in jeopardy and he says no we didn't. >> he says no we didn't. >> rose: okay. >> it would be valuable to really know and have someone in the military be able to say, you know, this fell flow kandahar who was helping us out who's identity wasn't known then became known through wikileaks, was exposed and then was murdered. >> rose: i mean, the point is that people... and he may not be able to know this or even evaluate this people in foreign countries who have a set of facts, an architecture of context so that they can look at information which may not be apparent to other people because information they have will tell

them something. >> rose: >> absolutely. >> rose: can reach the conclusions that the rest of us can't reach because they have information. >> and also what it does is it undermines the trust in the u.s. by our allies and our competitors and rivals as well. >> rose: what's interesting sheer the man who did it. >> yes. he questions almost any kind of organized arrangement of society. i mean, he grew up in a situation that was an ark i can, that was unsettled. it made him distrust institutions. he's created an institution that is an institution in name only. it moves where he is. it exists where he is. it has unnamed people are contributing to it who are unpaid. it is a... it's a kind of... the most decentralized organization that exists. you can hardly call it an organization. that's how he operates. >> rose: he told "forbes" magazine-- i know you know about this-- that the next target is a major u.s. bank.

what do you know about that? >> i asked him that. he confirmed that that is the case, that he has information from large financial institutions. that he will be making public at sometime in the future. >> rose: this is quoting from "time." "we don't have targets other than at organizations that use secrecy to create unjust behavior. that's created a target." "time" magazine says wikileaks has a large u.s. financial corporation in its sights. assange confirmed that. that is a continuation of what we have been doing for the past four years since wikileaks was founded. he added that the volume of material has increased, the upcoming bank material is 10,000 documents as opposed to hundred which is we have gotten in the other cases. which means he may have unleashed a torrent of information coming to him. >> yes, but charlie, he's also a man of our time. i mean, if you think about it,

right? what is he mining? he's mining distrust in institution which is we see all over the place. he's mining distrust in large bank which is we see all over the place. he's mining distrust in nation states. people are sifrp thet frick that. people are helping him. i mean, people who are all over this political spectrum may share some of those same ideas but i don't think they share his ends or his goals or even his means. >> rose: he said that all the documents were redacted carefully. they're all reviewed and redacted either by us or the newspapers concerned, the "new york times," the "guardian." "le monde," der spiegel. so these are major and they're reviewing material before they release it. >> yes, that's nothing i would take on face value. i think it's impossible to know if they themselves would use all those documents when it comes to organizations like the "new york times," and the "new york times" said they reviewed their

documents, they shared concerns with the state department about what should be reacted and what shouldn't. it's impossible to know whether he and his organization-- whatever that is-- has reviewed all those documents and i'm skeptical that it's even possible. >> rose: did you ask him why he had not included "time" magazine in his... >> well, we had spoken to them about this in the past and he has certain arrangements and certain necessities that he... >> rose: what are the arrangements? >> he often asks you to sign a non-disclosure agreement. >> rose: what's the financial transaction? >> there was no financial transaction with us but i'm told that he had asked for penalties for violation of the n.d.a.. >> rose: what else do we know about the agreements that we ask? >> that's about the extent of my knowledge. i just don't want to... there are other organizations that

actually know because they did cooperate with him so they would know far more than i do. >> rose: on balance this is a good thing or a bad thing? >> on balance, it's a very dangerous thing. you know, this notion that transparency in and of itself is a public good i think is a very naive notion. you know, i've said to him even in our private relations the things that we keep secret versus things that we expose and he kind of chuckled that off and said, more transparency leads to more justice and more goodness and that in and of itself is a good thing. i think he's very naive and he's doing an enormous amount of damage in the name of justice. >> rose: he thinks of... you asked him primarily what's your moral calculus, right? >> right. >> rose: did you use that word? >> i used the word moral calculus. i talked about do you see yourself as using civil

disobedience. he actually doesn't even cotton to that because he would say that he's not violating any laws and he would say that... >> rose: i see, so he doesn't see hit in the tradition of gandhi? >> no. he would say... he's a kind of first amendment absolutist. i mean, he would say that what he's doing is protected speech. they're competing equities here. he mentioned the espionage act of 1917 which a lot of courts and even the supreme court seemed to think is too broad in its definition of what is secret and what is damaging to u.s. interests. so what you may have at some point-- and i don't think this case will be... go through the u.s. court system, but there are cases where those... where those competing values of what's in the espionage act and the first amendment and it will be interesting to see how that's decided. but he believes that the first amendment trumps the espionage act and that he's a sort of first amendment absolutist and therefore it's protected.

>> rose: where do you think he's fooling himself? where do you think he's delusional? >> i think he's deceiving himself when he says the consequences of it are all good. because he would say that it's causing governments to reform themselves, it's causing people to understand the deception of governments. i think he's deceiving himself when he looks at that as an unadulterated good. >> rose: when he says they do redacting, i'd be interested to see what the formula is. >> it would be very interesting. it would be interesting because it would show what their moral calculus is. is it... you know, he claims that he's never put anybody in harm's way, i think he would say that the redactions that they do are part of the way that he prevents harm from coming to people. i have no idea whether that's the case or not. >> rose: so what's the question you most don't know about this man? >> well, the very practical question that you asked which is what is the nature of the transaction that happens, that

happened with bradley manning, that happens with, perhaps, a u.s. bank? i would love to know how that works. >> rose: that's a process question. >> that's a process question. i guess if i could get... if i could read his mind and his heart i would want to know what he sees as the outcome of what he's doing. whether, in fact, he really does want to bring down governments. what would be... >> rose: but he says... >> the idealized system in which people could function that he would think was a fair and just system. >> rose: he wants to bring down the u.s.? he wants to bring down the people's republic of china government? he wants to bring down the russian government? how many other governments does he want to bring down? >> i don't know that i'd use the word "bring down" but i don't know that he would disagree with it, either. he wants to undermine the power of all of those countries. >> rose: what would nelson mandela think about this? because you are very close to

nelson mandela. >> nelson mandela was indeed a revolutionary, as you know. and nelson mandela was palace a person who was against centralized power, when it was colonial power and he created a country that had centralized power in a socialist way. i think he would see assange as a an idealist on the one hand but a very naive one on the other. he's a pragmatic revolutionary. he would say maybe some of these ideas are fine and good but they would actually interfere with the functioning of government and nation states that actually do good for their own citizens. that was a good question, charlie. >> rose: my understanding is your complete interview will be on timemagazine.com at some point soon? >> tomorrow. >> rose: and "time" magazine's

weekly edition comes out thursday? >> that's right. >> rose: so we can all assume mr. assange may be a candidate for the cover? >> that's exactly correct. >> rose: thank you for coming. >> rose: we continue now where w a different perspective from admiral dennis blair. he's a retired four-star admiral and was until may of this year the director of national intelligence. he offers some idea as to what might be done now by the u.s. government in light of what has happened. i am pleased to have him back at this table. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: so when you saw this stuff, just tell me what you... what was your reaction? >> well, my heart sank to see that. we protect secrets for different reasons in the armed forces primarily to save lives and protect soldiers. in the intelligence services it's to protect sources and methods so we continue to inform

people taking action in the u.s. government and in diplomacy they're protecting relationships because what they're trying to do is work with other countries. and so to have all of that information laid bare in such detail will just make the job of all of those who don't do the hard work and the national security organizations in the united states that much harder. so it was a blow. >> rose: so when someone in some country said the following "oh, you should hear what we say about you," i think this was secretary clinton sort of trying to explain saying i'm sorry about this. they sort of passed it off. that's not the reality of the way people will feel about seeing what they said in print? >> well, i think there's a very human dimension to international relations which this braef breaches. it is true that a leader of a foreign country will deal with the united states based on the interests of his or her country.

that's the foundation. but then there's this matter of trust, which is what you use when you're asking the country to take a little bit of a chance to help you or when you are with friends trying to do something that may not be terribly popular in their country but that they would like to help us out. and when all of that is laid out on public cables, it just makes it that much harder. and, no, it won't affect weather a leader makes a decision in this country's interest but it will hurt us in trying to get cooperation to do things that are important to this country. >> rose: the trust element is always intriguing to me because i've had one person after another at the highest levels say the trust factor and personal relationship factor is crucial to getting things done. they will come to me and say yes policy is important, yes making the right decision is important but execution is dependent on being able to look across the table and say here's a man or

woman i can trust and to quote margaret thatcher famously, can do business with. >> that's a factor. so when you're reading a cable and international press that some ambassador is reporting that you're a material individual or you're flighty or you're not trustworthy, it's sort of... puts that seed of doubt in your mind, can i trust this government i'm dealing with? can i trust this other leader i'm dealing with? and it makes our job a lot harder. that's one piece of it. the other piece of it of course is if i were the intelligence chief of iran,n, these countries really trying to do harm to american interests, i've got a treasure trove there. many of the inner level workings of how america goes about trying to check mate us. >> rose: so you're saying there is material there that people could use? it's not just a question of embarrassment or trust. there's things they could use in

the material? like what? tell me how that works. >> well, if you know exactly what the state of a discussion... the state of the appreciation of your country is by the united states, it helps you to play the united states in a way that's to your advantage and to american disadvantage. i mean, the north koreans... play brinks manship all the time jab here, retreat there. the iranians you have these performances of their president at the united nations, you have actions they take in the persian gulf and they're trying to do it with a close eye on the united states and the more they know about how we are thinking about them and how we're... our policy towards them, the more they can take advantage of us and it gives them an edge i don't think they ought to have. >> rose: should we understand all this to be true? >> everything in the cables to be true? >> rose: yes. >> i have not read all of the cables individually.

i think the other thing is that everyone... ought to know that one cable is part of a stream of information that goes back and forth within government offices in the united states all the time so one is not decisive. and there may be a contradictory dhabl came in the next day that didn't happen to be leaked. the other thing that strikes me, charlie, is that when i was in government i looked pretty closely at how what we were doing, what the united states is doing was reported in respectable press. the big newspapers, the big correspondents, the charlie rose show. and i compared it to what i understood of what was going on and i have to tell you that any informed american who wants to can find out in very good detail and very truthfully what the united states's policy is towards afghanistan and pakistan what it's doing with regard to north korea. it's there. so there was nothing in these providing their doing something completely contrary to what

they... but it provides that tactical detail which can be used by our enemies against us and sews distrust in our friends because some of them took chances to work with us and now it's all out there. so it's not just you're informing the american people, but you're informing our enemies and causing problems for our friends. so it's very bad. it fits the definition that we have of secret information which is information the disclosure of which would cause grave damage to national security interests. >> rose: this fits that definition? >> it's not just a narrow definition of did you endanger anybody's life? it's this definition of causing damage to american security interests. that's why we keep secrets. that's why you don't tell everybody in your life everything that's going on. that's why you have polite conversations with people. it's comparable. but in the case of the armed forces, of course, it is lives. in the case of intelligence business and sources and methods. >> rose: how would bradley

manning, if he did all this, he's the person they pointed the finger at, how would he have access to this? >> yeah, that's... that's one of the dilemmas. i think we've talked about this before, but the whole global communications system has put information in networks and you don't send things directly to people anymore, you give them access to networks. and in general that's a good thing for a government because the more you know what's going on in other spheres that affect a common issue the better job you can do. what we need to do in those networks have absolute accountable so that we know that insiders are not misusing them a way this private manning appears to have done. or that outsiders are penetrating them. so the way you do that and the way we do that increasingly is we have audit capability of every key stroke in our networks and then we have algorithms that are like the ones that your

credit card company uses when it says hey, somebody charged something a jewelry store in tibet. >> rose: right, right. >> we have the same sort of things. the trouble is the networks are hooking up faster than these security measures are and we have to clean that up so we can get the advantages of integration, which are all good, and have somebody notice when a private is downloading 1.6 gigabytes of information. >> rose: why didn't they notice that? >> because there was not the internal monitoring mechanism to be able to do so in realtime. now i'm sure that investigators can go back and see in the retrospect. but it has to be there at network speed so you can cash it right away and do do something about it. and we have that. we don't have it completely as widespread as we need to. >> rose: will this cause the rebuilding of silos? >> i hope not. there will be that tendency and

i think we will lose for it. i think we need to share information and do it smart with a way to keep the insider from doing the wrong thing and keep keep the outsider from penetrating it. >> rose: let me take the most recent information about china's attitude towards north korea. which you would assume... i mean clearly the chinese had to have had those kind of questions. they have to ask themselves looking out for their own national interest. what are the implications of the relationship we have with the north koreans. clearly that's in their national interest to can ask that question. but is it possible looking at scenarios that they will read this and what has been attributed to them about north korea and then back off? >> i would think the chinese would make their decisions more based on the fundamental consideration of their policy than by this... these particular

cables and i haven't read all of them. i think... we talked about this a little bit last time. china's hand is not quite as strong as many would say on north korea because what they've basically sphere north korea collapsing and instability. >> rose: and refugees storming over. >> refugees, more possible improvements in south korean or american position there so they want to keep keep it the way it is. but i have no doubt they said to the north koreans we don't want you to become a nuclear power. we don't want you to provoke the united states and north korea and if the north koreans say "or else what?" then the chinese say "or we'll withdraw our economic support." "okay, then we'll become unstable and you'll have the same problem you have. sqots the chinese have a negative weapon for negative goal which is doesn't put them

the position for being able to dictate what north korea is able to do and north korea doesn't want to be dictated to by anybody. certainly united states and korea but not china. there are clashes between chinese and north koreans postal forces in which people are killed. so i think china wants to stop this north koreans aggressive behavior but they don't have a strong hand to tell them to stop it. >> rose: do we know much about north korea? >> yes, we know quite a bit about north korea. i can't go into details, but the patterns of north korean behavior as i've watched the intelligence on it have been pretty well predicted and understood. the particular incidents not so much so, but the general places at risk. we also don't know... again, we

don't know things that the north koreas themselves don't know. how long the regime will hold on. when kim jong il will die. some of those sorts of specific things. but we know in general the way the system works. >> it always amazes me the process is happening in egypt it happened in syria and is happening in north korea twice now. where a family wants to pass on control of the country. and what you have is vested interest with a particular family to do it because that family has appointed the key people in all the institutions. >> right. >> rose: so it happened in syria. so the people who have supported the previous president understand that... i assume, i'm asking this question, we better stay with the person we know. the family we know. >> the way to think about north korea is a criminal family.

they are the ones who have first cut on the money, first cut on the food, first cut on all of the privileges. they support each other and they know that should that unity and that direction of the countries and affairs fall apart then no telling where it's going to go. so there's strong interest in them sticking together for their position of power and influence they have and they use it to oppress most of the people. when food ran short, huge food shortages in the '90s millions of people died but they were just fine. so they have good reason to hold together but there also is the idea of well, who's going in in chargeover this operation. i think that's the... some members of this family when kim jong il does die may think that they should be number one rather than another side and there may be a chance for a change but

it's a criminal automatic family holding power there. >> rose: are you surprised at all... you you're the last people to ask this. so many leaders in the arab world that for god's sake do something about iran. >> i think that persian arab long and deep... >> rose: the operative idea was expressed earlier as well which was that we've prepared-- and we may have talked about this-- the consequences of an early strike are easier for us to accept than the consequences of iran having a nuclear capability. >> i think that the... i think the driving nightmare of the persian gulf that affects the way we think about it and the way the countries think about it

is what if there were a bunch of states around that region with nuclear weapons with the sort of inherent government instability that we have there that iran has been in turmoil for a long time, saudi arabia's dealing with a problem, they don't have established stable governments. iraq is just changing. turkey's going to great... that's not a place in which you want nuclear weapons put on top of these deep rivalries. and i think they're so easy to come up with nightmare scenarios that are bad for that region. so that drives the thinking of sensible penal in the gulf. >> rose: what do you think of role-playing and gaming? >> i think that's enormously important and underused tool and

i try to push for more of it. >> is that from your military experience? >> i was a director of the organization that had done the... what's called the strategic analysis and gaming agency which up until about 1970 had been the joint chiefs gaming experience. one thing was sered in my memory. they were called the sigma games of the early 1960s in which the u.s. government at a very high level gained our involvement in vietnam and the blue side, the americans, threw every tactic that we could try against the vietnamese. the red side was playing the vietnamese and was age to handle all of them with the basic tactic with the north vietnamese showed of not fwigting where they were weak, coming back... >> rose: here's what's interesting. let's take that forward to iran. >> right. >> rose: a huge, powerful strategic issue. >> well, that's why i think games are so valuable.

i don't think games have any advantage in first order affects because you can write a paper but what they are priceless at is pushing the developments second and third order. okay in the game, give iran the nuclear weapons and then the israel player makes his move, the arab players make their move, the united states player makes their move and then you say wait a minute, there was this thing that occurred that we hadn't thought about and then you take that move. nobody wants to predict that result but when you do it you get a feeling for these second order affect which is turn out to be... well, in iraq the second order affect that we talk about was something that would have... >> rose: but here's also the argument being made often by... about game playing. it is that if you can give somebody tonight $10 million to go manage on paper and the

things that will affect real decision making are not at play. there's not the emotion, there's not... all that. so you can never really duplicate it. >> i would agree it has limitations but the value it provides even without the intensity of real life is important. and this gets to our discussion about wikileaks is games would be leaked and people say oh, my god, they're thinking about y, y or z. one parallel struck me between wikileaks and what i've seen happen within government in my career, we used to keep notes, we used to send papers back and forth that showed real point of views. but the congressional subpoena, the freedom of information act have meant that these... can be often brought out, embarrass

people. so i think it cheapens the quality of our decisions because you can't remember everything in your head. you've got to write it down and work it out. you have to have thoughts that turn out to be thoughts that you act on but things you need to decide why they aren't good ideas but when they can picked up, put in public and used against you in the domestic context, you don't write it down and consequencely i think that's some of the effect we'll see in the internext falcon text on the handle of these leaks and the way that you describe. >> rose: that's the question, how do you get a handle on these leaks? >> i think by the security measures i talked about. by having good audit and security measures on our... >> rose: monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. >> monitoring, monitoring, monitoring and knowing what every key stroke is on everybody computer on your network and being able to take quick tax. >> rose: and profiling, profiling, profiling. >> i think so. that people who are on the net.

because my father might say if he was with us might say the horse is out of the barn. >> well, the horse is out of the barn on these issues... >> rose: and not just the fact that these documents have been released. it's hard to go back to a time in which people wrote every... it... you know, the fact that everything becomes public. it's hard to go go back. the genie is out of the bottle, whatever you want to say. you can't do that anymore. >> i think you're right. i hope you would get a level of sophistication that we could recognize the things that should be public which i think are much lighter. >> rose: we should release more on our own? >> both release more on our own and we should have a... maybe new legislation in a better relationship with the press in which we say okay, this really has to be kept and for reporters and others to say i respect that. >> but that goes on a lot more than anybody in the world knows. >> it really does. >> rose: i think it does.

i can tell you ten stories i know where reporters have not done something in part... they reported the story but left out details because they knew that it would affect lives. >> and that's good because you inform but don't endanger. i think we need to keep working on that balance. the trouble is we have people like this mr. assange and so on who believe that any secrecy is bad that their mission is to get out all details whether it... whether it hurts somebody or not. i wonder if there's going to be a a legal aspect of this some time. let's say a... he puts out a message and somebody is killed or badly injured by it. if i were the family of that person who was killed, i think i would be coming against wikileaks pretty hard because

that person killed my son, daughter. >> rose: but you know what they would say? it's the person... some world argue, i know you're familiar with it. it's not mr. assange who would be held responsible, it's the person who did the leaking. the publication was started by the person who did the leaking, that's who you'd go after. >> well, yeah, i mean somebody gives a minor a again so anything a minor does with it is okay? >> rose: no. no. that's... the point is well taken. >> just as you said, responsible reporters, and i think responsible human beings, look at the consequences of what they're doing in terms of what >> rose: but you're saying if something comes out of this it has to do with... julian assange should be... >> life and death, property damage... >> rose: a caucus? >> i think there's a real consideration there... >> rose: a cause of action.

>> hernd be taken to court for that. and so i... and i think that... i think we need to update the concepts that we americans hold dear, the american public has a right to know about things, freedom of the press is important. i think we need quite a bit based on just what this wash wash of global information is made available because i think the fundamentals are good but the technology is changing so fast that they need updating and i think this is something we need to work on. >> rose: how would you recommend we go about it? >> i would put together a good commission to recommend legislation. i would put bipartisan presentation on presentation on that. there have been... >> rose: and you want to send a signal to the world that you realize this is not good and we are determined to make sure it doesn't happen again. >> and i think for the future whether the horse is out of the barn depends on whether these

250,000 documents and last months are a one-time aberration that causes us to imyou have maters so they don't happen again or whether it's the first of many, if it's the first of many then the scenario that you alluded to that the horse is out of the born that we have to operate where our allies don't trust us. >> rose: it's hard to imagine people can go back to feeling dmft the e-mails they write. the age we live in means the horse is out of the barn in terms of access and all that kind of stuff. people feel less comfortable writing things down in the world we live in. that idea, i think, is harder to put back in. up? >> right. i think that's right. but if we can create a system in which something is put in a secret cable, the person who writes that cable has confidence that that cable will be handled correctly then i think it will be a much better government. >> rose: handled correctly meaning we look for ways and

monitor ways so that people will not... who may not... >> will not abuse it. but yet there will be a declassification schedule which after a certain amount of time it will be. but if it's subject to a freedom of information act it will be promptly and carefully reviewed and if it's something in which you can block out the senseive the parts of it and give it to a news organization you should: so i think it rirdz... i think this is a sort of a... wow, let's get serious about this on both sides. i think congress has a role in this because it has to be somethat that the american people's representative think are right and pass: it... obviously press has to have, we have to recognize this quasi-press, bloggers and wikileaks and so on who don't have the traditions of a traditional press and figuring out how we're going to handle that. but i think this is right for rethinking and we're america, we can do this. >> rose: good point to leave on.

thank you again. >> thank you.