>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin with jimmy carter about the presidency and his new book, call to action. women, religion, violence and power. >> this is the most important book i've ever written. it's a subject that is the worst affliction on society that exists on earth. it's the greatest human rights abuse that i've ever known, and it's largely under dressed. and women and girls are suffering in an unconscionable way that very few people know about or want to know about. >> rose: and we remember texan bob strauss, a former democratic party king maker, an ambassador to russia. >> jimmy carter everybody says is a better expresident than president. well that's the general take and

it certainly is no popular expresident than he was president. >> rose: he did a lot of great things. >> exactly. and no one, including me thought he ought to take it on. i said to him two or three times, mr. president, that is a second term issue. let's kick it past the first term, get re-elected first. no, he had a list of things and kept them on his desk. >> rose: really. >> that's right. and he thought it was going to get done in the first term, got a lot of them done. >> rose: jimmy carter and remembering bob strauss went we continue.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose.

>> rose: the world's discrimination and violence against women and girls. his new book is a call to action, women, religion, violence and power. looked at the issue and consequences. i'm pleased to have president jimmy carter back at this table, welcome. it's so good to see you. we first met during the campaign in 1976. >> long time ago. >> rose: listen to this. we can have peace in the holy land, palestine peace, the

hornet's nest. you would remember the number. do you write because a you love to write. b, it's a primary source of income. c, there's so much you want to say and this is the best way to express it. >> all three. i like to write and this is my 28th book as a matter of fact. i don't have any. i'm not on any circuits or boards. >> rose: by choice. >> yes. i'm a professor at the university so i get a salary for professorship. it gives me a source of income for my family. we have a big family now and more importantly let's me address issue of this importance. and be on the charlie rose show and other shows and lectures around the world as a matter of fact. people who read my books have

pretty much been best sellers. so this is the most important book i've ever written. it's a subject that is the worst affliction on society that exists on earth. it's the greatest human rights abuse that i've ever known and it's largely under dressed. and women and girls are suffering in an unconscionable way that very few people know about or want to know about. i'll give you one example. the worst case of genocide i've ever known was a horrible genocide of jews during the holocaust, six million jews wee killed. 25 times girls have been killed by their own parents. either killed at birth or aborted when the prospective baby was going to be a girl and not a boy. this takes place in china, it takes place in india, it takes place in other countries. and one ancillary and not very

important result of that is that young men can't find brides to marry now. that's a contributing factor to the greatest level of slavery that the world has ever known. greater than it ever was during the 19th century. it now amounts to about $32 billion a year. the state department is required by law to analyze how much slavery does exist or human trafficking. and they estimated 800,000 people are sold across international borders over year. 80% of whom are girls being sold into sexual slavery and about 100,000 girls are sold every year in the states. and unfortunately atlanta, georgia, where the carter center is located is the number one location for trafficking in girls. >> rose: why is that? >> that's the largest airport in the world and it serves the southern part of the hemisphere more than most big airports do. and girls are cheaper to buy in

latin america and africa and some parts of asia than they are in say europe and so forth. it costs about $1,000 for brothel owner or pimp to get a girl from the south. it costs them several times as much as that to get them from further north so they buy the cheap girls in the south and a lot of them come through the atlanta airport. >> rose: who is karen ryan. >> he's in charge of human rights program at the carter center. and we began the are carter center several years ago for the poorest nations earth. we had 79 countries. for diseases and elections we've done that. we treated last year about 35 million people for disease, for their own diseases that the women in those countries were so severely treated, deprived of an equal status within families. if they had limited food, the

boys in the family got the food and girls didn't. one child is sent to school is the boy instead of the girl. let us become of wear of this so for the last three years the carter center human rights policy program has concentrated on abuse of women and girls and how religion and violence are two factors that are mentioned in the title of the book, contribute to the abuse of women. religion is one of the major causes of abuse of women and girls. because the bible by men leadert women are not equal to men in the eyes of god. and of course jesus christ never said any such thing. he elevated women. >> rose: isn't it more in christian than it is in other religion. >> i would say all.

out of the old testament and new tressment in the hebrew script and protestant script are 80,000 verses. if you want to prove where it says women are inferior you could find the verse that does it. jesus never said that but st. paul wrote to individual tiny churches and sometimes he said women couldn't teach boys and women couldn't speak in church but other times there was no difference in the eyes of god between a woman or man or slave and master or between a jew and gentile. in other places he listed for instance 16 i believe is the chapter he listed 25 of the key leaders in the early church and a good portion. this was my area of work until the year 2000. my daddy was a teacher and i was

a deacon and so forth. we left the southern baptist convention when they ordained officials that women had to be subservient to their husbands and couldn't serve in the chirp or chaplain in a military. in a southern baptist convention university, the seminary they call them, a woman is not permitted to teach a classroom if a boy is a student in the class. you can find a verse in the bible that says that. so we left for that reason. >> rose: you say you wanted to encourage women and girls including those not abused to speak out more forcefully. it's imperative those who do speak out are protected from retaliation. >> that's right. let's just take two examples in the united states. the two of the most reveafd institutions in america. first of all our great university system. the most horrible abuse of women and girls in america is in the university campuses. and the reason for it is that

the rapist, and quite often serial rapists, when they get on the campus they're impervious o trial if they rape girls. deans are reluctant to encourage a woman who has been raped to report her attacker and have him brought to justice because it brings adverse publicity to that university campus that here's a place from sexual abuse takes place because they report it. they advise women to go to counseling. another thing is if you bring a boy to trial quite often he will claim he quite often will say the girl was drunk or something like that. the other is the u.s. military. the statistics made available there are 26,000 reported cases of sexual abuse. and only about 320 of them actually brought the attacker to

justice. that's 1%. on a college pam puss not many are reported. so the campuses and the universities and also the military don't want women to report abuses. that's two examples. another thing that exists in the united states and we have one of the best countries on earth about women's rights, is the pay for women. women get paid about 23% less than a man for the same exact work. and if you look at the fortune 500, less than two dozen of them have women ceo's and they get about 42% less pay than a man doing the same job. so when the catholic church and the southern baptist convention and so forth says that a woman is not equal in the eyes of god a husband wants to abuse his wife or employer who wants to pay less to his women employees, says if she's not equal in the eyes of god why should i treat

her as equal. >> rose: may i turn to what i mentioned in my introduction to you. secretary kerry's hard now to make a difference. i know you're impressed by what he's doing. you're wishing him success. but what about you and begin and sadat in camp david in the peace treaty against israel and egypt. >> this place that's going to be called cam david, the play rights and others have spent hours and hours and hours with me and my wife and also bra sent ski and others that were there. began representing israel were the most calcitrant and reluctant person that was there. everybody else wanted to go awe large and be constructed but he was a hold out.

disaft -- sadat was eager to have peace than his subordinates. his minister of state resigned in protest because he thought sadat was too forthcoming. but it involved as the play is going to bring out, you have a devout christian and devout muslim and devout jew. in fact b began was a devout christian. i kept the two men apart because they were antagonist antagonih other. i went back and forth between them. the last day began had taken an oath before god, a sacred oath that my right arm fall off. most of us said if i betrayed

the old jerusalem. he said may my right arm fall off if i dismantled -- israelis had to withdraw from egyptian territory. the other one was palestinians had to be given their full rights. but began had taken an oath he would not dismantled the settlement. so i thought it was over with. the last day we were ready to go back to washington and announce failure which would have been very embarrassing to me but i was prepared for it with grief. and began asked me if he could be have a photograph of me and began and sadat together to give to his grandchildren. and my secretary whose name is susan decided on her own to call up israel and find out the names of his eight grandchildren. instead of writing best wishes jimmy carter i wrote with love and best wishes to and i wrote the girl's name and boy's name and i signed it. i took it over to began's cabin and he was ready to go to

washington in defeat he said thank you mr. president. he was very angry with me and he turned around and looked at the first photograph and he calledcs grandchildren. he looked at the second one and his lips began to quiver and tears ran down his cheeks. and i shed tears also he looked around and said why don't we try one more said. he cept his assistant over there and we decided as a compromise that begin would not take any role in dismantling the settlements. it was one large one that had 3500 people in it. he agreed to let them make the decision, the parliament of israel make the decision and he would stay aloof from it. so he didn't volley his oath of

settlement he let the parliament do it. >> rose: and that's how deals are made. you came down from camp david and you had an historic agreement. i don't want to go into it but it was the same things at cam david. everybody said to you don't do camp david now do it in the second term because it would be nothing but trouble to you. and you said i'm going to do it. >> yes. i told him, my top staff at the state department and security to devise me the ultimate goal that we should reach. and it presented to me, i saw, it was a very limited ambition where we would in effect the secretaries of state and secretaries of defense negotiated an agreement and begin and sadat and i would affirm and i said no. i hand wrote a long page letter to begin and sadat and asked him to come and meet with me. and they both agreed to do it. we were at camp david one

weekend. walking around, i said i don't know how to bring these two guys. and he said why don't you bring them up here. you got 123 acres. it's private, it's got a bunch of cabins they could stay there. so i decided to bring them up to camp david. we locked it up in effect, we didn't let anybody from camp david have any contact with the outside world. >> rose: that was part of the reason. you didn't have the glare of press and everybody else. >> that's right. >> rose: panama canal. people didn't think you should do that either. >> i know. that was the most courageous vote in my opinion that the u.s. congress had ever cast. >> rose: you had ronald reagan and jessie helms saying never. >> that's true. i had john wayne on my side. because he didn't like ronald reagan. but that's true. and the senate had voted in november when i was elected and before i took office, they had passed a resolution that we will

never give away to the panama canal. and i finally got 67 votes for the canal treaties which gave away our canal. there were 20 u.s. senators who voted for the treaties who were up for re-election that same year 1978. 20 of the 7 came back to the senate. >> rose: the other thing that was part of the four years was iran. how many times have you thought if only i added a helicopter to. >> any time i was asked the question. what would you do different if you were president, i said one more helicopter. >> rose: do you believe that would have done it. >> no doubt. >> rose: one more helicopter. >> we're going to send seven. we had to have six because we had to extract all the hostages and the rest of the team. i couldn't leave them back there so we had to have six. and herald brown the secretary

of defense said send seven and i said let's send eight just to be darn sure. they had a long time from a helicopter, i mean an aircraft carrier. one of the helicopters for one unexplainable reason went back which left me seven. another one took off and had an oil leak and crashed into one of our airplanes there and so we had to abort the mission. that was a very sad thing. >> rose: bob gates will tell you today when they went over to get bin laden with the helicopter, it was oh my god. >> yes, because it crashed. >> rose: the mission would have been successful in your judgment. >> no question. >> rose: you has been able to get the hostages and the recover of darkness and get them to the helicopters and get them away. >> we knew every ambassador or embassy personnel who was a prisoner, we knew what room they were in, we knew exactly which

iranian guards were there, they weren't very well armed. we could tell which car parked in front of the compound was on duty. there was a cook that had been there that turned and agreed to give us the information. we had night glasses so we could see at night. nobody knew we were there. in fact they never knew we were there until all our rescue team were out of iran and they finally found the debris in the desert. i could have got them out there's no question about that. >> rose: there's today in contemporary politics some people will talk about president obama and they'll say he's like another jimmy carter in a sense where jimmy carter was weak. where do you think that comes from. >> from the republican side. i left defeat from ronald ronan and he used eight years to blame everything on me. that we didn't strengthen the military which we did and we

didn't take care of our country which we did and so forth. i'm not trying to -- >> rose: you're trying to answer my question. >> i'm not trying to resurrect old times but when the soviet union invaded afghanistan, i took extremely strong action that we went through ambassador, an embargo, a total embargo against grain and so forth. >> rose: the olympics. >> well that's right. congress and the olympic committee voted two to one not to go. i supported that. 25 other countries didn't go. and then we began to arm, give secret weapons to the fighters inside afghanistan to defeat the soviet union invaders and that was picked up by my successors in office. so we did everything we possibly could. the most important thing was i sent a message to breshnev which was later called 9 so-called carter doctrine if he went beyond afghanistan we would respond militarily and we would use all the weapon at our

disposal. >> rose: so if he had gone afghanistan you would have attacked russia. >> absolutely. >> rose: there wouldn't have been a soviet union. >> yes, on my word of honor. we would have and were prepared to do it. >> emily: you had to be -- >> rose: you had to be prepared to do it. and he knew that i he knew it. there was no doubt about it. i might say it's different now because crimea i think putin would have gone to crimea no matter what kind of embargo or what kind of punishment came from the united states in europe or united states or kiev or anywhere. because they considered crimea part of russia and most of the crimean people considered themselves to be a part of russia. i don't think we could have stopped him there but we have got to stop him now so he doesn't go any further to eastern crimea. that's where we need to draw te

line. >> rose: you would have your president say- >> i'm not going to tell him what to say. >> rose: are you saying that if putin decides to go send his troops and his tanks into ukraine and into then you would militarily demand he stop or face the consequences. >> i think now we would join in with the europe in making that statement. >> rose: with nato. >> with nato yes because i didn't have nato with me when the soviets invaded afghanistan but i felt i was responsible. >> rose: the most important thing here was the underlining belief you have that if you don't stop him at all costs. >> that's right. >> rose: his appetite is huge. >> yes but the problem is you got to make him believe when you say that, that if he crosses a certain line then the consequences will be unbearable. >> rose: how does this president make him believe. i'm not asking you to criticize

the president. >> i'm not. >> rose: i know you're not. how do you make vladimir putin believe. what do you do with u.s. strength to make him believe that if he does that, it will be an unacceptable consequence for him. how do you make him believe. >> i'm not sure how to do that. and i don't know putin, i've met him but i think he's quite resolved. i look very carefully at his speech last week and he very definitely said i'm not going to do the same thing in eastern ukraine. so i think what putin is going to do, as an alternative, he's going to woo the people in eastern ukraine with all kinds of loans and grants and trade preferences to make them believe at least the russians in crimea believe they're much better with russia than they are with europe. that might ultimately resolve

itself. i don't favor this, in a divided ukraine. whether the western part might go to europe and eastern part might go to russia of their own volition. with a military action by russia into ukraine, that's unacceptable. >> rose: you think he wants to do it. >> i don't think so. >> rose: you don't think he wants to do it. >> i believe he said he's not going to do and so far i know, why should he lie. why should he try to mislead people. >> rose: henry kissinger sat where you're sitting last week and wrote a piece as well and said basically you have to respect that ukraine's relationship with russia, it's historic relationship but that it pot to be a kind of you know, it ought to be a transition between europe and asia. >> that would suit me. >> rose: that may be the solution. >> the point i'm trying to make, maybe i'm not as knowledgeable about kissinger about that part of the world but i have known for a long time that crimea was

a special that sticks out into -- >> rose: you talk about maldova. >> i'm not sure. >> rose: first the palestinian, israeli negotiations that senator kerry did. do you know what his framework is and what his plan. >> no. >> rose: nor do i. >> he's got my advice with e-mails and so forth. >> rose: he sought out your advice i >> i didn't say that. he talked to me about it and i sent e-mails. >> rose: tell me what you said to him in your e-mails. >> i tell him to be equally between the two and be bold when he asks for recommendations. the last thing i told him which is pretty predictable don't violate international laws the laws that applied when i negotiated camp david agreements and peace, don't violate the

peace treaty between israel and egypt. that doesn't violate what nixon and kissinger and bra sin ski and i and clinton and george w. bush have pursued don't violate the international laws. because all the nations in the world including israel have agreed with a basic law that prevails upon passed by unopposed u.n. resolutions. any timesrael has opposed a u.n. u.n. resolution the united states have vetoed it. they are not to be violated. i think the 1967 borders are basically inviolate except they can be modified back and forth to trade. ariel sharon didn't agree with me in a lot of things but we

were friendly. the last time i met with him the last days of his prime ministership he had a wonderful idea that he showed me on maps he had written. that is that israel would take over the area of palestine right near to jerusalem. and in addition -- >> rose: jerusalem would still be the state capitol for both. >> that's right. but israel would give the palestinians an amount of territory and that territory would provide a corridor 36 miles long between gaza and the west bank. and on that corridor which would belong to the palestinians would be built a railroad and a highway. of course his farm is south of that and he said how are you going to get to your farm. he said dig a tunnel underneath a palestinian highway or build a bridge over it. he had all that worked out. that's the kind of thing that could possibly be put into effect in the future.

>> rose: it's tragic that sharron and -- who seemed to have the courage and respect. >> and begin. >> rose: to be able to go forward and convince the israeli public that their national security could be preserved at the same time you had an agreement with the palestinians. >> in fact every prime sustain nurse and israel in modern days except netanyahu had accepted that premise and that was the basis on which president obama gave his famous speech and the basis on which john kerry is trying to negotiate. and i hope they will be success successful. >> rose: wouldn't it have been better if he had flown in jerusalem. >> in retrospect. it was a long time before he ever went to israel. if he had made the same basic speech in jerusalem that he just made in cairo and said this is what i believe would be fair to

both sides, i think he would have been good. but netanyahu, in fact i happen to be in jerusalem when -- >> rose: the speech was made in cairo. >> the speech was made in cairo. i heard netanyahu make a statement a good number of days and netanyahu made a statement after that. and said in a very for the first time that he accepted the two-state solution. but i think he said it with his tongue in his cheek because he really hasn't observed that premise in my opinion. >> rose: settlements are not constructive in your judgment. >> no, they're not. i think when i was there it was a general premise and when kissinger and nixon was there it was a general premise it was illegal and an obstacle to peace. >> rose: palestinians, they insist and prime minister netanyahu insists on the notion of israel be declared, be understood as the jewish state. >> that's a new development. >> rose: i know. but it seemed very high up on

their priorities. >> yes. >> rose: should it be agreed to by the palestinians. >> in my opinion, the palestinians will never agree to that. it would suit me if they want to, but it's a matter of accepting the fact that one and-a-half million arabs don't belong there because they're not jews. if israel is called by the arabs as a jewish state, that means that everybody in israel is a jew. and of course about a fourth or in the neighborhood of a fourth of total israeli citizens who are official citizens are not jews. and so this is, it may be an insurmountable problem that is to some degree semantical and

it's all right to call it a jewish state but for the arabs to say it is very difficult. >> rose: the other thing they're demanding the israeli defenses forces on the jordan river. >> that's a new development. how can you have a jewish state if you got jewish troops all the way across the west bank including the eastern side of it which is right next to jordan. i don't see that. and another thing on the other side, to be fair about it at least, the palestinians are demanding the right of return. and i've always said even when i was in office that there's no way that israel will ever agree to let palestinians -- >> rose: to give them a right of return. >> they can come to the palestinian new state but not to israel. and there may be a few token ones that can be admitted to israel but i think there you can say okay palestinians cannot return to israel but if you have a legitimate complaint that's presented to the international

mediation courter something like that we'll pay you a modest amount. >> rose: do you believe that if in fact if there is a wind of opportunity and that at some point because of demographics, it will mean that a two-state solution is not possible and that that would be a very difficult proposition for israel because they would have to make choices to be a state that it doesn't want to be. >> and that is a proposition that ten years ago when i was meeting with a very large group of palestinian business 4r5er9dz. i asked him, the audience there about 200, how many of you would favor a one-state solution. and almost half of them raised their hand. and as you know later qaddafi wrote -- in the future a total

number of non-jews will be greater than the total number of jews in a one state. but that would destroy the possibility of the jews themselves calling it a jewish state. it would mean the palestinians would be deprived personally of a right to vote on an equal basis or either outvote the jewish numbers of the one state that we've talked about. so in either case, it would be a very bad option to pursue. i think the two-state solution has been the basis for every peace effort that's been made so far and i think we ought to stick to it and so far as i know john kerry and president obama and the european community unanimously the arab nation, even islamic nation which includes iran had voted in the most to accept the two-state solution. >> rose: there is also this, syria.

robert ford, the former ambassador, heroic ambassador to syria said recently that he's concerned that assad might be in power for a long time. >> i think that's true. >> rose: that's been expected for a while. >> well, i'm not trying to say i told you so but when this altercation first deteriorated into civil war -- and i met with the leader of the arab league and we all three of us assumed around the table that it will be almost impossible for assad to be overthrown because he had a very strong army that was almost unanimously still behind him. the christian groups in syria that i knew very well were giving him full support fearing the consequences if he didn't, if his regime didn't protect him

and so forth. >> rose: alites as well. >> and the alites -- the first peace negotiator -- both of the fellow elders i meet with them very regularly was that we have a limited term for assad, that he put forward proposals that would make it acceptable for the opposition to agree. and that there be an election held where he would be the titular head but a parliament would take over and about 10,000 united troops would come in and maintain peace and there would be a transition so he would leave office. but for him to be forced out of office, in my opinion has never been possible. and as you know -- >> rose: if there had been more intervention militarily or

the u.s. had provided not troops on the ground but provided at a moment when the secretary of defense and secretary of state and they had a cia suggested it. >> the point is that the opposition should be so fragmented that i don't think we could ever have found enough so-called rebels to support them and exclude the more militants that are fighting against them. russia and chinese have always agreed what i described -- but the united states has been the major holdout from the beginning that -- must step down first. >> rose: that's a mistake for the president to say that at the beginning. >> i don't know the information he had. it was not the same summary that i gave to secretary clinton when she was secretary of state. but i sent her a message that describes my position which was different from the one that united states adopted.

but who knows. i'm not trying to criticize anybody. >> rose: i'm asking the questions. i'm trying to get your sense of experience. i'm trying to tap into the experience which i assume the same reason john kerry wanted your e-mail or secretary clinton, you know. have you always felt that the demographic delegation. >> secretary of state has very well. both hillary clinton and john kerry have been my major avenue to send messages into the administration. >> rose: rather than through the whitehouse. >> yes. >> rose: why is that? >> i don't know. i regret it. it's been a factor and i understand some of the robz. in the first place when i was president i had two immediate predecessors to work with. as you know, richard next even and gerald ford. i kept him briefed every month

until richard nixon said i don't need anymore briefing i'm getting too many. and i would say that that's a relationship perhaps that president obama has had with his immediate predecessors both democratic and republican. i've been out of office 35 years so i'm ancient history. >> rose: but you travel around the world and people respect you and they talk to you and you're a member of the elders. >> that's true. >> rose: and so it's not like you're hold up in georgia. >> since we're being frank i wanted to talk about women tonight more. >> rose: we did. >> but the other thing is that when the carter center has been quite aggressive since i left office in trying to have an equal rationship with palestinians and arabs on the one side and israel and israel supporters on the other. so we have some controversial things we've done. we did meet quite regularly with

hamas as well as fatah and we have can counseled with the palestinian and when i been go to israel i meet with the government who meets with me and i've also met with the palestinians. i think that balance was not politically popular in the united states. i wrote a book palestine peace not apartheid. that's maybe one reason -- >> rose: the security advisors gotten into some. >> yes. but i regret it and i would rather have a more intimate relationship. i think my affair is adequately presented through the secretary of state. >> rose: you would think you earned the right. you won a nobel peace prize by the way. >> yes, i remember that. so has president obama. the carter center is a free-acting organization. i never have been to a sensitive area of the world in advance

without getting at least tacit approval from the president. and i give them a trip report the day after i return. it's a thing that i do. we deal with unsavory people. i go to north korea when i get ready and i bring the messages back to the united states. we won't send or can't send even a low level envoy to them. we met and worked with the maoists when they ran election and we said they were terrorists. we wouldn't speak to them when they won the election in 2008. we go to other places and meet with a sheer who is the unsavory leader of sudan because we have programs in north and south sudan and he can help me with those. we're getting ready to train hundreds of thousands of health workers in sudan. when i go he to meet with a

sheer for instance i get requests for carrying information to him from the u.s. government and i give the u.s. -- >> rose: you ought to be viewed as an asset. >> i think that's true. i want -- status. >> rose: you have assets. you don't negotiate with your friends you negotiate with your enemies. >> that's what the carter center does. i go where i wish and say what i choose and i say what i really believe. i feel at ease with it because i've gone through public office again. i've got secret service. i try not to burden him with some of the positions i've taken from him. >> rose: do you think, i'm going to ask you this out of i hope you won't be angry with me. >> i won't be angry but i may not answer. >> rose: do you think it has to do with personality or i mean

that there's some sense of, president carter feels so, you know what i'm saying. you know exactly what i mean. >> i think so. president reagan during the eight years he was in office, his national security advisors called on me regularly because there were a number of countries around the world with whom they didn't have diplomatic relations. syria was one of them. i went to the mid east area every year owe two. i would get sometimes 20 to 30 questions. i went to other places in the world they called on me. when george h.w. bush went in office we were in the middle of iran contra scandal. i asked george h.w. bush to represent me when i went there. when i came back from a sensitive area, quite often george bush seniorsnz would send

his small airplane down to pick me up and bring me to the whitehouse to give him a report what i just learned. when president clinton was in office, he authorized me and sam nunn and colin powell to be to haiti and also authorized me to go to north korea. we've had good relationships, sometimes not personal in political areas but every time we meet at an international event or opening of a new library or funeral or something like that, we are always very harmonious, our wives and all of us, presidents always drop anything that might be divisive between us and we are like a fraternity with a very small membership and shared a lot of problems. and that greatly respect each other and that's the way i feel about all the presidents that have succeeded me. >> rose: there are those who say the following. that you -- >> go ahead. >> rose: you bristle at the

idea of people always saying he's the most popular post president. >> i don't object to that at all. >> rose: it's nice to be the most popular president but you think it minimizes or deminimizes the things that i said. >> it does. >> camp david. >> nobody remembers how much challenge there was around the world. we were in the depth of the cold war and nuclear conflict could have broken out at any time. we did not have diplomatic relations with china for 35 years. israel and egypt had been at war four times in the previous five years. >> rose: relationship had not been established at the time you became president. there was the break through but there was no diplomatic. >> there was a quite a long interval. 1972 is when nixon went. i'm not delegating that which was diplomatic, that declared it

was one china but the one china was taiwan. and all the rest of nixon's term and all through bush's term the one china was taiwan was they were riled against nixon for betraying or recognizing and looking at red china for the visit. but to have diplomatic relations with them was another major step that i took because i had known china since i was a young person. i went to china before they became national people of the republican. anyway, so i was kind of, i was ready when i went into the whitehouse to normalize diplomatic relations with china and we did that. so there was some unmet needs around the world and we not only did that but we tried to end apartheid in africa with the help of others and we were successful as you know in zimbabwe and we declared it in south africa it should be one

person one vote. so we did some difficult things. we can't our country at peace. we greatly enhanced equality of our military. primarily with electronics and so forth, new developments. and we had an image of policy and things of that kind. >> rose: you're proud of what -- did the best you could but you think it weighs as much as what you've done since then. >> i think it measures up very well with what any other president has done since then. and i had the best batting average with the congress or mixed congress than any president since lyndon johnson. >> rose: what would you like your epithat to be. >> i would guess human rights.

to keep the peace. we promoted peace around the world the best i could and we respected human rights. and i think the human rights policy had an incredibly beneficial effect in many parts of the world. for instance i'll give you one quick summary. when i became president almost every country in south america was a military dictatorship. you can just go down the line from equador, peru, chile, argentina, paraguay, brazil, they were all military dictatorship. we instituted a human rights policy and five or six years every one of those countries was a democracy. not because of me but because of the awareness that human rights could prevail and they were heroic. instead of sending military forces from the united states down to protect the dictators we encouraged the indigenous indians and poor people and

freedom loving people to establish a democracy. that was an indirect result of a human rights policy. >> rose: mr. president thank you, it's a pleasure to have you here. i want to remind our audience this book is called a call to action, women, religion, violence and power. >> rose: former chairman of the democratic national committee robert strauss died last week. he was 95. president obama called him quote one of the greatest leaders the democratic party ever had. his mastery for cultivating relationship and navigating compromise can best be explained by strauss himself. he once said my strength was people. he advised presidents and politicians from both parties from lyndon johnson to richard nixon, ronald reagan, jimmy carter, bill clinton, george bush and middle east trouble shooter during the carter

administration. in 1982 george h.w. bush awe -- appointed limb ambassador to russia after the break up of the soviet union. he had regrets about the life he said. he said i don't have no regrets about anything in my you life, i like the whole damn deal. here's a conversation with bob strauss in 2005. lyndon johnson you said intimidated you. >> that's almost an understatement. he called on the phone. when he was a sick old man he still -- he would say president johnson's on the phone and i would say to are her or to myself, one or the other, i'm not going to let that guy who i love intimidate me again. i get on the phone and sure enough johnson would take over.

he had my number. >> rose: do you know anybody else that had your number. >> no, not like, no. i really hadn't suffered that much. but he damn sure did when i was around him. >> rose: what was it about him. >> he was intimidating fellow. >> rose: first of all he's large in size. >> yes. and he knew how to intimidate you and he liked it. >> rose: he always said the johnson treatment knew the weak spot. >> yes. >> rose: he could find it and he could push it. >> he knew i was intimidated by him and he never failed to take advantage of it when he could. and he rather liked me and i looked him a lot. he was many the most likeable man in the world or the most charming. >> rose: you had some telephone conversations -- >> oh yes. >> rose: between president johnson and the first lady -- >> yes.

>> rose: he exercised power as well as anybody this town has ever seen. >> certainly effectively as anyone. he did it for the right reasons most of the time. he did it to move his programs and move kennedy's programs and watching hem up close and i was dude then he was masterful. he really was determined to get those programs done. johnson always thought that he had a brief time here on earth and he better take advantage of it. >> rose: civil rights, voting rights. >> yes. >> rose: poverty. >> yes. >> rose: all kinds of social welfare legislation against the poor. >> that's right. and he remembered his background and he remembered what it was like. he was something special. >> rose: what do you think, why was it he couldn't get his

arms around vietnam and prevent his presidency from being all that it could be. >> one thing was he had a member of his cabinet, bob mcnamara, johnson thought he was the smartest man he had ever known. he was more impressed with mcnamara than anybody i had ever seen. he was wrong on that war and johnson was wrong on that war. >> rose: i love what jim rights supposedly said. i don't know what the next president is going to be but i know who his best friend will be, it will be bob strauss. he didn't say that about jimmy carter but about somebody else. what is it about you that these powerful men are attracted to? >> well, i don't have any desire, i never had a desire to run for public office. i was non-threatening. and i had a reputation of being

very very loyal. and i had a reputation of having pretty good judgment. >> rose: judgment is what it's about. >> that's what i want to say, that's the main thing. >> rose: somebody you can trust. >> yes, yes. >> rose: and somebody that's got good judgment. >> and not just for himself but for the country's good and the president's good. >> rose: bob strauss, dead at 92. -- dead at 95. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

captioning by vitac, underwritten by fireman's fund announcer: the following kqed production was produced in hi-definition. ♪ >> it's all about licking your plate. >> the food is just fabulous. >> i should be a psychoanalyst for the amount of money i spend in restaurants. >> i had a horrible experience. >> i don't even think we were at the same restaurant and everybody, i'm sure, saved room for those desserts.