>> rose: welcome to the program. from the u.s. congress chairman of the house intelligence committee representative mike rogers. >> the problem is, charlie, all of this has been debated. so over a decade ago this program ended. there's been lots of public reports of the ambassador pickering did a 600 page review of this. that's public. the dent of justice found no wrongdoing. getting westerners and americans hurt. >> rose: we conclude with the conversation of cuba with william leogrande and peter kombluh. >> at the very beginning for the u.s. to coexist with fidel

castro's revolution. we had an ambassador who worked very hard in 1959 and 1960 to see if he could findñi common ground for co-existence. that didn't work. bonds were broken. after the missile crises there was an opportunity because the cubans were upset with the soviet union and president kennedy opened secret channels to see if there was a possibility of normalization. that dialogue ended with kennedy's assassination. >> rose: mike rogers, william leogrande and peter kombluh when we continue. >> rose: additional funding provided by:

>> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services world wide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: joining me now from washington is mike rogers. since 2001 he has represented michigan's 8th congressional district, chair of the house intelligence committee for the last four years. in that role he'séqis over swea broad sweep of investigation to some of the most urgent matters facing national security. he will leave capitol hill and join com lust as a host. i'm glad to have him back on this program, welcome jierg it's a privilege to be with you. >> rose: why are you leaving the congress. >> it's one of those opportunities to have a broader voice and reach millions of people a week. that part was attractive and i have to tell you the way lou dicky sold it to me he's the ceo

of cumulus, i need a guy with your experience on the radio talking. and that sold it to me allowed me to branch out. congress can be a frustrating to work. sometimes the politic is so small you wonder if we'll be able to solve big issues. i've done high work here in congress, maybe this is my chance to broad i the discussion, include more people in the discussion, put pressure on congress to avoid the pettiness and start getting on with the major issue that face the country. >> rose: how will it be different from other talk roam we know whetherllimbaugh or oth. >> here's the good news. there's lots of room on radio for any type of show and style. my style is different. i'll focus on national security, interest national engagement, american exceptionalism. certainly issues of the day. talk about it in a way that tries to build coalitions for success here in the united states. and my fear is we've stopped believing in ourselves as a

country. every day you turn on either the tv or the radio or open up the newspaper, there's some reason you think maybe america isn't what she used to be. i happen to not believe that. i think our best days are really ahead of us and i want to have hat discussion and dialogue on the radio. >> rose: i'm going to have some general questions where america is and how you see that and hour relationship to varies regions of the world, opportunities you have to both travel and talk to leaders around the world. let me begin with this question of the senate report, the feinstein report. you're opposed to the release of this. >> i am strongly opposed. so when people, foreign leaders say that this might or will likely incite violence in their countries when foreign intelligence officials and united states officials say this is going to incite violence against americans and westerners oversea, not only are they just saying it, they're trying to

prep embassy ease for security and find ways to protect individuals in the intelligence business workino1 overseas. and i would say well maybe that's worth it if there's some big cause that's going to be reached here, with the release of the report. the problem is, charily, all of this has been debated. over a decade ago, this program ended. there's been lots of public reports of the ambassador pickering did a 600 page review of that. department of justice did an investigation didn't find any wrongdoing. congress changed the law so that there's no way that could really happen again. i don't understand why we would do it knowing that all of these people are saying there's real risk of inciting violence and getting westerners and americans hurt. >> rose: where is john mccain on this? >> i'm not really sure. iwstatements. i have heard folks say he has mixed emotions but would likely

see the report go forward or would vote to have the report go forward. but again, you know, this is these overseas folks not just americans, but our foreign allies saying hey, this is going to incite violence. think about what just happened with the woman in the bathroom in dubai, was killed because sh. think about the cartoons or the newspaper that incited violence or the koran that incited violence. think of something with the propaganda machine of isis that is very very effective. doesn't have to be accurate, it just has to take pieces out of this report and use it against the united states. that's what i think the toe tality of that tells me you have to ask really hard questions what do you hope to gain that already hasn't been accomplished. >> rose: what's the answer when you ask that question? >> i don't get it. they argue well we don't want to seate ever happen again or we've own vested a lot of time in this or we've invested a lot of

minute in this. when you have this much information coming from this many different parties saying it's going to happen. again they're not just saying they're preparing for it. i had one cia official always at the pointy end of the sphere and the conflict in the last 15-20 years, afaithful patriot says ig to lose some people and that's the way to do it. that's no way to do that to people trying to protect the country. if you could clearly say there's a policy that needs to be changed this is the only way to do it. we've already changed the policy. we're will be had a department of justice investigation. we've again we've happened a public report in the counting of this by ambassador pickering. they don't need to know this granular detail that is only going to be used by counterintelligence services of

our adversaries and terrorists like isis overseas. >> rose: he said so in the last several days doesn't want to see the cia made a scapegoat hg>> candidly i agree with him n this case. i'll tell you why. if you say we have to get these questions answered, yes rightly so. ex sent there's been a thorough review of this. congress has already acted on this. we've already debated about this. remember, this isn't, didn't happen last week, this happened over a decade ago and was ended because of the public debate in america saying maybe that was too far even after 911 when these folks who are empowered by law, that's what the doj report found, were empowered by law to have an enhanced interrogation program to try to save american lives. now i think it would be wrong to put the next generation of cia officers who are operating overseas at risk to prove a point that we've already made and we've all already agreed won't happen again. that's what my biggest concern is. >> rose: is there any

evidence that the cia either lied on this or misled the president of the united states during this period? >> well not that we can tell. the argument and some pieces of the report is semantics of wording. maybe they argue well you said it too strongly. but all of it is substantiated by evidence. there was not one single interview of the people in the program, not one. so they took cables and as an investigative reporter yourself and certainly as a former f.b.i. agent in my time, you can never come to the right conclusion if you don't put context around what you're talking about. >> rose: is the reason theybehe the public because they want to have a public debate on torture and on all those things that are considered to be torture now that may not have at one point. or is it because of some other reason? >> well, i don't know. i mean obviously, i don't want to ascribe any motive to what

they're trying to do. i think they're going to have to explain themselves when they release the report. but it's really important to remember especially people who are watching this, we've had this debate. this isn't about some new debate that we have not had. remember, way the debate, we changed the law, this was the whole debate over over do they use army field manual as the basis for interrogations overseas. it was the right and proper debate to have about what the role interrogations play into the defense and security of the united states. we had that debate and again the department of justice investigated it. now they're saying ten years later we spent a lot of time and effort on it and we need to know this so we can show this is transparent. we have been transparent. nobody has been more transparent than the united states

government. so we got there. what is the consequence of releasingr:is it worth one flagd carve on the way back from a great american who is either a diplomat or an intelligence official or a military official that is killed as a result of incited violence by either isis or some other terrorist organization overseas. i believe it's not and i don't think it's, it could reach that standard because we've already had this debate. >> rose: do you believe that the>pkbu c.i.a.ert laid -- eitr lied to the whitehouse or the congress. >> i don't believe anyone intentionally lied. i just don't believe it. i didn't see any evidence that was strong-3 enough to tell me that somebody lied to congress. they had briefed congress and i know members on the committee before me were briefed about these programs.

nobody raised an effort at the and so you have to kind of scratch your head and say all right, well, why do you believe now that they lied and you didn't interview one of them. in order to get to that conclusion that someone lied, i think you have to have testimony. you have to bring them in, ask hard questions, ask the hard questions of the people that were in their chain of command including their operators if you're going to do a report like this. none of that happened so how do you come to the conclusion that they lied or misled congress. i think that's not fair to this now thorough investigation. >> rose: i think the committee organs some of the people in the committee argue that there was some criminal investigation and therefore they couldn't interrupt that and interview these figures they might have interviewed otherwise. >> shouldn't they do that now then before releasing the report. that's a great question. maybe they should hold the report until they do that thorough investigation. i think it's all been done but if you want to spend more time and effort on it at least you

should to do it. if you're misleading congress that's a serious charge in my book then you should prove it by doing a thorough investigation. maybe they want to go back and do that. that would be okay. but to release it and make the charge and not have a thorough investigation, i'm not, boy i just don't think that's right.yn fact jeopardize lives overseas at least what's what our partners are telling us. >> rose: that's what john kerry raised as well. >> he did. >> rose: who has red -- read the report so far. >> it was confined to the senate and i think the senate committee mostly. i was allowed to read the -- >> rose: executive summary. >> the executive summary, i did read that. the whole report is 600 pages and basically a report from one person to another person about what was happening or what they thought was happening on the ground.

they compiled all that. that's why that report is 6,000 pages. i don't see any purpose for releasing information that ic74n public and what counterintelligence agencies can put together, i think you jeopardy unnecessarily the co-mising of either individuals or relationships that will have a long term damage to the united states of america. i just don't think this is a good idea. >> rose: obviously i haven't read the roar. but there are those who say that one of the intent of report is to suggest that they didn't learn anything from the torture, the water boarding or whatever was characterized as torture at the time. they didn't learn anything from it. >> yes. i have to say, the people i've talked to in the agency, the c.i.a. who were either close or around this particular program passionately dispute it. and again not one of them happened the opportunity to testify as to why they believed that and why just reading a memo

doesn't necessarily tell you the whole story. and again, that's to me one of the great short falls of this report. >> rose: the other argument is made often that we need to have a debate on torture in this country. and you're saying that we've had that debate as i understand. >> yes. remember a few years back, i can't remember exactly the year but it was after the program had been shut down. it was shut down by george w. bush. and then there was a debate about what we wdthey adopted ate through a debate and a discussionbñ of a very public disclosure. and the army field manual, they adopted as a way to conduct interrogations into the future. people who disagreed with my opposition at the time was why would we tell them what are we going to do or aren't going to do. we should fix the problem. but we had that debate. we went through that very

rigorous debate. to say we didn't have that debate, it can't be accurate because we've changed the program. we've abandoned that program. we've said they can't do it. they adopted the army field manual. there was a dopt of justice investigation. barack obama by the way in 2008 put out an executive order that said he would never reignite that particular program at any time. i mean i don't know how much more you can do and have that public discussion. and again no one's asking well what's the consequence of releasing the report. we get that. is it worth one person coming back with a flag draped across the coffin. is it worth that to release this report and i argue it's not and i don't know how they can argue it is. >> rose: on the benghazi report, changing to another report. what were the conclusions? >> well the conclusions were you know i think some wanted complete exoneration of all players from the president all

thefighting the fight in bengha, didn't do that. some wanted damnation from the president of the united states who was on the phone to the people in the benghazi. didn't do that. so what i tried to do, charlie, based on my experience as an fbi agent, cases involving murders and bombings and extortions and bank robberies, is one thing i know about a high awe dream lynn chaotic combat event is that sometimes testimony can differ over the same event. doesn't mean one person's being dishonest just means their testimony and recollection is a little different. i took all the testimony and all the other avenues of crab rative sourcesc -- corroborative information i could get. fbi investigative materials, witness testimony on the record. both from the security contractors who are now being

more public in writing their book to the security contractors who are still working for the united states government spread out all over the word. put that altogether and if i couldn't multiple source every finding, like i told everyone on the committee we're not going to go there. it's not a political do you want. i pointed out some short falls. it pointed out there was no grand conspiracy from the people on the growfnld. narrowly focused from the cia and intel swreps operations happened on the ground in libya leading up to the event was there criminal wrongdoing was there mal feastence. it lays that case out in 14 findings. i encourage the people to read the report. the media report were not exactly accurate. when one side said it's exoneration the other side said it must be a terrible roar. only in washington can you get that much puffery and nobody had read the roar. i'm encouraging folks to read that report to get a detailed

understanding exactly what's in it. >> rose: senator lindsay graham. >> i they you remember. >> rose: i don't believe the report is accurate given then role mike morel has said. why didn't the report say that. >> full of crap meaning it's a pretty accurate report filled with facts. there was talk in there about morel's role in this case. the other condemn nation was some of the witnesses didn't get interviewed were on the compound and that's true because they were either department of defense or department of state which was beyond the jurisdiction of my committee to investigate. i think a lot of people thought this was going to be the big mother load of investigations. it was very narrowly tailored and so it did not get into those other questions and it still leaves questions open.

so4ec lindsay's a good friend ofmine and i may have friendly ribbed him either a glass of wine or cup of coffee in the morning to sit down and read that report to really be worth the time. nobody comes out of this report really in great shape candidly. it isn't some you know great report that exonerates everybody as i said or doesn't dammation to everybody. but i think it's fair and multisource corroborated. so i encourage people to read it before they make their comments on what they think the report did or didn't do. >> rose: as you know some people of anticipating secretary clinton's run for the presidency believed what happened during benghazi might be a difficult issue for her. and some saying now that this report in a sense take that down as an issue. >> i don't believe so because one thing that the reportñr did find is that there has been no questions answered from the

state department or national security of the whitehouse which is beyond my jurisdiction by the way. one of the thing we touched on the report because we heard it from security contractors hour on the ground that they had been working with the state department individuals in the an next told they we won't collate with you because this place is not secure. they also told them you guys are not present to defend this place meaning both experience and the way they were-l configured and u needed more people, the cia contractors were told we asked for help, we were told we're not going to get any help and we have to live witness. somebody made that decision in the state department hierarchy. i don't know how high it goes. if there's an investigation they should make that determination but somebody needs to be held accountable for not meeting demand of the security force on the ground. that was a big problem that was at least highlighted but again it was out of my jurisdiction. so again this notion that that

takes it off the table i'm not sure it really does. there's a lot of questions that need to be answered and i think that's what the select committee will probably look at. >> rose: this is the question about you as chairman of house intelligence committee not in terms of the benghazi report. the question of edward snowden. where are we on that and what damage do you believe edward snowden didxñ for the united states? >> i think it was long lasting and serious. i think we are trying to mitigate a a tremendous amountf that. it's important to remember everything he stole from the united states wasn't about any nsa program the 215 telephone records program it wasment any of that. it had military strategy and tactical information when it come to intelligence. that had nothing to do with what he claimed he was doing to expose a wrongdoing by the national security agency according to his words. >> rose: should the united states offer him an incentive to

come back and testify? >> boy, i don't know. the damage is real. one of the thing that he did, charlie, that really bothers me to this day, is because of the information that he stole and was subsequently some of it was leaked, we believe some of it has been moving around to different intelligence services, has to do with forced protection of the men and women who serve in union form and are in combat environment. i can tell you for sure that some of our methods for trying to collect information to protect those are folks in places like afghanistan, iraq and others, has been impacted by that theft. and i argue it makes their lives a little bit more at risk because of that. >> rose: has anybody, has anything happened to anybodybecs far as we know. >> well here's the problem. you can't say that because we didn't have this particular collection and something happened, if you recall what just happened in afghanistan

with those series wave of bombing affects. i ask tell -- can tell you before that there was certain pieces of informationñi we couldn't get based on what snowden stole. you can say this was lost and we had this wave of attacks we didn't know about. i don't know how far we have to draw this line. that's why you don't allow traitors to steal information which they do not understand and pass it to people who will use it against the united states of america. that's my concern that that somehow got lost in this debate about how serious the consequences were for his stealing classified information and providing it both to the public venue and we believe to you friendly inteljq -- intelligence services. >> rose: i've talked to a lot of people about syria and back into iraq. do you believe the country was

well served by what the cia knew and what they told the president about isis? >> yes. i mean, as chairman, i get a lot of the raw information and understood a couple things. a, i knew we had foreign government leaders our sunni-led arabñi nations came and said we have this growing extremist problem in eastern syria. we knew that. they said we need some help. we knew, we saw this fight brewing, still with al-qaeda the number one. and the isis leader in charm of what he call the islamic state? syria and iraq. we saw all of that brewing. some would say well you didn't tell us they were going to go over the berm in syria. that's true. we saw when the intelligence community was$ reporting on it.

because they made the wrong policy decisions pushing back our air you been league partners saying no we're not going to do that. they are asking for logistical report and intelligence report and some weapons training and other thing he thought they made a any mistake. i don't think that justifies going back and saying you didn't tell me exactly what was going to happen. they laid out a compelling case what was brewing. that's when policy makers are challenged do the right thing or live by the consequences of your decision. that part didn't happen. we need to understand they're not perfect. it's not a crystal ball. it's clues and with thosefpf"arh strategic warning that something bad's going to happen. i argue they did that. there was plenty of strategic warning but not specific tactical warning. >> rose: two questions. what should we@and what strategu recommend and what action would you recommend that the president do? >> currently we don't allow our

special operators to join friendly units that we may have trained or otherwise to go down range with them to collect better intelligence to make sure these units are fighting better, to coordinate logistics, packages, targeting packages. it would make them more effective fighters and stay on target. that should be an easy thing to do. this gets back to the semantic debate is that a boot on the ground or have we now embroiled our says in a another conflict type of debate. the problem is that's our leverage added. if you don't do something like that then you're going to have to wrestle with the decision of having the 101st airborne division that nobody wants to do including me. that's a bad idea. that's my first steps. i would ramp up some of the weapons training we have. with a need to get turkey back in this fight. it is wrong that they sat on the side lines and watched some pretty awful things happen right

over the edge of their border without getting involved. they're a nato partner. they need to perform like a nato partner. we need to start asking them tough questions maybe even if they want to remain in nato if they're notvt willing to stop te civilian slaughter right across their border. >> rose: do we have in this country an intelligence service across from nsa and cia and wherever else it might be found that is performing at the level that the president and the congress ought to expect? >> well, you know, i think they do. they have certain capabilities that we have added our own administrative hurdles. we interjected some difficulties in their abilities to disrupt operations overseas. so i think we're going to have to have a debate here in this country about what we want our intelligence services to do and i'm not talking about the rdi

report, i'm talking about if they have the ability to disrupt terrorists active activities aa great track record giving the fact we made this policy that's what we want to do. i don't think we're there yet. i see this slipping away so what we have is you can do it, you can do these five things but you can't do these five things when it comes to stopping the terrorist attack. i'm not talking about the five things that we would allyu find reprehensible, i'm talking about the things you need to make a decision and quickly. i think they would perform better than they have. they're doing a pretty good job of keeping them back from the shores of the united states for sure. they're doing a pretty good job of allowing information to flow to our european colleagues which have disrupted attracts. the challenge is you can't ask them to come up with

intelligence in syria. by the way you can't go near syria in order to do it. that's a bit of a problem. >> rose: i've had people sift at this table and say to me yes we understand assad is the enemy that he is but we have to take on isil first. that's simply the way it is because they are an immediate threat and yes there's been a terrible loss of life in syria and yes, you can hold him responsible but right now we have to take isil and reduce their threat immediately. >> if you wanted a peaceful political solution or relatively peaceful you get a deal assad has to leave but how that work. that to me without bloodshed in that portion of it would be a huge success and would certainly be the dream of every diplomat. i think that piece can happen but you have to set the table for that to be successful.

i mean if we aren't showing that we're having a successful disruptive campaign against isis, assad is going no where, the russians are going no where and the iranians.b are going no where. and the iranian and the russians are propping up assad making him feel very comfortable these days. so you have to set the table that make the options not verzr good for assad, for the russians. the iranians aren't going to participate in any good way for any reason and we need to understand that moving forward. and i think you can, so i do agree you have to do this disruptive activity. remember, there's, you know, as many as 20 to 25,000 western passports now operatingñr in sya under the is islamic. they have papers to go back home. that's a huge national security problem for us. set the table so the pressure is on tosú make the russians and ae

sawpped decide maybe i'm not going to survive and maybe i cut my deal now. >> rose: john kerry said we might have an agreement with the iranians in terms of nuclear negotiations in three or four months that he's optimistic. have you auntistic. >> unfortunately i'm not. we're seeing some issues of which we think they're playing games. remember right in the middle of the peace plus one nuclear negotiation. after we extended the first time and after the recent extension they signed a deal with the russians which is part of the p5 plus 1. that's a clear indicator to me that maybe we've got problems here. think about where the iranians are. they now have influence in a sunni capitol in yemen. they have undue influence in iraq, baghdad with the brigades and governments there.

they're coming out of their chairs at frustration of this. so that activity is going on while they very narrowly get some deal that many of us me included is too generous. when we started we wouldn't allow hem to enrich at all. now they're talking about we gave you the money back and we're negotiating howcan enrich. how did that happen. i don't know how that happened. >> rose: what happened if there's no deal. >> i think the iranians would continue to give a little bit and get a lot. i think sanctions need to change. i'm tired of them saying in order for me to continue talking you have to give me a lot of money. that's not a win for us. and there are certain facilities there that they still will not allow us in. they we know their ballistic missile program is really not touched by this agreement and we believe they're doing, continuing to improve and

upgrade their missile capability while they're doing this discussion. again, we're already seeing conversations with our other middlez east partners, our sunni-led nations about how they need to press their ability to enrich. we get this wrong, we're going to have a nuclear arms race in the middle east. i can't think of anything more terrifying than that. >> rose: how much meetings do you have with the president of the united states one-on-one since you've been chairman of the house intelligence committee dealing with all these issues? >> one-on-one? >> rose: yes. >> none. >> rose: you've been in a situation room or you've been in a general meeting with the president but never one-on-one. >> that's correct. >> rose: have you requested that meeting? >> we talked about being available any time. we've requested, tried to work through the national security council. i mean the president has an odd style. he doesn'tçó deal much with congress all and not just republicans but democrats either.

my counterpart has not had that one-on-one meeting on these specific issues either. it's an interesting way to do it. i can till as a member of congress, just a member of the intelligence committee i probably had three or four meet, with president bush on security issues than a whole host of meetings on the situation room or broader group on national security issues. that's just not the same it's not his style. it's concerting to me. i want to work with the whitehouse. i express my concerns throughao conduct national security. i think he could have more friends and allies in really tough circumstances overseas if he just reach out more and i hope maybe next your we'll do that. >> rose: congressman mike rogers thank you so much. good luck in your new profession. >> thank you. >> rose: you're a young man. i assume you can come back to politics again.

>> i'm not saying no and i'll still have a interest and try to play my role that positive way where i can, charlie. >> rose: thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> rose: we'll be right back. stay with us. >> rose: conflict and aggression have dominated the story of u.s. cuban relations since the cuban revolution edged in 1959. fidel castro's movement forced the american backed dictated bautista. in 1961 the united states severed diplomatic relations. a new book challenges the commission of wisdom and perpetual animosity between the two countries. it is called back channel to cuba, the hidden history between washington and havana. it reveal a 50 year record of dialogue and negotiations both open and furtive between those sworn enemies. joining me are the book's authors peter kombluh and william leogrande. peter is of the archive and

william leogrande isku at the american university. i'm pleased to have both of them here. let me just talk about the beginning. what were the lost opportunities? why have we not had better relationship with cuba after all these years? >> we've missed a couple opportunities. there was an opportunity at the very beginning for the united states to coexist with fidel castro's revolution. we had an ambassador in havana who worked very hard to try in 1959 and 1960 to see if he could find common ground for coexistence. that didn't work. relations were broken in 1961. after the missile crises, there was an opportunity because the cubans were upset with the soviet union and president kennedy opened secret chances to see if there was a possibility ofññ normal saying. that effort at dialoguended with kennedy's assassination. fast forward to the ford

administration there was an attempt pie henry kissinger as part of the overall structure he envisioned and that was interrupted when the cubans sent troops to angola to repel the invasion by south africa. carter separation probably the most important initiative, president carter actually ordered his bureaucracy to begin a process of nowization for the first year things moved smoothly in that direction. and then that was brought to a halt when the cuban sent troops into ethiopia. so they've been a number of opportunities, but it's intervened at each stage to prevent us from getting over this. >> rose: how badly do the cubans want this? >> i think today they would like to see better relations. but i think one interesting thing we found in our research is that the cubans have reached out to almost every president even the most hard lined president over the years with questions, with gestures, with messages of potential

reconciliation. they want reconciliation on grounds of mutual respect. they want the revolution respected. they're not going to negotiate away love system of governance but they have reached out to every president with most extraordinary messages we found is fidel castro sending a secret message using a journalishf from nbc news to lyndon johnson saying we were in talks with the kennedy administration, we want to continue talks with you even in this difficult political year 1964. castro sent a message to richard nixon only 11 days after his inauguration even though he knew that nixon was an inveterate hater of the cuban revolution. and castro even reached out to ronald reagan a number of times. we found documents on in our research showing the reagan administration rejecting these gestures as propaganda. in today's day and age that all

adds up to a history of the willingness of cuba to have better relations and maybe now is the moment. >> rose: after the russiansc>b. >>ñiçó well you think so. but as you look at had history, you see that the united states governments have moved the goal post what they want from cuban. during the cold war they wanted essentially two things. cuba severed its relations with thexlin south africa. once the cold war was over, goal posts were moved and they wanted to improve and normalize relations with us. >> because the sovietñi union collapsed, eastern european collapsed. it was only a matter of time before defee dell castro's

government collapsed so consequently they weren't interested in trying to normalize relations. >> rose: the closest it came was. >> it was during the carter administration i believe. what happened there was that the cubans sent truths into ethiopia by the invasion of somalia and that brought that to a partialnd. >> rose: when they are sent the troops did they know it would tore -- torpedo the effof the carter administration. >> they did the over the next two years 78 to 79 and evenmf io 1980 the cubans reached out again in the united states. fidel castro freed 3,000 political prisoners and allowed them to my great back to the united states all in an effort to resume normalization. >> with former president carter, we talked to him, and he had actually reached out a number of

times. he used a secret emissary to send messages to castro saying are you interested in better relations given your policies in africa. and at the very end -- >> rose: he was from atlanta and might have known carter or was it because -- >> he was a donor and he wanted to see coca-cola back in cuba so he already gone once. but one of the things that president carter told us, and i should say at the very end of the carter administration, carter offered castro a deal. and immigration crises with the boat lift and in the second term carter administration will sit down and talk about the broader issues in the second term. there was no second term and carter said to us, it was a poignant statement in the book. if he had it to do it all over

again he would have normalized relations in the first term and not guessed that he would have a second term in order to do it. and not postpone it to later. >> rose: and reagan was opposed. >> reagan was a whole different element when it came to u.s. cuban relations. >> interestingly, although reagan began his administration ready to invade cuba, they negotiated two agreements on migration. they negotiated around central america, although they didn't reach a positive conclusion. but most importantly, we tboashed the end to the conflict in southern africa. it took eight years of negotiations but when the cubans finally were brought$j into thoe negotiations by chuck crocker, they proved, cubans proved to be constructive and helped bring

that to a successful conincluding. >> rose: do you blame the cubans more or u.s. more. >> it depends on your moments in time. i think their moments in times when cubans had higher foreign policies than the united states and they weren't willing to put those awe said as a quid pro quo for normalization. these been moments in the united states when we were so focused on the cold war. or so focused on the politics of south florida that we were not particularly interested. >> rose: speak to that in terms of how much the politics of south florida inhibited american presidents from making a much more conciliatory movement towards cuba. >> you remember that florida was the deciding factor in the race between bush and gore and perhaps settled by 500 votes that could have been cuban american votes andçó al gore was conservative with the little boy

returned to i had father precisely because he was worried about the cuban american vote. certainly since the end of the cold war in the reagan air awe, there was a 20 year period of time when florida politics really were key to the issue ofw cuban policy and cuba policy was essentially a domestic issue rather than an international issue. but today that has changed considerably and there's no longer the political cost to be made for the president to change the policy towards florida. >> rose: during the time i assume administrations have maintained the pressure hoping they would get change or behave in cuba. >> that's the interesting thing about the history. u.s. officials have repeatedly kind of assume an imperial against cuba. you tell them what to do and push hard enough and somehow them capitulate and see it our way ask do what we want. the cuban relotion re-- revolus

against that and the cubanse! he stood on principle. >> rose: are we looking at situations today there are so other problems in the world nobody wants to focus on the betterment of cuba and united states relations. >> i think that's a problem during the obama separation. president obama when he was a candidate in 2008 said that the policy has failed. we had 50 years of failure it's time to try something new. but once he got into office the press of other issue, i think pushed cuba to back of his agenda. are and it stayed more or less on the back of his agenda. what's interesting about the next few months is that the seventh summit is coming up in panama. and the cubans have not invited and they say they're going to come for the first time. that means raul castro and barack obama will be across the conference table. first time a u.s. and cuban president have met in 50 years in a substantive way. so now the issue is on the president's agenda and he has to

decide what he's going to do. >> rose: any indication of what advice he's giving. >> i think he will go to the summit. although the officials haven't made a formal announcement yet but they seem to be indicating he will go and what he will do at the summit and what he will say to raul castro we don't know. >> rose: does all this have to do with how long fidel castro lives. >> fidel is quite elderly now and not on thep politic. >> rose: so raul is free to do what he wants. >> but he is going to retire in two or three years and reins over to a non-castro. are we going to build these bridges that come with better relations. >> rose: as we have said

before the politics of south florida have changed. they they longer have the hold on the democratic party. >> no. and you see that reflected in the position of hillary clinton who has already said the embargo against cuba is counterproductive to u.s. interests. she wants to see it lifted, changed. and she's saying that because she knows that the votes are there and the cuban american community for a much more moderate constructive engagement position. and when not only that but the money from big donors is there also. >> rose: what happens when the castro's go? >> well i think you'll see a transition in the decision-make is in the cuban government. because not only will the castros go but the whole generation are all set to retire around the same time if they haven't already retired. so you're going to have a generation of people born and brought up during the revolution itself. they're going to have a& different out look on thin

snrivment -- >> rose: let's an impression that raul is more open. >> that's right. i think there's no question in the same way gorbachev wanted to end the cold war in order to restructure the soviet economy the cubans are interested in normal relations with the united states so that they can restructure their economy which is what raul's trying to do. >> rose: and putin visited castro did he not. >> he did and i think putin's goal obviously is to try to rebuild russia as a world power. the cubans are interested right now on whatever economic you a sistance they can get. they've gotten some trade credits but i don't think the cubans want to go back of the kind of dependency they had on the soviet union which cost them so dearly. >> rose: the past youf say hs some lessons for the future which are. >> there are so many. one is that the whole idea of kind of incrementalism of the u.s. approach to cuba we'll do this and you do that hasn't

worked in the past. the quid pro quos and the clinton administration called calibrated response. and if barack obama needs one lesson as he goes to the summit with raul castro he nadz to come with a packet rather than i'll do one thing and you do that. >> rose: did anybody in latin america want to see this change. >> yes, absolutely. >> everybody in latin america. >> everybody in latin america. >> the latin members basically said we're going to boycott the next summit unless cuba's involved. for the first time now cuba is involved. there's one more reason why it's imperative for barack obama to take this opportunity that the latin american governments va forded him to change the policy and use the summit as raulipsí

castro buries the hatchet. he's an american in cuba, a subcontractor. he's been there five years. i've seen him twice for a total of seven hours. >> rose: has he been treated well. >> well, he's been treated1p we. he hasn't been abused there because he's a high profile prisoner obviously but his mental state is such that he really does needñi to get out. cubans want to trade him for three cuban spies that have been in u.s. prisons for 16 years and they want a humanitarian gesture on both sides. our book%previous humanitarian r exchanges i don't know could use as an historical foundation for this. if anything were to happen to alan gross in the cuban prison,. if he dies of a hunger strike. then the ability to move forward

with international interests with cuba will be compromised. >> rose: what should we expect next. >> that the president goes to the summit of the americas in april, has some conversations with raul castro and hopefully is able to make a break through on the issue of alan gross which is obstructed progress in the relationship for the last five years. and then we begin to see a series of steps that begin to pull this relationship back into a more normal kind of mode. >> rose: the possibility of democracy in cuba. >> i think over the long run. >> rose: what's the wrong run. >> well, ten, 15, 20, years. the kinds of economic changes that are going on right now are reducing the government's ability to control the economy, to control social networks. it's creative what i would call sort of the substructure of more open democratic debates. and you can already see it in academic journals, in the journals that the church produces. there's a much wider range of debate today than there was ten

years ago. >> rose: how many political prisoners. >> it depends on what numbers or whose list you look at. it's probably a hundred or more than a hundred. the strategy today on the part of the government seems to be nnv to arrest people and sentence them to long jail terms as they did in the past but rather to arrest people hold them for a couple days to disrupt their political activity and l >> rose: will anything change one the castro brothers are gone. >> i think so. raul castro will be there for the summit. >> rose: where is he? is the there life between raul castro and his brother. >> i think -- >> rose: other than at different times. >> i think there's an enormous difference actually. i think fidel castro was deeply ideologically committed toyn a kind of socialism which was modeled on what happened in the soviet union. raul castro, and personalize. raul castro is much more

pragmatic. he is much more oriented toward the kind of market socialism we see in china and vietnam and he's trying to take cuba in that direction. he says will retire in 2018 when his current term of office is up. >> i think there will be changes and i hope there are changes in the u.s. approach to cuba long before 2018. >> rose: what do you suggest would be the optimal approach. >> obama as to come up with changes that are quite clear. take cuba off the list but make an agreement of some kind of humanitarian prisoner trade. start to poke hole in the trade embargains through presidential directive to expaneled trade. arrive at a telecommunications agreement which will require cuba to agree to internet access. >> rose: the hidden history of negotiations. thank you. >> thank you charlie. >> >> rose: thank you for

joining us. more next time. visit is us on-line at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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