>> rose: welcome to our program. tonight, more from and about egypt. we begin our program with a conversation by phone with david kirkpatrick of the "new york times." >> when the people in the crowd aren't afraid anymore, when they all believe together that the dictator doesn't have any power over them anymore, then dictator really doesn't seem to have any power over them anymore. and i felt like that's what was happening here in egypt. >> rose: and we continue by looking at the implications of the events in egypt with marwan muasher and robert satloff. >> addressing the issues cannot be done through economic measures alone. can not be done through increasing prices... salaries, reducing prices alone. it also needs to be coupled with a reform process that people would feel is going to result in

a gradual manner in widening the decision-making circle in their countries, in a feeling that they are fairly and more equitably represented in the running of their own affairs. this might take place over time, but unless it does, i'm not sure that the crisis is going to be contained to one or two countries. >> the king has donehat jordanian monarchs has done for the last 90 years, which is change their prime ministers to change the political... to turn a new political leaf and hopefully thereb diffuse some of the opposition. i'm not sure if he's gone far enough. i'm not sure if this is the right person. if the mission matches the man in terms of the new prime minister. but in general i don't see that turmoil of leaving at all to crisis yet in jordan. >> rose: we conclude this evening with a very important heart special by barbara walters

including interviews with bill clinton, robin williams, david letterman and regis philbin. >> i realized there was really no alternative. if i wanted to live i had to do this. >> i would find myself bursting into tears and sobbing uncontrollably. >> we're going to put him on a gurney, roll him into the o.r. room and bust him open like a lobster! >> stop the heart, work on it, restart, good luck, you're back. >> it was hell. >> rose:umultuous eves in egypt and what you need to know about heart surgery with barbara walters when we continue. to have more exposure to the arts. funding for charlie rose was provided by the following: meals for the needy. or maybe 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 chae ofakin a dierence. additional funding provided by these funders: captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: today marked another historic moment in the arab world. after 30 years of rule and only eight days of protests, egypt president hosni mubarak went on national television and tonight he said he would not run for reelection. >> ( translated ): and i tell you in absolute voracity, regardless of the current

circumstances that i did not intend to run for the coming presidency. i have exhausted my life serving egypt and its people, however i am totally keen on ending my career for the sake of the nation. >> rose: the egyptian president also said that he could complete the remainder of his term. presidential elections are slated for september. the question now is will the egyptian people accept it? hours after president mubarak spoke, president obama had this to say. >> what i indicated tonight to president mubarak, it's my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now. further more, the process must include a broad spectrum of egyptian voices and opposition parties. it should lead to elections that

are free and fair. >> rose: joining me on the phone from cairo is david kirkpatrick. he is a cairo bureau chief of the "new york times" and i'm very pleased to have him with us on this day. >> good to be here. >> rose: tell me about this day. >> it's really been a day like nothing i've ever experienced before in my life. i have to start the story a little bit earlier. yesterday. yesterday we weren't sure whether today was going to be a celebration or a bloodbath. it looked like the mubarak government was moving back into cairo and the other big cities their security police, which is a special paramilitary force mainly to control the people, not to fight crime. and that they'd been pulled out of the city and the military had taken over, but now they were coming back. and so we didn't know whether they were getting ready to really crackheads or what. and in response to that or concurrent with that the protestors called what they were billing as a sort of march of

the millions today. so they were going to turn out in force and the police were going to be there ready to stop them, possibly witthe army at their backs because there were already tanks all over town. then last night an extraordinary thing happened. the military came out and said they respect the people's right to peaceful expression, the people's demands are legitimate and they are not going to use force against the people. and a moment later or an hour later the... president mubarak's hand-picked vice president comes out and says "i'm going to start negotiating with the opposition and that was in... i have to start the story there, because that sort of explains why what was going to be a big day today got even bigger. the president, he blinked, in a sense. he blinked and the announcement the army gave people not only an authorization but a kind of invitation to come out. so when the people started pouring through the streets of cairo at around 8:30, 9:00 a.m. this morning-- which by cairo standards, by the way, is the

crack of down-- it was unbelievable. it was a trickle, then a stream, then dozens of streams, then an ocean of people and it kept going and going and going. it filled the square and clogged all the arteries downtown. i have to say, i was standing there and i thought you know, is this hundreds, thousands? ten thousands. it feels like 85 million people because there are 85 million people in egypt and there were people there from every walk of life, islamists with long beards and women with head scarves but also women in prada glasses and men in suits and men in kind of traditional arab robes. and it was just young and old and women with babies. it was an amazing thing and for the egyptians, you know, people are accustomed to living in a country where any kind of assembly was completely out of the question, where these kind of black clouds of security police will come up to you if you're gathering with five of your friends and ask "what are you doing?" it was unbelievable. i saw grown men in tears and people saying "i never this

would happen in egypt." it was really a sight to behold. >> rose: and th came expecting what? >> well, they came, i think, expecting to enjoy a demonstration of their own freedom and power. and that they got. the people there... i was in tunisia where they recently had an uprising, an overthrow of another arab dictator and i was blown away the day it happened by the feeling in the crowd the friday morning before president ben ali left tunisia. that they were already celebrating. that they had already won. when the people in the crowd aren't afraid anymore, when they all believe together the dictator doesn't have any power over them any more then the dictator doesn't seem to have any power over them anymore. and i felt ha like that's what was happening here in egypt. people in the crowd this morning were already celebrating. it was as though mubarak was already gone.

they were saying things like "how can he be so dumb? doesn't she a television? can't he see no one wants him around here anymore?" they were laughing and celebrating. it was like a carnival. i thought, my gosh, can he really last? so tonight when he comes on television and he doesn't say "i'm talking to you from jeddah, saudi arabia." he doesn't say "i'm leaving office." he says "i never wanted to run foanother term and so i'm not going to run for another term. we'll have elections in september and they'll be open elections." it's a little bit of a letdown. i think it's a little bit of a letdown because it means the confrontation isn't over and it's likely to continue because the people in the street are already outraged. the chants outside in tahrir square, in liberation square, have moved from "the people want the government to fall down" to "the people want the president to fall down."

so i think this is kind of a... it may be a... it's not an end, more of a halfway point. >> rose: is it there decision or is it the army's decision to say to mubarak "it's too late for what you offer, the only alternative for you today is to leave egypt now >> the protestors, the people in the streets and the leaders of the opposition movement-- both islamist and secular-- have made it clear they don't even want to negotiate about the formation of a new government while he's still in power. we're used to, in the united states, having a president who slides into a slot in a government that was there before him and there after him. but that's not how it works there. this government is hosni mubarak. so to say, you know, that we're going to negotiate about change but i'm still going to be president is hard for people to swallow because this has been a one man; one party strait for so long.

so... >> rose: and he said no to that for so long. >> and he said no to that for so long. he said no to changing that. and so they don't have a lot of trust. i mean, elections here are kind of an eye-rolling thing. they have them every once in a whilement for years there were really just referendums in. the parliamentary election last fall fraud was unbelievably rampant. they really made no effort whatsoever to hide what they were doing and so now to come around and say all right, let's have good faith negotiations, we'll have free and fair elections within national monitors, it's no surprise that people don't really buy that. so but anyway, you asked is it the place of the people or the place of the army. i think the question is going to be, you know... the question are what next? do the people buy this? no, they don't. do the people continue to protest? probably. then the army faces another tough call about which side it takes. >> rose: so then the question is is there someone who can say "i

represent the people in the street"? or "the three of us represent the people in the streets"? if this happens, i promise you, the demonstrations will have achieved their goals and we will look forward only to participating in the formation of the future of egypt. >> well, another interesting thing about what's been happening here in egypt is unusual role ofohammed elbaradei, the nobel prize winning atomic energy watchdog from the u.n. having finished his career as an international diplomat, a bureaucrat, he waded into egyptian politics with his nobel prize in hand and he's done... he's done some interesting things. you know, he's not a wildly popular figure here in the sense that people really want to rally behind him and march under his banner.

a lot of people think he's kind of a foreigner because he hasn't spent much time in egypt. but what he has done is he's gotten all of the opposition groups to wk as... to talk to each other which they hadn't done before. so you see a partnership between the little liberal parties and the liberal intellectuals on the one hand and the big giant muslim brotherhood on the other. and the other thing he's done is he's presented a unified face both to the egyptian government and to the west. the opposition here have all sort of coalesced behind him as their point man to talk to the government. and he's not an easy point man to dismiss or besrch or in the case of egypt even jail because he is, after all, a nobel peace prize winner. and to the west it's very hard to say, you know, this guy is actually just an islamic radical and a dangerous terrorist in sheep's clothing because, again, he's a nobel peace prize winner. and so that changes the way things are going to unfold a little bit. >> rose: so you'll be looking to see what happens at the break of

as you say, 8:30 or 9:00? (laughs) >> yeah. i mean, i think we'll... i don't know what the response is going to be from the protestors. i don't think they've really planned out their next week. i think they're going to continue to protest. the tough part is how do they do it? how do you keep the pressure on? after you've brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets, do you do it again? i don't know. and then i should tell you-- and it's a great annoyance to me personally-- the egyptian government has kept the internet shut off here for a week which, i think their design is to make it difficult for young people to organize online and turn out in large numbers. it also makes it very hard for know file more stories. and i think in addition to that it's not an open invitation to foreign investment and companies who want to do business here. so i'm really kind of surprised that they've kept that internet blackout on for as long as they have. >> rose: it's great to have you here, david, and spectacular

reporting and i thank you and i hope you can come back and talk about this again. >> thank you. it was a pleasure. >> rose: we'll be right back. >> rose: we continue our coverage today of the events in cairo and the implications for the region. joining me now from washington are two people with ep understanding of the middle east especially jordan. marwan muasher served as jordan's deputy prime minister and foreign minister. he's now a vice president at the carnegie endowment for international peace. robert satloff, he's executive director of washington institute for near east policy. he knows jordan well and has written two books about the country. i'm pleased to have them both with me on this day of change. we begin with their impressions about the events in egypt. marwan, tell me what did it say to you when you watched these events unfolding today on your television coming in? >> well, it's truly

unprecedented in decades for in the arab world for so many people to go down to the street and demand the leader's resignation. we've seen it maybe in 2005 under different circumstances. what is more remarkable also today is the president's announcing that he wants to run for re... he won't run for reelection which i think is maybe a little too little too late at this point. >> re: s therefore what happens? >> it depends. i think at some point the army, his advisors will have to probably talk to him and convince him to step down. i don't think that... you know, if this was done a week ago maybe president mubarak would have led a transition team, a transition period towards a different set of leaders coming in and a presidential election in which people will be free to stand without the support of the ruling party. now i'm afraid it's probably too

late and at some point i would imagine the people around him will have to convince him that it's time to step down. >> rose: and you think he'll be allowed to stay in egypt? >> i think so. these things can be arranged. they have been arranged in the past. president mubarak served this country for a long time and i don't think that, you know, it is beyond arranging for him to stay on egyptian soil. >> rose: robert satloff, what did you seetoda when yo tched this and thought about how the middle east is changing before your very eyes? >> yes, i think you just underscored the dominant reality that we are seeing a profound and fundamental change. i mean, whatever it turns out from what's going on in egypt, it is a different country, it's a different pillar, for arab politics it's a different pillar for america's role in the region and our influence. i agree with marwan. i think it's highly unlike they

president mubarak will get his wish for another eight months as president and he has just put his closest advisors, the people he just elevated to vice president and prime minister, he's put them in the hot seat. the army is a respected institution, respected on the streets of egypt because it hasn't turned on the people. but now the army has to decide whether they go with mubarak for this eight months or whether they side with the people. ani think the next several days, maybe even just several hours, will be quite pivotal to see whether or not the army holds with mubarak or goes its own way to maintain its own credibility and its own legitimacy. >> rose: i would assume that's an easier choice than we might imagine, wouldn't you? a sense that history is speaking to them. >> that's how i think you and i and marwan might see it. it might look a little bit different in the presidential palace.

it's never so easy to say to your commander, to your president after all these years that the time is now to go. but i would imagine that mubarak has just put them on the spot and when forced to make that decision-- and i think very soon he'll be forced to do this-- i think it is more likely than not that they will choose to ask mubarak to retire. >> rose: it seems to me that you have forces of power who can influence mubarak, but i'm not sure they can influence the streets. >> well, the issue with these uprisings, if you want, both in tunisia and in egypt is that those who are carrying them out are leaderless. you don't even know who you want to talk to in order to negotiate some form of an agreement. i think that at this stage the people around mubarak have no choice, as you said, but to ask the president to step aside and see how they can, you know,

agree on a transition period which has now... and an orderly transition period which has now become a bit more difficult with president mubarak's announcement today. >> rose: so what happens, say, to one of the organizing forces here, the musm brotherhood. what role do they play? what opportunity does it present >> the argument in the arab world has always been that you need to keep the systems closed because opening them up would bring the islamists in. you have seen two examples in tunisia and egypt where the muslim brotherhood actually did not play a large role in these uprisings. that does not mean that they're not a force and that does not mean that they will not, of course, attempt and justifiably to be part of whatever arrangements are done in the future but i think that this argument that... this scare tactic that governments have

used for a long time that you need to keep the systems closed in order for the islamists not to come in as only produced vacuums for other sort of movements and we are now finding movements in tunisia and in egypt with no leaders basically because governments have not created or not allowed the political space for such leaders to emerge. >> charlie, i just find it impossible to imagine that the people around mubarak will want any time soon to see a transition to a muslim brotherhood led influenced, controlled government. for them, the word "transition" means transition from mubarak to something else but within the current regime. not a transition to an opposition regime. for other people, transition means transition from the current regime to an opposition

regime and i think there's a difference in definition of what "transition" means is where we're going to have a serious agreement in the coming weeks. >> rose: will the muslim brotherhood be like hezbollah in lebanon or unlike hezbollah in lebanon? >> look, my view is it's impossible to know yet. i think the accurate description of the muslim brotherhood is that they will expand exert as much influence as the system allows. so in the egyptian system they have been suppressed considerably, they were cut off from using any military force from any violence and so the regime did a very good job of chomping that wing off. so they've been active in the social welfare network. it's not because, in my view, they have chosen to renounce violence, it's because the regime did it for them. now will they become much more assertive if the space permits it? we don't know. i think the chances if you look around in other countries, i

think the chances are actually reasonably high. this doesn't mean we don't support political change in egypt. it does mean, however, i think we have to be quite wary about how t role that certain groups can play in this change. >> i'm going to have maybe a slightly different point of view if you allow me, charlie. the muslim brotherhood and brotherhood and hezbollah are two different cases. hezbollah is armed and the muslim brotherhood in egypt is not. hezbollah has a charismatic leader, the muslim brotherhood in egypt does not. hezbollah is trying to force its view through arms in lebanon whereas in egypt i do not think that the muslim brotherhood today is in any way or form able or, frankly, willing to assume a leadership position in the new regime. i agree with rob that we don't know what form that new regime would take by i would be very surprised if the muslim

brotherhood at least in the short term would take a leadership position there. >> rose: all right, let me move to jordan. so how do you assess, robert, beginning with you what king abdullah has done so far? >> so far i look at the situation in jordan and i see a domino that is not falling. >> i think there is some anticipation that as you move from tunisia to egypt and the even in yemen and you saw riots in jordan that we would see the same level of spontaneous combustion in jordan as we saw elsewhere. i don't see that happening. i see the protestors in jordan principally economic focused. you don't see calls on the king himself, a tax on the monarchy itself. you see them targeting the prime minister, you see them targeting the government on economic complaints. very serious, but you don't see at all this fundamental attack

on the elements of the regime. and the king has done what jordanian monarchs have done for the last 90 years, which is change their prime ministers to change the political... to turn a new political leaf. and hopefully thereby diffuse some of the opposition. i'm not sure if he's gone far enough. i'm not sure if this is the right person. if the mission matches the man in terms of the new prime minister. but in general i don't see that turmoil is leading at all to crisis yet in jordan. >> i agree the turmoil is certainly not directed at the king, it is directed at the government. but i want to disagree that this is only about the economy. i think there are underlying political themes involved. people are not happy about corruption. not just in jordan but elsewhere in the arab world. people are not happy about weak parliaments where they feel they are not fairly represented.

i mean, all these are political issues not just economic ones. i think the king... we need to see now that the king has dismissed the government. i think people are looking not just for a change in personalities but a change in program. will the new government-- as the king has asked it to do-- indeed adopt an accelerated pace of political reform in the country or not? this is demand that the king has given to the government, not economic issues but political ones. the king has done so in the last ten years multiple times and, frankly, as he said in his designation letter, successive governments have not really done what he has asked them to do in terms of an accelerated pace of reform. this particular prime minister is not known particularly as a reformer so we will have to wait and see what kind of team he assembled with him. but more importantly what kind of program is he going not just

to promise but to actually instrument on the ground. >> rose: so this reform that swept from tunisia to egypt does not extend in terms of people in the streets demanding a change in regime. does not take place in jordan. >> no. certainly they're not demanding a change of regime. i think they're demanding a change of pace in terms of accelerating political reform, accelerateing the fight against corruption and in creating stronger parliaments. remember, we just had an election in jordan where parliament just gave a rubber stamp, parliament basically gave the government a vote of confidence of 111 people out of 120 deputies. and thereby immediately losing the trust of all jordanian people. today jordanians do not trust just the government that has just been dismissed but also the

parliament in jordan. there is a fundamentally flawed system that produces parliaments that are service oriented instead of parliaments that can really exercise their legislative authority and their oversight authority over the executive. and i... in my view not just in jordan, in egypt and elsewhere people are also asking for stronger parliament that are able to evolve into a system of checks and balancess where no... where the executive does not have too much of a dominant role in running the affairs of the state. >> charlie, i would add a fundamental difference between tunisia and egypt on the other hand and jordan on the other. really two fundamental differences. one is demographic and the other is political system. tunisia and egypt are both homogenous societies in terms of

ethnicity. in jordan there's a constitutional division between those of transjordanian origin and those of palestinian origin. it has blurred somewhat over the years to the benefit of the country but it remains deeply embedded in the national psyche. so what the king did today was he appointed the loyalist, a former head of military intelligence, a former general who himself is an east bank tribal official and he represents the loyalist element in the jordanian hierarchy. that in and itself sends a powerful message to both the opposition or people who will critique the king and people who will support the king. secondly it's a monarchy as opposed to the republics. and as much as we may, you know, feel distant from monarchys, the monarchies never promised democracy.

the republics promised democracy and didn't deliver. the monarchies promised participation, consultation, representation, but they never promised democracy. and so the bar is lower and it's easier to reach. >> rose: so you would say the same thing for saudi arabia you're saying for jordan? >> the saudi situation is more like the jordanian than it is tunisian and egyptian. it's not the same but it's definitely more like the jordanian than the others. >> rose: so is there another place that's likely to experience this contagion? >> i think we're seeing yemen, we're seeing algeria. these are the two that i would focus on as being potential. >> rose: assess what the likelihood of either of those. marwan? go ahead, bob. you go first. >> well, we're seeing significant protests in yemen. so far the president has been able to weather this. and yemen is such a failed state with huge tribal politics and

it's really just a city state of sana'a these days that he may be able to survive, but it's very powerful there. algeria is a wild card and the other place is sudan. surprisingly everyone thought south sudan would go south after the referendum. in fact, we're seeing huge protests against the regime in north sudan, in the republic of sudan. and that would be a major change as well. >> charlie, in my view, as i said, whereas these riots, these uprisings might have emerged because of economic conditions. there is an underlying theme of frustration with a low quality of government that cuts across the arab world. people just want better government. they don't feel the government has delivered. they want better government. you look at tunisia, this was not supposed to happen in tunisia, tunisia was a country that was doing well economically

it had a tight security system, it had a mild opposition compared to other countries and, yes, it did. so i'm not sure that you can say that any country is immune from something like this taking place. each country has different circumstances, but the one common thread that joins all of them is this frustration with a low quality of government, that people are no longer, you know, able or... are no lonr putting up with particularly in a global financial crisis. this to me is the core of the problem. and therefore addressing the issues cannot be done through economic measures alone. cannot be done through increasing prices, salaryrys, reducings alone. it also needs to be coupled with a reform process that people would feel is going to result in

a gradual manner in widening the decision-making circle in their countries in a feeling that they are fairly and more equitably represented in the running of their own affairs. this might take place over time, but unless it does, i'm not sure that the crisis is going to be contained to one or two countries. >> rose: all right. let me go to the united states. how does this change america's role in the middle east? >> well, i think we have to focus country by country. but what we did fail to do in egypt is to pursue the democratization political reform path that began to pick up steam in the mid-202000s through 2006. >> rose: okay, well marwan speak to that issue of the failure of american policies or the opportunities now or the differences of american options. >> the charlie, you had two recent models of how u.s. administrations have dealt with

the reform issue in the arab world. you had the bush administration model prior to 2005 in which the arab world looked at this as form trying to be imposed by the outside through brute force, if you want. and that doesn't work. but you also had the obama administration model of not doing anything at all in the last... in the last two years. there is a way to support reform but not impose it and i totally agree rob. reform issues should be high on the list of issues prior to issues that the u.s. has in... when it deals with countries of the region. that doesn't mean that you impose it, but it does mean that you make these countries understand that this is something that the u.s. cares deeply about. if it is done in a consistent level and if it is done at all levels-- from the president to the ambassador-- then i think that you can do it in a

collaborative way. >> rose: is the united states today less influential in the middle east than it was a monday ago? >> you know, you cannot be behind the curve and then hope that in a week or so you get ahead and regain your credibility in one week. this is a long-term process. i'm not sure there's anything the united states can do today on the egyptian scene. i mean it has been behind the curb on egypt and we are now seeing what the results are. but i think that the united states still has a chance to do it right with the rest of the region so that we don't have another egyptian situation, so that we don't get to the point where you are... the options are either a he jet stream which has lost its popularity or a vacuum of other leaderships that are ready to come in. we do not need to be in that

position and there are ways to do it by supporting your allies but by also making it clear that they need to embark on a gradual but serious reform process. >> rose: on that i have to say thank you very much. thank you very much, marwan, thank you very much, rob. >> rose: barbara walters is here. for all of, you know she is a highly acclaimed television journalist and she is co-host today of "the view" on abc. in may of last year she had open heart surgery. she wrote about her experience in "vanity fair" magazine. this friday she presents a special on open heart surgery and what we need to know about heart disease. it's called "a barbara walters special: a matter of life and death." here's a look at the special. >> six months ago i stood at the cross road of life and death by

doctors telling me that i could suddenly die if i didn't have open heart surgery. i probably would have had a heart attack and may very well have died. i'm not alone. in the last few years, other well-known americans have undergone this dramatic operation to save their lives. >> i realized there was really no alternative. if i wanted to live, i had to do this. >> i would find myself bursting into tears and sobbing uncontrollably. >> they're going to put him on the gurney, roll him into the o.r. room and bust him open like a lobster! >> stop the heart, work on it, restart it, good luck, you're back. >> it was hell. >> rose: i am pleased to have my friend barbara walters back on this program and to take note, i knew a lot about heart disease but i learned some new things here and we are pleased to have barbara to talk about what she learned as she went through this experience. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. what have i learned? well, first of all, i was

grateful that abc news wanted to do this because part of the special is that we do show open heart surgery and what we have in common-- you saw some of them-- david letterman, robin williams, regis philbin, charlie rose, president clinton, we all had open heart surgery. without it i don't think any of us would have lived more than a couple of years. your case in point is the most serious because only 2% of people die in open heart surgery. you almost did die. and we have you... although you've talked about this in the past, we have you talking about it now but we often... and by the way, it's... sounds rather strange to say it's also rather funny because robin williams is funny and david letterman is funny. you weren't particularly funny. >> rose: no, i wasn't. you and i have the same cardiologist. >> yup. >> rose: and what did he say to you that made you say "i've got

a hard decision"? >> well, unlike david letterman or you or robin williams who had to go in, i was told they that i had a defective valve-- as did you. and i wasn't having any symptoms because one of the things we talk about in the special is that women are not little men. women have different symptoms than men. but we don't go to the hospital the way a man... i have a little pain, says the man, he goes in and has an e.k.g. women do not. so part of this was to direct this at women. i was perfectly healthy, i thought. nothing wrong withe. and then i was told that i would probably have to have open heart surgery. i found every reason not to have it until finally i was about to give an award to a wonderful journalist named charlie rose. >> rose: yes, it's true. >> and i said to my doctor-- this was in april, late april,

early may. and i said to my doctor, look, i've got to give an award to charlie rose in may and i have to do this and i have to do that. can i wait? i'd been postponing all year. he said you can wait. i said, what's the down side? and he said you could suddenly drop dead. so i didn't think that that was much of an alternative and i went in one week later, i did give the award to you. >> rose: you were there and made a wonderful speech. >> and my daughter came with me on tuesday and on wednesday i had the surgery. and while i was under i thought of you. >> rose: but tell me what you did think about. >> there were a lot of things i didn't know. as a woman i didn't know that heart disease was the number one killer. i thought it was cancer. most women go and have a mammography. and as you know more women die of heart disease than men and 50% of people will die of heart disease. so i didn't know of these wonderful statistics and i

wasn't as afraid as i might have been. i thought if i die in the operating table, the good thing is i won't know. and i'd heard that it was excruciating pain, which it wasn't. i heard a lot of things. but i was concerned enough, charlie, to have my daughter come. she stayed with me throughhe operation. and i took her through the apartment and i showed her... and i said "tell me what you really want beuse e re when i die... if i die, i'm not going to die. but the rest is going to go to auction." >> rose: did you rewrite your will? >> i rewrote my will. >> rose: why did you do that? because... >> just in case. i wasn't terrified and i didn't think they're going to saw me open and pull my... as a matter of fact, you're looking at my scar. >> the first time you mentioned this after dinner somewhere, you said can we talk about this? and i said let's go have a conversation. you have nothing to fear, is what i said. you have nothing to fear. but to say that to someone who understand what is they're going

to do doesn't make it any easier you know i've gone through it, bill clinton's gone through it. bill clinton had clogged teries, robin had a valve. >> robin, you and i had valves and robin, by the way, said they gave him a cow valve which they gave me. what did they give you? >> cow valve. >> so robin says he gives good milk. >> rose: (laughs) >> but charlie i knew you had almost died so you were not exactly the most comforting person. >> rose: no, that's true. it was already known that i almost died so i said go ahead, it's no problem. you're saying sure, but why did you almost die? >> you're all over the place making speeches, six years ago you were in an induced coma so it's not all perfect. but i don't want to scare people in this. i want women-- especially women over 40-- to have an e.k.g. the way they will go and have a

mammography. to have a baseline of their heart. most women do not do it and many doctors don't advise women to do it because, you know, you're not in any trouble, you don't really need it. i want women to be aware that that the symptoms are often very different than t symptoms for men. it can be things you wouldn't notice. great fatigue. most women are tired, they have long, hard days. it can be sweating. it's not necessarily that big pain down the side that goes with the arm and through the jaw so i really want women to take a lesson from me. i want everybody to know as david letterman said that there's no reason for anybody to die because there is open heart surgery and there is prevention and there are certain things that you can do and eat and exercise and so forth. we also have his son luke on, tim russert's son luke. because when his father died every man went to be examined

and there are things that even young people can know. >> rose: but the point ought to be made is that tim had been given an a-okay from a stress test, had he not. >> but a stress test isn't everything. >> rose: that's the point we make. >> there are other tests we make an eck gee, an echocardiogram which is what i had which shows whether your valve is okay. people don't know the difference between bypass and valve and bypass these do with arteries and the valve has to do with the narrowing of one of the valves in your heart so that the blood can't get up there as quickly as they can. i don't know whether i'm just more energetic because, hey, i'm alive! which is what robin williams said and all of us said. or whether it's because the blood is getting there. >> rose: the blood is getting to your brain. yeah, we've got to watch. somebody said about me, you know more brain will go... more blood will go to his brain, god help

us all. here is bill clinton first talking about how he saw the choices. here it is. >> had you not had that surgery you might not have been able to walk your beautiful daughter down the aisle. >> y know, wherever i get discouraged about first one thing then another i think of the enormous gratitude i feel for that. that was one of the best days of my life and one of the most important days of my life. >> and someday, mr. president, some little child may look up and say "hello grandpa." >> i hope so. cause that's my next big goal. i want to hang around here to have grandchildren. >> rose: what happened? >> well, first of all the fact that david letterman would doll this interview, you know he almost never does interviews and we've been asking him for a long time to come on specials and he did this because he thought it was so important. if it's a very personal interview. he went to the doctor to have a

routine checkup and the doctor said "you're having this operation now." he said "now?" "now." and we talked to this about whether this changed his life. he talks about the fact that he's much more emotional than he used to be and it's perhaps the most personal that i've ever heard letterman because he felt it was so important. >> rose: here is the way david letterman described his surgery. >> with five clogged arteries, letterman underwent quintuple bypass surgery hoping to avoid the same early exit as his father. when you describe the surgery you said it was barbaric. >> well, it is barbaric. one of the things i said trying to lighten the mood in the room before they wheeled me off, i said "i don't care what happens, i just don't want to hear the bone saw." and everybody laughed because that's exactly where it starts. >> rose: where do they get the

new arteries from? >> ace hardware. (laughter) >> rose: but it is scary, as he said, barbaric, but it is scary. when did you know... when did you wake up and know that everything was okay? >> well... >> rose: three hours after the surgery? >> how many hours was it? well, you know, when you look at the surgery and think about it, they do take your heart out and put you on a heart/lung machine. >> rose: put in the their hands. >> pretty much. i was on the heart/lung machine... mine was not too bad. for over an hour and then you go into recovery and that's another four or five hours. my daughter kept a diary which i didn't find until long after i was home. she figured one day i would find it. she didn't talk about it. and she said what i did was when i was coming out of it-- because

you've got all the tubes-- i went like this. >> rose: a-okay. >> so obviously the brain was working and i knew people were watching. but i had first heard that i needed this in, like, november, then in february they said you need it more. but it wasn't until i had an angiogram-- which is yet another test-- that i knew i had to do it. >> rose: you didn't plan to come back until when? >> i had had the operation in may. "the view" was on hiatus in august. i didn't have any other specials that i had to do for abc news, i was going to take the summer off. but then in late july-- couldn't he have waited-- said "i want to be on "the view." >> rose: first time he'd ever been ole television. >> so i came back and "the view" went on hiatus and i went back full time in september. >> rose: there is much talk that

people suffer depression, which didn't happen to me. did you feel depressed that have? >> i had one day of depression. but i was talking to someone earlier today who said that her father who was 74 had the operation and is still depressed. and it's not because you are a person who's particularly depressed. it is a physiological thing-- i think. so that some people are around some people aren't. letterman said that he just cried all the time. sometimes he cried out of how wonderful that i'm alive but no. this is going to sound awful, in a way, charlie, i kind of enjoyed it. >> rose:ed you did? because? >> you have pain here, you know, you have pain where your scar was. i loved not working. you have terrible fatigue and i showed this. i take people through my house. i loved sleeping overtime. i was told that i'd lost weight and i should eat.

now i'd like to goo go back where i was. i'd had baloney sandwiches, i hadn't had them in 20 years. i had visitors. i remember taking a walk with you, a little walk with you. i had people that i never heard from. i had prime minister netanyahu calling me from israel. >> rose: everybody called you! you had the ident. >> i had tom cruise, i had charlie rose. you know, to have to stay home, that was a... when do we ever stay home? >> rose: okay. but are you saying it caused you to look at your life and slow down? >> no, it hasn't caused me to look at my life and slow down because i thought that if i did not come back to work this year everybody would say "oh, it's because of her heart. people said to me for the first two or three months didn't you guys think of that? how hard is it? >> rose: it lasts for years. >> people say "how are you?"

>> rose: it was five years ago and people say "but are you okay?" >> what i did do, charlie, is that a lot of them i thought i should go to that cocktail party because everybody's going to be there or the opera i didn't want to see or the big charity ball. i should. i should. >> rose: you've changed. >> yes, i have. you don't see me as much; i don't see you as much. i don't want to scare people because this is not what this special is about. this is about teaching and enjoy you are more vulnerable than some. you've talked to me about it. >> i've had two. i had both the aorta and a microvalve. >> rose: and you're fine and nobody works harder or travels more. but you are perhaps more vulnerable. >> perhaps. >> rose: so i think for all of us just to realize what a miracle it is that we're here. >> rose: everybody that i know thinks that. you say i feel great, i'm okay, i do other things.

i'm cky to be alive. >> rose: and i want people who watch this-- men and women and young people-- to say these are the people who are talking but these are the things that i can do to try to prevent heart disease and if i can't this is what will happen to you. it's not terrible, you will survive, it isn't agony, you will be tired afterwards. but you won't be in the most awful pain. some people get depressed, most do not. you should know about this. >> rose: all right. you probably don't need to know this, but this is what i today barbara in her special. here it is. >> rose: >> a piece of it. >> rose: a piece of it. >> in surgery, the effort to repair his mitral valve failed so they replaced it with a cow valve. >> rose: they put one into my heart and they weren't happy

with it so that's another three or four hours. and they take it out. then they put another one in. at this point every part of me is in shock. the systems are almost in failure and so they spend 14 hours on the operating table and when the doctor leaves and he says it's too early to tell, i don't know. >> you mean it's too early to tell whether he's going to live or die? >> rose: whether i'm going to live or die. it's too early to tell. >> have you changed? >> i think so, yeah. but i still do all the things that i do but i'm more conscious about diet and exercise. i'm more conscious about letting my body talk to me. >> how do you feel when you see that? >> it's scary. i actually didn't know how bad it was. i didn't know. i was living it and i was fighting. that's all i cared about. fight, fight, fight, fight. it's a remarkable experience to

go through. >> but tell me something, charlie. are you okay? >> rose: (laughs) >> rose: yes, i'm doing fine. >> how are you? >> rose: (laughs) >> i mean, the fact that we can laugh about it and the fact that we're able to... i said and, you know, i've done a lot of special and you've interviewed everyone all over the world but i think this may be the most important one that i've done because i think that we call it a matter of life and death because for every one of us-- and it was a question i asked each letterman and robin and you and clinton-- was this in your case a matter of life and death? and the answer in every case was... >> rose: yes. >> yes. so if this can make a difference then this is going to last longer than my ten most fascinating people or the academy awards specials that i'm happy not to be doing anymore and so on. >> rose: it's great to see you. this is a public service.

>> and we're both fine. >> rose: (laughs) you okay? >> you doing okay? >> rose: barbara walters special, a matter of life and death, friday, february 4. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org