>> rose: welcome to the broadcast. tonight we look at president obama's nuclear security summit with former senator sam nunn, head of the nuclear threat initiative, david sanger of the "new york times" who's been covering the summit and joshua cooper ramo of kissinger associates who has a piece about china in the current "time" magazine. >> we are in a race between cooperation and catastrophe and in... based on the events of this week i think cooperation is running a good bit faster. >> what was notable was that at the end of this, the chinese basically just agree to come in and negotiate in new york on the wording of a sanctions resolution. now, the administration was trying to spin this as a great accomplishment because the chinese weren't there two weeks ago. they didn't want to participate. now what we have to remember is that there have been three previous united nations sanctions resolutions and the

chinese negotiated in each one of those and in every one when you go back and interview the negotiators, they'll tell you the same thing: the chinese used the process to both slow it down and water it down. >> the chinese view of their role in the world has matured. and i think the financial crisis has left the chinese aware of the fact that their interests are more vulnerable than they've ever been before and that's led to a recalculation on their side. but the idea that you can a fix each of these problems without an overarching strategic concept is just flawed, it's tail chasing, really. >> rose: we continue with ken gormley, a law professor at duquesne who's written a highly praised book called "the death of american virtue: clinton vs. star". >> the hardest thing about writing this book, charlie, was knowing that both ken starr and bill clinton would be disappointed with parts of it that weren't favorable. but i did my best, i tried to call it down the middle. you know, i... there are parts that vindicate each side, there are parts that they won't like.

but ultimately, the goal is-- and i give them both a lot of credit, because they knew going into this that i was not going to be bashing the other side, that i was not going to be painting horns on their heads. yet they cooperated fully knowing that there was a value to history. >> rose: the nuclear summit and clinton v. starr next. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose.

>> rose: we begin tonight with the nuclear security summit that 47 worldp in washington earlier leaders was the largest hosted by an american president since franklin roosevelt called a meeting that created the united nations. the summit is the largest and latest step in president obama's bold nuclear diplomacy. he has pledged to secure all loose nuclear materials during his first term in office. addressing the men are their session this morning, the president spoke of the threat of nuclear terrorism. >> two decades after the end of the cold war we face a cruel irony of history. the risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down, but the risk of nuclear attack has gone up. nuclear materials that could be sold or stolen and fashioned into a nuclear weapon exist in dozens of nations. just the smallest amount of

plutonium about the size of an apple could kill and injure hundreds of thousands of innocent people. terrorist networks such as al qaeda have tried to acquire the material for a nuclear weapon and if they ever succeeded they would surely use it. were there to do so it would be a catastrophe for the world. >> rose: the two-day summit was dominated by iran and news that china would join negotiations on a package of sanctions expected later this spring. questions remain about whether china-- which imports nearly 12% of its oil from iran-- will support the tough sanctions sought by the united states. at the press conference closing the summit, president obama addressed that question. >> the chinese are obviously concerned about what ramification this is might have on the economy generally. iran is an oil-producing state. i think that a lot of countries

around the world have trade relationships with iran. and we're mindful of that. but what i said to president hu and what i've today every world leader that i talk to is that words have to mean something. there have been to be some consequences and if we are saying that the m.p.t. is important, if we're saying nonfro live ration is important, then when those obligations are repeatedly flouted, then it's important for the international community to come together. >> rose: he also said he hoped china would revalue its currency. >> it is my belief that it is actually in china's interest to achieve this rebalancing because over time china's going to have to shift away from an economy that is solely oriented on exports and it's going to have to start shifting towards an economy that is emphasizing

domestic consumption and production and is preventing bubbles from building up within the economy and all of that will be facilitated with a more market oriented currency approach. so i don't have a timetable but it is my hope that china will make a decision that ultimately will be in their best interest. >> rose: joining me now is joshua cooper ramo of kissinger associates. he's a former journalist who has written this piece in "time" magazine "the china challenge, a new way forward." from atlanta, former senator sam nunn. he's c.e.o. of the nuclear threat initiative and joining us shortly from washington, david sanger of the "new york times" who's been covering this summit all day. 'm pleased to have all of them on this broadcast. i begin with sam nunn in atlanta. tell me what you think this summit has accomplished and what

difference it makes. >> charlie it makes a big difference in terms of getting the world focused, particularly the leadership focused on what i believe is our most serious security threat and that's the possibility of catastrophic nuclear terrorism. for the last ten years i've been posing a couple questions. what is it we would wish we had done the day after a nuclear attack, question one. question two, why aren't we doing it now? it's very unusual for the world and also for the united states to take this kind of action before a kotz trophy. we're darn good at taking action after a catastrophe but this time it's a unique approach of trying to prevent as at the trophy and i think it's of enormous significance that so many leaders around the world are willing to join in that effort. >> rose: define as much as you

know well where the threat is and how it could happen. >> the threat is nuclear terrorism. we have terrorists who would like to have a nuclear weapon and, in my view, if they had one they would use it. they can't get a nuclear weapon without nuclear material. highly enriched uranium or plutonium. that nuclear material is available, weapon usable type material in at least 40 countries around the globe. in addition the know-mow to make a nuclear weapon, unlike 20, 30 years ago, that know-how is out there. that wouldn't be a piece of cake but the most important thing we can do and the easiest job, frankly, for the good guys in the world, is to secure the material where it is and then blend it down and then get rid of it. that's the easiest job for us, the hardest job for terrorists is to get that material. we've got to make it a lot harder. after they get the material, if they do, good forbid, every step in the process of blowing up a city somewhere in the world

would be easier for them and harder for us. so once the nuclear material is in their hands, we have a very serious and perhaps unstoppable kind of scenario. so getting out in front, securing the material, getting cooperation around the world is enormously important. i also believe, charlie, that we are in a race between cooperation and catastrophe and based on the events of this week i think cooperation is running a good bit faster. >> rose: and obama deserved enormous credit for this. >> i think he deserves enormous credit and i think his credibility on this issue by reason of the speech he made in the czech republic helped him tremendously in terms of getting the world to come to this kind of summit. i think it would have been much more difficult had he not already exerted a great deal of leadership? this regard and had he not also made significant agreement with president medvedev and had both of them indicated that u.s. and

russia with 90%, 95% of the nuclear weapons in the world and very large percentage of the nuclear materials, if these two countries had not been willing to lead i think would have been a lot less people show up for this summit. >> rose: and would it mean that china came? >> i think it meant a lot. i think it meant a lot economically as well as on these particular issues and i think it meant a lot in terms of the relationship. very few global problems can be solved without u.s. and china cooperating and i think this certainly the nuclear one is one iran, north carolina, as well as securing nuclear material and preventing proliferation. but also economic challenges and they are very much on the minds of, i'm sure, both the chinese and american leadership. >> rose: was there a debate in china among the highest level of the chinese leadership as to whether they would come or not. >> tremendous debate. tremendous debate. even as recently as last week in beijing you saw reports at the level of the politburo of criticism of president hu for

the decision to attend is summit after what the chinese referred to as a period of deliberate humiliation by the united states. so it's very important to understand that... >> rose: deliberate humiliation has to do with taiwan and selling aircraft or the dalai lama or something else? >> those two things but it's also a general sort of climate in the relationship where from the chinese side the perception is that the habits of discourse by the united states is ordering the chinese to do things. cooperate on iran, fix your currency, tolerate the decisions we're making in areas that you regard as core national interests. and that really begins to great. one of the best-selling books last year was "china was s unhappy." >> rose: the title is "china is unhappy" >> yes. >> rose: and it was unhappy about the relationship with the united states and how they thought the united states viewed them? >> that's right. a general sense in china at the moment really that the country is not being respected on the international stage and that's something that kind of dominates

the discourse there and it's mixed also with a profound sense of worry because they feel the united states is weak and possibly declining. and in their eyes that makes us unreliable as partners. >> rose: sam, you travel around the world. tell me how you perceive where china's mind-set is on questions like this and then separateedly question of iran. >> well, of course, i think joshua is the expert in this area, but from my conversations with the chinese-- and i was with henry kissinger there last year and george schultz and bill perry where we talked about a broad array of issues-- i believe they would probably ask the united states the question. it's fine for you to take these tough, hard positions but sometimes you don't consider what it would do to us. now, they don't say it that directly, but they have significant economic interests in getting oil from iran. also in the subject of north korea, both the chinese government as well as the south korean government, not

identically positions but pretty close, worry about what an economic squeeze would do in terms of an economic collapse by south korea... by north korea, which would pour over into both china and south korea. so if we're going to deal with china on these issues, we have to first of all, i think as joshua implied, we've got to listen to china, we've got to listen to their concerns. and then we have to be willing to help think through those concerns from their perspective. looking at it from their perspective, we may not end up agreeing with them, we may end up disagreeing but we have to listen carefully to what they're saying if we want them on board. and they have to be on board if we're going to solve either iran or north korea without a terrible conflict. >> the fact is, we have a laundry list of these problems: iran, north korea, currency. they're only going to escalate. the chinese are going to be doing more and more things that americans start to perceive as a threat to american national interest. i think there's a view-- and it's a mistaken view-- that

you'll fix this problem by tactically addressing each one of these things. we just guarantee oil from saudi arabia to replace the oil from iran, everything will be fine. these aren't tactical problems. there's an underlying stroo strategic disagreement between the united states and china about what our relationship should look like. >> rose: is it different than the relationship between the previous administration and china? >> i think what's happened is that the chinese view of their role in the world has matured. and i think the financial crisis has left the chinese aware of the fact that their interests are more vulnerable than they've ever been before and that's led to a recalculation on their side. but the idea that you can just fix each of these tactical problems without overarching strategic concept is just flawed. it's tail chasing, really. >> i want to come back to that. david sanger has joined us. welcome, david. >> good to be back with you, charlie. >> rose: so tell me what you think was accomplished today. you were there on the ground covering this. sam nunn is with us in atlanta and joshua cooper ramo is here with the table with me in new

york. >> well, i'm sorry for being a bit late but as you can imagine the security was a little tight around the summit area. i guess if you're talking about nuclear weapons,, their interest in having a terror attack at the time is pretty limited. the summit was notable, i think, for two things. the first is that the president did get a series of specific concessions from individual countries who agreed to be on a schedule to either sent uranium back or send plutonium back to other countries or to eliminate it all together. and these were called house warming gifts by gary saymore, who is the president's w.m.d. coordinator. i think that they had orchestrated these to try to use the moment of the summit to make sure that there were specific deliverables. but i think the more interesting thing was that by setting up another one of these summits two years from now, president obama

has said that countries will be measured by how well they do on these work plans that they've laid out. and that's what's been missing in the past. you know, the united nations passed a resolution in 2004 that required countries to control their nuclear materials. very few paid attention to it. and there have been a series of other conventions, agreements, and there's been very little follow-up. >> i certainly agree with david's observation about specific accomplishments. ukraine is a country that has had several bombs worth of nuclear material, highly enriched uranium for quite a while. as a matter of fact, we made a fictional movie called "last best chance" and ukraine and south africa were the two countries where we set up a fictional type of terrorist seizing of nuclear materials. so ukraine, south africa, belarus all have significant stockpiles of highly enriched

uranium and ukrainian decision to get rid of that highly enriched uranium and to blend it down in cooperation with the u.s. and probably russia is a big decision. >> rose: with respect to russia and the agreement that was signed in prague, does that signal to you that there is real developing confidence between the united states and russia? >> charlie, just the process of having arms control discussions is an important feature in u.s./russian relations because's a place where u.s. top defense officials come together with russians. we have a much better understanding even if we don't reach an agreement. i think during the cold war it made a difference in terms of reducing somewhat the risk. we will have a long way to go with russia because we still have huge nuclear risk on both sides. but maybe the realization will begin to dawn on people and russia and the united states that we have more common risk

than reasons for confrontation and maybe we will begin to change our cold war posture commensurate with the tremendous change and the risk to both countries. >> rose: let me turn to iran. so tell me what you think the chinese attitude was at this conference, david, about sanctions against iran. >> well, when president obama met with president hu yesterday, it seems as if iran took upmost of their conference. the rest was spent on currency and so forth. and what was notable was that at the end of this the chinese basically just agreed to come in and negotiate in new york on the wording of a sanctions resolution. now, the administration was trying to spin this as a great accomplishment because the chinese weren't there two weeks ago. they didn't want to participate. what we have to veb that there have been three previous united nations sanctions resolution and

the chinese negotiated in each one of those and in every one when you go back and interview the negotiators, they'll tell you the same thing: the chinese use the process to both slow it down and water it down. so the sanctions that came out in the end were not sanctions that were sufficient to get the iranians to suspend their enrich of uranium. and really that's the only measure here, charlie, because that's the measure the u.n. itself laid out at the beginning of this process. i thought it was interesting during the process today that president obama did not seem to hold out much hope that the sanctions even if he gets them would bring about a relatively rapid change in iran's attitude. >> rose: but he believes in sanctions because he has no other place to go? >> well, he believes in sanctions, i think, for two reasons: the first is that it would convey a sense of international unity if everybody signs on. of course everybody signed on to the previous one.

the second is that they would create a legal basis for individual countries or the european union to go beyond the sanctions and do their own kind of economic penalties. and i think that many of them want the cover of the u.n. sanctions resolution before they do that. >> rose: do the chinese believe that iran wants the capacity to make nuclear weapons? >> you know, i think if you talk... the public position, of course, is no and that they're going to... they'll give all of the arguments on peaceful use. >> rose: and they always say "let's negotiate and find out." >> right. i think privately there is an understanding that nuclear weapons as deterrent force are, in fact, quite useful. if you look at the chinese nuclear doctrine it's guided by the principle that you don't need a lot of warheads. you just need a limited amount of warheads, minimum necessary, to secure a deterrent. so they look at iran, they understand the nation's desire for self-determination and they

appreciate the idea that in their mind it's possible to have a limited nuclear force which is not an offensive threat. remember, china has a declare nod first use policy. from so from their perspective they don't see iran in the same threatening light the west does. >> rose: they don't think they'd use them offensively if they had one. >> right. because that's based on their own doctrine. >> rose: who what do think think of the president? what's they are sense of this young president and the potential to develop a relationship? >> i think they're concerned. when you talk to chinese who are worrying about these problems, they are still very desirous of having a positive relationship with the united states. but in their view, obama came in the fall, they had this great strategic declaration which they believed in and then they were confronted with these two issues the dalai lama... >> rose: could the president have avoided those two issues? would it have been wise to avoid those two issues in terms of the broad political landscape he lives? >> the domestic american political considerations were clear to everybody. the question was whether or not you could create a strategic

framework in the way with where you had the chinese bought in on enough other issues that those became rounding errors. they don't feel like they're respected and paid attention to. that becomes an increasing problem as our interests start to diverge. >> rose: what should the president do to say to china in no uncertain terms so we can get you on board with respect to iran, we respect you? we listen to you? we like you? we want to build a foundation to do a lot of other constructive things? >> well, i think it's a combination of two things. one is actually it may seem counterintuitive which is being a little bit even firmer in trying to demonstrate america's national interests on particular issues. because the chinese look to some degree at some of the policy decisions by the obama administration as signs of weakness, as signs of being willing to concede too fast. >> rose: like? >> the climate of the negotiation matters a great deal. well, even issues like... the classic example of this was the decision of how the currency process was handled, for instance. and so that's one issue. it just seems to repeat the same

patterns over and over again to the chinese, which makes them worried. but the larger thing is trying to create a new framework that recognizes that it's not simply about constantly asking china to change. which is what our policy looks like today. but actually acknowledging that the world system needs to change. that there are huge problems that have emerged since the end of the cold were that our current system is incapable of handling and that we need new ideas and want china as a partner this the developing of those new ideas as opposed to what it feels like in beijing today which is the u.s. is developing these ideas unilaterally and showing up in beijing and asking the chinese to comply. >> rose: what do you think of that, sam nunn? >> i agree with joshua on point two. on point one i would have serious questions about whether the chinese are reading that much into whether obama as the knew wabss of what they would call firmness, particularly on the currency issue. but on the question, too, of... point two by joshua, i agree. i think we have to understand that china's a rising power and

that not just china has to adjust but also the world has to adjust. and i think the united states and china together are the ones to begin to guide the world toward those adjustments. so that the rising power does not threaten the existing world structure. particularly in the economic sense, but also in the security sense. >> rose: do you think this administration is threatened by a rising china? >> well, i think that's been the discussion for the last 20 years and china has certainly... their changing so rapidly and they have developed so quickly that it's very hard for the world to adjust that quickly. but all the world institutions when you look at them sort of have to be reexamined and i think the u.s./china dialogue on that, certainly a lot of other countries have to be included, two, we won't have just the two of us. but that kind of dialogue has to begin and i agree with the point that we can't simply lecture to the chinese.

we have to also listen to them. >> rose: david, what's going to happen to the n.p.t. review? >> charlie, can i just make a point on china first and then get to n.p.t. i was struck during the first chinese/u.s. dialogue last summer, the first big dialogue with the obama administration. the chinese arrived here in washington, and the first thing they asked for was a detailed briefing about the health care proposals that were under way in congress. and everybody wez a little bit shocked by this and it became clear to them pretty soon that the chinese didn't really care about the public option or anything else, they simply wanted to know how much they were going to be asked to pay for this. and they still want to know the answer to that question. but i think that to the chinese, they see the continuing bankrollinging of american deficits as their great point of leverage, not that they would threaten to pull the money out, but wrather that it gives them a way of saying quite subtly to

president obama you not only have to deal with us as equals, you have to deal with us as your banker. and i think that's the subtext of many of the discussions. >> rose: >> david'soint is exactly right and highlights something else that matters a lot which is this internal dynamic inside china today which we don't pay a lot of attention to. but if you look at the tensions inside the political leadership, we're heading into a policy change many 2012, you have new leaders come in. there's no incentive in that environment for being pro-u.s. at the moment. the atmosphere is very much a sense of china should be better respected by the united states and so it's hard for chinese leaders to look like they're bending over backwards to do favors for the u.s. in this environment. >> rose: and how is the new generation of leaders... how are the new generation of leaders different from hu jintao? >> dramatically different. first of all, they're much more diverse. so the generation you're looking at that's running the country today, largely engineers, all shared a relatively limited sort of world experience because of the period in which they grew up. the so-called fifth generation coming into power you'll see just from a personality

perspective-- and you've met some of them-- express themselvess very differently. some of them walk into the rooms and they feel like western politicians. you go the generation after that, the sixth generation, which are the guys in my cohort, late 30s, early 40s, they have an even more dynamic set of personalities. even more, largely speaking, suspicion of the united states. >> rose: even more in generation six? >> yeah. >> rose: this is the most important bilateral relationship in the world, isn't it, sam? >> i think it is and i think that one of the things that we have to realize is that while we are urging china to change its currency policies, which i think is exactly the right course, we also have to adjust our own fiscal policies in a very big way. i think the chinese lost a lot of confidence in the united states as a model... economic model for the world based on events of the last couple of years. and i think we have to get our own fiscal house in order. i don't think the chinese see us doing that. and i think the point about

their concern on health care and probably a lot of the other entitlement programs are pretty legitimate concerns when you consider they are the banker. but from my own point of view, we've got, to while urging china to increase consumption over the long haul, not in the middle of a recession but over the long haul, we have to increase our savings and we have to basically greatly increase our efficiency in terms of productivity. >> rose: i'm tomorrow interviewing the prime minister of singapore. his father's famously lee kwan you who in a conversation at this table said to me the thing that the world leaders worry more about america than anything else is their capacity to handle their debt issues. that is the one thing that worries leaders around the world more than anything else. n.p.t., david. close... pell me what we should anticipate. >> well, to some degree, the summit that we've just seen completed was the easy work, because it's hard to argue against cleaning up loose nuclear material around the world.

the n.p.t. opens up a whole different set of issues. you will see iran participate in the n.p.t. review which starts next month in new york as a full member. that means that they'll have some veto rights. you will see the western countries and the nuclear countries, the current nuclear weapons states argue that the loopholes in the n.p.t. need to be closed so that countries can't do what north korea did and just send in a letter and say "i'm pulling out of the treaty." or that countries could don't what iran is doing now, which is basically stay within the treaty but pick and choose which parts of it they want to comply with and keep playing a shell game with inspectors. so there's going to be much more of a sense of conflict. and i think there more than at the meeting you just saw completed you're going to see a conflict between the existing nuclear weapons states and the

larger powers and aspiring states, including some who don't have nuclear weapons right now but think they may want them one day or at least would want the capacity to build up to the edge. and that's the big challenge for president obama because he has not yet really defined the policy or what you do with a country that stays within the letter of the law, buildsup the capacity to build a weapon, but doesn't quite go the last step. >> rose: thank you all. back in a moment. stay with us. >> rose: ken gormley is here. he is a law professor at duquesne university. his new book is called "the death of american virtue: clinton vs. star." it is a scholarly account of the events leading up to the impeachment of the formered. gormley interviewed more than 160 people, including former president clinton and independent counsel ken starr. he also had access to documents not previously seen. i am pleased to have him at this table for the first time.

welcome. >> thank you, charlie. start with the title "the death of american virtue." >> you're going to start with the hardest question first. well, it's obviously meant to talk about different types of virtue and we're talking about public virtue to a large extent. and one of the themes i think that develops is this was a crisis like no other. a political scandal like no other in our lifetime. somehow things got bad that it polarize it had entire country it reached the point where both sides-- and i'm not just talking about bill clinton and ken starr the prosecutor, but both sides that surrounded them kind of lost their way and forgot that restraint is important. to a certain extent. >> rose: archibald cox, who've

you written another book about who's much admired american, thought the idea of the independent counsel had gone too far. >> that was a really revealing thing, charlie, archibald cox, of course, was the watergate special prosecutor who stood up to president nixon and demanded the tapes and was fired in the saturday night massacre. a true great constitutional lawyer and very principled person. he had been one of the architects of the independent counsel. this was, as you know, a piece of good government law after watergate to try to fix the problem so that that didn't happen again. so he was one of the staunchest supporters for years and years of the independent counsel law and i finally... he would not talk to reporters, he would not ever say anything that would question another special prosecutor but he told me this had gone so far he that he gave up hope on the statute and thought it should be abolished.

>> rose: and he said maybe if ken starr had asked if this was an appropriate use of the independent counsel he might not have done what he did. >> well, exactly. archibald cox in deciding where to go in watergate would sit down with elliot richardson, the attorney general and seal himself off from his own prosecutors to decide what was the best course. because prosecutors are pushing to see action. ken starr and i think mainly because... ken starr is a wonderful person, just preeminent lawyer and former judge and solicitor general but i think he saw the role more as a judge would and would take the pulse of his staff to make decisions rather than making the judgment about when you had to put the brakes on them. that was a big difference i saw between them. >> rose: as far as you're concerned that was a mistake starr made? >> i i do do think it was a mistake. yoening it was an intentional mistake. i think he was miscontact in this roast, charlie. i think it was a mistake frankly for him to ache this job.

i've never fully understood why he took it. i've talked to ken about this and he said he was call to duty but he did not believe in the independent counsel law to start with and a lot of folks didn't and the republican party generally was opposed to it because of iran-contra. i could never figure out why he took the job and decided to devote his energy to something he fully didn't believe in. his answer was he was called to duty. >> rose: there's also this. bill clinton says today the dumbest mistake he ever made was suggesting an independent counsel. >> well, he almost had to sign it in into law because he campaigned in favor of it but he thinks the dumbest mistake he made was signing it back into law and unleashing all of this. he said he believed it would be relatively simple matter, there was nothing for himself and hillary to hide having to do with the white water matter. they lost money in this so when

the notion was that independent counsel law would be reestablished, someone look into this and that would be the end of it. he said he thought he was very naive. of course there were a lot of people who could then use this mechanism to get at him in a lot of different ways. >> rose: a right wing conspiracy? >> it was interesting. i had a chance to interview richard melon scape which was alleged to be the lead of the right wing conspirators. he told me he didn't know ken starr and he thought... he didn't do a very good job because he didn't find enough about president bill clinton. >> rose: he thought there was more. but haven't they become friends? >> yes. he's an interesting and gentlemanly fellow. but was there a right wing conspiracy in the sense people were sitting down how to bring down bill clinton and ken starr was part of that,? absolutely not. were there people in the republican party who would have

liked to see a regime change and were looking for opportunitys is? absolutely. but as one friend of mine said, a very conservative republican, we may have been there with the elephant gun, but bill clinton provided us the bullets. >> rose: and bill clinton, you suggest, couch could have avoided all of this if me settled the paul lo jones case? >> that's complicated. >> rose: bubl that or snot >> well, early on, yes. early on. i think that's the case. but the point i do want to make, charlie, is he did in essence settle the paula jones case. this was a piece i found very interesting in doing my research. in 1997, i interviewed the lawyers for paula jones from virginia and president clinton's lawyer bob bennett. they had a deal. they had an agreement to settle it for the full amount that paula jones had asked for, $ $700,000. and paula jones, they took on this deal. they thought it was done and president clinton authorized it. paula jones by that time was being handled by susan carpenter

mcmillan and she and paula's husband steve jones were still pushing her so she refused to settle for the full amount asked for in the complaint and one of the documents i found that was just startling and really provided an insight was a letter from paula jones' lawyers to her begging her to take this settlement and saying that at most they thought she could recover $50,000 if she won anything at all if they went to trial. so they knew there were big problems with this case. they knew she needed to settle and when she didn't, they withdrew and stopped representing her. >> rose: do you have an opinion as to what paula jones... what happened to her? >> you mean in the excelsior hotel? >> rose: right. >> this is the best that i can say. i'm sure that a large amount of her account is true. and president clinton, if you notice, has never explicitly denied detail. you know, each thing detail by detail. it's the... you know, the 5% that i always have the question

about, and that is what exactly was her conduct at that time? because a key fact that bob bennett made clear he would have brought out at trial and made very prominent was the fact that she was engaged to be married to steve jones at the time this incident happened. and he clearly was not happy when they... the story was in the spectator indicating that paul was there. now that does... i'm not taking a position, i'm just saying that gives someone a motive to shade the truth. and of course, trooper danny ferguson who was also there said paula did not seem upset when she came out of the room. she said she wanted to be clinton's girlfriend or whatever. so i don't know. all i can tell you is i think that only two people know exactly what went on in the room. but paula jones to me is not particularly sympathetic character when you look at all of this play out. and even her own lawyers had some issues with the fact that she later posed for "penthouse"

and things like that when she said she hadn't. so i just don't know what to make of the whole story. >> rose: this point is central to this book. this is about clinton and starr and you find a remarkable common heritage background between them. and they both rose to power early, one at 37, a court of appeals judge, the other at 32 a governor.>> it was surprising t. i hadn't put these pieces together. i spent a lot of time in arkansas, spending time... i went and fished on the white river with one of bill clinton's childhood friends, joe purvis. i went around... >> rose: where the whitewater thing... >> yes, where the whitewater investment took place. i went around hot springs with marge mitchell, one of his mother's best friends. i also went to texas to see where ken starr grew up.

they grew up within a couple of hundred miles of each other, within one month. here was the thing that really strikes me. if you went to see ken starr's home where he grew up, it was a very modest little... it had been an army barracks that was dragged up during world war ii and planted next to a cow pass chur and that's where his father who was a barber and preacher made his home and his mother lived there until she died at age 90. these were both men of very modest means who did all of this that you're describing at an early age simply on their own. they were truly self-made american success stories. and yet they take these paths and they then collide in this. and it is a tragic story in the end. >> rose: some of the reviewers from the right are critical of you because they say you're too easy on clinton. flows the left say you're foo easy on starr. >> you noticed, that, huh? >> rose: which may be the best

place you want to be. you're not satisfying anybody all the time. but you talked to the president. tell me about what he told you. tell me what you came away with from those conferences that simply made you want to continue >> well, clearly there was a sense in president clinton... and he's obviously... you know him. he's a charming man and it's almost as if he's speaking from his soul. he has really strong beliefs about things. and i think he honestly believed-- this is a man who was a politician pretty much his whole life, his whole career anyway. he believed that all of these things were a political setup. and maybe they were. and so he felt that he was put in these boxes in terms of how he was going to testify in the paula jones case, in terms of his grand jury testimony, in terms of all of these things that later lead to impeachment charges. and to him, this was all a political setup and a trap and

that kind of justified skating right to the edge. and i think maybe he did go over the edge with some of these things. he would say he went right to the edge. but the thing that did strike me is that at the end of our last interview, he talked about what this meant to him and he said in some ways it was liberating. and this was very spontaneous, i have to say, very touching. he said because clearly he wished he hadn't done a lot of these things that had caused harm to his family, to the country, clearly he did. and he meant that. but the beauty about this in the end was that his family stayed with him. that hillary did not leave him, that chelsea clinton stayed with him and also the country pretty much stayed with him and so that was the part of it... the story that at least he felt good

about. >> rose: one said this to you, that in the end the appearance of ms. lewinsky saved hillary clinton. >> that's what hickman ewing, jr., said to me. hickman was the prosecutor hired by ken starr who was really running the operation in arkansas. so he was chiefly responsible for the white water investigation. a wonderful person, i must say, and he took me on a "scandal tour" early on in little rock to see the scenes where all these things took place. but at the point where the lewinsky investigation, where the starr office expanded into the lewinsky investigation, hickman ewing was preparing a draft indictment which i obtained and i found in a place it shouldn't have been and that's what writers try to do. and so i got to see this thing for the first time and no one, including president and mrs. clinton, have ever seen this draft indictment.

but the plan was to try to indict mrs. clinton right during this period in march/april of 1998 when monica lewinsky was not admitting to the affair. and hickman ewing made his pitch in a day-long presentation to the whole office of independent counsel and ultimately they decided there wasn't sufficient evidence but largely he said becae the monola lewinsky case they felt they had president clinton in their sights. this was a pretty clear-cut easy one to prove. they could prove he lied about the affair and so it was in that context that he said to me in some ways monica saved hillary. >> rose: and you talked to monica lewinsky. >> extensively. >> rose: what if do you find? >> i find her to be a very sympathetic person. i didn't go into it necessarily feeling that way. this is a very smart woman, very tough interview because she

knows what she'll talk about and not talk about. anyone who thinks that this was some sort of joke or she was looking for 15 minutes of fame, all i can say is the simple way to explain it is if you engage in an extra marital affair with a man who also happens to be president of the united states, you have to expect that your picture may appear on the cover of a tabloid magazine at some point. but you do not expect you're going to be brought into a room with f.b.i. agents around you with prosecutors telling you you're going to go to jail, suggesting that maybe your parents will be dragged into this. so this was a... this was just a disaster for the whole family and i should tell you... i don't think i've said this to anyone else but i spent time with her after gaining her trust and it was a long period. she's been burned by a lot of people obviously and is wary of writers. but i finally got her to share some of the documents because i find that documents are important in writing a book like this, a historical account.

and we sat on folding chairs in a storage facility in greenwich village looking over this stuff. this was probably in about 2004 or 2005 and i can tell you this was a very distressing experience for her to just relive this. i sat there and went through these things with her. it's just a very sad piece of the whole story. >> rose: there is also this, which i found stunning, and other prosecutors have, too, six times she asked for a lawyer. six or seven. not once, not twice, not three times. and most people would say at the first request stop. this interrogation stops. right? >> well, it is a little more complicated, i have to tell you, from a legal perspective just because the justice department regulations at that time were

admittedly murky in terms of who is represented by council. if you're represented in a civil case, in the paula jones case, for instance, are you represented far criminal matter? that was the issue that was undecided. that having been said, it is clear, first of all, i don't think that ken starr's office should have rushed and expanded into this matter that wasn't under their charter in the first place without authority from the attorney general, even before wiring up linda trip. but when they... because of these time pressures bearing down on them, they did not have this planned out. that was very clear. mike'mic told me he thought he would go in there, this would take 15 or 2 minutes, he'd either cooperate or not cooperate and they'd walk away. they didn't have a plan as to what would happen if she asked for her lawyer. and obviously frank carter, the lawyer who represented her in drafting this aft which was the very issue that they were questioning her about is an

experienced criminal lawyer and excellent lawyer in washington, d.c. joanne harris, who wrote the report that has been under seal for all this time that evaluated ken starr's sting of monica lewinsky found... she told me she would not have touched this with a ten-foot pole under those circumstances. it was... >> but the other point about this is why is that investigation of the star investigation under siege? what is there to hide... under seal. what is there to hide? >> well, at the time... >> rose: i mean what happened to freedom of information? >> well, it was placed under seal by the three-judge panel at the time and i believe judge sentel was presiding that time over the panel in charge of special prosecutors. so the report was made, was given to robert ray who

succeeded ken starr but because it revealed information having to do with which prosecutors were involved and things like that the argument was made that this would disgorge private facts and should be put under seal. joanne harris' belief-- and i end to agree with this, which is why i put hit in the book and i thought it was important-- was the american public deserved to know. everything was hung out to dry in this investigation about countless people. certainly one fact having to do with the starr operation that was not necessarily positive the public was entitled to know as well. one of the most fascinating points monica made with me repeatedly that is just interesting when you think about it, she put the starr prosecutors in a very awkward position because on one hand monica lewinsky was their star witness. everything she said had to be

true because they were banking their whole case on her. except on one subject. there is only one subject, everything she was saying was false and that was her treatment by the star prosecutors. >> rose: so banking on her testimony but when she talks about her treatment by us, it's not true. >> and it was one of the most fascinating things in reading this... >> so in the end, where do you come down on this? ken starr, a good guy who what? what's the qualifier to that? >> well, i would begin by saying that a good guy who absolutely never should have expanded into the monica lewinsky case. >> do you believe he believes that? >> well, he told me that now in retrospect he wished he hadn't. i do think that he wishes he would have ended with white water. and, frankly, i think he gets pretty good marks as white water prosecutor. he was carrying out what robert fiske had done and i didn't see evidence of a partisan zealot at

that point. >> rose: i thought you made the point-- or at least other people have interpreted this-- that the... the zeal came beneath him not from him. >> oh, sure. >> rose: point the finger at those who worked for him, rather than him. >> that's what prosecutors do let me say. that goes back to the point that he did not have this innate sense of a prosecutor and was misdmas the this role because he let his underlings dictate where he should go. >> rose: how does the president see hit in the end? he said he liberated him because what else? how does he see it beyond what we might assume before we see your book? >> i think it changed him in the sense that he always knew this would be part of his legacy and that was a great disappointment to him. but when henry hyde said to me, well, he's always going to have that asterisk next to his name that he was the second president

ever impeached by the house, he said yes, he told me there will be to two asterisks and the second was that i beat them and not only beat them but beat them like a yard dog i think what he said. so bill clinton is still feisty. there's no question about it. he saw this purely in political terms as an attempt to get him. and very honestly there were lots of forces coming at him from the very beginning for some reason. a lot of people hated bill clinton before he aever arrived in the white house so that's the prism through which i think he see this is story. >> rose: you hope at the end of the day people will come away with what look, what understanding about this president? >> criticism? what understanding? what praise? >> well, what criticism is clearly a recklessness and personal behavior. i mean, one key fact is at the time he's engaging in this affair with monica lewinsky and

the white house the supreme court is grantingers is yourry taking the case in paula jones and the lawyers are proclaiming on national television that they're going to go after the subject of other women. so that, charlie, is reckless engaging in this knowing full well they're going to be coming at him. but also there is a piece of him that is just remarkable. one of the most remarkable presidents in history. the fact is that this president could stand up and give the most brilliant state of the union address to the very members of congress who by day were holding impeachment hearings is just remarkable. and the ability of him to continue the business of the president, he did one thing very smart and his staff did. unlike president nixon who was just consumed by watergate, he built a wall and kept himself in a parallel universe. and so he did continue to do a

remarkable job as president despite this just extraordinary pressure on him. >> and now stands in good said the with the american people as well as internationally because of the clinton initiative and the clinton foundation and places like haiti and at work with bush 41 and 43. >> absolutely. and that's one of the things that the house managers never completely realized is history isn't done when a president leaves office. >> what couldn't you nut this book you wanted to? >> all the things i'm not going to tell you tonight. it was something i never got tired of. there was so much fascinating information. these are two very impressive men and very honestly the hardest thing about writing this book, charlie, was knowing that both ken starr and bill clinton would have been disappointed with parts of it that weren't favorable. but i did my best, i tried to call it down the middle. i... there are parts that

vindicate each side. there are parts they won't like. but ultimately the goal is-- and i give them both a lot of credit-- because they knew going into this that i was not going to be bashing the other side, that i was not going to be painting horns on their heads yet they cooperated fully knowing there was a value to history and i give them both a lot of credit for that. >> rose: that's why you think they did it? because of value to history? >> i do. i absolutely do. i told them it was going to be a long-term project and i think that that's what they wanted to see. "the death of american virtue: clinton vs. starr" by ken gormley. thank you for joining us. see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org