andrew bremmer was born in louisiana. johnson, we have to get russell long's committee to approve him. the head did not want another liberal. johnson wanted another liberal as that would give him control of the federal reserve board. he comes with bremmer. calls russell long over. he has a manila folder. he says, i have a candidate for the federal reserve board vacancy. he describes him. he said, and he is from louisiana. >> russell says, louisiana? he says, i want you to introduce him to your committee. he hands in the folder. he says, russell, you are a great man to do this. [laughter] it takes courage in one sense. he used to say men are rooted by love and fear. >> that was his genius to know how much to apply. “the triumph and tragedy.” a personal memoir by the top domestic advisor, joseph califano. ♪ >> lynsey addario, a pulitzer prize-winning photographer, is here. she is credited with changing the way we view conflict zones. she has documented human rights issues and the plight of women. she was kidnapped in libya

i am pleased to have ian bremmer. tipping point may be too strong of a word, but we will come back to that. saudi arabia? you get a sense that this administration now believes it needs to strengthen the relationship. >> the u.s.-saudi relationship was not on life-support but certainly had a downward trajectory over the last couple of years. the saudis were more than happy to let us know that publicly. i think it was a good move for obama to cut short the cultural portion -- >> the taj mahal. >> and show up in riyadh. he hasn't made the best decisions on foreign trips recently. this was the right one. everyone is second-guessing him. >> paris. >> he should have sent biden. there is no question that sending -- going himself to re-and showing personal support and engagement. >> he brought jim baker and condoleezza rice. >> he brought the entire bipartisan, senior team. he brought the 18. you wish a lot of those guys were in the administration these days. he brought strategy. it was good to see that the americans understa

joining me, ian bremmer of eurasia group.ford i know you did a study of korea. we have seen the president look across that zone. how do you envision a buffer to be in ukraine? >> it will be more like a dmv. a lot of tanks moving around from the russians and ukrainians. disagreements has all b foreign military needs to be removed. the russians have consistently said they have no weapons they have sent to ukraine. we should see some sort of lull in the fighting the idea this is going to be firmly implemented xgrid you woody at this point. >> where is the russian border this morning? >> it is moving. around this small town they have more or less surrounded. they are down to the port town within shelling distance, a bit of a jog. that would be an important port facility. you will continue to see some fighting over the next couple of days. whether or not we end up in a full cease-fire is a question. part of this agreement is that by the end of 2015, you will have monitors on the border. mr. lavrov said he did not believe this was

. >> one of my favorite people to follow on twitter is ian bremmer. he said basically what obama said toe next round of russia talks fail we will consider providing ukraine with weapons to lose the fight less quickly. and that's how i took it. we basically are admitting that we are not able to do anything because we haven't done anything so therefore we have to do something. >> your tweet was awesome. you said president obama basically said we are definitely kind of sort of maybe going to send help for you. >> and you are right. here is my question. why didn't angela merkel say we will take care of this? >> her position, bob. germany's position is no arms. one of the things she said yesterday -- have that, too. just trust me i am correct. said we are concerned about sending arms because if more arms are sent there will be more victims. how do you say to the people who are facing putin's army that we are not going to help you because we think you might be more victimized. >> it didn't work with the holocaust. if they had been armed -- >> let me just sa

i believe is somewhat controversial, about disbanding the iraqi army and the -- under ambassador bremmer that has been written about a lot. i wonder if you could make a comment on that action. lieutenant mcmaster: these mistakes are very clear in retrospect. there are no easy solutions in iraq. if you were to recall too much of the army, for example you could have exacerbated the fears of certain elements of the shia community after the collapse of the regime, and maybe that could have led to other problems. there were no easy solutions but i think if you look at policy decisions in the immediate military fair three over the hussein -- military victory over the hussein regime, it seems we were trying to make it is hard on ourselves as we could. and that is involving the decision not to recall portions of the army. and not recognizing that the majority of the army was shia to begin with, that this was a symbol of national identity, not to recognize that war is waged for fear, honor, and an jurist -- and interest. not recalling portions of the army was the violation of a sense of honor of