new much more threatening iran and from the very beginning you chronicled how secretary of state cyrus vance at one point of view who is much more in favor of negotiating a more conciliatory stance. brzezinski at the time the national security of wiser to president carter took a much harder line. if you change the names it seems to me it could be talking and writing the story on today's front page about the internal divisions within the united states government over how to approach iran. >> yeah and of course those things are very similar today. the thing that was new then of course was that nobody had ever encountered an islamic revolutionary movement like this. people didn't know what to make of it. people at the time were looking for all kinds of comparisons and for example there were people comparing ayatollah khamenei to gandhi. what if the comparison do you have? he's a religious leader who led an independent struggle. it's that simple and when you look at this policy feud if that is in putting too much on it between secretary of state and the national security pfizer at the time what

cyprus fans, ever the cool polished diplomat -- cyrus vance, completely exasperated. so what should we do? i think before we jump in and say this is a great deal, or this is a terrible deal, we should step back, take a few steps back and take a deep breath and admit that we and the iranians are now talking to each other, interacting in a way that five months ago was unthinkable. just could not imagine it. why is this so? what's changed? well, some will credit the sanctions was pushing the iranians decide to change their approach. it may be true. but i'm cautious here. i think any case of the sanctions, or the question is why, you need to make a distinction between what you know to be true and what you wish to be true. and i think there are people who wish the sanctions have done this and, therefore, they say the sanctions did it. what we know to be true is that the iranian economy is in bad shape. the iranian -- iran with its resources, with its educated population, with its geography, it should be economically it should be a paradise. it is clearly not. it is not a p