>> guest: i spent a lot of time with george shultz. i had 13 taped interviews with him in california at his place in stanford. i didn't spent nearly as much time with shevardnadze. i had one interview in moscow in the foreign ministry, but that's more than anybody else had. so, i don't know, in the kingdom of the mind, the man is king perhaps. but i watched him over time as well. c-span: the interesting thing i noticed that in your liner notes, your acknowledgements you sign off on this in the introduction at january 1991. this book was written long before the coup attempt. >> guest: yes, it was. i made some changes as late as this last spring and early part of the summer, but even that was before the coup attempt. but a lot of the things that happened -- later you can see them sort of growing. you can almost see the seeds growing in this book as the hard-liners get more authority in moscow, as the military begins to interfere more with what gorbachev is wanting to do, even in 1989 and 1990, as the consequences of the change in eastern

on the american side ronald reagan and george shultz. on the soviet side because gorbachev and his foreign minister shevardnadze and. one of the questions that one has to ask about the process of ending the cold war is what was it that made the ussr jump? why did they resist western pressure particularly the american pressure for so many years in the 14th, 15, 60s and 70s and yet they started to make massive concessions in the second half of the 1980s. what i found was contrary to what mikail gorbachev bikes to suggest. the change of attitude to the problems of the soviet internal crisis did not occur only when he came to power in 1985. the materials showed the politburo repeatedly looked at the fundamental economic, social, religious and indeed imperial problems with relation to eastern europe that it confronted, problems that it couldn't afford to solve than the old way of as the soviet economy was going through the plughole. it was draining away resources particularly after the invasion of afghanistan at the end of 1979. so repeatedly

the objectives of the two leaders of the day, operational a practical biddies two men included george shultz and with an extraordinarily dynamic environment where no day was predictable one day before it happened. we all remember the of bewildering rapidity of change so the to foreign policy establishments had to be held together with their great sophistication and determination. so we have a deal maker over here in the u.s. through secretary shultz and a radical reformer and both belonged to administrations that were not lacking of internal division. anyone who read his memoirs is well aware he had to struggle for the lion that was prescribed for the administration by the president himself. the same was true in the soviet bureau the end gorbachev general objective wise and and deepened but even before that there was opposition and resistance from people who were not so keen on the reform of gorbachev. so both the secretary and the minister had to do what they could and did what they could to emboldened the president and the general secretary would never the commitment seemed to waver. this

george shultz was a nixon hire. and they would bring these guy guys in, let them fight with each other for a while then they would take them over to the state department, mitchell would say we're going to enforce the law which was desegregation, and then nixon would summon them into the oval office, and he would say this is the oval office, this is where the tough decisions get made. now you have to make your decision can. and every single one of those state commissions said, okay, agreed to desegregate. there was fighting over busing but the numbers don't lie. the schools all almost all desegregated in that period. the press was paying no attention to this. they were paying attention to the rhetoric, to the southern strategy, and the rhetoric could be pretty bad. they weren't watching what nixon was actually doing. it's classic nixon. watch what we do, not what we say. the southern strategy, obviously, worked for the republican party. but nixon i'm not excusing him. nixon knew how to play on fear. that's one thing

george shultz was a nixon higher, and they would bring these guys in, let them fight with each other for a while and then they would take him over to the state department, give them a good new. mage would come and say we will enforce the law which was the segregation at the nixon would summon into the oval office and he would say this is the oval office, this is where the tough decisions get made. now you have to make your decision. every single one of the state commissions set okay, agree to desegregate. there was fighting over busing but the numbers don't lie. the schools, almost all desegregate in that period. the press with paying no attention. they were paying attention to the rhetoric of the southern strategy and the rhetoric could be pretty bad, they were not watching what nixon was actually doing. classic nixon. watch what we do, not what we say. some strategy work for the southern party to the republican party. nixon notably in fear. that's one thing he was good at was playing on people's fears. their hopes sometimes, but their fears and he did it with the southern strategy.

he's in a conversation with george shultz the secretary of state during the reagan administration. >> my name is paul gregory. i am a research fellow at the hoover institution. i am pleased to welcome you to this conversation between a historian and a history maker. the historian is robert, the senior fellow hoover institution and professor emeritus at oxford university. he is known for his biographies of lenin, stalin and trotsky. his latest book is the end of cold war which is the subject of today's conversation. >> i would have brought a copy down but it is about this pic. >> anyway come you can see the favor. the cover. we have have a distinguished fellow at the hoover institution. the secretary is the distinguished public servant having served as the secretary budget director. today's discussion focuses on his years as secretary of state under ronald reagan. the professor will begin with some short remarks after which he and the secretary will engage in a conversation about the end of the cold war. this event is being filmed for later broadcast so we should finish up around one t

not bad work you will see she's quite young, i met her at henry kissinger's birthday party with george shultz who was 92. i thought anyone with that sort of age span has got a bright future. since i'm closer to 92 than her age. it looked like a wise move. let's bring elizabeth holmes out, give her a hand. josh cushner is the co founder of oscar health, who wants to do something really interesting, which is to reinvent health insurance, and how people interact with their annual physicals. i had a highly unusual conversation with the chairman of one of the largest european companies who happened to be dutch. i asked if he wrote health insurance. he said, yes, i do, but we don't make any money on it, insurance companies write it and the government subsidizes people by income based on their need. but he said, we shouldn't make any money on this, we should make all of our money out of traditional insurance lines. i thought, i wonder if there's a single solitary soul in america that would say that. interesting. this guy's got an interesting idea, let's bring out josh cushner. joe is the founder and

happened was forceman little had a very powerful advisory board which included henry kissinger and george shultz and also bob strauss who had been the chairman of the democratic party. and he and rumsfeld were, apparently, quite friendly, and it was bob strauss who actually recommended they bring in don rumsfeld to be on forceman little's advisory board. and then later when they wanted a ceo, he had previously been the ceo of merck, a pharmaceutical giant -- no, not merck, it was gdsearle, so he also had quite a reputation in the private sector even though he had been the youngest secretary of defense before that. so he had this unique public and private sector background. he had been on the cover of fortune magazine or was ranked the most feared boss in america by "fortune." so all of a sudden in 1990, he stepped in as our new ceo. >> host: and, in fact, he had something to do with the first hd-tv broadcast at the u.s. capitol, correct? >> guest: that's true. when we finished testing our digital hd-tv prototype in the broadcasters' labs in d.c., we passed with flying colors, and the word was ge

and george shultz once said something very profound, he said, when you do a lot of writing, and reagan has done an enormous amount of writinwritin the way, over 20,000 letters, and jefferson only wrote 16,000. but when you write a lot, it means you've been thinking a lot. and reagan did do a lot of thinking. his views were revolutionary, as the panelists said this morning. unconventional. and clashed with the conventional views at the time. for reagan, what was most important in international affairs was, in fact, the ideas that countries represented. and that countries competed with one another. the ideas of how people should live together, in a society, and for reagan, america was always this kind of an entity. it was an idea. he says, already in 1952, this is in a speech, 1952, in a speech at william woods college in fulton, missouri, where churchill gave his famous iron curtain speech, he says the following, quote, america is less a place than an idea. the idea of that deep within the heart of one of us is something so god-like and precious that no individual or group has a right t