he says well, walter -- my first reaction is this is if they are henry kissinger or someone doing henrykissinger's accent. i can't fall for this. i just have to not saying anything. and kissinger said, even a hundred years war have to admit and at some point. i will come to your party. people in nations that have been permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. that said, having gone through the process with dr. kissinger, i decided next time around to write about somebody who had been dead for 200 years. that was dr. franklin. i wanted to read about the realism and american foreign policy because kissinger, for all of this controversy that he wrote, was the greatest we list or realpolitik thinker, understanding balance of power, understanding the forces of influence, not been caught up by sentimentality or emotional assemblages figuring out national interest. the only person who did a equally well as benjamin franklin, who was her envoy in paris, was able to do the quintessential great american theme when american foreign policy works which is two we then interest with idea

he became henry kissinger's deputy. haig was a true believer in provocative weakness and we will see that cannot live on the same theme as detente. it is impossible so at the very beginning with nixon and kissinger and of the mysterious man who was not at the table but he is at the table and sending memos to the president. about the needed to win the vietnam war. this relationship is really important to understand how everything goes down in the next decade. kramer, strangely enough, this is a broad view, a kissinger never served again and government after 1976 when the ford administration lost to carter but kramer continued to be a force until the died in 2003. that is what was a remarkable to see the names like chaney, wolfowitz, rumsfeld, saying he is the keeper of the flame and to use the words provocative weakness when he was defense secretary. we even see it today with the back-and-forth between president obama and former vice president cheney. what cheney is really saying is when you don't use like words like war

walter isaacson written terrific biographies of ben franklin and henry kissinger. robert carol, two pulitzer prizes along with numerous others awards. author of the amazing three volume biography of lyndon johnson. peggy noonan ronald reagan's chief speechwriter. then a terrific book about those years. "what i saw at the revolution." mel painter, a priceton university historian and author of "creating black americans: history of african-americans over the last 400 years." that was white a mouthful. peggy, when you were in the white house with ronald reagan, at the end of the first year i think people would have talked about optimism, confidence, things like that. what do you think people will say with this first year? >> i think this first year of obama, i think history will probably look back on it as an attempt to change the face of america in the world, which so far appears to be a good beginning, coupled with, i think, a serious domestic misstep with regard to focusing on certain issues that were not the great issues the american people were focused on when the

what herman and others who were mentioned earlier were doing along with henry kissinger and others in that time in the '50s, was inventing to try to get policymakers to think about how to construct your forces and how to structure your decision-making so the worst did not happen. and by a narrow margin, at least of michael dobbs book in the queue will missile crisis, a guy in some cases by a no margin we escaped that. but ironically, from that time up until recent years, there was a great convergence between the popular perception which was shaped by the testing and by the strangelove movies and other things, out of control spiraling arms race, and what actually occurred which because of the work of herman kahn starting in 1967 for the united states in the early '80s for the soviets, it was actually a short reduction in arms, way below debating on how you count anywhere from 70 to 90 plus% below where we were in 1967. warheads got smaller as accuracies improved, etc. ironically, we are now seeing with iran and pakistan and north korea, the prospect of a world because of proliferation

the story about henry kissinger asking what to think of the french religion, and he says it's too early to say. and it's a nice tour because i think it does capture a kind of civilization state way of thinking, which is in a different sense of time, different notion of time. and i'm very struck by the way the chinese have conceived of, you know, their rise. i mean, by and large, they are playing for time i think. while the outgrowing actually every relationship that china is involved it is moving with time in a more favorable direction. japan, well, if china continues to grow like this for another 20, 10, 15 years, strong voice, doesn't have to be at the present rate, but six to 8%, then japan will be in a different relationship to china. and i think it does view its relationships, likewise the relationship with the united states. it's certainly been true in the region. so they do, i think they are very patient, and they play very long game. but i don't mean that in a kind of, i don't think that's just a kind of ploy. i think that's a cultural facet of the way the chinese think. on your

stanley kubrick drawn upon a composite, henry kissinger and werner von brunn and the scientist and thether of the hydrogen bomb among histories but more than anyone else kubrick cited herman kahn in the movie. that is to say some of kahn's thought experiments -- and these were potential scenarios, thought experiments, devices as kahn put it designed to expand the mind and to eliminate the kind of conundrums policymakers had to think when they had to imagine what the future might look like. and one of these devices was -- as he called it was the doomsday machine, a kahn thought experiment about a device who's only purpose was to destroy all life. and it was essentially designed to teach military strategists the limits to what an ideal and fully capable deterrent could do. he's never meant as a real concept and almost immediately after raising this thought experiment of this fully capable deterrent on thermonuclear war kahn explains why it's an acceptable but kubrick instead shows literally to cite verbatim passages from a book talking about the doomsday machine which he noted was based

henry kissinger challenged that at a conference we ran and csis in 1979, he challenged its undersecretary of defense. ronald reagan, jim watkins, admiral watkins was in the room when ronald reagan moved towards seeking strategic defense initiative as a flanking maneuver as a way out. burke has something going for him in adding agility, which we lost. in the strategy. he ended a second term as cno. burke stated it was obviously time for him to retire. ike would have none of it. it was his third time however and you was disappointed with himself and his own leadership. he opened up to me here at csis was a failure to the bay of pigs. he felt he had let himself down. he felt he had not performed the way he had performed previously. he went over this privately with me again and again. he would never write it up because he said he didn't want to hurt anybody now that it was over. he served as acting chairman of the joint chiefs during this period. he would be invited into these meetings, allowed to take no note and b. and criminal change made, no capability or allies whether this was a work of

secondly, both obama as well as henry kissinger and schultz and others as you know have articulated a vision of a nuclear-free world. in your judgment, how doable is it. can we put the genie back in the bottle, untrain nuclear scientists, develop a system for detecting cheating, et cetera, et cetera that could lead to the vision. >> the case of the hitler question, what i've said is that nuclear weapons haven't made any difference in history at least since world war ii. however, not the same as saying they couldn't make any difference. so that one reason for getting nuclear weapons you might say, and i say this in the book is to hedge against the possibility of the rise of another diabolical extremely clever, very lucky monster like hitler someplace. i don't see any of the little hitlers aren't in that category. but that seems reasonable to me. i'm not saying they couldn't make any difference but as far as i can see they haven't and it seems very unlikely they will but they could. in terms of the zero option, with schultz, et cetera, i don't -- i mean, i'm not sure that you need agree

think of-ry kissinger, henry, he dated the likes or is it the looks of jill st. john and who confessed, bragged, that power is the greatest aphrodisiac. or take dennis kucinich. who has won the statuesque elizabeth. and geeks, do not despair. you can get the upgrade. just get yourself to washington. when we come back, we're going to ask those four national security reporters to give us the straight scoop. has president obama shown enough of a command presence, meaning real control of the government bureaucracy in fighting this war? plus scoops and predictions from the notebooks of these top reporters. we'll be right back. chris: welcome back. the obama administration is ending its first year under huge pressure on the security front. some from past administrations are on record doubting this team has the right focus. here's former attorney general michael mukasey in "the wall street journal" this week. some in the executive branch are focused more on not sounding like their predecessors than in finding a neutralizing people who believe it is their religious duty

henry kissinger challenged that at the conference we ran.elligible] ronald reagan, jim watkins, he was in the room when ronald reagan moved toward seeking strategic defense initiative as a flanking maneuver as a way out. burke had something going for him in adding agility which we lost. he ended his second term as cno. burke stated it was time for him to retireike -- for him to retire. ike would have none of it. he opened up to me here at csis was the failure of the bay of pigs. he felt he let himself down. he felt he had not performed the way he had performed previously. he went over this privately with me again. he would never write it up because he did not want to hurt anybody now that it was over. he served as acting chairman of the joint chiefs. he would be invited into these meetings and a lab to take no notes and there would be changes made and no capability to analyze whether this was a workable operation or not. burke regretted he did not go to president kennedy to blow the whistle. this will not work with all these compromises. whe

immediately to my right, the henry a. kissingerenior fellow and a bed -- and a board member of the new american foundation. he is a distinguished fellow at yale. that is a big title. he writes regularly for "the new york times," "the l.a. times," and others. his most recent book is "god and gold." "american foreign policy and how it changed the world" receive the prize in 2002 and "god and gold" to him that last year or the year before. john is the albert milbank professor at princeton and the co-director of the princeton project on national security and has been a transatlantic fellow and has served on the policy planning staff of the state department and has written several books. richard is a resident fellow. he was chairman of the defense policy board and assisted the secretary of defense during the reagan administration. stephen is the second of our telephone speakers is a professor of natural relations -- national relations. he has written six books and dozens of journal articles. he writes and publishes the political blog "t