congratulations michael vickers. you've had such a career. but let me ask you first about beijing.d furiously we are told, the language used by the foreign ministry today with the most angry that people have seen in years. how big a problem is this, will they be able to move on? >> i think both sides are trying to cool down relations a little bit after a lot of tension. but certainly it wasn't the best timing but, i've known tony blinken a lot of years. he's a good diplomat. >> undercut by the president saying, the hard part out loud, that you are not supposed to say. >> during these summits, or near summits like this, you generally want to tone down the rhetoric to give it the best chance of success. >> what are the chances of them still having the meeting perhaps at aipac in november? >> i think both sides want that but you know, we will have to see. >> you've served under six presidents. i'm sure you've seen moments when presidents have said things whether at a fundraiser or not on the teleprompter that have messed you up but what are some of the most challenging things that you

michael vickers, thank you so much for being here. michael: pleasure to be with you. thank you.: the new york city urban debate league has helped over 100 new york city schools get access to debate training for students. tonight, we hear from two middle school students who particpate in the league, with their brief but spectacular takes on debate and democracy. francis: to have a good debate you need to stay calm and , prepare. erick: respect is a huge factor in debate, because if you don't respect your opponent, you can't even respect the judge, then what are you doing there? to be honest, it's not even a debate at that point. it's just argument. i'm 11 years old and i go to ms50 in brooklyn, new york. i'm currently a sixth grader and i'm a debater and a basketball player. francis: i go to psms 161 in harlem, new york. i'm in seventh grade. erick: i've been doing debate for three to four years now. well, it all started in third grade where there was this new program happening in my elementary school and i was quite eager to try it out. and then there we learned how to like deba

that author michael vickers joins me here now. good to see you. >> great to be with you.was in 1984 that you got your first permanent assignment that the cia. afghanistan was fighting the soviets and you came in and essentially changed the entire cia program. >> the program had just received a very large increase in funding , quadrupling the budget from congress, led by democratic congressman charlie wilson. a movie has been made after that story about his role. i thought there were a lot of possibilities with these greatly increased resources. and then i thought, maybe we could do more than just impose costs on the soviets. our analysts believed there was no way the resistance could win, so that is what i set about to do and some months later i came up with the plan that got implemented. it became our policy objectives that shifted about four months later when president reagan signed the top-secret directive to beat the soviets and drive them out of afghanistan by all means available. amna: we now know all these years later how do u.s. support for that support led to oth