reagan years. it will come out in a few years. just to see how the transition from the carter administration to the reagan years happen. how they proceed from a general attitude toward this relationship to trying to define specific policy and work it through the government. it's just rivetting material. and to see the interplay of permits. -- personality. so every volume has a form of that. it's a matter of time until we get the stuff out. >> host: if people watching the interview want to access the material? >> guest: history.state.gov. that's what we created inside my office. you'll find 11 different data sets on the different sexual somatic material. you have the history of the department, biography of the secretaries of state, you've got what e with the milestone in american foreign policy. the different individual decisions and themes that evolved over time. and then in addition to all of that, you'll find the digitized foreign relations volumes. and not only are we publishing now a little bit of an addition to an earlier question. publishing everything now in digital form and collectively in hard copy to save on

just talking to the reagan administration. i said the book was like in the middle of a russian revolution, and it was an incredible shot over the bow. reagan could not believe it. he believes stockton did not intend to do it. he was a destructive force for the rest of his time in the white house. >> disruptive. >> well, you know, bob novak with a microphone or a megaphone for the hard core of supply- siders, of which there were about four. jack kemp, who was a great guy but unbelievable there on tax- cutting, and formerly the wall street journalist, a fanatic, and art laffer, who is a charlatan. he claims to be an economist, and he waves his hands. he is still at it until this very day. so that group wanted to dominate reagan policy, and novak was there, the voice in print, and when i realize that we were going to have to backtrack and some of the supply-side doctrine and some of the old bridge on the tax cuts, these guys that i have described, not so much jack, but the other two, and some of their fellow travelers, they used n

my recollection is the reagan administration opposed it and i supported the administration. >> tom?hing was happening at warp speed. that's one of the things you have to remember. we were going from the pitch cold war to these extraordinary changes that were going on not just behind the soviet union but in the satellite states as well. then in south africa, you had the additional pressure, as reverend sharpton points out, that grew really in a generational way in this country. the college campuses were critically important about what was going on. so that was beginning to rise. and the reagan administration obviously had a very strong anti-communist line, and you see that reflected in what former vice president dick cheney is talking about. so it's very hard to say in a kind of physics formula way, x minus y and you're going to end up with z. because it was very dynamic in terms of the situation. reagan eventually did begin to talk about constructive engagement. at the united nation he said it was time for mandela to be released. but was he enthusiastic about it when he first took o

find the original documents of these these were alex newsletters their memos as well as the reagan administration's memos to alec and within the administration in their discussion these were original source documents and it was it was pretty interesting to look at yeah i can imagine we're talking about the american legislative exchange council here alex how does their involvement with. in south africa get started. we don't know exactly how it got started but we do know that by the early one nine hundred eighty s. they were heavily prioritising it we can imagine though given what alec represents now what their modus operandi is in general that its inception was derived from the corporate agenda out response to the corporations that fund it and our corporations at the time of apartheid had substantial holdings in south africa they had assets on the line that were very high yielding and many would argue because of the apartheid itself that engendered very low labor costs and the divestment movement directly threaten the bottom lines of those investments so alec starting by the early one nine hundred e

my recollection is the reagan administration opposed it and i supported the administration. >> tom?that's one of the things you have to remember. we were going from the pitch cold war to these extraordinary changes that were going on not just behind the soviet union but in the satellite states as well. then in south africa, you had the additional pressure, as reverend sharpton points out, that grew really in a generational way in this country. the college campuses were critically important about what was going on. so that was beginning to rise. and the reagan administration obviously had a very strong anti-communist line, and you see that reflected in what former vice president dick cheney is talking about. so it's very hard to say in a kind of physics formula way, x minus y and you're going to end up with z. because it was very dynamic in terms of the situation. reagan eventually did begin to talk about constructive engagement. at the united nation he said it was time for mandela to be released. but was he enthusiastic about it when he first took office? not by any stretch. but the

we should not forget how much resistance there was from the reagan administration which considered the anc a terrorist group, from margaret thatcher considered the anc a terrorist group and nelson mandela a terrorist. and this is the '80s. there was a lot of resistance to the idea of the government should fall, much less that this die vestment should take place at all. >> this was in the context of the cold war. and one of the most insidious things that the apartheid south african government did was they couched their oppression in terms of the communist struggle, that essentially the anc was riddled through with communists and pro-cubans. when nelson mandela was freed and made this tour. when he got to miami, he was actually rejected by the local government in miami, two mayors of miami and miami dade would not receive mandela because he was perceived as being pro-castro. so there was this whole sort of cold war fight that was tied up in the south african struggle. and it was part of the reason that the reagan administration opposed the idea of sanctions and divestment from south afri

we should not forget how controversial this was and how much resistance there was from the reagan administration which considered the amc a terrorist group, from margaret thatcher considered the amc a terrorist group and nelson mandela a terrorist. and this was in the '80s. >> yeah. >> there was a lot of resistance to the idea that the government should fall much less that this did divestment should take place at all. >> lawrence, you have to remember this was during the cold war. they couched their oppression of black africans in south africa in terms of the kcommunist struggle and it's interesting that when nelson mandela was finally freed and came to the u.s. and did a six-city tour -- i went to the one in new york. it was just exciting to see him there. when he got to miami, mandela was actually rejected by the local government in miami. two mayors would not receive mandela because he was perceived as being pro castro. so there was this whole sort of cold war fight that was tied up in the south african struggle and it was part of the reason that the reagan administration and a lot of republi

you were part of the reagan administration back when president reagan vetoed the anti-apartheid act thatdall robinson discussed here just a minute ago. i wanted to ask you, did ronald reagan ever come to regret that veto? it was over written by the congress and sanctions were put on the south african government. but how did president reagan feel about that as time went on? >> well, i'm sure he did regret it, bob, in fact i'm certain that he did. it was after all i think the only time that a veto of his had been overwritten or was overwritten in two terms, i believe. and so certainly he regretted it. on the other hand, once that happened and control of south africa policy passed through the congress, president reagan was really determined to meet with and deal with the question of -- meet with the black leaders of south africa and deal with the problems of apartheid. he was able to do so. you know, i had the privilege of meeting with nelson mandela in innabia on the day of freedom day just after was released from prison. i have to tell that you i was really amazed at the soft spokenness o

. >> reporter: this is something that has been in place since the reagan administration, but gun control advocates say there is a problem. what has to happen, any gun that is predominantly made of plastic has to have a metal part to make it secure. one problem is that that metal, that piece of metal under current law can be easily detached. for any reason someone would want to do something like than there is a proposal to make that put in plastic guns. that's likely to fail. >> and you and i know that they will take their vacation , but t seems to america that congress is doing less and less and they're on vacation more and more. >> reporter: when you include the post office namings, and profunctory items, in there is no question. they come in for two days a week. you put it all together they might be here for six months out of the year. they're expected to spend five hours a day at the d this, c or rnc on the phone dialing for dollars, and much of the legislation you see in congress has become more or less a sound stage, an audition for fundraisings where the fights are picked to fire u

this goes back to the reagan administration del, that's likely to be done by the senate today by voice vote. a lot of senators are missing, they've gone off to the mandela service. butter there is one provision that they want to change, democrats led by chuck schumer, you have to have a piece of metal in a plastic gun. that's essentially what the law reads. but it's detachable, chuck schumer wants to make it undetachable. doesn't go far in the united states congress del. >> mike viqueria our white house correspondent thank you very much. >> all righty. >> president obama is heading to south africa to head the delegation hong honoring former president nelson mandela. with him are first lady michelle obama and presidents clinton and carter are expected to attend the services. george h.w. bush will be the only living u.s. president who will not be in attendance. the town where the former president grew up, workers are setting up a massive dome ahead of the state funeral which takes place on sunday. nelson mandela will lie in state at pretoria. from wednesday through sun. desmond tutu, the

after i left office the reagan administration and others, not criticizing him, went back to a position that anybody who was a member of the african national congress was a communist and was later classified to be a terrorist pnl so i. so it was a time when everybody who was for communism was looked upon as eants american. my -- we did support the revolutions in south africa. >> how were you able to be different? how was it that prior to the '80s when again united states sort of said these guys are commune iforts, the -- communis, backed by communists. >> they were looking for basic human rights an freedom. they were for the majorities of the population of of south africa, they were oppressed horribly by the white minority. when i became president, almost every become government was a military dictatorship and we had always been in bed with the dictators. i went the other way and of course now they are all democracies there. we concentrated on making a nation that was free out of zimbabwe. >> in that time in 1980 not only did the united states say they would support one man one vote and

you have to call you know you know that i said is that is that in the first two years of the reagan administration when the top tax rate was seventy four percent was a terrible time less inequality in the united states we had a longer middle class in the united states and ever since the reagan tax cuts we've seen an explosion in inequality illegal us has been gutted and we all back the reagan tax and the time period from one thousand seventy two to one thousand nine hundred one was terrible for the american as a consequence of the oil embargo i was there a hole in it no not that was you know you want to do both you know we're always signed there wasn't a critical lean in the price of oil which affected everything that had been the case then we could have actually leashed our domestic opportunities here we chose. not to we chose to respond inappropriate but that's you know what the point is the danger isn't the stopping point the danger isn't the inequality the danger is the idea that inequality ought to be the focus if there are poor people sick people or people who are being hungry we all look at

it so you have to call you know you know that is that is that in the first two years of the reagan administration when the top tax rate was seventy four percent was a terrible time less inequality in the united states we had a longer middle class in the united states and ever since the reagan tax cuts we've seen an explosion in inequality illegal us has been gutted and we all back the reagan tax be behind a period from one thousand seventy two to one thousand nine hundred one was terrible for the american as a consequence arab oil embargo i was terrible and you know not that was you know you want to do both you know where we signed there wasn't a critical in the price of oil which affected everything that had been the case then we could have actually leashed our domestic opportunities here we chose. not to we chose to respond inappropriate but that you have to point the point is the danger isn't the stopping point the danger isn't the inequality the danger is the idea that the inequality ought to be the focus if there are poor people sick people or people who are being hungry we all go look at wh

. >> it was a surprise, the african national conference was on a terror list under the reagan administration. there was not a feeling it was going to go this way. >> so much of history is ability two things, idea and people. nelson mandela embodied both. he had a big idea of peaceful transition and democracy and he was able to pull it off. he was able to both lead the black people of south africa and to reassure the africanos they could live with this new order. >> quickly, this has been underplayed a little bit in some of the coverage. where does south africa stand today? >> that's in some ways the least positive part of mandela's legacy. he was only president for five years. this country of just over 50 million people. tremendous economic inequality. tremendous unemployment. still big problem from hiv/aids. you know, even though the per capita income isn't bad it's the inequality. it's not a thriving country. the future is still somewhat uneasy. that said incomparably better than what it might have been. >> it's a democracy. richard haas, see you on "morning joe" in a few minutes. thank yo

glass steagall which i mean we had from the george washington administration to the ronald reagan administration. to the f.d.r. administration we had never gone more than fifteen years without a major nationwide banking crisis in the united states never more than fifteen years put in place glass steagall smooth sailing all with the two thousand and six two thousand and seven so when phil gramm in one thousand nine hundred ninety ninety eight nine hundred ninety nine was arguing we don't need glass steagall it's worked so well for the last sixty years if you try to say that twenty years earlier thirty years or forty years earlier if you had been laughed off the floor of this because there are people alive who remembered what happened when harding came into power in one thousand twenty want to deregulated the banks and it led to the to the bubble that crashed in nineteen twenty nine and let's talk about today and ironically of course under the clinton administration we saw this massive deregulation the economy. why is twenty sixteen the next date i mean obviously we're in this right now but why is

ronald reagan making a speech in which he called mandela a terrorist but the position of the reagan administration was that mandela was a terrorist in the n.c. was a terrorist organization and they were not supportive of that divestiture movement . and i think that's one of the real blots on the reagan presence. now i notice that we got a bunch of calls about nelson mandela so i'm going to pick up our videos which are off that topic a little later on first to michael in redwood city california michael thanks for calling in. a couple of american president nelson mandela for his friendship with fidel castro. and most americans didn't understand the french or. south africa. occupied namibia. that overthrew the socialist so the white running south african army. cuba sent thousands of troops to angola. and with that cuban help angola was able to defeat the south african army. the south african government had not even imagined the devoted south african army would never be defeated it sure can trace their roots of checked in so much they immediately began negotiations with the south west africa people or

glass steagall which i mean we had from the george washington administration to the ronald reagan administration. or an accident to the f.d.r. administration we had never gone more than fifteen years without a major nationwide banking crisis in the united states never more than fifteen years put in place glass steagall smooth sailing all with the two thousand and six two thousand and seven so when phil gramm in one thousand nine hundred ninety eight nine hundred ninety nine was arguing we don't need glass steagall it's worked so well for the last sixty years if you tried to say that twenty years earlier thirty years or forty years earlier if you had been laughed off the floor of the sun because there were people alive who remembered what happened when harding came into power in one thousand twenty want to be regulated the banks and it led to the to the bubble that crashed in nineteen twenty and let's talk about today and ironically of course one of the clinton administration we saw this massive deregulation the economy why is twenty sixteen the next date i mean obviously we're in this right now

glass steagall which i mean we had from the george washington administration to that of ronald reagan administration. to the f.d.r. administration we had never gone more than fifteen years without a major nationwide banking crisis in the united states never more than fifteen years put in place glass steagall smooth sailing all with the two thousand and six two thousand and seven so when phil gramm in one thousand nine hundred ninety ninety eight one hundred ninety nine was arguing we don't need glass steagall it's worked so well for the last sixty years if you try to say that twenty years earlier thirty years or forty years earlier if you had been laughed off the floor of the sun because there are people alive who remembered what happened when harding came into power in one thousand twenty want to do regulate. the banks and it led to the to the bubble that crashed in nineteen twenty nine and let's talk about today and ironically of course under the clinton administration we saw this massive deregulation the economy why is twenty sixteen the next day to i mean obviously we're in this right now but wh

oberstar: but even a decade after it was enacted, the reagan administration came in and cut the grant program to a loan program. and funding diminished over a period of time. now, we still have 1/3 or more of the nation's streams and lakes that don't meet the standards of the clean water act. we have to advance the cause. that is the big challenge ahead of us. you just don't think of raw sewage in waterways in a developed country, and yet, that's what we have, and not just in pittsburgh, but all over. narrator: pittsburgh is situated at the confluence of the allegheny, monongahela, and ohio rivers. these three rivers are vital for industry, recreation, and drinking water. and each year, billions of gallons of combined sewer overflows discharge directly into those rivers. hecht: we're now having to face the consequences of the choice that was made to put in combined sewer systems. narrator: in 1994, the government adopted a combined sewer overflow policy to reduce csos nationwide. cities with combined sewer overflows now face an enforcement action called a consent decree. under a conse

the trade policies that work from the time of george washington and seoul essentially the reagan administration in the process the u.s. has opened up the global economy to predatory companies eager to exploit cheap labor to make a quick buck for more on this i'm joined now by lori wallach director of public citizen's global trade watch lori welcome back it's great having you here. laurie can you hear me. i can hear you know oh now i can hear you now i can hear you ok so you just heard my conversation with dana from mother jones how do we get to a situation where fifteen year old girls in india are making t. shirts for twenty something americans. we basically have so that the trade policy that creates actual incentives to outsource investment and jobs to lower wage countries and then we have no conditions about what standards have to be met by the companies producing offshore but we allow the products to come back into the u.s. with no conditions so it's both promoting the offshoring and we do that with investor rules that take away most of the risks that used to be linked to going to a developi

assorted and associated agencies these were cold war institutions they were created in the reagan administration i was in the white house and we were trying to orient countries more toward the west as the soviet union was trying to reorient them toward its camp in the cold war but with the cold war over in my judgment i think these are counterproductive i mean interfering in the internal affairs of foreign countries to reorient their foreign policy or their government toward the united states i don't think is justified unless there is some imminent threat to our own country and i don't see that and i've argued basically for the abolition of these kinds of agencies that interfere in the internal affairs of foreign nations i think it's counterproductive i think we create more enemies than we do friends when we involve ourselves in the so-called color coded revolutions many of them have been overturned since c. since the united states was sub rosa engaged in them and so again i would i would say that if the common turn has been shut down then they ought to shut down some of these agencies in the un

today watch reagan administration budget director david stockman on his work, the great deformation.here's a short preview. >> guest: i think the success that has been attributed to reaganomics is totally unwarranted. we had the greatest keynesian deficit binge between 1981 and the end of the bush administration, the first bush, those 12 years are all really the reagan program. and so we did have an economy that rebounded, because volcker killed inflation, and the deficits were enormous, and they stimulated the economy. but they established a precedent for continuous, chronic, massive peacetime deficits and put the republican party, the old defender of the treasury gates, into the position that cheney eloquent -- so ineloquently expressed, deficits don't matter. and that was the beginning of the end. because in a democracy if there's not a conservative party that is defending the treasury, the taxpayers and fiscal rectitude, you're going to have a free lunch dedecision between -- competition between tax cutters, the republicans, and spenders, the democrats. and that's why you have $1

on tuesday but again it has been renewed the prohibition of plastic guns began during the reagan administration and has been renewed every decade sense now each time the ban has been supported by both republicans as well as the national rifle association some senate democrats led by chuck schumer working on an extended bill to take anti plastic gun legislation one step further or it would have forced all guns with plastic components to have on the detachable metal parts within them republicans in the n.r.a. are against such legislation now this issue of plastic guns is perhaps the least contentious when it. comes to the gun debate in this country we are quickly approaching the one year anniversary of the newtown shootings and the cries for gun control are growing louder turn into r t this friday december thirteenth for our special coverage of the issue of guns in this country this will be unlike any coverage of the topic you have ever seen before we're going to talk with experts on both sides of the issue so tune in december thirteenth from five to six pm. and that does it for now i'm meghan lo

abandoning the trade policies that worked from the time of george washington until essentially the reagan administration in the process the u.s. has opened up the global economy to predatory companies eager to exploit cheap labor to make a quick buck for more on this i'm joined now by lori wallach director of public citizen's global trade watch lori welcome back it's great having you here. laurie can you hear me. i can hear you know oh now i can hear you now i can hear you ok so you just heard my conversation with dana from mother jones how do we get to a situation where fifteen year old girls in india are making t. shirts for twenty something americans. we basically have so that the trade policy that creates actual incentives to outsource investment and jobs to lower wage countries and then we have no conditions about what standards have to be met by the companies producing offshore but we allow the products to come back into the u.s. with no conditions so it's both promoting the offshoring and we do that with investor rules that take away most of the risks that used to be linked to going to a developi

bush would describe an an axis of evil, reagan spoke of a confederation of terrorist states. it was the clinton administration, however, that made rogue regime part of washington's lexicon. when the defense secretary left aspen unvails proliferation initiatives in december 1993, he warned that the new nuclear danger we face is perhaps a handful of nuclear devices in the hands of rogue states or even terrorist groups. speaking in 1994 to politicians in brussels, clinton, himself, described iran and libya as rogue states. sec tear of state kris tosser rougherred to iran and iraq as rogue regimes in an address at georgetown university later that same year. in each case, the clinton administration focused more on rogues towards the yaits than the danger of rogue leaders posed to their own people. saddam hussein was a rogue leader pursuing nuclear weaponry and invaded kuwait. he was not a rogue because he gasessedded kurds and massacred shiites. tony lake, clinton's national security adviser, thought to define the concept, we've been together all parallelled definition using the term "backlash," the concept was th

presence people forget the iran contra affair did have its genesis of a desire on the part of the reagan administration to reach out to have leverage in side the islamic republic after the ayatollah khamenei died. when we look at the president of on this first inaugural address, let me backtrack. recent history is 1,000 years ago but in the united states going back for years it is ancient history but people don't think about moving 1,000 miles away. but to ask iran to stretch out that with george h. w. bush that is much of the same theme we don't need to assume this must go on forever. twice i can think of a time when the republic shot -- shifted positions with what it would take to release the american end hostages the second is what it would take to end the iran-iraq war. if you read what warren christopher edited with different chapters contributed by all different policy makers and so forth forth, they came to a basic conclusion it was persistence of diplomacy that led to the release of the hostages. the late peter bobbins wrote in 1981 that they got it backwards that the key episode that led to th

the reagan administration said no and he ws one of the premier leaders in south africa and he urged us as well. and so the argument on the right inside it was the only way man came to the defense wage was if he was working there. i wasn't a big fan. >> iran today is useful, but unfortunately, we are starting to trade them aw now. neil: when you say trade him away,. >> i'm not impressed. >> now, this is the precursor to something more substantive. you don't believe that? >> i have my ubts about that. the ratings have been down this road before, stretching out the negotiations and in the meantime, they are very busy working on improving their enrichment capabilities of a have a significantly eanded the number of centrifuges. >> so you think that they are getting closer? >> and they're getting very close. >> able to break out in a number of weeks, by taking an awful lot of uranium that has arta been enriched up to the 20% level. and it doesn't have to go much further to make it weapons grade. and i would be relatively simple as claimed by the administration and its turning into an oxide,

used to have we used to have you know from from the george washington the ministration to the reagan administration we had averaged thirty four percent tariff import tariff on imported goods and therefore everybody who bought anything in america was something made in america you know what we what we make in america right now is a bigger government and we make war that's basically what we do whether it's the drug war the overseas wars that's why the suburbs of washington d.c. are the richest in our country now instead of gross point michigan as far as going after mitt romney here and i think there's blame to go around on that one of the ads that came out against bain capital that same night i think it was mitt may president obama went to tony james manhattan you know and had a big fundraiser tony james of course is from blackstone so any idea that this another private equity private equity blackstone it's even bigger than bain capital so this is this idea here that this is just. you know republican thing it's also a demo i'm not very character i said as you know there's a lot out there i think peopl

that we need help on the outside we're here in washington fighting the good fight against the reagan administration but we need you to take your our message back home and organize in your local community center there that was nine hundred eighty one and we fast forward to two thousand and four when i called congressman conyers back again out of my chance to ask him if he would be with us when he launched progressive democrats of america at roxbury the last day that the democrats met in two thousand and four and we nominated john kerry and john conyers was there that was to launch a progressive democrats of america was a long road but it made a lot of sense working both inside and outside of congress to bring about change and being part of the social movement we were the electoral arm and it was great to have congressman conyers with us to help us to bring out a connection together in two thousand and four two thousand and eight excuse me two thousand and four for roxbury two thousand and eight he was back in s.p.d. it grew and continues to grow and we've been at every national convention since that

people don't help everyday people they hurt them from the roosevelt administration up until the reagan administration the top marginal income tax rate the maximum amount paid by the wealthiest americans fluctuated between ninety and seventy percent the same period also saw wages for everybody every day working people rise and rise and rise wages to building the strongest middle class in the history of the world why did this happen . you guessed it higher taxes on the rich it's simple hired. taxes on the rich stabilize an economy rich people don't spend the extra cash that they have like regular people do they by and large gamble with lower taxes on the rich and thus encourages wealthy people to throw their extra money into wall street this fuels bubbles kind of bubbles that crash the economy and cause prolonged recessions like the one we're in now that tax cuts have any trickle down effect at all it's this a screw working people by turning the economy into one big casino the republican policies don't just destabilize the economy republican policies actually make it harder for people to get by when th

today, watch former michigan republican congressman and reagan and and stray show and -- reagan administration budget director david stockman here on c-span. >> what we know of the founders at core is, the guys that were against the cost to duchenne were the religious conservatives of the day -- against the constitution were the religious conservatives of the day. they wanted to have religious tests for officeholding and so forth. the founders were mostly christians, but why did they take the approach they did? why did they ultimately come down where madison came down? they agreed that no faith including their own was beyond faction. the prescription was essentially a multiplicity of sects. that is s-e-c-t-s. in terms of government funding and religious institutions, i would say there were some real issues to work through and figure out. the rules that govern this area during the clinton years were different. they changed over time. some people think that was a good thing and some people think that was a bad thing. there are some really important issues that people fight about and fight about

reagan's great mission was the defeat of soviet communism. that was at the head of the checklist. you know, apartheid existed in south africa under the administrationsrd to ronald reagan. reagan was the first president to come up with a policy called constructive engagement which was to disengage from apartheid and move towards black majority rule without falling into the bloodbath that happened in rhodesia and cambodia. >> tom brokaw, just even constructive engagement which is choice of words by ronald reagan, complicated time. >> as i'm sure mr. shirley will agree, it was not a slam dunk for the administration. there was a huge debate in this country whether we should have constructive engagement and how much pressure you can put on that. when i went over there when the sanctions were still on there were a lot of american businesses saying you're hurting us more than you're hurting south africa and that was the debate that was going on in the highest part of the administration, the american economy. but at the same time there was a growing movement as the reverend al said not just on the part of the california legislature and other things but peop

the reagan administration branded the anc a terrorist group and dick cheney voted against a resolution to release nelson mandela. so this was all happening around the world. >> right. i think peter godwin's point that south africa's transition was facile traitated by the end the cold what are is extremely important but it's important to remember in the 1980s a lobl anti-apartheid movement arose during the cold war in which people in america said we're not going to see south africa in purely cold war terms. we're not going to sep reagan's pacic envision that the apartheid regime is on the part of the free world because it's anti-communist and the anc, they are on the side of unfreedom. i think the willingness to look at south africa beyond cold war terms when when the cold war was raging was critically important to the transition in south africa. >> when you talked with nelson mandela, did you find that he -- had he forgiven the west for, you know, having mostly for the most part sided against the anc? >> i think in my conversations with him, he forgave the west, and he realized there's