yes i was considered a very strong hardliner dealing with the soviet union, but also had lived there. on a new russia and the other nationalities and i knew the soviet ideology is not the whole story. and i found in ronald reagan aide leader who understood how to deal with people, understood that you need to stay in communication, understood if you wanted to convince other people to do what you would like them to do you must convince them that is in their interest. so in working with reagan, and i think that he picked me probably because george shultz recommended it, i was a senior for an officer at that time who specialized in the soviet union but i think that he picked me because they knew that number one, i was a hard liner in terms of dealing with the communist system but also i knew russia and the country and i sympathized with his desire to conduct negotiations that would change behavior. >> host: it's a very interesting point. you came to office with a desire to change behavior. today a lot of historians, many conservatives, they claim that when reagan came to the white house k

we never recognize him as part of the soviet union. ut, you know, president bush made a speech in key of an august 91 endorsing the union treaty. and among other things condemnincondemning suicidal nationalism. having in mind george at the time. and making the point that they should choose freedom, and freedom and independence are not synonymous. these were important thoughts. so we were not trying to bring down the soviet union as such, but support gorbachev's democratization efforts. what we hope to see was a voluntary federation, one that would be voluntary that would be democratic or can we thought that would be totally consistent with american interests. >> host: what was clearly totally consistent with american interests was the image of the united states in the soviet union at that time. you were very popular. president reagan was very popular. george shultz was popular. and i think there was a feeling, that the united states was a force for good in the world, and was specifically that the united states was a special friend of th

and soviet union superpowers for a nuclear weapons. we could destroy the world not once, twice but some said seven times over. why you need that much power i don't know. but we never had the power to change the world in our own image using military force, nor did the soviet union. and will get all the problems in the world, the middle east in particular. if we could have solved it then, we certainly would have to. and the idea that we emerged as the sole superpower able to use this great military power now that it was clearly much more than any of the successors of the soviet union had i think it was a great illusion. and we talked about a unipolar world and the russians of course fault that we were acting arrogantly as if we were the only power that accounted. and other sit well it won't last forever but there is a unipolar moment. i say there never was because when the cold war ended, and particularly when the soviet union collapsed, there was no longer a threat, perceived threat for the united states to protect others from, so our p

at that time the united states was also claiming repeatedly that the soviet union was developing its own missile defense program. its own strategic defense initiative. there was a speech given in july saying of the soviets clearly they see the potential applications for advanced defensive technologies; otherwise, they would not be advancing so much effort and knowledge of this area. we had some good propaganda of our own in a number of glossy reports which were issued by the pentagon and the state department. we showed that the soviets had a laser reaching up to kill satellites. this pencil drawing appeared at least four times in pentagon and state department brochures. but this laser shooting into the sky did not exist. and, in fact, the soviets at one time wanted to build a laser but after years of trying they had failed. so this is the state of our knowledge of gorbachev. what really was going on? what really was happening was quite different. within three months of taking office all the top designers and constructors in the military space program brought to gorbachev of a colossal

and the soviet union and the u.s. and russia. the treaties and experiences we have had thus far have never actually verify the part that goes boom. it has always been the delivery systems. i remember briefing members of congress a few months ago and i realized they did not realize that arms control had never dealt with the part that goes boom. that's how i explain it. there is the part that flies the thing and a part that goes boom. we have destroyed this parts that fly but never dealt with the parts that go boom and he said, you are kidding. i said there are weapons that have been dismantled, it just was not verified and counted. many of the lights when you turn on your lights in your state, the power is supplied from the fuel by that. and he said you are kidding me. >> you are talking to children this way? >> and member of congress. [laughter] >> at some point, when the experience of arms reduction, what it goes further beyond the u.s. and russia, we will be into this new domain of trying to count warheads and verify warheads w

we negotiated agreements with the soviet union and the height of the cold war and the soviet union was obligated and for the most part did comply with the provisions of these agreements. so, this agreement will hold. again, both sides, if either side thinks agreement is no longer in its national security interests, all trees have such a clause to say either the u.s. and russia can pull out of the agreement. the united states did that with the anti-ballistic missile treaty under the bush administration in 2002. but again, i think this agreement is so abundantly in the national security interests of the u.s. and russia that it will be in their interest to continue to adhere to it. host: kingston reif from the center of arms control and nonproliferation. he will talk about this issue until 8:30. the numbers will be on your screen. you can tweet us an e-mail us. davenport, iowa, go ahead on our independent line. caller: i am sorry i have to disagree. i had a much older relative who was there in 1963. there were no negotiations. he was at a base in north dakota -- he got the call to put the

i lived at least half of my professional life in the soviet union. i do not remember ever seeing such an outcry of anti-nato, and that-western movements at the grassroot lovell of the russian public as in 1999. the more official propaganda was coming against nato. the more russian people like nato. but that changed dramatically after 1999. then, russia started to judge nato not by the nature of the state's which are native members, whether democratic or not quite democratic, but by the nato actual functions. by the actual operations. the operation in iraq, which was not a new operation, but the united states and a number of nato allies, intervened without

on the issue of the cold war, i agree that the soviet union was a totalitarian state. i do not remember suggesting otherwise. at the same time, the measures that the united states and soviet union pursued towards the end of the cold war not only made the united states safer, but made the world safer as well. host: ill., democratic line. caller: good morning. host: you are armed. go ahead. caller: i do not think that we need to destroy the world more than three or four times. i agree that we could get rid of a few nuclear arms. the world has enough. i also want to apologize before i say anything, but it bothers me, someone in your position that presence is the word nuclear as nucular. guest: i have been told that this will of the areas where i do agree with former president george w. bush. point taken, i will try to work on the pronunciation. host: what does this mean for the international atomic energy agency? guest: one of the key parts of the review is the elevation of the threat posed by nuclear weapons and terrorism, with the weapons agenda at the top. a key part o

the soviet union soviet union had fallen to the 50th in the world in infant mortality rates. this abyss had to end. and the president knew that the u.s. military spending would continue to go. guest: yes. this race was a burden to both sides. and that's one reason that reagan looked to reduce nuclear weapons and worked with gorbachev to cut back nuclear weapons. and it was clear from reading internal soviet declassified materials, before chairman gorbachev went to iceland, he told the bureau if the u.s. imposes another arms race on us, we will lose. so he was put in a position to force to change track and to look at the nuclear equation from a different perspective. and i think it was that creative break that allowed them to move forward. host: new brunswick, new jersey, john, welcome. caller: what would thomas jefferson have to say about all of this. here is one piece out of the living constitution, and finally where peace is at best preserved by giving information to the government and the information to the people. this lasted most certain and to government, educate the ma

we live with a nuclear soviet union, britain, france, india, pakistan, israel. so i would say yes, of course we can live with a nuclear iran. the most prominent effect of having nuclear weapons is that it tends to moderate policy. it tends to make people think very deeply because of the tremendous consequences of use of nuclear weapons. and i should think that the iranians, just like the chinese or the soviets or any of the other nuclear powers, it would have the same effect on them. and the consequences of using military attack against iran to try to deprive them of nuclear weapons it seems to me would only slow it down and would be catastrophic for the united states. >> i tend to agree with you but there is another dynamic at work. it goes like this. i think the primary reason the iranians want a nuclear weapon is survival. they want to guarantee their regime. from israel's point of view, the existence of an iranian nuclear weapon could potentially represent an existential threat to israel. will you bet your nation, your children, on the intentions, proper int

soviet union. they focus on the weapons, the machinery rather than the people. it's easier to track than the people. but the scientists remain a certain. host: abdul on our independent line, welcome. caller: thank you for my call. my question the united states is the only one country that will drop atom bomb in japan, you know. and we had only two at that time, and we said if you don't (inaudible) we will drop the bomb. we don't have israel on the table. and how many you have to have? we don't know. could you please make a comment of this? guest: well, i think president obama has mentioned that as the only country that has imployed nuclear weapon on anger and this will date to world war ii. the fact that the u.s. has the largest stock piles of nuclear weapons and has been a pioneer in the nuclear era and remains a power. host: how can we test the nuclear weapons we do have? and ocean is banned, how do they get tested? guest: since the signing of the test ban treaty has been treft test tested underg

well that press release was later revised to say russian federation in place of soviet union. got to credit "huffington post" for that catch. i guess congressman aiken and his staff are still operating in a soviet mentality. somebody on the armed services committee ought to know. >>> a lesson to follow the money, we charged down the aide in vetting the vice presidential picks. mitt romney, sarah palin. and it turns out he's only donated to one of those vp picks, one of their political action committees. tim polenti's, the one guy who has got them scared at the white house. >>> back in 2006, then-democratic congressional campaign chairman, rahm emanual sparred with national committee chair, howard dean, who believed that investing dnc money across the board, in all 50 states, instead of just focusing in hot races. rahm is now chief of staff in the white house and howard dean is out of leadership. in 2010, how much will the dnc contribute to the mid-term congressional elections? $50 million, a number they're calling unprecedented. the dnc places its bets on 2010 to the tune of $5

certainly not just the former soviet union. as alex mentioned, there's enough nuclear material in the world to make a huge number of nuclear weapons. there's about 1,600 tons of highly enriched uranium, some 500 tons of plutonium separated from spent fuel. even a tiny fraction of that getting into the wrong hands could cause a global catastrophe. it exists in dozens of countries. in hundreds of buildings. but not thousands of buildings. not tens of thousands of buildings. so securing these stocks is a big job. and a complicated job. but it's potentially a doable job. and there has been as we'll hear very substantial progress already in recent years. my view is that pretty much all of the countries where these materials exist including the united states have more to do to make sure they're secure from the kinds of capabilities that terrorists and thieves have shown they can pull together. the most recent incident demonstrating that was the peace activists breaking into a nuclear weapons base in belgium. that being said there are

this problem goes back a long way and was evident well before the collapse of the soviet union. in 1982 when i became deputy director for intelligence at dia -- cia i transferred u.s. technology. it soon became apparent that the length of the list of controlled technologies outstripped our finite intelligence monitoring capabilities and resources. it had the effect of undercutting our efforts to control the critical items. we were wasting our time and resources tracking technologies you could buy at radio shack. today the government refuse tens of thousands of license applications for export to the european union and nato countries. and well over 95% of these cases we say yes to the export. additionally many parts and components of major pieces of equipment such as a combat vehicle or aircraft require their own export licenses. it makes little sense to use the same lengthy process to control the export of every latch, why are and look not for a piece of equipment like the f-16 when we've already approved the export of the entire aircraft. in short, the time for change is long ov

he adopted moral combat pilot because he had to worry about the soviet union, getting the budget under control, and partly because of internal weaknesses in his coalition. libertarians were less willing to go along with this than traditional conservatives were. let me conclude by saying that this form of post-modernism, this form of the existential and clients on our political concepts continues today. you can still see it on your tv 's and in movies, and in the political assumptions and rhetoric thing as someone as otherwise decent as president obama. you can see some touches of post-modernism and him. you might expect this from and who is a top of the 1960's who spent 10 years teaching constitutional law and a modern academy. post-modernism insists there is no truth out there by which men can buy their thoughts and actions. they i admit there is no objective support for liberalism itself. it is nothing but relativism to which reference has been added to pull them back from the nihilistic abyss. one expert called this the aversion to cruelty. so, a fully self-conscious liberal would b

>> that's what jack kennedy told the soviet union he would do if nuclear missiles were fired against any city in the western hemisphere. there would be a full response by the soviet union which he alone -- >> the commander in chief doesn't have to go to anybody else in order to make that judgment and call for the reaction. >> i think the president does have the power to do this initially to retaliate, but i do think once the first exchange goes, i think you've got to go with the congress to get the authority to wage continual war under the constitution. >> suppose there is a matter of time involved? >> then the president acts. >> this is a very tender question. let me hear from you. >> i think the president has that four and b because of the world we live in -- >> meaning what? >> you have the capacity for a devastating nuclear attack. >> we have to be able to respond absolutely quickly. >> so we can do it on his own authority? >> what if you do this while most of the missiles are in the air? >> you can call up norad and say okay, go with it? >> that was more apropos when there were

when we had the soviet union, that was a big state. we had members of the communism -- communist parties who were in high positions. there was a conspiracy in the united states by very reputable people who thought that marxism was the way to go. that was much riskier than today. he could have had total nuclear o live ration. did we? no, we tried communist. even at worst of the mccarthy period, in civilian courts. you see once we saw that the situation today is like abraham lincoln tried to do heroic things and it's true national emergency, once we say that this is -- this situation right now is like the situation that franklin roosevelt encountered when come germans came and were dumped off on long island in a submarine and he sees them and put them before the military commission. giving them no due process, i should say. if our situation is like that, this justifies under the laws or under the presence of the united states very repressive actions. very repressive actions by the president of the united states. so we have to be very car

and the soviet union and the u.s. and russia. the treaties and experiences we have had thus far have never actually verify the part that goes boom. it has always been the delivery systems. i remember briefing members of congress a few months ago and i realized they did not realize that arms control had never dealt with the part that goes boom. that's how i explain it. there is the part that flies the thing and a part that goes boom. we have destroyed this parts that fly but never dealt with the parts that go boom and he said, you are kidding. i said there are weapons that have been dismantled, it just was not verified and counted. many of the lights when you turn on your lights in your state, the power is supplied from the fuel by that. and he said you are kidding me. >> you are talking to children this way? >> and member of congress. [laughter] >> at some point, when the experience of arms reduction, what it goes further beyond the u.s. and russia, we will be into this new domain of trying to count warheads and verify warheads w

>> reporter: hecker visited russia's secret cities in the chaotic years after the fall of the soviet union. >> when i saw their practice of how they did the protection, the control, and the accounting of the nuclear material, i was terribly concerned. >> reporter: hecker says the controls have gotten better. but krasnoyarsk 26 was the last of 13 reactors that once turned up weapons-grade plutonium for the soviet union. the nightmare scenario of a terrorist group like al qaeda getting its hands on a ten-pound chunk and turning it into a weapon still remains. >> i would say that's a very difficult process, but not one that's impossible for a terrorist group. >> reporter: think they industrial a stockpile of nearly 100 tons. katie? >> couric: david martin reporting from the pentagon tonight. at the opening of the conference today, president obama called for a moment of silence for the 96 victims of that polish plane crash, including the country's president. and the white house later announced mr. obama will attend his funeral. in warsaw, thousands filed past the caskets of lech kaczynski and

now, no way tried to bribe their way back into soviet union or back into east germany. so i would warn you against taking the hyperbole of a lot these north korean refugee ngo's seriously. they like to talk about the underground railroad that is helping north korean migrants to safety. i don't know if any slaves bribing their way back onto the plantation. so we need to realize this is a country that survived not by repressiveness alone but because it is able to inspire its people still. so that's where want to talk to you about is how does it inspire its people. i want to stay in here now but we need to go back into history a little bit and i want to talk about duce, it is not the main ideology in north korea. it was a reaction to man here, to the chinese personality cult which began explode in the mid 1960s that the north koreans felt the need to match this cold claim for clay. mao zedong claimed he was a poet and he enjoyed quite a deal of renowned for his poetry. so the north korean personality cult suddenly remembered place which kim il-sung had allegedly written in

it's been painful to try to get the soviet union and then russia to finally acknowledge that. it began to change... this began to change in the '90s and gradually in recent years changed some more although there was certainly back sliding as putin tried to air brush some of that history. this time there's been a lot more acknowledgment of what happened. even a polish film about the katyn forest massacre, extremely powerful feature film, was shown on russian television recently. putin did attend a memorial with a prime minister of poland a few days before this tragedy. i think the dignified way in which russia has dealt with the tragedy , having a day of mourning, being very respectful of what's happened and helping the families as they identify the remains has impressed the poles. a lot of the old polish, russian enmity won't disappear right away but there is hope that this will begin to clear the air and allow for a new more cooperative spirit to enter the relationship. >> suarez: very briefly, andrew nagorski, you mentioned the dignified response from russia. is it also more

the soviet union is gone. the new threat is chilling but on a different scale, a different order of magnitude, the threat of nuclear terrorism, al qaeda with a nuclear bomb or new nuclear states. what sort of transformational about this review is orienting on nuclear strategy toward defeating these threats. this is a lens that we will now look through to judge, do we need these weapons? what's their purpose? are they helping to reduce the nuclear risks to the united states. >> brown: to make the right policy. do you agree that's the right lens, this new emphasis? >> i think the emphasis is correct at least in terms of what the primary threat is. but i do think it's important to note that the implications of that are less than suggested. if you look at the document itself, the vast majority of it is directed toward policies that the united states would pursue vis-a-vis other countries not toward terrorist groups so it's all well and good to recognize that increasingly you need to worry about weapons of mass des

the soviet union collapsing, changing the power structure, the rise of globalization, the information age, mass migration of people seeking greater opportunity and a whole set of things that i watch for my last ten years in the military and 10-years-old in the business world in academia and it struck me when i wrote that book that we were not getting it, the world is changing so drastically in such major ways becoming much more complex, complicated that we are missing this and we are still operating under the old ways and systems and organizations. in the course of going around on the book tour for that book with audiences like yours and in the q&a period i would get questions and comments about leadership and is struck me because of the number and the frequency of those kind of comments and questions and the gist of what people were saying is it's not just a matter of the world changing and our environment changing, our leaders are failing us. they don't get. and i walked away from the weeks of that book tour saying this has been impressive by the nature and the consistency of those

and the soviet union. we had built a bomb in 1945, and used it. the soviets caught up in 1949. that is when the arms race began. in the 1950's it was thought that atomic weapons were the thing to do. we had nuclear death charges, torpedoes, mines. the army even had a nuclear bazooka called the david crockett that would filefire abt half a mile. these were seen as prestigious items, weapons to be used in the normal combat. but the time kennedy came, that is when we began to limit the number of weapons. those that we were applying. the word tends to have arms control talks with russia. there was a limited test ban treaty signed, then in the atmosphere of tests, but no real strategic reductions took place for many decades. host: let's get to telephone calls. we can also be reached by twitter and e-mail. waterford, new jersey, valerie, on the end of in a mine. caller: good morning, susan. i'm so happy your guest has addressed the historical park that ronald reagan played and the whole production of nuclear arms. i have been dumbfounded at watching the current coverage on president

and soviet union signed the original treaty in 1991. following the signing, the two leaders took questions from reporters. this is one hour. . >> ladies and gentlemen, president of the united states, barack obama. and the president of the russian federation president medvedev, the treaty on measures for the production and limitation of strategic offensive arms. >> [speaking in russian and then translated] the president of the united states of america barack obama. and the president of the russian federation, dmitri medvedev, are signing the treaty between the united states of america and the russian federation on measures for the further reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms and the protocol to it. [no audio] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [no audio] [no audio] [no audio] [no audio] [applause] [applause] [applause] >> good afternoon, everyone. i am honored to be back in the czech republic with president medvedev and r chour czech host for this treaty. happy to be back in the beautiful city of pra

between 45,000 warheads were reduced from a strategic forces of the soviet union then russia and the united states. and in many countries missiles and bombers and submarines but from this point* is less impressive because it 10 years duration time it is a reduction of four has will be a few hundred at best and even that was a new quite formal accounting rules. the main significance of the new treaty is not in its physical reduction. the main significance is restoration of the hormones dialogue of a strategic relationship between the two leading nuclear superpowers? after a long break, it is kept in mind we have not had a new strategic arms control treaty for 20 years since 1991. we never had a treaty that was signed supplemented or magnified and into force. we had that chain of unsuccessful sort which i mentioned but never had a formal binding treaty. here is the significance. basically we have a slightly different ceilings for the delivery of vehicles and agreed accounting rules and procedures. this is not surprising because the expiration puts it very tight schedule. and less than

the soviet union off yutionly believed that it -- obviously believed that it needed the capability. then china felt exposed and it needed to go nuclear. china, in my judgment, was probably the major trig tore a serious indian nuclear program. and that obviously led to the domino effect of pakistan and so on. you've got to reverse that. the way you reverse that is, first of all, for the two leading nuclear powers to demonstrate their support and to be credible to demonstrate their support and to be credible to go down low enough levels so that other countries are enticed into the process. ironically, one of the things that will lead, in my judgment, the united states and russias to go to lower levels is the recognition that if they do go far enough in a follow-on negotiation, say down to 1,000 nuclear warheads or so, they have an opportunity to bring, say, china into the process. that's an incentive for russia to go down lower if it knows that it has an opportunity to bring china in. china has incentives to come into the process if it thinks that the russians will go low enough. and

but when i recall all of these treaties we made with the former soviet union, when the soviet union collapsed, we got information about what happened on those treaties. what we found out was that the soviet union was cheating like mad on every single one of those treaties. they said we aren't going to build any biological weapons and they have a biological weapons laboratory going in russia and we are over here, brand new guy in the u.s. congress just a few years ago and interviewing one of the top scientists that worked in the biology biological weapons laboratory and we found out 15, 20 years later, soviet union has got these ballistic missiles loaded with smallpox virus, which they are going to shoot at us and we don't from the foggiest idea that they cheated like mad and have a biological weapons laboratory and pepper us with smallpox, which we have a limited amount of vaccine to protect against us. here wer again learning so much from history that we are going to make another deal with the russians and assume they aren't going to cheat on it. my question is, how do we know they aren't go

it isn't under lock and key in many places in the world, particularly in the former soviet union, but not exclusively there. we know that terrorist groups, primarily al qaeda persist in their efforts to obtain enough nuclear material to try to do something that would cause just such mass havoc and terror and damage and destruction, that it would be devastating. and we know that a lot of countries haven't until relatively recently seen the threat as we see it. remember, we've been working for 18-plus years to diminish the threat in a partnership with russia, and we've worked -- when my husband was president, we started working with some of the nation that is were part of the soviet union to get their nuclear material out. but this hasn't been a high international priority. that's what we intend to make it starting this week. >> let me talk to a related topic, that is trying to deter iran from building a nuclear weapons program. secretary gates, is the notion of iran becoming a nuclear power inevitable at this point? is the strategy of the u.s. government becoming more and more containm

nuclear weapons are one of the few legacies of the superpower status of the soviet union of which russia has a share. after the economic crisis, it greatly diminishes the role of gas and oil exports as an instrument of russian foreign policy influence and role in the world. nuclear weapons, relatively, have become that much more important. certainly, nuclear weapons are looked upon by experts, by the professional community, has the greatest equalizer and an instrument to make up for russian inferiority in conventional forces, in particular with nato getting very close to the russian borders and acquiring multiple superiority over russian conventional forces as an instrument to make up for russian inferiority in missile technology and space technology. foremost, the long-range precision guidance systems relying on space intermission support with which russia feels the most vulnerable. in parallel with start i, you can sa ee russia as a new complaint over the united states guidance systems as the greatest threat to russian national security. if you look at the military doctrine, the list o

are they from the old soviet union countries or from pakistan? give me a list. >> i think, jim, you know, we're not going to name names but it's clear that ... after the fall of the soviet union, pakistan and the other countries worked together to bring their material under control. but there are lots of countries that have peaceful uses and reactors that need to be protected better. there are countries with radioactive isotopes and other things that need to be protected ber. it's not just nuclear weapons or former nuclear weapons but the reactors and any kind of nuclear material and the know how and the technology that when put together could give terrorists or other bad actors the opportunity to harm innocent people. >> lehrer: that's the reason the president said today that the threat of nuclear attack is higher now than it was 20 years ago when the cold war ended? >> that's right. the president has said this consistently. i think it's proven by the intelligence estimates. we have ... more safety looking to acquire nuclear weapons than we did

. >> the airplane, from the soviet union, had been involved in several crashes in the past. aeroflot recently it withdrew the model from service. >> everyone is praying and lighting candles. it is terrible, tragic. >> flags are flying at half staff at the polish embassy downtown as the mourners gathered to pray. some are still in disbelief. >> everybody is crying. >> while the entire nation graves, some wonder about the political ramifications. >> it would be a shock to any country. >> jennifer, the black boxes have been recovered. investigators believe that poor visibility may have been the cause. police officials have announced tonight that october's presidential election will be delayed. the president's strongest opponent was also on the airplane. john gonzalez, abc 7 news. >>> here are more details on the top story, poland's parliament's the speaker is now the country's acting president. he will announce early elections within 14 days as required under the country's constitution. one week of mourning has been declared. >>> tight security already in place tonight as world

up i faint following the collapse of the soviet union and the demise of its power after the loss to we have a glorious period of time where we have lost where the world would be saved. charro said this is america's holiday from history. we wish the history would stop at the way it has been in the past but the truth is some of these powers have grates ambitions to become world superpowers if not the dominant player on the stage for the we thought russia had lost and we won but russia energy resources are so extraordinarily rich we could use the wealth to reestablish their military might with more natural gas than anyone else in the role they tie with coal reserves and sold more energy than saudi arabia so they use that extra their wealth and the hundreds of billions dollars per year to rebuild the military that can be competitive with our own. that is what they are intending to do. >> host: you write to that they are supportive of ivory and because it would give them more control. >> guest: yes. brass rochelle looks of their strategy and attempt to reassert themselves of one of the lead

i want to go back to something bruce said about the soviet union. you know, this communist ideology, clearly intent on dominating the world with that ideology, not trying to force it on others in the sense that fosterism and nazism had to be doing. it had to be violently upheld and the world would come to them because the model state they created had collapsed before our very eyes but in going so they became a super military power and clearly had ideological opposition in what the united states stood for. therefore, we were geopolitically opposed with them during that time frame. what kept that from becoming the potential holocaust it could have been is because they were a nation state that wanted to preserve that nation state. and the policy of mutual-assured destruction worked for both nations. that's the reality of it. i believe this period we're in dealing with these transnational actors is a more dangerous period for us. because of their what intent is and the means to achieve that intent. and even though they're not sitting there with a govern

leave aside the big three of the old soviet union, other than that what success would you point to. and secondly, what is the logical international body, if there is one, to oversee this effort presupposing that the result of the summit is a more focused international attention on it? is it the iaea or do we need something else. >> thank you for the question. >> do you want to start? >> i'll start. i think in addition to the big three, i'm assuming you mean ukraine, kazakhstan and russia i think pakistan. the united states has been working with pakistan since after 9/11 to improve their security and, i think they have made a lot of strides in that direction. and if you look at what was developed particularly under musharraf, there is now a command structure and there is personal reliability program and there are improvements in the physical security as well. nothing is going to be perfect. the country is imperfect but at the very least, the most stable element in that country which is military is in charge of the process and they ever engaged. now i think that there have been period

agency which unfortunately has drifted ever since to some extent, ever since the demise of the soviet union, which was its primary focus for two generations, it has drifted. it has not been driven clear direction and directive and has not taken the initiative in providing it for itself and allowed itself to become used in ways that i think are highly inappropriate and counterproductive. and i would like to see -- and i hope the current administration follows through on some of its initial policies, to hold the agency more accountable. but, not to do away with its core mission. i think, gathering intelligence information, with regard to foreign nations, foreign leaders, going on in the world is essential, and i would like to see whoever occupies the white house, pay closer attention, and, use that intelligence, for purposes for which it is intended, that is to allow them to make better, more important decisions, rather than some of the ways that it has been used by the prior administration. >> thank you. question about the federalists and how they would view today's movement for green energy

way of saying doing nothing and this is essentially takes the paradigm of the fight against the soviet union we had the knicks and we didn't blow each other and so everything is fine. biden, that is a job the congress likes to that because when they think we did the iranians just get nukes then we will have a stable deterrence and everything will be fine and we don't have to come in on weekends or login great hours and they really like this idea. the problem of course with the containment paradigm is iran is not the soviet union. iran possesses most immediately and ideological component and religious component that the u.s.s.r. never did. and so, and also this pesky details like the fact we don't have steady communications with the iranians. we don't have a good idea of their intentions are red lines. these are prerequisites to a stable deterrent relationship with the soviets. with the soviets, we theoretically have the idea that we can figure out more or less what they could do under any circumstance in any given time and that is what made mad work. we don't have all of those components, al

also has a lot of oil and uranium and they gave up their nuclear weapons after the fall of the soviet union. so they were given a spot light to shine and be rewarded in effect for that and talk of democracy and human rights was left to the private sessions and not emphasized the way it might have been. gwen: in general why is it we seem to see him establishing more cordial, if you can call it that, relations with people like president medvedev rather than old allies like prime minister bnbn benjamin netanyahu? >> exactly. that's a critique you will hear from republicans in particular, president obama is attacking his friends and making nice with the enemies. and there's a lot of squabbling in the last few weeks with president karzai in afghanistan, with prime minister netanyahu in israel and that's created a real uncomfortable situation for the obama administration. they've now pulled back on the fighting with karzai. it was just a misunderstanding, who, you know, really that wasn't meant to be a big fight over whether americans are invaders or not. with netanyahu, it's a different situatio

president we had, whether it was how he handled cautiously and successfully the demise of the soviet union at the end of the cold war, the fall of the berlin mall mall, or likewise how he handled the middle east, the persian gulf and the kuwait situation. tell me a little bit about george h. w. bush the person, and his loss of a foreign policy of. >> guest: the person first. a guy who i believe people saw him in private as often as i did what i thought much better of them. this guy got dana carvey like. you know big iron saturday wall under life to imitate him i tell the story where we were out there for dedicating a police memorial when i was drug czar. he used to jog with me. very generously he would slow down. >> host: i have read the part that i think are in a hotel room and he wants to go jogging with you, and with all due respect, though, i didn't think it as a as a type of jogger. >> guest: i climb mountains. no, no. , he slowed down and this is what happened. when we finished the press corps there said how is the drug war going, mr. bennett? in his i was out of breath. he took the

all leaders in the polish community, the effort of the soviet union was to destroy those leaders and destroy poland as well. these were all polls, all victims of terrorism communist. for over half a century moscow even denied this ever occurred. the soviet government had depressed all the information about the shootings and blamed it on the nazis. and in 1992 russia finally released the documents showing that the entire politburo, including joseph stalin, sooned an order dated march 4 to kill these polish officers. poland had a rough history in the last century. they were invaded by the nazis and many of the polls were taken to germany and died in concentration camps. and then the soviets invaded the same country trying to drive out the nazis and they, too, took many polls and put them in concentration camps where many of them died. in the united states we celebrate the end of world war ii in 1945. but the polls, they don't celebrate the end of world war ii in 1945. they celebrate it in 1989 when the wall finally fell and the soviets left town. it was a long war for our friends in pol

i just thought, you know, there's a great person from the soviet union said coming up, the roadside dogsbark or the caravan moves on. and i just thought, this coal is the roadside dogs in the green caravan is moving on. we know this is the future, but this kind of talk about coal on the weather's just a bruise or not blindsides any kind of progress it has were putting billions of dollars in tuition ultimately it's not stopping either.yeah? >> i spent a good deal of time a long time ago on the issue of nuclear power we were working out in the west where there was uranium reserves on the navajo reservation, which a lot of coal as well. and now, there are people who are sane well, nuclear power in people i respect sandefur not going to block mountains, we're going to have nuclear power. and so i think that then we tried to not think about that alternative and now nuclear power seems to be on many peoples minds, the greener option until we get windmills on the landscape. and i'd rather actually has nine waste or nuclear power waste or it somewhere in nevada than have all the mountain tops an