ideology and as i said earlier we know that the collapse of that ideology ended up in golf in the soviet union itself what this collapse allowed western liberals to do is to do what trotsky originally did back in the in 1920 s. which was to prevent soviet communism as purely an expression of russian imperialism and nothing else and to make an obstruction if you like of the whole communist ideology the whole marxist ideology which they the today's liberals the intellectuals who in the in the cold war in western europe and the united states had supported let's never forget that marxism was extremely alive and well in western universities throughout the entire period of the cold war still we're now with a sort of revisionist leisure demo it's now presented it still is it's now print the berlin wall of the collapse of the berlin wall is now presented as nothing but the collapse of a russian empire when in fact it was the collapse of a marxist ideological empire and that to me is the is the most important thing that we must remember i think the critical years later errol do our reflect upon that th

there were a number of reasons for that from starting from the increasing economic difficulties soviet union in the early mid and late eighty's to the unwillingness moscow's unwillingness to support its eastern european allies including his germany financially and in other terms and those so the fact that the soviet political leadership itself did not in your longer subscribe to a large extent to the marxist leninist ideology that stupid the core of the soviet state for almost 70 years and so all of that led to the decision to launch a so-called serious troika and to essentially give up control of the eastern european allies of the soviet union now the k.g.b. that you mentioned a few minutes ago where the current russian president served at that time actually played an instrumental role in letting eastern european allies and satellites states. the soviet bloc so at the time which can actually was quite supportive of those policies all right we'll come back to the issue of perestroika and glasnost. a little later in the program elisabeth brewer there in london let me bring you into the debate

worldview at that time was the fact that it seemed to him that the soviet union gave up its. predominant role in eastern europe and other regions allowed european states to move into the western a fear it allowed some former soviet republics to also move into the western sphere and the soviet union itself collapsed into 15 states as i said before and what the what did moscow get for it from the west in his world view and in the view of millions of russians. the rush russia got nothing for it then became a much weaker state that washington and its allies no longer took as seriously as they did when it was one of the 2 superpowers and so what. at that point understood or thought and thinks that in order for western powers and other world powers to. take into account russia's interests and the russia's positions on various international topics russia has to be strong russia has to be assertive and at times russia. has to be proactive in. stating its goals and promoting them on the international stage and that's one of the reasons that the russians moscow's foreign policy. since t

mikhail gorbachev you mentioned earlier and glasnost and perestroika for the collapse of the old soviet union but was he really to blame do you think. well the. hopes of the soviet leadership over that time i certainly did not materialize in the way that. they were looking for the soviet leadership under gorbachev and the staff around him were certainly hoping for to integrate the soviet union was the main or the it into a more western style alliance of states and they were looking to for moscow to become a junior partner to the united states in the new world war there now of course throughout the $990.00 s. 3 as russia became an independent states with the 14 other soviet ex soviet republics also because becoming 7 country is. nato of course was moving eastward and finally taking the 3 baltic states loose when your lot in the store nya as its members and of course russia also the russian leadership also saw that the united states and some of its european allies did not support the russian position on chechnya and on its own territorial sovereignty to vigorously they felt that washington the

containment, i would argue that is what you do not do in 1987, because reagan calling out the soviet union to collapse, great mind, and something that wonderful,ional he suggested the united states had the power to make it happen. unionanges in the soviet -- peter: by that point, he felt he had dealt with gorbachev. sam: i am going to extend this a sittle bit because what happen d as a result of the fact that the berlin wall did come down? it looked like democracy was on the rise. tankshev still had soviet . until that moment, every time there were these uprisings in eastern europe, those tanks rumbled. why didn't they rumbled his time? gorbachev wasse able to stay in power. if he had been removed by the hardliners, the coup in 1991 was a coup that was predicted by the american intelligence services for president bush the first week he was in office. he got the same memo every week, that if you push too hard and try to get the only person in the world who can keep reform going, if you put him in a hotspot and give aid to his enemies, that is going to undo everything you might hope to do. w

and indeed, a distinguished expert on eastern you're up in the forum of soviet union as a diplomat shedemocrat and republican. she was at the nmc covering soviet in these it affairs during the fall of the berlin wall and notably she rose to an extended state his undersecretary of state of democracy and global affairs. of course she is the professor here and are masters of the science of foreign service program and a member of a board that the fss. i'm going over to the panel will have some time for discussion among ourselves. and then were going to go to you, the audience for questions on this panel and some of the things you heard earlier. them again. we talk a lot about the history and the lessons learned from the if it. james baker started to give us some sense of what he felt the lessons learned from the if it. obviously, there's been a lot of discussion about the triumph of diplomacy and the importance of leadership and how the fall of the berlin wall was handled. how we responded to a critical moment in which change in the global water was possible. what lessons do you take now a

school of foreign affairs, and indeed a distinguished expert on eastern europe and the former soviet union. as a diplomat, she served five u.s. presidents, democrat and republican. she was at the nsc covering soviet and eastern european affairs during the fall of the berlin wall, and ultimately rose to an extended stint as under secretary of state for democracy and global affairs, and is a professor here in our masters of the foreign service program, and a member of our board. i will go over to the panel, we will have time for discussion among ourselves, then we will go to you, the audience, for questions. let me begin. so, i want to start first, we talked a lot about the history of the event, the implications of the event, and the lessons learned from the event. james baker started to give us some sense of what he felt the lessons learned from the event were. obviously, a lot of discussion about the triumph of diplomacy, the importance of leadership, and how the fall of the berlin wall was handled. how we responded to a critical moment in which change in the global order was possible. fir

and the soviet union. really, i do not think president bush gets enough credit for what he undertook over the next three to four years in dealing with this opportunity. this president began by bringing people in to find out exactly what was going on in the soviet union, not in terms of intelligence but in terms of personalities. with henrya meeting kissinger coming in. he was going to be going on a and theip pretty soon president wanted to hear from him, what his opinion was and to really ask kissinger to pay attention to a few things, and to come back and report to him. members ofin congress, senators, experts in the soviet union. he spent time with academics, trying to absorb as much as he could and i remember the thing is the presse started writing obnoxious editorials that george bush did not understand the opportunity that was in front of him, that he was blowing the opportunity, that he was taking too long to act. the new york times and washington post were the most egregious. they vote editorials th

and china aligned against the soviet union. from an economic point of view in the sense that the rapid growth of china in the early 21st century was very contagious. and it was all concern but more to china. in relatively recently as america begun to wonder if it has goneha too far in encouragig china. suddenly, china is not just a junior, it is catching up in assessing itself. not in terms of economics but expanding territorially, in the south china sea. and above all else, it is competing technology using intellectual property theft to separate its technological advance. we have been in the early stages of world war ii for a while, but president trump wake america up. that's when his campaign began in 2015 and he started talking about putting tariffs on chinese imports,e the american was outreach. that's for 22019 and there's a bipartisan, that china poses a fundamental threat and not just an economic future but a strategic that. i'm a historian much more than a philosopher and i would look back and say the most important thi

who show their loyalty to the soviet union and working in an official russian language and of coursewe know a lot of that is put by the kremlin. we know these organizations in new york and cities in the united states these organizations organize a big prize and tried to be visible on the streets and tried to understand how these organizations could be used because in the past things like the houses of russian colleges for instance, we want to understand how they could be used now. the best could be 2016 and russian interference in the sea election. looks like these networks activated by the kremlin by action for an active role in the elections. it is quite interesting why. we have propaganda activity and almost everybody. the online activity of russian hackers was exposed so early, vladimir putin was opposite that it would be absolutely impossible, and that is what happened. they could compromise everybody here very easily with questionable results. the other theory, with public activity, and it is not that visible. >> they are spending a lot of - a network of organizations under the

the soviet union.i tried to document this story, not just of the accident itself but also the event that led to that. one of them was secrecy. secrecy that was on the level that not only some elements of the soviet nuclear energy, from people living in the soviet union and i found but even things about things that exploded were hidden from the directors of the reactor, contributing to the accident. an accident of a smaller scale but technologically, of the same kind happened in the soviet union in 1995 which is today, st. petersburg. what went wrong was never communicated to the operators and chernobyl.when the explosion happened, there was a massive cover-up. i ask very often, what i was doing on april 26, 1986 when the reactor exploded and i lived at that time in the ukraine and soviet union. and i don't remember that day because we were not told for another three days that there was anything wrong at all. when we were told, the information was that it was a minor accident and everything was under co

as momentous as the occasion was president bush 41 understood that the soviet union remained a distinct and potent willful security threat. rather than stick in the eye of the soviet counterparts president trump -- president bush chose claret diplomacy. as a result 11 months after the wall came down germany was reunited peacefully as a member of the north atlantic treaty organization. over the objections i might add of some of our allies and of course the soviet union. shortly thereafter the 45 year cold war ended with a whimper rather than with the nuclear bank that we had all feared as the soviet union itself was dissolved. today our nation's leaders confront their own unique set of international challenges and as we commemorate the 30th anniversary of the fall of that roland wall i think it is instructive to recall three factors that both presidents reagan and bush kept in mind as seismic changes were underway in europe and around the world. first both understood that domestic support is critical for the successful implementation, i would say formulation and implementation of foreign

nkvd dragnet who were indiscriminate, they worked in the soviet union in 1937, it ought to work here in tehran in a 43. they were just picking people up at random. and went back to mercer said, our friend has been taken by the soviets. what are we going to do? can you help us? call.d, i will make a i know some people. mi6alled his contact with at the british embassy in tehran and said, this thing happened, what do you know? the guy said, i can found out -- i can find out. he found out. friendrry to say, your .s in k bd custody they set up these jails and dungeons all over town when they slept in to sweep the town clean in advance of the big three summit. she is in jail at this address. i hate to say it, but you have to kiss this girl goodbye. to this circlek of friends and said, that is the situation, i am sorry, nothing we can do. cowboy, he says, we cannot let this stand. learnedn oss agent and these oss-- a lot of men did in those days by watching the movies. ,e knew what you needed to do we are going to break her out of jail. dungeon. soviet this does not work. they knew a guy who

i first became secretary of state, all our meetings were longformal, ministerial, tables with soviet union flags and u.s. flags. format,ly changed that and we went to one that became more intimate, so to speak. wyoming. him to the soviets were not allowed to go 20 miles from their embassy or their offices at the u.n. we took him and his delegation to the mountains of wyoming and they loved it. we negotiated a chemical weapons treaty there. i think we are still parties to it. we have not left that yet, right, mike? [laughter] mr. baker: still looking, right? david: one of the biggest challenges of being secretary of state is something called jet lag. how do you deal with jet lag? mr. baker: i took something and then the fda came out and said this will kill you. but i had a good response from it. i could get six hours of really good sleep. of course, i had a very comfortable bed on my plane. i would go between meetings and i would take one and tap out. david: some say the secretary of state plane is 40 years old and they need a new one. you have any comments on that? mr. baker: i think the c

iran to become a proxy state of the soviet union. all that oil suddenly under the soviet control. the gulf under control of the soviet union. we never really take as seriously as related to the islamic presence. it was there. the cia and national security council knew. what happens when those students come in and despite the fact that the claim it was peaceful, a few of them at least had weapons. something was off from the beginning about their so-called peaceful intent. they do though at first sees the hostages in the sense thinking it might only be a day, two days, it's not exactly clear what's going to happen. and as time goes on and things don't get resolved, decisions are being made in all parts of the iranian government. one decision that is made is kind of fascinating. the iranians decide that because they are good islamic people, it is not right to keep women as hostages. so they give matt members of the delegation the right to leave. almost all of them do. so who are these iranian revolutions? they say we are in solidarity with third world people all over the place. they

even more importantly, the soviet union understood this. it defined how far it would go in challenging the western status quo. there is, i think, no country that benefited more from it than germany come west and east. after all, it was the united states that saved the people of berlin during the soviet blockade. it was the united states that supported germany's recovery through the marshall plan, laying the groundwork for the post war economic america. it was the united states that enabled the young republic to become a member of nato and the western alliance. it was president ronald ragan calling on soviet leader mikhail gorbachev to tear down this wall. the united states not only provided a blueprint for freedom, it was also determined to defend it. when i started working on the eastern european desk and i moved to the foreign ministry, it was still unthinkable that the warsaw pact would implode anytime soon, nor that the blank the--wouldpse -- collapse. it said the united states stood for freedom of choice and would lead support for -- w

so can you politically describe how they wound up in the soviet union in these conditions. >> in 1939 poland is divided between the soviets and the germans. many people lead from the german side to the soviet side. so the beginning of 1940 a million and a half polish jews there was three and a half before the war another of and a half end up on the soviet side whether they fled their or their town fell under soviet occupation and then one third are deported to labor camps and labor settlements. they are not considered a penitentiary but they are but you work 14 hours a day with no food. you just work. mostly they were deported because they need slave labor to build their road. so they end up in the north. one year later they are released by amnesty and we can talk about that later but basically stalling gives amnesty to polish citizens and they go through a second migration through use pakistan turkmenistan and that's where most polish jews survived the war and those areas. that most polish christians and up being evacuated out of the soviet central asia to iran and then to palestine,

the world remembers a key event that led to the end of the soviet union.so be going to moscow to have russia's reflections on that. stay with us. what's this? cindy, that cold's gonna keep you up all night. and tomorrow, you're gonna be a zombie! forget that, i'm taking a new nighttime cold medicine. ha! there's nothing new. 'fraid so. new mucinex nightshift cold & flu fights my worst symptoms so i can sleep great and wake up human. so, you don't want to be zombie. no, i've gotta work tomorrow. don't eat me, i taste terrible! new mucinex nightshift cold & flu. uniquely formulated to fight your worst symptoms so you can sleep great and wake up human. here, hello! starts with -hi!mple... how can i help? a data plan for everyone. everyone? everyone. let's send to everyone! [ camera clicking ] wifi up there? -ahhh. sure, why not? how'd he get out?! a camera might figure it out. that was easy! glad i could help. at xfinity, we're here to make life simple. easy. awesome. so come ask, shop, discover at your xfinity store today. >>> live pictures here from germany

when it goes back to the soviet union. it was a very interesting story. but it was not, he was not a sales guy. and just when you have that. it doesn't mean that one story is more interesting than another. his reader was very active with time. what's going on with him and how it happened. i don't know. we decided not to use the story because the book is limited. but is a fascinating story. >> we will take another question. >> you mentioned the huge penetration of the russian influence. can you estimate roughly how much money they spent per year. >> it is impossible. it's hard to say how much money we spent. all security services are there according to the russian law. they estimate how much money is inside of russia. maybe rather than the amount of money. what are the kind of activities. these kind of things cover. the problem is that we we have problems it was way easier. if they have some money or some people. or some resources. it completely changed because now it's a russian church abroad is a part of the church in moscow. we use it by the pro- kremli

of the fall of the berlin wall in november 1989 mikael got breasts off the last leader of the soviet union is one of the heroes of germany's peaceful revolution at least from a western perspective 3 decades later the man who rocked the world with his vision of social democracy met with the rockers who wrote that soundtrack of hope that we just heard they are of course in the meantime good friends and scorpions paid the 88 year old got a better off a visit in last go. down to. listening to them with of cherry. scorpion singer klaus minor serenading me. with his famous ballad about the fall of communism and the end of the cold war the former polish president also came to moscow to nobel peace prize laureates reminiscing about the fall of the berlin wall 30 years on. the most important thing was that the germans didn't leave the streets in cities across germany they said we are one nation we have to reunite. the friendship between scorpions and michelle you go by chance goes back to the final days of the soviet union when the country's last leader invited the band to the kremlin now 30 years

in the late 1980 scorpions where one of the 1st western bands to play in the soviet union it was there that closed mind i was inspired to write when diff chain. karens came with tanks we came with guitars it was a new generation. minus says music can build bridges where politics can't he and his band continue to tour the world with that message then they may be back in moscow soon wish i got a chance invited the rockers to his 90th birthday in 2 years' time if i'm still alive he said there's no doubt about what song phil played. all this week we're marking the fall of the wall anniversary with reports from locations. they played key roles in that historic event and many of them of course attract thousands of tourists today but there are some less obvious locations just as deserving of a mention one of them is underground and only visible now for the very 1st time a rediscovered escape tunnel from the year 971 has been officially opened to the public and our reporter adrian kennedy was there. we're here for the reopening of a famous escape tunnel from year 971 it began here at $143.00.

. >> reporter: it preceded the fall of the soviet union by a year or so.r putin described the collapse of the so soviet union as the biggest catastrophe of the century. in fact, vladimir putin it was about a year ago said that if it was one thing in history that he could change, it would have been the collapse of the soviet union. so it gives you a sense of much more negative perspective that people in this country have of those dramatic and historic events. it plunged millions into economic turmoil, people woke up one morning as is often said here citizens of a different country. and so there was a lot of sort of chaos and turmoil politically and economically that followed. also, you know, the figures in the west who sort of are celebrated as being the heros of the fall of the berlin wall, people like gorbachev, held back the forces. 300,000 soviet soldiers in eastern germany at the time that the wall came down. the soviet leadership could have intervened militarily and prevented that. but it decided not to. the polit bureau voted to not intervene. and it

he was against the soviet union against in the cold war. a major cia station that was there right at the border of the soviet union. so he was also israel's possible supplier of oil. he was swab debonair and beautiful wife, gorgeous palace and he seemed impregnable. no one who would have foreseen what we saw occurring here in november of 79, would've happened except when the shaw was forced to leave. when he was, there was earlier effort to get into the embassy in february 79 and in that instance, ayatollah khomeini and the leader of radical revolutions, prime minister and foreign minister, got the police to intervene and take the students out the receipt. so this was a repeat later that same year in the circumstances had dramatically changed by then. but you really have to go back to 1953 to understand the feeling in t iran that the shaw had been sort of imposed on the country. one last. you can't see that the shaw was sort of just a typical autocrat. he was very autocratic. he had a very tough security service that brutally went after any

image of itself and they are we would your a couple of parallels with the soviet union before and one thing that happened to russia after become laps of the soviet union was that russia had to change the way . it projects itself both domestically and around the world do you think a similar transformation will happen to d. united states once these polarisation hopefully settles down. if we have to. make sure that this happens because otherwise some to none who no one can accuse center number of being put in storage whatever he said that we are now sleepwalking into nuclear disaster and not on a someone even. former. us ambassador jon huntsman who over oh some time said many thanks for the truly good for diplomats when he said that their best american diplomacy is 100000 tons of force to go in the u.s. missile carriers but then when he came back he said that we have to do dialogue because it's a very dangerous situation is very dangerous but unless those people realize that to be sleepwalking this nuclear disaster then then this is this really can happen so. that's we have to do we have

defending american interests across the globe against the soviet union. and russia, a russia who now, they want to go back to the middle east, they want the world to believe that you craukraine part of the soviet union. they have said that ukraine is not a real country. >> in terms of his own political interests -- we just celebrated by dad's 99th birthday. and his generation, people who were public servants. they believed in america's purpose, we just celebrated the fall of the berlin wall. a moment in which caall of thos years of dedication lead to a kind of victory. i hope as people watch ambassador yovanovitch this morning, think of her out there on the front lines. she was an ambassador for 33 years and had that continually year after year. this is a wonderful moments and i hope americans think about their service. out there, serving their country. >> there she is walking into the room, mika, and the lineage is coming directly from your father, henry kissinger. all of the men and women, republican and democratics alike that dedicated their lives to p

it came from the soviet union. because the change started in the soviet union.he attempt to liberalise? yes. people were waiting for something. it was not a surprise for us like it was a surprise for thomas. something had to happen and something had to give. this is the important part. people do not realise in the west that the people in the soviet union do not like communism. they were under oppression by communism. the reasonjosef stalin killed those millions is they were against millions. it was not like he wasjust in this killing people indiscriminately. his regime was despised and hated. that is why in russia and the soviet union generally, they were ready for something to start happening. that is why, an important point, there was no bloodshed. it was a peaceful revolution. and it was as celebrated, that moment, in russia? not celebrated like in germany, but it was expected. nobody was shocked. annalisa you were a young woman. just entering your adult life. what did of it? i was a young journalist starting my studies in political science and to the moment

russian relationship i know that you believe that when the soviet union collapsed back in 1901 america have a he's toric up it's you need to transform its top adamy into an ally a repeating what had happened previously with joe many add to patch but could that template really have. war with russia because i think as weak as russia was back in the early ninety's it would never give up on the idea of its own army like japan and would never sees part of its sovereignty to the united states like west germany so was that ever a realistic scenario. no what we're talking about it's not russia becoming like a junior partner we were talking about equal partnership so as i sat. i was carrying a lot of messages from russian leadership and. who have x. as their access to the white house he was delivering them to president bush. and there was a message that russia is ready to become american ally now in terms of course should be negotiated and again i don't think that russia would agree to be a junior partner but you can be allies equal partners and 6 it would be good for russia it would be good fo

that our composition with the soviet union, with the soviet empire, with communism was destined to go forever and i was certainly among those who had head snapped back when lo and behold in 1989 it ended, and that was the moment that changed, steve allude today this, this was the moment that seemed to me that the american foreign polls establishment to step back, first of all, they had not anticipated it was going end. >> let's reflect on what -- what history may now hold in store and try to make some prudent adjustments with regard to posture in the world, our sense of what we are called upon to do, vital interest. what happens to cite a very famous essay, we concluded that history had literally ended, we had reached the end of history and -- and when history reached its end, it declared a winner and that wases and that was the key fact, we thought it was a fact, it was an allusion, that was the key fact that would then shape american policy going forward and therefore created the -- militarism that has been such an important characteristic of what we have gone through since, combine