we're speaking to professor timothy snyder and ray mcgovern. ray mcgovern is former senior cia analyst whose duties included cutting the president ash prepping presidents daily brief for george h.w. you wish. we will be back in a moment. >> this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we continue our discussion about ukraine with ray mcgovern, whose duties included preparing the president's daily brief and chairing the national intelligence estimates. he was an analyst of russian foreign-policy in the first decade of his 27 year career with the cia. ray mcgovern, your assessment of what is happening now andthe cor background. >> thank you. i think professor snyder was quite right in talking about the ze and surrounding what is going on in ukraine. i can speak to how the russians look at the ukraine and how incredibly sensitive they are to what they perceive as threats to its frontier, to its new frontier, particularly, to republics that were once a part of the soviet union back in the days when i started

as in timothy snyders book bloodlands or locating the killing sides of eastern europe and the baltics were the nazis slaughtered more victims than they murdered in the death camps. there are of course differences as well. one such for the mental distinction while slavery was a -- the holocaust economic needs were ultimately subordinated to the pursuit of genocide thus rendering any method of accommodation by the jewish population pathetically useless. fundamentally it comes down to the idea that their evils in our past that we must learn from in order to have a brighter future or is professor davis concludes history matters. i would add it also helps to have a master teacher who can eliminate educate and inspire us to grow for our own answers to these questions is professor davis has done for so many years. tonight we are gods celebrate the launch of the third and final volume of his magisterial trilogy on slavery "the problem of slavery in the age of emmancipation." we have to distinguish speakers who will join in the conversation about the book and anything else they want to talk ab

timothy snyder. he's from our state of ohio but a professor at yale. it is absolutely required reading for anyone who wants to understand the why of ukraine and why it's so important to help her move into a new era. i think that the diplomatic measures that are being tried are extraordinarily important. i think the economic sanctions, and i favor those, the sooner the better should tick in and they should become tighter and tighter and tighter. and frankly, i am someone that also is waiting for the government of ukraine to make requests for assistance for military help if needed to maintain a cordon until we can settle this situation down diplomatically and try to get the russian troops to back away and to reach an agreement as reasonable people should. but i would say to the president of russia and to the new president of ukraine, why in god's name would you want any more bloodshed on either of your lands? >> congresswoman, when you say that you expect that there may be a request for military assistance, what kind of form do you think that would take?

timothy snyder at your university had the best essay of the weekend, giving us a history. 10 days agoheastern ukraine you mentioned as a place to focus on. with the new resurgence in the eastern ukraine, how close are we to a partition? how close are we to a partition of ukraine? crimea is already an effective partition. it's one that many people will be able to swallow but maybe not the americans. the germans and others could probably get there. that, it isr than not a majority ethnic russia anywhere outside of crimea. i would say that the military in that region would largely be pro-ukraine. the citizens in the larger cities would be split but in the smaller cities they would be pro-ukrainian. the russians know that well. i think the russians would rather use economic leverage beyond crimea to get what they want and they will be able to do it including on a presidential election than directly invading. having said that, if there is violence against russian -- ethnic russians living in these cities in the next few days, and not set up by the russians, just something that happens from

there is a book by timothy snyder, a great american scholar at yale university, called "bloodlands." i recommend it to everyone. it is just encyclopedic. it is a great book. host: why did your great uncle have to go into secrecy in 1973? guest: he had been held by stalin in the gulags for 20 years and so he was viewed an enemy of the state. they made him carry a card. if you travel by train from -- if he traveled by train from where he lived to try to find us -- we did not know if anybody was left. through relatives in poland he finally found us. he was in a hotel that was monitored. through a fortune teller who came to the hotel, she kept looking for us. they were told by the people at the desk that nobody is here. they lied for three days. my mother heard him talking one morning and she said, wait a minute, they're talking about us. that hotel is now called the lviv. eorge hotel in we went into this tiny kitchen and there stood this man. to even tell you. it is unbelievable. of history came together in one moment. he had hands like our grandmother. unbelievable. to have a governmen

there is a book by timothy snyder a great american scholar ideal university, called "-- scholar at yaleiversity, called "bloodlands." i recommend it to everyone. it is just encyclopedic. it is a great book. host: why did your great uncle have to go into secrecy in 1973? guest: he had been held by stalin in the gulags for 20 years and so he was viewed an enemy of the state. they made him carry a card. if you travel by train from where he lived to try -- we did not know if anybody was left. we wanted to find out. relatives in poland, they rode and he finally found this in a hotel, the hotel that was monitored -- we were the only guests in this so-called hotel. he through a fortune teller who came to the hotel, and she was told that nobody was here. they lied for three days. finally my mother heard them talking one morning and she said, wait a minute, they are talking about us. i flew down the stairs. the hotel is now called the st. george hotel. we went with this fortuneteller, wound our way through the back streets until we went into her little apartment and we walked through these beade