bush going 1991, and1989, 1990, morris yeltsin. -- boris yeltsin yeltsin. [applause] thank you very much. very happy to be here with you guys. >> you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend, on c-span 3. to join the conversation, like c-spanhistory.at on september 14, 1986, president and mrs. reagan made a rare joint address from the white house residence. their message was on drug abuse. nancy reagan, who died on march 6 at the age of 94, urged young people to just say no to drugs. an anti-drug abuse strategy she had been promoting since 1982. president reagan: good evening. usually, i talk with you from my office in the west wing of the white house but tonight there is something special to talk about and i have asked someone very special to join me. nancy is joining me because the message is not my message, but ours. we speak to you not simply as federal citizens, fellow citizens, but as concern neighbors. it is back to school time and one drug and alcohol abuse cuts across all generations it is especially damaging to the young people

yeltsin had stood up to the kremlin. who was supposed to represent stability. it was a. of enormous change where the vladimir putin began to turn things back. n: we found out how invaluable it is to go out there and do reporting on the ground, be open-minded, trust your instinct. we didn't come to it after decades of entrenched ideological positions one way the other about the soviet union and what the new russia should be. what we found was a resurgent nationalism. this fascinating figure of the vladimir putin. she came out of the kgb and was determined to use some of the but had beenwest misread in some ways by people here in washington. and elsewhere in the west. they wanted to believe in this onward trajectory of democracy. it didn't prove to be russia's trajectory. it was a revelatory experience and the face of the idea of going out there and judging for yourself and being open-minded and reporting on the ground. people talk in a very cliched being at the value of foreign correspondent. going out there and engaging with the world. for us that really was the case. an

because they will not want to repeat the destiny of their predecessors, what i talked about earlier, yeltsin era elites or soviet era elites and so. and they will have to work out a set of rules which would change russia into the country ruled by law rather than personality. this is where the u.s. i think should help, because this process will require things like guarantees from the west, from the western leaders, from american leaders. guarantees that the members of the russian elite will not, their families will not be prosecuted, you know, and stuff like that. i mean, it's a long process that will require negotiations and joint work of the best buys of intellectuals from both russia and the west. that speaking about technically how this transition could be made. but talking about culture, well yes, we do have this historic tradition. and yes, but you know when it's like with any human being. and again speaking about this example of an alcoholic, it takes, i mean what needs to be done for him or her to stop thinking, right? one day they have defined themselves, you know, deep in mud on the

yeltsin had stood up to the kremlin. who was supposed to represent stability.t was a period of enormous change where vladimir putin began to turn things back. he turned out to be something we did not want him to be. bryan: and, what did you think? susan: we found out how invaluable it is to go out there and do reporting on the ground, be open-minded, trust your instinct. we didn't come to it after decades of entrenched ideological positions one way the other about the soviet union and what the new russia should be. what we found was a resurgent nationalism. and, this fascinating figure of vladimir putin who really came out of the kgb, and was determined to perhaps it uses some of the tools of the west, and who had really been misread in some ways by people in washington and elsewhere in the west who wanted to believe in this onward trajectory of democratization in a western style way that really did not prove to be the russian trajectory. and so, for us, this was a revelatory experience and renewal in the face of the idea of going out there and judging for your

because they will not want to repeat the destiny of their predecessors, what i talked about earlier, yeltsinera elite or soviet elegalities, and they will have to work out a set of rules that would change the country to a rule of law rather than by personality. this is where i think the u.s. should help, because this process will require things like guarantees from the west, from the west leaders, from american leaders, too. guarantees that a they -- i mean, the members of the russian elite will not -- their families will not be prosecuted, you know, and stuff like that. it's a long process that will require negotiations and work of the best minds of intellectual from both russia and the west. that's speaking how technically how this transition could be made, but talking about culture, well, yes, we do have this historic tradition, and yes -- but again, you know, it's like with any human being -- and again speaking about this example of an alcoholic, it takes -- what needs to be done for him or her to stop drinking, right? one day they have to find themselves, you know, deep in mud on the --

so they started, when they realized that this was russia, and, of course, this was yeltsin, post-cold war. they're our friends. so we decided, well, maybe we should send a delegation to moscow. maybe they don't know this is going on, maybe it's not the government, you know? and we won't present it as national security, we'll present it as the fbi, we'll present it as a criminal investigation from which we are seeking assistance from the russian federation. and there was a controversy whether to do this. so they sent over this delegation. on the first day, you know, caviar, champagne, welcome our friends, and there was this one general in the military who was helping out. they brought over logs, guy brings out his own logs, and he's shocked. this is terrible! these bastards in intelligence, this is awful! we will not stand for this, we're going to clean this up. so they were going to be there for five or six days. second day, you know, we're going to have a sight-seeing tour today. we're going to go around, so they did sight-seeing. and then the third day they were going to do some mor