Transcripts For CSPAN2 Democracy 20170902

[applause] dr. Rice is going to be interviewed for us by one of the best interviewers i know who has his own show on bloomberg, our National Book festival cochair and very generous supporter, mr. David reubenstein. Please welcome both of them. And thanks and enjoy. Well, thank you very much for coming. Thank you very much for having me here and welcome to everybody. Thank you for being here. Its a great event. Great eventment. Host so, hard to believe but you have now been out of government for about nine years, just before we get into your new book on democracy, which i highly recommend, and well talk about in a few moments, tell us what you have been doing since you left government other than writing three bestselling book. Youre tetching at stanford. Guest ive gone back to my real risk had that digression into washington, but ive actually been at stanford sis i was 25. I start thread as an assistant professor and returned to stanford. My appointment is in the Business School but i teach both Business School students and undergraduates. Teach a course in American Foreign policy. Ive been able to do a little bit of work in the private sector, little consulting, and im spending a lot more time practicing the piano than i did when i was in the government. Thats really a great love and im trying to improve my golf handicap. Thats a lot harder than playing the piano. Host speakingspeaking of yof handicap, youre one of the first two women to be elected to the Augusta National golf club sunny was stunned. In fact when. Guest i was stunned. In fact when a good friend who was a member of augusta who told me i was dumb found. He said you are going to say yessing are right . I said, yes, am but i was completely taken by surprise. Host just tell me, what is your handicap . I wont tell anybody. Guest its not really a state secret. So, i am for those who are golfers, theres something called an index and you take that index and you go to different courses and depending on the difficultity of course you establish your handicap so my index is 11. 6, which means that own most course im a 13 or 14 handicap. Host wow, okay. Ever play with president george w. Bush sunny have played with president george w. Bush on a number of occasion. He plays speed golf, plays really fast. Youve almost have to run to your golf ball could keep up with him but we have played together. Host music, you did train to be a Classical Music pianist, and i have seen you perform with yoyo ma, among others. Do you do a lot hoff those concerts anymore. Guest i play at least one concert a year. Was fortune to plaintiff we yoyo ma at his Music Festival at the send center for which you were such a great leader, david. But at least once a year i play a concert with a professional quartet from boston university, and we do a benefit for a charity that we started called classics for kids. Puts Musical Instruments in the kid. Believe like everybody that we need stem, science and technology and mathematics but im a great believe we need the arts. Kids need exposure to the arts. Host i want to focus on your book, but you were born and grew up in birmingham. Guest yes. Host a segue degree grate segregated south under jim you. How long didded take you to realize you werenting treated the statement sunny grew up in birmingham the most segregatessed big city in the country at the time. A police where the police commissioner, bull connor, was known for his brew brutality towards blacks and didnt take long to know that your parents were a little embarrassed because they couldnt take you to restaurant or a movie theater. They were never people who let us this Little Community agree up in, which was mostly School Teachers mitchell parents were educators. They never let us feel we were victims itch they always said when you consider yourself a victim you have lost control. So dont ever consider yourself a victim. They also said youre going to have to be twice as good. Now, they didnt say that as a matter of debate. They said it as a matter of fact because education was supposed to be your armor against prejudice. But i remember the very first time that it it really came home to me, went to see santa claus and you take a little kid and a santa claus puts the kid on the knee and says what will youve hear for christmas . This santa claus was taking the little white kids and putting them on his knee and holding the black kidded out their talk to them. My father, who was a former football player, my dad was 63, 240, he said to my mother, angelene narks if he does that to condoleezza im going to pull all that stuff off of him and expose him as the cracker that he is, he said. Host what happened . Guest so, theres this little girl and youre five and its santa claus daddy. Santa claus, daddy. Santa claus must have read my fathers body language because when it came to me he put me on his knee and he said, little girl, what you like for christmas . That was the first time i thought this is really terrible and over santa claus. Host one other thing that might have been unusual you had an unusual first name. Where did that name come from . Guest condoleezza is my mothers attempt to in italian means with sweetness. And her name was angelina, and i have an uncle, alto, an ant, genoa, but i think that she wanted an italian musical term and the first thought about andante but a that meant walking slowly. Allegro went foot. That wasnt good. And she came up with host your parents moved out of birmingham, moved to denver. Guest yes. Host you ultimately went to school at the university of denver. Guest yes. Host you graduate it identify beta kappa. Guest necessary. Host then went to notre dame. Guest thats right. Host but you didnt get involved in football cheering youve were a graduate student. Guest i loved football. Are you kidding . Of course i went to notre dame football gamessed a a graduate student. Everybody does. Host you went back to the university of denver and got a ph. D. Guest yes. Host then recruited to stanford. Guest thats correct. Host youre specialty was soviet affair snooze yes. Host what detroit pick that sunny was a failed music major. Started in college at a piano major. I studied piano from the age of three mitchell gram taught people know piano. I went to the as spend Music Festival school and i met 12yearolds i thought i would end up as a playing piano bar some place or playing i wandered back, no major, and i took a class in International Politics and caught by a man named joseph corber, Madeline Albrights father and i knew i wanted to study things soviet, eastern european, diplomacy, and that kicked me into International Politics as a major and ultimately as a degree. Host Madeline Albright told the story that her father once said that his favorite student was you. Guest yes. Host she was surprised that you had been his student ship had not known that. Guest thats right. Host so, you starteddor academic career at stanford and then ultimately you got involved in the george h. W. Bush administration in the National Security staff. Guest yes. Its really important story because theres this notion that we sometimes have issue got on my own. Nobody gets there on their own. Theres always somebody who is advocating for you, working for you, and for me, Brent Scowcroft who had been National Security adviser to gerald ford, came out to stanford to give a talk and i was the second year professor at stanford and he got to know me and said i want to get to know you better. I like your work. I was getting anyone for work on the soviet military. So he started taking me to conferences like the as as spend Strategy Group and he mentored me into the field. Therapies another lesson in that. We also say you have to have role models and mentors who look like you. Its great if you do but if id been waiting for a black female soviet specialist role model id still be waiting, and instead my role models and my mentors were white men. They were old white men. Those were the people who dominated my field and so i always say to my students now, your mentors just have to be people who believe in you and who see things in you that you dont necessarily see in yourself. Host so he helped you get a job on the bush 41 guest when george w. Bush was elected, he asked front be his National Security adviser and brent called me and said, this fellow, this 1988, remember. He said this fellow gorbachev is doing some interesting things in the soviet union if the president s going to need somebody to help him sort it out. Want to be the white house soviet specialist . And as a result i got be the white house solvee spiey, at the end of the the cold war. Host do you speech russian . Sunny do. Host so, after that administration, was over, you went back to stanford. Guest i did. Host then when george w. Bush was running for president , how did you get involved with that . Guest i went back to stanford. I was provost. , the chief operating officer of the university and a very happy academic but george h. W. Bush called me who said my son is governor of texas, thinking about running for president and id like you to talk to him about Foreign Policy. I spent a couple of days with him and after a little while he asked me to organize his Foreign Policy in the campaign, and thats how i got involved with george w. Bush. Host so were you surprised he asked you to be in the National Security adviser at the beginning of that administration. Guest by the time we get to his election, i figured i would probably go into the administration and National Security adviser, identity been to the National Security Council Staff before, seemed natural. Host how many women serveds a National Security advise before you. Guest none. [applause] host okay. So, lets talk about this book. Democracy. Why did you feel compelled to write a book about democracy . Guest i think in many ways i wanted to write this book for a long time because it is in some ways an expression of my own life. I am a Firm Believer that there is no other system that accords the kind of dignity that human beings crave than to be able to be free from the secret police at night to be able to sigh what you think, worship as you please and for those who govern you to have your consent. When agree up in segregated birmingham where my parents relatives were half citizens but still believed in the american democracy dish relate one story in the book, i was with my uncle alto and be picked me up from school and it what election day and i was sixish, and i knew in my own sixyearold way that this man, George Wallace, was not good for black people, and so there were a long lines of people going in to vote, and it was segregated. Said if all these people vote then that George Wallace man said cant win. He said, oh, no, were a minority so George Wallace is going to win anyway. I said to him, so why do they bother . And he said because they know that one day that vote will matter. And i never forgot that. And i thought, as i wrote this become of the extraordinary story of the United States of america, this constitution that was given to america by its founders, these highminded words about equality, and yet a country born with the birth defect of slavery, but how this same constitution that had once counted in the compromise, my ancestors were threefifths of man and i would take the oath of offers as the 6 of secretary of state, under the portrait of benjamin franklin, sworn be any a jewish woman ruth bader ginsburg, and that for me is the story of democracy. Host now, we point out in the book that you are africanamerican but actually 40 of your blood line is white. Guest yes. 40 is european. Host and ten per is asia. Guest something other, yes. Some other. Host in birmingham, the young girls that were killed in the bombing, were they people that you knew . Guest absolutely. Birmingham black community, professionally the professional class wases small, and denice mcnair. One though four girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church becoming in september of of 63 had been any fathers kindergarten. Id gone to considered with her. Theres a picture of my fewer give michigan are, her kindergarten diploma. Her father was the photographer at everybodys weddings and birthday parties and so, yes, my adi me a collin had been in my uncles home room, and i remember him saying that day, that monday when they went back to school he just looked at her empty chair and just cried. Host when that happened, did you family say we should move . Guest no. No. I do remember the first time seeing real fear in my parents eyes about what they could do to protect me. But, no, we stayed there. Birmingham began to change. Again, the story of democracy. That same constitution would be used by the naacp and Thurgood Marshall and others starting back i describe it in the book with the marlowe report from 1937, and they would sit there on friday morning and they would decide what cases they would take to try and break down segregation and inequality, and and that would eventually end up in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights act of 1965, and the first time that my parents and i could go to a restaurant, two days after the sift rights act passed my father says, lets go out to dinner. We went to a hotel for dinner and the people sort of looking up from their food and then maybe realizing, now it was okay, we had dinner. Host so in your book you point out that we have had a birth defect slavery, but when slavery was ended in 1865, we went to jim crow laws. So how do you as an africanamerican woman rationalize what our country did after the civil rights amendments occurred in the constitution . We still went for 100 years of discrimination. How do you say that democracy is such a wonderful system and our country is so great when you had to live through that . Guest because there is no perfect system that human beings have ever created. Ever. And yet because of the institutions at that time we are bequeathed, the constitution, the courts, independent judiciary, slowly but surely the rights of the descendent of lives would be won throughs the very institutions when Martin Luther king and others took on the struggle, dr. Dorothy height, the only real woman mook the great civil rights leaders, they were asking american e america to be something else. They were saying, america be what you say you arement now, youre in a much stronger position when have on the instituteness place and you can appeal to those institutions. So in any system, the bring offering rights to people is a difficult and sticky and hard process, and our has been extremely hard but i look how far we have come, still with a long way to go, and i think we have actually done better than i think of anymore in the world has done it. Host so, youre a very accomplished person, very famous do you feel any discrimination anywhere in the world, anything that you do, youre discriminated against. Guest i always say if by the time youre a senior professor at stanford or secretary of state, somebody treat iowa bad badly because of your race, your gender, its your fault, not thursday. No. I feel very strongly that i am able to achieve what i want to achieve, and i try to tell my students to feel the same way. If you goes back to what my parents said. Under you consider yourself a victim, then somebody else has control of your life. Now, we all know that there are grave inequalities in our society, and we know that our great nationalness doesnt matter where you came from, matters where youre going. You can come from humble circumstances, you can do great things. It isnt true for all off our people. So, our goal, our job, is a citizens of this democracy, has to be to use these institutions to demand of these institutions that they deliver on that promise, not shun them. Because theyre still the best option for getting there. Host now, did your parents live to see your Great Success as a professional . Guest i lost my mother very young. My mother was only 61. I was 30 when she died but she did get to see me as a professor at stanford. The christmas before she died, gave her my very first book which was not a New York Times best seller. It was called the czech army and soviet union mitch desert addition. Neither of those countries exist anymore. And so i gave her the book so she saw me become a professor mitchell father knew that id become National Security adviser and died shortly with left for washington. Host you were an only child. Guest yes. Host so am i. Guest thats why im a sports fanatic because that was my fathers passion and a music fanatic because that was my mothers passion. When youre an only child you have to satisfy both. Host lets talk about democracy in the rest of the world. The United States has a democracy, not perfect. You talk about the soviet union and russia. Obviously a subject you know about. You point out that democracy broke out in roche i russia after the bolshevik resolution and after gorbachev lost pair. Why did democracy disappear from russia . Guest well, one thing i seek to do in the book is dismiss one of the explanations you sometimes get about russia. That the russians dont have the right dna for democracy. I just dont believe that there are any people on the face of the earth who arent capable of democracy. David, you know that we have used cultural arguments so the germans were once supposed to be too martial. The asia were too confuse shoes. The africans were to tribal but you have ghana, bat about wanna. Latin america is men 0 hornsback and champion africanamericans were too child like to care about the vote but we have had black president , black attorneys general, black secretaries of state. So, i just reject this cultural argument. And with the russians you get it all the time. They just like strong men. But really, what the story is, its the story of the failure of institutions to take hold under enormous pressure. If you think about the collapse of the soviet union and the kind of effort to build capitalism 50 fors of the russian population fell into poverty probably overnight. The country broke apart overnight. And unfortunately, their first president , yeltsin, who id a mired for a lot of loaned but instead of strengthening the institutions and working through them, he starts to rule by decree help weakens the legislature him weakens the independent judiciary. Now, that presidency really strong presidency in russia, under boris yet since yeltsin is one thing. But when putin is in position, it is a awer to tarean instinct show. Russian failure is a story of the importance of institutionses of cant depend on a Single Person you. Have to depend on the institution. Host deep down you dont see putin as jeffersonian democrat. Guest i know him well. Host does he speak english. Guest he was learning english from the time he came into office. His english is i understand passible but i would chitchat with him in russian. He liked me at the beginning because i was russianist but i remember once sitting with him toward the owned therefore my time as secretary, and he said, condi, you know, russia has only been great when its been ruled by great men. Like peter the great. And alexander 2en. You want to say vladimir the great but you cant said they because youre secretary of state but he thinks he i reunite thing russian people in greatness and i think that instinct has led him to destroy constrains for portland si, independent judiciary. Host the chance of his volunteer terribly stepping down is slim . Guest i think so. The thing about regime theyre vulnerable. And you dont know that theyre brittle until something happens. We have to remember that the only district that putin did not win in the fraudulent election of 2012 was moscow. That tells you something about how he is viewed in the city. Host lets talk about another country that joins russia, poland. Poll land democracy did break out in poland. What do you think state of democracy is in poland today. Guest poland is a store that we should try and emulate. Poland is the store of having institutions in place when what call the democratic opening comes. Solidarity and nationwide labor union under lech walesa had actually been underground from the decoration of martial law at the beginning of the 1980s. It had been sustained by the vatican and village priests, the aflcio, the labor union, and reaganrys cia. An interesting troy troika. When gorbachev comes to power, poland halt that institutional infrastructure in place show to democratic transition was ease glory poland than in almost anymorees now in poland its still a young democracy. It has for the first time a very strong centralized executive, and youre starting to see a kind of erosion of the independence of the judiciary, the independence of the press, but people are fighting back. Civil society is mobilized on social media, against the move of the call the law and justice party, the president s party, and the president , ended up having to veto a law he sponsored that would have gone a long way to undoing the independence of the judiciary, so dont count out polish democracy. Host you next write about ukraine. What is the state of democracy which ukraine. Guest ukraine is a kind of sad situation because if you are trying build a democracy with a very watchingful exactly assertive and aggressive neighbor in the process of take your territory and making the eastern half of your country unstable, its kind of hard to build a democracy. But theyve made process. The president now has launched an anticorruption campaign. A great check on democracy, challenge, is when you have corruption, and they have made some good moves on corruption. There are some young people there in the legislature that are determined to deliver democracy and its a vibrant society in its western part. The problem for ukraine is that with the troubles in Eastern Ukraine you dont read much about them in the newspapers these days but people are dying every day in Eastern Ukraine as the russian separatists who are supported by the Russian Armed forces are causing all kinds of problems. So ukrainian democracies on a knifes edge but its not an authoritarian regime either and thats something to celebrate. Host as long as putin is in charge of russia you dont see Eastern Ukraine all of a sudden going back to ukraine and crimea going back to rain crane crane. Guest crimea is going to be very hard. Heres one point i want to make. One robe i wanted to write the book also was to talk about the role america can play in supporting democracy. We have a tendency i take some responsibility for this to associate democracy promotion with what happened in iraq and afghanistan. Those were extremely stressful situations where we had a security problem and later on, trade to help build democracy. But most of the time democracy promotion is much simpler and mump less complex. If you think about the way that we dealt with the baltic states, the 45 years that they were under soviet occupation, when i was a special assistant for soviet affair its had a stamp and it said, the United States does not recognize the corporation of the politic states into the soviet union, whenever you mentioned lithuania latvia or estonia you stamped it with that. We couldnt do anything about the fact that the soviets had enforceable incoverage operated the ball stick states but we stood for the principle. In crimea we have to stand for the principle. Even if we cant do anything for it that says annexation of crimea is illegal. Host you mentioned iraq and afghanistan and i want to talk about middle east but where were you on 9 11 . I was the National Security adviser on 9 11 and if you were in a position of authority on 9 11 every day after september 1st. Was at my disk any youngest assistants came in and said a plane hit the World Trade Center. Thought thats a strange accident. Called president president bush who was in florida and i got him on the event and said thats a strange accident. Keep me understand. A few minutes later i was having my staff meeting and somebody hand met a note and said a plane second plane head the World Trade Center and we knew it as would terrorize attack so i went in the situation room to try to reach the National Security principles. Colin powell was in peru. George tenet, the cia director ins in a bunker and we said we cant reach rumsfeld. Then i called president bush and i said you cant come book here, the United States is under attack. And the rest of the day was dealing with the reality that American Security would never be the same. Host so, on afghanistan, thats been in the news lately, our longest war, 16 years, you see any solutions in the near term . Sometime worried about afghanistan. I have always said that what the the point we had to get to somehow in afghanistan was that the afghans were able to prevent the taliban from an execs exsend stall throw it. Thought you we have remnants ref the taliban but as as they have been able to carry out bolder attacks closer to the capital, even in the international zone, you have to wonder how well were doing in getting to that place of stability and so i think the decision by the president and by secretary mattis to try to really stabilize the military situation is one that i support. But eventually theres going to have to be a political solution in afghanistan and i suspect that is going to have to involve pakistan, which is a really big part of this problem because the pakistani arent really convinced a stable afghanistan is in their interests. And theyve got to be made to help stabilize that territory, and we are talking about democracy. Its very tough. Afghanistan was the fifth poorest country in the world during the at 9 11. But it is at least the place now where girls go to school, in large numbers. It is a place now where women are not beaten in a soccer stadium that was given to the taliban by the u. N. It is a place where men are not lashed because they dont wear beards. Its not a place that harbors terrorists, and so i think we have had some achievements in afghanistan but im concerned. Host dem democracy in iraq. Hey with made progress there and what went wrong after the invasion of iraq . Didnt go the way you thought it would. Guest i talk about the iraqi case because i lay out several different scenarios. What the circumstances are when the democratic opening comes. Now, the best place like poland where you have institutions in place or colombia where you have institutions that were weak but were there. The worst situation is when you have a cult of personality tyrannical leader where everything had been at the service of that leader. That was Saddam Hussein. And so there were effectively no institutions to think of or we thought underneath him. And so the distance between peoples desire now that they overthrown the dictator, and the institutions there to channel all of those passion. Theres a great distance and you dont have much time. I relate in book that we made a lot of mistakes. We undervalued the potential for the tribes, the sunni tribes to play an important role. We didnt understand the tribes. When we got back with the surge in 2007 the tribes were a big part of the reason we were able to defeat al qaeda in iraq. Think we didnt fully understand the implications of the disbanding of the army which wasnt supposed to take place and in the fog of war a lot happened. One thing want people to understand about iraq, we did no go to iraq to bring democracy to iraq. Thats an urban legend. I was in the meeting. Its not true. We went to iraq because we thought we had a security problem in a Saddam Hussein who had re built out weapons of mass destruction. Would never head said to president of the United States, use American Military force to bring democracy to iraq or afghanistan. But once you have overthrown the dictator, you have to have a view about what comes after, and the president and his advisers believed we had to try to give the iraqi people a chance to build their democracy, now, a lot of bloodshed, a lot of lives lost. That will never be able to bring those people back. I will say that as the iraqis now are on the verge of defeating isis. Youre beginning to see that the iraqis do have some Democratic Institutions. They have a Prime Minister who is conditionable to them. Their people protests and theyre not shot in the streets. You dont have mass graves at the time that Saddam Hussein put people. In iraqs big challenge will be can the country hold kurt with the kurds who for a long time have wanted to been independent people. Thats the big challenge for he iraqis but they have institutions that hem them. Host the arar spring was supposed to bruise democracy produce democracy. Talk about syria. What kind of solution guest i would rather by iraqi than syrian. This syrians Bashar Alassad is unfortunately going to be lard to get him out of power because the russians, who have people on the ground, want him in power. Eventually if he is going to go, it has to be he russians who make the decision he goes. The rest of the middle east, im not ready to give up on the middle east finding its way toward a Democratic Institution we get very impatient with people when theyre trying to find their way to democracy, and we say, either they just dont get it, or look at all those the Muslim Brotherhood and we forget, as we just talked about. Our own history of democracyization is a long one and tough one so i would say use the polish example. Try to plant some seeds for democracy. There are entrepreneurs who are people on whom you might build further democracy there are Civil Society groups. Womens groups, tunisia is an example of where a National Labor union and womens Civil Society groups have actually managed to bring about something that looks like a nascent dem contract. Host esculpt, after mubarak there is a move toward democracy. Guest in egypt, the Egyptian Military rulers look an awful lot like egyptian rulers have looked for a while. Hosni mubarak, sadat. There are Civil Society ground that we see supporting to try to. He what happens in the middle east is at the moment when you have a chance for a democratic opening, the strongest institutions are often the radical islamists. A im a believer in the twostate solution and eventually we are going have to have to get there. [applause] talk about the gulf states the property counsel. I assume will document democracy will break out their picket should. Theres a monarchy and they have varying degrees of liberalism just like womens rights and varying degrees of liberalism ports the marriage of religion and politics but many the same things are happening fair even in a place like saudi arabia. Saudi arabia has basically seen a generational shift and a majority of the people studying in university in saudi arabia in their Great University built by king abdulah are women. There are a lot of interesting things here. Can you educate women at this level and still tell them they cant drive . Will find out. In your book you point out authoritarian governments while not perfectly jeffersonian democracies can have some democratic features and could have good people and you cite for example singapore. What you admire about singapore . Singapores first law very small but what i really say is authoritarianism is better they have two examples, china the largest country in the world and singapore one of the smallest and singapore was fortunate. It had a wide planned leader in the point you. It was at the time a Democratic Values who were not obvious and he turned out to be a wise and benign leader but the problem with that very is you had better hope the next one is benign and the sun is benign and the son after him is benign because you dont always get lucky. And we have this tendency to full democracy to a high standards than we do authoritarian so there are all kinds of really bad military leaders. The idea that authoritarians are somehow better because they deliver for their people, the chinese have delivered although that particular model is kind of running out of steam now. Singapore delivered but there are so many authoritarians that didnt deliver it that we hold call democracy to a higher standard. China you dont expect their jeffersonian democracy will break at any time they are. I dont expect a jeffersonian democracy to break up there but Say Something about china. China also has an interesting test. Chinas economy grew rapidly and lifted 500 Million People out of poverty but they did it with heavy exports being the lowcost labor per day a provider and they did it with the command economy a lot of stateowned enterprises. They cant get growth out of that model any longer. Now they have a free app markets when you free of Market Forces theres a kind of mismatch between those Market Forces and the topdown authoritarian political system so the question is how long is it going to be before you have a clash . As an example china had 186,000 riots over the last cup love ears. Not because somebody was out protesting for democracy but because of party leader and a developer who would seize their land they have no cord to go through so they would go in riot leaders will say we need independent courts so that doesnt happen. How long is a poor and dependent courts become an independent judiciary . Now you are starting to get a different institutional landscape in china and ill tell you one other story. I gave a lecture at their Great University. They affectionately call it the death stanford but i wanted to get a class so i decided to give the same class i get to stanford students, find your passion do something hard etc. Etc. The questions blew me away up questions were im an engineer right or need to take literature . What he do you do if your parents dont like the major that you have chosen . I thought these are chinese kids they are questioning in this way . How long is it before questioning your Parents Choice of your major becomes questioning your government . I think there are a lot of choices in china that may lead to liberalization is not democracy. You didnt write about in your post but i cant help but ask you in another place i dont expect jeffersonian democracy to break out which is north korea. Yeah, thats a ways away. If you word rising the presence of dave kerner president of the United States today to what would you tell him to do about north korea . This is the most dangerous situation that we face. When i was secretary we tried to negotiate with kim jongil, kim jong uns father to denuclearize the country. He made some progress but ultimately they would live up to the agreement and we walked out of the talks. Ever since theyve been on a course of improving their bottom design, harvesting fuel and increasing their range of their delivery system. Will no one can tolerate a somewhat unhinged north Korean Leader because he is not crazy. He is reckless. This is somebody who reached into malaysia killed his halfbrother. I dont think any american president can tolerate that with the capacity to reach the United States. And what the administration is trying to do and i support what they are trying to do is they are the only country with real leverage. Well they have never been able to be willing to use their leverage fully because they worry that the regime would collapse and they have an unstable long border and they would have what the administration is saying to them is your choice now is either we do something about the north korea problem or you do something about the north korean problem. The military solutions here are not. So if a missile came near guam would we still have to wait for the chinese to do something . I think at some point the american president and im not inside so i dont know what these people told about how long he has but as some point will if you are threatening guam and firing missiles over japan we are getting close to the president having to make a decision. I will note that when kim jong un said he was going to attack want the chinese must have talked to him because within a few days he said he wouldnt attack him so i include have the chineses attention and its a question of what they are willing to do. Other parts of the word out out world i will cover briefly in one of those is africa. There said election going on now. Let me ask you about south africa. You met with mandela. Why do you think democracy has worked as well after mandela as it was expected . Mandela was a workable man. I dont think ive ever met anybody who i was more inspired by her found more impressive. President bush asked him why do you run for another term tax he said i wanted my African Brothers to know its okay to step down from office and on the continent that has too many presents this is really an important statement. Who it was a Single Party System under the African National congress. Somehow mandelas Great Authority was never transferred which could then survive him. And they have had considerable trouble. The institutions are still there its just that its hard to really deliver to them. The first president s matter. United states of america was pretty he did George Washington didnt want to be king. I dont know how many of you will know who its a great show but it becomes very clear that we got lucky with a particular combination of Founding Fathers that we have. You write about latin america and utah about columbia hot democracy has made progress there and generally the 60s and 70s military are argon but what happened to venezuela . Hukill chavez happened to venezuela. You can get a really bad leader who doesnt get checked by those around him with considerable oil wealth. When i was secretary of state the price of oil was 140 7 at peril. He typed by elections across latin america and he singlehandedly stepbystep destroyed all of the important positions of the opposition. He was succeeded by somebody who chavez was out charmed and chavez will without his street smarts and madero has taken the country down. I hope that this is one where the organization of America Needs to be all over maduro to do something. Its that you see a middle income country where people cant find food. We have had an africanamerican president but we have never had a female president we have never had an africanamerican female president. Right. [applause] will. Will thank you very much but, no. You have to know your dna and i was on the campaign trail with george w. Bush. I will never forget. We have got a five Campaign Events and at the end of the day he was wearing to go and i couldnt wait to get back to the motel. They are people who brought him rent energy. I dont so much and i have never liked politics really. Who i do love policy. The other thing my calling is what i do. I love being a professor. I love teaching millennials. They are wonderful. They come to me and they say i want to be a leader and i say thats not a Job Description and is not a destination. Lets talk about what you are going to learn and know. My other favorite line i want my first job to be meaningful. I say your first job is not going to meaningful. Its going to be your first job and what will be meaningful is somebody will pay you to do it for the first time. [applause] if you dont want to run for office suppose some president came along and said he did a great job of secretary of state, why dont you do it again . I had an amazing time. At a president who told leaders, we grew up together he would say. He started out when he was just leaving texas and he trusted me and id mired him. What a i have great admiration for people in public service. I dont think we admire enough to public service. Its hard work. [applause] i try to tell my students dont be cynical about public service. I served as secretary of state for Foreign Service in the Civil Service and people who work in the state department not to mention the more than 30,000 foreigners whose deft or embassies around the world are some of the most dedicated people youll ever find. I love to paint the nations diplomatic there was nothing like getting off the plane that said United States of america and thinking what can i do to represent this great country but im done. [laughter] when he stepped down as secretary of state you handed the reins over to another woman, hillary clinton. What was it like one female secretary of state handing the reins over to another female. You know so madeleine myself and hillary had been 60 years since there had been a white male secretary of state. We were saying you know i dont know theres going to be a little affirmative action here and see what happens. It was great and its a nice little club, the secretaries of state. George shultz who is 97 years old. [applause] and is one of my great mentors. I will tell you a little story. He had a Birthday Party purge Henry Kissinger who turned 94 and the two of them did 20 minutes walk round the world, no notes. I dont know perthshire hoping there was something in the water at the state department. As i remember George Shultz said something, to be 94 again. From his point of view church house was still a. When you look back in your career which was extraordinary but would you say you are most proud of having done . With the caveat that history takes a long time to judge i think im most grateful that we stood up for their right for people to i know there were a lot of criticism and a lot of it is probably justified about freedom agenda and declaring one of americas most Important Services was to work hard so that no one would live in tyranny. I think america is at its best and its highest calling when it leads both from power and principle. We stand for the proposition that the right to be enjoyed are indeed universal and if they are universal that there are no people for whom they shouldnt he will secured. Im very grateful that we were able to do that. Im grateful that some of my travels was when it was ice about people in a couple of things stick out as an individual. I went to china and a little boy walked up to me and said you are that lady from the United States, argue plex nice said yeah i am and then people asked me what was it like to be a woman representative the United States in the middle east and one story sticks to my mind there. I had a very difficult meeting with shiite clerics who couldnt touch me because i was a woman outside of the family. At the end of the meeting, a very difficult meeting he said will you do me a favor . It was translated and he said will you do me a favor to ask okay really, but sure. My 13yearold granddaughter watches you on television and she loves you and she and her mother are coming. Would you meet them . This little 13yearold girl comes in and up tshirt and she walks up to me and said i want to be a foreign minister to. I thought there was something in that moment. That conservative grandfather beamed when he thought about this little girl. This progress to democracy through justice and equality, its a long long road. People have traveled that road for a long time. America has traveled that for a very long time and we are still working at it. The thing i am most grateful for is that even with their own troubles here in the United States we stood for the proposition that every man woman and child to live in freedom. Do want to have a recommend to everybody here this book which i enjoyed, democracy. [applause] will i want to thank you for your service to our country for all the years. It was an honor. Thank you. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] host this has booktv on cspan2, live coverage of the 2017 National Book festival Condoleezza Rice being interviewed that one of the major sponsors of festival david rubenstein. Over the history biography room Ben Macintyre has just started