george w. bush administration justice department official john you and award-winning offer shall be steel, up first here is a portion of a 2013 interview with george scholz, secretary of state during the reagan administration, he talked about his book issues on my mind. >> issues on my mind, you write when it comes to terrorism we must think hard about the oral l stakes involved if we believe in our democratic values and the way in our life we must be able to defend them, passive measures are unlikely to suffice and more active defense and deterrence must be considered and given the necessary political support. >> you see if you have a law enforcement approach. when we find out who did it and we tried them in the u.s. courts and make them guilty with her in this appeals they go to jail. well what does that accomplish? a certain deterrence but in the meantime the terrorist act is taking place. when a terrorist act like 9/11 can kill other people. if you know something that is coming out you, let us stop it in other words prevention, the nice thing when i first said that in 1984 it was very controversial, after 9/11 people said of course we should be trying to stop that from happening. so i think we've stopped them to try to prevent things and is very important and it's become common, we do a great deal in this country and i think they've done lots of terrorist acts have happened because we found out about them through intelligence and prevented them. and we are talking with former secretary of state and former secretary of labor in the treasury, george scholz about his new book, issues on my mind, mr. secretary what was your favorite job your hat. >> you say job, job implies something that you have to do in order to get some money, and if you say that i never had a job in my life, he is done things that i have found rewarding and interesting and what i found out it was something like that i found something else to do. in government integrate privilege and opportunity to serve and i have a successful job in all of them have their tough moments but all of them are rewarding starting with my two and half years overseeing in the united states marine corps and there i was, i was fighting for my country and it was really victorious, i did not have much to do with it but i was one person, i served in the eisenhower administration with the advisors, it was a great privilege, i remember going down to my office and i was in a big office building right next to the white house, used to be called old state building. anyway i had an office with a window that looked out the white house, i remember my father who died not too long after that, he came and i took into my office and he said son, you have arrived. so it was late and when you're working in the white house complex, your view of the whole government and i learned a lot about how you put the statistics together, but we talk about all the time, that was a great experience. but the secretary of labor had a new subject matter. while in a new the department will because they did some things in kennedy and johnson administration and he gave me that exposure pre-but they did not know anything about washington politics and the press that all about, i had a good base of knowledge on which to learn about these things and and there was a man named joe to come be the press person and joe had worked for the new york times for i don't know, decades. he was the premier labor reporter anywhere, he was really good, anybody who read their stories and he said he would sign on but he had conditions. as i said okay, what are your conditions. he said first of all, if i'm going to be the spokesman i have to know what is going on, i have to be able to work and i don't want to be blindsided, if i'm blindsided, i'm over. >> i said of course, will go anywhere you want, you'll be a contributor. what else. he said do not lie, isaac, and joe, i do not like, are you surprised the hobbits the people, they come down there, good under pressure, they mislead, misleading is as bad as lying, so you've got to be straight and i said okay, we will be straight. and so what else, never have a press conference unless you have some news. and i said reporters like to go around and he said you to understand reporters are guys trying to make a living. the way you make a living as you get a new story with your name on it and he gets on the front page of your paper. you call a news conference and then the reporter thinks this is my story and he comes and you don't have any news, what is he going to do, he's gonna ask a question to make you say something stupid and that is the news. and he had a whole bunch of things like that so i learned about about the press from him and sometimes people write things you don't like it a whole, and if you have a constructive attitude and you help them get the facts straight, you're going to be much better off, then i had a guy named bryce in the white house who was a political counselor in the congressional relations guy and he took me under his wing to a certain extent and he had rules, he said never make a promise unless you could deliver on it. and if it turns out it's really hard to deliver, all the harder. because people only deal with you if they trust you and if they trust you if you do what do you say you're going to do. and his word was trust the is the coin of the room. i was try to remember that. but in the labor department had some big, my first big battle in the congress and i learned something about that, it was a great learning thing. then i went from there to be director of the budget and there you have the whole government out in front of you. so that was great and then i became secretary of the treasury, there was a time when he redid the international monetary system and i had lots of dealings with people all over the world and i learned a lot of how to do something initially, that was great experience for me, it was very fun, i enjoyed the people but when i was secretary of state and all the parts of the world changed. when ronald reagan and i took office in the cold war, we left and it was a whole bunch of shouting, that was a foolish thing to be involved in. >> mr. secretary in my book, issues on my mind, we have leadership in a couple of those you're ready expounded on the harlow rule in the other world. but your first roll was to be a participant. >> that is what democracy is all about, earlier i was working in the primaries, ronald reagan gave me a time, on the tie is as democracy is not a spectator sport. so be part of it. and be part of the politics and be willing to serve and be a participant. >> rule number five, competence is the name of the game and leadership. >> is a great start to be comfortable. a not confident you're gonna get in big trouble. i had a rough experience, i told you what i went to washington a secretary of labor i was from minnesota a politics and i had a bunch of political appointee slots to fill in i realized you're trying to work with a diverse constituency so i said i need the best management guy in this labor relations feel there is an everybody told me was a guy named jim and i talked him and i said well we have to have a real labor guy, not somebody who advises, somebody who negotiates contracts and so does the rank and file and stands for union guy. we found a guy to do that, we got somebody who really knows manpower training and so you gotta get somebody who has worked in the area of how to deal with discrimination in the workplace and the lawyer who knows the labor market, anyway a lot of these people end up with president alexi nixon interim progress in his administration and let's go to the. hotel and they took down the editor press. so we have a meeting go down to the car and introduce him only asking all kinds of questions, it was obvious that he was a real pro and he knew what he was doing, some guy in the back says mr. hudson, are you a democrat or republican and he never even asked him, he said i'm a democrat so the next guy up was dazzling, he was the same guy who holds his hands up and says i'm a democrat, the last guy was jeff who is a nominee to the head of bureau of labor statistics, he was very close to president nixon when something that he wanted and i wanted so i felt like we finally got republican, the same way i asked the question and he stands there and then he finally says i have to say anyway i get back to my hotel room and the phone is ringing off the hook and all the republicans in the senate labor are saying don't you know it's a election and i said even if i could the names of the white house in the ranking republican but anyway, i did not because all my guys did terrific, they were competent people and even some of the people who objected and called me and said i like your guys. and jim hudson later became the ambassador of japan and he rather became the first of and the president of northwestern university and so on. if i had ruled all these people out in the registered democrats and i had the confidence and i should have asked the question and then something about it. anyway if you have confident people around you, you're not doing much better than if you don't, your first job is to form your team and get people who are confident in those slots. >> george scholz was one of my several authors that we interviewed in 2013. you can find them all on our website, booktv.org. up next another former secretary of state and soon to be director of the hoover institution condoleezza rice, in this portion of the program from the reagan library of 2017, she talks about her book democracy, stories from the long road to freedom. >> when i think about democracy it's kind of mysterious that people are willing to trust the abstractions, constitution, rule of law and they're willing to go to the polls and a lot of people to represent them rather than going to the streets, rather than binding to family or plans or to religions, they trust constitution to the rule of law and that is a very mysterious process, i think as a kid or a child growing up in birmingham, alabama, i was perhaps one who barely early on felt something more mysterious. i saw in segregated alabama where you cannot go to a movie theater or restaurant if you were a black person but you are most certainly a second-class citizen, i saw black citizens absolutely devoted to the institution of the america amern democracy. i had one incident in the book who encapsulates it for me and i was six-ish years old and my uncle had my mother's brother had picked me up from school and it was election day and there were long lines of black people waiting to vote and i said to my uncle, this must mean that that man wallace, george wallace cannot win and i knew in my own 6-year-old way probably did not want him to win. so my uncle said oh no, were a minority and he's going to win and i looked at my uncle and said why do they bother. in my uncle said because they know that one day that vote will matter. and as they went around the world of secretary of state and i saw long lines of siberians or afghans or iraqis, south africans in latin america, people voting sometimes for the first time, i thought to myself they know one day that vote will matter. we are blessed with this extraordinary gift, democracy. americans in particular were blessed with founding fathers who understood in institutional design that would protect our liberties, our right to say what we think and worship as we please to be free from the secret police and have dignities that come with having both were going to govern and you have to ask for your consent. but if we were blessed with that and we believe we were endowed by your creator with those rights, it cannot be true for us and not for them. in one of the marvelous legacies of the united states of america and the building in which we sit in the library in which we sit one of the most marvelous legacies of ronald reagan, he never forgot our obligation to speak for the voiceless, he never forgot our obligation to do the right thing in supporting those who just wanted the simple freedom that we had and he delivered. because he believed that the united states of america, america is an idea and it's an idea that is universal and so that's why i wanted to write this book you are in the position of the world's opinion in the united states and any other opinion and i know it's not this now but over hundred days since you had the trump administration and power and i wonder if you are able to speak to has there been any change in your mind how americans are viewed from president obama to president trump,. >> i was in europe not long after the election, i just said settle down, the united states of america is engaging in a little bit of a democratic experiment. we have just elected somebody who has never been a government before, who has never sniffed the government before and that president is going to take some time, it's a learning curve but the one thing you can trust is that america has institutions that are absolutely firm and absolutely concrete and will hold america and check and if you look at the president, i think it's getting used to the fact that it's not as easy as it looks in the american presidency is not just one person, it's an institution in a constrained institution, the founding fathers were very, very terrified of executive power, as they were leaving, they did not want to create another one. so they created a congress as a separate and equal branch of government and i did article one of the constitution of the congress will constantly remind you when you're in the executive branch and today, that congress is made up of 535 people and most think they should be president of the united states. he has course which he learned hotel is the president and he has governors, 50 of them, half of whom think they should be president of the united states and they have legislatures, by the way he has oppressed as well, civil society and americans were ungovernable. the job of getting to be president is one thing, went to her there is another. so the learning curve is steep but we've seen things of the world like someone facing america, i think the decision to strike the syrian airbases after the chemical weapon attack on his own people was a very important corrective, we laid out a redline for five years ago and had been crossed and we did nothing. that eroded american credibility. in that single strike, the administration said, this far in no further. there are just some things that are intolerable, i saw something else, he remember he said i cannot sit by and watch babies choking on chemical gas, what he was saying, as president of the united states i cannot sit by and watch babies choking on chemical gas and so i think this is a lot of water to pass under the bridge and were still learning in many ways on what it's like to get up and not just react every time but some very good things have happened in the one thing i will say as an american, we only have one president at a time. and we have to do everything that we can to try to make her president successful. and that is where i start. >> a large% of her audience they might think the left and the right is an absolute waste of our tax dollars and why would we put money into foreign aid when our schools need to be rebuilt in our bridges and all the rest. question is coming from this secretary of state, do you think there is a foreign argument that is really important for people to grasp. >> for me is a little bit the same argument that i would make about democracy and promoting democracy. you can say i will pay attention to her own affairs. we have to build our bridges in pennsylvania, why are we building bridges in afghanistan. you can say our schools are not in great shape, why are we trying to send girls to school in nigeria. you can say all of the sinks. but i think the two powerful arguments against that one is a moral and one is a practical. the moral argument is this, a math is an idea. if life liberty and the pursuit of happiness are universal and are good for us, then they cannot be good for us and not for them. and we are at our best when we leave for both power from power in principle. the principle that no man, woman or child should have to live in with poverty and the worst of circumstances because we are also a compassionate nation and actually believes as many problems as we have, we have been given an extraordinary bounty, if you go to some of the places in the world, i don't care how bad it looks in the united states of america, it is much, much worse, how can you turn a blind eye to those children playing in the dirt in haiti. and how can you turn a blind eye to an ebola pandemic in liberia. we are two good to be that way and so the moral argument is that i am christian and i have been told that what you do for the least of my brothers you do for me, whatever your tradition is in whatever that impulse comes from with compassion america has had it and we have to keep it. that is the moral case. now the practical case. democratic states that can deliver for their own people, don't invade their neighbors, they don't traffic soldiers were ten and 11 years old, they don't traffic a human trade in eastern europe and southeast asia, they don't harbor terrorist as a matter of state policy. as democracies don't fight each other, we know that is called the democratic peace. so there is a reason that we have believed that we are better off when other people beyond our borders can live with decent government to try to take care of them. now is the foreign assistance, yes, i think there was a time when foreign aid was given strategic reasons in the soviet union was giving money so we gave money to somebody else and maybe a little bit of guilt about colonialism or whatever, those days have been long gone for a long time and if you look at some of the foreign aid programs in the millennial challenge is a good example of this, millennial challenge sent to countries, you will receive large foreign aid packages from the united states only if you're governing wisely, fighting corruption, investing in your people and if you are doing those things, then we will give you foreign aid, i will give you one example, let's listen to one of the millennium challenge compacts, they wanted to do a lot of farms in the third world are quite inefficient because a very small farms and one of the problems and combining them, nobody knows what the title is. so they were going to do land titling. but there was a lot on the book that women could not hold land in their own name and so the united states of america said if you want to see a dime of the foreign assistance, you will change that law, they changed that law. when you go abroad and you look at what america has done an aids relief and the humanitarian crises or in the kinds of programs that we fund all over the world with the largest, you recognize that the most powerful country in the world ought to be the most compassionate. and it's good for us to because when you create responsible sovereigns the act in the international system in a way that enhances prosperity and security, we are all better off. so foreign aid is a very inexpensive way to keep us from ultimately having to intervene in other more expensive. >> stanford in the university was founded in 1919 herbert hoover with the purpose of corrupting materials about world war i, it has grown to 200 fellows who specialize in a range of public policy field, our book of books written by hoover institution fellows continues with economist thomas old, he appeared on c-span author interview program book notes in 1992 discussed his book about the policies. having grown up in the south, i was shifted between different levels of education and i was a top student in my class in north carolina and then i was immediately the bottom student in my class and harlan and i was way behind it was next to the bottom because the educational difference was that great. it was a very painful period of adjusting. but there was no racial issue involved in all other kids ahead of me were all black. so i got through that and for a second time in my life i went out on my own when i was 17 and i did not return to college full-time until he was 25. for the second time in my life it was very difficult compared to what i was used to. . . . that was when i was doing just the general things. all of my degrees are actually in economics. it's an enormous adjustment to make. but there was no one there to tell me the date pending for you in this way you're doing it badly. i overcame it wherever i was. >> but what happened and how long did you stay at harvard. >> i thought earlier he was a howard for it is too much i did go to howard for you're harvard. and i was working full-time during the day. seven i went to harvard, as a full-time student in first time in ten years. >> what years did you go to harvard. >> i graduated in 68. sinking under understand how that student would when he was in law school, he said ralph first got there, the professor didn't ever know what black student. you get a b+. some one of had the mets had fallen. that is true, what goes on in terms of manipulating the students. to serve all kinds of external things. >> can you kinda give us an idea of the external focus is you are talking about. it. thomas: just a couple of days ago i was told by that there's investment campaign. in the whole thing. but those black girls, who did not want to participate in that were violent. and that's not unique. at stanford, they have spanish students the complaint. that hispanic establishment and threatened them if they didn't want to go along with what was being said and done reading the claimed that only 15 percent of the hispanic students there had ever attended a single event sponsored by the hispanic establishment which speaks boldly in their name. and so you have this kind of thing going on. and again noticeably, once you letting the students, you going to end up having other things . going to have to create courses that don't meet the academic standards. host: currently in the names. doug, harvard law school. threatened the law school if an entire black woman that is gone is living. thomas: yes. please taking unpaid leave until such time that they hire a woman of color. what he also said by black, he does not mean the color but those are really black. those who are thinking why did look black. so what is really saying is he wants ideological conformity and the people that he hired. to fill that position this moment, neither. i know black woman for example who had phd. her book published in a contract and another book. she sort of very nice places. she had a terrible time getting a job. not not in the prestigious place but a time even getting hired in a college. and the reason was she was shot down by called whatever by people who don't like her ideology. it is also happening when race is not an issue. law school recently, there was a woman who is there for a tenure position. and all the men voted for her and all of the women voted against her because she did not follow what they wanted her to. so get these ideological things but at the very time, there's always mouthing the words of diversity. there's is extremely narrow ideology full conformity. host: what your politics outside of that relationship. thomas: my political biases is black in politics. i have been a registered member of any political party since 1972. and i'm quite disenchanted with the politics. merely by just by following what they do another do it. there really quite clever and the thing to do with the things they do really don't benefit the public very much. that's all of them in general. host: has it changed over the years since you been watching the program. thomas: if it has change, in change for the worse. i see some awful signs and the terms of congress. i would like to see to be limited to one term. are you going to allow a member of the house of representatives for example, spent four years in washington, i would love it if they change that to one of a four-year term rather than two, two year terms. because the problem is reelection. it ends also have to be reelected and raise all of that money that they're going to solve the public interest and they're going to get the money. it's really quite simple. they can contribute to money to congress in congress will appropriate enough money to subsidize and give them back a thousand dollars on every dollar. and you can't get that kind of retirement and investment anywhere. so there's no signs of going to stop doing that. either they're going to start wanting money or commerce. doing or giving the money. host: were looking at the cover your your book. international perspective published by our guest we have about 20 minutes left of our discussion. in history, who are your favorites. thomas:not politicians but who r favorite people. thomas: even historic figures. our people who i looked up to when i was growing up. host: will be followed over the years. sue and i think winston churchill was the greatest man of the 20th century. and i find horrifying the most americans do not know who winston churchill is. i think that if anyone men could be for western democracy, the women would be winston churchill. world war ii, would . might've been 4 40 million people who wod not have lots of supplies . be deep and he at the 11th hour, there was enough time to have written full through. but they didn't pull through, is highly unlikely that i would even be sitting here alive because americans one of even full through. abraham lincoln maybe. it's a shame that i have to go all of the way back to america abraham lincoln. i think one of the modern peop people, in different respects i would say fdr, john f. kennedy and ronald ragan. and even though domestically, reagan fdr were opposite, they recognized international danger and save the lives of this country. which of the other issues wouldn't matter. host: do you have an ideology. this on a political party. sue and i suppose he is freedom a great believer in maximum freedom. not in the sense, i don't believe that children should be kept in school because of the constitution. i think people have to recognize all people, all of their lives are surrounded in society and they cannot simply demolish it because son just prayed and when he going to do to make it better would have to be within the context. so my tendency is to want for the individual less - i don't want people making decisions are jumping the price of their decisions. it must what policies are all about . you don't buy it and had paid the price of the decision. one of the reasons i wrote the book. we brought the politicians come they didn't pay the price. that was enormously for the whites and the blacks . the politicians who put that in didn't take any cost for that. i was someone to have to lose when discriminating. people tend to back off when they start losing big money. harlan was no white community and become a black community despite organized efforts. because people were losing money. and i think people in the civil rights error, are not trying to promote more free market because that makes discrimination the most costly can be. host: what are the most interesting sentences here in the book is about india we say they're the most diverse country in the world with a hundred 80 different languages and 500 different dialects. they more of a melting pot in the united states is rated. thomas: good heavens no. the polarized. in fact we have organized groups in the united states, because of trying to do that and create in the united states an enormous handicapped. in the virginia is labored under invoice like africa are laboring. and because of geographical reasons and now, united states have an escaped that, having one language and culture over a distance that in europe and moscow, having had the blessing were now going to put it down the drain and go for vulgarization . not being aware apparently is happening in history. or when you have people speaking different languages and radically different beliefs trying to do the same and being in the same society. host: you said the the racial was a man on the campus. and if this keeps up that will happen. thomas: it will get worse and worse. and there are ready . much on college campuses. already white union students being formed. in already harassing minority students on skill unseen 20 or 30 years ago. and of course there's a reaction of both sides then escalate because what you do is a lot of leverage to the crazy elements in all of the different groups. any think internationally for example, in israel, 77 the television or radio, because this man was killed, and he thought right now and any information between the jews have to be put aside producing the one man has a leverage for millions of people on both sides from working out some kind of livable arrangements between the two of them . much get this racial height, you put that power into the hands of demagogues and hoodlums. in these people may be decently disclosed. not to be able to do anything . is there polarized by the crazies or whatever. host: back to the campus again. what is creating prejudiced. other than the elites that you talk about that have their own, what is it among people it creates a difference is that they don't get along. thomas: they've they have always gotten along before. even with differences. we'll blacks and whites are different but you didn't find all the box students huddled together at lunchtime at the same table the way you do on many campuses today. on the black students idaho and white roommates. and i would say that the ones that i knew were all popular other than me. but this not the situation today. host: was a problem. thomas: because you have the elites. they have their agenda. as the fact that the black students are forced him out and do these demonstrations and whatnot. the fact the of students who are tremendously alienated because they defined themselves or find themselves in the situation. it is all they can do to keep the nose above the water if they can do that. there's someone there to tell them, is all due to the white power structure. the white students are sick of hearing that . if you can't happen, this your problem no give us his junk. and that is called instant tiffany. it also self reinforcement. there's some reactions. listing ugly racial incident happens by one of the elite colleges. invariably the first thing that will be said is we must now have a larger clinic of minority students and faculty we must now suggest the white students to these sensitivity courses or ethnic courses or what have you. and that's not going to make things better it will make things worse. and if they get worse, then you keep doing that so it's just an upper spiral and i don't think that's going to end. i don't think anybody, and only leading to bad things. host: what would you do if you are an administrator at a college or university. thomas: in bringing me and now 20 years, 20 years ago i said no and if you do it, these will be the consequences now is not the only one party to people simply did not want to garrett. some very unsympathetic to the administrators. you made this mess and you get out of it. now personally for me, nobody wants to do what i do. since not an issue for me. i think he said associated with the university rated when i went to princeton and i conferred with this person or that person i said no. the company has ever asked me in all of these years to come to the university do this. it princeton are anywhere else. because the ideology, they don't want me confusing the issue. and the others will say - there's no point in making an unnecessary trip across the country just to chat. >> to watch other programs with tomasello, who go to book tv and searches name. we've opened our archives to public policy think tanks, the hoover institution. next, historian neil ferguson discusses his authorized biography of former secretary of state henry kissinger. it is also a fellow at the hoover institution. and mr. ferguson appeared on book tv's weekly author interview program afterwards in 2015. >> so this is the first of two books authorized biography. and he said that the court not only has book written with his suggestions. how did that happen . >> authors ought to be nervous, it implies that he had some control over it. but when he suggested this to me which is no more than ten years ago, i said yes, i would be willing to do this but, on one condition, i completely have free hand and you have to accept that you offer to do this and me access to your private papers. i will write what i think is the truth. which was incidentally the basis of which a written the previous book. and he agreed to that. [inaudible]. i think it would not have taken a non- annuity had a basis. sodas it happened. you know him before hand . and a defined you and what was the moment . >> i met him. he read my stuff. we met in the party in london. this is full disclosure. and we were talking about one of the books that i had written. and he had credit. so we had a conversation about that. so we meant the net basis. exactly with sometime after that, subject come up read and i think he was attracted to the idea of a scholarly biography being written. and i was the first person who had been considered for this job. but when you put the question to me i'm a actually initially said no and he then wrote me very henry kissinger letter. carla: was a letter or an e-mail. niall: it was a letter. in the letter said what a great shame, just when i had decided you were the ideal man to do this. just as i designed 150 books in my private papers, i'm afraid i was hooked. i suppose just a few weeks later, is looking at those boxes of paper. and when i started looking at this i decided i should do this. it is an extremely difficult life to write. his controversial, it just a difficult thing to do. these papers and particularly early correspondence and diary things. and within a few hours i thought i really have to take this on. speech of this is not a man is been undocumented. and east end memoirs even longer than your book. so what you think he wanted me also shared some information. he spoke with walter isaacson for his biography. wendy taking wanted this book written. niall: he is by training and historian. and historian knows that the memoirs from the histories, from the biographies, is these three volumes cover really nothing about. before 1969. so have of his and affected not been written about. the book is very good . heat essentially the relatively just documents. i think the idea was that somebody should write a scholarly biography based on the archival sources because it simply didn't exist. and although a whole bunch of books that you can find in libraries, they ought to be biographies of kissinger. most of them are not really based on terribly much more than hearsay. so think the argument in modern american history and as it turned out the material was very good for it is very rich. i was lucky because the help. really from his earliest days growing up in germany right down to the moment richard nixon offered him a job at national security nine in the 1968. he created this information . carla: you're often ascribed is a conservative. to think he shows you in part for that reason. the other unnamed person we offered it to also rated. niall: yes. i think it's more important that i am british. because i think there's some advantage to being an outsider. and the work of the american history. one characteristic picture of henry kissinger's life has been the extraordinary prophecy that can be dated back to the early 1970s . and is raged on more or less ever since. and in some sense, there also from 1968, also the generation of became of age during the vietnam corporative in your generation. and i am somebody who can come at this is history. i don't have memorabilia from woodstock. in my attic. that's important. i things worth maybe adding because conservative mean something differently if you have grown up in the uk. it's not republicanism. u.s., russian and i am not by any means a republican and my politics of that i in the united states. i'm conservative in the way that rick they kissinger was a conservative. i'm a european conservative. and you also are kind of liberal if you're a conservative in the united states. and maybe completely talking to you so in the same time avoid that kissinger's conservativism was really a european variance, so is mine right in the maybe one reason that he thought it would work. carla: when you say european conservativism, on the international security or social issues. niall: social issues read those things that i regard to solving the main of the politics. our national security seems to me that often the case that people get confused and thinking there's some kind of straight punching duty showing argument going on about national security. and i've been critical in recent years about president obama. it also was critical about his predecessor. i was extremely critical of the invasion of iraq and the waves handled . so pardon me doing this, suppose was that i had been gone into the debate about u.s. foreign policy from the moment really not a set foot in the u.s. and i probably approached it rather naïvely thinking that criticized both republican and then democrats. it's hard to be in a position. you never expected to be on one side of the other but i think in the national security issue, probably more dependent. carla: i'm not sure, i'm not sure of the question of convergence since the end of the cold war. if you look at bosnia or iraq itself, there were people on the left who are humanitarian challenges and people on the right to isolation, was certainly true and i'm not sure what an independent is other than perhaps you choose that case-by-case . niall: only somebody who recognizes there can't be a simple partyline on these national security issues. and 70 he doesn't want to be bound by a partyline or cultural issues. interestingly, i find that kissinger the young man, was in rather the same position. he said there's also a small piece of him as a conservative. he certainly didn't identify as a liberal in the 50s or in the 1960s, harvard but then when he came to barry goldwater conservatives of the republican convention in 1964. and he also had a very unusual relationship with right in the republican what party . and the conservatives as well. and that's one of the interesting things about kissinger's predicament. you may explain why he's a controversial figure . and they really attacked them from the left. but he had many enemies on the right as well. in particular in the 70s about the soviet union. carla: so the book is called the idealist . is a rather interesting take on kissinger. but it describes him as the ultimate realist. so your choice which you explain the book is really not in notion of idealism. it's more of a notion of idealism. can you explain for the audience at home, what you mean by idealist when it comes to kissinger in light as our notion is not the description that you are using rated. niall: it is true that most people think of henry kissinger as a realist. and the things that they throw around our march. he writes about that. in business. so maybe is not surprising that people remember that . everybody shared in the book, that he was not a realist. in the world realist who argued the united states should simply follow this narrow national government interest. but he was not one of them. and often critical of him. there were first two who got along with this notion and started to read his writings. some of which i begin to think not many people and done, i was really struck by something. they were critical of realism. they were . critical. and also revolution really highly in my story the 19th century. [inaudible]. site started to think that there was something funny here. so i started to de deeper into his intellectual part. what, incompetent 20s and 30s. and he thought germany in 1938, the surprising how of the critical needs of the foreign policies. many can't appear as a realist and very interesting essay because they were kind of narrow self-interest approach upon policy and disregarded this issue in the dictatorship. number one, in the 30s, it makes him of what he saw as a realist. and number two. he comes to harvard and to try to get rid of this rather pushy undergraduate elliott professor of government effectively go away. come back when you finish expecting never to see him again. in underestimating kissinger. and he put it in to his senior thesis. i was deeply interested by this. and particularly in the problem that one and that there's such a thing is freedom, free will, free choice. in the experience of freedom as we know it. but on the other hand, can argue that there's some kind of plan for the world, humanity and leading ultimately to perpetual peace. in the discussion and kissinger's thesis is rather that he was reconciling. and ultimately of choice, is a real one. freedom as kissinger defines it is in the experience, is an intellectual experience. but the third point is the christian one perhaps, given the cold war contacts with his early academic career, was that kissinger was just into materialism. his ideal into the materialist areas of history. marxism. in the theory of the soviet, and capitalist material theories. the source that said that if ours birth rate is higher than theirs, during the cold war, and i think those three things, kissinger imagine that he was an idealist . of these would made his contribution distinctive. it made stand out from the pack of people who thought that you could solve the cold war with analysis or something of that sort . >> you're watching tv on "c-span2". and we are looking at authors programs with fellows from stanford universities, hoover institution a public policy think tank founded in 1919 by stanford alumnus, president herbert hoover. up next, john, who worked in the office of legal counsel at the justice department hearing george w. bush administration. spoke to the commonwealth club in san francisco in 2012. about his co-authored book, taming globalization. >> let me briefly describe in texas. anything how, to me it encapsulates 11 of the issues and taming globalization. and texas as a case of mexican national. who cross the border and committed murder. and capital murder and must instant sentenced to death by the state court in texas. and he was out however given his warnings under the conventions. which required that when an alien is arrested in the united states, he be given warnings that he can seek access to his consulate and then he can get assistance from translators and so on. and texas refused to consider its decision even though i had not provided these warnings as required by the treaty. the country of mexico went to international court of justice to seek release that said united states had violated its and found against the united states, and said that the united states had in fact violated our obligation under the treaty rated and issued an order to the united states to hold the execution and the other aliens on death row in the united states also were in the same situation. president bush, issued an order to the governor of texas. baddressing in the interest upon the letter . he issued an order to the governor rick perry asking him, essentially ordering him to stop the executions of the united states could come into compliance with the vienna convention and the international court of justice's decision. in texas refused to obey it. and actually withdrew the supreme court and ultimately the u.s. supreme court refused to stop the execution and he was executed. their shortly thereafter. and in that decision the supreme court said that even though you the united states signed the vienna convention that required these kinds of warnings that congress still had yet to do something. they had act to put it into effect. but until congress to death, the courts were not going to get into the business of enforcing the treaties. even in death the delta case with someone was on death row. and in that one case, it's very complicated but that one case summarizes a lot of the issues in this book. in the first is that although use that phrase a lot, has caused a lot of changes in our political and legal systems. and we say globalization, we mean a few things. one is the easy and rapid and cheap movement of goods, capital and people across national borders. certain for example in the united states, millions of aliens cross our borders every year and coming in and out of the country. and billions of dollars of goods and services also cross our borders. and in the last i think the economic report of president a few years ago, 30 percent of american gross national product is either related to enforcer exports. and of course billions of dollars move with the press of a button between accounts here and abroad. globalization also refers to i think the ease of communications in the rise of the internet in the creation of new kinds of networks. they make it extremely easy and cheap for people to communicate and for things abroad to affect us here at home in the way that they didn't use to 50 years ago or even 25 years ago. so if you look today at the american stock markets, they move up and down and every reaction that is what stephanie increase . leather grease will be able to pay back its bond. it will have an impact that same date on the dow jones . probably wouldn't have happened 34 years ago but the speed and click click is makes that possible. however, we also be the first to admit that globalization is not an un- diluted good. globalization also makes bad things possible. for example, transnational criminal networks, drug smuggling, pollution present state borders. terrorism class the state borders. in fact a lot of these problems cross our uses same channels of international commerce, and communication to move around the world, just as goods, capital and people do. and that has worked i think in our view a response which is to try to create a regulatory regimes that control these new types of globalization's. it is call in the book, global governance but people refer to it as many different things but the basic idea is that is outside of the power of a single nationstate to effectively regulate any of these things anymore. it used to be when we empowered one country to affect most of the goods, services and capital and to control problems like pollution and crime that would occur within the borders. but today because of these of transportation and the ease of communication and because of globalization, it lies outside of the power of those nationstates effectively regulate these new types of problems. so what you have is the rise, we argue of a new kind of governance . global governance. it has two features to it. one is that international agreements now try to regulate worldwide, and to effectively regulate something international law has to have a scope that it didn't used to have. so for example to regulate chemical weapons, worldwide convention regulates the production and storage and existence of every common chemical in the world matter who possesses it. even chemicals held by research laboratories, by industry, by private prisons while under the chemical weapons convention . something that you see is a broad scope that reaches well into a nationstate in a way that the international did not before. in the second thing is the rise of new kinds of international institutions. that are neutral and independent from the control of any one country. in fact it wouldn't be able to do the job it was they had this characteristic. because in order to effectively regulate and enforce these new kinds of international laws, institutions have to be seen as outside the control of any single country. and so you have the rise of things like not just the united nations and security council and the justice which i just mentioned but things like the chemical weapons convention and has a secretary or the world trade organization. they have new forms of course . and informs the regulatory bodies. the sit outside the control of anyone country but also because of that independence, a kind of power that international institutions do not have before. it used to be a thing, fair to say that international institutions were more directly into the control of the few nations, some nations another seen as independent of any nations rated so to give an example, the united season of the countries in the world work effort to reach an agreement about global warming. it would have both of these characteristics . global warming treaty to be effective would have to be able to reach into energy production and use in a country in ways the federal government today does not relate here at home. and even maybe to the extent of regulating domestic our home energies. and the same time would have to create international institution that would have to decide how much each country was allowed to prison terms of energy and how much pollution he was allowed to make great and also to measure whether people in violation and issue sanctions. nobody would trusted institution if it's directly under the control of the united states. while european union or of china. hood visits legitimacy and its independent function. the regime would not function. unless you had an independent institution separate from the controlled nationstate. i don't feel it don't feel like these are really controversial discussions of what's going on the road. i think were still at the early stages but things are going on and accelerating. our view is that as globalization ties the united states at a communist society tighter to the rest of the world, they will see more and more of these kinds of agreements and institutions. the problem from our view is not that these are done at the international level, the question for us in the question for the book of taming globalization is out of the united states political legal system respond. can the united states cooperate with these news kinds of regimes and how does it do it. it is a fundamental tension issue at the heart of the book. because as you can guess, my description, some of the new kinds of regulation and some of the new kinds of institutions are in tension with the way the united states traditionally exercises public power. interestingly run into the prerogatives of congress and especially over control of domestic law and things like taxation. but also the prerogatives of the executive branch and of the judiciary. to give one example, when a treaty regulates an issue, the standard doctrine i think amongst many scholars many people who work in this area, the treaties are not limited by the same restrictions on behalf of federalism that apply to congressional statutes. so there was a famous case commissary versus holland. were back in the 1920s, it was thought that congress cannot regulate th and protected specis of birds for endangers species reasons. the court in the lower courts struck down statutes that try to protect birds. but the united states then entered a treaty with canada. from the migratory bird treaty called th. and that congress did the same think that the course and it could not do in missouri and supreme court said that the nics could do that. the federal government the power could be brought under . regulate things domestically they couldn't do via just a normal congressional statute. another example would be an area of separation of powers if the courts played the same role that they played with the domestic affairs think of hours of the course would grow. they will be called into areas in matters traditionally had it been involved the because the international law and international regimes and institutions are affecting more things that used to be under the control of the national government by the states, ill by nature draw the courts into the kinds of delicate decisions about politics and foreign affairs that they used to try to stay out of. >> we conclude our looks at books by hoover institution fellows with author shelby steele. this interview took place in the libertarian conference freedom best in las vegas in 2017. mr. steele was there to talk about his book, shame, how americans passed since i polarized our country. >> i bristled with this title for a long time on this book. there were many different themes that i tried to introduce in the book. i couldn't find a single thing. and finally came upon with my wife, the word shame. and that word seems to bring together all of the things that i was trying to work with. host: saluted central central theme that you're going to . john >> the ideas that america arguably the greatest country in all of history also committed some of the most greatest sins. perpetrated the san over centuries. an entire race of people. year in and year out for a very long time. profound evil. and it was stunning. and so now they were finally delivering us from what we were doing wrong. but on the other hand. [inaudible]. in shame, we now have to deal with its. maybe too close to the 60s when we first acknowledge the chain. to understand the support . [inaudible]. candidate deal with this. so the book tries to give a different aspect of that. that irony. host: so my reading of it, and belong to the 1960s in your view and that's of political polarization. >> yes. thank you . is a very fair assessment. in the 1960s, the change and took responsibility for dealing with that shame. and saying in effect we are the politics, the ideology of the regime. going to bring back as democra democracy. that is our position. i think it dominated american politics . [inaudible]. and for the last six years. simply because this terrible shame. that we will end it racism. and end at sexism. we will end all of those things. the people we hurt, we will have great societies and we will have war and poverty. and we will correct those things. and that will restore things. host: in your book, you use this word . liberally. and he said that some groups co-opted. they didn't necessarily want to be but they co-opted the word. shelby: yes. [inaudible]. shelby: and almost made romance around it. so what applies to the word, kind of has power. in truth that had never been really there before. but it did serve the argument. much of the argument that was coming from minorities in america for the last 50 years. since the 60s, and i you have admitted all that you did. and we now demand in the name of what we suffered, that empowers us . gives us an entitlement for special consideration in america right now. so that word was just a theme that contributed to the larger point of view. host: why did you tell the story of . [inaudible]. shelby: but tell that story that i was only black kid on the swimming team. and i was the captain of the team. the coach and i have was very close really. but the summer before my senior year, there is three weeks vacation for the entire team. an upper lake michigan. and he invited me. i was actually was excluded. in the team organized it and i didn't know anything about it. in this wonderful time that they were going to have upon the lake. i was never told about it. in the implication there is there was racism. but he was my friend. we liked each other. but he wasn't, his mother said no blacks. and so he plotted with that parents and the other summons and so forth. so i did not get invited. he liked me. i liked him. [inaudible]. and yet he collaborated in a way that was very kroll. but sending me a message the larger america, that there was something unacceptable about it. he was not able to see that. but i think he did. and so i talked about him in the situation of the sort of profound democracy. then america's now in the now looking at minorities in much the same way that he lifted me. and he got mad and named him in the book any company names. and knew that he was wrong and he knew that he was wrong. in america now stands before his minority. humble. apologetic. begging for some relief from the stigma of racism. not his minority power. missing this for more than 50 years. so that little incident of putting the swimming team. and i did not put the swimming team because of what he did. i grew up in segregation. i seen in all of the time. and talking about all of the incidents, this would take all day. but i knew that he was terrified. so that's what it ended up being about. [inaudible]. host: what was your parents life like in 1940s in chicago. shelby: two very successful people. my father taught himself how to read and write he only had the third grade education. my mother was daughter of a contractor and went to university of chicago and so forth. they were very different. once he got to know them, you saw that my father spent more time reading than my mother. he was very well read. but for them, life was exceptional people in that they knew and had no delusions about the fact that they were going to have to fight for place in america life. and they did did it and they did it without ever complaining, they were founding members of racial equality. i was a core baby. i was a core baby read so i marched all through childhood and demonstrated. that's what i came out of. they fought their entire entire lives for civil rights. and they were true. they were admiral people. host: for the wrong. shelby: they were not wrong. they were right. this is something, they were not strong. in their day, this was a deeply blanket late, racist society. i grew up, i couldn't go here or there. and never ate in a restaurant him 17 years old. on the swimming team. because you blacks didn't go in a restaurant . could not get a there. segregation was everywhere. they were fighting a real concrete unapologetic enemy. in america society the said listen, you're going to stay inferior. or forget about it. of famous essayist in the 50s, said you probably right go slow. obviously you've never heard of captain henry. give me freedom of giving that. oh my friends like that. they were not ever apologetic. they fought to the bitter end. and so i grew up seeing all of that rate it certainly impact on me. on who i became in the long run. but they were to - now, many years later, 50 years later. america is a different place. america is not racist. it'll stop the names in hopes of any black person and recollect. you do anything you want. you can that be the president, even be a ceo, you can be a dishwasher. you can be anything you choose to be in america today. does that mean every white person is going to love you. i don't know and i don't care. what is important is that you have the opportunity. the opportunity is what it's all about. so the civil rights movement today, is very different than back then. if they're fighting against the real racist. the real enemy that is going to something lives. basically now the fighting for manipulating white guilt. they're using the story of blocks to manipulate the largest society into entitlements and generation of black leaders who do nothing but shakedown corporations. this is not the civil rights movement in my time. as that's when i grew up in. it's a very different one. host: what your connection to stanford university and hoover institution. shelby: i'm a senior fellow at hoover institution. and at stanford university which is always been very happy about. quite quite institution a great people there. right environment. my colleagues, and has meant everything to me in my work. and i hav facilitated that. so i am a fan. [laughter]. >> these are just a few of the many hoover institution fellows both appear to book tv. you can watch any of the programs featured of the past 90 minutes in their entirety. on the website, tv .org . just search hoover institution and look. weeknights is month, were featuring book tv programs as a preview of what is available every weekend as he spent two and i'm beginning in a 30 eastern, black lives matter that are discusses organizing and building long-term grassroots movements. and then youth activist and author offers thoughts on race riots and the police . and later columbia university professor argues that integration is integral to combating racism in america. enjoy book tv, as he said to. here are some of the current best-selling nonfiction books according to the wall street journal. topping the list, they argue that a democratic victory in 2020 with a two socialism and economic strife and live free or die. after that in too much and never enough, president trump's america takes a critical look at the president and his family. and in pulitzer prize-winning author isabel a store so she called the hidden caste system in the united states. this followed by fighting freedom, reflection on the significance of prince harry and megan merkel's marriage and wrapping up our look at some of the best-selling nonfiction books according to the wall street journal. how to be in a tight racist, they argue america must choose to be antiracist and work towards building a more equitable society. most of these authors have appeared in the tv. you watch them online at booktv.org. during a virtual author event hosted by technol seattle, cultural writer look at how women experienced and managed power. here's a portion of the program. >> is a photograph. very famous photograph in 1950 by photographer as you can see she is in her 40s. she is getting ready and she's in the bathroom. she's wearing very high heels. she putting up her hair. then somehow this photograph is always it upsets me and said contradiction. the fact that she is wearing heels, though she is naked. she wasn't really or didn't really technically give her permission for this photograph prayed that she did leave the door open which is the strange man was at the top of the stairs right there. and he said, he heard the clicking and she was like not a boy didn't really care. but when you see the photo sort of her not caring that the world is seeing her in this intimate moment. and that is what sort of projected there. and i guess two things that inspired this book. from that photograph is the idea that maybe it's okay to at a certain point in your life to sort of show yourself and that kind of intimate unguarded moment. like the real self, the real you. and there was one thing that photograph treated in the other thing that interested me is something that she herself was really interested in which is kind of showing women in all of their contradiction. the kind of weird jarring of putting her hair up in she's naked and she's wearing heels. that contradiction of who she is at that moment. she's a brilliant intellectual feminist . and she's getting ready in the mirror. and follow that kind of contradiction that goes into being the self. ... ... i am sorry to disappoint the feminists, but i just don't give a damn. it's too bad so many of them live in theory and not real lif life. and i found that quote so interesting. maybe that concept of disappointing the feminists partly because i myself have disappointed the feminists for many decades. but also the idea of that gap between theory and life. but you could be somebody who lived sort of substance to gated yourself to a relationship to a man. but you're also incredibly powerful person in your work and enter life. enter intellectual achievements. and that is at the heart of this book, which really obsesses a lot over the question of how, and i look at my own life and very frankly in this book. how sometimes you are strong and successful, and sometimes you are not. >> to watch the rest of this discussion, visit our website booktv.org and search the title of her book, the power notebooks. >> hello and welcome to the deviant tour ann arbor addition. it is my honor to be here this weekend with my wonderful cohost.