Transcripts For CSPAN3 Key Figures At The End Of The Cold War 20140614

And just before dialling the white house to alert the he receives a third call. The whole thing had been a false alarm. Computer error and the point this is that the prospect, was very real the stakes were very high in the cold war. Years later something amazing happened. Images of seen the on berlin wall opening november 9, 1989, and well get to see them again this fall as commemorate the 20th momentous of that occasion. These years over in roughly a decade . How does the cold war end . We go from the National Security advisor getting called middle of the night with suddenly of alarm to the whole thing ending peacefully. Changes, e are big structural changes that happened happen in the world during this decade. Theres the saoeurling debt drop in the e global price of oil in the mid 1980s which spelled relief for he west and presented a severe obstacle in its efforts to gain currency. You have Information Age that hreatens closed societies and empowered the fundamental ma pts marxist lennonism and which liberated people in africa, Southeast Asia nd elsewhere and provided two models. The collapse of the portuguese 1975 ended 500 years f direct european rule and the rise of supernatural national zones, perhaps european al, the conomic Community Free trade recovery ou have the f capitalistic economies particularly United States and germany. Also history of hard ower reversal trends of u. S. And its allied military capabilities. Have deployment of i. N. F. Missiles, the success of the u. S. Trident. Basing fitting f cruise missiles on the old b52s and advancement of the stealth bomber. Out f these were questions answers at the end of the administration. Which ns with policymakers wrestled but were unresolved. And then of course you have 1989 miracles. Of peace protestors put their their lives on the line, not just their reputations. The passage of time was important. Structural changes were important. Important. R was at the end of the day, however, story the end e one of war is power. Duals in my basic argument in the book is that improvisation , by individuals in positions of century of a half old war and spector of nuclear holocaust. Four of the leaders stand out, gosh khof, ronald eagan, George Schultz and george h. W. Bush. Have andividuals did not master plan or a grand strategy to end the cold war. Hey improvised and did so in ways i will try to describe in just a few minutes. Me go over these four individuals. I dont have a power point i think we all know what khof and reagan looked like. What is it about these four ndividuals that was important story . Gosh ba khof was the most individual in the story of the end the cold war. E believed that his country possessed sufficient military to focus primarily on domestic priorities and advance d an empire to his reforms. He pursued new thinking and adapt to an evolving word. His tempted to reconfigure ideology which was communism to the challenges of the 1980s. Is devotion to reforming communism inspired him to make concessions that reversed the of the u. S. soviet the ontation and allowed to bring it to an end. His slogans above all were xamples most important acceleration, pair tphauft, new glass world amounted to just that, tkpwapbz. His new thinking did not provide tangible alternative for structuring the international economy. It was just a few sergei who was here the point that i think its a very important one what he puts thinking 1987 new for the world. Regarded him rld savior. His limitations reveal that he all leaders like he faced choices and they came costs. World war ght up in ii a ii. In the sizele pride r the quantity of soviet missiles. He travelled to western europe 19 seventies and disparity and welfare stung his pride. O did going to prague and seeing how other younger idea soviet k viewed the union. He discarded moscows commitment embraced strategic sufficiency. January 1986 he callgave a speh and three months after after the Catastrophic Nuclear meltdown in chernobyl, they led him to redouble the efforts. Year, he engaged with sharedican president who his vision of a World Without weapons. Not man Ronald Reagan was the cowboy his critics alleged. I think one thinks of reagan in terms of his off the cuff line, we begin bombing in five right . Not the cowboy his critics alleged. Occasions. H that does not capture Ronald Reagan. E had long dreamed of a World Without Nuclear Weapons and he an idea about how to do it, an idea that evolved over the pregnancy. He 1983 the in march initiative or ions. Defense star wars or sdi became an essential component for the world after getting to know him reagan sdi as a massive insurance policy and one he share with the kremlin to make sure they stuck together. Obody at the start of the decade would have imagined that man who called for Massive Nuclear buildup would just a offering to er be initiative or his soviet star counterpart. I think this comes through very clearly in the documentation available. Sdi was not a deception and was not an employ. The cold war win but i think that he established he set the terms debates of strategic the 1980s. Option tions of zero that is to say the ultimate goal for these intermediate range be kpiles in europe should zero. Something he announced at the and of the Administration Since the United States had not inf this was cynical non e a starter. Theres another part of reagan nd that is when it came to Foreign Policy his thoughts and conflicted. E he wanted to abolish nuclear eradicate communism. First goal d the acquired. Others, he did not. Great example of this ambivalence would be is that he goes out and speeches in 81, 82 and and one soviet union time he does it in march of 83. When he gives these hawkish would write personal felt letters heart saying we need to sit down mano to find out the cold war. Leaders didnt know how this. Spond to given reagans ambivalence and the type of manager he was i mean, reagan had very had all firing irst of people. Thats one thing. On a less drastic level he had difficulty telling his exactly what he wanted them to do. This sets up in the first two of s particularly a sense confusion in terms of who is the show. Ed months the de facto security 81. Sor in happened zander hague expected the vicker of Foreign Policy. E quickly learns that he is often shutout and is unable to a real relationship, productive relationship, with reagan. Andivalencehis the power of it such as Casper William clark, because of this i think that schultz needs to be the third indispensable actor in this period. Of the first e dministration when shuts comes in in the summer of 82 from his period onward throughout the second administration, shuts was the agent of u. S. Foreign in the administration. Of the red the trust president and deflected hard lineers and concentrated on the and labored to from relations with it confrontation to cooperation gorbachevs ascent. When gorbachev comes in, schultz forms a bond with him that turns out to be just as important as relationship with the president. Engage the ed to cold war adversary, establish promote are ideas and human rights everywhere. Was und optimism in what going on in the world. In the Information Age, the promise it held for capitalism he did not regard the relationship between east and i t as zero sum game and think thats different than the more foreign lled we cy professionals shall say, henry kissinger. Did not have use for theyr theories of linkage or grand strategy. Power sum midst in 89 and 88 schultz interact with counterpart and gorbachev advisor to outside skroeubg ka in a way that i think very much impressed orbachev and those performers around him. Schultz also empowered reagans bargain with the soviets and supported the to in 1987of efforts to achieve an i. M. F. Treaty when this were a lot of people who saying, this was a bad deal you and had a number of u. S. Allies who had extended tremendous cappal leading up to 83 to accept the missiles. April 1987, schultz tpwrurbed congressional nd resolution to travel to moscow t a moment when gorbachev needed him and in that summer, fascinating of meetings that have been declassified, there is a real theres a real battle between burger and other number of others in the administration as to whether the u. S. Should shut off all arms negotiatio negotiations. N the end schultz outlasted rivals. When reagan and when reagan and schultz left office, in early 1989, they believed the cold war was basically over. George h. W. Bush is having a moment. Everywhere these days, he is universally beloved and it is something to consider why that is i have my own thoughts. When he came into office, there was a sense that reagan had been such a towering figure, bush did not have the same mandate either in the popular vote or in the congress that reagan had coming out of 84. Bush was constrained, his manner was cautious. When he came in in 1989, even though there had been such progress in the cold war in arresting the arms race and reducing tensions, the fundamental dynamics still remained. Germany was divided, europe was divided, communism was still alive, and nuclear strategic, the strategic arms reduction treaty was still unsettled. His manner was cautious and he lacked reagans ebullience. He prudently led the nation through these years and skillfully managed his National Security team, something that reagan had a lot of trouble with. Bush did so in the face of domestic political constraints, a hostile congress, public clamor over the federal deficit, and support for rapid independence on the part of americans who shared ethnic heritage. He managed competing domestic games while maintaining the priorities of dealing with gorbachev and minimizing violence as the soviet empire withered. The last chapter in the book is about how i think bush oversaw the construction of a new configuration of power after the berlin wall. One that resolved the fundamental components of the cold war on washingtons terms. It undercut the rationale for huge Nuclear Arsenals to defend European Security against overwhelming soviet advantage. Diplomacy allowed for the swift reunification of germany and european integration. Reform of existing International Institutions and promotion of some new ones revived capitalization of markets, trade, investment that had existed before world war i. The confirmation of cold war victory occurred when bush put together a coalition to expel Saddam Hussein from kuwait. 1991, the persian gulf war, demonstrated that the cold war finally was over and the u. S. Power and American Values reign supreme with all of the consequences that supremacy implied. Let me just say quickly about some of the other individuals that i write about. Gorbachev and reagan and schultz and bush all had very astute and imaginative advisors. Chief among them on the soviet side jack matlock was the most important soviet expert on the u. S. Side. Baker, i write about. Others played key roles. Margaret thatcher and her economic policies were an important precursor to Ronald Reagan. Went against the neoliberal consensus. Helmut kohl took the lead on german unification. He was Ronald Reagans closest ally. And, on this occasion, or after this weekend, one has to consider the importance of john paul ii. He was the foremost anticommunist. He sustained the hope of the Solidarity Movement in poland. I also write about the decisions in the late 1970s to move away from the communist model. Let me tie it back to the opening. This notion of the National Security advisor in 1979 being woken up in the middle of the night, saying that the missiles are coming. I think that one needs to have some kind of perspective on what is going on now. The cold war generation grew up with the specter of a nuclear war. For me, this is a personal project. I am very lucky. People of my generation who came were 16 in the 1990s, have no real memory of having to face existential angst. It is a wonderful thing, no matter what we say here. The importance of the forum of the National History Center Features the Free Exchange of ideas, the importance of what the cold war history project has done, in terms of transparency and preserving the story of what happened in Eastern Europe and elsewhere at the end of the cold war. It is wonderful to be in a community where we can be driven by the pursuit of knowing more and not less about the past and not be afraid of it. Thank you. [applause] now, we get to the part where we Exchange Ideas that we heard about. I ask if you would wait for the microphone before you speak and identify yourself before you offer the question. We would appreciate it. Let me start it off. Thank you. Thank you, james. A wonderful presentation. Congratulations on the book. We are delighted to feature it today. I wonder if i could press you on a couple of issues a little bit further. I would like you to tell me why somebody should buy this book. It is not the first book on the end of the cold war. We have featured others here. Can you tell me your main argument . A piece of that answer is the role of george bush that you persuasively underlined in your presentation. To put it in a different way, how would you counter critics who would say that this is just another great man history of the end of the cold war . What is the graphic context and what is your particular place in this book . That is the first question. The second question is more a specific question. Bush there are those who said that he was having a moment. When you first said that, i thought you were going in a different way. There are those who have argued that, in fact, the bush administration, in the first part of 1989 were missing in action. They fought for policy review. They step back stage a bit. You know, a vacuum. So, how would you how would you deal with that criticism . Let me start with the second one first. That is the most persuasive exposition of what you are saying. Tom blanton has written about the first few months of 1989. The pause, as the soviets referred to it as. I do not think that bush was missing in action in the first few months. I think that, first of all, given his walking away from the view of nuclear abolitionism, which gorbachev believed that he had had a sincere oath with Ronald Reagan that this would continue. There was a meeting with bush at the end of 1987 or in new york in 1988. Gorbachev believed that he had an understanding that things would continue as reagan had left them. I think that anyone who is elected president would have stepped away from reagans grand vision. I also think that the last year and a half of the Reagan Administration, there was real drift. Reagans capabilities declined. He, i think, was not he had trouble in 1988 giving clear priorities. Schultz was well, i think that there was a lot of reconsideration that should have happened in 1988 that bush felt needed to happen in the first few months of 1989. There was we see in the records that robert and Brent Scowcroft were all thinking about how do we translate perestroika and the unpredictability of where it may lead into concrete ways. After all, nobody could have anticipated how quickly and how the soviets and gorbachev, in particular, would allow Eastern Europe to go in the fall. I do not think they were missing in action. In the end, even if they were, i am not sure what the effect ultimately was. What the longterm effect was. Other than that gorbachev was frustrated. In terms of as to why you should buy the book, it is the story of individuals. These people were not gods or saints. They struggled very hard. They made lots of mistakes. Gorbachev is somebody that i walk away with amazement about. He really believed in the notions of new world order. He calls for it in december of 1988. He believes in perestroika. He says to bush in malta in 1989 that they need perestroika. They say that they do not think he has much of an idea of how to proceed. And yet, these ideas and slogans let him to act in ways that were very good. And, i think that one of the things that i try to do in the book that, maybe well, there are really great books. David hoffmans. I think theres a book called, for the soul of mankind. I do not think it is available anymore. This is a story that has been told. I try to accentuate the extent to which gorbachev was acting based on the ideas and the motivation that he drew from seeing that the west and capitalism was recovering by the middle of the 1980s. Recovering not in the way that his ideology informed him. He did not think that the more western, the more military they would be. You know, i also, i think, try to accentuate the role that internal power struggles within the president ial administration, where schultz is so fundamental. I think the importance of that is a new story. I think the ability to have, in his mind, a contradictory grand vision, a World Without Nuclear Weapons and to eradicate communism. These competing ambitions acted across purposes. Beyond even the lead up to the fall of 1989, i think that the concept of a new world order that bush and scowcroft talked about were derided for not having much specificity. I think it was Something Real to them. I think there is a lot that is new here. Whether it is better, i will leave it up to others to decide. Right there in the back in the blue shirt. Thank you. University of amsterdam. James and i have bought the book. I recommend it to everybody here. It is wonderful. Concise and persuasive, for all the reasons you mentioned. I want to ask a question that goes back to the beginning of your presentation. You started out describing Larger Forces at play in the late 1970s and early 1980s. How the world was changing. Then, you quickly jumped to these individuals. You said, i think, this is his story of individuals in power. I would like to talk more about how we should think about the relationship of these larger impersonal forces, these changes. And, how the individuals that you have chosen to describe and focus on influence and developments. What is the relationship and how did you make the choice . Well, was kind enough to host me a couple of years ago and we discussed similar things. I think the historical changes that i lay out in the Second Chapter of the book the point is that, what matters is the particular ways in which leaders in power reacted to them. That is to say that brezhnev signs off on the soviet invasion of afghanistan in 1979. Those around him thought that detente was dead. He made a choice. Gorbachev made choices. Sometimes they were results of when gorbachev felt threatened at times by the trends in the world, whether it was the revival of capitalism, the collapse in the price of oil, the debt crisis in Eastern Europe, he felt threatened by sdi. He thought that he would have to order up a new round of soviet defense spending that would impede his ability to reform the system and create a consumer sector. At these moments, gorbachev made choices to react to the world. And, in terms of decolonization, gorbachev and those around him are conscious that there are no more frontiers for uh, exporting communism. It is not to say that he did not have an idea for how the world would act. What i am trying to do what i tried to do in the book, is to say argue against the notion that people acted in only the ways that they were able to act, given the circumstances of the structures around them. I think that the Important Message that i try to deliver in the book is that at any of these points, leaders made choices. Sometimes, in the case of the soviets going into afghanistan, it was verifiably the wrong choice. What gorbachev could have done is come home and say, you know what, this guy, Ronald Reagan, i cannot work with him. He is out to destroy communism. He is out to build an invulnerable shield. We are going to stop and hold up for another 2. 5 years until the next guy comes in. It only takes about 10 weeks for gorbachev to delink the package. He says that they are going to go for an imf treaty on their own. He could have made a different choice and responded differently to recovery in the u. S. And europe. He could have reacted differently to european integration. Also in the back. Hope harris. Thank you so much for the book and your talk. I want to follow up a little bit with the line of questioning about others and how your work would respond to those who have a critical view of gorbachev, saying that what people in the west view as heroic was because he was disorganized and distracted by things going on domestically. There have been various lines of criticism of gorbachev made by various scholars. I am wondering if you can persuade us that the gorbachev you are presenting here is the one we should look at when we look at this important history. Thanks, hope. I am not sure how much i would draw a distinction between my sense of gorbachev and a failed empire version. Did he have a plan . Did he know what he was doing . There was a great line in the book that gorbachev was fdr to the soviet union. He wanted to revive communism anyway he could. He did not know how to do it. It is the inverse of fdr. The results, in terms of gorbachevs actions, with regard to the cold war, are what matter more. When the hungarians go to gorbachev in the spring of 1989 and ask him how he regarded what happened in 1956. He is permissive for them to go ahead and rebury and have the ceremony. As a function, the notion of what it means to take a critical view of gorbachev uh, i dont think that there was some plan for the world that he had for his country that the west was purposely holding back. I think that he was his ideas were disparate. Ultimately, what matters are the results. What he says to john paul ii in late 1989, he says that you and i are working towards the same project. We have been working towards the same ends for the last few years. That is completely insane. How is it that he believes that he and john paul ii are working towards the same end . There is a critical line on gorbachev. It was his decisions that led to the collapse of the empire. Not just the outer empire. Territory that russia had held for several hundred years. The same issues that we are seeing today and the reason why Vladimir Putin says that this is the greatest geopolitical collapse in recent history. The failure of gorbachev to create a new union. There are plenty reasons to be critical of gorbachev. Maybe his intentions were less than noble. In terms of his willingness to withstand the loss of the cold war with United States, we owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude. I second that. The gentleman to the side here. I can hear you, pat. Anyways, i am pat. A retired historian. Reagan and scholz had been in the cold war. Baker and scowcroft were men of the cold war. My question is, what was their objective . Was it to establish armscontrol treaties and tie the soviet union up with arms productions . Was it stability . Was it that they sense that they could get all of Eastern Europe free and win Eastern Europe . As an objective. I think that for reagan and scholz, they had a framework for the topics to negotiate with the soviets. It is something that they called the fourpart framework. Bilateral relations, arms controls, human rights, and covering a number of one might have called them proxy conflicts. In the highest level interactions between scholz, it is about how we broker specific armscontrol deals and enhance stability. That was on his mind after the shoot down in the fall of 1983. He was concerned about the prospect of not having dialogue, even if it meant yelling at each other for a few minutes. They had to sit down. The soviets walked out of negotiations in geneva that fall. I think that reagan stressed mostly the same things. Although, he was a more romanticized view. Think about the two of us coming back and looking at what we have accomplished. I think that was very important, in terms of building trust. Speaking in moscow, in 1988, saying that he does not view the soviet union as an evil empire anymore. That was important. More important than the tear down this wall speech. One thing that is notably absent from the conversations is that they do not really talk about they do not talk about Eastern Europe and the longterm goal of freeing Eastern Europe. In scholzs mind, one of the reasons why there was an antischolzism, was that he saw the soviet union as developing the way china was. He thought that it could be our china. Gradually reform and become less of a menace. He did not have in his mind the events playing out the way they did in 1989. In terms of scowcroft, baker, and bush, the priority i would not say getting Eastern Europe is the right way to put it. I think it was encouraging gradual change in a way that would not invoke violence. Bush was able to sit down with yaruselzke and encourage him to remain part of the new government to hopefully avoid a civil war which was an extreme prospect. That was something the bush was buried good at. Was very good at and i dont the reagan would have been able to do that. There is a question of whether reagan would have reacted to Saddam Hussein in the same way in 1990. I dont think that would have happened. The short answer to Eastern Europe is that they had an understanding, the bush people, of the potential for violence and they were seeing it starting to take place in yugoslavia and they were very mindful of this notion of yugoslavia n withukes in 1991 onward. Thank you. Here, in the front. Hopefully it will work. Thank you. Just a comment and a couple of very Big Questions i understand there is fairly influential chinese writers also pointing at gorbachev in a way you mentioned, having caused the collapse of communism in the soviet union. You did not mention richard perle. I recall at the time he was thought by some that he had proposed the expectation that could never be accepted. The other question is there was an event calledablearcher 33 which had some positive views by the that nato exercises purportedly elicited from president reagan a comment like this do they really believe that . With regard to the idea that the predecessor of gorbachev had actually anticipated for some time the possibility of a nato attack on the soviet union. Richard perle had the nickname the prince of darkness. Its kind of a fun nickname. Im sure there is a Facebook Page for this. Richard perle floated this term. There is an nse meeting in 1981 with a guy named jason ibben who has but a number of classified meetings on his website of reagan files. Weinberger proposes this on behalf of perle has given it to him and he says its perfect. They will never go for it but we will be seen as the white hats. Hague is upset by this and says this is a cynical ploy. Reagans attitude was i like it. I think thats what we should go for. He really sticks to that zero option. In early 1987, there is a lot of pushback among his advisers saying that we put so much to get these missiles in, how do we know that the soviets will not just move them all east and not destroy them . I think the term itself started with some cynicism but then Ronald Reagan appropriates it. In terms of able archer 83, there is a collection of documents and the archives about this. There was something going on called operation vrion correct me on the pronunciation andropov had asked the kgb to look for signs of a surprise attack on the part of the make Reagan Administration in the first few years. This kind of leads to people reporting that they saw the lights on at the state department and the pentagon at 1230 a. M. And that kind of thing. In the fall of 1983, there is a command post exercise that nato does to simulate the release of Nuclear Weapons. The soviets had their own war planning. They have one scenario with a would start off as an exercise and move to the real thing. Was there a war scare in the fall of 1983 . Secondly, did knowledge afterwards of that war scare fundamentally change reagans attitude toward the soviet union . I think the answer isno on both counts. Less emphatic in terms of the purse part because yes, the soviets did have apprehensions. I dont think there was a war scare. Secondly, for it to matter, i think one would have to find evidence that reagan changes his positions. Yes, he has shown something about this and he asks if they believe that. Yes, that was his mentality from the very start he could not understand what the soviets thought he was threatening person. He did not understand why the soviets thought americans were friendly. He wrote over and over in these letters about the same story, the same history lesson, as he called it, that if america was a nation of hostile people, that we at the end of world war ii, since we have the capabilities, we would have tried to dominate the world. The fact that we didnt shows that we are a nonthreatening people. He wrote that over and over again and says this to every soviet leader he meets. It always goes over poorly. From the soviet perspective, the Administration Sets up a ring of bases around the soviet union. Its not like reagan is snapped into reality and shift fundamentally from confrontation to cooperation. There were things that happened in late 1983 that are important. Jack matlock is working on this speech that reagan delivers in january i aboutvan and anya meeting at a diner to talk about issues and a couple would talk about. Early in 1984, reagan starts meeting with suzanne massie, russian historian who tells him about the russian people in the russian soul. I think thats an important relationship. Of course, he is running for reelection. He wants to run as a man of peace even though hes been the First American president , as Walter Mondale remind them constantly, that he was not getting together with the russians in a summit. Reagan wanted to have a summit with the soviets in the first few years under the right circumstances. I think the broader answer to your question, tom, is that i dont think that able archer 83 i think there has been a mythology that has grown about that. I dont think it was a decisive moment in this story. Im going to slip in a question if i may you note in the book and in the talk that these men are not saints but at the end of the day, they come off looking pretty impressive. There was an occasion and they rose to it in the world is a much better place for it. But use a number of phrases in the book and the talk i was wondering if you could comment on the particular context. You mentioned that schultz was committed to spreading human rights everywhere and the look is about the burden of responsibility and that reagan had a mandate coming out of the 1980 and 1984 elections. On all three of those points, if i shift your focus from the soviet union and United States with regard to europe and Nuclear Weapons and i say the word Central America and ask about reagans engagement with the contras and nicaragua or supporting the government of el salvador, the question of mandates, human rights, and the burden of used on stability of responsibility dont resonate in the Reagan Administration. If you could add that notion of Central America and the other cold war and to the mix, does this story change in any way . Do your characters look any different when that conflict is added to consideration . Uh i would say that reagan, schultz, and bush do not look better when you add nicaragua and el salvador into the mix. One of the things i have not quite understood and one of the great things about working on these formulations is to talk to people who were around at the time. I have not still understood the extent of why there was such fear about nicaragua and el salvador and why there was a willingness to support very unsavory elements. With reagan, the fear never really goes away in nse meetings in the summer of 1986. He is talking about he is quoting lenin to talk about what happens if the sandinistas prevail in nicaragua. I think the full story from this has yet to be told. It will come out about the kind of by the full story, i mean in the currents of ideology and calculation of Strategic Interests and just plain blundering. But your point is very valid, that one of the things that i do not do in this book is to come to a moral reckoning in terms of how these individuals overlooked or encouraged, in some cases, the very questionable things. I still think in their defense, certainly in terms of schultz, i think there was a kind of benign neglect and maybe thats not the right word, when it comes to a lot of the things that came out of irancontra that schultz had his priorities and his biggest priority was dealing with the soviets. I think he may have had a sense that the nse was up to a number of dubious things but i think he did not really want to know. He just did not want to touch it. As i say, thats the story that remains to come out. At the end of the day, the achievements in terms of arresting the nuclear arms race, that is still something that overrides other things. I want to go back to some of the preconditions and see if they were kind of Market Driven or, in the case of oil, the saudi role in driving down the price of oil was significant. Was that in concert with an american strategy or was it as much targeted to under cut the sinfuels company . There is a kind of narrative in a lot of the reagan literature of reagan having a defined grand strategy. The narrative is that casey convinced the saudis to increase production in order to drive down the price to hurt the soviets. I have never seen, from what i worked on in this dissertation and the book, i did not come across a discussion of that. From what i have seen and we talk about this in the book that it was a market decision that the saudis made. They made a decision in their own interest as they are want to do. We have an Energy Policy and over the next few years, there will be a conscious kind of effort to illuminate this story in the formulations serious. Series. What is your opinion regarding the 1989 massacre and if it could affect the collapse of the soviet empire if there was any . I think thats a very important question. I call your attention to sergeis book on gorbachev in asia. My own sense is that her chop was in china is that gorbachev was in china several weeks before the crackdown and he makes some brilliant, tempered remarks to the politburo about whats the big deal. I think that the experience of seeing tianenmen is very much on gorbachevs mind in the fall of 1989, that he thinks that is not how europeans, by his concept of it, thats not how we act. I think even says this in one of the meetings about how why is ciechesku acting like that . I dont quite know if there is enough evidence to say that this is a kind of, almost a racial thing with gorbachev. I think there is some hints of this notion that we are not going to act like the chinese did. Its worth rethinking what you just said because i think just prior my timing on this may be wrong i think it was just prior to Tiananmen Square that there was a massacre before that. I think it was in april thats right. Then there were killings in i believe 1990 in the winter. In the baltic states. Gorbachev allegedly was complicit with. I wonder if there really if what sergei said about the 3000 deaths being that not big deal is more reflective of gorbachevs actual attitudes than this notion that you very generously gave him that is not what we white folks do. Gorbachev certainly, from what ive seen at least and you may have seen more, was horrified by what happened in to lisi t ablisi in april of 1989. In terms of lithuania, january 1991 . I think at this point, and i dont have really a clear answer on this, he is so fed up with the lithuanians. In terms of complicity, i dont know honestly the extent of that. I have a sense of his reaction to that which was not one of total horror. Its something that certainly one has to keep thinking about, what it is that his thinking has changed by that point. It does not belie the fact that, in the fall of 1989, this is postfall of 1989, when he clearly and decisively does not even consider a chinese solution in east germany. Im afraid that was our last question, our last answer given the time. We would invite you to remain afterwards and join us for a glass of wine and carry on the conversation and buy a book. I would call to your attention for next week im amazed five, Thomas Bogart of the u. S. Army center for military history will be speaking on covert legions of a u. S. Army intelligence, and the defense of europe, 19441949. Thank you all for coming. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] one of the things people do not always recognize was that the war of 1812 was caught until after 1814, early 1815. It was really about america reestablishing its independence against the british. This was sort of our second american revolution, and this flag is the object for which Francis Scott key penned the words which became our national anthem. In 1995e and 19 5 that the flag was made to look old. The bottom was reconstructed. There was a deliberate decision by the curator not to do that again. What we wanted was that the flag becomes a metaphor of the country, tattered, torn, but still survives. The message is the survival of the country and flag. We are not trying to make it look for the. We are trying to make it look like it has endured its history and can still celebrate its history. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the British Naval bombardment of work mchenry during the war of 1812. Learn more about the flag Francis Scott key wrote about why we tour the smithsonians starspangled banner exhibit. Part of American History tv this. Eekend on cspan3 next on the civil war, author discusses the significance of the battle of cold harbor, which took face in virginia 150 years ago in may and june of 1864. He describes the strategies employed by ulysses s. Grant and robert e lee as well as the challenges a faced during the battle. This hourlong event took place at the Cold Harbor Battlefield in virginia. Well, thank you very much, bob. I appreciate it. As i told you folks i talked with his morning, it is an honor for me to be here. There is Something Special about the battlefield here at cold harbor. In theabout my interest american civil war, im sure like most of you did. I got it from my father. My dad was born in 1901 and a little town on the tennesseealabama border that was only 35 years after the end of the american civil war. As you might imagine, most of those old men sitting around the Grocery Store were confederate veterans. He grew up listening to their tall tales and talking with them about their battles. I was born in 1945. When i grow up, what all of my friends were hearing fairy tales and stories from their parents, my dad was reading the books sth names like lee lieutenants, stuff like that. We visited the battlefield. We did not make any trips to cold harbor, though, because there really was not that much here. The overland campaign, which is the campaign that brings grant and lead to where we are now, really was not the focus of that much American Military history. All eyes seemed to be on the earlier battles of the war. I would like to take a couple of minutes too early and you to orient you to help you understand cold harbor and then ill take a more detailed view of that battle itself. You can understand why it is so special. If you can put up with me for four or five minutes, while i repeat a little bit of background to get everybody on will move on to more detailed information. It looked like it would go on forever. Its important to win bat unless virginia. Ecause virginia is still the tory of robert e. Lee. General grant who won all the ba