[silence] ladies and gentlemen, please welcome former abc news anchor Sam Donaldson. [applause] thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this mornings program. There are dates that all of us have a very personal. There are dates that we have as a country that we all share. In my lifetime december 7, 1941 november 22, 1953, 911, these are three terrible dates of the country. Then there is november 9 1989 good news, the fall of the berlin wall. Presaging the end of the soviet union. Its a subject that we are going to discuss today. How did it happen . What are the consequences . Who did this . Who for a look at whats in store for us this morning its a pleasure to welcome andrew card. Who served in three administrations with the Ronald Reagan as Deputy Assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs. With George Herbert walker bush the treasury secretary abnot treasury, secretary of transportation. And with george w. Bush he was the white house chief of staff. Andr
Good afternoon welcome to our seminar book talk and conversation it is a great pleasure to welcome back authors Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan the talks about russias exile to be to distinguish investigative journalist and authors of the red web of the governance of the internet and also of the new nobility with Russian Security services. So this is the third part of the trilogy and we are so excited that you are here with us today. We are filming this so go to the audience will ask you to identify your self and it is on the record in terms of a discussion. In terms of format we will start with general questions i will ask of our core authors and one coauthors and there are copies of the book that they will happily sign for you after the event. Welcome back, welcome to york but tell us about what motivated you to write this book at this particular point in time spin i thank you very much. Have to say you contributed a lot. But not with russian exile. So with the research in new york
She is patricks daughter and tremendous supporter of our organization and this initiative from the beginning. I would like to thank sage publications. Sage in the publishing world is present eminent Publishing House and publish the title we run out of my organization. And they are the principal cosponsor of this lecture, having given just generous funding. So thank you to them. And thank you to the willard staff and to my staff at the American Academy. They have been terrific in getting all this started. We are going to have a brief time for question and answer after ambassador talk. It is going to be brief. There will only have time for several questions. And i would ask you to keep your questions to the point, do your level best not to make mini lecture of your own or position statements. Please wait for a microphone to come to you. We are very pleased to know that cspan is covering this today and we have our inhouse tech staff so wait to be able to be heard before you speak. I welco
It looks like we are complete. We start this segment in the summer of 1921, and in that summer, soviet russia is the scene of a catastrophic famine, as george nash mentioned earlier. Millions are threatened with starvation and disease. Most of them, as you will see in a moment, i will have a map up, were situated in the volga river valley. The soviet government led by Vladimir Lenin is unable to cope with the disaster on its own, so it is forced to allow an appeal to go out for foreign assistance and at that time, on that day, in the summer of 1921, there is only one man on the planet in a position to answer that call, and that of course is the man you see here. That is Herbert Hoover, as chairman of the American Relief administration, the a. R. A. As george nash told us, since 1919 the a. R. A. Is a private relief organization, relief agency. But i would say really, at least for this part of the hoover humanitarian story, we should say it is quasiprivate. Hoover is the secretary of co
Overseas. We are, looks like we are, completely start this segment in the summer of 1921 and in that summer, soviet russia is the scene of a catastrophic famine, as george nash mentioned. Millions are threatened with starvation and disease most of them as you will see are situated end and coming on the oval g. A. R. River valley. The soviet government is unable to cope with the disaster on its own, so its forced to allow an appeal to go out for foreign assistance and, at that time, and that day, in the summer of 1921, theres only one man on the planet in position to answer the call and that is the man you see here, herbert over, as chairman of the American Relief organization. As george nash told us, the era is a private Relief Organization, relief agency, but i would say, early, at least for this part of the hoover humanitarian story, we should say its quasiprivate, whoever is, after all the secretary of commerce and that will play a role and the story as it spins out in the next few