union and when these people talk about the soviet union they talk about russia they never say. it but they don't talk about other countries other than koreans and you know it's only a russian you wouldn't wouldn't would not. yes but if we go to market here i mean it's very very interesting. i look at the origins of the 2nd world war in europe as a failure of the western designed system security system collapsed in the most glaring example of that is munich but if you look at the historical record it wasn't just the soviet union and nazi germany that side to agreements we go back to 1934 germany in poland the u.k. in 1935 with the of the anglo german maritime agreement then we have munich itself then you have the franco german declaration. in 1938 i mean and it goes on a lot be it is well and then when we had munich when we saw czechoslovakia being carved up poland was a part of that partition as well and it's a very hungry as well this is such a myopic self-serving view of history instead of trying to understand why the system failed what they want to do is legitimize not takin

my father was shot down may 1 of 1960 over the soviet union. at the last minute, they would divert right or left. that would allow the soviets to enact their radar system. scramble their jets. it would allow us to figure out how quick they were able to scramble. how quick they could get ready for an attack. it gave us an upper hand, we knew we had five minutes to get in and drop bombs if it had resulted in that during the cold war. we were testing their strengths and weaknesses, as well as gathering information from within their borders through overhead reconnaissance. here is another poster on the first cold war shoot down. called the baltic sea incident of 1950. this airplane was shot down april 8, 1950. this is a poster of the 50th anniversary of that shoot down. this person, mrs. reynolds donated her jacket. her husband was one of the crew members lost on this mission. she donated not only be jacket but some other artifacts to us for display. here we have a piece of a plane that was shot down on january 20th, 1964. here is another piece of

what was sponsored by the soviet union why should you for the soviet union called for a. fascist front. in the us and again all the us and countries tried to push him so that he. could get a minute. and actually germany wanted to expand its trees wanted to fight against the soviet union. i wanted to write an open legged i want to draft inarticulate but i just asked my colleagues to find similar things from the archives so when i read of. everything becomes clear you have a minute by minute. descriptions of the appeasement of stalin and now that any direct contact with hitler while the leaders of france and the u.k. has met with and they signed those papers. did. had the ribbentrop impact and the secret attachment to it that is true whether it's good or bad when you mind. but i sure would like troy attention to the fact that the soviet union was the last. country but it's the last european state that signed and not aggression past. all the rest signed up before so what the soviet union had to do. stand against. one on one well they say they came up there is a division of p

union and ultimately the soviet union for a lot of reasons cracked apart and the us became sort of the ruler of the roost again and i think the u.s. intends to overthrow the government in china and they hope that in the post putin era russia will come apart and that would be the way they're used to polarity would be reassembled and i think that's the real plan here ok well i think it's an interesting plan but i think it's really really far fetched ok if you look at the the end band i mean it's a far fetched you know but i think that i thinking you know because we're all the stuff we've seen in the last 2 decades i think you're right ok unfortunately i think you're absolutely right and that's what makes it really insane look at you know that we go to james here i mean 40 years of relative success in china i mean hundreds of millions of people being pulled out of poverty russia's turnaround in the last 20 years is quite remarkable people that come and visit notice it is well i mean thinking that they can undermine these. legitimate governments through their shenanigans they haven't been

soviet union will never play them or. has a connection to. you so you just need to move ahead we should. just need to improve our lives going forward while look back. here of russia around. what responded to that question earlier so when i 1st met his father the 1st president of the chechen republic. he came to me upon his initiative he didn't come to surrender. he wanted to build a relationship with russia. genius you know look of course we know it was a tile and when we go we didn't have any hostility the chechen republic he told me . that there are. these thoughts there it's their life would be better with some islamic countries but he told me that the realize it would be like that because they wanted to impose their own you know at the wheel of the chechen republic but you mention them which is he told me that so it will be better for the chechen republic to stay within russia russia has always been very tolerant towards our religion towards our internal way of life that it was their choice that was his choice and you

she grew up in the soviet union under stalin. what i mentioned earlier about the nk vd rounding up every second man, her father was the second man. he never came home from the .ulag she was a pilot. she wanted to fly and fight the germans, so she did. an amazing life, amazing story. just a few days after her 21st birthday, she is on patrol over the eastern ukraine. by the time i wrote the book, it was a very peaceful part of the world. it sort of got not peaceful over the last year or so. the place where they shot down the malaysian airliner was about 10 miles from the wreckage of her plane was discovered. she was flying there and she never came back. the last time they saw her, she was being chased through the clouds. it was like 25 years before they found the wreckage of what they assumed was her plane and recovered her body. that is that story. well, we have been at this for about an hour. if there are no more questions -- [applause] bill: i am happy to sign books. and the young man behind the register will be happy to sell th

short of the soviet union. the fourth option was into the soviet union. the group chose longer-range moscow.sia short of i asked my dutch colleague why. he said we think the polls are victims. gentleman, that same i met 20 years later in moscow discussing russia and nato. he was the belgian ambassador to russia. , we were eroding all of that nuke stuff. most of ourletely, work was on improving the conventional balance. the same time the carmelo report was being prepared. you heard about mcnamara's flexible response. .ritten by tim stanley as my mentor said, the difference between that which it said you may count on nuclear , orons from the outset relying on conventional forces. meetingso in 1963 in a in -- what is his name, what am i coming up with? anyway, one of the big nuclear guys said if you can imagine the military wasan told nukes are not just another artillery system. in other words we were working too bad. to get rid ofg that. none of the international relations literature across all those years was of any help whatsoever. >> do you have a questi

adlai stevenson. >> we now know that the soviet union, not content with dr. castro's oath of field, not content with the cuban independence, has decided to transform cuba into a base for communist aggressions, into a base for putting all the americans under the nuclear gun. >> john kennedy and nikita khrushchev had once met in vienna. their meeting established a hotline. now, when every minute counted over that hotline, president kennedy gave the choice. not long afterwards reconnaissance planes were able to report that ships sailing out of cuba were carrying depth cargoes of rockets being returned to the soviet union. the world balance of power that had been deliberately and dangerously tilted, was thus restored, thanks to the firmness of the american president. kennedy said that since the cuban crisis, the good citizens of the united states have read the foreign news in their newspapers with just a shade more attention? what can be said is they are now fully aware that the emphasis has swung away from the old applicable chessboard of europe and onto the twi

and nasser, , while they did tae arms from the soviet union, is not exactly a client of the soviet union. eisenhower panicked, in short. it's very interesting to read his memoirs because he said i felt i had to, quote, to something. now, eisenhower, the hero of the day, maybe the greatest american general of the 20th century, was smart enough to realize, unlike some of his successors, that in invading iraq is really, really hard thing to do. but invading the lebanon is really, really easy to do because the united states has a large fleet in the eastern mediterranean. so when those 2000 marines with the short on july 15, they were backed up by 70 ships of the american six fleet, completing three carrier battle groups. it was a goliath and a midget battlefield. by invading lebanon, or going to the defense of chamoun, the united states was doing something to prevent nasser from sweeping the region. nasser was very popular in lebanon. when he first went to syria after the merger of the two countries in early 1958, 350,000 lebanese came to damascus to hear him speak. this is a country that ha

the soviet union had gone, russia was struggling. here in perm region, the returning soldiers were low priority. this man had been a tank commander in east germany. when he came home there were no facilities, no proper accommodation, it was almost as if he had been forgotten. you know, i think that in many ways, his story encapsulates what happened to his country after 1989. the soviet union, this giant superpower, suddenly found itself dumped on the sidelines of history. and, as a result, russia felt abandoned, it felt lost, and it felt humiliated. perhaps if the end of the cold war had brought instant prosperity to people here, then maybe this loss of status, this loss of empire would have been easier to swallow. but it didn't. the 1990s brought economic chaos and widespread poverty. so what you had here, in effect, was a fertile soil for any strongman promising to make russia great again. enter vladimir putin. russia's president is trying to erase the memory of his country's humiliation. to restore its power, its influence. but mo

in the soviet union come to was mainstream people brewed the drink in their kitchens it was known as the team mushroom. still experiments at home with new flavors for carried. in his business partner division on founded karibu in 2016 as the 1st russian computer company they still try to use mainly russian ingredients for their flavors including juniper berries and pine nuts and they add a healthy dose of nostalgia as well. well. as kids we always waited for our grandmother to pour as a glass of fresh mushrooms. down a lettuce riot. it was only after the fall of the soviet union in the ninety's the fountain and coca-cola and all those carbonated soda started pouring into russia to be the wrong and i pick it now is experiencing a revival in russia around a dozen mainly russian companies sell the drink in the country but memories of the team mushroom don't always help combat sales to become bush's a drink made from tea mushroom i haven't heard of it i've only heard of the teen mushroom yet your new i won't risk drinking something i don't like the look of. but car makers are hoping russ

he's focused on the soviet union. so the islamist presence, the challenge it presents, is basically put way deep in the background. we have a terrible relationship with iran. we don't resolve it during the reagan administration. we don't recognize their government. we keep, as donald trump would tell us later, a huge hunk of their money hostage in our banks. we don't give it back to them. and we just have a deteriorating backstory relationship with iran. and, of course, the irony is it's during the same time that ronald reagan sees opportunity with a different islamist group. a group that eventually we call al qaeda in afghanistan. so because he's such a fierce anti-communist warrior, ronald reagan chooses to side with the islamic revolutionaries in afghanistan. provides them weapons. training. money. so rather than say islamism presents an interesting challenge, we don't treat it seriously. we embrace it in afghanistan because they're anti-soviet. they'ren ant anti-communist. that didn't turn out so well. i think the

now, there was a new power in the world, that of the soviet union, based upon moscow. after 20 years of communism and the battle against hitler's germany, russia was emerging onto the road stage, employing new and disconcerting techniques on the ideas of men, among them marx and lenin. but when ideas must be imposed, for those who cherish freedom, even the ideas themselves become suspect. until his death in 1953, soviet policy was made by stalin and dictated by him. the annexation of the baltic states, the huge advances of the red armies, had placed vast areas of eastern europe under soviet control. there, in countries such as poland, stalin, in signing the peace treaties, had promised his allies to hold free elections. it a virtual political vacuum, with no other party, with no organization worth considering, they had the full support of the occupying red army, and their pressure was relentless. >> the aim, to complete the peacemaking and to solve the problem of a divided germany. smiles, flowers. >> very glad to be back in moscow again. we shall spend the days ahead

she will brief them on the president's forthcoming trip to china and the soviet union. in that library i, ghana, the ivory coast, she meets the leaders and the people. two common man and to the exalted or, there is the same directness. the same human warmth. they take her to their hearts. >> what pat nixon has seen and heard our product for -- >> she will bring her report to the president. she will leave behind the legacy of the section, a renewed frick -- a renewed free relationship between africa. the trips to china and the soviet union are a new beginning in international diplomacy. the president and his first lady go there together. it is difficult for anybody in public life to be in the public eye all of the time, and to maintain poise, character -- to be an example, so to speak. i do not think there was ever a moment when she was not the first lady and her public appearances. >> on foreign visits accompanying the president, the first lady led to the quality only she can. while he negotiates this somber affairs of state, she shows the softer side. , hereport with p

the gulf, under the control of the soviet union. we never really take as seriously as we needed to the islamic presence. it was there. it was obvious. cia knew, national security council knew. it wasn't foremost in their minds. so what happens when those students come in and -- despite the fact they claim it was peaceful, a few of them at least had weapons. so something was off from the beginning about their so-called peaceful intent. and they do, though, at first seize the hostages in a sense thinking it might only be a day, two days, a few days. it's not exactly clear what's going to happen. and as time goes on and things don't get resolved, decisions are being made in all parts of the iranian government. one decision that's made is fascinating, is the iranians decide that because they're good islamic people, it's not right to keep women as hostages. this is inappropriate. so they give the women members of the delegation the right to leave. almost all of them do. there was a couple women left. that was an interesting political dec

work with the soviet union have relations with the soviet comic ties with the soviet union but when the soviet union and began to collapse the. 'd knowledge that they. were introduced to the european union the need to stop and i think that with the crimea more or less. the same situation we have a low budget would say that it's russian territory but everybody would return. get about it for a while the 2nd which is way more important at the moment the young girl working in eastern ukraine where people are dying every single day and that's where your focus is right now that's where the focus from your feeling is the european union is united states is and the focus of ukraine. i think that's where we will find the new media solution in the meanwhile while 'd. praying for them in. short ordinary craniums they would have been with. their life. better than it is right now with. a debate yet again for another day with people from crimea victor all of it in moscow i mean you heard our guest earlier in kiev and of course there is of the 2 sides to this of course from russia's point of view as th

it kept this is tonight most intermediation linked to the soviet union. there are only 2 programs in the polls. i think we all listen to the news at 7 30 in the evening i think. this was a common a strong you know state run company so propaganda machine. so you're listening to it just with one ear and i never believe tough and then something in the middle of the news they said that. opposed to being sort of chosen as the pope. and that's what i mean my ears pricked up and i thought oh this book i think their main impact was not so much for the religious it was nationalist national he was received in poland this is my impression of as a leader of the conflict. but as the most prominent people. in there were the thought. we had the party membership card but each of us was also in our soul a pole. and all of a sudden you know it was unprecedented appalled to become pope and would sit on the throne of st peter. it was extraordinary and we had such a feeling of pride. but there was also a sense that this would become a big problem for the leadership. to. do. o

state department in the soviet union and as a russian affairs analyst for radio free europe/radio liberty. doug is a frequent guest here at hillwood, though it has been nearly three years since his last lecture. i am really delighted to have him back, and i want to thank especially international councilmembers and our dear friends for hosting him this evening. please join me in welcoming douglas smith. [applause] douglas: thank you,kate, for that nice introduction. it is wonderful to be back at hillwood. i am trying to wonder if this is my fourth or fifth time to give a talk. i think of myself as a repeat offender -- only in the best sense. i also want to thank aaron for putting this altogether with all her organizational skills. to c-span and richard for wanting to tape this tonight. hosts,to think my local who are taking good care of me. last, maybe too good of care -- if i am a little incoherent, it is their fault. but it was a fun evening. and i want to thank you all for coming out tonight. there's always a lot of demands on our time. i know disney is now streaming live. [laughter] sa

the soviet union forcibly incorporated the baltic states into the soviet union after the war, after world war ii. we couldn't do anything about it. but for decades, we refused to recognize the forceful incorporation of the baltic states in the soviet union. as a matter of fact, margaret, anybody who sat at the nsc desk had a stamp, and whenever you mentioned latvia, lithuania, or estonia, you stamped it -- "the united states of america does not recognize the forcible incorporation of the baltic states into the soviet union." and you know what? 45 years later, when the baltic states were free, they were among our best allies -- estonia, latvia, and lithuania -- because they remembered that we stood for the right things. and so, yes, you have to do it carefully, you can't give the impression to the people of hong kong that we are gonna come to the rescue. we can't but we need to stand for the right things. >> and that words matter. >> words matter. words matter. and sometimes, words can matter even to the chinese government. to know that the world is watcng and that they need to find a way

however, it is not the old soviet union. if i'm not mistaken the total economy they make some good weapons but the threat posed by russia to europe is in fact a limited one and as steve mentioned a few minutes ago if the europeans were actually concerned about this russian threat they are more than able to deal with it on their own. they currently spend 1.1 percent of gdp on defense. they can afford more. it would appear that the germans and i'm not picking on them but as an example they are not necessarily all that concerned about a russian threat. we should just try to keep things in perspective. what should the united states ask -- reaction be. and the posture in the south china sea. it will coordinate with other countries in the region to declare that we don't accept their territorial claims. we had decided probably correctly that there is no way short of war to stop them. we send it streaming through the south china sea. we still believe that this is open ocean i think we could do more of that. we should get some of our

actually the soviet union russia never had such an industry. processing. recycling so. we've taken the fundamental decision and we have the nationwide operator and we have more than 200 local operators in place. but he. does he. have an arrangement for how we are planning the trip. across the territories what's missing but he definitely direct dialogue. needs to be communication you need to reach out to people to say where is the landfill will be and where. i would definitely. abandon any criminal scheme and the shadow. game people have been angered by a rise of terrorists who never had any line in the fields and. you have it but you have to explain to the people you have to communicate and why you have those everything needs to be transparent what people need to know why the pay for it. village is. doing it when i say usually you know people would just dump their garbage in the nearby forest and here you have. the now they have to put a certain fee for that well the key issue is that people should be aware of what they pay for. my face was saying that because why do th

he identifies the two perhaps as the starting point of the middle east the end of the soviet union and international communism if the united states did not respond to the two - - the coup it could be a significant as a lost of china of 1948 it is a remarkable statement also completely divorced from the fact that his statements had very little to do with reality of iraq and the middle east 1958. 's real concern was not communism but this man the charismatic young very attractive president of egypt who had taken power through 1819 and 1952 and an extraordinary speaker able to lift an audience with his words and survived literally on stage have an assassin fire a bullet at him and he never stopped speaking. he was the winner of the 1956 crisis that egypt defeated the united kingdom and france and israel in part because eisenhower leaned to egypt over the try part tied aggressors and february 1958 syria and egypt united together against the united arab or public today we forgot nationalism as a motivating factor but in the fifties the idea of one arab nation from the gulf to the ocean was

so it was created to fight the soviet union and to be a security alliance to opposed to the soviet union. soviet union is no more, russia remains. the threat from russia is a dangerous cyber threat. and chinese poses an enormous risk to nato, trying to infiltrate nato communications and technology, all the things that china would want to do to empower itself at the expense of our transatlantic partners so mato needs to prepare to do that as well. and nato has taken on an increased role in fighting terrorism. there are nato forces and around the world counterterrorism. so it's important that nato reflect that and be fit for purpose for 2020. the second thing the president was intensely focused on, making sure it wasn't america bearing too great a burden connected to that. so president trump asked these countries to do the simple thing of honoring a promise that they made. every one of the nato companies made a promised to spend 2% of gdp on defense. and egypt and 28 nations made. some lived up to that, some of them are struggling to find a way to do so. we're going to encourage them to do

union collapsed they. decided not to follow through and they are categorical about car defying the

states and the soviet union. there appeared to be little alternative to the 2 political blocs the cold war had the world firmly in its grip. the west was still feeling the after effects of the oil crisis of the early 1970 s. economic growth had slowed and unemployment was steadily rising the post will boom had come to an end. in britain james callaghan's labor government came under pressure from its financial obligations to the international monetary fund but also from a seemingly endless series of strikes that have paralyzed the country. in eastern europe poland remained under soviet rule the polish economy was in crisis and the country was still scarred by the harsh suppression of the words the strikes of 970. the election of a polish cardinal. as pope in 1978 kindled fresh hope. china was drained after 30 years of a prince of rule in december $978.00 the chinese communist party entrusted the fate of the country. he was already in his seventy's. in iran the brutal western oriented dictatorship of the shower was

and the soviet union stood on the brink of nuclear confrontation. with well i got to norm robert mcnamara will who's 60 of friends and morris in the oval office with jack kennedy during the cuban missile crisis he said to me helen you don't know how close we came. to within 3 minutes quote unquote. i think the situation could well be compatible with that. decisions to launch a nuclear strike need to be made quickly and then there are the crews who would actually launch the missiles caldicott has heard some alarming reports. the man in the missile silos in america. is to have minutes just side they are aged 18 to 26 have live in dogs just so nervous or press the buttons are there with the pistol one shoot if one shows signs of deviant behavior but the deviant one much the other one recently it's been determined that many of those men taking l.s.d. not in their missile silos but beforehand and having wild socket experiences allowing at it taking marijuana cocaine and the like. caldicott things a nuclear strike could be launched by mistake. here both g

he only focused on the soviet union. so the cia was hobbled. it's totally fanciful that the cia was using u.s. government money to pay off those who were the opposition. >> in december of 1979, jimmy carter did not like the national christmas tree as a symbol of unity for those held hostage. did that become another matter for metaphor? >> it was. i talked to him, during the book, to a number of your colleagues, people who were reporters at the time and they all said that carter called and he admitted it to me in an interview for the book, that he gave too much attention to it. he could have said, we made an offer to the iranians about negotiating this. they are responsible for the safety of john and his colleagues. if they violated, we will go about it militarily. instead you had yellow ribbons all over, not lighting the christmas tree. he caused more attention for this crisis. you could not have avoided it, obviously, but he made it the centerpiece. he said publicly, every morning when i get up, the first thing i think about is the hostages. a

and in the cold war calculation, we did not want to turn iran over to the soviet union. >> we, by the way, we have a poll on twitter, and you can follow us on c-span, and for this particular program c-span history, and the question is was the iranian hos kaj ctage crisi main reason that president carter was defeated in 1980. wi we will have more of the results of the poll later. so you were held hostage for just over a year, and where were you held and what was it like? >> it was not pleasant. on the other hand, we all survived it. all of us came out, and we all survived which is a great tribute to president carter and his patriots, because he was determined that we would stay alive. it did not necessarily have to happen that way. it could have gone in a different direction, and it could have gone very badly. the iranians, and still many of themrepeated narrative that we were treated well and guests in a hotel, and this is absolutely nonsense. in the 14 months that i was there, i was nine months in solitary, threatened many times, and they arranged mock executions for us, and they iso

bolstered by the soviet union and the kang and t. led by general chiang kai shek drawing its support from the united states. the u. s. was investing a lot in china and they were very much betty all their relations with generally so much on page 6 region as well as the jones family and after the end of the 2nd world war i seeing the united states made the wrong bet. the k m t it lost the bass of the china and embarked on a great retreat to the island of taiwan word established the republic of china that . on october 1st $949.00 would declare the mainland the people's republic of china signaling had another shift away from the failed old order and the end of what many chinese saw a century of humiliation. the chinese communist party under mao for the 1st time had a very deep or mobilisation of the whole chinese society for a political purpose moscow tried to a bear there all these are you could treated western powers saw the career china as a more than those who stayed. should be treated by other nations. in 1950 mouse modern nation st

in other policies were developed that were quite similar to what was being done in the soviet union you mentioned a couple of that or images that matter for is that americans used to describe their . national policy for as the melting pot most recently it's mistake you use the matter for all of communal apartment for the soviet approach of communal apartment with private rooms and shared bathroom and shared kitchen. does it still apply to more than de russia is that how russia deals with the athletic and national question of this world is not quite. the russia is different from all the other post communist nations. in that it is multinational state there are a ministry to the units within the russian federation that of that are defined it's unlikely. and at least in the official rick it is common to talk about the peoples of russia not just the people of russia this is quite different from as i said all the polish communist state which are. ideologically mono yes think so russia is peculiar but of course it's no longer engaged in tense promotion of yes nick difference. now when i was th