Rubenslets talk about vladimir putin. Rice i know him well. He liked me. Rubenstein what are the qualities that you think great leaders actually have . Rice a sense of humilit about what they can achieve. Woman would you fix your tie, please . Rubenstein well, people wouldnt recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. Just leave it this way. All right. I dont consider myself a journalist, and nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began toon the life of being an interviewer, even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . I really need you to come in and help your country, ould you say . Rice i would say, mr. President , there are so many wonderful people who can help our country, and heres my number in palo alto, and do give me a call if theres anything you want to talk about, but im really, really happy. Rubenstein from time to time, your name has been mentioned and can you say for sure that youre not likely to run for either those positions . Rice i can say that with even more certainty because you have tknow your dna, and i dont have the dna of a politician. It is just innervating for me. Rubenstein you grew up initially in birmingham, alabama, in segregated south, and some of your friends were in the terrible birmingham, alabama, church bombing. Did you ever think that from a segregatedsouth beginning that you would ever rise up to hold these kind of positions that you held . Rice never occurred to me but more because i thoht i was gonna rise up and be a great concert pianist. No. My parents were people who had me convinced that, even if i couldnt have a hamburger at woolworths lunch counter, i could be president of the United States if i wanted to be, so in my family, you were going to hieve. You were going to go to college. Vid, im not even the first phd in my family. You wererubenstein o to college. Your father had a phd. Rice; my father and my aunt theresa, my fatherer, and i always say, if you think what i do is kind of weird for a black person, she wrote books on dickens, of all things. Rubenstein so you were an only child . Rice i was an only child. Rubenstein so yrents obviously focused a lot on you. Rice yeah, definitely. Rubenstein and you had all th you were a ballerina. Rice every lesson known to humankind, some of which i was goodwat and some of which t, but they kept me going. I had french lesso. My mother decided that every wellbred, young girl shouak french, so at 9 years old, i was dragged off to french lessons on saturdays. I had ballet lessons. We had etiquette lessons. I wa, of course, a pianist, ah, my parents kept me very, very busy. Rubenstein now, your mother was a schoolteacher . Rice my mother was a teacher and also a musician. Rubenstein and one of her students, i understand, was willie mays. Rice my mom taught willie mays in high school. Rubenstein so was he a good student, or rice i asked ce. He said, oh, i remember miss ray. He said, she told me, now, son, youre gonna be a ballplayer, so if you need to leave a little early, you go ahead and do that, and i thought, doesnt sound exactly like my mother, but thats a great story, so im gonna hold on to it. Ruin ok. Now, your father was a republican. Rice yes. He was. Inin in the early fiftiesirmin, was a republican. There really werent many republicans, so the way that it happened was, my father andy mother before they were married went down to register to vote, so tand the poll testeroked at was, my father andy mother big, tall man, football playeand said, so how many beans are in this jar . And, of course, my father couldnt answer the question, so he said, so my father went back to his church, and he was telling this story to aan who was one of his elders, and mr. Hunter said, oh, reverend, dont worry about it. He said, ill tell you how to get registered. He said, you go down there, and theres a clerk whos a republican. He said, now, shes trying to build the republican party, and if youll just say youre a republican, and he said he was a republican. He he got registerejust say ever forgot it. Blican, he remained a republican the rest of his life. Rubenstein you erok up piano when you 15 or so or earlier . Rice i took up piano when i was 3. Rubenstein 3 . Rice yes. Right. The great advantage to learning to play that early is that i coulread music before i could read. It was like a native language, and so ive always been a really good sightreader because its just natural for me to read the notes. Rube have you ever thought how much more prominent you could be if you had been a classical pianist, not a secretary of state . Those people playing in the Department Store whi you shoppe. Rubenstein youve played with yyo ma. What is that like . Rice i was National Security advisor, anand my secretary came insaid, yoyo ma is on the phone for you. I said, you mean the greatest living cellist . And she said, yes, and was getting the National Medal of the arts, and he wanted me to play with him, and so we played but i wasnt confused. Didnt play with yoyo s the worlds greatest pianist. I played with yoyo ma because i was the National Secur ty advisor and could pl piano, so it came together. Rubenstein but he held up his own . Rice he held up his end of the bargain. Yes. Rube you went to university of denver, and when you went there, Madeleine Albrights father, d been a very Famous International political scientist, was your teacher. Rice well, he was the one who got me into international politics. I actually went to d. U. As a piano major but graduated with just enough units to be a Political Science major. If you look at my transcript, ive got 100 units of music and 45 in Political Science. Rubenstein all right, so you then went to notre dame toyoet a masters, and then went to stanford later . Rice i went to stanford on a oneyear fellowship in the arms control and Disarmament Program learning the physics of Nuclear Weapons and how many warheads could dance the head of an ss18. I learned something very important from that experience. Stanford was looking to diversify its faculty, and it engaged in what i think is a very smart way to do affirmative action, and to this day, i believe affirmative acis still nece, which means you look outside of your normal channels to find people. Theyunad in their midst a black woman who was a soviet specialist, and they offered me a job. They said very firmly, when it comes time for your reappointment, which is after 3 years, the fact that you came through this appointment will mean nothing at all. I remember saying, oh, 3 years. That sounds about right. Thatll give me time to see if i like you and time to see you like me, which i dont think a dean at stanford had ever heard from a prosoective assistant prof rubenstein and the affirmative action was that you were a Classical Music performer, as well. They had none of those. Rice they had none of those, as well. Rubenstein you were recruited to come to the gherbert walker Bush White House staff. Rice administration. Right. I went to be the white and got lucky enough to be the white hoe soviet specialist at the end of the cold war. Rubenstein so you were there when the berlin wall went down. Rice i was. Rubensand did you go in to the president and say, lets jump up and down and take credit for this . Rice i did. I was one of the people. The minut the berlin wall fell, a bunch of us went over to the oval office. Mr. President , you have to go to berlin. You have to go for kennedy. You have to go for truman. You have to go for reagan, and he looked at us, and he said, tat would do, dance wall . He said, is is a german moment, not an american moment, and ill never forget that because it was just so much george h. W. Bush selfeffacing, modest, a great sense of humility, and it was the right thing. He was absolutely right. Rubenstein you saw him recently. You were at the barbara bush funeral. Rurice i was. You saw him recently. Rubenstein and did you have a chance to talk to him at that time . Rice i d. I did. I had a chance to talk to him and tell him how much i love him and loved mrs. Bush. Theythats a generation thats going to beissed. They were people who understood kindness and humility and gentility. They made their mistakes, most certainly, but whenhink about that family and what george h. W. Bush did a public servant, it makes you think of a wonderful time for our country. Rubenstein bill clinton came along, and in the 1992 election, he deated your boss. Rubenstein were you shocked by the outcome . Rice i was. Id already gone back to stanford. Rubenstein oh, you had. Rice i became provost. I was surprised,neut he had done what hed to do, at the end of the ar with respect for gorbachev, never humiliating viet union, not dancing on the wall. One of the last things gorbachev did before he went out to sign the paper that would collapse the soviet union and allow bboris yeltsin to become president of russian federation, we did good things, didnt we . Story will judge us well, and i said to president bush, do you realiz i how extraordinary th well, he was george h. W. Bush. He said, wellit i never thought abou i said, that the president of the soviet union in his last act before the collapse of the soviet union d the american president essentially to seek his affirmation . That was a very big deal, but thats the way he was. Rubenstein another member of the George Herbert walker bush faecides to run for president george w. Bush. Ri yes. Rubenstein you become the National Security advisor, the first woman to be National Security advisor. Rice yes. Rubenstein so youre there, and then 9 11 happens. Rice yes. Rubenstein so where were you on 9 11 . Rice 9 11, i was at my desk. Youll remember that at that event in florida, the education event, and,eust to show you our 11 thinking, i did not go with him that day. My assistant came in, said a plane had hit the world trade center. First, we thought it was an accident. I called president bush. Then a few minutes later, we learned the second plane hit the world trade center. We knew now it was a terrorist attack and then just a procession over the day and really the next several months of just hobson choice after hobson choice after hobson choice for the president of the United States. The United States had not been attacked on its own territory since the war of 1812. We had no structures, no institutions for internal security for the country. It was flying without a compass. Rubenstein so you led the effort, among others, to get Osama Bin Laden, but was it frustrating that he escaped from tora bora, and do you think if youd had redifferent military struc more troops there, you could have captured him . Rice if anybody had said to president bush, Osama Bin Laden is at tora bora, and we need the following to get him, they would have gotten what they needed. The tora bora ghost that people talk about of Osama Bin Laden, there was never really, from our point of view, actual evidence that he was there, and by the time that anybody knew about it, it was too late, and so, yes, it was frustrati, and it was frustrating that we couldnt get him, but what we concentrated on and i think it worked was taking that layer out of the field generals for alqaeda because they were operating like a pretty socated organization, and the field general for north america was Khalid Sheikh mohammed, and when we finally captured Khalid Sheikh mohammed, we felt we knew their battle plan and what was coming next. It was the first time anybody could actually sleep at night, and i said to my students that capturing alid Sheikh Mohammed was like having rommel der lock and key during world war ii, and they looked at me puzzled, and i thought, oh, my god, they dont know who rommel is, so that just says a little bit about how were teaching history in the high schools. Rubenstein subsequently, president bush decided to invade iraq to topple saddam hussein, so in light of hindsight and had you knn were no weapons of mass destruction, would you have still gone forward . Rice weay, you know, i alwayso peop, what you know today can affect what you do tomorrow, but not what you did yesterday, animply believed, as all the intelligence agencies around the world did, that he had weapons of mass destruction, that he was reconstituting theui that he was doing itly, and it was on that basis that we decided that you finally had to do what the International Community had been threatening to do, which was to have serious consequences. In retrospect, i dont know if we had known, what we would have done. I will say this. I still think the worlds better off wiout saddam hussein. He was a cancer in the region, and while iraq went through an extraordinarily difficult time and the thing i would do differently is how we rebuilt iraq. Andi think we mewould a lot of mistakes postwar, but i will say this. I would rather be iraqi than syrian today, and iraq has a chance now to be a stilizing element of the new middle east because they he an accountable government. The iraqi kurds and baghdad are finally finding some way of dealing with one another, and its a very different place, and the arab spring was going to happen, and think iraq wouldve made, so you never knowat you. Youll never be able to bring back the lives lost, and youll never be able to deal with that, ill turn out ok, and i wish we hadnt left in 2011. The one thing that mightave made me think differently about it was to think that we would have not stayed towith a few troops in ira help. Rubenstein president bush is r. You become secretary of state. Rice yes. Rice i loved it. I loved going out and reesenting the country. Every time i stepped off a plane that said, thed states of america, behind me, i just got chills about it, and ive often said when i was actually sworn in. Here, i took an oath of office to a constitution, as weve talked, that once counted my ancestors as 3 5 of a man, and i take thaoath of office in front of a portrait of ben franklin, sworn in by a jewish Woman Supreme CourtJustice Ruth Bader ginsberg, who was my neighbor at the watergate and i thought, you know, what would old ben think of this . Right, because in some ways, it showed how far our country had come, and i always felt when i was out there that i could speak about the hard road to democracy, about the imce of instutions becoming more inclusive over time to people who were having those challenges because i personally experienced them. Rubenstein lets talk about todays situation. We face a north korean problem. You negotiated with the North Koreans. Rice i did. Rubenstein what would you say is the chances that north korea and the united stes and south korea can come to some agreement . Rice well, i have to say, when the president i first d ard that the president the spot accepted kim jonguns invitation, i thought, ash, my goodness, whate doing . And then i thought, you know, nothing else has worked, so why not . Why ve it a try . And i actually think theyve set the table pretty well. One of the conditions thats different is that once kim jonguns programs got to thelace that they actually threatened the United States, as theyve begun to do, i think got chinas attention that the United States might actually go to war to prevent a north Korean Leader from being able to threaten the unitedtates, so i think theyve got a chance. I would just say 3 things. The first is, the North Koreans have aistory of when theyre under sanctions and they start to bite, coming to the table, making promises, and then not carrying through th them, so beware. Secondly, be very cognizant of other countries interests. You know, japan has big interests here. Dont be very quick to try to think about removing american troops because american troops in korthe Korean Peninsula are stabilizing not just to the korean pinsula, but also to the region, and finally, never forget the nature of that regime. I mean, this is a regime that murdered an american just a few several months ago, reached out and murdered his halfbrother with vx gas in malaysia, which, by the way, was a message to the chinese he was under chinese protection. Word on the street was, he was chinas favorite son if something happened to kim jongun, so that was a message to the chinese, not to us. Rubenstein now, on the iranian agreement that was negotiated by john kerry and barack obama, did you support that agreement . Rice i did not support that agreement. I felt that itavas an agreement thatthe iranns too much at a ten, i think, we had the upper hand and couldve gotten much more. I hought the verification means were very weak, so i wouldnt have signed the agreement, but i have said, i wouldv because once youre in an agement, you dont want to send the signal that the United States just tntns its back on agreethat are there, but it wont be the end of the world. Rubensteins talk about vladimir putin. Youve met him many times. Rice i many times. Rubenstein and does he speak english . Rice he was teaching himself or had tutors teaching himsh, and by the time we left office, he could converse a little bit in english, but, yeah, i know him well. He liked me, actually used to because i was a russianist. I once was with him, and he said, condi, you know this. Russia has only been great when its been ruled by great men, like peter the great you think, ok, and vladimir the great. Is that the message here . But thats who he thinks he is. He thinks hes reuniting the russian people in greatness and reestablishing russian influence, heven if he has to do it theby military means, greatness which is really the only thing theyve got going for them. Rubenstein now, on china, do you have any doubt that xi jinping is the most powerful leader in the world at this point . Rice i have no doubt, but i think hes made a terrible mistake. You know, authoritarians have a lot of downsides. One is that they can make very efficient carry