Live at 2 30 p. M. Here on cspan. Edison was a plant scientist as well as interested in other sciences. He knew that it did not freeze in fort myers. A lot of the interest that he had here in this area was aced on his love of plants. 1920s, the United States was relying on foreign rubber. We were heading into war. The decided that the plant material and the process should be done in this country. They were traveling all over the world and collecting plants. They had hundreds of people all over this country collecting plant. They were sending it back here to fort myers, to his laboratory, to find the source of plant materials that could produce robert efficiently. Laboratory was put here because of that reason. They could grow the plants onsite and in duty preliminary research on site. It was an exciting process. The laboratory was interesting because at that line in American History, there was no patent chemicals. Plants or part of the reason why this lab was so important was that it caused the u. S. Government to come forward with what was called the u. S. Patent law. It then said that if you invented something with plants, and it was a process that was worthy of patenting, it was issued a patent. This weekend, book tv and American History tv take a look at the history and literary life of fort myers florida. There will be a stop at Thomas Edisons botanic research laboratory. On saturday and sunday. Former reagan advisor Suzanne Massie spoke about the history of u. S. Russia relations. She spoke on how the u. S. Media is reporting events in ukraine. It is just over one hour. Welcome to the center of global interest. I am president of the center. I am very glad to see all of you here. A meeting for the purpose to talk about what to do in the Current Situation. Obviously we are moving toward some kind of new cold war, or at least a very serious conflict tween the west and russia. Not, weyou like it or are back in old times. Some people say, some experts say, that this new cold war will be much more serious because we do not have geological differences anymore. Rush is a capitalistic country. It is not communism. It is not a difference between communism and capitalism. The cold war between two different social and political systems. That makes the conflict even more dangerous because it is much more serious. These agreements between russia and the soviet union, maybe it is geopolitical disagreement, how we received the new world order. One way or another, we cannot even start to think about what to do without looking at the recent past. If you look at the recent past, we have very few good examples of how in history we have managed to solve our systematic conflicts. The cold war is an example of how i managed our disagreement. You know the history and i will not give you a lesson on history. The best person to tell us how we cane can be learn lessons from that keyword fewer. Period. How would Ronald Reagan handled his Current Situation . Reagan would be in the white house, the situation will be derek very different. It is getting more and more dangerous. It is much more serious and there is a deeper conflict. Moscow just a week ago. The United States does not want to hear russian logic. They do not understand what we want. They do not understand why we behave this way. I hear the same argument, russia does not want to hear the west perceives the situation. Two sides do not hear each other. I still think that after all of statesussia and united do not understand each other on a very basic level. It is a serious and deep level. Misconceptionsf and political disagreements come from this deep misunderstanding. We have a person who can explain this and why we have such a misunderstanding and how we can overcome this. The personal advisor to president reagan. I recommend everyone to buy and read this book. It is a very good analysis of the situation. I think he shocked gorbachev when he said this because gorbachev did not expect reagan to be so advanced. This is basically a key to how to deal with these relations. We cannot trust him he cannot verify. There is mistrust. People who manage and know their history, they know about the cold war. They can tell us. We are in a new cold war. Why dont we understand russia . I ask you to give us little comments on the topic. Why is it always wrong . Why are american policies always wrong toward russia. That is not our responsibility. It is how they look. It is always wrong. I have been studying russia for a quarter century. They say, they did not expect it from putin. They did not expect it from Boris Johnson was stopped yeltsin. What do we do with russia . What to do . Tell us. Lets spend 20 minutes and you can ask westons. Lets keep it as informal as possible. This is a very nice informal event. This is a nice lady. Well and know her very she was my close friends. It will tell you a lot about the reagan administration. Dealing withn Foreign Policy with russia. They succeeded. But here the wisdom from that time. Much. Nk you so when you are talking, you let me to something. I was not going to start this way, but i think i have to s. I have thought, and this is what i have come up with. I read this and it is the first quote in my book. If countries have gender, then rush is a woman. This explains her capriciousness and her motion emotion. She starts everything with her own particular way. Then of course the man in her life is america. After all, i see it as an older woman. She happens to have had a tumultuous background. Because that tumultuous background has developed in her suspicion,weariness, and even fear. The man in her life happens to be younger. He does not have a long background. Like all young men, he occasionally is insensitive to her. He does not understand why she feels so badly. This younger man also likes to flex his muscles. Unusual that the two would find great difficulty in fighting finding common conversation. The more i look at it, the more i see this. I have dealt with russia for a long time. I love russia for the right things. Everybody in the world has defects. I do not hide these. I noted outside of russia. That willsome things be very useful for us. They are not things that we generally value in the United States because we are so different. One of those things is that russians are more emotional in many ways. They feel that way deeply. Americans consider emotional a bad word. Think of the english. Emotionally. She behaved emotionally. He made an emotional decision. In russian, that is a good word. We have to deal with these things. It is sad. It would be very sad. 2001, i gave a speech here in washington, why are we always wrong about russia . I gave it again in 2005. Mater, vassar. Ma i just did it again at the university of maine. Same. Ains the i just have to update it for the most recent crisis. Now it is bad. I want to start with a great deal of importance on knowing history. Not political tribes. I have to say that a great scientist who is a great friend of my husband always used to say that anything that calls itself science is in. History is absolutely vital, especially in this case. Russians are very proud of their long history. They should be. They have also got three a great deal because of their long history. It has taught them about suffering. Writerell you that one wrote well about suffering. How do you explain suffering to the people who have not suffered . That is a challenge. Those are some of the things. I am beginning to give you the emotional side of angst. I really have been working and going to russia since 1968. I was very lucky. I cannot tell you how lucky i was during that keyword. Period. I am a private citizen. I got to know Many Russians. I was the first foreigner they had ever seen. I was lucky. I began to share their lives. I began to see how difficult everything was myself. Different to see how and how many misunderstandings there were. Basic misunderstandings. Everything. Stalin was one thing. Russia is a new country. It is not stalin. It is not a totalitarian country, the matter how president putin is criticized. He is authoritarian. I am not judging anything. I am just saying that he hates stalin and i happen to know president putin a little bit. I can tell you right now at this table that he does not behave that way. He is a man of thought. I go back to history. There is a Russian Proverb that says if you ignore history, you lose an eye. If you forget history, you lose to lies. We in the United States have consistently ignored russian history. Evident absolutely today in this crisis of relations that we are facing. We are close to a century. The success of american administrations has been dominated by basic premises about russia that were based on selective and often narrowly focused the is that have led to a succession of wrong assessments and wrong policies. Whether thesetrue policies came from the right or the left. Strangely, despite increased communication and contact, this process was most particularly marked in the 20th century and now to the 21st. We have often been almost as mistaken about russia as europeans were in the 60s century when it was confidently believed that russia had plans that they worship an image of a great golden goddess. I am not going to go into this. Believe me. You have to start at the beginning of the 20th century. If you go through this, you will see that when my or the other, we were always wrong in interpreting russia. Whether we thought that it was great or whether we thought that mccarthy was great and absolutely right. We continue to do it. , russia cannotai be explained in 25 words or less. Everything about russia is long. Long history, long church service, long names. It takes a little time. I will not take your time today theaining what Administration Says has happened. You can find it out yourself. It is not secret. We will go on to what we can do. That is very long. Course i was very sad and am sad about this. I have always believed since the very beginning that russia and the United States belong together. If man and woman are complementary in the united find some we can common language and we did find some, remember i like to think about this. Are up there in space. A russian and unamerican are circling us as we be. Speak. Where we really understand each others music. Russians love our music. We love there is. I can tell you because i have lectured all over the isted they United States them,any americans, for the not cracker has become an american custom. Many americans asked if tchaikovsky is american. I have been confronted with that quite often. Much some things have been adopted. Popularhings that are like musical comedies. It is a part of us as well. It would be to me and i still believe that we have to work harder than ever. About that, and that is hard. There are two things now that have been changed very badly. One of them is trust. As far as i can see, there is no trust in the United States. And vice versa. That becomes very difficult. As you have said and as i told president reagan, without trust, there is no talk. Theres nothing. That i consider very serious and i do not know right now how we can fix that. I know that we have to try. I am very distressed about the demonization of president putin. Frankly, as citizens said so pitifully, demonization of putin is not a policy. It is an alibi for a policy. Why is our press demonizing absolutely everything . I follow this very carefully. Heres one thing that americans do not know. They are not being told is in their newspapers or anywhere else. As a historian, i consider it very important. In the last 20 years, russia has become according to an independent poll taken by europe , reported in the Christian Science monitor, it has become the country where the most people believe in god. 82 . Two thirds are now calling themselves orthodox. That is pretty spectacular in 20 years. Especially since Everything Else theyad for some reason were not slow about this. It has changed. Who are now a super majority russia is a Young Country and we have to remember that. It is a Young Country and now theung country majority believe in god. More than england. More than anywhere. As a historian, what does this mean in the long run . I do not believe that history repeats itself. I do believe that sometimes it is a spiral. Russia was the last bastion of the west against the east. That happened. I am not saying it will happen again, but for me, this tectonic shift in russia thinking russian thinking is important. We have not discussed it. I would love to have a seminar discussing what this could potentially mean for society. Now religion is taught in every school in russia. This is not true in the United States. We have become more secular. They are turning more towards religion. I dont know why. I just find it extremely interesting. What was important for president reagan . My story is totally improbable. I was in them and private citizen. I was always a private citizen. You have to read my book. It is a long story. The reason that i finally ended up in the oval office, why . The soviet union took away my visa. I was really mad. I had been going for a while and i love russia. We became very close friends. I admired her kurds. I admired her survival and their humor and their generosity. Happens. I fell in love with all of them. They were wonderful. I was very happy and that is all i wanted to do. My life was not easy. I was happy. Back, they say dont write. I didnt do anything. My visa was taken away anyway. Timeat point, i said, this that is too much. If that is what you are going to do to your friends, what would you do to your enemies . I came to washington on my own. Everything i did was on my own nickel. I did not have a lot of nickels. I did not want anybody. All of these things happens more or less as incidents. I met a lady at a cocktail party. She was the president of the democratic womans club. We were in the middle of detente. No russians could come here. No one could marry anybody. I thought that was awful. That ied that time decided to talk. That was my first public each year in washington. No detente. That was not very popular. I can tell you that. Kissinger did not like it at all. May i tell you that im swiss . We are known to be very perseverance and stubborn. I went to see kissinger. Me todenly said to explain a policy, how great it was. Wonderful, but a Russian Proverb says that the wolf does not become the lamb. He said something i will never forget. Well we are building trade, your friends in the soviet union will have to take the heart out. To use that world o word inm theg this lady word, happens quickly. The senator said, can you help this woman . For the United States and russia, it increased exchange and cultural knowledge. It was key. I always felt that people to people where what counts. There i was, preaching a little late. Department, they said it would be inappropriate for us at this time. They said, you are the single american citizen who knows the most soviet citizens personally. As if this were bad. Anyway, nothing worked. I was about to give up. My friends said i wasy forbidden forever. Nobody knew why. Said thaty and they they had reasons. That was my position. Reagan comes in. I try to get my visa that. Reagan was elected and of course the soviet union you have to take a little more attention. There should be more talking back and forth. I had another life. I knew the boys very well. They all ended up heavy kernels. Some were generals. This was the only one who is interested in my problem. How stupid can you get . It was so selfish. All i wanted to do was get back. If you can imagine, the people responsible for my getting back to the soviet union were United States crews and the army. He went to do it. He told me he had deposited it at the u. S. Institute several copies. They had that i was an interesting woman. You know this lady . We would like to talk to her. And he said, what a coincidence. She would like to talk to you too, but she has no visa. They called me up and said, call soandso. That was the translator of stolen. He happen to like america very much. He happen to be a very intelligent man. Them, they two of got me back to the soviet union. Was just after the temperature was so cold. You cannot imagine. Somebody said i had to see ron reagan. Fewve seen quite a bureaucrats. But it was not a bureaucrat. My children, i have always told i worked on that. Finally, Nothing Happened quickly. I finally went to the senator from maine. I kept saying, i hadnt noticed the terrible atmosphere in moscow when i went. Was ae first time, there psychosis of war and people were terrified. Bombren were running into shelters and hiding under their desks. It was bad. I saw what a tremendous golf there was between understanding and of the others. Finally, i said to bill, it is really bad. It is bad. You have to talk. Talk about something. Should, he said, you talk to a National Security advisor. Thele as that, pick up phone call. Hi, bill, i have this woman who knows a lot about russia and you should talk about her. I argued about the cultural exchange. I said i think maybe there is a way to discuss this. Anotherone thing led to and at one point, it is hard to believe when you look at me now, istuck my hand up and said did not know how bad it was. Had i known, it is now considered the worst period in the entire cold war. That is how i met the president. He read all of the books after. There i was suddenly, just said, the russians are personal people. All of the president s men do not add up to the president unless i ask one question, it will only take a few minutes. I want to be able to say honestly to anyone i have seen that the president came from himself. They said put it on paper. There i was in the oval office and that is how i met president reagan for the first time. He asked me the first question, he asked me was how much do they, meaning those who believed in communism . I said i cannot tell you, but many of them say they love only theirs. We went on. Leave. Sident would at the end, i asked him the question. I said, mr. President , if you are elected to a second term, will policy of small steps toward better