Mr. Brzezinski my book argues we havent really exploited that opportunity very well. Brian what is that opportunity . Mr. Brzezinski we havent led very well. The opportunity is to really shape a world which is more congenial to our values, more in keeping with our interests, more responsive to fundamental human aspirations. Brian lets go over your own personal background for a moment so people that see you all the time and dont know where you came from. Born in poland, major way eventually to canada. How did that happen . Mr. Brzezinski not entirely on my own. I was a small kid. My father was a diplomat. We came to america. I have been thinking about that lately because we came by boat in those days. We arrived first in new york. A family of diplomats, so it was a nice, comfortable trip. Of the first thing i saw them was the statue of liberty. That this being told is the symbol of america. I cannot help but think often these days that for so many people around the world, the symbol of America Today is guantanamo. Brian what does that mean . Mr. Brzezinski what has happened in the course of these 15 years since my previous appearance on the show, namely that we have adopted a position in World Affairs which isolates us and unites much of humanity from us. I think it is dangerous to our interests and to our values. Brian how long did you live in poland . Mr. Brzezinski a total of three years. Brian how long did you live in canada . Mr. Brzezinski i lived in canada for a total of 12 years. Brian something i remember reading somewhere that something happened in canada that had you got what you wanted, you might have never made your way to the United States. Mr. Brzezinski thats true. I dont remember precisely the details, and i dont want to mistake them. Basically, i qualified for some fellowship. I graduated from mcgill and qualify for some fellowship that should have sent me to oxford for graduate studies. Then, since i wasnt canadian ,orn or yet a canadian citizen i could not get the fellowship. But my grades were good enough that with some help from friends of my father, i was able to go to harvard with enough money to pay for the first two months. And thats all. I was admitted to harvard, so i went to harvard and got my phd. Fortunately, things worked out for me extremely well at harvard. After the first two months, i had no problems whatsoever. Brian you pointed out in our first interview that you and Henry Kissinger are the only people that have been National Security advisers who had a Political Science degree. Has that changed since those 18 years . Mr. Brzezinski thats a good point. I dont know. I havent really looked at it from that standpoint. At westhem taught point, and he must have an advanced degree, but im not sure what it is in. It may have been International Affairs or Political Science, as well. He would be in that category. Rice had, condoleezza a phd in politics. Since us, there were some others. Brian what is the importance of having a Political Science phd . And in being in that kind of position . Mr. Brzezinski not very much, to be frank. My sense has been for quite some , and it was already the case before i came National Security adviser, that too much of american Political Science over stresses the word science and not enough of the word politics. Politics is an elusive process of exercising influence, acquiring power, causing events to happen. Morece is a kind of abstract, rigid notion of how to analyze reality and how to cope with it. I think that is part of Political Science that doesnt really prepare you for the kind of job that National Security adviser has to undertake. Brian you taught at harvard for how long . Mr. Brzezinski i got my phd in 1953 and taught until 1960. Brian at columbia for how long . Mr. Brzezinski i taught at columbia that is more difficult to analyze. I accepted a professorship at columbia in 1960, and i taught until 1966, then took two years off to be in the state department, then came back to columbia. Inn i took a year or so off the early 1970s to be in japan. 1967 i and then in took a leave of absence to take a government job. Then i came back to columbia in 1981. I think i resigned from columbia a. B. Four years later because i didnt want to commute so much from washington. Brian and you are at Johns Hopkins still . Mr. Brzezinski im connected with Johns Hopkins and i taught at Johns Hopkins, and i have the title of professor. But my primary base is the center for strategic and political debate. You married when . Mr. Brzezinski i married in 1955 to a graduate of wellesley college. She is of czechoslovakian origin. We met at a harvardwellesley knicks are harvardwellesley mixer. A week after we met, she told her brother she was going to marry me. I did not learn that until about a year later. Brian what year did you marry . Mr. Brzezinski 1955. Three children. They are here and in new york. Is a republican, and he served in the senate, spend some time in ukraine. Volunteered for the military at one point and became a reserve officer. He was a Deputy Assistant secretary of defense under rumsfeld. Is now at booz allen. A second son is a democrat, their active politically. Currently engaged in a national campaign. He served on the clinton National Security council staff. He also obtained a phd at oxford. Got into harvard. My daughter is a Television Reporter or anchor. She was doing that for cbs for a while, and then after the upheaval there, she left and is now connected with msnbc or nbc. Person that a people i defy me of being the father of. Brian back in 1989 and i have interviewed you sense, havent interviewed you se you since here is what you said back then. Mr. Brzezinski i dont think the media is terrible. Who aree some people , whoperceptive, thoughtful analyze or focus their stories on significant truths. But theres also an enormous number of people in the media who are devoid of any other ages of any ideas of their own, who follow the pack, who are digging for sensations. Because of the experience of the 1970s, more often than not, anyone who is in the government they assume is either a creek or an enemy who have to be exposed and attacked. Most people in the government are generally dedicated, patriotic people who are making a major sacrifice doing what they are doing. Brian any changes . Mr. Brzezinski not really. I think perhaps i would be less critical. But basically it is a mixed picture. There are some topnotch reporters and commentators in World Affairs. They are as good as any. In some respects, i was some of them would serve in the government occasionally. I think they would infuse a sense of reality into the thinking within the government. But by and large, i think the problem is that the mass media as a whole dont educate the public about World Affairs. Television is replacing newspapers as a source of information. Gives yousion news practically nothing about the world. It gives you a lot of trivia about the world. As a consequence, the public of the public of this superpower is not very well informed about the world. Today vacated sometime in my book on how few americans know even the fundamentals of geography. People who are about to go to college couldnt identify where Great Britain was or afghanistan. Close to 30 couldnt locate the Pacific Ocean on the map. Dont ask anyone about the history of other major nations. That come into my mind, is becoming a more serious problem because the special role of america requires america to act in a way that affects the rest to an unprecedented degree, and we should our policy on the basis of what attitudes. If these attitudes are ignorant, it becomes all the more difficult to fashion a policy that is responsive to what i call the historical moment. Brian correct me if i am wrong, you are involved in the john f. Kennedy campaign and Lyndon Johnsons campaign. You served jimmy carter as his National Security advisor, and then served george h. W. Bush. Mr. Brzezinski i also directed the Foreign Policy task forces for hubert humphrey. I sensed that the crisis in the soviet union was getting the, that the United States had to have an effective response. I endorsed bush when he was 17 points behind. I emphasize that. It was not a political opportunistic step. Dukakis would not be able to handle these complex realities and bush would. And i think retrospectively i was right. He handled the disintegration of the soviet union extremely well, even though on some other issues, and my judgment, he didnt quite seize the moment or opportunity. Brian back to your family. Is aave a son that democrat, one is a republican, and a daughter that is a journalist. How did that happen, do you think . Mr. Brzezinski i didnt have a lot to do with the fact that we are an engaged family that is interested in issues, talks about the issues. We traveled a lot with our kids. We went abroad a lot. We engaged in a lot of discussions. I hope that my wife and maybe i helped to simulate to stimulate their interests, but helped to stimulate them and make in making their own judgments. We always just respected their judgments, and i am very proud of my kids. I enjoyed talking to them. One thing we tried to do is to discourage overly intensified political debates because they can escalate and create tension. But short of that, we can have wonderful discussions about different subjects. I think that the kids formulated their own ideas, took their own paths, and we are very proud of them. Brian what kind of labels would you put on yourself at this point in your life . Mr. Brzezinski i am engaged. Brian are you a democrat . Mr. Brzezinski i have a democrat fundamentalist. That is to say, when it comes to a domestic choice, i am automatically a democrat. When it comes to choosing president s, i lean towards democrats, but i make my judgment on the basis of the person. Myself wedded to the idea that i have to support a democratic candidate for president. If i dont agree with his so for example, if there is someone on the democratic ticket that is in 2008 who is saying we ought to y the course in iraq butk god there isnt one that person is not likely to be the nominee. On iraq, your strongest feelings . Mr. Brzezinski i think the iraq adventure is a profound misadventure which was wasted in this country by demagogy from the top down. It involved basic misjudgment of what was needed and how to go. Bout pursuing what was needed the consequences are visible to all. Our credibility worldwide has been shot. Our legitimacy has been undermined. Last but not least, local respect for our power has been much reduced. To thei want to go back videotape from 1989 and what you had to say about mr. Gorbachev and the soviet union. Mr. Brzezinski i think one has to differentiate between mr. Theachev the person and face of the policies hes promoting. He certainly is a very intelligent person. Ive had the opportunity of meeting him. ,e makes a very good impression certainly better than any of his predecessors. That clearly explains why he is so attractive because he stands in such contrast to those who preceded him. His policies, which are based on meaning overords overtness andg there has been talking and ventilating issues more openly the mayor have. But reforming the system has proven to be very difficult. My own expectation is that he will not succeed in creating a spontaneously self energizing, increasingly pluralistic, generally open soviet union. There are too many inbuilt contradictions and legacies of the past within the soviet system to make that kind of success for his policies possible. His major historic significance will be that he has dismantled stalinism, probably not , and that heninism will have initiated a protracted systemic crisis and the soviet union which will last for many years. All of these and legacies of the past these are contradictions and legacies of the past. Brian how did you do . Mr. Brzezinski i think i did pretty well until the last sentence when i talk about the crisis lasting long. Brian in your book you have an international chronology, december989 to 1991. What is the result of all that happened in that one year . Mr. Brzezinski a lot of the things still stand. The berlin wall doesnt stand, but the reality of it still stands, mainly a reunified germany and redefined europe. The soviets left afghanistan. The defeat of the soviets in afghanistan accelerated the soviet conviction. Tiananmen square, the suppression of the students did not result in a longterm problem. China still has to resolve this d of detergent trajectory divergent trajectory of its economic developed which is increasingly pluralistic and political change which is much slower, much more reliant on the authority of a single dominant party, and the legacy of Tiananmen Square is still to be confronted by chinese leaders. 1977 wheno 1997 you were National Security adviser. What is the best decision you made that then and the worst . Mr. Brzezinski if i say my decisions, i have to qualify that they were at my decisions. Shey were the president decisions, though i had input into some of them. I think the things that were ite where the decision and had a mocon out problem, we would have had guerrilla warfare if we hadnt reacted the panama problem, we would have had guerrilla warfare if we hadnt reacted, even know the republicans disagreed. With accomplished at least one major breakthrough. Of the arab phalanx states surrounding israel by precipitating the first peace treaty ever between israel and an arab state, mainly egypt. That was a very major compliment for the president , and i was helping in that. That was his decision. But we agreed that we have to apply the pressure. If the u. S. Hadnt done it, it would have never happened. It was certainly important in normalizing relations with china, which created a new strategic situation in which the chinese and we were able to collaborate more confidently and offsetting him at that time, and aggressive and ambitious soviet union. We had a very major setback in iran. That poisoned last year. I recently attended a conference at the Carter Center on the 30th anniversary of the presidency. Someone there very aptly said that carter had three excellent years and one bad year. I played a role in those three years and in that bad year. Brian what happened in that bad year . Mr. Brzezinski he was stuck, basically. We were not able to resolve it. The iranians were manipulating us very effectively while holding hostages. They were always holding out a little bit of a caret keep the negotiating process going. At the same time never consummating it. We were not able to cut the cord. We finally undertook a rescue are to, which we felt we try because the summer was coming and in the summer we wouldnt have had nightfall long enough to do it. We were worried that at some point it would put some of the hostages on trial and even execute them. We felt we had to try it, but it didnt work. That rebounded very negatively on carters political fortunes. Brian at the time, where you and cyrus on different sides of the issue . Mr. Brzezinski we were on different sides of the issue on two issues. We were on different issues regarding the soviet union. , the president of the United States and the leader of the soviet union, do not have the same goals and aspirations, which is what the secretary of te leave was the case believed was the case, and it we had to be tougher and more responsive to their dynamism and selfconfidence. Secondly, we differed on how to deal with the iranian issue. He was more patient and more appreciationseld and freely hostages, and i felt that the protracted stalemate was doing us a harvest damage doing us enormous damage, and that we up to fourth the issue. Were two different views, and the ultimate decisionmaker was the president. Brian did it ever get personal . Mr. Brzezinski no, contrary to what was said, never. We had a good relationship. With play tennis from time to time. We had a rather congenial relationship. We had meetings several times a week. When there was some dissatisfaction with him at some point in the press and the white house, i went to the president and said it would be nice if the president went to the airport to greet him on a return from a mission he was undertaking a broad. We had disagreements and some real conflicts and some real sharp discussions, but no personal. He resigned because he disagreed fundamentally with the decision to make the hostage rescue effort. He felt strongly that that was a mistake and decided to resign. I suspect, though i cannot really a that with any categorical conviction, that he also did have the feeling that in the internal balance on the number of important issues like relations with the soviet union, relations with china, the military renewal buildup of our strategic capabilities, that his influence receding in , and my views were becoming predominant. Brian historian Robert Dallek has a book out very soon on Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon and their relationship. Thehe book itself, hes got nixonkissinger tapes from the oval office. The ferocious dislike that Henry Kissinger had for william rogers, the secretary of state. The reason i bring this up is cousin you think back and i wrote four of them down the difference between william , thes and Henry Kissinger differences between weinberger and george schultz, the difference between colin powell and donald rumsfeld, and your differences with symantecs mance, does that work . Mr. Brzezinski i think he really is useful for the president to have different opinions. These days intion which the decisionmakers circle around the president is very small and very unanimous. I think that is part of the explanation for the mistakes we have made in iraq. I think this agreement within bounds is useful. Animus