An Evening With Madeleine Albright

good evening I'm Larry temple and there's chairman of the Oh BJ foundation it's my privilege and it truly truly is a privilege to introduce this program tonight we have two stars that are coming on this stage tonight together I want to tell you about both of them and then they'll both come out together the first one the moderator is our friend Bob Cheever and what I could say is that Bob Schieffer is the premier journalists of his time and I could stop right there and that tells you about Bob Schieffer because it's accurate it's true and that's who he is and what he has accomplished but I'll tell you a little bit more about Bob it's a bit of a homecoming because he started here in Austin but grew up in Fort Worth and his first assignment was with the Fort Worth star-telegram and he was there very prominently the first journalists go to Vietnam as a matter of fact when he was with the Fort Worth star-telegram and then in 1969 he hooked up with the CBS and has a great career of nearly 50 years with CBS most of you may know him for his nearly 25 years when he was the host of Face the Nation you could visit with him on Sunday morning on that wonderful program he also was the anchor for CBS News during that period of time and Bob just to show you what other people think about him he got eight Emmy Awards during his career for his accomplishments and he has been picked as a living legend by the Library of Congress he has more journalism Awards than I can recount and I'm not going to try to recount all of them but he is one that has earned the distinction of what I said being premiere the best of his time today the college of communications at TCU is called the Bob Schieffer college of communications and rightly so that's his alma mater now I don't know what it takes to qualify to be a Renaissance person in 2017 but Bob may qualify if you look at not only his journalism career but what else he's done he's written four books and they are very compelling books some very very funny stories that he tells and then bob has his own Country and Western band he plays and he sings and is delightful if he's not a true renaissance man and the broad sense for the world he's certainly a Texas Renaissance man and we're pleased to have Bob here on this stage again he's as good a friend as this library has ever had he comes here from time to time when we ask him to and we're always in his debt and then he will be having a conversation tonight with Madeleine Albright and Madeleine Albright is widely recognized as one of the truly successful outstanding diplomats that this world has seen over the last 50 years I like to say that maybe Prague gave his greatest gift to the United States when it gave us Madeleine Albright because she was born there and then came to this country she first learned about global affairs through her father her father after coming here was a distinguished member of the faculty at the University of Denver and she learned about diplomacy from her father and then after college she got her own professional start first with Senator Edmund muskie and then later with the famed Zig Brzezinski who was national security adviser to President Carter she had the opportunity as a younger woman to work with both of them then after President Carter left office she taught at Georgetown University she was a distinguished professor of international affairs it won't be any surprise to know that not once not twice not three times but four times she was picked as the outstanding professor on that campus then Bill Clinton got elected and Bill Clinton sought her out and she became the permanent representative of this country to the United Nations under the first term of President Clinton after serving in that capacity she had proved herself as a person who spoke not only with eloquence but with certainty and with knowledge she had a reputation of someone who did her homework and knew what she was talking about when she had something to say and President Clinton then in his second term appointed her Secretary of State she became the very first female in the history of this country to become Secretary of State in this country and in that capacity at that time she was the highest serving in government female in the history of this country and again she got a distinct reputation in that capacity that reputation was someone who could get things done who would be accomplished in solving problems and she was known as a problem solver she served as I say with distinction during that period of time and earned the reputation that I just mentioned after President Clinton left office and she left office she didn't retire she decided to write books and she did and she wrote a wonderful memoir and some other books during that period of time and her voice and her jaw were always sought out not only in this country but around the world and she still is one who has the sense has the judgment has the knowledge has the ability to serve this country and people that seek her advice and counsel so we are richly blessed and fortunate to have here tonight one of the great diplomats of all time not just our time but all time so would you welcome Bob Schieffer and Madeleine Albright's [Music] well thank you all so much for coming this is a real honor for me to be back here and I'd love to come to the LBJ library it's one of my favorite places this year Madeline Pat Madeline and Pat and I have known each other for a long long time my way and I'm speaking my wife Pat Madeline and and Pat served on the Beauvoir school board which I believe was your first appointed office went back then but all our our kids went to school together and we've known each other for for for all that time and I just like to say Madam Secretary that this is a wonderful boat it's fun and it's it's not exactly a diplomatic history but there there are some great stories about diplomacy in the book in this whole business of your ear pins and before we came out here I asked the secretary what did you want to just talk about the book and she said no ask me anything and well that's my kind of that's my kind of interviewee some but let's start out talking about this book in this whole business of these pins as far as I know there's nothing in the State Department manual that says you can use pins as the diplomatic weapon or a diplomatic tool how did you how did all this come about well first of all thank you and it's wonderful to be with you Bob here in your home and actually nice not to be doing this on TV where one of the hard parts is when you have a really good friend interviewing you on TV you think dizzy really asking me that [Laughter] and I hope you enjoyed the exhibit and it has been traveling around now for a while for nine years and been in twenty two places and eight presidential libraries so so this is how it started there is nothing in the manual but what happened was that I went to New York in February 93 and I clearly like jewelry and what happened was it was right after the Gulf War and I was an instructed ambassador and my instructions were to make sure that the ceasefire that had been translated into a series of sanctions resolutions that the sanctions would stay on so every day I said something perfectly terrible about Saddam Hussein which he deserved he'd invaded Kuwait so after a while a poem appeared in the papers in Baghdad comparing me to many things but among them an unparalleled serpent so I had a snake pen and I decided to wear the snake pen whenever we talked about Iraq so I think you've all seen when the ambassador's finish a meeting there's a press group out there and all of a sudden the camera zeros in the reporter says why are you wearing that snake pen and I said because Saddam was saying compared me to an unparalleled serpent and then I thought well this is fun I went out and I bought a lot of costume jewelry to depict what I thought we were going to do on any given day so on good days I and I was the only woman on the Security Council so on good days I wore flowers and butterflies and balloons and on bad days a lot of voracious animals and spiders and different things and the other ambassadors began to get it and they'd say what are we gonna do today so I then mimicked mimicked President Bush who said read my lips no new taxes so I said read my pins and that's how it all started and it it did in fact become part of our diplomatic arsenal you know I think Vladimir Putin once said he could tell what the tone of a meeting was going to be by looking at your left shoulder that is true well you know what happened I mean I I really did wear pins all the time and they begin began to figure it out so there was a time pins got me really into trouble and what happened was there's a picture actually on the 50th anniversary of NATO President Clinton and secretary Cohen and I were sitting in the greenroom on a sofa and I don't know which one of us started it for but we did they hear no evil see no evil monkeys we looked like crazy people and it ended up in Time magazine and so I actually found three monkeys pins so we're walking into the there was a summit meeting in the summer of 2000 were walking in and President Putin turns to President Clinton and says I we always notice what pens secretary Albright is wearing why are you wearing those monkeys and I actually said because I think your policy in Chechnya is evil and he got furious at me rightfully so President Clinton looked at me like are you out of your mind you're the chief diplomat and you've just screwed up the the summit so I have pins have gotten me into trouble but they also got me out of trouble so I am was an inventor of many things as the first woman Secretary of State and I invented the International kissing procedure when you arrive you can't really visualize secretary Baker or secretary Kissinger having big hugs with people walking in but and it was much more complicated than meets the eye so because the Latin some kiss on the right and some on the left cheek and the French twice and the Dutch three times and then there was yes there are thought just the thought right so [Laughter] so I arrived in South Korea and had a really you know good meeting with the foreign minister we'd had a nice embrace and we had a good meeting and then I come home and all of a sudden I get a phone call from a reporter saying so don't you think that the Foreign Minister should be fired because of what he said about you and I saw What did he say and he said well I really like it when secretary Albright comes because we're about the same age and I'm this tired old man but when I embrace her she has very firm breasts so what do you have to say about them so I said I have to have something to put those pins on and so [Laughter] you didn't think we'd get so racy right away well since you brought it up there is an i/o I would never ask you this he kept he wrote about it in in your book and it was called the Hooters incident Wow is that part of that is the Hooters incident that but there are days I really there was another and these pens are in the show by the way so when you see the three monkeys and whatever but I also there was a time that I was ambassador at the UN and one of the really hard times was when the Cubans shot down our unarmed civilian planes over international waters and I was getting calls from Washington all the time to make absolute sure that we got condemnation of the Cubans and so the government was very helpful in terms of providing me with the transcript of what the Cuban pilots were saying to each other as they were chasing these unarmed planes around and everything was translated into English except one word cojones and so they were saying we have cojones and they don't have cojones and so I then went out again to talk to the press and I came up with a line which was it's not cojones it's cowardice and what happened was I thought that the UN press would faint and then when I came back into the council the the Latin American ambassador said you never should have said that that's really barnyard language so then what happened as you can imagine President Clinton said best line of the administration so then he asked me to go down to Miami where there was a memorial service for the Fallen pilots and it was in the Orange Bowl and and I was told by the people with me saying you know this is very serious and you've got to be serious about the whole thing and I'm walking in through the tunnel that the Dolphins come in on the arm of the father of one of these people and 60,000 Cuban Americans stand up and saying Cuba Libre madame cojones and that is what I know so I've had a lot of fun with the pins well they really they really have become part of you I mean I mean when people think of it they they really do think are these is this expensive jewelry or you know it's mostly costume jewelry and it really was fun to kind of buy things that I thought we were gonna do that were fun and so I have had fun I have personally revived the whole costume jewelry industry but I really do think and part of what I'm glad that the show has done well and that people are interested in it I obviously love talking about foreign policy and and I'd try to make foreign policy less foreign and they all have stories and so it's an easy way to explain something so I was negotiating with the Russians over the anti-ballistic missile treaty and I had a pin on that is actually an arrow but looks like a missile and Igor even off the Foreign Minister looked at it while we're negotiating and he said is that one of your interceptors and I said yes and we make them very small and you better negotiate so and I can explain the whole Middle East peace process through my pins and so that's the point of it is really to kind of have it be more fun and I hope people I'm thrilled with the way the exhibit has been curated here and it looks beautiful and and they're kind of explanations of all the pins so it's a good way to teach some foreign cause well it's also you know I want to talk about something other than the book obviously but it's it's a beautiful book it's beautifully done and it's it's very very artistic and and I got it I got a big kick out well good really and I mean I've known you for a long time but I learned some things and they're one of the things that it's on everybody's mind right now is North Korea and the president is getting ready to go to Asia you went to North Korea and saw Kim Jong Un's father just talk a little bit about North Korea and this whole situation and has it changed since you were there and well I do think it's one of the most complicated relationships that we've had and after the Korean War there never was a peace treaty just an armistice and it was kind of a theme that happened that went on for a long time and even at the beginning of the Clinton administration and again when I was at the United Nations in 93 94 the North Koreans were threatening to withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty and one of the things you learn at the UN is not to rise to the bait all the time when somebody comes in and starts saying terrible things about the United States and so the North Korean representative was there then it was of may and I was about to have a birthday and I so I said I would like to thank the North Korean representative for making me feel 40 years younger with his speech right out of the Cold War I mean it was really very very tough so there were a number of agreements that we made with the North Koreans during the Clinton administration the agreed framework which was a way to freeze what they were doing and then finally what happened was in the summer of 2000 the number two guy vice marshal Cho came to the United States and we we were in the Oval Office and he gave the president an invitation for President Clinton to go to North Korea and President Clinton said well I might come at some point but it needs to be prepared so I'm sending the Secretary of State so that didn't thrill them but they had to deal with it but part of the issue was that we have no embassy in North Korea so it was very unclear what was actually going to happen during that meeting and we had very little information about Kim jong-il he we were told that he was crazy and a pervert I found out he was not crazy so we finally i sat in a guesthouse for a while trying to figure out what was going to happen and all of a sudden I get a message saying that I had to go see his embalm father so I go to the mausoleum and one of the things it's not easy to be an American Secretary of State and if you bow too low then you're criticized for paying too much respect to some communist leader and if you don't bow low enough it doesn't do any good but the bottom line is I must have done the right thing because what happened as soon as I got back to this guesthouse they said I could have a meeting with the dear leader and we had a press conference and the press conference it was like something again out of the 50s with old cameras anyway I'm standing next to the dear leader and we're the same height and I had on high heels and I look over at him and so did he his hair was a lot poufier than mine but one of the things I was determined and again a pin and the pictures in the show I wore a huge American flag and I thought if they're going to criticize the US what's going to happen when they see me in the Dear Leader and the American flag I did in fact spend a lot of time with him and we were in the middle of negotiations and part of the problem was a missile that they were trying to really develop and they said that it was going to be the last one and we were in the middle of the negotiations and the interesting part is that I hold no brief for the North Koreans but the election of 2000 was a little complicated and was confusing for Americans it certainly was confusing for the North Koreans and I had briefed : powell about where we were and he was he wanted to continue the negotiations and then there was a headline in the Washington Post that said Powell to continued Clinton policies in North Korea he was hauled into the Oval and told no way so we have had a lot of ups and downs with them I think we're in a very very serious situation at the moment you said the president the president is going to China Korea Japan Vietnam and a couple of meetings for a couple of weeks what could possibly go wrong and and I think that it is a it is a very complex situation and depending upon how that Chinese are reacting and the South Koreans and the Japanese and what worries me the most at the moment is some accident because we have planes flying and they have a number of things going on and we have ships and so I think it is it is a situation which requires I teach a course and my I say foreign policy is just trying to get some country do what you want so what are the tools and my course is called the national security toolbox and at this stage all those tools need to be on the table but diplomacy is not a gift and talking to another country is not a gift it is the way you can communicate and I think we need to begin to have much more diplomatic contact our tweets are our tweets part of the toolbox now to this day and even now I think they have no place in diplomacy and what you've got are two people that are fairly sure of their own powers tweeting insults back and forth and I think it's very very dangerous and I think that it must be very hard for the people in our government try to make the decisions and some of the people on the other side making decisions because there doesn't seem to be an overall strategy and I think that what I'm hoping for just because I don't know it I mean what I'd all I know is what I read or see on TV I think is that there has to be a larger strategy and the tweets might be amusing but they really I think it's very dangerous so what advice would you have for for President Trump as he goes to the Pacific for the first time I mean to leave his iPhone at home but I think that the question here is the order in which he does things I do think I can believe that he has a good relationship with President Xi Jinping of China and that a president gg Peng has just had by all signs very successful party congress where he has been made a kind of a super leader only less one step less high than mal Saito and that he has consolidated his power and that it would be very useful to really spend time with him and work out some common policy I also think with the South Koreans so they really do need this I don't know how many people here have been to the demilitarized zone you have and it's it's a pretty scary operation and Seoul is only 35 miles away from the Demilitarized Zone and so they are the ones that are the first line of attack if there were to be something and the Japanese also so I hope that the president works out some kind of multilateral approach I'm also hoping that something is going on behind the scenes I do think it's important for us to make clear that we have a deterrent and that is why the the missile anti-missile system that's been developed and this is where it gets difficult because the Chinese don't like us having that bad system and yet that is the very much the first line of defense is to have that there but I do think that it's important for the president now to see that he needs some kind of a multilateral approach to and the Chinese in the lead on it and then if the Russians could be helpful that also would be good but one of the things that what I find interesting is how much more difficult the administration makes life for itself because in the by saying that he was not certifying the Iran nuclear agreement that is a multilateral agreement it undercuts our credibility if he's trying to work out some kind of a deal with the North Koreans and so I thought that was an unnecessary step and really undermines his position but I hope very much that he is very circumspect in what he says publicly and very forward-leaning in the meetings with their other leaders in order to get some kind of common policy the administration has said time and again China has to do more talk about that what could China do should not China do more and and how did the Chinese look at this situation well I think that how the Chinese look at it is the following way which is that they are very concerned that whatever action we all take together will make the regime collapse and that there will be a lot of refugees streaming from North Korea into China and they don't want that to happen the other part that they're nervous about is that should the regime collapse there would be an attempt to unify Korea and that our forces would again potentially be able to go up to the Chinese border what by the way is interesting is Kim jong-il the father that I met with said that it would be fine if we kept our forces in South Korea and so I think that but the Chinese are concerned about that on the other hand I would think that they would also be concerned about having a nuclear power on their borders we do have in common with the Chinese that they don't want more nuclear proliferation what they can do is the North Koreans really are dependent on them economically and so the idea is to try to cut off a lot of trade and there are sanctions that are supposed to be being carried out to really limit what their possibility is the problem frankly and as I said teach about all this is that sanctions only work if the leaders actually care about their people and the quest the lot of the North Korean people are starving already and so maybe the leadership doesn't care but what the sanctions are also supposed to do is cut off financial capabilities of the North Korean government and what is going on is the North Korean government is selling a lot of Technology and various things to other countries there was a very interesting article in the paper the other day about there are North Koreans that are allowed to go out and work and in order to keep their family safe they then send money back to the government and it's part of the deal that they make so there's an incredible black market going on there are a lot of companies that trade with North Korea and the Chinese are the ones that can really help the most but trying to get the international system to keep to keep the North Koreans in a box our intent has not been to have the regime fold it just has to behave totally differently but again there have been various times where the signals we give in terms of talking about the axis of evil linking countries that then we do want regime change then all of a sudden the North Koreans think we need to do that do you think President Trump should go up to the DMZ for the traditional photo then I have very mixed feelings about it because it's fascinating to see and worth seeing and I think that it shows how difficult everything is on the other hand it is you've been there and it's a very weird thing because on the south southern side it's a normal place and then on the northern side they have this huge building there's some question as to whether there's even a back to it but it really and a lot of loudspeakers and then in between there are these Quonset huts and they have one where the negotiations of Pam and Joan took place and there's a string down the middle of the table to show where the 38th parallel is what happens now and I was there not long ago and after I was out of office and what now happens is the North Korean I don't know where this happened when you were there the North Korean guards come and look at you in the window and it's kind of creepy and I don't know how President Trump might react to that so I think that one would have to be very concerned about having not a lot of hoopla with it the other part that is standard picture there's I have one of me with binoculars looking into the north and so it depends on I would like for him to see it but I would not like to have him put on some show so what is your evaluation of the current Secretary of State I I think he has a very tough job in the sense that he says things and then the president seems to undercut him to the point can he whatever his talents can he be effective when it's known that the president doesn't like him I mean and you know how Washington is and when when Washington realizes that the president has a problem with they don't pay any attention to the to the underly he has a hard time getting his phone calls returned how do you think how do you think tellers is doing well I I wish he liked his job I mean that's the feeling I get I loved being Secretary of State and everything about it and having a State Department full of people that actually wanted to be supportive and in a functioning State Department and so there are large questions here at the moment in ways that the State Department already has been kind of disrespected as this administration has come into office and one of the ways to tell is the budget the State Department there the way this the US budget is set up the first function is o5o that has to do with the military and the military has something like over six hundred billion dollars and the next one is international relations one five oh and that's somewhere now under 50 billion dollars and what happened was that the administration initially right away said let's cut the State Department budget even below of what that is so that is kind of showing a disrespect for diplomacy and then I think that the question really is and there's no way to tell what the real relationship is between the President the Secretary of State I do try to find something and maybe they're playing this act on purpose that is kind of good cop/bad cop but the way that things are viewed now there are real questions I mean we live in Washington and you pointed out that there is a lot of gossip and so people think that Rex Tillerson does not really have a voice I don't know whether it's true or not I really don't but I do think I know how much I counted on having a good relationship with President Clinton and being able to see him when I wanted to being able to call and really have a functioning relationship and excuse me and then also what the decision-making process is how do you interact with the national security advisor and the Secretary of Defense and you see each other all the time and the gossip is not good so I have to say I I feel that secretary Tillerson has a very hard job I am sure he's a very smart man but it's very difficult I would not like to be in the position that he is well how about President Ron how do you think he's doing well let me say this I and I'm very glad to let it rip but partially the following thing I travel abroad a lot and I have learned as a former diplomat that it is totally inappropriate to criticize your own country when you're abroad Texas is a part of the United States and so I can say what I think I am very very saddened by what is going on I have I am an immigrant I came to this country when I was 11 years old and when I described myself I describe myself as a grateful American I have been very proud to represent this country and represent the value system that we have and what it's like I love I used to travel abroad and describe how the executive legislative relationships work and how we make laws and what the role of the press is and the judiciary system and and all of a sudden they're so doubts as to how it's working and and I find that I'm very troubled when the president goes abroad for instance when he goes to Poland and gives a speech in which the word democracy does not exist and stands next to a Polish leader who's cutting down the press and the judiciary and says how much he admires them and so he is not representing the value system of the United States and and I am troubled by the way that he and Congress worked together and and this is what I'm really having trouble with I am tired of normalizing him it is not normal what is going on [Applause] I have had a very interesting time in the last few weeks I have been traveling around but also in the United States and so two weeks ago I was with President Clinton in Boston doing a program with students and then last week I was with President George W Bush and I was with him when he gave that speech in terms of saying various criticisms of what was going on in the United States without ever using Trump's name and I think he was really remarkable to give that speech because he's been very respectful and to have him give that speech and have President Clinton say the things that he has I think people are worried and I think it's time for us to really make this is not normal this is not America and I think that we need to make clear that the president has to hear what we're saying and that the people around him should hear and we need to talk to our members of Congress let me ask you and it's back in the news now this whole business about Russian meddling in our election I don't think there's any question that they were whether they Joan I up at Harvard who you know a national security expert said he is convinced that what they were trying to do was really just to try to destabilize raise questions about the credibility of the press and and destabilize our institutions because that's what they're doing across across Europe he said whether they were colluding with the Trump people he said he doesn't know he said in his view they just sort of got Trump as a bonus but what do you make of all that and now it's now a new you know we're going through this in the investigations that are going on and it now looks like that that the Clinton I mean I'm not the Clinton the the Democrats paid for part of this dossier that was being prepared by this British intelligence agent and all that and so it looks like first some Republican donor tried to hire these people to dig up dirt on Trump and then after he got the nomination then it shifted over and the next thing you know then the Democrats are picking up the tab well what do you make of all well I don't know what to make of all that but I do think the following thing I have spent a large portion of my academic life looking at the role of the media and political change and I wrote my dissertation on the role of the Czechoslovak press in 1968 and then I wrote a book about Poland and solidarity and there's always something new in terms of information dispersal whether it was the printing press or for instance in Poland what was interesting lek Forenza would give a speech in some Factory and there would be they would tape it on a little cassette and they'd send that to the next factory so there's always something going on and I do think that technology has now played a very large part in so many aspects of our life that's what you write about and and I think that it really has changed things and so I have studied a lot what the Russians have been doing and partially Putin has said that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the greatest disaster of the 20th century kind of weird thing to say given two world wars and millions of people dying but basically what he has decided to do is to undermine democracy in Central and Eastern Europe and separate us from our European partners and undermine faith and democracy in the United States I think we can't forget that we're dealing with a KGB agent and Putin really doesn't how to use propaganda he has played a weak hand very very well I have chairman of the board of the National Democratic Institute and one of the things that we've been doing is looking at how the Russians have in fact militarized information and I've just been in ukraine and the ukrainians we have a team NDI has a team there and they gave in a very good summary of what the russians have been doing there in terms of undermining the system then making clear that everybody that's against them are Nazis and just really questioning how things work and I think that they have been fairly successful as we've looked at what's happened in Hungary and Poland in various places and I think also here now one of the terms that is part of communist parlance is they are always looking for useful idiots and they have found one and and I think that whether he's a gift or not there really has been this kind of back and forth and I do hope very much that Muller will be able to look into this and it is my sense that they really have played a very large part the other part and again you write about this is how our major internet for our technique firms have also kind of become used by thinking that they need that they have open platforms and they have figured out how to use the targeting measures that are used for advertising and so I think we are in a completely different era which is really we've been talking about my book but I think your book really does pinpoint what the issues are and how we are in a new era and that the media has to play it differently and really watch out your conclusions and various things that use because we are going and I argue in my book that the impact of the of the web is having as profound and of on our culture as the invention of the printing press did on Europe in that day and we all talk about the great things and came out of the printing press and obviously you know they've improved literacy we had the Reformation the counter-reformation but people also forget we had basically thirty years of religious wars before some equilibrium was reached and we're right in the kind of the first trimester of this revolution that we're going through now we're you know newspapers are going away here's an interesting statistic and now one reporter in five lives in New York Washington or Los Angeles so out in the middle of the country in many places what we're seeing here is it's not bias notice they're getting no news and and most of the news 60 when I started writing my book sixty-two percent of us were getting at least some news on social media Facebook I think it's up to 67 percent now and a lot of people that is the only the only news that they're getting because those of us have can afford it I mean you and I I get the New York Times app I get the the Washington Post app The Wall Street Journal app CNN CBS and all of that but if you're you know working for a minimum wage on a construction job you're not going to be able to afford that so the only news you're going to get sometimes in this day is what your browser sort of kicks up by accident or what you get on social media which is great but social media what prepares there is not it's not vetted in the way the news we're normally used to getting is vetted some of its true some of its totally false and that's and this is where the Russians are exploiting that and there's no question they're doing it here just like they are doing as you point out all across all across Europe I think what's very interesting is the Russians now I have just been because I teach I actually do have to prepare for class and the bottom line is the Russians now I just did a section on cybersecurity is there a chairman of their military has written about the fact that they are using information it's part of their hybrid warfare this is part of their military doctrine now and so among the things that they do is they are undermining through putting false information out but they also are doing cyber things in terms of bringing banking systems down and we are not set up in order to deal with all of that at the moment and the other part when you're talking about in order you read all those newspapers I do too and I compare notes about what's you kind of put together what is the truth by comparing things what has happened now is people either are doing exactly what you're saying or not doing but also they're in an echo chamber and for the most part they listen to only what they agree with already I make it a point of listening to right-wing radio as I Drive which is a mistake because I get none of you live in Washington you do stay away but I think it's important to listen to things you disagree with and I think the thing that is so what is going on now the lack of information is undermining faith in institutions so for instance I stole this line from Silicon Valley this is totally plagiarized but it responds to things which is that people are getting their information on 21st century technology the government's listen to them on 20th century technology and provide 19th century responses and so there is no faith in institutions and the people are in an echo chamber with a limited amount of information I think we wanted it's about time to go to the audience for questions but let me while you all are thinking of a question you'd like to ask and I believe there are microphones on it on either aisle here let me just you political question because you've been involved in politics as well as foreign policy what do you think the state of our political parties are right now I mean we have now fewer people identify as Republicans or Democrats the people who do so this is at the lowest level ever we're seen basically it looks to me like the Republican Party just coming apart before our eyes now and I'm not sure the Democratic Party is in much better shape quite frankly what what is your sense of of our whole electoral system well I am very worried about it because you know and I said now I'm chairman of the National Democratic Institute we go abroad and try to provide people with the nuts and bolts of democracy and so we talked about how parties should work what you do in a parliament legislative branch and so for instance I've been out there saying what you need to do is compromise and they said you mean like you guys so at this point we are not a very good example of things I do think that what has happened as a result of technology is that there's a disaggregation of voices and therefore people are not joining political parties because they have their own source they think of talking to their governments and I do think that the parties are confused in terms of what direction they should go in I'd also do think that what has been the strength of American political parties is that they do have a strong Center and there are always on the left and the right but at the moment I think it's the extremes that are having more influence and so I am worried about our party system I do think that citizens united was the worst a Supreme Court decision that undermines the system but on the other hand I really you know I'm often asked if I'm an optimist or a pessimist I'm an optimist who worries a lot and so I am optimistic about our system and the resiliency and we're seeing some of it but I am particularly worried that we don't understand well enough or institutions and it's actually the local and state level that is the one that's closest to the people and I think that that's where we need to put more and more will emphasis our best and brightest are turning away from running for office rather than being the ones who do run for office and I'll often tell this story you know when I was a little boy my grandmother thought I was going to be President of the United States one day and you know why because that's what every grandmother thought about her grandson but how many people lately have you heard say I hope my child grows up to be a politician we have made running for office in this whole thing so odious that good people just don't want to fool with it who wants to have to you know spend 20 hours a week making cold calls to raise money which is what you have to do when you're in the Congress and I we've got to find some way to get by this and this what you're talking about the Supreme Court decision which I would totally agree with you basically we have no campaign finance laws now here's a little interesting statistic that I've found when I was running when I was writing my book in 1919 7532 people and this was after Watergate and all of that 32 people had gone to prison or paid substantial fines for campaign finance law violations today every single thing they went to jail for is legal out so we're going backwards we're not going forward and I think we are kind of reaping the benefits of all that right now and I think that's one of the things that that happened this year so who'd like to have a question out there there's a man thank you so much for being here I wanted to pick your brain a bit on climate related issues more I read the upheavals in Africa and Asia and the Middle East often are caused by huge migrations of people that are losing their farmland from droughts and all kinds of extreme weather events that are causing up people around the world yet no one really is connecting that could you talk a little bit about the impacts of rising sea levels and extreme weather events and how it affects the political atmosphere around the world well I think that you know we all got our generation got used to the problems and that there might be a nuclear war and we all went into shelters and learned all kinds of things and just because climate change doesn't seem to have that immediate effect it doesn't mean that it does not in the long run is totally destructive to the planet and by the way the earth is not flat and there really are scientific proof that their climate change is something that is affecting all of us I think that one of the things that is one of the worst things that the administration has done is pull out of the climate change agreement it is an agreement it is not a treaty and it was set up in a way it frankly to allow states to have a certain amount of leeway in terms of the way that they began to deal with the problems of climate change what is evident is that I mean the world now is full of migrants and the migrants a lot of them are created by the problems of climate change in Africa for instance Wars have come about because of desertification that is what was going on in Sudan people cannot find food that is why there's migration into Europe and their questions and then that it really they the media there is using migrants also as a way to undermine the system so there any number of ways that I can argue that climate change is a national security problem and needs to be seen that way the question is what happens if in fact in that the states do various parts to follow to carry it out and the nation does not and so I do think that we all that have any sense of understanding of this have to say that this is a danger to us and given what the weather's been doing this year in Texas and various places you would think people would get it the problem is that the scientists are so honest that they will not directly say that X storm Harvey was created by climate change I can it seems to me that when they tell us that the ocean is warmer as a result of climate change and that's why their hurricanes you'd think we could figure it out yeah very good anyone else yes I'm here first of all there is a term that is bandied around a lot these days it's called thank you for your service I'd like to share that personally that we do thank you for your service she did a tremendous [Applause] but my question has to do with something that's disturbed me for sometimes I was once in a meeting that was being conducted by a retired Air Force colonel who was in the intelligence service and had retired and gone to work for one of these think think tanks that dream up scenarios for the military to be involved in and he made a statement that disturbed me deeply he said that the State Department doesn't have the wherewithal to conduct diplomacy and that the military has people on the ground who know the countries know the situations and therefore they should be the ones conducting diplomacy that was a powerful statement that stuck with me for a long time I'd sure like some reassurance from you please well first of all if I could thank you very much for your kind words and and I'm gonna restate something which is that again I'm an immigrant and I the thing that I love most of all to do is to go to naturalization ceremonies and give out there I have a naturalization certificate and I give it out I can't swear people in because I'm not an officer of the law but I can give them out and all of a sudden I hear this man saying can you believe it I'm a refugee and I got my naturalization certificate from the Secretary of State and I said can you believe that a refugee is Secretary of State and that is what this country is really about [Applause] so it was really my honor to be Secretary of State I am the last secretary of state of the 20th century and the first of the 21st and what happened was I actually started saying it a few months after President Clinton named me which was really presumptuous that he would keep me for the four years he did and so I am but the bottom line is that I think that the issue that you've talked about which is the State Department and the Defense Department and who does what is something that is relatively new in the 21st century and part of it is a result of the fact that we have been at war for a long time and that the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan has been in countries that have needed by the way nation-building is not a four-letter word it is a matter of trying to develop institutions so that people can run themselves and part one of the hard parts is that the people that go into the countries to help need security and so then the idea is that the military helps to protect either the nongovernmental organizations or the diplomats so that is kind of how this starts happening but what has happened because we've been at war is that some of the tasks that the State Department is supposed to do has kind of morphed over into the Pentagon I think it is most unfortunate and it is being exacerbated by this current budget so that in fact there the State Department does not have the wherewithal to be everywhere and the Defense Department does and so that is is something that is very troubling and then another part and you were talking about young people not wanting to go in to public service I am finding that my students that are in the school of foreign service which is about international relations have come to me and said given what has happened at the State Department and the hiring freezes and deciding that they're not going to take in a lot of the people that get fellowships they're saying why should we take the foreign service exam why should we have anything to do with it and we are cutting off the pipeline no matter what this administration is doing in the long run you have to have diplomats and I do think that to go back again to the president's trip there is nobody in Washington there's not an assistant secretary for that part of the world we don't have ambassadors in those countries and so it's kind of by default what you're talking about is happening and I think it is a disaster because it the State Department is the premier department in the US government it is the one Thomas Jefferson was one of my predecessors but and you know we're not celebrating the Marshall Plan and various aspects and so there are scenarios like that and I think it's very troubling and I think it's very important to argue against it because the military cannot do everything and we need diplomats all right I really like this pins exhibit and I especially like the silver pin that depicts a woman in a room full of men so I I'd like to ask you what words you would say to young women today who who might go into politics what would you say to encourage them to go into politics well I do do that on a regular basis but I really do think the following thing is that pub first of all public service is one of the great honors of life I really do think that and I also do think that it is a country is better off if it is being run by the people the majority of the people that are in it and in many different ways we are wasting a resource by not having enough women in public office and in a variety of positions and I do think that it is very important to encourage young women to be part of running the country and having a variety of different jobs I do think that it means however that a lot of young women have to work very very hard I don't wish to insult half the audience in this room but there's plenty of room in the world for mediocre men there's no room for mediocre women and so women have to work extra hard and I do think that women have to be involved in various ways and we have to support each other now I made a very famous statement once it was so famous that it was on Starbuck Cups is that there's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other and I believe that women we need to support each other and not have the queen bee syndrome which is if there's only going to be one job I'm going to have it and some other woman isn't we are stronger when there are more women in the room and can help each other now there are people who think that it would be better if the whole world were run by women if you think that then you've forgotten high school but I think it's important to have a co-ed system where we can in fact work together but it really does require women that are willing to work put up with some of the things that happen and help each other and be trained in order to really be partners in running our country and running the world ladies and gentlemen Madeline Hall [Applause]

Channel: TheLBJLibrary

Views: 7,733

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Keywords: madeleine albright, bob schieffer, lbj library, lbj presidential library, austin, museum

Id: uYBH0x032i8

Length: 62min 30sec (3750 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 27 2017