James Baker: President-Maker (US President Documentary) | Real Stories

[Music] in 1975 a Houston lawyer takes a job with President Gerald Ford and politics in America is about to change [Music] he really understood power he's got politics in his fingertips Jim Baker was one of the great political tactician 'he's five years later ronald reagan names him White House chief of staff Jim Baker very skillfully began accumulating power like a pickpocket is he a moderate is he a conservative he's named Treasury secretary as a massive financial crisis is brewing keeping this under wraps cost American taxpayers 100 billion dollars even while he proves that a divided government can find solutions that's really part of the beauty of this story is how Jim Baker managed to work with the Democrats President Bush makes him Secretary of State you think of Baker the power player but this other business of negotiating that's an interesting set of skills at a critical moment in history he had to make sure that the end of the Cold War didn't lead to things falling apart he was ready to take a chance he was on a high wire and you don't see that often [Music] [Applause] in a time before compromise was a dirty word when political parties work together he was a master of negotiation always able to find common ground it was an eye-opener to me how courageous he was politically where the Jim Baker's today we're the people who know how to cut deals when the deal needs to be cut I learned from Jim how to put their cards in the table but only as many as you really have to put in the table [Music] [Music] when he left public service after 14 years in Washington James Baker was out of politics but he was not out of power stand by CNN right now is moving our earlier declaration of Florida thus no longer is a victory for Vice President is or a night of giving it to Al Gore than take this was a period without precedent in American history there was an election and then we didn't know who won I don't know whether Governor Bush or I will prevail Al Gore had made an announcement that he was going to ask Warren Christopher former Secretary of State to represent him in Florida that Governor Bush said well we got our own a former Secretary of State we have asked former United States Secretary of State James Baker he called and by 2:13 afternoon I was on an airplane on my way to Florida it was a return to duty for him and I think he did it as much for Herbert Walker Bush as they did for George W in 1992 Baker head of the re-election campaign for his friend President George HW Bush and lost I always like to think that his real motivation was that it didn't succeed in 92 and will succeed now it was sort of the perfect culmination of so many aspects of his career the very successful lawyer the political operative the Bush loyalists I remember right when we all got there sitting in this old house was weren't all working out up the whole things thrown together of Baker basically saying fellas would better have a route to the Supreme Court I think from day one he knew that and so the strategy employed was with that telescopic view of the game would be there now how do we position ourselves all the way through first regard yeah Warren Christopher regarded this as a narrow dispute to be settled among gentlemen in the courts Baker said no no it's gonna be in the media it's gonna be in the streets Jim Baker saw this was a brawl [Applause] we had all those young Republican congressional aides storming the courthouse at Miami trying to stop the recount as if they were the aggrieved party if Jim Baker had wanted those protests to stop they would have stopped the next day he didn't want him to stop they started all that stuff with demonstrations and stuff with Jesse Jackson coming in and others and so we thought well you know two can play that game he staged managed it in a way that just trumped what the gore campaign could do the Democrats Lou playing checkers and James Baker was playing chess the gore campaign made a fundamental mistake by asking for recounts in four solidly Democratic counties and not asking for a statewide recount that gave us the moral high ground we can say wait a minute we just can't count in and the four counties that were overwhelmingly a democratic Baker understood in a complex controversy simplicity manner and the simple message had to be the election is over and Bush won we have had counts and everything else was just we have had multiple counts Al Gore being a sore loser ladies and gentlemen it is time to bring this to a close finally one month after the election the bush team appeals a florida ruling to the US Supreme Court the case has landed where Baker saw Atwood from day one three days later in a controversial decision the US Supreme Court overruled the Florida Court and declares the time for recounts has run out good morning finally a president-elect george w bush I do think it tarnishes his image for some people because it was handled through rough legal tactics rather than a genuine recount to find out what happened and Baker was one of the people that made sure it went in this direction while I was there on the inaudible platform I was sitting on the aisle right there and on his way out person Clinton leaned over to means that you were good there real so he had a strong hand going in but he played it very well and like I said I hated it but he whipped us but he was good at it it's the third time James Baker has helped win the White House not bad for someone who was told from an early age stay out of politics captain Baker my grandfather had 11 grandchildren but I was the only one to have the name and it was quite special to be James a baker Jimmy Baker was born into privilege and power his grandfather Captain James Addison Baker was a prominent attorney with a national reputation sinful to the founding of Rice University and the building of Houston Texas I used to hear all the time from my mother particularly and my father as well Jimmy you've got a real legacy to live up to that was pounded into me and fortunately not overly sore I might not have been able to absorb it young Jimmy writes his own personal code of conduct I don't want to stand at the Setting Sun and hate myself for things I've done I want to go with my head erect I want to deserve all men's respect [Music] following a family tradition Baker goes to a Pennsylvania prep school then to Princeton University he majors in history and meets the woman who will become his wife Mary Stuart McHenry Mary Stewart and I met when I came up from Houston with the group of girls to Princeton and we immediately hit it off we became very good friends and it was obvious that she and Jimmy were very fond of each other after a stint in the Marines and law school Jim Baker does what three generations of Baker men had done before him he becomes a Houston lawyer with no interest in politics I was led to believe that politics was a sort of a scuzzy business that really fine lawyers would not involve themselves and and that comes from captain Baker's advice to the young lawyers coming to work at Baker Botts he said if you want to be a good lawyer work hard study and stay out of politics as a young corporate attorney in a city booming with the oil and gas industry Baker negotiates a wide variety of business agreements its deal making 101 he learned a lot about how you figure out who you're going to be dealing with what their hot buttons are what their hopes are who they listen to who they dislike I think negotiating skills are people skills I think a lot of it is people-to-people stuff with their growing family Jim Baker and Mary Stewart lead a busy life they become friends with another couple an oil man named George Bush and his wife Barbara Jimmy Baker and I've been friends for a long long time we go back 36 37 years I think around 1960 or so our husbands played tennis together a lot of tennis together and that they're very proud of the fact that they won the tournament one year well here's a man where the terribly weak serve in tennis and it hasn't set him back in life they have a similar sense of humor they're both the last of a breed really of men who were sons a very powerful fathers wonderfully educated believed in athletics not just as a way to pass the time but to build character all they did was just laugh they just laughed the whole time and I thought they're really having a wonderful time together I think Jimmy was a Democrat tell you the honest truth and Mary Stewart was a Republican and she voted but he didn't vote usually in the olden days because that was the day the hunting season opened I really was pretty much a political then in 1968 14 years under their marriage everything would change Mary Stewart was the first of our friends to have cancer and there was not very much to be done about it it was heartbreaking she really was very very brave about it she had inflammatory breast cancer so from the time she was diagnosed till the time she died was only 15 and a half he was so close to master and she was such a wonderful person and it was a particularly hard time for him and he had it was a hard time for the boys they were 15 13 8 and 7 so they were pretty pretty young if I was ever going to become an alcoholic that's when it would have happened because I would go to work and then I would come home at night and those four little boys would be there and I'd do what I could to get them to do their homework and get in bed and then I'd go drown my sorrows and a couple of stiff drinks or more than a couple and I'm just really lucky I didn't totally twist off I came close [Music] [Applause] my tennis doubles partner and good friend George Bush called me and he said you know bake he said you gotta do something to take your mind off your grease how about helping me run for the Senate here in in Texas it was so typical George Bush here was a friend in trouble a friend who was suffering and he asked me to do that I didn't know a damn thing about politics George Bush loses that Senate campaign but Jim Baker gets his first taste of politics and he likes it a group of friends steps in to help with the boys among them is Susan Winston a longtime friend of Mary Stewart's who is divorced with three children he met Susan and it was just like this huge change came over him and Jimmy was back it was like we had Jimmy back they date for a year and a half then decide to marry we made a horrible mistake we didn't tell our kids we were gonna surprise him it was gonna be a happy surprise well it turned out to be a real bust his kids and loved me my kids had loved him but when we told him that it was such a shock it it was took a period of adjustment for everybody [Music] two years later Jim Baker has grown Restless with being a lawyer and he's seeking a new challenge his friend George Bush recommends him for a job with President Gerald Ford and Baker is introduced to the ways of Washington when I first met Jim he was the new Deputy Secretary of Commerce when I really got to know him I really began to work together was shortly after that in the course of the 1976 campaign early in the campaign Baker makes a serious mistake at a Ford fundraiser in Oklahoma City he quips to the gathered Republican donors what he thinks they want to hear the President Ford plans to dump the insufficiently conservative Henry Kissinger as his secretary of state it turns out there was a freelancer there for The Daily Oklahoman the college paper and she heard me say this and she printed it before he knows it the story is picked up by the national press 40 years later it still leaves a sting and you probably remember when I announced your resignation from the Ford administration yes and then you told me you had been pulled it out of context that's right that's right well that was the only thing I could say I was totally at a loss for words because I figured that was the absolute end of my my public service career but you were kind enough to let me up after two hours of verbal abuse [Music] by the summer of 1976 President Ford is facing a tough challenge for the Republican nomination former California Governor Ronald Reagan is leading a conservative attack charging that Ford is to moderate the contest is so close that it will be settled by a delegate count on the floor of the Republican convention Jim Baker gets the difficult job of keeping delegates committed to President Ford it was nuts and bolts it was the grunge stuff that people a lot of time don't like to do on the night of the vote makers delicate operation puts Ford over the top Baker's success earns him a new nickname and President Ford gives him a new job he'll lead the campaign against the Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter the head of the PFC will be Jim Baker after less than two years in Washington Jim Baker is becoming an insider it's a close vote but on election night President Ford loses to Jimmy Carter disappointed and with no place for him in Washington Baker goes home to Houston but now he's got the political blog I [Music] thought well you know maybe I ought to try my hand at this policy stuff I was proud of him for wanting to run I knew he would be great in Baker's bid for Texas Attorney General Suzan hits the campaign trail with her new baby Mary Bonner one hot summer day up in Lubbock I saw some people at a shopping center and I went over to give him some campaign literature I stick out my hand to introduce myself to this guy before I can say a word he says say anybody ever tell you you look like Jim Baker and I said well yes often this guy never batted an eyelash she said doesn't it piss you off well that was the first clue I had I might not win that race for attorney general Baker loses its his first and last time as a candidate the many we got the results Susan and I went to Florida just a long weekend but we were both cross-eyed we were so tired and before we got back from Florida George was on the phone saying let's get crank him his friend George Bush is planning to run for president in 1980 and he wants Jim Baker to leave the campaign Jimmy said hi bushy and I thought Oh blank blank blank and then I was in effect saying yeah we got to get going because we start way behind it won't be easy although he's got an impressive government resume ladies and gentlemen Bush is not well-known I am a candidate for president of the United States we started out as an asterisk in the poll everybody when I signed on with George Bush said what are you doing to raise Bush's profile Baker pours resources into an early state caucus and pulls off a surprise win Iowa has sent something in motion the forward momentum is clearly established and I am absolutely convinced I will be your next president thank you once again the opponent is Ronald Reagan consider the front-runner among the Republicans it doesn't take long for the rivalry between Bush and Reagan to get personal Reagan's conservative oil was to accuse Bush of being dangerously moderate bush attacks Reagan's policy positions and Marxist tax cut proposals as voodoo economics in my judgment that economic program would exacerbate the deficit by June the Bush campaign has fallen behind and money is running out I'm not unrealistic but we got a long way to go although Bush is reluctant to throw in the towel Baker is planning ahead from when Reagan will pick his running mate he knows that if Bush continues to fight into Reagan's home state of California the future alliance between the two men would be all but impossible so Baker makes a strategic decision on his own he announces that the bush campaigns out of money just on the eve of the California primary well that took the wind out of George Bush's sails George Bush was not happy [Music] George Bush was grateful in the long run but it was it was a difficult time for both of them as the Republican convention gets underway Baker's plan to get Bush on the ticket looks unlikely to succeed I flew to the convention with the Reagan's he spent about 15 minutes dumping all over George Bush he was still mad at him but booted voodoo economics then then he says to me what do you think I should do on a VP selection I says that's easy you're gonna pick George Bush he says weren't you listening to me I said I'd listen to you but you're a pragmatic guy George Bush fits the profile but the bad feelings run deep the Reagan campaign is looking for anybody but Bush even considering former President Gerald Ford as a running mate we wanted to go home we were sort of packing up eventually Reagan realizes sharing power with a former president would be unworkable that point I knew where I was going I went downstairs for something and I saw Baker sitting in the coffee shop with his bags I said where are you going he said well back Texas I says if I you I wouldn't leave so we're sitting there in bushes a hotel room a Barbara and me and one or two others phone rings is ambassador Bush there for Governor Reagan and I said yes just a minute I heard Jimmy say the three of us were in the room say say yes and George comes over and he takes the phone hello yes sir how are you with Jimmy at his side saying say yeah say yes then he says yes I can George assured the president that he would be on his agenda not George's agenda Nene goes like this to us and and it was all we could do not to break out into tears [Music] with the deep sense of commitment I accept your nomination I in November Ragan easily defeats President Jimmy Carter and the Reagan Revolution begins the new president's mantra is a triple promise of smaller government lower taxes and increased military spending but the Reagan's know that to get their ambitious agenda through Congress they'll need someone who knows the ways of Washington as their chief of staff Reagan's a movie star a lot of the people around Reagan used to say give him direction write the write script and he'll play it beautifully but he himself knows that he needs a great director Baker's name is raised the key to that of course is Stu Spencer I said you don't really know him so what we're gonna do is I'm gonna put him on the plane just so you two could talk the job offer seems improbable not only is Baker considered less conservative than Reagan he's led two campaigns against him Reagan have seen Baker on the other side fighting against them very organized very disciplined and that's one way of checking and you check your phone and you say well I'd rather have that guy inside the tent he said Jim I'd like to talk to you before you go back to Texas I remember going home telling Susan that she started crying I just said oh honey god I can't do this I just can't do it we've been married only seven years but it felt like centuries because of all the machination czar putting the family together moving to Washington coming back going back to Washington coming back and juggling all these things with teenagers who are doing all kinds of things they shouldn't have been doing and this toddler this three-year-old I just thought I can't do this but in the morning I was thinking well God has been so good he's gotten me through all this guess you'll get me through the next phase a few days after the election Jim Baker goes to his first meeting at president-elect Reagan's Los Angeles home I walk up the driveway and I look in the window and I thought to myself what are you what are you doing here I guess the president-elect saw me out there and he got up and came to the door he said Jim what are you doing out there come on in I went in and sat down with all these people that I'd been campaigning against for so long and he was really a little bit of an eerie feeling Baker's appointment is a surprise to many including longtime Reagan insider edwin meese the conservative meece expects to be named White House chief of staff when Reagan names Baker instead he asked him to share the job somehow with Meese it falls to Baker to smooth over the hurt feelings Edie and I went down to coffee shop in the Century Plaza and we started talking about how we might be able to cooperate and divide up the responsibilities and as to where let me tell you I think it would be appropriate if you had cabinet rank and I didn't it was part of why I thought we might make this work so he said you're the broad policy guy I'm the practical politics guy well it's the practical politics guy in Washington who winds up by running things but Meese didn't know that and we drew a little memorable little one-page memo and we outlined our respective duties and responsibilities you had nice on one side and Baker on the other and then then went down and itemized who was going to do what what the duties and responsibilities were and I remember in one place it had put down that he would attend any meetings that the president tended so I put all my to attend any meetings that the president tended and each man he had initial it and each mandated it and there actually were Tom's not many where that letter came back out and what Jim had done was very perceptive because he had his hand sewn on the levers of all the controls that really run the place it doesn't take long for the ideological differences to surface the real conservatives the Reaganites began to see Jim Baker's the enemy and targeted him the most negative charge you could make about anybody around Reagan was to say they were moderate they were pragmatist I was more moderate than ed Meese but when press characterized me that way that created problems for me internally he was in a difficult situation so he recruited a very powerful ally who had an inside track to the Reagan's and that was Mike Deaver PR man Michael Deaver is practically a member of the Reagan family he is especially close to the first lady Baker ed meese and Mike Deaver becomes a threesome that controls the White House agenda Meese has policy Baker has politics Deaver has the body the president's body which means he's the last guy it talks to the president if you're gonna be the chief of staff you always want to make sure that you or your guy has the last word with the president that's what the president hears and particularly with a president like Reagan who is enormous ly dependent on staff on Capitol Hill Reagan's conservative agenda enjoys support from the Republican Senate but the Democratic House of Representatives is a different story and it is Baker's job to come up with a winning strategy Baker would usually put things into three categories the things that are easy to do the things that are impossible to do and the things that you might get done but are really hard and what he always did was that let's forget the impossible we'll leave the easy to you know the agencies another thing we're gonna focus on hard but dual personalities play a big role in it sometimes it's just horse trading sometimes a representative wants to trade his vote for something for his district or his state well you do that Jim was a master of never letting a phone call from a congressman go unreturned every single day he'd return every one and also very very effective as a spokesman with the press interestingly a lot of what Jim Baker accomplished and forced through were compromises and yet people didn't think that Reagan compromised it was brilliant Ragan successes mount up and Baker is becoming one of the most powerful White House chief of staff in history it's not that you're trying to require power for powers sake power really accretes to those who get things done but the tension inside the White House is taking a toll on Baker in 1983 when the National Security Advisor announces his resignation Baker makes a try for the job he and Deaver proposed the idea to Reagan who gives his approval then Deaver and Baker did something that is unbelievable for as clever as they were they set up the thing Reagan went along with it and then Reagan had a meeting with a National Security Council planning staff and Baker and Deaver did not attend and who's sitting in there the conservatives who were against Baker at Deaver and in that meeting they talked Reagan out of the plan there was a revolt on the part of some of the more ideological members of the administration and the president changed his mind so Baker stumbled because he failed to follow his own rules which is always have the last word with the president [Music] the following year 1984 Ronald Reagan wins reelection in a landslide Baker returns to his White House office exhausted not just from the campaign but from four years of white house and fighting he was so tired at the end of his fourth year I don't think he smiled he was so anxious to get out of it that even considered being baseball commissioner a few weeks after the election Jim Baker is visiting the office of Treasury secretary Donald Regan out of the blue Regan makes a radical suggestion and he said well you know something he said we oughta switch jobs I said don't say that twice done because I sure as hell might take you up on it if the president was willing to have it happen [Music] being in the cabinet changed his image in Washington people now understood that Jim Baker was not just a political practitioner a guy who made the train run on time but he was a guy who could actually preside over an arena of policy and that's a big change it's a big jump at the top of the Treasury priority list is a Reagan campaign promise to reform the US tax code a notorious political minefield the problem that Ronald Reagan had was that he had pushed through these big tax cuts in 1981 they wanted to cut taxes again but couldn't do it because they couldn't afford that tax reform gave President Reagan a way to do that you could cut tax rates but make up the revenue by closing loopholes day one get there were not even confirmed in the positions and Baker is convening every Saturday whenever he works in government on weekends it was assumed it was casual so blue jeans in his case cowboy boots at the time he chewed tobacco so he had a plastic coffee cup white Styrofoam cup that he would spit in it was most attractive for Mom habit and Jim Baker would do what he did best which was discussed the political implications of the very wide-ranging tax breaks that they meticulously went through deciding which ones would go in which wouldn't would stay every special interest tax break is on the table but Baker is protective of the oil and gas industry Baker was a Texas oilman he wasn't going to let down the folks back home the Democrat across the table from him is the tough chair of the House Ways and Means Committee Dan Rostenkowski Baker was pragmatic enough to know that you had to work with a Democrat like Danny Rostenkowski who knew where every comma and paragraph and subparagraph and the tax code was Baker negotiates with Rostenkowski for months to craft a plan that will satisfy both parties eventually the hard-nosed Democrat agrees to help sell the Republican administrations tax reform package I mean that's really part of the beauty of this story is how Jim Baker managed to work with the other party in order to keep this thing moving in December 1985 Baker and Rostenkowski are ready to bring their tax bill to the house for a vote but they run into trouble some republican congressmen including dick cheney think baker has given away too much to the democrats i got together with some of my colleagues trent lott from mississippi for example and we organized an effort and week the rule under which the bill was to be debated which meant it was dead it couldn't be brought up on the floor I never will forget Dick Cheney and Trent a lot maybe a couple of others coming down to my office the Treasury Department said we're gonna beat you on this we thought we'd won a major victory then Jim went to work I ended up talking directly to the president and saying you know you really need to do this mr. president if you don't tell House Republicans to vote for this your number-one domestic priority for your second term is dead it's a big political defeat for you you got Ronald Reagan to come up and address all of the House Republicans gathered in one of the big caucus rooms Aaron Rayburn I'm asking for your help to secure this real and acceptable tax reform Reagan looked at the crowd and he said now gentlemen about that tax bill that's all he had to say I'm asking you this because I believe and believe it as deeply as my heart can believe that our train is Bound for Glory people started jumping up saying I'm with you mr. president you can count on me mr. president they took the rule back to the floor that day and and switched 70 votes past it after more than a year of negotiations the compromise tax reform bill is signed into law Republicans got lower tax rates which they felt was critical to continuing economic growth and Democrats and liberals got a fairer tax system [Applause] it was the Baker trait of finding a way to make things happen that allowed tax reform to go from impossible to inevitable it's a sort of thing you almost never see happen today [Music] but behind the scenes Baker knows his Treasury Department is facing a huge challenge early in Reagan's first term the president deregulated the Savings and Loan industry it proves to be an expensive mistake by 1985 when Baker takes over a Treasury the banks are facing large losses from bad investments and tens of thousands of depositors will lose their savings if the federal government doesn't step in there was suddenly a thirty to fifty billion dollar savings and loan crisis so you had you had to come up with that much money to pay off depositors because there was Federal Deposit Insurance and these banks have become insolvent so to make good on that promise you were gonna have to have a bailout but after a pledge of smaller government and lower taxes the Reagan administration doesn't want to spend the money today I find out that we have something to worry about and they do not guarantee our money back from James Baker's point of view I'm sure it was do we bite the bullet and say we're going to have to have this bailout and be honest with the American public or do we keep it under wraps a little bit pray that it somehow morphs into a solution and but possibly run the risk of having it grown to a bigger problem and they chose the latter course as the 1988 election draws nearer Reagan's team continues to downplay the severity of the issue they made a decision that keeping this under wraps was worth doing for these other things they wanted to achieve namely being in power for an additional presidency resources must be devoted to cleaning up this problem by the time a new president finally tackles the crisis in 1989 what started as a fifty billion dollar bailout will cost the taxpayers more than 150 billion the biggest single reason the tab is as big as it is today is because of delay by the federal government in coming to grips with a problem that blew up on us ten years ago but virtually no one in government including Baker's Treasury Department gets the blame I think part of the reason that Baker escapes and Treasury escapes during this period is that this is not something that either party really wanted to go after Democrats the Speaker of the House Jim Wright was very vulnerable on this issue because Republicans were attacking him for having protected the Texas savings and loans what we have done has been done in the public interest let me just and many Republicans John McCain and others were also implicated keeping this under wraps cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars and the bailout still has not been paid off entirely it really is a legacy of the president's that he served but Baker who is the point person for them and this certainly has to go into the history books for what he did or didn't do thank you all very very much when George Bush lunge for president to succeed Ronald Reagan there is no question about who will head up his campaign it was not something I was enamored with doing I mean it's I enjoyed being the Treasury secretary but there was never any doubt in my mind that I was going to do it Baker has led two previous campaigns for his friend and lost both the challenge this time will be to win over Reagan supporters who have always been skeptical about bush conservatives have never really trusted him very much he was from the more moderate wing of the party to shore up his right-wing credentials Bush needs a conservative for his running mate Baker is not in on the decision Dan Quayle's a man of the future a young man there's no question that among the gazillion of Americans who were surprised by the choice of Dan Quayle to be vice president Jim Baker was one of them he did not include a lot of people oh he did include anybody he was gonna make that decision himself what experience do I have I worked when I was going to law school in the governor's office the media spent 15 days butchering Dan Quayle the question is whether we're going to go forward to tomorrow or we're gonna go pass to the back and I can tell you listen it fell to Baker to do a lot of the damage control Jimmy expect to be solvent it's unsolvable best way to do is what we did basically not was instead of going to Cleveland we went to Akron said ago in Chicago we went to Elwood Illinois see what I mean [Applause] wishers opponent is governor michael dukakis of massachusetts who starts out with a significant lead the bush teams strategy is to portray Dukakis as an out-of-touch liberal soft on defense and crime Bush supports the death penalty for first-degree murderers a political action committee runs a controversial ad claiming that Dukakis will release dangerous criminals one was Willie Horton who murdered a boy in a robbery stabbing him 19 times it may be the greatest measure that they thought they were in trouble that they did play the race card on crime what happened this week when mr. Bush said he was going to turn positive and then the very next day he was out on his own negative it's a definitional problem turning positive doesn't mean that you that you're not I interviewed him on Face the Nation about that ad and boy he is back when up I'm not sure the public would have seen the anger because he had a great way of smoothing it over you did see him toughen up with me congressman Dick Gephardt who himself ran for president I states and is one of the major surrogates of the Democratic ticket said the other day about our campaign Adolf Hitler would love these people now that's an outrageous statement politics ain't beanbag politics is a bloodsport I damn well know that because I've done a lot of it and I have the bruises to show for it [Music] political commentators condemned the tone of the campaign the 88 campaign was so different from the 1980 primary race one wondered whether the two men had decided to remake bush where the Bush himself had fundamentally changed in eight years or whether the two men had learned from Ronald Reagan how you could win in a more conservative America Dukakis is ineffective in getting his message across on election night Bush wins an overwhelming majority of the electoral votes and a healthy 7% margin in the popular vote I want to thank my great friend Houston's son Jim Baker it's hard to imagine that there would be a President George HW Bush if there hadn't been a Jim Baker it was quite an emotional experience I had a lot of pride in the fact that we wanted [Music] there's just the weight of it is so great that everybody feels it and the closest friends and nobody called him George anymore we all called him mr. president for Jim Baker it is the moment he's been waiting for President Bush has appointed him Secretary of State he can put campaigning aside and bring his political talents to the world stage the international game is politics were at large if you're a superb at domestic politics as Jim Baker was you're playing two dimensional chess when you move to foreign policy you're playing three-dimensional chess [Music] maker assembles a closed team of advisors Jim Baker knew how to bring really great people around him he had some awfully good people people like Bob Zoellick and and Dennis Ross Margaret Todd Weiler you could have the most strenuous argument you have ever had adult-to-adult and once he had listened processed at all and he'd made the decision you either got on the train or you could leave and it worked and nobody ever left Baker is taking his post at a critical moment in the 40 year history of the Cold War but he does have an advantage that few American secretaries of state have enjoyed how do you describe friendship how do you describe trust how do you describe respect and all of these characteristics really embody our our personal relationship a secretary of state who is close to the President and can count on the president's backing and really represent the president is well ahead of the game the operation of foreign policy can become so concentrated in the White House that people aren't sure when the Secretary of State says let's have a peace conference in Madrid for example that the president means it they didn't have any doubt about that with Baker by 1989 Mikhail Gorbachev the dynamic general secretary of the Soviet Union is deep into his campaign to reform communism he seems eager to reach out to the new US administration Baker and Bush are cautious but open to moving ahead when Bush and Baker decided that they could do business with Gorbachev it wasn't entirely without criticism which came from Dick Cheney the Secretary of Defense Dan Quayle the vice president and probably some of the neoconservatives who would prove to be a lot more important later on the key for Baker is going to be his relationship with his Soviet counterpart foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze in the late summer of 1989 the two men are scheduled for a formal meeting in Washington Baker has a different idea what he had in mind was to get out of Washington create an air of informality to be able to do business in a very different kind of setting at the time they had a silly rule that Soviet diplomats could not go 25 miles from the United Nations or 25 miles from Washington DC so we put them on our planes and we say well we're gonna go a whole lot further than 25 miles and we're going to Jackson Hole Wyoming I was actually the pool reporter on the fight and doctor said it was a very small plane and two seats away while a baker and Shevardnadze were deep in conversation Baker was asking Sharon Ozzy about his hopes in his fears it wasn't that it was personal in terms of you know I want to know about your background it was personal in terms of what are you hoping to do for your country what is what are the things that worry you I knew that I was watching something really historic that plane flight and that conversation had a profound effect I think on secretary Baker in terms of this is a guy who we want to help succeed [Music] as the whole song goes this is the place where seldom is heard a discouraging word and that might account for the positive outcome of our Talk's today [Music] just two months later that relationship is put to the test East Berlin the capital of communist East Germany cutoff for more than 25 years by the 12-foot high barrier the Berlin Wall then on November 9 1989 a day I'll never forget chaos and the East German leadership and the wall is open what you see behind me is a celebration of this new policy announced today by the East German government but now for the first time since the wall was erected in 1961 people will be able to move through freely East Germans streamed to the crossing points by the thousands over whelmed border guards have no orders and let them through and East Germany finally is open to the West as the world celebrates some of his advisors urged President Bush to take a victory lap probably eight out of nine secretaries of state would have said to their president it's a triumph for foreign policy this is a huge achievement for you go to Berlin give a speech that conveys our excitement that the wall is coming down Jim Baker didn't do that Jim Baker understood that Mikhail Gorbachev was in a very delicate situation I remember being there with him sitting at the desk the press crowded around I welcome the decision there's just wild jubilation going on and the president's listing in his chair limp and he's almost got a scowl on his face he looks almost sad and I remember asking well you don't seem elated look we've got a lot of work still to do with the Soviet leaders and I don't intend to stick it in their eye and I certainly don't intend to dance on the ruins of the Berlin Wall I totally understood why they were doing it and I applaud it I think though that Bush could have found a way to both send a signal to Gorbachev that we were not going to take advantage of him at that moment and expressed the sense of celebration that was going on around the country George Bush took the hit domestically in order to help Gorbachev which made for a much better negotiating partner later he should I believe it's important that the United States of America at the time pursued this particular course of understanding and interactions among Bush President Bush had the kind of prudence the kind of caution that's so necessary to leaders of countries like ours the dramatic changes in Germany present President Bush and Baker with an unexpected opportunity for 40 years the divided Germany has been the epicenter of Cold War tensions now with the Berlin Wall open Baker and Bush see a chance to help reunite the two Germany's and bring back the most populous nation in the heart of Europe George Bush sees this as a historic opportunity to settle one of the great issues of international politics of the 20th century but the political challenges are daunting the prospect of this giant new Germany alarms the leaders of Germany's former enemies Francois Mitterrand of France and Margaret Thatcher of Britain she wasn't against German reunification she couldn't be every NATO leader for 30 years had supported the concept of German reunification but none of them expected it to happen and when it suddenly burst upon us she thought we had to move carefully I think you're going much too fast much too fast you have to take these things step by step and handle them very wisely Thatcher was saying things like they're gonna Germans are gonna achieve in peacetime what they couldn't achieve in wartime francois mitterrand at that famous statement I like Germany so much there ought to be two of them you didn't you mer but I think that's really the way he felt so a lot of what President Bush and secretary Baker had to do was to persuade them on the one hand that the Germans could be trusted and on the other hand to lean on them and say well this is where we're going and you boys better come along and even harder sell is going to be Gorbachev the Soviet leader is under enormous pressure from conservative hardliners in his own government who don't want to give up their satellite nation losing East Germany might just get him out stood Gorbachev and Shevardnadze have challenging factions on their own side the KGB the Politburo the military making it even more difficult for the Soviet leader Baker and Bush are insisting that the reunited Germany would become a member of NATO the Western defense Alliance that opposes the Communist Warsaw Pact the idea that you could reunify Germany and make it part of the Western alliance which would be a fundamental defeat for the Soviet Union seemed impossible pushing Gorby to the brink so Baker sets out to convince the Soviets to approve German reunification within NATO he was meeting Shevardnadze every other week every meeting wasn't a meeting that stood on its own each meeting was designed to move you closer each meeting was designed to achieve something Baker's success will depend on whether he can help Gorbachev deal with the hardliners on his own side it's so important to understand the political constraints on the person across the table we needed to help the Soviets have an explanation for their own public part of the story was coming up with points that they could use what secretary Baker told or what shows was it's gonna be much better for the Soviet Union if you have a stable Germany if you have a neutral Germany it could be like a loose cannon ball in Baker you see somebody exquisitely focused on solving the other side's problem in order to solve his own Baker and Bush really were exemplary at this by made 1990 when Gorbachev arrives in Washington for a summit meeting Baker has achieved only part of what he needs Gorbachev has agreed to German reunification but he has not yet said yes to letting the new Germany join NATO the white house team has a plan to remind Gorbachev of an old agreement the Helsinki Accords he basically said that countries should have the right to join whatever alliances that they wish now this is something that the Soviet Union had signed on to in the 70s when there was no question of where Germany's alliance would be West Germany and NATO East Germany in the Warsaw Pact now the Gorbachev is under so much political pressure at home can the Soviet leader keep to that earlier agreement as the meeting gets underway Bush poses the question the president said do you think Germany ought to be able to choose the alliances it wants to be in a unified Germany Gorbachev he said yes that's right and I heard it of course first in the Russian and I was startled I sort of sat up and I jotted on a piece of paper the president should ask him again and Scowcroft handed me a note over my shoulder like this he was sitting behind me I'm gonna be back her over here kind of me know what he said make him repeat this so I said we'll make help I'm gonna be clear on this you know what you're saying is self-determination and they repeated it well that caused consternation in the room and his partners asked for a recess of the meeting we caucused outside afterwards and we said how can we nail this down later that day the Americans asked the Soviet delegation whether they can announce Gorbachev response to the press we never heard from him the next day the president said it gorbachev nodded we had what we needed on nato that was a major breakthrough and a very important one for world peace I think by summer baker's diplomacy has won over the British and the French and Gorbachev signs the formal agreement to allow German reunification within NATO fake had brought about a strategic revolution in the center of Europe without producing an enormous crisis and that was one of the considerable diplomatic achievements of that period but there is no time to celebrate within weeks a new crisis erupts Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invades the neighboring country of Kuwait President Bush and Baker know that the US response to this aggression will set an important precedent this was the first conflict after the end of the Cold War and we want to establish rules they felt a huge responsibility to show that as the big superpower the only superpower we could get it right we could do it right the international community should draw together Baker happens to be in Mongolia when Iraq invades Kuwait he decides to try something unprecedented I will be in Moscow this evening and touching down there on my way back to the United States and I would hope for much of the Cold War Iraq has been a client state of the Soviet Union no Baker is gonna ask the Soviets to join the United States against Soraka if we could get the foreign ministers Soviet Union to stand shoulder to shoulder with the American Secretary of State and condemn Iraq's invasion of Kuwait it was a big deal well Baker had some osco his aides Robert zoic and Dennis Ross are already trying to convince Eduard Shevardnadze to speak out alongside Baker we would come up with drafts and Tarasenko would take miss shevardnadze and it looks like we would have a reasonable draft but then it go back into the Soviet bureaucracy and it get all watered down once again Shevardnadze is under pressure from the Kremlin hardliners I said well I can't have Baker come for a statement like this I mean if this is what this is this is what's gonna happen I'm gonna tell Baker not to come now unfortunately this was a great thing for me to say but we had no communications and I couldn't reach him when Baker arrives in Moscow the issue still is not subtle I tell Baker when he lands I said you've got to persuade chevre not Z now and you got to tell him everything you've been working towards is now going to be affected by whether or not he's prepared to do this and he stops me says I know what to say it was a fairly contentious meeting we kicked it around for 90 minutes and finally though he agreed the Soviet Union and the United States condemned the brutal and illegal invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi military forces for Baker that moment marks a turning point in history when you have the American Secretary of State and the foreign minister of Soviet Union standing together shoulder to shoulder and condemning the actions of a Soviet client state the Cold War is over [Music] with the soviets on board maker sets out to build an international coalition that includes arab nations against one of their own the key will be to get the support of the United Nations if he succeeds it will breathe new life into an institution many thought was obsolete at the time a lot of people were criticizing them why are you doing this you don't need that the UN's for sissies but they understood that operating in that part of the world you need a maximum legitimacy and and they went through a painstaking process to get it but almost immediately Iraq defies sanctions imposed by the UN Saddam sends oil tankers into the Persian Gulf trying to provoke the u.s. into military action before the coalition even has been established most of the president's advisors secretary Cheney Brent Scowcroft Margaret Thatcher wanted to immediately take out those ships this is the moment when Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister of Great Britain says don't go wobbly George Baker was alone in arguing this would be a disaster Baker believes an attack now would rupture his fragile partnership with Chevron Aussie and Gorbachev and pushed the soviets to veto a future UN resolution allowing the use of force but he's at a disadvantage he's 2,500 miles from the center of power I was at my cabin in Wyoming it was summertime we were on vacation from his remote ranch in the Rockies Baker arranges a phone call with Chevron Ozzy shevardnadze said give me three days to see if I can't get Saddam to turn those ships around before you take military action to take him at Baker his next call is to the president he said look give me a few more days because if you use unilateral American force right now I can assure you Gorbachev for his own political survival could not support us how is way out there and they were all right there with him and I frankly thought I wouldn't win that argument notwithstanding my close relationship because everybody else was on the other side but he knew the president listened to Jim Baker and it was the right thing to do that was Baker's achievement and it was very important because it laid the ground for the Soviets to support the United States and the golf world while President Bush begins a massive buildup of US troops Baker continues on the diplomatic front putting together the international coalition committed to expelling Iraq from Kuwait and then a new course he actually went and get everybody to pay for the war the only war we've ever fought that had a good return on investments that actually but before launching the war there is one more diplomatic step the president told Baker congratulations did a great job but I gotta prove the American people I went the extra mile he wanted to see if there was some way to resolve this for that war and he gave it that one last chance that's one of the things that's so striking about both men is they are fundamentally careful and thoughtful neither one of them as a cowboy neither one of them is erratic neither one of them is would let ideology drive a decision contrary to fact On January 9 1991 only one week before the u.s. imposed deadline to launch the war Baker meets in Geneva with Iraq's foreign minister Tariq Aziz it was deadly serious and at the time sitting beside Minister arm Tareq Aziz was Saddam Hussein's son-in-law and it was clear that he was going out and leaving the room and talking to Sodom a saying and coming back in with instructions and I felt like looking at Tarkas ease if it had been up to him he would have looked for a way out he kept wanting us to give something to Saddam to save face and and I said hey that's not what this is about couple times in the meeting turkeys would hint it something could be possible we could let's just continue these discussions and bigger city you want to continue the discussions commit now to withdraw it didn't take you long to get in it shouldn't take you any time to get out Tareq Aziz what's in a fool at all but yet for some reason that's hard to process in your mind they didn't blame they met for like six hours and then suddenly they called the press conference Baker goes up to give his remarks to give us a Sussman of the day ladies and gentlemen I have just given President Bush a full report and then I'll never forget he said but regrettably ladies and gentlemen regrettably ladies and gentlemen and I remember my fingers I was so under I couldn't the keys because I knew that from that half sentence but regrettably ladies and gentlemen a whole history would now flow and that was golf or one which unfortunately was the precursor to call for two within 60 days the us-led coalition has crushed the Iraqi army and sent Saddam Hussein fleeing back to Iraq with the objective accomplished Bush orders a halt to hostilities it is a controversial decision many think the US should pursue Saddam all the way to Baghdad and bring down his regime people like to say should have gone to Baghdad but that was never the mission President had no intention of doing that none of us thought that something we should do the UN didn't authorize it Congress didn't authorize it we didn't have extended discussions because if we had gone to Baghdad we would then be occupiers of a hostile system we hadn't prepared for that we got a lot of criticism for that for several years but it all stopped in 2005 how do you see now I must go mother tickler the success of the Gulf War Coalition has changed the political landscape of the Middle East Jim Baker wants to seize the moment to pursue one of the most elusive goals and diplomacy a peace agreement between Israel and its neighbors it seemed to me that time was ripe to make a major effort brent thought i would be wasting my time and we talked about it and finally we went to the president president said well brent if he's willing to do it no just think we oughta let him try Jim just really believed that it would be possible to get an agreement so that both sides would not be in a state of constant war and that was his passion Baker proposes a partnership with the Soviet Union to sponsor a peace conference inviting Arabs and Israelis to meet face to face for the first time in decades to get them there he'll have to negotiate with some of the most difficult leaders in the recent history of the Middle East Baker was trying to get a deal between get suction Mir Yasser Arafat and Hafez al-asad you have to understand Hafez hated Yasir Yasir hated Hafez Yitzhak hated Yasir Yasir hated Yitzhak and I guess Shamir and Hafez they certainly was no love lost between them further complicating his job Baker is seen by some as being anti-israel early in his term he made a controversial speech to a pro-israel lobbying group for Israel now is the time to lay aside once and for all the unrealistic vision of a greater Israel Jim Baker had made a remarkably courageous statement to a packet he had called him Israel to do two things stop building settlements and prepare in a peace agreement to withdraw from the occupied territories forswear annexation stopped settlement activity he did arouse a personal condemnation reach out to the Palestinians as neighbors who deserve political rights you have a lot of American Jews who were very upset with Baker and Bush because they were tough um but at the end of the day talk to Israelis there are people who even said that Baker was an anti-semite I didn't buy that I do think that Baker had no special emotional attitude either in favor of Israel or against Israel it was a friend but not a friend at all the time you know shows up he didn't film it if is a friend here same place yeah five minutes Baker played hardball with everybody that's what you got to do and frankly he and Bush were the last two I would argue American president secretary of state to really play hardball with the Israelis and Palestinians one of Baker's first steps is a fence-mending call to the Israeli ambassador on Washington I said mr. secretary he said don't call me mr. secretary call me Jim and I'll call you Salman if that's all right with you I said perfect they're right I was flabbergasted and then the next sentence was even more flabbergasting if there's a word like that Salman I want to do the peace process with you come and see me tomorrow I believe he took 15 trips to the Middle East on 14 of those trips the lead of my story was the last day Secretary of State James a baker the third failed again to put together the Peace Conference Secretary of State James Baker the third failed again you know we all delighted in that that's what we do but what I really respect about that and you don't see that much anymore these days he was ready to fail and he put himself out there one of makers toughest problems is to convince Syria's autocratic leader Hafez al-assad to meet with the Israelis Assad was a brutal tyrant and he was hard to deal with because he would lecture you for hours one meeting I remember went on for six hours and 45 minutes I had advised secretary Baker in the beginning that Assad never goes to the men's room so Baker says I'm the secretary of state of the free world if he doesn't go to the bathroom I'm not gonna go to visit I would meet with him over a two or three-day period he agreed to something one day I went back the next day and he started welshing on what he'd agreed to and in fact at one point so Allah didn't agree to that and I said oh really I said well then there's not much point in my staying here and I went like this and I folded my folder if you do that you better damn well be ready to leave and I was assigned quickly backtracked and said yes well that's right well that is what I read Prime Minister each section meer of Israel is going to be equally tough his determination to build settlements and occupied territories puts him at odds with all the Arab nations Samir was a hardliner and he was a proponent of a greater Israel he wanted to annex include all of those Arab lands that Israel occupied after the war but I had an extraordinarily good personal relationship with him Baker knows the key is to get the parties signed on in the right order once the Palestinians the Gulf states and Assad were on board Shamir essentially had to say yes Jericho did something nobody else could ever achieve and that is to bring Prime Minister's Romilda an international conference [Music] October 1991 Madrid Spain Baker shuttle diplomacy has achieved something many said was impossible Israelis and Palestinians along with virtually every other Arab state and the Soviet Union were sitting at the same table it was quite an accomplishment at the time it's the first time Israel and all of its Arab neighbors had ever sat down face to face to negotiate peace and guess what we had them all this conference has been vital in establishing for all to see that Arab and Israeli leaders can meet and meet face to face the Palestinians were always terrified of being dumped on by the other Arab states for selling out the peace conference in Madrid sent a signal that it wouldn't be a sellout and the Israelis always wanted as a condition of peace normal relations with their other Arab neighbours their presence in Madrid made it seem that that might be possible this has been a start an historic start that is broken old taboos it's an important story one that opens new opportunities but it is only a start [Music] the Madrid conference paves the way for secret talks in Oslo and two years later the Israelis and the Palestinians signed a landmark Accord three years into his term of Secretary of State Jim Baker has had stellar successes and is hoping for more but President George HW Bush loses the 1992 election and after serving three presidents James Baker leaves public office as a private citizen Baker stays involved in foreign affairs but it's his return to the business world that calls attention to a larger issue a pattern of former public officials who trade on their influence to make lucrative private deals I caught the mercenary culture mercenary culture is that space between private and public sector where a lot of former officials frankly get rich Baker's Middle East connections are valuable to the energy giant and Ron Andy joins The Carlyle Group a high-powered private equity firm the crafts deals around the world what government official is going to not take a phone call from former Secretary of State James Baker there's not a single person in the world that wouldn't take that phone call including a president it can erode trust and it can create ethical issues in terms of how someone acts and someone of Baker statue there's always the question they're still seeing in some ways as representing the United States he's so famous he's so legendary and in places like the Middle East as a result of his time as Secretary of State they know him as a representative of this country well that special status may raise concerns it has also led every president in the years sense to call on Baker to solve problems domestic and international there are very few men in the history of the United States who have been as good at politics as Jim Baker I think he's a now regarded as one of the best Secretary of State we've had in the twentieth century [Music] [Music] you you [Music] [Music] when he left public service after 14 years in Washington James Baker was out of politics but he was not out of power Sam by CNN right now is moving our earlier declaration of Florida there was an election and then we didn't know who won I don't know whether governor Bush or I will prevail Al Gore had made an announcement that he was going to ask Warren Christopher former Secretary of State to represent him in Florida that Governor Bush said well we got our own a former Secretary of State as much for Herbert Walker Bush as they did for George W in 1992 Baker head of the re-election campaign this old house was weren't all working out up the whole thing's thrown together of Baker basically saying fellas would better have a route to the Supreme Court warming the courthouse in Miami trying to stop the recount as if they were the aggrieved party has handled through rough legal tactics rather than a genuine recount to find out what happened and Baker was one of the people it's the third time James Baker has helped win the White House not bad for someone who was told from an early age stay out of politics captain Baker my grandfather had 11 grandchildren and we immediately hit it off we became very good friends you figure out who you're going to be dealing with what their hot buttons are what their hopes are Jimmy Baker and I've been friends for a long long time we go back 36 37 years I think around 1960 or so our husbands played tennis together a lot of tennis together and that they're very proud of the fact that they won the tournament one year well here's a man with a terribly weak serve in tennis and it hasn't set him back in life they have a similar sense of humor they're both the last of a breed really of men who were sons a very powerful fathers wonderfully educated believed in athletics not just as a way to pass the time but to build character he was so close to Mary sir she was such a wonderful person and it was a particularly hard time for him and he had it was a hard time for the boys I'm just really lucky I didn't totally twist off I came close my tennis doubles partner and good friend George Bush called me and he said you know bake he said you gotta do something to take your mind off your grease his kids and love me my kids had loved him but when we told him that it was such a shock it it was took a period of adjustment for everybody [Music] two years later Jim really began to work together was shortly after that in the course of the 1976 campaign before he knows it the story is picked up by the national press forty years later it still leaves a sting and you probably remember when I announced your resignation from government from the Ford administration yes then you told me you had been pulled it out of context that's right that's right well that was the only thing I could say I was totally at a loss for words because I figured that was the absolute end of my my public service career but you were kind enough to let me up after deep Bush campaigns out of money just on the eve of the California primary dump it all over George Bush he was still mad at him but booted voodoo economics right the right script and he'll play it beautifully but he himself knows that he needs a great director but in the morning I was thinking well God has been so good he's gotten me through all this guess you'll get me through the next phase a few days after the election Jim Baker goes to his first meeting at president-elect Reagan's Los Angeles home I walk up the driveway and I look in the window and each man he had initial it and each mandated it and there actually were Tom's not many where that letter came back out and what Jim had done was very perceptive because he had his hand sewn on the levers of all the controls that really run the place it doesn't take long for the ideological differences to surface the real conservatives the Reaganites began to see Jim Baker's the enemy and targeted him that you might get done but are really hard and what he always did was that let's forget the impossible we'll leave the easy to have you know the agencies another thing we're gonna focus on hard but dual then Deaver and Baker did something that is unbelievable for as clever as they were they set up the thing it was willing to have it happen [Music] being in the cabinet that Ronald Reagan had was that he had pushed through these big tax cuts in 19th and Baker is convening every Saturday and a plastic coffee cup white Styrofoam cup that he would spit and it was the most attractive arm habit they meticulously went through deciding which ones would go in which wouldn't would stay we organized an effort and we killed the rule under which the bill was to be debated which meant it was dead it couldn't be brought up on the floor a thirty to fifty billion dollar savings and loan crisis that you had you had to come up with that much money to pay off depositors because there was Federal Deposit Insurance and these banks have become insolvent so to make good on that promise you were gonna have to have a bailout Democrats the Speaker of the House Jim Wright was very vulnerable on this issue because Republicans were attacking him and this certainly has to go into the history books for what he did or didn't do [Music] when George Bush runs for president to succeed Ronald Reagan their Conservatives have never really trusted him very much he was from the more moderate wing of the party the media spent 15 days butchering Dan Quayle look would have seen the anger because he had a great way of smoothing it over you did see him toughen up with me whether the two men had learned from Ronald Reagan how you could win in a more conservative America Jim Baker was you're playing two dimensional chess when you move to foreign policy you're playing three-dimensional chess [Music] maker assembles a closed team of advisors Jim Baker knew how to bring really great people around him he had some awfully good people people like Bob Zoellick and and Dennis Ross Margaret Todd Weiler you could have the most strenuous argument you have ever had adult-to-adult and all of these characteristics really embody our our personal relationship a secretary of state who is close to the president and can count on the president's backing and really represent the president is well ahead of the game the operation of foreign policy can become so concentrated in the White House that people aren't sure when the Secretary of State says let's have a peace conference in Madrid for example that the president means it they didn't have any doubt about that with Baker when Bush and Baker decided that they could do business with Gorbachev it wasn't entirely without criticism which came from what he had in mind was to get out of Washington created an air of informality got to sit there was a very small plane and two seats away while a baker and Shevardnadze were celebration of this new policy announced today by the East German government that Mikhail Gorbachev was in a very delicate situation George Bush took the hit domestically in order to help Gorbachev which made for a much better negotiating partner later he I believe it's important that the United States of America at that time perceived the dramatic changes in Germany present President Bush and Baker with an unexpected opportunity for 40 years the divided Germany has been the epicentre of Cold War tensions now with the Berlin Wall open Baker and Bush see a chance to help reunite the two Germany's and bring back the most populous nation in the heart of Europe reunification she couldn't be every native leader for 30 years had supported the concept of German reunification but none of them expected it to happen and when it suddenly burst upon us she thought we had to move carefully he didn't humor but I think that's really the way he felt so a lot of what President Bush and secretary Baker had to do was to persuade them on the one hand that the Germans could be trusted and on the other hand to lean on them and say well this is where we're going and you boys better come along Baker and Bush are insisting that the reunited Germany would become a member of NATO the Western defense alliance that opposes the Communist Warsaw Pact the idea that you could reunify Germany and make it part of the Western alliance which would be a fundamental defeat we needed to help the Soviets have an explanation for their own public being able to choose the alliances it wants to be in a unified Germany be able to choose the alliances it wants to be in a unified Germany an enormous crisis and that was one of the considerable diplomatic achievements of that period but there is no time to celebrate within weeks they felt a huge responsibility to show that as the big superpower the only superpower we could get it right we could do it right the international community and Tarasenko would take miss Shevardnadze and it looks like we would have a reasonable draught but then it go back into the Soviet bureaucracy and it get all watered down or criticizing them why are you doing this you don't need that the UN's for sissies he actually went and got everybody to pay for the war the only war we've ever fought that had a good return on investments that actually neither one of them as a cowboy neither one of them is erratic neither one of them is would let ideology drive a decision contrary to fact deadly serious and at the time sitting beside Minister arm Tareq Aziz was sada Messiaen son-in-law and I felt like looking at Tarkas ease if it had been up to him he would have looked for a way out we got a lot of criticism for that for several years but it all stopped in 2005 how do you see now let's go mother the success of the Gulf War Coalition has changed the political landscape of the Middle East a state of constant war and that was his passion Baker proposes a partnership with the Soviet Union to sponsor a peace conference inviting Arabs and Israelis to meet face to face for the first time in decades to get them there he'll have to negotiate with some of the most difficult leaders in the recent history of the Middle East Baker was trying to get a deal between ji-suk Shamir Yasser Arafat and Hafez al-assad you have to understand stop building settlements and prepare in a peace agreement to withdraw from the occupied territories I do think that Baker had no special emotional attitude either in favor of Israel or against Israel it was a friend but not a friend at all the time you know shows up the infinitive is a friend here same place yeah five minutes Baker played hardball with everybody that's what you got to do and frankly he and Bush were the last two I would argue American president secretary state to really play hardball with the Israelis and Palestinians one meeting I remember went on for six hours and 45 minutes the Gulf states and Assad were on board there other Arab neighbors their presence in Madrid made it saying that that might be possible but it says return to the business world that calls attention to a larger issue a pattern of former public officials who trade on their influence to make lucrative private deals I call it the mercenary culture mercenary culture is that space between private and public sector where a lot of former officials frankly get rich it can erode trust and it can create ethical issues in terms of how someone acts and someone of Baker's statue there's always the question they're still seeing in some ways as representing the United States he's so famous he's so legendary and in places like [Music] you

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Length: 104min 2sec (6242 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 04 2020