From the River to the Sea: Ibaitik Itsasora (128) eta Jeffrey Sachs (5)

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(Singing) 

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John F. Kennedy’s last battle, cut short by  his assassination, was the effort to build a  

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sustainable piece with the Soviet Union.  Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics at   Columbia University in his new book, To Move the  World, chronicles the campaign by Kennedy from  

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October 1962 to September 1963 to curb the arms  race and build ties with his Soviet counterpart,  

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Nikita Khrushchev. Sachs looks at the series of  speeches Kennedy gave to end the Cold War and  

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persuade the world to make peace with the Soviets. Kennedy implemented the Partial Nuclear Test  

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Ban Treaty in 1963, but Kennedy’s vision was not  shared by many cold warriors in the establishment,  

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including some within his administration  and especially within the military.  Joining me to discuss To Move the World: JFK’s  Quest for Peace is Professor Jeffrey Sachs.  

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I want to begin with the Cuban Missile Crisis  because this is a moment that you write about  

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in your book where Kennedy is battling in  particularly the military, figures like  

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Curtis LeMay was the head of the Air Force, who  want to engage in a hot war to essentially bomb  

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Cuban missile bases and I believe even Soviet  ships. And this I think kind of precipitated  

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the change that came about within Kennedy. Let me say first what a pleasure it is to be  

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with you and how good it is to talk about  these issues on their 60th anniversary,  

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because they are completely alive today in  the context of the war in Ukraine as well,  

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where the US and Russia are in effect at war.  And I’m afraid our leaders are not learning  

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the lessons that Kennedy learned and espoused. I think even before the Cuban Missile Crisis,  

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it’s worth saying that Kennedy came into office in  January 1961, intent on peace, but found himself  

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at the brink of nuclear annihilation just a year  and-a-half afterwards. And that was not only  

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shocking, but rather a sign of how extraordinarily  dangerous the world was and continues to be. 

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So Kennedy came in January 1961, not aiming  for war, but aiming for negotiation and peace.  

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And remember in his inaugural address, he had the  famous line, “Let us never negotiate out of fear,  

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but let us never fear to negotiate.” And he knew the dynamics of how things can  

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get out of hand. He understood that the world was  dangerous and he was going to avoid it. And yet  

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the first year was a massive debacle because  the CIA came to him and said, “Mr. President,  

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now you have to implement the invasion of  Cuba.” And he had serious doubts about it,  

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but like most presidents and certainly  most presidents in their first months,  

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he kind of went along and said, okay, you can  do it, but I’m not going to give air cover. 

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And some flaky set of decisions  from the CIA and Kennedy  

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had them go forward. And of course the Bay of  Pigs invasion of Cuba was itself a debacle,  

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a disaster. It led to a horrible interchange  with Khrushchev who wrote in a private channel  

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to Kennedy, “Stop this piracy of people in your  government.” And Kennedy wrote back brazenly, “No,  

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it’s not my government. This is independent of  the United States.” And Khrushchev wrote back in   effect, don’t lie to me like that Mr. President. I want to stop you there because you write  

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in the book about two times the Kennedy  administration lied to the Soviets and how  

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destructive that was to building relationships. Actually the first lie came when the Soviet Union  

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shot down a CIA spy plane, the U-2 spy plane with  Gary Powers, just on the eve of what was supposed  

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to be a summit between Eisenhower and Soviet  party chairman Nikita Khrushchev. And the CIA  

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lies for a living. We know this. But it lied to  the president of the United States also saying,  

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Mr. President, don’t worry, they can’t shoot down  the spy plane. It’s too high. And if they do shoot  

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down the spy plane, it’s designed to disintegrate.  And if it doesn’t disintegrate anyway, the pilot  

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is going to take his cyanide pill. There’s  no way anything can happen to embarrass you. 

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And of course they shoot down the spy plane,  they get the wreckage, they get the pilot alive,   Gary Powers, they don’t announce that. They  say, we have been spied upon, and downed the  

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plane without revealing those details. And Eisenhower comes out and says, no,  

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no, no, no, this is a weather craft that went off  course from Turkey. And then the Soviets reveal,  

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we have the fuselage, we have the pilot who  has told us about his spy mission. Direct,  

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blatant lies. Then soon after this comes  the direct blatant lies of the Bay of Pigs. 

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It’s dangerous. And this is the CIA, by the  way, and it’s the CIA still today in my view.  

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It is lying and unaccountable and really never  called to task for these lives because the public  

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doesn’t know them, doesn’t understand what’s  going on. But from the Soviet US point of view,  

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within months of the Kennedy  administration, this air was poisoned. 

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And there was one other thing that was  absolutely precipitating all of this, which was,  

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and very fundamental and completely never  discussed in America almost at all, but there  

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had been no peace treaty at the end of World War  II and the Cold War emerged in fact over a bitter  

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dispute between the Soviet Union and the United  States about the future of Germany. The Soviet  

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Union had lost more than 20 million people in the  war and did not want to see German remilitarized. 

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The United States, on the other hand, decided that  the three occupied regions from the western side,  

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the US, French and British regions would form  a single new Federal Republic of Germany.  

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The remaining fourth part, the Soviet-occupied  part, would become the German Democratic Republic,  

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the GDR. But the western side would become  the bulwark of a new military alliance, NATO,  

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and it would be remilitarized.  And the Soviet Union said, no,   we just lost more than 20 million people,  now within a few years you’re remilitarizing. 

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Well, of course the United States never listened,  never negotiated, and at the end of the 1950s,  

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took another step. Eisenhower was flirting  with the idea, maybe we should just give our  

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allies control over nuclear weapons as well so  we can reduce the US troops numbers in Europe.  

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Eisenhower was very frugal. He was  a fiscal conservative and he wanted   to bring troops home and use the nuclear shield. And so there was, at the end of the 1950s, lots of  

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talk about nuclear sharing and this was freaking  out the Soviet Union also. And the United States  

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doesn’t know how to talk to anybody. There’s no  diplomacy, there are mortal enemies, there’s no   one to negotiate. And so the situation by the  time Kennedy came in was completely fraught,  

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then came the Bay of Pigs. Then Khrushchev  said, okay, we need to teach Americans a bit  

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of their own lessons. We’ll put missiles in Cuba. And Khrushchev had a quite remarkable exchange  

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with Andrei Gromyko, his foreign minister. Gromyko  said, “No, what, war?” And Khrushchev said, no,  

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not war. Just basically teach these  Americans about their arrogance. They  

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have missiles in Turkey. We’re going to  put missiles in Cuba, nothing about war. 

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But of course everything immediately spiraled  out of control when the missile placements were  

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discovered and the subterfuge that the Soviets  were using to place the missile systems in  

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place. And it was like the subterfuge of the  United States doing what it did on it’s side.  

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Things get out of hand. And as soon as Kennedy saw the U-2 spy plane  

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over Cuba taking these pictures of missile sites,  he convened an executive committee, ExComm, and it  

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was almost unanimous. Well, we got to shoot down  these sites, we have to take them out before they  

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can be deployed. And it was unanimous essentially  that there needed to be an immediate war and the  

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joint chiefs were told to go off and plan the  military campaign against Cuba. Would it be an air  

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campaign? Would it just be to take out the sites?  How many troops would be needed? And so forth.  Kennedy, interestingly, to make a very long  story short, had lunch by coincidence with  

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Adlai Stevenson, the US Ambassador to the  United Nations, on the first day of the  

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Cuban Missile Crisis when Kennedy had seen the  pictures. And Adlai Stevenson said to Kennedy,  

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well, of course you need diplomacy to end this and  exchange the missiles with the Turkish missiles. 

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Kennedy was shocked because no  other advisor had said anything  

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about diplomacy. It was basically unanimous  for a military approach, which by the way  

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almost surely may be too strong, although I’m  not sure it is, but most likely would’ve led to  

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nuclear annihilation. Because our doctrine was  that if we were attacked by a nuclear weapon,  

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we would give a full response. By the  way, full meaning not only the Soviet  

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Union but Eastern and Central Europe,  China, hundreds of millions of people   killed. And now we learned afterwards from  the nuclear winter, maybe all of humanity  

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perishing from starvation afterwards. But Stevenson laid the idea of maybe  

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a negotiated settlement. Well, to make a  long story short, as people know, Kennedy  

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really almost alone though with this hint from  Stevenson and then with his brother Robert  

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pushing and Ted Sorensen pushing and a few others  pushing, turned the tide over a few days that,  

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don’t do something precipitous, let’s try  to figure out what’s in Khrushchev’s mind. 

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And Kennedy came to realize, because he had  people like the Air Force head, Curtis LeMay, who  

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just wanted nuclear war it seems or first strike  against the Soviet Union, that he was surrounded  

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by a lot of hotheads who could end the world.  And he realized Khrushchev probably was as well.  

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And the two of them came to realize,  we better tamp this down. And they did. 

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And they agreed on a deal of this removal of  missiles both from Cuba and from Turkey. The  

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big mistake Kennedy made, and I always think it’s  unfair to call it a mistake because he saved the   world, so you get a lot of credit for that. But  the mistake he made was insisting that the deal  

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be secret so that it looked to the American people  like he had simply faced down the Soviet Union and  

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they had backed away. Because it wasn’t known that  the removal of the American missiles were part of  

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an exchange, and that wasn’t known for decades  actually. Well, just to come to the book… 

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Let me just stop you there because right  in the preface, and I didn’t know this,  

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you talk about once that machinery  begins to be put in place,  

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a human error can trigger a nuclear catastrophe.  You write one Alaska-based US Air Force pilot  

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had not gotten the message. This was not to send  flights over Cuba. And after taking off to collect  

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air samples to check on Soviet nuclear testing,  the pilot had become disoriented and inadvertently   flown his plane into Soviet airspace. Soviet  fighter jets scrambled to intercept the U-2  

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while, due to the high alert status prompted  by the crisis, the US plane sent to escort   it back to base were armed with nuclear  warheads and had the authority to fire. 

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Yes, and actually that was one of the  episodes that brought us to the brink of  

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nuclear annihilation. But there was one even more  dramatic, which was that after the agreement was  

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reached between Kennedy and Khrushchev, there  was a disabled submarine in the Caribbean that  

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was part of a squadron and it was the one in that  squadron that carried nuclear tipped torpedoes. 

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And when that disabled sub rose, normally  the US might drop depth charges on the  

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submarine to get it, to force it to rise. But  a jackass, I think is the right technical term,  

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dropped live hand grenades as he was flying over  this rising submarine and the skipper thought,  

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our sub is under attack, there must be war. This was a Russian submarine?  Sorry, Russian submarine, that was my point,  disabled Russian submarine, excuse me. And they  

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thought they were under attack and that there must  be a war at the surface. It was disabled and out   of communication. And so the captain of the vessel  ordered that the nuclear tipped submarine be  

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loaded into the torpedo bay and that it be fired. And if it had been fired, under US nuclear  

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doctrine, being attacked by a nuclear  weapon, including a nuclear tipped torpedo,  

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under US doctrine would have launched that full  scale response that would have destroyed humanity.  

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And the order to fire was countermanded at the  last moment by virtue of the fact that there  

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happened to be a Soviet party official who was  senior to the captain of the vessel who said,  

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I don’t think it’s a good idea.  We should rise without firing.  And they did, and it turned out there wasn’t a  war on the surface and there wasn’t a need to  

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launch the torpedo. We came within a second  of ending the world and that was after the  

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agreement had been reached between the USSR and  the United States. And Martin Sherwin, the late  

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historian who now people know as the person who  co-wrote the great book American Prometheus on J.  

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Robert Oppenheimer, wrote this story in his  wonderful last book before he passed away,  

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Gambling with Armageddon, which is a history of  the Cuban Missile Crisis. Absolutely phenomenal. 

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As is American Prometheus. And they’re both  great books. He wrote that with Kai Bird,  

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of course. You can visit that submarine.  I think it’s in San Francisco. I did. The  

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Russian Submarine is a museum. So Kennedy walks away from this  

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horrified at how close the world came to  nuclear Armageddon, but he also walked away  

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with a deep distrust of the military. And I want  to talk about the decision to give this speech,  

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which I had not read in full until I read it  in your book and then went and listened to it. 

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It has to be one of the most courageous acts by a  politician, you could argue perhaps since anything  

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FDR did. And it’s utterly remarkable. And what’s  frightening or disturbing is that I can’t see any  

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political figure giving a speech like that again.  So let’s talk about how Kennedy changed and what  

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he set out to do. And of course it was all cut  short by his assassination in November of 1963. 

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I think first it’s fair to say that being  president of the United States is a tough job  

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and it’s impossible to do right in the early days  and early years because you don’t get it. And our  

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security state in the United States, which was  created by the National Security Act of 1947,  

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which created a secret security state and a  private army of the United States called the CIA,  

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which is one half its function,  because it does intelligence and   it does private warfare of the United States. And the whole apparatus is secret and largely  

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out of control. And it is absolutely out of  control by any public understanding or scrutiny  

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or accountability or congressional oversight  today as it was in the early 1960s. Well,  

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Kennedy came in with a lot of energy and  idealism and brilliance and he stumbled  

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terribly in the first year with the Bay of Pigs  Cuban invasion and then in the second year,  

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the near disaster of the Cuban Missile Crisis. And my view is he had the potential for  

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greatness at the beginning and  by his third year he had become  

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a magnificent politician and statesman of the  first order. One of our truly great presidents.  

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Not so much in the first two years, although the  potential was there, but the growth that came  

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through this set of trials was extraordinary. Already after the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy was so  

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disturbed by the CIA that he was  beside himself about how they had led  

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the US and his administration and himself  personally into this awful debacle. He didn’t  

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trust the CIA. After the Cuban Missile Crisis  and after hearing people like Curtis LeMay even  

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essentially calling Kennedy a traitor for not  launching the war or a coward and feeling all  

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of this pressure for war, he was profoundly  disturbed and profoundly moved and profoundly  

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scared at how fragile the world was. And he  was determined to do something in 1963. And he- 

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Let me just interject. He fired Dulles and he  fired Bissell. So he actually took on the CIA  

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establishment and triggered deep animus. And I  want you, as you go on, to talk about this speech,  

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but one of the things I found fascinating from  your book is how few people he informed about  

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what it was he was about to say. And we have  about nine minutes left, so I want to make   sure we talk about the content of what he said. So Kennedy wanted to say to the American people,  

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peace is possible, even with the Soviet Union,  even with the other side. And the whole content  

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of the speech is they are human beings like  we are. They want to live, they want to  

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protect their children, they want to have  a future. And this speech is unbelievable  

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because it’s the only foreign policy speech I  know of anywhere where it is not telling the  

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other side what to do, not making threats, not  reveling in glory, not saying we are number one,  

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not saying they are evil, but saying to the  American people, we need to reconsider our  

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own position. And remember today we’re told every  day by the completely irresponsible, reckless and  

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ignorant mass media like the New York Times, I’m  going to say because it’s terrible, and like the  

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Washington Post and others, there’s no one to talk  to. There’s no one to negotiate with over Ukraine. 

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And in the Cold War in 1963, it was even more like  that. The Cuban Missile Crisis had just occurred.  

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Could you even imagine negotiating with the  Soviet Union? And Kennedy’s whole message is we  

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can negotiate. They want the same things. They too  will abide by treaties as long as those treaties  

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are also in their interest and they can be relied  upon to abide by treaties that are in their  

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interest and also in our interests. There is a  benefit of cooperation. This is rational. In fact,  

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the pursuit of peace is the rational end  of rational men, says President Kennedy. 

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I just want to read a couple sections because it  is an absolutely remarkable, and as you point out  

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through Sorensen, beautifully elegiac and just  gorgeously written, but these are some of the  

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things, just I want to read three short sections. “I speak of peace,” this is Kennedy,   “as the necessary rational end of rational  men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is  

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not as dramatic as the pursuit of war. And  frequently the words of the pursuer fall on  

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deaf ears, but we have no more urgent task.” And then he says, “So let us not be blind to  

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our differences, but let us also direct attention  to our common interests and to the means by which  

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those differences can be resolved. And if we  cannot end now our differences, at least we can  

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help make the world safe for diversity. For in  the final analysis, our most basic common link  

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is that we all inhabit this small planet. We  all breathe the same air, we all cherish our  

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children’s future, and we are all mortal.” And just to conclude, he asks in the speech,  

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“What kind of peace do we seek? Not a PAX  Americana enforced on the world by American  

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weapons of war, not the peace of the grave or  the security of the slave. I’m talking about  

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genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life  on earth worth living. The kind that enables men  

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and nations to grow and to hope and to build  a better life for their children. Not merely  

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peace for Americans, but peace for all men  and women. Not merely peace in our time,  

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but peace for all time.” That was incredible. It gives you goosebumps. Of course, I’ve listened,  

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I don’t know how many dozens or hundreds of times  to the speech. I’ve made my family listen on so  

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many occasions. But the words are thrilling.  The words are mesmerizing in their beauty.  

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And Ted Sorensen has a big hand in that as  well and in their ability to make change. 

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And I think one of the things that Kennedy  also says in here, which is incredible,  

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is his advice on leadership. And I don’t have  exactly the words here, but to paraphrase, he  

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says, by defining our goal more clearly, by making  it seem more manageable and less remote, we help  

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all people to see it, to draw hope from it, and to  move irresistibly toward it. So the goal of peace,  

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if made to be manageable, practical, like a  treaty, to stop atomic testing, stop atmospheric  

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testing of nuclear weapons, is a practical,  manageable step and people draw hope from it. 

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So the speech was so riveting and powerful. By the  way, kept completely outside of the bureaucracy,  

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was essentially hidden from the security  apparatus, from the State Department,  

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the CAA, even the White House. Only Sorensen and  Kennedy worked on it basically until the last  

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moment. Then they said, I’m giving this. Kennedy  said, I’m giving it, so it could not be vetoed by  

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state or by the Defense Department or the National  Security Council or anybody else. And he gave it. 

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And what is amazing, absolutely  amazing is that Khrushchev heard it,  

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was carried away, summoned the US envoy,  Kennedy’s envoy to Moscow, Averell Harriman,  

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and said, “This is the finest speech by an  American president since FDR. I want to make  

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peace with your president.” The words were so  powerful, the motivation, the ideas were so  

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powerful. Kennedy disseminated the speech through  Pravda, Izvestiya, on- [inaudible 00:27:44]  Isn’t that hilarious? Pravda reprinted it. Exactly, and broadcast the speech. And  

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within a few weeks they had signed  the agreement. Within a few weeks.  

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Absolutely an astounding achievement.  Then Kennedy, just to say he was also the  

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grassroots politician, he was a political  guy to the core. He went out to campaign  

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for it. And so he took his tour around the  United States, the joint chiefs, oh, well,  

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we don’t know this is… They come to testify in  Congress and try to knock down this agreement. 

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And Kennedy carried the American public  overwhelmingly and then won a decisive  

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victory in the Senate 60 years ago just now for  the ratification of this treaty. And this is,  

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the time when we’re talking is the time of the UN  General Assembly. Kennedy went to tell the leaders  

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what this meant in another completely  magnificent address. And he said,  

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“This is not the end of conflict, but it is  a ray of hope piercing through the clouds.” 

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And he ends his address to the world leaders  assembled in front of him in the chamber of  

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the UN General Assembly. Kennedy, having brought  peace, brought hope, and all the world leaders  

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assembled in front of him. And he says to them  that Archimedes is said to have told his friends,  

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“Give me a place to stand and I can move the  world. Fellow leaders of the world, let us  

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see if we can take our stand here in this place,  in this time, to move the world towards peace.”  

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And you just can’t get better than that.  The idealism, the hope, the practicality,  

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and Kennedy infused the whole world  with it. And then they killed him. 

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And we’ve lost it. We’ve lost it. And they killed him because, I’m  

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personally convinced after having studied this in  depth for decades now, and now we have the report  

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completely debunking the Warren Commission with  the magic bullet being no magic bullet at all, but  

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a bullet that the Secret Service pulled out of the  back of Kennedy’s seat and put on the stretcher,   debunking the entire forensic basis of the Warren  Commission. I’m pretty convinced that it was rogue  

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elements within the US government itself. Well, Alan Dulles-  Alan Dulles, the CIA. Can’t get more evil than that. 

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Exactly. We don’t know exactly who, but this was a  conspiracy and it was a conspiracy against peace.  

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And our security state is in full force. Our  president, in my view, is not in control,  

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and in any event has been a hardliner and a  cold warrior, whatever you want to call it,  

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well past the Cold War. These neocons don’t understand  

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peace, they don’t understand negotiation, they  don’t understand diplomacy, they don’t understand  

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the nuclear threat. And one other point, Chris,  of the speech that I think is so pertinent and  

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completely neglected. Kennedy says, “Above  all, while defending our own vital interests,  

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nuclear powers must avert those confrontations  which bring an adversary to a choice of either  

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a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt  that kind of course in the nuclear age would be  

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evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy  or of a collective death wish for the world.” 

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And the US has gone out to humiliate Putin  and to defeat Putin, and Russia has 6,000  

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nuclear weapons. What are we doing? What are  we thinking? Of course, I take it a little bit,  

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even a step back. I think this is, I call it the  war of NATO enlargement because I think the entire  

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war in Ukraine came because the United States so  recklessly and imprudently kept pushing, pushing,  

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pushing NATO enlargement, Russia saying, stop,  it’s a red line, stop. And then not to Ukraine,  

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for heaven’s sake, not to Ukraine our 2,300  kilometer border, not to surround us in  

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the Black Sea, and the US is deaf to this. And then trying to humiliate Putin and doing  

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exactly the opposite of what Kennedy said. And I  take it seriously when Kennedy says in that remark  

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about not pushing a nuclear power to a corner, he  says, “above all,” as if that’s the synthesis of  

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what he’s learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Above all, don’t humiliate a nuclear adversary.  

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And our people don’t even know it. We don’t have  diplomats and we don’t have a president in my view  

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that understands the job of keeping the foot  on the brake. So it’s a very dangerous time. 

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In this last part, I want  to ask you what happened.   So you have this incredible moment in American  history. Of course, Khrushchev doesn’t last  

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much longer. After Kennedy’s assassination, the  hardliners regain control in the Soviet Union.  

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What happened? Just run through that  historical period to where we are now. 

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Of course it’s complicated, but there was a  period of detente and of arms agreements. The  

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Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963,  which we’ve been discussing, led directly  

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to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty a few  years later. A really momentous achievement to  

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not stop nuclear proliferation, but definitely  to slow it down dramatically. Because Kennedy  

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rightly worried about 30 or 40 nuclear-powered or  nuclear weapons countries by the time we are now,  

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and it is around 10. Absolutely not safe and  in control, but not the mass proliferation. 

34:32

And the Treaty of 1963 played a critical part in  that. Detente came, we had our ups and downs. We  

34:41

had huge tensions in the early 1980s when Reagan  proposed to put intermediate range nuclear weapons  

34:52

into Europe and the Cold War intensified, heated  up again. Then came Gorbachev, and Gorbachev was  

35:05

a great statesman, the greatest of  our age of that time, a man of peace. 

35:13

And he and Reagan actually realized the  potential for peace and negotiated an end  

35:24

to the Cold War. And quite remarkably,  it was Gorbachev who unilaterally said,  

35:33

in 1990, I will disband the Warsaw Pact military  alliance of the Soviet Union. And James Baker III,  

35:43

the Secretary of State of George Bush,  Sr., who had followed Reagan as president,  

35:49

of course. Baker ran to assure him, we  will never take advantage of your decision,  

35:55

President Gorbachev, we will  not move NATO one inch eastward. 

36:00

And this was repeated by the German government  that was interested in German reunification. And  

36:06

Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the foreign minister  of Germany, promised no NATO enlargement.  

36:13

Of course, as soon as the Soviet Union  ended at the end of 1991, the US cheated  

36:22

and it cheated till this day. And despite vast  documentary evidence, we have a lot of people,  

36:29

oh, we never promised anything. It’s true  Gorbachev didn’t get it in writing in a treaty,  

36:35

because they weren’t making treaties. They were  arranging the end of the Cold War. But Gorbachev  

36:42

was promised, and those promises were sheer lies. I just want to interject. I was there. I covered  

36:48

the unification of Germany. I covered the  East German revolution, the revolution in  

36:53

Czechoslovakia and Romania, and they could not  have unified Germany without Soviet acquiescence. 

37:01

Of course. And Gorbachev said, this is important  for us, you will not take advantage of us. It was  

37:08

very, very clear. And I was there as an economic  advisor to Gorbachev’s team and then to President  

37:16

Yeltsin’s team and to President Kuchma’s team  of Ukraine. I saw these events also very,  

37:22

very close up, and we had a chance for peace. And the United States said, well, it’s not  

37:29

peace we want. We want unipolarity. We want  world hegemony. We’re now the most powerful  

37:36

country in the world. We won. You lost. We’re  going to even take out every ally you ever had,  

37:42

whether it’s Syria or Iraq or Libya or Serbia or  others. We’re going to go in one by one and clean  

37:50

up the act because we can do it with impunity.  Now, who are you? You’re a defeated power. 

37:56

And so the United States treated Russia with  contempt, engaged in regime change operations  

38:03

all over the region, usually with some mix  of CIA background and National Endowment  

38:12

for Democracy and NGOs pouring in money and  mucking up the local politics to get someone  

38:19

that would be compliant with the United States. And Russia kept saying, wait a minute, wait a  

38:25

minute, you promised and you keep moving eastward  towards us. Clinton started the process of NATO  

38:32

enlargement. His own secretary of defense, Bill  Perry, was aghast and thought about resigning,  

38:38

said, this is going to mess up everything. Of  course, the very architect of containment policy,  

38:45

George Kennon, who invented containment in  1947 in his long telegram and in his foreign  

38:52

affairs article said, you start NATO enlargement,  you’re going to have absolutely a new Cold War. 

39:01

But American politicians cannot hear anybody’s  concerns, and the arrogance is breathtaking,  

39:09

and the ignorance is breathtaking in  my view. And the power of the military  

39:14

industrial security state in the United  States is awful and breathtaking as well.  

39:21

So under Clinton, three countries joined  NATO, and then under Bush Jr., 2007,  

39:29

seven more countries, the three Baltic  states, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia,  

39:34

Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Slovenia. And Russia’s now being cornered by the advancing  

39:42

NATO. And Putin says in 2007 at the Munich  Security Conference, stop. Stop. You promised  

39:51

in 1990 no advance, and now all you’re doing is  advancing your military. And in 2002, by the way,  

40:00

the United States unilaterally pulled out of the  Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and started to put  

40:06

in ageist missiles on Russia’s borders, nearby  Russia in Poland and Romania in particular. 

40:14

So Putin says, stop this. And what does the  United States do in response? Bush Jr. instructs  

40:23

his ambassador to NATO, interestingly, Victoria  Nuland, who was Cheney’s foreign policy advisor,  

40:30

then US Ambassador to NATO, then suddenly  is Hillary’s foreign policy advisor. Then  

40:35

suddenly the Assistant Secretary of State in  2014 when the US was part of the overthrow of  

40:43

the Ukraine government to get someone that was  suppliant to the US desire for NATO enlargement. 

40:50

And so the tensions kept rising until 2014,  the United States participated in a regime  

40:58

change operation, very typical, overthrowing  a Ukrainian president that wanted neutrality,  

41:05

Viktor Yanukovych. And at that moment, Putin said,   you’re not getting our naval base in Crimea, and  took back Crimea because it was not going to fall  

41:16

into NATO hands. And the Russian part of Ukraine,  ethnic Russian part of the Eastern Donbas,  

41:28

was aghast at the Russophobic regime that  had come into power with the US connivance in  

41:36

February 2014, so it called to break away. And it required a treaty, two treaties,  

41:43

in fact, Minsk I and Minsk II, to try  to make peace within Ukraine itself.  

41:49

And the idea of the Minsk II agreement was that  the eastern part of Ukraine, which is ethnically  

41:56

overwhelmingly Russian, would have autonomy within  Ukraine, a federal Ukraine. And the United States  

42:04

opposed federalization, and the Ukrainians  opposed it. They signed the treaty. The US  

42:10

Security Council endorsed the treaty, and they  blew it off, the Ukrainians and the Americans.  

42:15

Forget it. We don’t have to implement it. So by the time Biden came in 2021,  

42:21

Minsk had fallen apart. The US was arming Ukraine  to the teeth. Biden came in full cold warrior,  

42:30

we’re going to expand NATO to Ukraine. Yes  we are. And Putin said, no, you’re not.  

42:38

And in December 17th, 2021, Putin put on the  table a draft US Russia security agreement  

42:49

based on NATO not enlarging to Ukraine, and  these missiles not being pointed at Russia. 

42:58

And I called the White House at that point to  senior official and said, “Negotiate. You’ve  

43:05

got a basis to avoid war.” No, don’t worry. But  anyway, NATO enlargement is none of Russia’s  

43:13

business. That’s the formal policy of the United  States of America. It’s mind mindbogglingly  

43:20

stupid. NATO enlargement is not part of Russia’s  business? Well, whose business is it part of? 

43:26

I want to insert there that  Victoria Nuland, of course,   is part of the Biden administration back at the  State Department, number one, and I want to ask- 

43:36

She keeps getting promoted as we get deeper and  deeper into war. It’s unbelievable. But that’s the  

43:45

deep state. Is she Republican? Is she Democrat?  Doesn’t matter. She’s for war. That’s it. 

43:50

Right. Well, the Democratic  party has become more fervently   the war party than even the Republican party. If you look at the base, the Democrats are  

44:00

the war mongerers. The Republicans want peace.  It’s amazing. It’s something that’s absolutely  

44:06

astounding. But basically the American public, as  usual, has been lied to again and again and again,  

44:12

told that there’s no predicate to this  war. There’s no basis of negotiation.  

44:17

They have no idea that Russia has tried  to negotiate all the time throughout.  But the US attitude is we don’t have to talk to  them. And if you don’t talk to them, you end up  

44:27

with war. Whereas Kennedy’s whole point was, we  can negotiate with the other side. That was the  

44:34

whole point that brought Kennedy’s achievement  of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban treaty. 

44:40

Well, it’s kind of chronicle of a  war foretold because William Burns,   we know from released cables, sent cables back  from, he was the ambassador in Moscow saying,  

44:51

it doesn’t matter where you are on the political  spectrum in Russia, you don’t essentially turn  

44:58

Ukraine into a hostile entity on Russia’s border.  And he’s ignored. I just have one last question. 

45:04

Just to say, by the way, because that  memo, which is entitled, “Nyet Means Nyet.” 

45:11

Yes. And saying it’s not just Putin,   it’s all the Russian [inaudible 00:45:18] class. That’s right, that’s right. 

45:17

The only reason we saw it is WikiLeaks.  Because our government is so secretive,  

45:24

the American people are not told anything  about what’s going on. And your former paper,  

45:30

it is the New York Times, right? Yes.  They’re not… I love the New York Times.  It published the Pentagon Papers. Now it’s  

45:37

completely in the hands of government.  It doesn’t question a word. Weird. 

45:42

I have one last question- And alarming. Please.  How, well, we’ll have to do a show on the  deterioration of American journalism. As you know,  

45:53

I’m a very strong supporter of Julian. So how,  especially having worked in Russia, how do you  

46:02

characterize the Russian invasion of Ukraine? I characterize it as occurring in the eighth  

46:10

year of a war that started with the overthrow  of Viktor Yanukovych and escalated after that  

46:16

as totally avoidable. Because if Biden had  negotiated with Putin in December 2021,  

46:26

the war would’ve been avoided. I regard it as an attempt at the  

46:33

beginning to force Ukraine to the negotiating  table. And within a few days of the launch of the  

46:40

so-called special military operation, which was  not an invasion at the scale to take over Ukraine,  

46:49

it was a military operation to push Ukraine to the  negotiating table. Within a few days, Zelenskyy  

46:56

said, we can negotiate. A few more days, he said,  we can be neutral. We need security guarantees,  

47:03

but we can be neutral. I know because I’ve  spoken to the people that were involved in the  

47:10

negotiations in March 2022 that these negotiations  were making tremendous progress on the basis of  

47:18

Ukrainian neutrality and non-enlargement of NATO. And we know that one day the negotiations stopped.  

47:28

The Ukrainians walked in to the Turkish mediators  and said, we’re not negotiating now. We’re taking  

47:35

a break from negotiating. They stopped. Why?  The United States told them, you don’t need to  

47:42

negotiate. You need to defeat Russia. You don’t  need to accept neutrality. We’ve got your back. 

47:47

And the United States pushed Ukraine into an  escalating war thinking that the combination  

47:55

of economic sanctions and HIMARS and  other wonder weapons would force Putin  

48:01

to back down. Putin didn’t back down. In  fact, he mobilized in the summer of 2022.  

48:07

So America’s game of chicken didn’t exactly  work. It led to another round of escalation. 

48:12

And it’s especially led to a bloodbath, completely  predictable, because Americans have refused,  

48:19

and by Americans, I mean Biden, our president  who’s responsible and his team, have rejected  

48:27

negotiations at every turn. And they  tell us, which is a lie, that there’s  

48:33

no one to negotiate with and that Russia’s not  interested in negotiating, and that’s a lie. 

48:38

The difference is Russia’s interested in  negotiating an end to NATO enlargement,  

48:44

and the United States is interested in going  wherever it pleases. No other country, even not  

48:50

even a nuclear superpower allowed to have a red  line on their side in their neighborhood. Whereas  

48:56

we are in the 200th anniversary of the Monroe  Doctrine. So we said 200 years ago, no one in the  

49:06

Western atmosphere should meddle, and Russia’s not  allowed to say we don’t want your military on our  

49:13

border. No, that’s not Russia’s business. So this  is a massive, colossal failure of US diplomacy. 

49:20

Great. I want to thank the Real News Network  and its production team, Cameron Granadino,   Adam Coley, David Hebden, and Kayla Riveaa.  You can find me at chrishedges.substack.com.