Kind: captions
Language: en
it's not our business
changed the Russian government and
anybody who thinks it's a good idea to
do regime change in Russia which has
more nuclear weapons than we do
um is I think irresponsible and you know
Vladimir Putin himself has said you know
we will not live in a world without
Russia and it was clear when he said
that that he was talking about himself
and I and he has his hand on a button
that could bring you know Armageddon to
the entire planet so why are we messing
with this it's not our job to change
that regime and and we should be making
Fair friends with the Russians we
shouldn't be treating him as an anime
now we've pushed them into the camp with
China
that's not a good thing for our country
and by the way
you know what we're doing now does not
appear to be weakening Putin at all
the following is a conversation with
Robert F Kennedy Jr candidate for the
president of the United States running
as a Democrat Robert is an activist
lawyer and author who has challenged
some of the world's most powerful
corporations seeking to hold them
accountable for the harm they may cause
I love science and engineering these two
Pursuits are to me the most beautiful
and Powerful in the history of human
civilization science is our journey our
fight for uncovering the laws of nature
and leveraging them to understand the
universe and to lessen the amount of
suffering in the world
some of the greatest human beings I've
ever met including most of my good
friends are scientists and Engineers
again I love science
but science cannot flourish without
epistemic humility without debate both
in the pages of academic journals and in
the Public Square in good faith
long-form conversations agree or
disagree I believe Robert's voice should
be part of the debate to call him a
conspiracy theorist and arrogantly
dismiss everything he says without
addressing it diminishes The public's
trust in the scientific process
at the same time dogmatic skepticism of
all scientific output on controversial
topics like the pandemic is equally if
not more dishonest and destructive
I recommend that people read and listen
to Robert F Kennedy Jr his arguments and
his ideas
but I also recommend as I say in this
conversation that people read and listen
to Vincent record yellow from this week
in virology Dan Wilson from debunk the
funk and the Twitter and books of Paul
offit Eric tople and others who are
outspoken in their disagreement with
Robert
it is disagreement not Conformity that
bends the long Arc of humanity toward
truth and wisdom
in this process of this agreement
everybody has a lesson to teach you but
we must have the humility to hear it and
to learn from it
this is the Lex Friedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's Robert F Kennedy Jr
it's the fourth of July Independence Day
so simple question simple big question
what do you love about this country the
United States of America I would say
well there are so many things that I
love about the country on uh
you know the Landscapes and the
waterways and the people Etc but on the
kind of a you know the higher level you
know people argue about whether we're an
exemplary Nation
and the that term has been given a bad
name particularly by the neocons the
actions the neocons in in recent decades
who
have turned that uh that phrase into
kind of a justification
for forcing people to adopt American
systems or values at the barrel of a gun
but my father and Uncle used it in a
very different way and they were very
proud of it I grew up very proud of this
country because we were the exemplary
nation in in uh in the sense that we
were an example of
democracy all over the world when we uh
when we first launched our democracy in
we were the only democracy on Earth and
by the Civil War by 1865 there were six
democracies
today there's probably 190.
and all of them in one way or another
are modeled on on the American
experience and it's kind of
extraordinary because
or if our our first contact with uh our
first serious and contact
uh with the European culture and
continent was in 1608
I want John went through came over with
his Puritans and the Sloop Arbella and
Winthrop gave this famous speech where
he said this is going to be a city on a
hill this is going to be an example for
you know all the other nations in the
world and he he warned his fellow
Puritans they were you know sitting at
the this great expanse of land he said
we can't
um be we can't uh uh be seduced by
the the war of real estate or by the
carnal opportunities of this land we
have to take this country as a gift from
God and then turn it into a uh an
example for the rest of the world of of
God's love of God's Will and uh and
wisdom and the and then you know to 200
years later 250 years later
they are a different generation they're
mainly Dias or people who
um had a a belief in God but not uh so
much
a love of particularly religious
cosmologies you know the framers the
Constitution
um believe that we were creating
something that would be replicated
around the world and that it was an
example it was in democracy
there would be this kind of wisdom from
the collective you know that and the
word wisdom means the knowledge of God's
will
and that somehow God would speak through
the collective in a way that um
that he or she could not speak through
you know through totalitarian regimes
and um you know I think that that's
something that even though uh
Winthrop was a white man and a
Protestant that every immigrant group
who came after them I kind of adopted
that belief and I know my family when
you know our my family came up all of my
grandparents came over in 1848 during
the Potato Famine
and they saw this country as unique in
history as something that
you know that was uh
that was part of kind of a broader
spiritual Mission and so I I'd say that
from a thirty thousand foot level that
uh you know that's I grew up so proud of
this country and believing that it was
the greatest country in the world and
for those reasons well I immigrated to
this country and one of the things that
really embodies America to me is the
ideal of Freedom Hunter Thompson said
freedom is something that dies unless
it's used what does freedom mean to you
to me Freedom does not mean you know
chaos
and it does not mean Anarchy it means
that it it it has to be accompanied by
restraint if it's going to
uh live up to its promise
um in the self first right what it means
the capacity for human beings to
um to exercise and to
fulfill their uh their creative Energies
unrestrained as much as possible by
government so this point the hunter
estas has made is dies unless it's used
I agree with that yeah I do agree with
that and I think he'd
he was not unique in saying that you
know Thomas Jefferson said that the tree
of Liberty has to be had to be watered
with the blood of each generation and
what he meant by that is that it's it's
uh you can't live off we can't live off
The Laurels of the American Revolution
that you know we had a group we had a
generation where between 25 000 and 70
000 Americans died they gave their lives
they gave their livelihoods they gave
their
status they gave their property and they
put it all on the line to give us our
Bill of Rights and that but those Bill
rights the moment that we signed them
there were forces within our society
um that began trying to chip away at
them and that you know what happens in
every generation and it is the
obligation of every generation
to safeguard and protect those freedoms
the blood of each generation you
mentioned your interests your admiration
of Albert Camus of stoicism perhaps your
interest in existentialism
Camus said
I believe in myth of Sisyphus the only
way to deal with an unfree world is to
become so absolutely free that your very
existence is an act of rebellion what do
you think he means by that I suppose the
way that kamu
view the world
um and the way that the stoics did and a
lot of the existentialists was that it
was uh that it was so absurd and that
the uh the the problems and the tasks
that were given just to live a life are
so insurmountable
that the only way that we can kind of um
get back the gods for giving us this you
know this uh this uh impossible task of
of living life
was to embrace it and to enjoy it and to
do our our best at it I mean to me I
you know I read camo and then
particularly in the myth of Sisyphus as
a
um as kind of as a parable that uh and
it's the same lesson that I think he he
writes about in the plague
where we're all given these
insurmountable tasks in our lives but
um that uh by doing our duty by being of
service to others
we can bring meaning to a meaningless
chaos and we can bring order to the
universe and
you know Sisyphus was uh was kind of the
iconic hero of the stoics
and he was a man because he did uh
because he did something good he
delivered a gift to humanity
he angered the gods and they condemned
him to put a rock up the hill every day
and then it would roll down when he got
to the top it would roll down and he'd
spend the night going back down the hill
to collect it and then rolling it back
back up the hill again
and the task was observed it was
insurmountable he could never win
but the last line of that book is one of
the great lines which is uh which is
something to the extent that you know I
can picture Earth says smiling because
Camus belief was that even though he um
his task was insurmountable that he was
a happy man
and he was a happy man because he put
his shoulder to the stone
he took his duty he embraced the tasks
and the you know and the absurdity of
life and he pushed the stone up the hill
and that if we do that and if you know
we find ways of being service to others
that is you know the ultimate
that's the key to the lock that's the
solution to the puzzle each individual
person in that way can rebel against
absurdity by discovering meaning to this
whole messy thing and we can bring
meaning not only to our own lives but
we can bring meaning to the universe as
well we can bring some kind of order to
life
um
uh you know that those the Embrace of
those tasks and the and the commitment
to service
resonates out from us to the rest of
humanity in some in some way
so you mentioned the plague by Camus
there's a lot of different ways to read
that book but one of them especially
given How It Was Written is that the
plague symbolizes uh Nazi Germany
and the Hitler regime what do you learn
about human nature
from a figure like Adolf Hitler that
he's able to
uh Captivate the minds of millions rise
to power and take on pull in the whole
world into a global war
I was born nine years after the end of
World War II
and I grew up in a generation that was
big you know with my parents who were
fixated on that
um on you know what happened at my
father
at that time the you know the kind of
the resolution in the minds of most
Americans and I think people around the
world
is that there was there had been
something wrong with the German people
that you know the Germans had been
particularly susceptible to this kind of
a demagoguery and to following a
powerful leader and um and his
industrializing cruelty and and and uh
and murder
and my father always differed with that
and my father said this is not a German
problem
this could happen to all of us we're all
just inches away from barbarity and the
thing that keeps us safe in this country
are the institutions of our democracy
our constitution is it's not our nature
you know our nature
has to
um
has to be restrained and it and that
comes through self-restraint but it also
you know the beauty of our country is
that we develop we devise these
institutions that are designed to allow
us to flourish
but at the same time on not to give us
enough freedom to flourish but also
create enough order to keep us from
collapsing into barbarity so
um you know one of the other things that
my father
talked about from when I was little you
know he would ask us this question
if you if you were the family
and Anne Frank came to your door and
asked you to hide her would you be one
of the people who hit her at risked your
own life or would you be one of the
people who turned her in
and of course we would all say of course
we would hide Anne Frank and take the
risk
um but you know that's been something uh
kind of a lesson a challenge that has
been uh that has always been near the
Forefront of my mind that if a
totalitarian system ever
occurs in the United States which my
father thought was quite possible he he
was conscious about how fragile
democracy actually is
um that would I be one of the ones who
would resist the totalitarianism or
would I be one of the people who
went along with it would I be one of the
people who was at the train station and
you know Krakow or uh or
um or you know even Berlin and saw
people
being shipped off to camps and just put
my head down and pretend I didn't see it
because talking about it would be
destructive to my career maybe my
freedom and even my life
um so you know that has been a challenge
that my father gave to me and all of my
brothers and sisters and
it's something that I I've never
forgotten a lot of us would like to
believe we would uh resist in that
situation but the reality is most of us
wouldn't and that's a good thing to
think about
that uh human nature is such that we're
selfish even when there's an atrocity
going on all around us and we also you
know we have the capacity to deceive
ourselves
and all of us tend to kind of Judge
ourselves by our intentions and our
actions
what have you learned about life from
your father Robert F Kennedy first of
all I'll say this about my uncle because
you know I'm going to apply that
question to my uncle and my father my
uncle was asked when he first met Jackie
Bouvier who later became Jackie Kennedy
she was a reporter for a newspaper and
she was doing she she had a kind of
column where she'd do these these kind
of um
pithy interviews uh with with both
famous people and Men industry in
interviews
and she was interviewing him and she
asked them
um
what she thought what he believed his
best quality was is his strongest virtue
and she thought that he would say
courage because
he had been a war hero he had he was the
only uh president who and this one he
was Senator by the way
who received the purple heart and you
know he had a very kind of famous story
of him as a hero in World War II and
then he had come home and he'd written a
book on car on moral courage among
American politicians and one Pulitzer
Prize
that book profiles and courage and um
which was a series of incidents where
um American political leaders made
decisions to to embrace principle even
though their careers were at stake and
in most cases were destroyed by their
choice
she thought he was going to say courage
but he didn't he said curiosity
and
um I think you know looking back at his
life that the best that that was true
and that was the quality that allowed
him
to put himself in the shoes of his
adversaries and he always said that if
you if the only way that we're going to
have peace is if we're able to put
ourselves in the shoes or adversaries
understand their behavior and their
contact not context
and that's why he was able to
um you know during the uh he was able to
resist the intelligence apparatus in the
military
during the Bay of Pigs when they said
you've got to send in the Essex the
aircraft carrier and he said no even
though he'd only been in two months in
office he was able to stand up to them
because
of because he was able to put himself in
the shoes of both Castro and Khrushchev
and understand there's got to be another
solution to this and then during the
Cuban Missile Crisis
he was able to do it when the narrative
was okay Khrushchev acted
in a way as an aggressor to put missiles
in our hemisphere how dare he do that
and Jack and my father were able to say
well wait a minute he's doing that
because we put missiles in turkey and
Italy that were right on you know the
Turkish ones right on the Russian border
and they then made a secret deal with
dobrandon with ambassador to Brennan and
you know with Khrushchev
um to uh to remove the missiles in in
Turkey if he moved the Jupiter missiles
from Turkey if I'm
so long as Khrushchev removed them from
from Cuba every there were 13 men on the
exact on the end what they call the ncon
committee
which was the group of people who were
deciding you know what the action was
what what they were going to do to end
the Cuban muscle crisis and virtually
and of those men 11 of them wanted to
invade and wanted to bomb and invade
and it was Jack and then later on my my
father and and Bob McNamara who are the
only people who were with him
but because he was able to see the world
from khrushchev's point of view of you
he believed that there was another
solution and then he also had the moral
courage so
um my father you know to get back to
your question
famously is that that moral courage is
the most important quality and it's more
it's more rare and courage on the
football field or courage in battle than
physical courage it's much more
difficult to come by but it's the most
important quality in a human being and
you think that kind of empathy that you
referred to that requires moral courage
it certainly
requires moral courage to
to act on it you know and particularly
you know in
you know any time that a nation is at
War there is kind of a momentum or an
inertia that says okay let's not look at
this from the other person's point of
view
and um that's the time we really need to
do that well if you can apply that
style of empathy style of curiosity to
the current war in Ukraine
what is your understanding of why Russia
invaded Ukraine in February 2022
Vladimir Putin could have avoided the
war in the Ukraine well his invasion was
illegal it was unnecessary and it was
brutal
um but
I think it's important for us
to move Beyond these kind of comic book
depictions of a uh you know of this
insane uh avaricious
Russian leader who wants to you know
restore the Soviet Empire and that
that's why and it was I and who made an
unfoged unprovoked
um
invasion of the Ukraine he was provoked
and we were provoking them and we were
provoking him for for since 1997.
and it's not just me that's saying that
I mean when when and before right before
Putin never came in
we were provoking Russia Russians in
this way unnecessarily
and to go back that time in 1992 when
the Russians moved out when the Soviet
Union was collapsing
the Russians moved out of East Germany
and they did that which was a huge
concession and they had 400 000 troops
in East Germany at that time and they
were facing NATO troops on the other
side of the wall
a Gorbachev made this huge concession
where he said to George Bush
I'm going to move all of our troops out
and you can then reunify Germany under
NATO which was a hostile Army to the to
the South it was created to you know uh
with hostile intent with the Soviet
Union
and he said you can take Germany but I
want your promise that you will not move
NATO to the East and James Baker who was
the Secretary of State famously said
I will not move NATO we will not move
Nato one inch to the east so then five
years later in 1997 it's a big new
Brzezinski who was kind of the father of
the neocons
who's a Democrat that time served in the
in the uh Carter Administration
he said he published a paper a blueprint
for moving NATO right up to the Russian
border a thousand miles to the east
and and taking over 14 Nations
and at that time George Cannon who was
the kind of the deity of American
diplomats he was probably arguably
arguably the most important Diplomat in
American history
he was the architect of the containment
policy during World War II
and he said this is insane and it's
unnecessary and if you do this it's
going to provoke the Soviet uh I mean
the Russians of violent response and we
should be making friends with the
Russians they lost the Cold War
we should be treating them the way that
we treated the our adversaries after
World War II like with a Marshall plan
to try to help them incorporate into
Europe and to be part of the the
Brotherhood of you know of man and of
Western Nations we shouldn't continue to
be treating him as an enemy and
particularly surrounding them at their
borders
William Perry who was then the Secretary
of State of uh defense under Bill
Clinton threatened to resign he was so
upset by this plan to move NATO to the
ease
and William Burns who is then the U.S
ambassador of the Soviet Union who's now
at this moment the head of the CIA said
at the time the same thing
if you do this it is going to provoke
the Russians toward a military response
and the we we moved it we moved all
around Russia we moved to 14 Nations a
thousand miles to the East and we put
eight dismissal systems
and two nations in Romania and Poland so
we did what you know what the Russians
had done to us in 1962 that ever vote
would have provoked an invasion of Cuba
we put those missile systems back there
and then we walk away unilaterally walk
away from the two uh nuclear missile
treaties the intermediate nuclear
missile treaties that we had with us
with Russia
and when neither of us would put on
those missile systems on the borders
we walk away from that and we put Aegis
missile systems which are nuclear
capable they can carry the Tomahawk
missile switch of nuclear warheads so
the last uh country that they didn't
take was the Ukraine and the Russians
said and in effect Bill Perry said this
or William Byrne said it so now the head
of the CIA
it is a red line if we go into if we
bring NATO into Ukraine that is a red
line for the Russians they cannot live
with it they cannot live with it Russia
has been invaded
three times through the Ukraine
the last time it was invaded we killed
or the Germans killed one out of every
seven Russians they destroyed my uncle
described what happened to Russia
um in his famous American University
speech in in uh in 1963
60 years ago this month
or he's or last month 60 years ago in
June June 10th 1963. he told that speech
was telling American people put yourself
in the choose the Russians
we need to do that if we're gonna if
we're gonna make peace
and he said all of us have been taught
you know that we won the war but we
didn't win the war the Russians if
anybody won the war against Hitler was
the Russians
their country was destroyed they they
all of their cities and he said imagine
if all of the Cities
on the east coast of Chicago were
reduced to rubble and all of the fields
Burns all the force Burns that's what
happened to Russia that's what they gave
so that we could get rid of Adolf Hitler
and he had them put themselves in their
position and you know today there's none
of that happening we have refused
repeatedly to uh to talk to the Russians
we've broken up there's two treaties the
Minsk agreements which the Russians were
willing to sign and they said we will
stay out the Russians didn't want the
Ukraine they showed that
when they when the Don BOS region voted
90 to 10
to leave and go to Russia Putin said no
we want Ukraine to stay intact but we
want you to sign a Memphis Accords to to
you know they the Russians were were
very worried because of the U.S
involvement in the coup in Ukraine in
2014.
and then the oppression and the and the
you know and the killing of 14 000
ethnic Russians and Russia hasn't had
the same reason the same way that if
Mexico
would Aegis missile systems from China
or Russia on our border and then killed
000 expats American we would go in there
oh he does have a national security
interest in the Ukraine he has an
interest in protecting the
russian-speaking people of the Ukraine
yeah I think Russians and
the Minsk accordions at it it left
Ukraine as part of Russia and left him
as a semi-autonomous region that could
continue to use their own language which
is essentially banned by the coup by the
government we put in in 2014.
um and uh and we wouldn't we we
sabotaged that agreement and and we now
know in April of 2022
zielinski and uh Putin had Inked a deal
already to another peace agreement and
that the United States sent Boris
Johnson the neocons in the White House
and Boris Johnson over to the Ukraine to
sabotage that agreement so
what do I think I think this is a proxy
war I think this is a you know this is a
war that the neoconsi and the White
House wanted they've said for two
decades they wanted this war
and that they wanted to use Ukraine as a
pawn in a proxy war between uh United
States and Russia the same as we used
Afghanistan
and in fact they say it this is the
model let's use the Afghanistan model
that was set again and again and to to
get the Russians to overextend their
troops and then fight them using local
uh Fighters and U.S weapons
and when President Biden was asked why
are we in the Ukraine he was honest he
says to depose Vladimir Putin regime
change for Vladimir Putin and when his
defense secretary Lloyd Austin in April
2022 was asked you know why are we there
he said to degrade the Russians capacity
to fight anywhere to exhaust the Russian
army and degrade its capacity to fight
elsewhere in the world
that's not a humanitarian Mission that's
not what we were told we were we were
told this was an unprovoked invasion
but
and that we're there to bring a
humanitarian relief to the ukrainians
but that is the opposite that is a war
of attrition that is designed to chew up
turn this little nation into an abattoir
of death for the flower of Ukrainian
youth in order to advance a geopolitical
ambition of certain people within the
White House and uh you know I think
that's wrong
we should be talking to the Russians the
way that you know Nixon talked to
prashnav
the way that bush talked to Gorbachev
the way that my uncle talked to
Khrushchev we need to be talking with
the Russians we should and and and
negotiating and we need to be looking
about how do we end this and preserve
peace in Europe would you as president
sit down and have a conversation with
Vladimir Putin and Vladimir zolensky
separately and together to negotiate
peace absolutely
what about Vladimir Putin
he's been in power since 2000.
so as the old adage goes power corrupts
and absolute power corrupts absolutely
uh do you think he is
been corrupted by being in power for so
long if you think of the male if you
look at his mind listen I don't know
exactly
um I can't say because I just I don't
know enough about him or about you know
like my the evidence that I've seen
is that he is homicidal he kills his
enemies or poisons them
and you know the reaction I've seen to
that to hit those accusations from him
have not been to deny that but to kind
of laugh it off
I think he's a dangerous man and that of
course you know
um there's probably corruption in his
regime but having said that
it's not our business
to change the Russian government and
anybody who thinks it's a good idea to
do regime change in Russia which has
more nuclear weapons than we do
um is I think irresponsible and you know
Vladimir Putin himself has said you know
we will not live in a world without
Russia and it was clear when he said
that that he was talking about himself
and uh and he has his hand on a button
that could bring you know Armageddon to
the entire planet so why are we messing
with this it's not our job to change
that regime and and we should be making
friends with the Russians we shouldn't
be treating him as an enemy now we've
pushed him into the camp with China
that's not a good thing for our country
and by the way
you know what we're doing now does not
appear to be weakening Putin at all
Putin now you know if you believe the
the polls that are coming out of
Russia
they show him you know the most recent
polls that I've seen
um show him with that 89 popularity that
people in Russia support the war in
Ukraine
and that and they supported him as an
individual
so um and I understand there's problems
with polling and you know you don't know
what to believe but but the polls
consistently show that and
um and I you know it's not America's
business to be the policeman of the
world and to be changing regimes in the
world that's illegal or not we shouldn't
be breaking International laws
you know we should actually be looking
for ways
to improve relationships with Russia not
to you know not to destroy Russia not to
destroy and not to choose its leadership
for them that's up to the Russian people
not us so step one is to sit down and
empathize with the leaders of both
Nations to understand their history
their concerns their hopes
just to open the door for conversation
so they're not back to the corner and I
think the U.S can play
a really important role and a U.S
president can play a really important
role by reassuring the Russians that
we're not going to consider them an
enemy anymore that we want to be friends
and it doesn't mean that you have to let
down your guard completely the way that
you do it which was the way President
Kennedy did it is you do it one step at
a time you take baby steps we do a
unilateral move
reduce or you know our our hostility and
aggression and see if the Russians
reciprocate and um and that's the way
that we should be doing it and you know
we should be easing our way
into a positive relationship with Russia
we have a lot in common with Russia and
we should be friends with Russia and
with the Russian people I mean you know
apparently there's been 350 000
ukrainians
who have died at least in this war and
uh and there's probably been uh 60 or 80
000 Russians and that should not give us
any Joy it should not give us any you
know I saw
Lindsey Graham on TV saying you know
anything we can something to the extent
that anything we can do to kill Russians
is a good use of our money that it is
not you know those are those are
somebody's children they're you know we
should have compassion for them this war
is an unnecessary War we should settle
it through negotiation through diplomacy
through statecraft
and not through weapons do you think
this war can come to an end purely
through military
operations no I mean I don't think
there's any way in the world that the
ukrainians can beat the Russians I don't
think there's any appetite in Europe I
think Europe is now you know uh in
having severe problems in Germany Italy
France you're seeing these riots there's
internal problems in those countries
there is no appetite in
um in uh in Europe for sending men to
die in Ukraine and the ukrainians do not
have anybody left the ukrainians are
using press gangs too uh to you know to
fill the ranks of their armies men
military age men
are trying as hard as they can to get
out of the Ukraine right now to avoid
going to the front the front you know
the Russians apparently have been
killing ukrainians in a seven to one
ratio
my son fought over there and he told me
it's not you know artillery he had
um he had fire fights with the Russians
mainly at night but he said most of the
battles were artillery wars during the
day and that the Russians now out uh
outgun the NATO forces ten to one in
artillery
oh they're killing at a horrendous rate
now you know my interpretation of what's
happened so far is that the
Putin actually went in early on
with a small Force because he expected
to meet somebody on the other end of a
negotiating table that once he went in
and uh and that when that didn't happen
they did not have a large enough Force
to be able to mount an offensive and so
they've been building up that Force up
to now and they now have that force and
even against this all original Force the
ukrainians have been uh helpless
all of their offenses have died they've
now killed you know the head of the
Ukrainian um
Special Forces which was the probably
arguably by many accounts the best uh
Elite military unit in all of Europe
the the commandant the commander of of
the uh That Special Forces Group
uh gave a speech about uh four months
ago saying that 86 percent of his men
are dead or wounded and will cannot
return to the front he cannot rebuild
that for us
um the uh and you know the the the
troops that are now headed that are now
filling the gaps of all those 350 000
men who've been lost
are are scantily trained and they're
arriving green at the front any of them
do not want to be there many of them are
giving up and going over the Russian
side we've seen this again and again
again including platoon-sized groups
that are defecting to the Russians
and
um I don't think it's possible to win
and anybody you know I saw I I of course
I've studied World War II history
exhaustively I mean I saw a
um there's a new I think it's a Netflix
series of documentaries that I highly
recommend to people there it's they're
colorized versions of the black and
white
um
films from the battles of World War II
but it's all the battles of World War II
so I watched Stalingrad
the other night and uh you know the the
willingness of the Russians to um to
fight on against any kind of outs and to
make huge sacrifices
of the Russians themselves who were
making the sacrifice with their lives
the willingness of them to do that for
their motherland is almost inexhaustible
It is incomprehensible
to think that the uh that Ukraine can
can beat Russia in a war it would be
like Mexico beating the United States
it's just it's impossible to think that
it can happen and you know Russia has
deployed
a tiny tiny fraction of its military so
far and uh you know now it has China
with its mass production capacity
supporting its war effort it's just
it's a it's a hopeless situation and
we've been lied to you know we're the
the press in our country and our
government are just are just you know
promoting this lie that the ukrainians
are about to win and everything's going
great and that
Putin's on the run and there's all this
wishful thinking because of the the
Wagner group you know the uh the Goshen
and the Wagner group that this was an
internal coup and it showed dissent and
weakness of Putin and none of that is
true I was saying that that
Insurgency which wasn't even an
Insurgency he only got four thousand of
his of his men to follow him out of
twenty thousand
and they were quickly stopped and nobody
in the Russian military the oligarchy
the political system nobody supported it
you know and but we're being told oh
yeah it's the beginning of the end for
Putin
he's weakened his wounded he's on his
way out and all of these things are just
lies that we are being fed so they push
back on a small aspect of this he kind
of implied so I've traveled to Ukraine
and one thing that I should say similar
to the Battle of Stalingrad it is just
not is not only the Russians that fight
to the end I think ukrainians are very
yeah to fight to the end and the morale
there
is quite High I've talked to nobody this
was a year ago in August with her son
everybody was proud to fight and die for
their country and there's some aspect
where this war unified the people to get
gave them a reason and an understanding
that this is what it means to be
Ukrainian and I will fight to the death
I you know I would agree with that and I
I should have said that myself at the
beginning but you know that's the reason
my son went over there to fight because
the you know he was inspired by The
Valor of the Ukrainian people and the
you know this extraordinary willingness
of them and I think Putin thought it
would be much easier to sweep into
Ukraine and he found you know a stone
wall of ukrainians whether it read it
but they're
their lives and their bodies online but
that to me makes the the whole episode
even more tragic is that you know
um I don't believe I I and I I think
that the U.S role in this
um has been uh has you know that there
were there were many opportunities
to settled this war and the ukrainians
wanted a lot of marriage is a landscape
when he ran in 2019. here's a guy who's
a a comedian he's a he's an actor
um he had no political experience and
yet he won this election with 70 of the
vote why he went on a peace platform
anyone promising to sign the mystical
courts and yet something happened when
he got in there that made him suddenly
pivot and you know I think
it's a good guess what happened I think
he was you know he came under Threat by
Ultra natural and nationalists within
his own Administration
uh and the insistence of neocons like
Victoria new and the White House that
you know we don't want peace with Putin
we want a war
do you worry about nuclear war yeah I
worry about it it's uh it seems like a
silly question but it's not
it's a serious question well the reason
it's not you know the reason it it I
might it's not is just because people
seem to be in this kind of dream state
about that it'll never happen
and yet you know we're uh it can happen
very easily and it can happen at any
time and you know if we push the
Russians too far you know I I don't
doubt that Putin if he felt like his
regime was in or his Nation
was in danger that the United States was
going to be able to
place you know a quizling on you know in
into the Kremlin
um that he would use nuclear you know
torpedoes
um and uh you know these uh these
strategic weapons that they have and
that could be the man once you do that
nobody controls the trajectory by the
way
you know I have I have very strong
memories of the uh Cuban Missile Crisis
and of those 13 days
when we came closer to nuclear war you
know and particularly I think it was
when the U2 got shot down over
uh Cuba uh you know and nobody in this
guy there's a lot of people in
Washington DC who at that point thought
that they very male and may well may
wake up dead
that the world may end at night 30
million Americans killed 130 million
Russians
this is what our military brass wanted
they saw a war with Russia nuclear
exchange with Russia as not only
inevitable but also desirable because
they wanted to do it now
oh we still had a superiority can you
actually go through the feelings you've
had about the Cuban Missile Crisis like
what what are your memories of it what
are some interesting no in the middle I
was going to school in Washington DC to
um or to um
Our Lady of Victory which is in
Washington DC so we were I lived in
Virginia across Atomic and we would
cross the bridge every day into DC
and during the crisis uh U.S Marshals
came to my house
to take us I think around day eight
my father was spending the night at the
White House he wasn't coming home he was
staying with the XCOM committee and
sleeping there and they were up you know
24 hours they were debating and fake
trying to figure out what was happening
and
um but we had U.S Marshals come to our
house to take us down they were going to
take us down to um a White Sulfur
Springs
and uh in Southern Virginia in the in
the Blue Ridge Mountains where there was
a
um there was an underground city
essentially a bunker that was like a
city and apparently it had McDonald's in
it and a lot of other you know it had it
was a full City for the U.S government
and their families
U.S Marshals came to our house to take
us down there and I was very excited
about doing that and this was at a time
you know when we were doing the drills
we were doing the ducking cover drills
um once a week at our school
or they would tell you if they that you
know when the alarms go off
um then you you put your head onto the
table you take the remove the Sharps
from your desk
put them inside your desk you put your
head onto the table and you wait and the
ignition blast will take the windows out
of the school and then we all stand up
and and file in an orderly fashion into
the basement where we're going to be for
the next six or eight months or whatever
but in the basement where you know we we
win occasionally in those corridors
were lined with uh freeze-dried food
canisters off to this here from Florida
ceiling so people were you know we were
all preparing for this and it was you
know uh Bob McNamara who is my it was a
friend of mine and you know it was my
father one of my father's close friends
as Secretary of Defense
he later called Mass psychosis and my
father deeply regretted participating in
the bomb shelter program because he said
it was part of a a you know a
psychological psyop trick
to treat them to teach Americans that
nuclear war was acceptable
that it was survivable my father anyway
when they when the marshals came to our
house to take me and my brother Joe away
and we were the ones who are home at
that time yeah
um my father called and he talked to us
on the phone and he said
I don't want you going down there
because
um
because if you disappear from school
people are going to panic
and I need you to be a good soldier and
go to the school now and and he said
something to me during that period which
was that if the nuclear war happened it
would be better to be among the dead
than the living which I did not believe
okay I mean I I had already prepared
myself for the you know for the for the
dystopian future and I knew I could I
spent every day in the woods I knew that
I could survive by catching crawfish and
you know cooking Mud Puppies then we'll
do whatever I had to do but I felt like
okay I can I can handle this uh
and I really wanted to see the setup
down in you know this underground city
but anyway that was you know part of it
for
um me my father was away and you know
the last days of it
my father
um got this idea because Khrushchev had
sent two letters
he sent one letter that was conciliatory
and then he sent a letter that after his
Joint Chiefs and the warmongers around
him saw that letter and they disapproved
of it they sent another letter that was
extremely belligerent
and my father had the idea let's just
pretend we didn't get the second letter
and reply to the first one
and then he went down to dobrennan
and who was he met the Brennan in the
justice department and the Brennan was
the Soviet Ambassador and they you know
they proposed this settlement which was
a secret settlement
Eric Khrushchev would withdraw the
missiles from Cuba Khrushchev had put
them into Cuba because we had put
missiles you know nuclear missiles in in
turkey and
Italy and my uncle's secret deal was
that if he if Khrushchev removed the
missiles from Cuba within six months he
would get rid of the Jupiter missiles in
Turkey but if Khrushchev told anybody
about the deal it was off so if if news
got out about that secret deal it was
off that was the actual deal and
Khrushchev complied with it and then my
uncle complied with it how much of that
part of human history turned on the
decisions of one person
I think that's one of the you know
because that of course the perennial
question right but it is history kind of
on uh
an automatic pilot and you know uh human
decisions the decisions of leaders
really only have you know a marginal or
incremental bearing on what is going to
happen anyway but I think that is the
and historians argue about that all the
time
I think that that is a really good
example of a play a a place in human
history that uh literally the world
could have ended if
we had a different leader in the White
House and the reason for that is that
there were as I recall 64 gun
emplacements you know missile missile
emplacements
each one of those Muslim placements had
a crew of about 100 men
and they were Soviets
so on they were and they we didn't know
whether we had a couple of questions
that my uncle asked
Alan or ask the CIA and he asked Dulles
was already gone but he asked the CIA
and he asked um his military brass
because they all wanted to go in
everybody wanted to go ahead and my
uncle said my uncle asked to see the
aerial photos and he examined those
personally and that's why it's important
to have a leader in the White House who
can push back on on their bureaucracies
he
um and then he asked them
you know are those who's Manning those
missile sites and are they Russians and
if they're Russians and we bomb them
uh are they isn't it going to force
Khrushchev to then go into Berlin
and that would be the beginning of a
Cascade effect that would you know
highly like the nuclear confrontation
and the the uh the military perhaps said
to my uncle oh we don't think you'll
have uh you know we don't think he'll
have the uh the guts to do that so he
was my uncle was like that's what you're
betting on
and uh you know they all wanted him to
go in they wanted him to bomb the sides
and then invade Cuba and he said if we
bomb those sites we're going to be
killing Russians and it's going to force
it's going to provoke Russia into some
response and the obvious response is for
them to go into Berlin
oh the but the thing that we didn't know
then that we didn't find out until I
think uh you know there was a it was
like a 30-year anniversary of the Cuban
Missile Crisis in Havana
and what we learned then was that from
the Russians who came
to that event it was like a symposium
where everybody on both sides talked
about it and we learned a lot of stuff
and and never nobody knew before
one of the insane things the most insane
thing that we learned was that the the
weapons were already the nuclear
warheads were already in place they were
ready to fire
and that the authorization to fire
was made was delegated to each of the
gun gun crew commanders so there were 60
people
who at all had authorization of fire if
they felt themselves under attack
so you have to believe that at least one
of them would have launched and that
would have been the beginning of the end
and you know if they if anybody had
launched you know we knew what would
happen my uncle knew what would happen
because he asked again and again what's
going to happen and they said 30 million
Americans will be killed
but we will kill 130 million Russians so
we will win and that was a victory for
them
and my uncle said later said he told he
told Arthur Schlesinger and Kenny
O'Donnell he said those guys he called
them the salad brass the guys with all
of this stuff on their chest
and he said he said those guys they
don't care
because they know that if it happens
that they're going to be in the charge
of everything they're the ones who are
going to be running the world after that
so for them you know it was it was an
incentive to to kill 130 million
Russians and 30 million Americans but my
uncle he had this correspondence with
the Khrushchev they were secretly
corresponding with each other and that
is what saved the world is that they had
that both of them had been Men of War
Eisenhower famously said it will it will
not be a man of war
it will not be a soldier who starts
world war three because the guy who's
actually seen it knows how bad it is and
my uncle you know had been In the Heat
of the South Pacific
he's already been cut into by a Japanese
Destroyer
um his many three of his crewmen have
been killed one of them badly burned he
he pulled that guy with a lanyard in his
teeth
six miles to an island in the middle of
the night and then they hid out there
for 10 days you know and
um and you know he came back like I said
he was the only uh president of the
United States that are in the Purple
Heart
um meanwhile crew Chef had been a
Stalingrad which was the worst place to
be on the planet you know probably in
the 20th century other than you know and
Al Switzerland one of the death camps
it was uh you know it was it was the
most ferocious horrific war with people
starving people you know committing
cannibalism uh you know eating the dogs
the cats eating their shoe leather
we're easing to death by the thousands
Etc
a cruise ship did not the last thing he
wanted was a war and the last thing my
uncle wanted was a reward and they but
the CIA did not know anything about
Khrushchev and the reason for that
is the city there was a mole at Langley
so that every time the CIA got a spy
in the Kremlin he would immediately be
killed
so if they had no eyes in the Kremlin
you know there were literally hundreds
of Russia of Russian supplies Who had
who were who had affected the United
States and were in the Kremlin who were
killed during that period
they had no idea anything about
Khrushchev about how he saw the world
and they saw the Kremlin itself as a
monolith you know that it is uh
is kind of you know the same way that we
look at Putin today that you know it's
all they have this ambition of world
conquest and that's it's driving them
and there's nothing else they think
about they're absolutely single-minded
about it
but actually there was a big division
between Khrushchev and uh and his Joint
Chiefs and his intelligence apparatus
and they and they both at one point
discovered they were both in the same
situation they were
surrounded by spies and military
personnel who were intent on going to
war and they were the two guys resisting
it so when my uncle my uncle had this
idea of you know being the peace
president
from the beginning he told Ben Bradley
his one of his best friends who you know
was around the publisher of the
Washington Post
for the editor-in-chief at that time he
said um
Ben Bradley asked him what is what do
you want in your gravestone and my uncle
said he kept the peace
he said
the principal job of the president
United States is to keep the country out
of War
and um and
so when he first became president he he
actually agreed
to meet Khrushchev in Geneva to his
Summit and by the way Eisenhower had
wanted to do the same thing Eisenhower
wanted peace but his and he was going to
meet in Vienna
but that peace Summit was blown up he
was going to try to do
um
you know he was going to try to end the
Cold War Eisenhower was in the last year
of his of his in May of 1960.
but that was torpedoed by the CIA during
the U2 crash you know they sent you to
over the over the Soviet Union and it
got shot down and then they told and
then Alan told us
Eisenhower to deny that we hit a program
they didn't know that the Russians had
captured Gary Francis powers
and so when and and that blew up the
piece talks between Ei