 Good evening. Good evening. My name is Tom Johnson. For 30 years I had the privilege of serving as the chairman of the OBJ Foundation. That is until last year when I was ousted by Larry Temple. It is my pleasure and honor to have been asked to introduce to you tonight one of the giant figures of the 20th century, His Excellency Mikhail Gorbachev. A hero to those of us in the West, this reform-minded Communist leader wanted a better life for the citizens of his country. And through his policies of Glasnost and Perestroika, he touched the lives of all of us. President Gorbachev created the conditions for the end of totalitarianism and the beginnings of democracy and free market economics in Russia. In a dizzying six years of intensive reforms after coming to power in 1985, he opened up Soviet media to open debate. He allowed free speech. He loosened the controls on political organizations. And he replaced Communist Party fiat with elected legislatures at every level of power. Although the reforms that he envisioned for his nation have not been accomplished as fully as he had hoped, our world tonight is a much better and a much safer place because of the leader that we honor this evening. The world watched on global live television that day, December 25, 1991, as he announced his resignation, and signed the documents that dissolved the Soviet Union and conveyed the power of the new Russian Federation to Boris Yeltsin. With the stroke of a pen, my pen, the world changed. It was a moment akin in many ways for me to the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. I have a deeply treasured personal reason to remember that momentous day when it was time for President Gorbachev to sign the documents. His own pen didn't work. I offered him my block pen, and with me standing nearby, he signed those papers that shifted the very tides of world history. Now after President Gorbachev signed the documents, I was bold enough to ask for my pen back. It had been a birthday present from my wife and winner. Along with CNN and Russian television staffers, I stood in his office watching the lowering of the flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The suitcase with the antenna protruding containing communications for possible launch of nuclear weapons was transferred to Boris Yeltsin. That certainly was the most visible symbol of this historic transfer of power. Mr. President, you honor the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and the School of Public Affairs with your attendance tonight. A great First Lady of the United States, Lady Bird Johnson, created the Harry Middleton Lectureship Series, which brings you here tonight as our honored guest. Mrs. Johnson witnessed in her lifetime and welcomed many distinguished leaders to this podium. I know that this evening would bring great satisfaction to her and that she would join in our belief that none, none of the illustrious leaders who have graced this stage deserves the gratitude of the world as much as you for your efforts to secure the peace, to make life better for the people of your country, and to bring an end to the era of repression and Cold War hostility. As we welcome President Gorbachev, we also welcome the splendid director of the LBJ Library to conduct the interview, Mark Uptegrove. Please welcome President Gorbachev and Mark Uptegrove. It's even difficult to agree who sits in which chair. Just three chairs. And imagine negotiations. Mr. President, welcome to the LBJ Library. President Johnson's foreign policy was largely defined by the Cold War and he left office with an unrealized dream of peace. He would be honored to have you here this evening and we are honored to have you as well. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. Much of our audience tonight, please, could I make a piece proposal? The blinding lights here are rather hard on me. So could you turn them down or switch them on because I also do not see the faces of people who watch me. It's a little hot. We were trying to avoid another Cold War. Is that better, Mr. President? Good evening. Now you can see the audience, Mr. President, and as you may see, much of our audience is made up of students who are not alive when you came to power in 1985. I recall being around their age at that time and the great hope that you engendered in your country and the Eastern Bloc and around the world when you embarked on policies of glasnost and perestroika or openness and restructuring. What led you to pursue those policies when your predecessors had been resistant to openness and reform? Well, all kinds of things happened in the history of our country. So you cannot just describe it in one phrase that all of them resisted. But so far as I'm concerned, I can tell you that before it happened and it happened and it began to happen in 1985. But before it happened, before I was elected General Secretary, it probably could not have started. It probably could not have happened. So some people ask, why is it that when you came in, you didn't have a specific program? And I said, had we started by developing a program, then probably we would not have been able to even publish that program. With the ideas that we had, we probably would have ended up in the Far East, in some camps in the Far East. So it's not so easy. It wasn't so easy to arrive to the possibility to arrive at the possibility of really changing the country. This was a difficult road, but it was an amazingly interesting and exciting experience. Out of 80 years of my life, for 55 years I've been in politics, involved in politics. And it took that long road and all that I saw, all that I had experienced, so to say, with my own skin. And the presence, the work in politics, particularly during the final years that preceded my arrival, my leadership in the Central Committee, opened my eyes to many things. It did open my eyes. Certainly the really good information was available to not too many people. It was the members of the Central Committee, the deputies of the Supreme Soviet. Information, of course, is all important. And by the way, it is not an accident that my first step was glasnost. This was something that came as a shock to those who were not living honestly, who had been for decades, for years, using the country for their own purposes. So it took a new generation of leaders to start change. You may recall that in our very first steps, included the resignation, the retirement of about a half of the former members of the Politburo. Some of them, such as Andrei Gromyko, who had been Foreign Minister for almost 30 years, joined with me. And it was very important to have him on our side in order to continue to build a team of like-minded people. I have recently finished another book that I have written. It is different from my previous books in one respect. Of course, there are certain parallels, but it's different in that there is more detail there about my life, a lot of detail about my life. I dedicated that book to my wife, Raisa, and it is called Alone with Myself. It was a difficult experience to write that book. But there are many interesting facts there. One of those facts is that on the day when my predecessor in the post of the General Secretary, Charnenko, died, I appointed on that same night, 11 p.m., a meeting of the Politburo. It was important to decide quickly who will be in charge. And I decided before that meeting to meet and have a talk with Gromyko. 20 minutes before the beginning of the Politburo meeting, we talked. We had just five minutes. And I often think that sometimes it takes days and maybe hours of conversation. That is totally meaningless and that doesn't produce anything. Here five minutes was very important. I said to him that of course what happened was not unexpected. My predecessor was seriously ill and so it had to happen. But I said both of us know very well that there is a lot of discontent in the country, a lot of unhappiness among the people. For decades we have been ruled by old people who are very passive, who do not care really about what's happening. And also people demand change. People want change. And the key word, the key phrase that everyone repeated was we can no longer live as before. We can no longer live like this. And so to conclude my answer to your question, what actually pushed me, what was the reason why I started this process. It was not the result of some kind of sudden revelation. It was the result of my long path, my long road in politics. It brought me to certain conclusions. So that is how it began. And then of course it continued. You won a Nobel Peace Prize for your efforts to end the Cold War peacefully. And as you suggested you've had a good long time to think about your administration. I wonder as you think back upon it, is there anything you would have done differently? Well, so far as foreign policy is concerned, I think we acted with great determination. The way the world was when I became the leader, when I was joined by other leaders in March 1985, was of great concern to us. We were actually as concerned about the state of the world as we were concerned about the state of our country. Those who visited our country at that time and I, when I traveled and had meetings with people in various cities, know that the greatest concern among our people was that we must do everything to avoid the nuclear war. And people were saying in the way people speak in very simple ways and they approached me and they said, Mikhail Sergeevich, you must do everything in order to avoid war. If it's necessary to spend more money, do it. We can bear up under any pressure, but we must avoid a war. And therefore there was the expectation in our country that we would do something internationally on the international arena. And that expectation was very important for us. And certainly this agenda was as important as the domestic agenda. Our plans as we saw at that time, those plans were not totally specific. It was not a specific program, but we had certain plans and we understood that we will be able to solve the country's problems only if we end the arms race, only if we get rid of the nuclear dangers and if we get rid of nuclear weapons. And if you read what I said about that as early as December 1985 when I was visiting London and talking to Margaret Thatcher, you will see that even then I made all those points. At that time I was not yet General Secretary, but I made those points even then and that means that our foreign policy was certainly not some kind of unexpected development. Maybe some people thought that it was something unexpected, but we from the start started to make very serious proposals. And for us the number one priority in this regard was normalization of relations with the United States. And we were the two persons who were shouldering the greatest responsibility for the avoidance of nuclear war. And it may seem strange, but at the height of the Cold War, during the most difficult years of the Cold War, the leaders, the top leaders of our two nations had not met for six years. And the leaders are not some fickle ladies. They are people who have in their hands the future of the world. And I think that that kind of approach, the refusal to talk, was a big mistake. And therefore our important priority was to normalize, to rebuild our relationship with the United States. And that turned out to be quite a challenge. It was not easy when I first met President Reagan, and I'll tell you some details about that meeting. First of all, quite a few people didn't want Reagan to go to Geneva. You were a young man at that time. I don't know what your position was, but we heard that quite a few people in the administration and people from the military industrial complex didn't want Reagan to go to Geneva. He agreed, however, to that meeting and we met in Geneva. And so after our very first discussion, our one-on-one talk, which lasted about an hour, longer than anticipated, we had quite a contentious discussion and there was a lot of mutual accusation. And so it was difficult after this first meeting to imagine how the whole thing would end. So frankly, I was under a kind of very bad impression after that first meeting. And so when members of my delegation asked me, what's your impression of Reagan, I said, well, we know that he's called a hawk throughout the world. And he indeed is a hawk, I said. But I would say more. He is a real dinosaur. So imagine that kind of conclusion that I made after that very first meeting. Two or three days later, we learned from Newsweek magazine that there was a leak from the administration that Reagan's delegation asked him the same question about Gorbachev, what was his impression of Gorbachev. And he said, well, Gorbachev is a died-in-the-wool Bolshevik. And these two persons had to start, had to do something, despite that first impression. And it was then in Geneva that we agreed on a very important statement, a joint statement saying that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. That was a matter of fundamental importance for the world. And that kind of joint statement actually questioned and challenged the entire previous policy of nuclear arms build-up. And certainly all the future plans of nuclear build-up were undermined by that statement. We now needed to think about how we changed that situation. And so that was followed by Reykjavik. And then after Reykjavik, where we were literally one yard away from signing a very important agreement on the elimination of 50 percent of nuclear weapons by the Soviet Union and the United States. We agreed on that framework, but we were not able to sign that framework. It's the SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative that stood in the way. I think that perhaps Reagan only loved Nancy more than the SDI. And that's why we were in trouble. So after that meeting in Reykjavik, the U.S. delegation made a statement that the negotiations failed. I, however, held a press conference where a thousand reporters from around the world were present. And I still remember it. When I look at you, I remember how I entered that room where a thousand reporters, all of them rose when I entered and they looked very grim because they had been told that President Reagan and Secretary of State Schultz had said that the Reykjavik talks had been a failure. Well, I told them everything that had happened. Glasnost was used 100 percent, and I said these talks were not a failure. They were a breakthrough because we looked over the horizon and it means that we can reach an agreement even on such very difficult issues. So I think that Reykjavik and the agreements that followed was a great accomplishment, was a great achievement, and I paid tribute to President Reagan, too. I remember I talked to President Bush when he was Vice President and he went to see me off at the airport after my first visit to Washington. And Vice President Bush said it's very important that what has been done has been done with President Reagan because it would have been a lot more difficult, hardly possible to do it with another President. He also said that if I become President, I will continue this policy. And so we were in the same car as he was going to see me off at the airport and we had a very good discussion. Later, however, for almost a year, the new President, President Bush and Secretary Baker took some time, took a long time to rethink the policy. Well, I think that they were in favor of the policy that started under Reagan, but they wanted to pursue that policy with their own proposals. And so that kind of pause was perhaps justified even though at that time I was wondering. And in 1989 at Malta we agreed or stated that the Cold War was over and that our two countries no longer regard each other as enemies. That sounds simple, but we started a discussion about how we would cooperate in the world, how we would cooperate in building a new world order. And so this was opening the way to something really new. But then, of course, later the scenario was different. But that's a different subject. You had these famously productive relationships with Presidents Bush and Reagan, and there was a new era of trust between the United States and the Soviet Union. What about those men allowed you to forge a relationship where you trusted one another, where your predecessors had not? There seemed to be genuine chemistry between you and those men that seemed to transcend the bad feeling between our countries. Well, I think that perhaps one thing was important. I was different from the predecessors because I said and did the same thing. It wasn't like I say something publicly or at the negotiations or to the media and then do something different. And by the way, George Bush said something in his book or in a conversation. He said Gorbachev was a difficult negotiator. It was difficult to reach agreement, but we knew that if we reach an agreement with him, he will fulfill it. And that is the only basis for trust. And when there is trust, then any issue can be resolved. You mentioned Margaret Thatcher, who said a few. But if you think that I attribute all of it to myself, no, that's not true. There are two sides in all negotiations and negotiations are always a difficult process, sometimes an agonizing process, particularly when it's negotiations between the leaders of countries like the Soviet Union and the United States. However, we did it. I only regret that the opportunities that were opened have not been fully used later. Yeah. When we think of history, we look at history through the lenses of our own country. And when we think of Reagan, we often think of him standing at the Brandenburg gate saying, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. What was your response when President Reagan made that statement? Well, it's interesting. It's really something I noticed. And that was when I had a similar interview with Michael Reagan on the West Coast. He is the son of President Reagan. And we had three such discussions where he was asking questions about the years during which Reagan and Gorbachev worked together. And this question was asked. So what was your reaction, people ask, to that remark, to that statement? And I say, perhaps I will disappoint you, but what I'm saying is true. Actually, we did not attach any importance or a lot of importance to that statement. Not at all. And I said, you know, we were very well aware that the President had another profession as an actor. And so he acted. But again, nevertheless, we worked together and we moved forward. A secretary Schultz four or five years ago visited our country, was in Moscow on some business and he wanted to meet me. And of course, I was more than happy to see him. We spent a couple of hours together, maybe more. And Pavel, that is myself, translated that I do not even introduce him because he probably saw him, you know him. By the way, since I started the introductions, let me introduce my daughter Irina. Irina, please rise. I also have in my delegation my friend and close associate, particularly in my environmental project, President of Green Cross International, Professor Alexander Lyhotal. I also have here my American friends who help us on these trips, Bob Walker and Jan Tavishin. So let's continue. Well, I was going to say to the President's left is Pavel Palachenko, who has interpreted the words of history. He's been with President Gorbachev since he took power in 1985. And you'll see him in many of the famous photographs. Welcome to all of you. So Secretary Schultz came to Moscow and we had a talk. He was probably the person in the administration whom we trusted the most. He was really a man of substance, great substance. And so during that long conversation, I asked him one question. Tell me, please, at that time, if it wasn't some other president, not Ronald Reagan, was there anyone else who could have become the partner with whom we could start on that path that led to the end of the Cold War? He took some time to think, but then said, I think there was no other person who could do that at that time, other than Reagan. So, of course, we know Reagan very well. We know him perhaps better than most others. The fact that that person, with his very strong convictions, at the same time showed the vision and the wisdom that enabled these developments, I think, deserves a lot of respect. And therefore, I regard him as a great president. Let me go from talking about our 40th and 41st presidents to talking about our incumbent president, Barack Obama. You have met Barack Obama, Mr. President, and you have voiced your support of him. Can you give us your view of Barack Obama? Well, maybe a little bit, because ultimately it's, this is your, these are your, your matters, your issues, who will be the president of your country. I will tell you about something that happened during one of our visits to this country a few years ago. It was in Midwest and I spoke to a very large audience of people, probably 12,000 people. At the end of my lecture, people asked me questions. A young man insisted, tell us please, what would you recommend, what would be your advice to America? And that was like six or seven years ago. He said, our country is not doing well and things are actually getting worse. Well, first, I said to them that giving advice to Americans is the wrong thing to do. Actually, it's Americans who like to give advice and even to teach others. Why should I teach Americans? So I said, by the way, my delegation was present when I said that. I said, well, you need to sort things out yourselves. But then another young man rose and he was equally insisted. He said, we know you as a serious person who did a great deal. Please tell us something. Tell us what you think. And I said, okay, I will try to be brief and let me put it in a nutshell. America needs its own Perestroika. And the audience of 12,000 people rose and gave me a standing ovation. And that was a prelude to the elections, to the elections that elected Barack Obama as the President of the United States. And at that time, I said to my friends, America is on the brink of great change. And I believe that change has come. The election campaign was extremely exciting. I don't know whether that's your view, but we suddenly believed that it was the most exciting election in many years. We were following those elections. And the election of Obama was an important turn. Because, of course, there can be, there may be strong leaders, but it's the strength of the country that is important. And I think the country strongly showed that it wanted change. Just like in my time, our people, showed a strong desire for change. So my view of Obama, my impression of Obama is indeed quite positive. I believe that he is a real Democrat. He is also a very knowledgeable person. I have been told that Lyndon Johnson had his famous treatment to agree to reach a decision on important issues. I think Obama, too, can persuade people. You told me about the important legislation that Johnson signed on education, on healthcare, etc. But I said that he probably left certain things to be done by others. And that's why subsequent presidents such as Clinton and Obama still have a lot of work to do. And it's good that on some issues he has received some support from some Republicans. So I wish him success. I wish the American people also understanding, I think they hope they understand the importance of what is being done. But here I would like to stop because I don't want to be accused of giving advice. So success and good luck. Thank you. In many ways we live in a world more dangerous than the world that you saw when you were leading the Soviet Union. You have characterized the world in present day as 10 minutes till midnight. What do you feel the most grave danger to the world is today, Mr. President? I think that the opportunities that were opened by the end of the Cold War have not been properly used after the end of the Soviet Union. These opportunities were not fulfilled and that's why we are facing this situation. The mistakes that were made at that time when those opportunities were available were based on I think hubris, on arrogance, on triumphalism. The West declared victory. The United States declared victory. And that means that nothing needs to be changed for the victors in the Cold War. And at that time my impression was that instead of partnership with my country, with the Soviet Union, with other countries, there was something else that was being done. Quite seriously at a certain point in time in America people were talking about the need to build a new empire, an American empire in the world. And that I think is kind of clinically wrong. And I think that that assessment, the wrong assessment of what had happened, the wrong assessment of the end of the Cold War, of why it ended, of the causes of this. This resulted in unilateralism, in unilateral pressure. America lost a partner in cooperation. And it's hard to imagine that in a country with such a powerful political tradition and establishment such an approach would be taken by political leaders. Of course these things happen. I analyzed my own activities and I have written in my book that at some point when we were moving forward during Perestroika, when for the first time in the history of Russia we had free elections, we started to build a market economy based on our own view that it should be a socially oriented market economy. We developed political pluralism in our country, freedom in all its manifestations including freedom of religion, freedom to leave the country and so on. The old nomenclature, the old bureaucracy that was defeated in the free elections in 1989 started to build plans to get rid of Gorbachev. Actually it started a lot earlier, but in open politics they could not get rid of me and they could not defeat the policy of Perestroika. And that is why they organized a coup against me. And now when I think of it you ask me what should have been done differently, well at that time perhaps I was overconfident. I was overconfident, I believed that they would not succeed and probably I made mistakes by being overconfident. So this is something that happens. I think that today in the United States and in the West and generally in the world people understand that this idea of building a new empire was a mistake and I think that we now face a new situation and in this situation America needs to cooperate with other countries and build a new world order for a global world. And I think that Obama has the right vision of how to do it. What does that new world order look like? Well I think the person who said it best about the world order was the Pope, John Paul II. He said we need a world order, we need a really new world order, a world order that is more stable, more just and more humane. I think really no one, no one said it better than the late Pope. I think this is the matrix, the framework within which we can develop a vision and a plan for how to move toward such a world. But it's very important for all of us to start thinking about how we live in this new world, how we respond to the challenges that we face, the challenge of security, the challenge of poverty and backwardness, have the population of the world live still in poverty and backwardness. Billions of people live on one or two dollars a day. And certainly the challenge of the environment, the relationship between men and the rest of nature are at an extremely difficult point. We see how nature has been damaged. 60 percent of the environmental systems have been severely damaged. So the new world order has to address this. And we now feel that perhaps the movement toward this new world order would be slow or perhaps would go in the wrong direction if we do not develop some kind of governance in the world, global governance in the world. Up until now, major nations have been mostly using the tools of pressure, force, sometimes bombs and rockets. And they think that this is how democracy is promoted. So I could go on and on talking about these things. Let me talk about one issue that's very topical right now. That is Iran. Iran increasingly looks like a rogue state. And it looks as though they are developing nuclear weapons. And while you were hesitant to talk about how you would wage U.S. policy, I wonder if you talk about what you think the U.N. should do in facing down Iran. Well, I think that our nations and our governments have basically the same approach and the same assessment of this situation. I believe that this issue should be addressed politically. And let us not despair. Let us not be disappointed when there are problems. In politics, you cannot succeed without patience. And it is wrong to reach for weapons when there is a problem. And that includes Iran. So that's what I would say. Let's talk about Afghanistan for a moment. As you know, the U.S. is facing some challenges in Afghanistan militarily. The Soviet Union faced struggles in Afghanistan in the late 1970s and early 80s. Can Afghanistan become a stable democracy without the continued threat of the Taliban? Well, I remember I talked to Margaret Thatcher years ago, and we were discussing the Afghan situation at that time. And she said, you made a bad mistake by going into Afghanistan. Why hadn't you sought our advice, the advice of the British, before going in? We had been trying for 100 years to handle Afghanistan, and we failed. So we, too, spent 10 years in Afghanistan. And we learned the lessons. The traditions of Afghanistan, the tribal traditions, the role of small commerce, and all of those other things were not taken into account by us. We ignored those traditions. And when we intervened, that resulted in enormous problems. Many people had to leave the country as refugees. So we decided that we needed to leave Afghanistan, but we did that by consulting with other countries and consulting with them in Afghanistan, but also consulting with the United States, with India, Iran, Pakistan, and other countries. And so we developed a political agreement that made it possible for us to leave Afghanistan. So put simply my advice is that it's necessary to withdraw from Afghanistan, to leave Afghanistan. But certainly, even in defeat, one must behave as a winner. I think that in Iraq, too, the goals that were set were not achieved. As for Taliban, Taliban was the creation of previous American policy. So it's important not to make such mistakes, not to repeat such mistakes. So I think that you should withdraw from Afghanistan. That's friendly advice from those who went through the same drama. And I think that if this is done right through consultations with other countries, including India, Russia, other countries, I think that ultimately it could result, but not very soon, in Afghanistan becoming a reasonably normal country. You know, in the past, had you heard what I said now, you would probably think, well, let's do exactly the opposite, whatever Gorbachev suggests. But now I hope that you will consider it, that Americans will consider it, because we are making those suggestions in good faith and based on our own experience. Russia, the Soviet Union, really never intended to fight America. Our policy resulted in this kind of division of the world and confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. Each time there was a conflict somewhere, it was always a confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, by proxy or in some other way. And as a result, so many military bases were built everywhere. Billions and billions of hundreds of billions of dollars and rubles were spent on the arms race, we must not allow a repetition of this. So I think that you can do business with the Russian leaders regarding this. I think they will be serious negotiators, serious partners on this. Let me talk about your country for a moment. You have expressed your feeling that Vladimir Putin should step down rather than trying for a third term in March. Why do you feel that it's time for him to go? That it's time for him to go. Putin inherited a very difficult situation from his predecessor Boris Yeltsin. Putin did a lot of useful work to preserve Russia and to consolidate the Russian state. Even though he made mistakes even during his initial years and later, but he succeeded in something very important. And so I think that it was perhaps understandable that during that initial phase he used certain authoritarian methods in his leadership. But using authoritarian methods as a policy for the future, that I think is wrong. I think that's a mistake. And the second point is wherever you go, even to Africa, you see that where you have leaders that rule for 20 years or more, you see what happens around them. The only thing that is important in such situations for those leaders and people around them is holding on to power. I believe that this is something that is happening now in our country. And I recently wrote an article about this and spoke about that very frankly. But of course it's for us to sort these things out. We shall do that and please don't even try to intervene in those Russian affairs. You said you wouldn't intervene in our affairs. We won't intervene in your affairs as president. We've talked about the more dim aspects of the world, but you were and continue to be a great symbol of hope. What gives you hope in the world in 2011? Well, I am by nature an optimist. It's as simple as that. I remember one person once tried to make a joke out of it. He said, do you know what is the difference between an optimist and a pessimist? I said, of course I know. He says, well, no, you don't. There is a very good definition. When pessimists look at things, they say, well, things are so bad. And it's hopeless. But an optimist says, well, you know, it can be a lot worse. It will be a lot worse. And I thought, well, maybe that's exactly right. In any situation, one has to have a vision. One has to see opportunities in any bad situation. Margaret Thatcher once said when I said to her before a television program that she seemed to be too nervous, it was a rather informal discussion that was taped for television in 1995. She replied, well, I know that you are a man without nerves. You simply do not have nerves. Well, one must have nerves, but those have to be strong nerves. One must have good, strong health. Because a person who is a political leader, who is a responsible political leader is stressed, stressed, stressed sometimes enormously. But that's the, you know, you have to be strong. There is no other way. Mr. President, how will history regard you? Good. Good. The answer is good. That's a joke. My second joke is that history is a fickle lady. But I'm proud of the life that I have lived and let history decide. Mr. President, I'm an optimist too, and I am abundantly optimistic that you will be regarded as one of the great figures of the 20th century. Thank you very much for being here tonight. I want to end this evening as we began it with another message from Tom Johnson who has something for you, Mr. President. Tom? Mr. President, we are very, very honored by your presence tonight. We are particularly honored to have your daughter. I would also like to make sure that everybody in this audience has an opportunity to meet both the President Johnson's daughters, and if I'd like to ask for them to stand, Linda Johnson-Rob Lucy Baines Johnson. And if he can struggle to his feet, I would like the person for whom this series has been named and who has done more to bring distinction to this library than anybody until mark up to grove. And that is Harry Middleton. Harry, please stand. This is a very important week for Harry Middleton. When we all came to Texas with President Johnson in 1969, there was a 10-year difference between me and Bob Hardesty. There still is a 20-year difference between me and Harry Middleton. This week, Harry Middleton celebrates his 90th birthday. Happy birthday. I especially want the students in this audience to understand tonight. You had an opportunity to share the thoughts of one of the most important leaders, global leaders in the 20th century. And I said earlier that the evening of December 25, 1991, and this is documented instantly in this new book, I was privileged to be with President Gorbachev as he signed what many of us believe was the equivalent for the then-Soviet Union, now Russia, of its Declaration of Independence. I was so brash, so bold, perhaps so rude that after he signed that document with my pen that I took it back. Tonight, I would like to replace that pen I took 20 years ago with another Mont Blanc pen, which incidentally, Mr. President, cost $400 now, where it only cost $100 then. Thank you all very, very much. Mr. President. The President says my favorite color is red. Thank you. Thank you all for coming.