 Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us. I try to avoid those words that too quickly become cliches. One of the recent ones is icon. But because it applies tonight, I'm going to announce that we're in the presence of one. You're in the presence of a lot of history tonight. And Purdue University is so very, very proud that George Schultz, soldier, professor. I'm a soldier. I'm a Marine. See what I care? This is not a game. This is a weapon. So keep your questions short and polite. We're so fortunate and grateful that he's come to share this next hour with us. And as many of you will be veterans of these, but I've got a few questions that I would like to ask to get us going. But after we have for a little while, there are microphones to your left and right. Summon your courage and come on down with a concise question, something that ends in a question mark, please. And we'll cover as much ground as we can. You're rarely, if ever, going to be in the presence of someone who has lived a life so far, nearly so accomplished or varied. So let me start there. Mr. Secretary, you have been at various times in your life an academic leader, a professor, a dean. You have been a business leader for quite some time, by the way, of a Purdue-led company, the Bechtel company. They're all boiler makers. And you've also been in, you've had extensive service in government, academia, business, what a bizarre background. What's the difference? They're very different. I quickly learned in government, if you tell somebody to do something, you don't have to worry about it too much. Because if they don't like it, they'll leak it to the press or go to the Congress or something. But in business, you have to be really careful. Because if you tell somebody to do something, they're very likely to do it. In the university, you're not supposed to tell anybody to do anything in the first place. So I'm telling you. I want a little sound check here. Is everybody hearing us in the back? It doesn't sound as loud as usual. So you who back there, you guys got a volume there. How's that? Better? Yes or no? Where's that vaunted Purdue technology I'm always bragging about? Is that better? This is Purdue, isn't it? You know about this kind of thing. OK, thanks. Mr. Secretary, I mean, you served in four cabinet posts. I don't think anyone else. I'm not aware of anyone else whose life matched that. But the one that most Americans may associate with you most closely was Secretary of State. You led our foreign policy through some of the most eventful and successful years. So let's start there. Take us on what they call a lightning round of the world here. Let's just talk about three or four parts of the world. Tell us what you see and what your take is. Let's start with China. Well, China is nowhere near as strong as people think it is. Here are two of the many reasons. Number one, demography. Starting about 30 years ago, the fertility in China dropped like a stone. The one child policy actually reinforced what was already happening. Meanwhile, the labor force was rising. And people were moving from rural to urban areas. And in that process, productivity rose. So the rate of economic growth is growth in your labor force plus the productivity of the labor force. So they had these astonishing rates of growth, during which time the number of people I had to support was not increasing. Now, that 30-year period is kicking in. That's where the additions to the labor force come from. There's still movement from rural to urban, but it's not quite what it used to be. So the rate of change of labor force is leveling off. And the productivity isn't going anywhere particularly. So the rate of growth is bound to go down. There's no, the more you try financially to rig around with it, the worse it's going to get. So their rate of growth is going to come anywhere near what it's been. And they have geared themselves to a high rate of growth, so they're going to have problems. Furthermore, if you look into Chinese history, you'll see that the safety net for older and younger has always been the family and the community. But now all these people have moved from rural to urban areas. And in that, some have moved back, but mostly they haven't. So they're living in relatively anonymous urban settings. And China has on its hands a completely different kind of safety net to worry about. So China has lots of problems. Furthermore, China has lots of diversity in it, much more than people realize. But the regime realizes it. And they try to suppress it and act as though it isn't there. And in this day and age, I think the principal problem of governance is governing over diversity in an age of transparency. With the information age, people know what's going on pretty quickly. They all have cell phones. They can communicate. They can organize. So you can't ignore the diversity too long. It's going to explode on you. So China has plenty of problems. Not that it's a big, important country. And they have a lot of talent. That's for sure. But it has big problems. Europe. Europe has been trying to be Europe as distinct from different countries. And I think it's been a very important development. Nevertheless, they now tend to overdo it. And they're trying to homogenize these ancient, different cultures. And it won't work. Italians are not like Germans, and they never will be. And then they're like Finns, and they're like Scandinavians. So these ancient cultures, again, they're different. And you have to have a way of unity over this diversity. I remember when they introduced the euro. I was in Berlin with a group. And we were all saying, what a dumb idea. You're trying to put a fixed exchange rate system over very different economic units. It just doesn't going to work. You're going to substitute relative austerity for letting exchange rates do their job. And that's part of the way it's worked out. So Europe is struggling. And now they're hit with this refugee crisis. And it's a gigantic thing. They don't have much experience in Europe with assimilation the way we do in the United States. So these people come in, and they will be little enclaves, different culture, different language, different religion. I think it's going to be a struggle for Europe. Yeah, their birth rates are lower than the Chinese. And the people coming in have the highest birth rates in the world, at least coming in. It's going to be a different reality if this persists for very long. I think, however, I think that all of us need to face up to the implications of this so-called refugee crisis. Because all of the world, people can see what's taking place. And they say, it's not so good here. It's a lot better there. Why don't I move? And this is not a refugee movement necessarily. It's people trying to get a better life for themselves. And I think that's going to accelerate. And we're going to have to face up to it. In the United States, over the years, over the centuries, we have where people are here from everywhere. I bet if we went down this crowd here, we'd find at least 40 different countries of origin. And that's typical. But we managed to assimilate people and let them have their origins, but still be part of it. I'll give you an example. I have a fantastic granddaughter. And she, girls don't do engineering, right? Well, she did engineering at Stanford. She got Phi Beta Kappa, she's great. And she met a man who she married at Stanford. He is Vietnamese. And his grandmother was a refugee. And apparently, they were in the jewelry business. And she sewed into the hamburger skirt a lot of jewels. That's how she got them out as a refugee. And so here's this grandson. And he gives to my granddaughter an engagement ring. And the jewel is one of those jewels, this grandma. Isn't that a neat story? About how we assimilate people. When they got married, they had a Vietnamese kind of wedding where her parents live not too far from where we have a place. Then it came into a big American wedding. So people can come here and they can still have some sense of where they came from, but nevertheless become Americans. Ronald Reagan put it this way. You can go to France, you'll never become a Frenchman. You can go to China, you'll never become Chinese. You can go to Japan, you'll never become Japanese. But anyone can come from anywhere and become an American. In one day. I might say there's a lot of talk about a wall. You know, we better have that wall because the more Mexicans leaving the United States now, they're coming in. So we need a wall to keep them here because we need them. Russia. Russia is. We thought you fixed this problem. I had a fix, but some other guys took it over. Russia is playing a relatively weak hand very aggressively. And we have to stand up to it and take that aggression down. And bring them back in. Mikhail Gorbachev has just come out with a new book. It's a very interesting book. His observations on when he was there and what's happened since. And I hope Mr. Putin reads it. Probably if he does, he'll execute Gorbachev. Oh, no. But Russia also has a demographic catastrophe on its hands. Longevity for men in Russia is just in the early 70s. Something like 25% of men in Russia died before the age of 55. They have potential explosive situation in the Caucasus. They are very dependent on high oil and gas prices. And those, of course, have crashed down. So it hurts their economy. But nevertheless, they have a lot of weapons. They have a lot of nuclear weapons. Putin keeps talking about them. So it's a very dangerous situation with Russia. It's got to be handled strongly, but capably. And so he's playing a weak hand aggressively, and he's managing to get away with these. Back in the Middle East, the Russians got thrown out. Back in the days when Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State and Nixon was President. Now they're back. I saved the easy one for last. What about the Middle East? The preoccupation with ISIS, which is understandable, is leading people not to be aware of what Iran is doing. Iran is trying to develop a Shiite Middle East. They now have lots more money than they had before and access to weaponry. So they're bad news. They are stirring up the Shiite population Bahrain where we have a naval base. The Shiite population in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. So there's a big problem there to be confronted, not alone the weaponry that they will be putting in southern Lebanon in behalf of the Zabala. I might say I was in Israel a few weeks ago. And I said to a crowd, including the Prime Minister, that you have to establish the fact, and it is in the Geneva Conventions, that the war criminal is the person who puts the weapons in a civilian location, not the person who hits them. That's sort of a counterintuitive these days, if you. But that's what they do. They put a very explosive weapon in a hospital or a school or something. And then when you take it out, you're a war criminal. It's the other way around. And Israel has publicized where a lot of these weapons are in order to tell the people where they are. It's not healthy to have these things around you. I ought to do something about it. But there's explosive problems in the Middle East, great, great problems. And I think that we have to recognize that for centuries, since the Treaty of Westphalia way back then, we have kept religion and war separated. Now they're joined. And what that means is there's a different kind of war. There is a place, but there's more than one place. And they're tentacles. We had at the Hoover Institution, where I spent my time, we had the head armed forces guy from Pakistan recently. And I was stunned that he was more worried about ISIS than he was about India. I was sort of reassured in a way. Because with India and Pakistan at tension with each other, they both have nuclear weapons. And if there should be a nuclear exchange, it's a global event, not just a local event. Let's pretend for just a minute you're still Secretary of State. I wish we weren't pretending. President's on his way, maybe there, to Saudi Arabia. So just pursuing some of the thoughts you just mentioned. So the Saudis, longtime allies, possibly historically the counterweight to Iran. On the other hand, funders of Wahhabism and the madrasas at which hundreds of thousands of young people are taught hatred and so forth. On top of that, a new reality where they've been displaced by, guess who? Us as the number one oil producer in the world, a rather stunning turnaround. What's your advice to the president as he goes to meet with these folks? Well, he just gave an interview that was printed in the Atlantic magazine, in which he called the Saudis freeloaders. Maybe I wouldn't go under the circumstances, but if that's what you think you're going to, well, they have done a lot, and our allies have done a lot. So the world is imperfect, and you deal with it as you see it, and probably these problems need to be brought out. You need to talk about them. But you need to say to yourself, are we better off with them as allies or enemies? That's an easy question to answer. Thank you. Let me ask a question about how foreign policy, how do you think about foreign policy? How should any of us think about foreign policy? How is it, what's that term even mean? There are a lot of times when one can't, couldn't answer the question in any succinct fashion, what the policy of this country is. Sometimes it's very obscure to us. You have shaped it in some of the most important eras of our history. How did you approach it? How would you now? Well, first of all, you have to establish the fact that you mean what you say, and you can carry out what you say you're going to carry out. Ronald Reagan had something happen early in his presidency that made a big impact. You remember, the air traffic controller struck, and people kept running into the overlap. Mr. President, Mr. President, this is very complicated. He said it's not complicated. It's simple. They took an oath of office, and they violated it. They're out. And all over the world, people are the men, crazy. These are the air controllers. But one of the things he learned as governor of California is you've got to pay a lot of attention to execution. And he had a secretary of transportation, a man named Drew Lewis, who had run been chief executive of a major transportation company. So Drew understood the problem, and he also knew how to get something to happen. And he kept the planes flying. And all over the world, people had to say, you know, watch your step. The guy plays for keeps. So he established early on, and he established, as he went along, we established the credibility of, we mean what we say, and we can execute. I might say, earlier I told you I was a Marine. I'm a Marine. But I can remember at the start of World War II, I was on the Marine Corps boot camp. Sergeant hands me my rifle, and he says, take good care of this rifle. This is your best friend. And remember one thing. Never point this rifle at anybody unless you're willing to pull a trigger. No empty threats. Boot camp wisdom. We've got empty threats littering the landscape. So boot camp wisdom, mean what you say, execute. Second, be realistic. No rose-coated glasses. Describe the situation as it is. You describe Saudi Arabia realistically, OK? That's where you've got to start, realistically. That doesn't mean you don't see opportunities when they're there, but you're realistic. And then third, you need to be strong. And you're not going to be really strong militarily unless you have a strong economy. And there are a lot of things we can do about our economy, I think. But you have to be strong, not only militarily, not only economically, but strength of purpose and self-confidence. You've got to have that. And then you have to say to yourself, what is our agenda? What is it we're trying to achieve? Don't start thinking about the other guy's agenda, or you'll start negotiating with yourself. What's my agenda? And then on the basis of that, I'll engage. So that's the way to go about it. You must have applied those principles because you presided over many great successes. Maybe one that'll be best remembered was the dramatic reduction in nuclear arms, which you and your colleagues and the president eventually affected. I remember serving at the time when you all went to Reykjavik, a very climactic series of events, very dramatic. But it worked out well in the end. And I'm curious to know, hear a little bit about that, how it looks with the perspective of hindsight, and in particular, missile defense, over which those talks broke down temporarily. But to me, it doesn't look like a bad idea in an age of rogue nations, nuclear armed and testing missiles. What's the legacy of Reykjavik and what do we need to do today? Well, as you mentioned, missile defense, Ronald Reagan once went to the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Place. It's a dazzling place we've ever been there. If you have a chance to go go, the whole world out there and they see what's going on, you're just blown away by it. So he was there. And as he was leaving, he said to the general in charge, what would happen to this place if a Soviet nuclear weapon hits somewhere near here? The general says it would wipe us out. And the president says, well, what can we do about it? The general says, nothing. Didn't seem like a very good answer. It's not that if there is a huge offense, many, many weapons, there's no way anybody's going to take them out. But if you've got a few, probably you can develop a system and maybe we are somewhere developing a system that can do something about that. After all, Israel has a so-called armed dome, which doesn't work perfectly, but it works pretty well. So that's something worth working on. The Soviets were very concerned about it. They thought probably we were further ahead than we were. And there was a proposal that we both agree not to deploy anything for seven years. And President Reagan was thinking about it. I said, Mr. President, you're giving them the sleeves and give us. We don't have anything to deploy. So he liked the idea of giving them the sleeves for the best of the negotiation. But Reykjavik happened in an odd way because there was a commitment that the next summit meeting would be in Washington. And the Soviets said, well, we want to have a preliminary meeting, serve a warm-up. And they suggested either London or Reykjavik. It was an interesting suggestion Both of those are capitals of NATO countries. And we thought, well, Reykjavik would be better because it's isolated and we can focus. So we meet there. This little house, Hopty House, was then very isolated. The security people from each country liked it because they could guard it easily. And downstairs, there's this little room about the size of the rug, maybe a little bigger. And President Reagan is sitting on one end. And Gorbachev is sitting on the other end. I'm sitting beside the president. Shevronazi is sitting here. And they're interpreters. And so we're in this little room for two days. And we talked about everything under the sun, nuclear weapons, areas where there are lots of stresses. One thing that came out of it was in a negotiation on the night between the first and second day, a wonderful assistant secretary of State Ros Ridgway, she negotiated the first time an agreement with the Soviets that human rights would be a regular, recognized item on our agenda. That was a big thing we were working on. So it was a free-flowing conversation. And in the first morning, Gorbachev basically laid out his Soviet proposals, all of the things we had been advocating in arms control. It was stunning. At one point, Reagan started interrupt. I put my hand on his arms. I just let him talk. He's coming our way. But wound up, we didn't have a formal agreement on anything. But we have seen their bottom line, that they had agreed, basically, that intermediate-range nuclear forces would be eliminated. That strategic arms would be cut in half to equal levels. And that's big-time cuts. And as of the 25th anniversary of Reykjavik, the number of nuclear weapons in the world were a third of what they were then. So there was a lot that happened. But the atmosphere had turned around now. And I'm afraid we're in a proliferation frame of mind. And it's very dangerous, in my opinion. But the Reykjavik was exhilarating. It was an interesting thing. Gorbachev came to Stanford, where I have a home on the campus. And we were just standing around in the backyard. And I said to him, you and I were both around when the Cold War was as cold as it could get. And when we left office, it was all over, pretty much all over. What do you think was the turning point? And Gorbachev said, without a hesitation, he said, Reykjavik. I said, why? Because the two leaders got together and talked about everything for two full days. And he said, what do you think the turning point was? Said, I think the turning point was when the NATO Alliance held together. And we deployed Pershing, that is, nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in Germany that you thought could reach Moscow. That was the turning point. Because they whipped up a lot of war talk around that. And the NATO Alliance stood for that. I might say, not a shot was fired, but that was an exhibition of strength. Strength and force are not the same thing. This was strength. And it's interesting because all the war talk around when it happened and gradually things settled down. And by August, I was able to go to the President and say, Mr. President, four different cities in Europe at a cocktail party, a Soviet diplomat who has talked to one of our guys and said virtually the same thing. We should think amounts to, if Gromyko isn't right, he's the foreign minister. To Washington, when he comes to the General Assembly in September, he'll accept. In other words, the Soviets blinked. And it was kind of fun because he came. It was a huge event. And Nancy Reagan was my pal. She always fixed me up with the start of the White House Center as I got to dance with Ginger Rogers and stuff like that. So I went to her and I said, Nancy, what's going to happen is he's going to come to the West Wing. We'll have a meeting in the Oval Office. Then we'll all walk down the colonnade to the mansion, which is your home. And there'll be some stand-around time. Then there'll be a working lunch. We'll say, why don't you come to the stand-around time? You're the hostess in freedom. She said, OK, that's a good idea. So she's there. Gromyko's a smart guy. As soon as he sees her, he makes a beeline. It's like nobody else is in the room. And after a while, Nancy could bristle. He says to her, did your husband want peace? And she says, of course my husband wants peace. And Gromyko says, but then every night before he goes to his sleep, whisper in his ear, peace. So he was a little taller than she was. She put her hands on his shoulder and pulled him down so he had to bend his knee. And she said, I'll whisper it in your ear, peace. So I think Nancy won the Cold War right there. So it's about time. So if there are, and there must be plenty of you who have something you'd like to ask the secretary, let's head for the mics. I'll ask one more question as you line up. You said that a nation can't be safe without being strong, can't be strong without being economically sound. We have some issues there. How big an issue do you see our growing national debt to be? Both you're a professor of economics, first economically and then second in terms of the governance, the fiscal capacity of the country to do things that's collectively that we ought to do. I think that's a big problem, but only part of it. The debt is very high, but we don't feel the burden of it because the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates practically at zero. But interest rates get to even a semi-normal level, like 3% or 4%, and the burden of that debt will a significant portion of the federal budget. And then you've got deficits continuing as a result of the entitlement programs. So we have to get hold of the entitlement programs in order to have any money left to the federal government to do anything except pay off the debt and do an entitlement. So it's a thing that's necessary to do. Conceptually, it's not hard, but politically, it's very difficult. I leave that to guys like you, you're a governor, you can do these kind of things. I wish. So let's start over here. Hello. Awesome. Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for joining us. My question is regarding the serious of a war. So as you know, it's been ongoing for about five years now. And earlier in the war, President Obama made statements kind of saying like, well, we're going to take a very strong stance on this. We're going to have these red lines, which were repeatedly crossed. And so you mentioned a couple of times that we as a nation have to kind of stand up and mean what we say. So in your opinion, how should we as a nation have handled kind of the ongoing conflict over there? And from the beginning, and maybe now, how can we handle it better now? Well, you mentioned that incident where the president drew a red line and said, any use of chemical weapons will cause us to make action big time. And the red line was crossed and nothing was done. So credibility went out the window. Nobody paid attention. Boot camp wisdom. Remember that sergeant? He had it right. And we have to rebuild our credibility. But I think we should have recognized earlier, and I know because each have told me that Petraeus, when he was head of the CIA, joined with Leon Panetta, who was Secretary of Defense, and Hillary Clinton, who was Secretary of State. All three went to the president and said, we should intervene in Syria early on when the rebels were the objectors to Assad were clear and intervene, and he turned that down. I think that was a mistake. We could have achieved something then. Now it's very much involved in the Shiite conflict. And Iran is heavily mixed in with ISIS, and it's a total mess. So it seems to me we need to be stronger. I see Ash Carter over there, the Secretary of Defense, who I might say I admire. I think he's a very good guy. I know him pretty well. And we're trying to build up our capacities to help the Iraqi army. And maybe we'll get a little more. We have air, strength. We have to think about our rules of engagement. As I mentioned earlier, the person who puts a weapon in a civilian location is the war criminal, not the one who takes it out. And there are a lot of places that we could go after that we're not doing. A huge number I've read of our bombers come back with their payload intact because it's been determined the place that we're going to bomb has civilians there, and they don't bomb. And I think we've got to say something like civilians, you better get out of these places because they're going to be targets. And so these are things we should be doing. But I think also we have to look around and clearly in the face and realize what's happening there. And in the Iran deal, as a result of that, the Iranians have a lot of more money. And they have access to markets for arms. The Russians have sold them first class air defense capabilities. So we have Iran on our hands as well as ISIS, and it's a very tough situation. I think it's impossible for me to conceive that Assad could be a legitimate leader because he has slaughtered his own people in very large hundreds of thousands. How can anybody have legitimacy under those circumstances? So once again, we're at odds with the Russians, with the Iranians, who are propping him up in Hezbollah. So we have a big problem on our hands. And furthermore, as I've said earlier, the joining of religion and war means it's spread out around. So we have to understand that and realize these tentacles are there. And some of them can be right here in the United States, as in San Bernardino. And it's a big problem. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. I have a question about climate change. So in a world where we have the greatest historical contribution to climate change, but currently China is the largest emitter, and India is growing rapidly in their emissions, what do you think the role is for the United States? What should we do? Well, first of all, I think it's important to realize that the climate is changing. It's getting warmer. And there are people who say it isn't, or it's something that always happens. I don't believe that. We have a guy at Hoover who's recently retired as Chief of Naval Operations, so he pays attention to oceans. And there's a new ocean being created in the Arctic. That hasn't happened in a long time. Why is that happening? All the sea ice is melting. And it's also engine. It goes along, belting out an engine, and then all of a sudden there's an inflection point. So you've got to watch out for discontinuities. The ice sheet over Greenland is melting. Big swabs of ice in the Antarctic are going into the sea. So you can observe the effects of a warming climate. It's happening. And I think the evidence is pretty clear. And the conceptual basis is clear that carbon is the main source of the problem. So we've got to do something about that. I think we are doing a lot, probably are doing a lot of Purdue. I am chairman of an advisory committee at MIT on their energy program. And I've watched the one at Samford. But the R&D is going on at a much greater rate than ever before. And it's being very productive. Solar energy is coming on strong. Batteries are improving greatly, and so on. There's a guy at MIT that I think is about to give us large-scale storage of electricity. That's a revolution. Because it takes the intermentancy problem away from solar and wind. But also from a national security standpoint, with our grid so vulnerable to cyberattack, that's good to have something in place that keeps you going. So I think that we should sit down with the Chinese and say, first of all, make a deal that handles the intellectual property problem. Let's get that taken care of. And say, let's identify everything we can find to do, not aspire to by 2025, but do today. And start putting things into effect. The Chinese are anxious to do it. They're choking themselves to death. So they're ready to work on this problem. And as others see us doing things that are working, they will want to get in on it. Fine, come on in. The water's fine. So we need to really get that going. And I think the other half of what I would do, in addition to R&D, is I would put a price on carbon. Let's call it a tax, be honest. And all this other regulatory business, put that aside and just put a price out there and let the marketplace sort things out. What I've advocated is a revenue-neutral carbon tax. So it's not a way of raising money. It's not a pot for people to do other things with. And it doesn't. It means that you're not, in any way, slowing the economy down. There is a revenue-neutral carbon tax in effect in British Columbia. And one of the reassuring realities is that income per capita in BC has risen a little faster than the rest of Canada. So it didn't shut down the economy. And it's having an impact. So I think that putting a price on carbon and promoting R&D and make it available to people is the way to go. That's a real problem. And we better get cranking on it. Over here. What do you feel is the biggest threat to the United States economically in the next 30 years? Is it the dealing with climate change? Is it the threat of violence around the world? Or is it the social welfare programs that we have here in the United States? What have we like to do next? I think, first of all, we have to think about our own society and our economy. And as I mentioned earlier, between the burden of the debt one's interest rates become more normal, plus the constant deficit arising from our entitlement programs mean that we're depriving ourselves of an ability to do anything. So we have to get a hold of that and get a hold of the entitlement programs. As I said, it's not hard to conceptually to figure out what to do. It's just hard to get ourselves up to do it. The last time anything was done about Social Security was back in the days of Tip and the Gipper. Reagan and O'Neill, they were in the opposite parties. Somebody asked Reagan if Tip O'Neill was his adversary. He said, not after six o'clock. And he could have called Tip up and say, hey, Tip, it's only three, but reset your watch. We've got to get after this problem. So you need people like that who can lead and who can bring their constituent with them, but also can do sensible things that need to be done. So we need to do that. And then we need to realize that it's a tough world out there and we're part of it whether we like it or not. We can't just stop the world. I want to get off. It's there and we're part of it. So there are all kinds of things that we can do, we can lead on. And people need US leadership. That doesn't mean we're the world's policeman or we have to go solve every problem. But when there are major problems, if we come with ideas and readiness to negotiate and work, people respond and they'll follow that leadership. I can see that in all kinds of ways when I was in the government and we were working that way. So people became accustomed to US leadership and all of a sudden it's disappeared. So we've got to bring it back. And that doesn't mean we try to tell everybody what to do or we try to solve every problem. But whether there are problems, we have some ideas and we come to the party with these ideas and we're ready to work on it, listen to other people and try to find a solution. That's the way to go. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Secretary, I'd like to thank you for your many years of service to our country. My question pertains to Cuba in the recent fall in I guess relations and engagement with that country. I know you've advocated that in the past or I believe you have and I just want to know what you thought where we're heading with that and if dialogue and engagement is definitely the thing to do there given the Cold War supposedly and it's a long time ago. I think it's about time. During the Cold War Cuba was a Soviet base. So obviously we had an antagonistic relationship but that's over. And it doesn't make any sense to have this embargo and the strained relationship. So I'm glad to see things softening up. I think we probably could have driven a little harder bargain on some of the reprehensible things that are being done in Cuba but I think it's a good thing to be opened up and have more interaction and I think the chances for a succession to the Castro's being more sensible and more open than they are is much greater if we have more openness than if everything is closed. So I say good. I remember advocating this one time at a Republican convention some years ago, maybe 10 years ago, when you get through something people come up and they want to talk to you. Nobody came up. And when I walked out there was a large swath. Nobody wanted to get that picture taken with me. That won't happen tonight. Mr. Secretary, I have a question relating to the first topics we covered at the beginning of this. You spoke about these localized internal problems in China, Russia, Europe, and the Middle East. I'm curious to know your thoughts on how you think these parts of the world should go about trying to fix these problems that they found themselves in today. I think what you have to aspire to do is figure out how you let these different pieces express themselves and at the same time keep them under an umbrella. The first time I went to Israel was in 1969. And I was lucky enough that the iconic mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Collick, took me over for the evening. And we went to one party after another, all different. It wasn't Jews and Arabs. They were all kind of Jewish groups, all kind of Arab groups. And all of a sudden he took me to his office. And I really just thought he was teaching me something. And he said, my job as mayor of Jerusalem is to see that Jerusalem is a beautiful picture. But it's not a painting like you think of a picture where the colors emerge. My beautiful picture is a mosaic. So you've seen all these groups. It isn't Jews and Arabs. They're all kind of Jewish groups, all kind of Arab groups. And my job is to see to it that they can all express themselves as they want. As long as they do it in a way that doesn't interfere with somebody else's ability to express themselves. And they're all glad to live under what he called the golden dome of Jerusalem. So he was governing over diversity, and he understood it. It's not understood in many places, hardly any. It's interesting that if you look at the history of our own country, our people who worked on our early government understood it. There's a historian by the name of Ellis, and he wrote a book I've read recently. And I hadn't realized there were about six years when it was a question whether we were going to have our country or not. Because the states were so jealous of their individual responsibilities and capabilities. It was only when George Washington, Madison got George Washington to agree to be the head of a constitutional convention that people would come. And they worked out what was then a totally unique form of government, a central government with checks and balances so nobody could have too much power. And then practically everything that would affect your daily life was left up to the states and localities and individuals. That meant that they recognized this diversity and they governmentally set it up so that diversity could express itself. But under an umbrella of a federal government that would worry about foreign affairs and security affairs and things like that. So it was a good conception. I think what has happened more and more is that the federal government has been encroaching on this space. And whenever the federal government moves, it homogenizes across the US. And the US is very differentiated. And so I think there's starting to be some pushback on that, Governor. And maybe we'll. But that's the basic problem. It's a hard problem. But nevertheless, you've got to let it happen. But figure it out. Over here. Mr. Schatz, thank you for coming here. I have a comprehensive question which broke down into several small questions. Let's try to make sure that we'll be very brief. Let's go with the comprehensive version. OK. You mentioned that everybody can come to America and be an American. However, America is a very prosperous Christian nation, at least, according to our survey. 60% of Americans think America is a Christian nation. And about half Americans, only half of Americans have favorable views towards Muslims. Only 64% of Americans would welcome a Hindu temple or mosque to be built in their community. How do you think religion plays a role in the development of America? And do you think religion limits the freedom of Americans or welcome more freedom? Thank you. Thomas Jefferson, at the time of the Constitution, arguing for freedom of religion, said, divided we stand. And in our early days, we recognized there would be different religious groups. And it was important to let them be there, express themselves, as Teddy Collick put it, in a way each expresses itself as long as it doesn't interfere with somebody else's right. And have them all acknowledge they're glad to be living under the general umbrella of the United States. So it's hard, even here. And people are nervous about the Islamic side of things. I thought when George W. Bush was president after 9-11, the first one of the first things he did was he went and visited a mosque. I thought it was a good gesture on his part. And we have to recognize that there are Islamic terrorists. But so we have to deal with that as a problem. But that doesn't mean all Islamists are terrorists or we should want to shut out Muslims. Thank you for an excellent question. Mr. Secretary, the overwhelming historical record demonstrates that countries that have adopted socialism have eventually experienced economic and social disaster. And yet, to today, thanks to the influence of demagogues like Bernie Sanders and even many academics, socialism is portrayed as some idyllic and utopian solution. And my question is, how can we, as an educational institution of society, convince the upcoming generation that free market economics provides the best opportunity for them to reach their God-given potential and to create a better world? A little history helps and comparative studies helps. So these people have tried. I'm reading a fascinating book right now entitled, Stalin. And I hadn't realized how messy the situation the czars left behind was and how the incoming Lenin, Stalin crowd, how they had reaching around. And they were constantly worrying about enough food. And they were confiscating it from peasants. And then why didn't the peasants grow more? I mean, it's just, it's all there. So history is a place where you can learn. We can learn from ourselves because we had a period of wage and price controls that were a catastrophe for the country. And so you can look at that period and you see for yourself. I was director of OMB when I could feel the pressure for wage and price controls beginning to build. And I gave a speech called, Steady as You Go. And I argued, we have the budget under control if we have a sensible monetary policy. The rate of change in prices will gradually come down. So have patience, Steady as You Go. Then we had to close the gold window. And a very active secretary of the Treasury, John Connolly. He was a, I remember hearing him when he was coming on. He told the press secretary, asked him how he felt about some issue. And he said, Ron, I can sell it round or I can sell it flat. So we got a salesman here. So we had wage and price controls. They didn't report to me. But when I became secretary of the Treasury, they did. And guess who was running them? Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. I told them I don't see that on your resume. But anyway, we were trying to get rid of them. And President Nixon, some things happened. And he decided to reimpose them. And I said, well, Mr. President, it's your call. But I think it's a bad mistake. So you've got to get yourself a new secretary of the Treasury. I left. But the wage and price controls didn't leave. They stayed. You remember Jimmy Carter's gas lines? They're still there. And finally, on the third day of Ronald Reagan's time in office, he abolished what was left of them and ended the bureaucracy that was administering them. But we had a period of about a decade during which those controls were there. And it was a catastrophe. Bad decade, member stagflation, all this stuff. It was a bad. And it was produced by these controls. I might say, in our health care system now, to a certain extent, we're trying to control costs by wage and price controls. So everybody knows that what you control, you get less up. So you get less supply and more demand. You don't have to take, again, always 101 to know that's a problem. So we're already seeing a two-tier system emerge where a lot of doctors won't take Medicaid or Medicare patients. And it's obvious that we're going to have to make a change. So I think a little history will help a lot with that problem. Thank you. By the way, I think we've got, I'd see four. And we've got just about enough time. If everybody gets to a question quickly, I think we can dock this ship right on schedule. All right, well, first off, thank you so much for being here, Mr. Schultz. Here's my question. So during your lecture, you described how meeting of the leaders, Reagan and Gorbachev, at Reskevic, helped the Cold War reach a nonviolent resolution. Do you think the same kind of negotiations or two leaders meeting with each other could help solve the problem of nuclear weapons in Iran? Well, they did have a negotiation. And I think what you can say about the nuclear deal is it kind of postponed when Iran can get a nuclear weapon, but it also kind of affirmed that it was on a path to get one. So I think you're going to see a lot of pressure. I don't know what the president is going to talk to the Saudis about. But I don't know this. I have no intelligence. But I would be stunned if it were already a deal that they can get a nuclear, Saudis can buy a nuclear weapon from the Pakistanis. So you can have a proliferation, and that's a big problem. And I think we have sort of lost track of what a huge thing it would be if a nuclear weapon goes off or if there's any kind of an exchange. It can produce a nuclear winner. And your agriculture has a very hard time. It's a disastrous thing. So we have to figure out a way to get control. Now, President Obama has chaired four, has worked on this issue, and he's had four meetings at the head of state government level. So that's a hot level. And the object of these meetings was to figure out how to get better control of this raw material. That's the key. Once you have this raw material, you can make a weapon. Most of your Purdue engineers can figure out how to do it. That's not the problem. The FISA material is the problem. So it's very important to work on this issue. I put the possibility of a nuclear event alongside climate change as the two biggest things that can threaten our civilization. So we've got to get at it. We're not doing very well right now, I don't think. Yes, sir. Secretary Schulz, thank you for being here. It's an honor to hear you speak. I wanted to ask you to comment on a couple of statements or the same statement that you made a couple of times about the mixing of war and religion and how that is becoming more and more of a threat for civilization itself. Do you think our policy during the Afghan war was not well thought out, or maybe now that we have the luxury of hindsight to see that regularly taking Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as active partners and employing Islam as a tool of fervor for the Jihadine then and Taliban now was part of what we have brought upon ourselves in the later years? I think the policy of supporting the Majidine and helping them make life miserable for the Soviets in Afghanistan worked, and they got out. And it sent a big message to the captive nations all through Europe that change could happen. So it was a huge event. Undoubtedly we should have stuck with it more. As the Cold War ended, we left Afghanistan and just didn't pay attention to what was going on. So I'm not saying that we could have done a lot, but I think we could have done better than has happened. These last two. All right. I thought this question would have been asked before I got up to ask it. But we have a presidential election coming up this year. Could you comment? We're in the midst of what I call electile dysfunction. Could you comment on the process and perhaps the survival of the two-party system in this country? It makes you yearn for the good old days where we had the smoke-filled room. And you had people who were knowledgeable, and they got together, and they wanted a winner. And they had their different ideologies, but that's what they tried to produce. And where we're going to go with this right now, it's hard for me to see. It's my friend Colin Powell wrote me the other day, and I wrote him back, and I said, Colin, why don't you run for president? There'd be somebody there I could vote for with enthusiasm. So we've got to somehow sort this out. And just where, how it's going to go, I don't know, but it doesn't look very good. I told the Secretary earlier today, just as it happens, I was doing more or less this for former Secretary Panetta, who he mentioned earlier, last night out in California. And Secretary Panetta told the crowd that he'd seen his former counterpart, former Canadian defense minister recently, who said, we're worried up here. There's so many Americans talking about leaving for Canada. We're thinking about building a wall. I'd just like to say that when I graduated from high school in 60, and joined the Young Republicans Club, that President Nixon was the very first president that I ever voted for. And I watched all of the Watergate hearings, and I thought that 13 minutes lost in the tape was nothing like we've seen now, especially when Clinton was in the Oval Office, and he was on the phone, and a young woman was picking up a paperclip, I guess, under the desk. And I want the sovereignty of the Lord to come back, and he has a plan for us, and God's plan for you has been, it gives us all in a state of awe, that there are men like you that come forth and serve not only your country, but you're serving every single person in this wonderful nation that keeps us just safe and sound as possible. But with Saudi Arabia and then funding 80% of the mosque and Yasser for democracy for Muslims, what can we do about these young men and women? What could we do in this nation to help really get to that problem? Thank you. It's hard, because it's sort of like needles in a haystack, and you've got to figure out where they are and then do something about it, but we need to understand that there is a problem and that it doesn't mean that you put a blanket over it, but you've got to work at it with some care. I think it's, but it's a hard problem. You mentioned President Nixon. He was a strategist, and all anybody associates with him is Watergate. But let me mention, just to give an example of things he did. In 1970, this is 16 years after the Brown decision. He decided there was still, the schools were legally segregated in seven southern states, and he decided it was time to end it. It was a Nixon initiative. He said it's right morally and it's right constitutionally. And I was his point man to execute it, and I worked with him on it, and he was wonderful. He pitched in. He was part of our strategy. He stood up to the problem. So I say Nixon had his foibles, but he also had some good sides, so I'm glad to hear you mention them in a good way. So I'll thank you very much. So I'll bring us to a close by asking a question. I thought somebody else would ask, and really it's not facetious, because we're headed for, we're already in an age of escalating longevity, and I firmly believe that the students on this campus, barring cataclysm of some kind, are highly likely to live to three digits and beyond. It's going to change life in so many ways. So the question I know a lot of these folks are thinking, Secretary is, what's your secret? Well, Charlotte, stand up. Here I am 95 years old, and look what I have for a wife. Don't get yourself a good wife and a good family. I have 32 and roughly a half members. I have five children, 11 grandchildren, and four and a half great-grandchildren. So it's so much fun to see little kids around again, because you know they're in a hurry, they don't walk anywhere they run, and their life is exciting. And they're curious about everything, everything. What is this? And they'll sweep off a table, you got to baby-proof your house when you know they're coming, but they're so much fun and you can't help but say to yourself, what kind of a world are they going to inherit? And what can I do to make it better? So that kind of motivation keeps you young and keeps you moving and gives you something to work for. In 1942, as young men did then, George Schultz graduated from an elite institution and immediately went and listed in the United States Marine Corps and served in the Pacific Theater, I guess till the end of the war. He's been serving America in one capacity here and there every day since, and we are all so fortunate and so grateful. Thanks for being with us.