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In July 2009, Russia's President, Dmitry Medvedev, | 0:00:15 | 0:00:19 | |
a bit of a computer geek, | 0:00:19 | 0:00:21 | |
posted a blog on the Kremlin website. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:24 | |
But now, a new American president was in charge | 0:00:50 | 0:00:54 | |
and he was coming to town. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:57 | |
To get the President to go to Moscow | 0:00:57 | 0:00:59 | |
in the first six months of his administration, | 0:00:59 | 0:01:01 | |
was a major achievement. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:04 | |
The most valuable commodity that we have is the President's time, | 0:01:04 | 0:01:08 | |
and we fight over it vigorously, every single minute of his time. | 0:01:08 | 0:01:12 | |
It was the President himself that finally intervened to say, | 0:01:12 | 0:01:16 | |
"we're going to do this, we have to do it at this time, in this way." | 0:01:16 | 0:01:20 | |
Obama was making a big investment in the Russian president. | 0:01:20 | 0:01:25 | |
But was he talking to the right man? | 0:01:25 | 0:01:28 | |
Every American president comes into office | 0:01:53 | 0:01:57 | |
determined to change the world. | 0:01:57 | 0:02:00 | |
But what Barack Obama proposed was unique. | 0:02:00 | 0:02:03 | |
As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, | 0:02:04 | 0:02:08 | |
the United States has a moral responsibility to act. | 0:02:08 | 0:02:12 | |
So today, I state clearly and with conviction, | 0:02:12 | 0:02:17 | |
America's commitment to seek the peace and security | 0:02:17 | 0:02:21 | |
of a world without nuclear weapons. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:23 | |
I'm not naive. | 0:02:31 | 0:02:34 | |
This goal will not be reached quickly, | 0:02:34 | 0:02:36 | |
perhaps not in my lifetime. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:39 | |
But now, we too must ignore the voices | 0:02:39 | 0:02:42 | |
who tell us that the world cannot change. | 0:02:42 | 0:02:46 | |
We have to insist, "Yes, we can." | 0:02:46 | 0:02:48 | |
As soon as he became president, | 0:02:54 | 0:02:57 | |
Barack Obama called in his National Security Adviser. | 0:02:57 | 0:03:00 | |
We talked about Russia. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:03 | |
He was unusually insistent | 0:03:03 | 0:03:05 | |
on the issue of arms control and a nuclear threat. | 0:03:05 | 0:03:09 | |
He said the two countries that ought to lead, | 0:03:09 | 0:03:11 | |
are the two countries who have the biggest stockpile. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:14 | |
And by example, | 0:03:14 | 0:03:16 | |
we have to show the world that we really are interested | 0:03:16 | 0:03:19 | |
in reducing and eliminating ultimately nuclear weapons. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:23 | |
Convincing Russia was going to be difficult. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:33 | |
Obama had inherited a military programme the Russians hated. | 0:03:33 | 0:03:37 | |
It would put new anti-missile bases in Poland, on Russia's doorstep. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:42 | |
The day Obama was elected, | 0:03:54 | 0:03:56 | |
President Medvedev addressed the nation. | 0:03:56 | 0:04:00 | |
He didn't congratulate America's new leader, he threatened him. | 0:04:00 | 0:04:04 | |
But Obama wasn't interested in confrontation. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:18 | |
This administration, | 0:04:18 | 0:04:20 | |
my administration is seeking a reset of the relationship with Russia. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:25 | |
Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, organised a press event | 0:04:26 | 0:04:30 | |
at which she presented Russia's Foreign Minister | 0:04:30 | 0:04:33 | |
with a symbolic reset button. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:35 | |
We want to reset our relationship. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:39 | |
-Let's do it together. -We will do it together. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
Thank you very much. | 0:04:47 | 0:04:48 | |
You're very welcome. | 0:04:48 | 0:04:50 | |
We worked hard to get the right Russian word, do you think we got it? | 0:04:50 | 0:04:54 | |
-You got it wrong. -I got it wrong. | 0:04:54 | 0:04:57 | |
It should be peresagruskaya. | 0:04:57 | 0:04:58 | |
this says peregeruskaya, which means overcharge. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:04 | |
We won't let you do that to us, I promise. | 0:05:04 | 0:05:07 | |
Obama and his team had to do better. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:11 | |
Secretly, he made a decision the Russians would love, | 0:05:12 | 0:05:16 | |
to put on hold the plans to build missile defence bases in Europe. | 0:05:16 | 0:05:20 | |
But how best to tell them? | 0:05:20 | 0:05:23 | |
We were trying to think of a way you could drive home | 0:05:23 | 0:05:25 | |
the seriousness of the Presidents and Secretary Clinton's interest, | 0:05:25 | 0:05:30 | |
in trying to explore a fresh start in relations. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:33 | |
And one way to do that, | 0:05:33 | 0:05:35 | |
was to have a serious presidential letter | 0:05:35 | 0:05:37 | |
and have it delivered by reasonably high officials. | 0:05:37 | 0:05:41 | |
I though it was a silly idea. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:43 | |
I live in the Silicon Valley, we don't deliver letters ever. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:46 | |
There's no such thing as a paper letter anymore. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:49 | |
Let alone you would fly across the other side of the earth | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
to deliver it. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:53 | |
I proposed we should send an e-mail. | 0:05:53 | 0:05:56 | |
But Bill was right, I was wrong. | 0:05:58 | 0:06:01 | |
The symbolism of the two of us coming together, | 0:06:01 | 0:06:03 | |
to the resetting of the relationship, was very dramatic. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:08 | |
Bill was somebody that they knew well. | 0:06:08 | 0:06:11 | |
I, being the new guy with the new Obama team from the White House, | 0:06:11 | 0:06:15 | |
that sent a very positive message. | 0:06:15 | 0:06:17 | |
Three months before Obama's proposed trip to Moscow, | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
the two new presidents met in London, | 0:06:46 | 0:06:49 | |
where the leaders of 20 of the world's biggest economies gathered | 0:06:49 | 0:06:52 | |
to tackle the global recession. | 0:06:52 | 0:06:54 | |
It seemed like love at first sight. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:58 | |
Out of the blue, | 0:07:27 | 0:07:29 | |
President Medvedev proposed to expand the supply route | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
for our forces in Afghanistan. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
And he suggested we expand it to allow for military flights | 0:07:36 | 0:07:41 | |
through Russia. | 0:07:41 | 0:07:42 | |
It was quite shocking. We didn't expect it. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:45 | |
I took it to be that this is a sign | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
of him trying also to reset the relationship. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:52 | |
Let me just make a brief comment. | 0:07:54 | 0:07:56 | |
Obama raised a problem the US and Russia | 0:07:56 | 0:07:59 | |
had long been fighting over - Iran. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:01 | |
President Obama said, | 0:08:01 | 0:08:02 | |
"we have some great concerns about Iran's nuclear programme. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:06 | |
"We believe there's evidence | 0:08:06 | 0:08:08 | |
"that they are in fact seeking to weaponise nuclear capabilities | 0:08:08 | 0:08:13 | |
"and we're concerned about it." | 0:08:13 | 0:08:15 | |
President Medvedev said, off the cuff, | 0:08:15 | 0:08:18 | |
I'm sure it wasn't in the speaking notes, but, off the cuff said, | 0:08:18 | 0:08:22 | |
"well, you know, on Iran, you may have been more accurate than we." | 0:08:22 | 0:08:28 | |
For American ears, it was astounding to hear. | 0:08:28 | 0:08:32 | |
It was not Iran's nuclear capability, | 0:08:32 | 0:08:34 | |
but their own, that was the main issue before them. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:37 | |
The agreement which limited Russian and American nuclear weapons | 0:08:37 | 0:08:40 | |
would expire in eight months. | 0:08:40 | 0:08:43 | |
They had to set terms for its renewal. | 0:08:43 | 0:08:46 | |
Medvedev wanted it to stop American missile defence in Eastern Europe. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:50 | |
We were categorical | 0:09:04 | 0:09:06 | |
that we're not going to have this conversation together. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:08 | |
We can have a conversation about missile defence over here, | 0:09:08 | 0:09:11 | |
but over here, | 0:09:11 | 0:09:12 | |
we're going to talk about reducing offensive strategic weapons. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:16 | |
That's what the negotiations had to be about. | 0:09:16 | 0:09:19 | |
The Russians wanted to do it all together. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:21 | |
We said, "no." | 0:09:21 | 0:09:22 | |
Obama persuaded Medvedev they should instruct their officials | 0:09:24 | 0:09:28 | |
to start work on a new agreement to cut nuclear weapons. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:32 | |
In return, Obama promised talks on missile defence. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:37 | |
But he was vague about whether the two negotiations would be linked. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
The next day, Medvedev explained his position. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:48 | |
When Obama got to Moscow, | 0:10:31 | 0:10:33 | |
he would face another negotiating partner | 0:10:33 | 0:10:36 | |
who would be harder to charm. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:38 | |
Okey-dokey. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:40 | |
Prime Minister Putin still has a lot of sway in Russia. | 0:10:42 | 0:10:46 | |
I think Putin has one foot in the old ways of doing business | 0:10:46 | 0:10:50 | |
and one foot in the new | 0:10:50 | 0:10:52 | |
and to the extent that we can provide him and the Russian people | 0:10:52 | 0:10:57 | |
a sense that the US is not seeking an antagonistic relationship, | 0:10:57 | 0:11:01 | |
we'll end up having a stronger partner. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:04 | |
Obama knew Prime Ministers in Russia don't do foreign policy. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:09 | |
But Putin was used to being in charge. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:11 | |
Minister Lavrov is always correcting the translator. | 0:11:20 | 0:11:24 | |
He's somebody with some excellent English skills. | 0:11:26 | 0:11:29 | |
We have plenty of those. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
President Obama began the conversation | 0:11:38 | 0:11:40 | |
with a very straightforward question | 0:11:40 | 0:11:42 | |
about what Putin thought about the relationship, | 0:11:42 | 0:11:45 | |
what had gone right, what had gone wrong. | 0:11:45 | 0:11:47 | |
And characteristically, | 0:11:47 | 0:11:49 | |
Prime Minister Putin responded at some length. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:52 | |
Prime Minister Putin thought instead of working with the Russians, | 0:12:12 | 0:12:17 | |
previous Presidents, and he said PRESIDENTS, | 0:12:17 | 0:12:19 | |
not just President Bush, by the way. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:21 | |
He talked about the bombing campaign in Serbia. | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
President Clinton was President at the time. | 0:12:25 | 0:12:28 | |
He said, "Instead of working with Russia, we dictated to them. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:31 | |
"Well, we're going to do this, so it's our way or the highway." | 0:12:31 | 0:12:34 | |
Putin said, "You young guys, I know your reset and all that. | 0:12:44 | 0:12:49 | |
"But I've been through this before and I know how this movie ends | 0:12:49 | 0:12:52 | |
"and it doesn't end well." | 0:12:52 | 0:12:53 | |
The meeting had been scheduled for an hour. | 0:12:53 | 0:12:56 | |
Obama had yet to get a word in edgeways. | 0:12:56 | 0:13:00 | |
At the end of the hour, the President suggested | 0:13:00 | 0:13:03 | |
that we might want to extend our visit, | 0:13:03 | 0:13:05 | |
so we could have more dialogue. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:07 | |
Because I think it gave me important insights into the '90s | 0:13:11 | 0:13:14 | |
and on into the last eight years. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:20 | |
And the President pushed back. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:22 | |
He said, "I'm different, this is a new time. | 0:13:22 | 0:13:25 | |
"Whatever the past of the Cold War | 0:13:25 | 0:13:27 | |
and whatever your experience in the 1990s, | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
we're going to reset this relationship. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
Obama decided he would now deal only with President Medvedev. | 0:13:34 | 0:13:39 | |
But his next step | 0:13:39 | 0:13:40 | |
showed he had listened to both of Russia's leaders. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:42 | |
As Commander-in-Chief, | 0:13:46 | 0:13:47 | |
I ordered a comprehensive assessment | 0:13:47 | 0:13:50 | |
of our missile defence programme in Europe. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:52 | |
This new approach will provide capabilities sooner, | 0:13:52 | 0:13:57 | |
build on proven systems, | 0:13:57 | 0:13:58 | |
and offer greater defences against the threat of missile attack. | 0:13:58 | 0:14:02 | |
Obama's new approach to missile defence | 0:14:05 | 0:14:07 | |
seemed to address Russia's concerns. | 0:14:07 | 0:14:10 | |
Now, their nuclear negotiators could forge ahead. | 0:14:12 | 0:14:16 | |
They needed a deal before the current nuclear weapons agreement, | 0:14:16 | 0:14:20 | |
the START Treaty, expired. | 0:14:20 | 0:14:21 | |
If they failed, the right to monitor each other's arsenals would expire. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:27 | |
We were worried about what would happen if we missed this deadline. | 0:14:28 | 0:14:31 | |
I'll be brief. Today the Presidents met for the fourth time. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:37 | |
I was put before the cameras. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:39 | |
Questions? | 0:14:42 | 0:14:43 | |
On START, the commitment is to have it in place by the end of December, | 0:14:44 | 0:14:49 | |
but doesn't it expire in the beginning of December? | 0:14:49 | 0:14:52 | |
Yes, it does expire on December 5th. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:55 | |
And in parallel, we have a bridging agreement | 0:14:55 | 0:14:58 | |
that we also are working with the Russians. | 0:14:58 | 0:15:02 | |
I fully suspect we will be able to get that into place by December 5th. | 0:15:02 | 0:15:07 | |
You're definitely not going to make the December 5th deadline? | 0:15:07 | 0:15:10 | |
I don't know that for sure, | 0:15:12 | 0:15:14 | |
but I do know we won't have a ratified treaty by December 5th. | 0:15:14 | 0:15:19 | |
That has to go through our senate, their Duma, so that is for sure, | 0:15:19 | 0:15:23 | |
we need a bridging agreement, no matter what. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:25 | |
We were very nervous about it, to be honest. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:28 | |
My political leadership was very nervous about it. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
In Geneva, the traditional home for arms talks, | 0:15:38 | 0:15:41 | |
the negotiators had easily agreed to cut in half | 0:15:41 | 0:15:44 | |
the number of nuclear missiles each side held. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:47 | |
On the other part of the deal, | 0:15:50 | 0:15:53 | |
how arms inspectors could verify that neither side was cheating, | 0:15:53 | 0:15:56 | |
they were not quite there. | 0:15:56 | 0:15:59 | |
The December 5th deadline loomed. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:01 | |
We wanted to get the Treaty finished in time | 0:16:02 | 0:16:06 | |
to be in place and signed by the Presidents. | 0:16:06 | 0:16:09 | |
We could see that there were certain critical issues | 0:16:09 | 0:16:12 | |
that had to be resolved. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:13 | |
Anatoly said to me, | 0:16:30 | 0:16:32 | |
"we need to go back to Moscow and talk to them, | 0:16:32 | 0:16:35 | |
"but we think we've got the pieces falling into place now." | 0:16:35 | 0:16:38 | |
I was able, that week, to give a pretty good message to Washington. | 0:16:38 | 0:16:43 | |
It seemed like a triumph. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:46 | |
In her secret cable, | 0:16:46 | 0:16:47 | |
the US negotiator reported that her opposite number had | 0:16:47 | 0:16:51 | |
"cabled Moscow and lobbied for the signing ceremony to be in Geneva." | 0:16:51 | 0:16:56 | |
She had told him that President Obama | 0:16:56 | 0:16:59 | |
was scheduled to be in Europe in 10 days' time. | 0:16:59 | 0:17:01 | |
But the next day, Medvedev put the draft agreement | 0:17:06 | 0:17:10 | |
before Russia's National Security Council. | 0:17:10 | 0:17:13 | |
There, Putin and the top generals would pronounce. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:17 | |
I got a telephone call from Anatoly on Saturday morning. | 0:17:17 | 0:17:20 | |
He said, "I've just gotten new instructions in from Moscow." | 0:17:20 | 0:17:24 | |
He said, "we need to have a special plenary meeting." | 0:17:47 | 0:17:51 | |
And I said, "All right, Saturday afternoon? That's unusual." | 0:17:51 | 0:17:55 | |
At the plenary session, Anatoly said to me, | 0:17:58 | 0:18:02 | |
"Well, here is what we've heard from Moscow." | 0:18:02 | 0:18:04 | |
He read through what he had received back. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:07 | |
I said, "Well, this is a step backwards." | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
Anatoly said to me, | 0:18:22 | 0:18:24 | |
"You are questioning what we heard from the Kremlin?" | 0:18:24 | 0:18:31 | |
The 5th December deadline passed. | 0:18:58 | 0:19:00 | |
There was no bridging agreement, so the two sides | 0:19:00 | 0:19:04 | |
no longer had the right to inspect each other's nuclear sites. | 0:19:04 | 0:19:07 | |
That month, the two presidents attended the global warming summit | 0:19:11 | 0:19:14 | |
in Copenhagen. | 0:19:14 | 0:19:15 | |
The nuclear negotiators were there too, | 0:19:46 | 0:19:49 | |
to try to remove the sticking points that had made Moscow back away. | 0:19:49 | 0:19:52 | |
The biggest sticking point was whether each side | 0:19:52 | 0:19:55 | |
would have the right to inspect the other's missile bases. | 0:19:55 | 0:19:58 | |
He was like, | 0:20:12 | 0:20:13 | |
"We don't need all this verification. | 0:20:13 | 0:20:15 | |
"The reset baby, why do we need that?" | 0:20:15 | 0:20:18 | |
And my view was the opposite, that if we're fine, | 0:20:18 | 0:20:21 | |
then what do you have to hide? | 0:20:21 | 0:20:22 | |
And Anatoly just exploded in anger. | 0:20:31 | 0:20:34 | |
Deadlock. | 0:20:41 | 0:20:43 | |
The negotiators called their Presidents away | 0:20:43 | 0:20:46 | |
from the climate change talks. | 0:20:46 | 0:20:48 | |
Once the two presidents started talking, the obstacles melted away. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:03 | |
The President put the onus back on Medvedev to say, | 0:21:05 | 0:21:08 | |
what's the big deal here? | 0:21:08 | 0:21:10 | |
And President Medvedev saw the logic of President Obama and said, | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
"I agree." | 0:21:14 | 0:21:15 | |
I'm confident that it will be completed in a timely fashion. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:19 | |
I'd like to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:23 | |
Thank you, everybody. | 0:21:26 | 0:21:29 | |
So, as soon as the New Year holidays were over, | 0:21:36 | 0:21:40 | |
Obama sent a huge delegation to Moscow, led by America's top brass. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:44 | |
They met in the centre of resistance, | 0:21:47 | 0:21:49 | |
the Russian Ministry of Defence. | 0:21:49 | 0:21:51 | |
We read through the talking points that we had | 0:21:51 | 0:21:54 | |
and expected there'd be the beginning of a big debate going on., | 0:21:54 | 0:21:57 | |
General Makarov simply said, "We agree." | 0:21:57 | 0:22:01 | |
The American delegation called President Obama to tell him | 0:22:03 | 0:22:07 | |
that he was, at last, going to get his treaty. | 0:22:07 | 0:22:10 | |
The President was very happy, it was clear to me, | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
in talking to General Jones afterwards that, | 0:22:13 | 0:22:16 | |
that he was happy that the President's happy. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:18 | |
We're always happy when the President's happy. | 0:22:18 | 0:22:22 | |
The next day, the American delegation flew home, | 0:22:22 | 0:22:25 | |
except the chief negotiator, who met her counterpart one-on-one. | 0:22:25 | 0:22:30 | |
She thought they had only minor details to sort out. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:34 | |
I came in that day, and Anatoly said to me that missile defence | 0:22:35 | 0:22:39 | |
was still a major issue for the Russian Federation. | 0:22:39 | 0:22:42 | |
Putin and the generals feared that the US | 0:22:55 | 0:22:58 | |
would so improve missile defence, | 0:22:58 | 0:23:00 | |
that they could shoot down even Russia's sophisticated missiles. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:03 | |
When I heard that, I was outraged and I was like, | 0:23:21 | 0:23:24 | |
Hey, well wait a minute. | 0:23:24 | 0:23:25 | |
We just flew half the US Government to Moscow, | 0:23:25 | 0:23:28 | |
to finish negotiating this thing. | 0:23:28 | 0:23:30 | |
We went through what the agenda was at the beginning | 0:23:30 | 0:23:33 | |
and nobody raised a peep and suddenly this is now not done. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:36 | |
There was only one way to break the deadlock. | 0:23:40 | 0:23:42 | |
The President's over at his desk on the phone, with Medvedev, | 0:24:07 | 0:24:11 | |
we're over at another phone in the Oval Office, listening. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:14 | |
I have to say, for this phone call, we didn't quite understand | 0:24:14 | 0:24:18 | |
what Medvedev thought this phone call was about. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:22 | |
Because I speak Russian, | 0:24:22 | 0:24:24 | |
I can hear the Russian before it's translated, | 0:24:24 | 0:24:26 | |
and it was clear to me | 0:24:26 | 0:24:29 | |
that Medvedev thought we'd agreed to something on missile defence | 0:24:29 | 0:24:32 | |
that we had not agreed. | 0:24:32 | 0:24:33 | |
Medvedev was asking for a new section in the treaty, | 0:24:47 | 0:24:50 | |
to stop America improving its missile defence. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:54 | |
That would be a huge problem in the US Senate. | 0:24:54 | 0:24:57 | |
I jumped up and wrote a hand note to the President | 0:24:57 | 0:25:00 | |
saying, "We cannot agree to what Medvedev was saying, | 0:25:00 | 0:25:03 | |
"specifically about this linkage." | 0:25:03 | 0:25:05 | |
Our President said, "Dmitry, I've... | 0:25:05 | 0:25:09 | |
"I've told you at every turn that this treaty will not pass | 0:25:09 | 0:25:14 | |
"if it's linked to missile defence, our missile defence. | 0:25:14 | 0:25:18 | |
"And you have to believe me. You... | 0:25:18 | 0:25:21 | |
"you just have to understand, this is not a technique | 0:25:21 | 0:25:24 | |
"or a negotiating ploy, it's just, it is reality." | 0:25:24 | 0:25:28 | |
And I think he said, "I have counted the votes, | 0:25:28 | 0:25:31 | |
"and...it just simply is not something I can negotiate." | 0:25:31 | 0:25:36 | |
The President then said, quite forcefully, | 0:25:36 | 0:25:38 | |
"If this is going to be a red line for you, | 0:25:38 | 0:25:42 | |
"then we'll call the negotiations off." | 0:25:42 | 0:25:44 | |
It was that dramatic. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:45 | |
After an hour and a half, the phone call ended in stalemate. | 0:25:47 | 0:25:51 | |
The negotiators went back to work. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:56 | |
They pushed hard, we said no. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:00 | |
At that point we really were, | 0:26:00 | 0:26:03 | |
I think, at the end of where we could go on this stuff. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:06 | |
And, you know, they pushed and pushed and then decided, OK, we're done. | 0:26:18 | 0:26:23 | |
BAND PLAYS INTRODUCTORY FLOURISH | 0:26:23 | 0:26:26 | |
The two presidents signed the treaty, | 0:26:31 | 0:26:34 | |
which cut the number of their nuclear missiles in half, | 0:26:34 | 0:26:37 | |
warheads by a third, | 0:26:37 | 0:26:39 | |
and set in place a system of inspections for the next decade. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:43 | |
Obama's decision to deal only with Medvedev was paying off. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:50 | |
APPLAUSE IN HALL | 0:26:50 | 0:26:52 | |
And it looked as though the West | 0:26:55 | 0:26:57 | |
had years more co-operation with him in prospect. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:01 | |
But even before Medvedev became president, | 0:27:12 | 0:27:15 | |
he and Vladimir Putin had struck a deal. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:18 | |
Putin had offered the presidency to Medvedev for one term only. | 0:27:57 | 0:28:00 | |
Before the next election, they would talk. | 0:28:00 | 0:28:04 | |
The unexpected arrived just months after Medvedev took over. | 0:28:19 | 0:28:24 | |
The price of oil, Russia's key export, | 0:28:24 | 0:28:26 | |
fell from 138 a barrel to 34. | 0:28:26 | 0:28:29 | |
The 2008 global financial crash had hit Russia. | 0:28:32 | 0:28:35 | |
Medvedev's advisors suggested they dip into Russia's reserve fund, | 0:29:04 | 0:29:09 | |
earned by years of oil profits, | 0:29:09 | 0:29:12 | |
to keep the economy afloat. | 0:29:12 | 0:29:14 | |
In 2008-9, the state spent about 200 billion to stave off disaster. | 0:29:16 | 0:29:22 | |
But five times as much, over a trillion dollars, | 0:29:22 | 0:29:26 | |
was wiped off the Russian stock exchange. | 0:29:26 | 0:29:29 | |
Thousands of businesses collapsed. | 0:29:29 | 0:29:31 | |
ANGRY SHOUTING | 0:29:31 | 0:29:34 | |
The global recession revealed that Russia's economic success | 0:29:50 | 0:29:54 | |
had been more the result of high oil prices | 0:29:54 | 0:29:56 | |
than eight years of Putin's presidency. | 0:29:56 | 0:29:59 | |
Hardest hit were the old Soviet-era one-factory towns. | 0:29:59 | 0:30:03 | |
Pikalyovo, outside St Petersburg, | 0:30:06 | 0:30:08 | |
depended entirely on a vast cement works. | 0:30:08 | 0:30:11 | |
The owners received a government bailout, | 0:30:12 | 0:30:15 | |
but three months later, the factory was still shut. | 0:30:15 | 0:30:18 | |
In June, the townspeople blockaded one of Russia's key motorways. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:26 | |
Vladimir Putin strode into town. | 0:30:42 | 0:30:44 | |
Unlike Medvedev, Putin confronted the factory owners. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:59 | |
He demanded the owners, including billionaire Oleg Deripaska, | 0:31:32 | 0:31:37 | |
sign an undertaking to restart the factories. | 0:31:37 | 0:31:40 | |
Classic Putin. | 0:32:10 | 0:32:11 | |
But if a country as big as Russia | 0:32:11 | 0:32:14 | |
needed a personal visit from the boss | 0:32:14 | 0:32:17 | |
to get one factory back to work, then it was in serious trouble. | 0:32:17 | 0:32:20 | |
But President Medvedev was not convinced that structural changes were impossible. | 0:32:43 | 0:32:48 | |
When Putin was president, oil money poured into Russia, | 0:32:48 | 0:32:53 | |
but he failed to use it to modernise the economy. | 0:32:53 | 0:32:56 | |
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev. | 0:33:23 | 0:33:25 | |
FANFARE PLAYS | 0:33:25 | 0:33:28 | |
Medvedev chose his second annual speech to the national leadership | 0:33:29 | 0:33:33 | |
to set out his vision of where he wanted Russia to go. | 0:33:33 | 0:33:37 | |
And it didn't sound like Putin's Russia. | 0:33:37 | 0:33:40 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:34:05 | 0:34:07 | |
Medvedev's goal was a Russia | 0:34:12 | 0:34:15 | |
in which its world-class education system, | 0:34:15 | 0:34:17 | |
scientists and engineers would create a dynamic, high-tech country. | 0:34:17 | 0:34:22 | |
And that required, he said, genuine democracy | 0:34:25 | 0:34:28 | |
and equal justice under the law. | 0:34:28 | 0:34:30 | |
These changes would unravel Putin's system of top-down control. | 0:34:34 | 0:34:37 | |
Medvedev was signalling it was time for a change. | 0:35:01 | 0:35:04 | |
A human rights lawyer and a young journalist | 0:35:21 | 0:35:23 | |
who worked for Novaya Gazeta, | 0:35:23 | 0:35:25 | |
the leading opposition newspaper, were shot by nationalist skinheads. | 0:35:25 | 0:35:29 | |
Three years earlier, Russia's most famous crusading journalist, | 0:35:50 | 0:35:56 | |
who worked for the same paper, was also murdered. | 0:35:56 | 0:35:59 | |
But a few days after the funerals, | 0:36:16 | 0:36:19 | |
the editor was called to the Kremlin. | 0:36:19 | 0:36:22 | |
Medvedev found that having to divide domestic policy with Prime Minister Putin, | 0:37:08 | 0:37:14 | |
he could do little to make Russia more democratic. | 0:37:14 | 0:37:17 | |
On foreign policy, though, | 0:37:17 | 0:37:20 | |
the President had shown he was in charge. | 0:37:20 | 0:37:23 | |
One of his biggest challenges was Russia's neighbour, Iran, | 0:37:24 | 0:37:28 | |
an important client for Russian arms. | 0:37:28 | 0:37:30 | |
Iran's nuclear ambitions brought Russia into conflict with America. | 0:37:31 | 0:37:35 | |
It had begun back in 2006, when Putin was President. | 0:37:37 | 0:37:41 | |
I told Sergey Lavrov that if the Iranians got a nuclear weapon, | 0:37:51 | 0:37:56 | |
the first place they might use it is the Caucasus. | 0:37:56 | 0:37:59 | |
They'd caused all kinds of trouble there. | 0:37:59 | 0:38:01 | |
How in the world could they see an Iran with a nuclear weapon? | 0:38:01 | 0:38:05 | |
And sanctions would give us one way to do this without war. | 0:38:05 | 0:38:10 | |
Three years later, during the UN General Assembly, | 0:38:30 | 0:38:33 | |
the Americans saw a way to break the impasse. | 0:38:33 | 0:38:36 | |
They had discovered a secret nuclear processing facility | 0:38:38 | 0:38:42 | |
hidden in Iran's mountains. | 0:38:42 | 0:38:44 | |
They hoped this would convince Russia of the need for sanctions. | 0:38:44 | 0:38:48 | |
We now had enough evidence to conclusively show them | 0:38:50 | 0:38:53 | |
graphically what the Iranians were up to. | 0:38:53 | 0:38:57 | |
Then I showed him a few of the overhead photos. | 0:39:01 | 0:39:05 | |
And he reacted in a way that I would have reacted | 0:39:09 | 0:39:12 | |
had I been on the receiving end of very troubling information. | 0:39:12 | 0:39:16 | |
He was shaking his head, | 0:39:23 | 0:39:24 | |
and Mike McFaul translated the words he was using | 0:39:24 | 0:39:28 | |
which just means bad, really bad. | 0:39:28 | 0:39:31 | |
When the presidents joined them, the Americans knew they'd won. | 0:39:37 | 0:39:41 | |
As we were standing, one of the Russians said, | 0:39:41 | 0:39:44 | |
"Why didn't you tell me?" | 0:39:44 | 0:39:45 | |
I said, "We thought you knew! These are your guys, not ours." | 0:39:45 | 0:39:49 | |
If Iran does not respond to the international community | 0:39:49 | 0:39:54 | |
that it's meeting its commitments, | 0:39:54 | 0:39:57 | |
and is not developing nuclear weapons, | 0:39:57 | 0:39:59 | |
then we will have to take additional actions. | 0:39:59 | 0:40:04 | |
For the first time, Russia accepted the need for stringent sanctions. | 0:40:19 | 0:40:23 | |
Obama pushed for more. | 0:40:24 | 0:40:26 | |
He wanted Medvedev to cancel a billion-dollar arms sale to Iran. | 0:40:26 | 0:40:30 | |
It's not a small thing for the Russians to, in essence, | 0:40:32 | 0:40:35 | |
return an 800 million down-payment. | 0:40:35 | 0:40:37 | |
It wasn't just, you know, "I'll give you a billion for a billion." It was to say, | 0:40:37 | 0:40:41 | |
"Dmitry, you and I can be partners in a geopolitical way | 0:40:41 | 0:40:44 | |
"that will be more valuable to you over the long run | 0:40:44 | 0:40:49 | |
"than your relationship with Iran." | 0:40:49 | 0:40:52 | |
In June 2010, Russia voted for new UN sanctions. | 0:40:54 | 0:40:59 | |
Medvedev cancelled the billion-dollar arms deal. | 0:41:08 | 0:41:12 | |
Now he set out to redeem some of the credit he had earned. | 0:41:14 | 0:41:17 | |
He was seeking Obama's help to advance his pet project - | 0:41:20 | 0:41:24 | |
a Russian Silicon Valley called Skolkovo, just outside Moscow. | 0:41:24 | 0:41:30 | |
I recently extended an invitation to President Medvedev to visit | 0:41:34 | 0:41:38 | |
the United States in late June. | 0:41:38 | 0:41:41 | |
And one of the things we hope he's going to be able to do | 0:41:41 | 0:41:45 | |
is not just visit Washington, but also to travel, for example, to Silicon Valley. | 0:41:45 | 0:41:49 | |
Thousands of Russians had come to America | 0:42:16 | 0:42:19 | |
in search of the capitalist dream. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:22 | |
This young woman was seeking contacts on Wall Street. | 0:42:22 | 0:42:25 | |
Anna Chapman, a Russian immigrant, was a budding businesswoman. | 0:42:40 | 0:42:45 | |
She was also one of ten spies Russia had planted in the US years earlier. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:49 | |
The FBI was watching their every move. | 0:42:52 | 0:42:55 | |
They learned that some suspects were planning to leave the country. | 0:42:57 | 0:43:00 | |
It was five days before Medvedev's visit. | 0:43:00 | 0:43:04 | |
The President convened the National Security Council - | 0:43:05 | 0:43:08 | |
no-one wanted a spy scandal. | 0:43:08 | 0:43:10 | |
Talk about relics from another time. | 0:43:11 | 0:43:14 | |
They hadn't really done any real damage, but they were clearly here | 0:43:14 | 0:43:19 | |
under other pretences than what they presented themselves to be. | 0:43:19 | 0:43:24 | |
The President wanted to handle this in a way that was professional | 0:43:24 | 0:43:27 | |
and did not feel like it was the Cold War. | 0:43:27 | 0:43:30 | |
It was a delicate moment. | 0:43:30 | 0:43:32 | |
The President asked the FBI if they could wait | 0:43:32 | 0:43:36 | |
until Medvedev had left the country. | 0:43:36 | 0:43:38 | |
Meanwhile, the Russian entourage was given a crash course | 0:43:42 | 0:43:45 | |
at some of the world's most successful companies, where ideas could flourish openly | 0:43:45 | 0:43:51 | |
and businesses did not need to bribe friends in high places. | 0:43:51 | 0:43:55 | |
Next stop - Washington. | 0:44:32 | 0:44:37 | |
Here, he addressed his next agenda item - | 0:44:37 | 0:44:40 | |
Russia joining the World Trade Organisation - | 0:44:40 | 0:44:42 | |
the WTO. | 0:44:42 | 0:44:44 | |
Medvedev hoped that once Russia was in the WTO | 0:44:46 | 0:44:49 | |
and obeying its rules, foreigners would feel safe and start investing. | 0:44:49 | 0:44:53 | |
But Russian membership in the WTO was blocked by a billion dollars' worth of chicken. | 0:45:08 | 0:45:14 | |
Russia had been America's largest export market for chicken. | 0:45:16 | 0:45:21 | |
Then Russia banned it. | 0:45:21 | 0:45:22 | |
Half a million American voters work in the poultry industry | 0:45:25 | 0:45:28 | |
so Obama wanted the ban lifted. | 0:45:28 | 0:45:31 | |
The Russians, in return, wanted all the other trade issues settled | 0:45:31 | 0:45:35 | |
within three months. | 0:45:35 | 0:45:37 | |
The President weighed in and said, "I want to get this done by then. | 0:45:53 | 0:45:58 | |
"I agree with, you know, the President of Russia here. | 0:45:58 | 0:46:02 | |
"We're... I'm hungry. | 0:46:02 | 0:46:04 | |
"Dmitry and I are going to go have a burger. You guys sit here | 0:46:04 | 0:46:07 | |
"and you get this done." | 0:46:07 | 0:46:10 | |
-You can leave your jacket in the car. -Is it safe? | 0:46:10 | 0:46:13 | |
It's safe. It's OK. Nobody is going to steal it. | 0:46:13 | 0:46:17 | |
Hi, guys! APPLAUSE | 0:46:17 | 0:46:20 | |
We're going to turn him on to a real American burger. | 0:46:20 | 0:46:23 | |
-Barack, can I assist you? -No, these are on me. | 0:46:23 | 0:46:28 | |
While the presidents chomped on burgers, | 0:46:30 | 0:46:32 | |
the problem of chicken exports and the other trade issues | 0:46:32 | 0:46:35 | |
were left to those close aides who couldn't get out of it. | 0:46:35 | 0:46:39 | |
Well, it was interesting cos a lot of people left! | 0:46:41 | 0:46:44 | |
It was like, "Hey, wait a minute!" | 0:46:44 | 0:46:46 | |
Secretary Clinton left to host Minister Lavrov for lunch | 0:46:46 | 0:46:49 | |
and General Jones, I remember, was part of that delegation | 0:46:49 | 0:46:54 | |
and some of us were left like, "Who's going to do this?" | 0:46:54 | 0:46:57 | |
By the time they drove up in the limousine... | 0:47:13 | 0:47:16 | |
And I saw them out of the corner of my eye, and we walked over | 0:47:16 | 0:47:19 | |
to the computer in his office - in the little office in front of the Oval Office - | 0:47:19 | 0:47:26 | |
and we typed it up as he walked in the doors. | 0:47:26 | 0:47:28 | |
Good afternoon, everybody. Please be seated. | 0:47:31 | 0:47:37 | |
We just concluded some excellent discussions - | 0:47:37 | 0:47:41 | |
discussions that would have been unlikely just 17 months ago. | 0:47:41 | 0:47:46 | |
Sometimes it's odd when you're sitting in historic meetings | 0:47:46 | 0:47:51 | |
with your Russian counterpart to spend time talking about chicken. | 0:47:51 | 0:47:55 | |
THEY LAUGH | 0:47:55 | 0:47:58 | |
But our ability to get resolved a trade dispute, was, I think, | 0:47:58 | 0:48:03 | |
an indication of the seriousness with which President Medvedev | 0:48:03 | 0:48:07 | |
and his team take all of these trade and commercial issues. | 0:48:07 | 0:48:10 | |
Thank you very much, everybody. | 0:48:10 | 0:48:12 | |
Medvedev went home with a new trade agreement | 0:48:12 | 0:48:15 | |
and American backing to join the World Trade Organisation. | 0:48:15 | 0:48:18 | |
Two days later, in a New York coffee shop, | 0:48:20 | 0:48:23 | |
Anna Chapman met a man she thought was a fellow Russian agent. | 0:48:23 | 0:48:27 | |
He was really an undercover FBI man. | 0:48:27 | 0:48:30 | |
The Americans were springing their trap. | 0:48:32 | 0:48:35 | |
I had to call the National Security Advisor and tell him | 0:48:35 | 0:48:40 | |
that we were in the process of arresting... | 0:48:40 | 0:48:43 | |
I think it was ten people. | 0:48:43 | 0:48:45 | |
They took it well. They didn't try to deny anything. | 0:48:57 | 0:49:03 | |
We were able to not only send them back, but also recover | 0:49:08 | 0:49:11 | |
some people that were, in fact, confined in Russia that now are free. | 0:49:11 | 0:49:16 | |
The spies were welcomed back to Russia as heroes. | 0:49:18 | 0:49:22 | |
Putin's United Russia party cheered on Anna Chapman, | 0:49:22 | 0:49:26 | |
who basked in her new celebrity. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:28 | |
CHEERING | 0:49:30 | 0:49:31 | |
The campaign season was beginning. | 0:49:36 | 0:49:39 | |
Elections were due in March 2012. | 0:49:44 | 0:49:47 | |
The BBC asked the President's closest advisor who would be the candidate - Putin or Medvedev. | 0:49:47 | 0:49:53 | |
They didn't take the final decision yet. But again, from what | 0:49:54 | 0:50:01 | |
I heard from President Medvedev, he has not excluded the possibility | 0:50:01 | 0:50:06 | |
that he will go for elections, and certainly he wants to do that. | 0:50:06 | 0:50:09 | |
Putin had made Medvedev president in 2007 on the understanding | 0:50:11 | 0:50:16 | |
that one of them would stand in 2012. But which? | 0:50:16 | 0:50:19 | |
They continued to say they were close allies, | 0:50:20 | 0:50:23 | |
so they could only compete at photo-ops. | 0:50:23 | 0:50:26 | |
CAMERA SHUTTERS WHIRR | 0:50:27 | 0:50:30 | |
MUSIC: "Blueberry Hill" | 0:50:30 | 0:50:32 | |
# For you were my thrill... # | 0:50:32 | 0:50:35 | |
For Putin, these stunts came naturally. | 0:50:37 | 0:50:40 | |
He was consistently 5 to 10% ahead in the polls. | 0:50:40 | 0:50:43 | |
Medvedev could never beat Putin at such games. | 0:50:46 | 0:50:50 | |
What Medvedev could do was tackle the corruption that flourished under Putin. | 0:50:51 | 0:50:57 | |
In his first two years, Medvedev fired 63% of the Kremlin's bureaucrats | 0:50:59 | 0:51:04 | |
and 40% of the country's governors. | 0:51:04 | 0:51:07 | |
Then he fired Yuri Luzhkov, Moscow mayor for almost two decades, | 0:51:26 | 0:51:30 | |
whose wife had become the richest woman in Russia. | 0:51:30 | 0:51:33 | |
Within a month, his poll ratings - for the first time - drew almost level with Putin's. | 0:51:36 | 0:51:41 | |
Even the liberal media were impressed. | 0:51:43 | 0:51:46 | |
CROWD CHANTS: | 0:52:03 | 0:52:07 | |
A trial in Moscow would be the decisive test of Medvedev's power | 0:52:10 | 0:52:15 | |
to stand up to Putin on the rule of law. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:18 | |
Oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky had been jailed for fraud | 0:52:19 | 0:52:22 | |
after challenging Putin. | 0:52:22 | 0:52:25 | |
As he came to the end of his sentence, | 0:52:25 | 0:52:27 | |
the state charged him with new crimes. | 0:52:27 | 0:52:29 | |
In November, Medvedev and Obama met, one on one. | 0:52:32 | 0:52:36 | |
They're both trained in the legal profession. They've talked about Khodorkovsky and what might happen | 0:52:36 | 0:52:42 | |
and what would be the reaction to a second verdict in his case. | 0:52:42 | 0:52:46 | |
What has happened to him is a symbol of all the things | 0:52:46 | 0:52:51 | |
that are wrong in terms of Russia's commitment to the rule of law. | 0:52:51 | 0:52:54 | |
At their meeting, Medvedev promised that Khodorkovsky would get | 0:52:55 | 0:52:58 | |
a fair trial, free from political interference. | 0:52:58 | 0:53:02 | |
But on the day the verdict was to be delivered, | 0:53:02 | 0:53:05 | |
the judge postponed his ruling. | 0:53:05 | 0:53:07 | |
The next day, Putin held his annual press conference and was asked about the case. | 0:53:07 | 0:53:12 | |
To many, his answer sounded like an instruction to the court. | 0:53:12 | 0:53:17 | |
THEY CHANT IN RUSSIAN | 0:54:46 | 0:54:50 | |
Khodorkovsky was given seven more years in prison. | 0:54:50 | 0:54:53 | |
The public lost patience with Medvedev's inability to stand up to Putin. | 0:55:16 | 0:55:20 | |
Then, at the end of September, the ruling United Russia party | 0:55:22 | 0:55:26 | |
held its annual conference. | 0:55:26 | 0:55:28 | |
Putin assumed he would move back to the Kremlin as President. | 0:56:01 | 0:56:04 | |
Medvedev would be his Prime Minister. | 0:56:04 | 0:56:07 | |
Everyone took it granted that their machine would ensure | 0:56:07 | 0:56:10 | |
the voters rubber-stamped the deal. | 0:56:10 | 0:56:12 | |
The first sign it would not be so easy came two months later. | 0:56:16 | 0:56:20 | |
Putin joined 20,000 fight fans at a title bout. | 0:56:20 | 0:56:23 | |
This mainly male, working class crowd were his usual supporters. | 0:56:25 | 0:56:30 | |
CROWD BOOS | 0:56:30 | 0:56:33 | |
State TV quickly edited out the boos, | 0:56:40 | 0:56:43 | |
but by then the video was on the internet. | 0:56:43 | 0:56:45 | |
Millions of Russians logged on. | 0:56:45 | 0:56:48 | |
In December, the protests moved to the streets. | 0:56:52 | 0:56:55 | |
The ruling party had been declared | 0:57:00 | 0:57:02 | |
winners in parliamentary elections. | 0:57:02 | 0:57:05 | |
Well-documented accusations of fraud were brushed aside. | 0:57:05 | 0:57:09 | |
The protesters wore white ribbons. | 0:57:12 | 0:57:15 | |
Putin tried to laugh it off. | 0:57:15 | 0:57:17 | |
Vladimir Putin had first become president at the turn of the millennium, | 0:57:42 | 0:57:47 | |
when Russia was still recovering from the collapse of Communism. | 0:57:47 | 0:57:50 | |
Russia and the United States should work together. | 0:57:56 | 0:58:00 | |
He repaired much of the damage, | 0:58:01 | 0:58:04 | |
but undermined democracy and the rule of law. | 0:58:04 | 0:58:07 | |
The West learned to tread carefully around him. | 0:58:15 | 0:58:18 | |
I mean, since when does Russia own a piece of Georgia? | 0:58:20 | 0:58:22 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:58:22 | 0:58:25 | |
He could now remain in office until 2024. | 0:58:30 | 0:58:34 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:59:02 | 0:59:04 |