It is a pleasure to present today's speaker are no the bush Krav former Chief foreign correspondent for Newsweek. And now the senior advisor to the Center for strategic and International Studies. Mr. Dubose Grove has covered major news events worldwide and has interviewed. Most of the world's leaders. He has received several awards for accomplishments in journalism, including the George Washington Medal of Honor for excellence in published works and three New York newspaper Guild Paige won awards for foreign reporting just to name a few following his presentation today, which is entitled New World Disorder Truth or Consequences questions will be addressed from the audience Jayne Murray check executive director and Ken darling of Minnesota meeting will move among you to manage the question and answer.Action, you may use the slips of paper on your table to jot down questions for discussion. I had the opportunity to dine with mr. De Bush Grove last evening, and I know that you have a treat in store. I'm very pleased to present honor to Bush Grove. Thank you very much. Maroon for that generous introduction found a lot of old friends here today during Holland Cleveland who just gave me his new book birth of a new world. So I forget who it was said that mankind is now at a Crossroads one road leads to Oblivion and the other total Destruction. May we And may we have the courage to choose the correct course? Which reminds me that the two principles to keep in mind when you're at the podium. The first is called the Henry Kissinger principle of alarm when in doubt be pessimistic because then you sound much better informed. The school believes that only vacuous Fatheads tell good news. And if doomsday doesn't come you can always give yourself credit for having averted doomsday and go back to the top of the class. The second principle is called the theory of chance less well-known. It's named after Henry J Bou noura, some of the old-timers here. May remember Hui who he was he passed away six years ago. He was known as Zeke or bananas burner. Oh, he played for the White Sox and the Senators before World War II died 6 years ago still holding to this day the worst Fielding record in the history of baseball, but bananas burner understood one, very important Rule and that is that you cannot be charged with an error unless you touch the ball. And that's one rule. I've consistently ignored in 47 years of Journalism. Where as most of you know, the only qualification required is to demonstrate varying degrees of ignorance in a wide variety of fields, which I have happily done almost every day of my life. And now that political forecasting and economic prognostication of made astrology look respectable. I have absolutely no compunction whatsoever in relying on my own gut instincts to give you a quick Global tour with an occasional snapshot snapshot along the way one handicap. I have incidentally and which I share with the late great Hubert Humphrey is that I've never had an unspoken thought in my life. glitch which has become quite a challenge in this age of political correctness. This is not as you may know the age of Charles the great or even Charles de Gaulle. It's the age of the wimp on both sides of the Atlantic. American democracy is now generated a new right for those of you who have not noticed the Nets the right not to be offended. It may soon. I suppose be illegal to cheer the winning team in the Super Bowl out of fear of making the losers feel bad. Florida school district in this is a true story in North Broward County recently banned a fairytale children's fairy tale and now because of an offensive word. So now it's Snow White and the Seven vertically challenged but thinking about it. I figured that Snow White might be offensive to some women. So I would suggest renaming it Virgin by choice and and the Seven differently abled. Well, the politically correct mindset seems to permeate almost everything we do these days from Somalia to Bosnia to Haiti to Russia to China and I think it was Saul Bellow once said that a great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion runs deep and as you know, the need for illusion is an evergreen commodity such as the illusion that a nation could be built where there was no Nation to begin with in Somalia all the notion that democracy could be restored in Haiti where there was no democracy before anyway. All that cowardice and Bosnia somehow would not have repercussions. In other parts of the world all that we can make Global yardage with a foreign policy and a magic wand called enlarging democracy. That's our latest Doctrine now enlarging democracy that something that democracy is something that is good for any country regardless of its stage of Economic Development. Just as bran flakes ensure regularity in the morning. Or the illusion harbored by some that we can kill NAFTA or that the Frenchman Scuttle the so-called Blair House agreement between the European community in the US on reducing Farm exports subsidies without jeopardizing the GATT round of trade negotiations now in the eighth year and scheduled for completion on December 15th. I happen to agree with Bob Strauss when he said yesterday that rejecting NAFTA would be an international economic disaster which could trigger not only worldwide protectionism but a major depression. There are enormous problems on the horizon that threatened the very survival of liberal democracies. That's far more important than what's happening in Somalia. And we're not talking about Somalia or Bosnia or other third world basket cases. There is a vacuum. It seems to me and Tony Lake. I see admitted this yesterday our national security advisor the seems to be a vacuum in the articulation of foreign policy. It seems to me that North Korea's nuclear Ambitions nuclear Ambitions, which are already having a bit of a chain reaction in Japan bulk a little larger than the political Ambitions of one adid warlord in Somalia. Everybody likes democracy or so. We like to believe but hardly anyone bothers to Define it democracy as we understand it as the product of centuries of evolution and Revolution. It's simply in my judgment cannot work without a strong and prosperous middle class that has a vested interest in stability. Democracy means different things to different people such as the peaceful acceptance of an election loss or not arresting your opponents or freedom of the press which Russia now claims to have and we're almost every journalist is paid under the table for favorable articles about somebody or something or for writing against somebody or something. Journalist in Russia Today earn between 20 and 40 dollars a month a little less than a nuclear weapons designer who make sixty dollars a month and a lot less than a private security guard who makes a hundred dollars a week to protect small businessmen from Mafia racketeers. Our so-called Russian experts have told us time. And again that the Democratic press was one of the key elements in the democratization process. But Russian leaders are turning Russian readers are turning away from Publications more and more in favor of Television. So disgusted have they become with a corrupt media the only problem with television at that. It's controlled by Boris Yeltsin and besides as we all know TV is 2 News what bumper stickers out of philosophy Somebody was paying attention. Back in 1950. I conducted the first interview with Franco. He had remained silent for five years after World War II and I asked him the usual Devil's Advocate questions about democracy said forget about democracy until we have a strong prosperous middle class. And when he died in 1975 Spain was ready for democracy alas. If you look at the unemployment figures today in Spain, they're a little scary 22% We have six point seven and we think it's dangerous. They have 22% Pinochet told me much the same thing after he overthrew overthrow Allende 81 can have good government without democracy. Because a lot of people believe that you cannot have good government without democracy. What about South Korea? What about Taiwan? What about Singapore now? They are beginning to have democracy but it took them 25 30 40 years to get to this stage. You can't do it with a magic wand. So the prerequisite for the kind of democracy we see in those countries today is authoritarian authoritarianism. I call it Market authoritarianism and we have a very nasty habit. It seems to me in our country of trying to construct mirror images of ourselves when much of the world does not quite relish the prospect of emulating the crime nation of the world, which we have become at 6 a.m. To some morning. I watch CNN Headline News, which is seen all over the world for 15 solid minutes. It was one American Crime Story after another the greatest of all contemporary illusions. Was that Russia and the former Soviet republics could go cold turkey into democracy and freemarkets, even though Russia in 1000 years of History has only known autocratic rule. We're now engaged it seems to me and I rather fruitless debate about whether Yeltsin is a real Democrat or or an autocrat camouflaged as a Democrat with some 45,000 nuclear warheads sloshing around and that's up from the 30,000 which was our darkest estimate at the end of the Cold War one can only hope from my vantage point that Yeltsin is an enlightened authoritarian figure which I believe him to be. Russia is the story of changes that never seemed to happen. There is no new Russia. No new Ukraine or anything else 11 of the 15 Republic's today are ruled by former communist apparatchiks in Azerbaijan. You have haydar aliyev a former KGB General former member of the politburo in Moscow who hoisted himself back to Power in a clearly rig referendum 97.5 percent of the vote displacing the legally elected president. In Georgia good friend president Chevron add see the good guy has been faced with two civil wars in his tiny country since he took over after losing abkhazia a couple of weeks ago to secession is Rebels. He is about to lose the rest of the country to Mr. Gum. Sakuya who was legally elected in 1991 and then overthrown nine months later in sukhumi incidentally, which is the Saint Tropez of the Black Sea just a few miles away from the Russian border. You've seen the stories some correspondence have managed to get in there. There are some people who have been nailed to crosses literally nailed to crosses left to die throats been slit and tongues pull through the gash in the throat to make what is already known locally as the abkhazian necktie. So it proves to me that Civilization is still just skin deep and barbarism is going on just literally 1 hour from where I was this summer in a white tie at the Opera in Salzburg. That's one hour away from what's happening in Bosnia. The past two years and that's it's only two years since Gorbachev and the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 91 past two years of seen some 200 border claims among the 15 republics for civil wars for major Coos to of the mercifully aborted in Moscow. Economic output is down 34 percent at the height of our own Great Depression. It was 31% and the people are struggling to survive about 40% of the people are struggling to survive below the poverty line inflation as you've all read is between a thousand and two thousand percent a year. So it seems to me and I'm not the only one you can go to Moscow and hear this from people like the foreign minister in private conversations. There are many bosnia's in the making would be desperate snow that milosevich and Serbia made a very correct assessment for the time being at least of a spineless European community and America and a deeply divided NATO and United Nations institutions were appeasement like Munich in 1938 seems to be the better part of valor. Many Russians these days and I do go over there twice a year and lectured Moscow you on journalism many Russians mother these days at the worst has let them down. So why bother with democracy democracy as it is practiced in the west it isn't to indeed true that Western pledges of Aid have to a very large degree failed to materialize Western Nations today, simply do not possess the resources to do for the former Soviet Union what West Germany has done for the five eastern provinces of East Germany if the G7 Nations the world's seven wealthiest countries. Had spent the same amount per capita that West Germany is presently spending on East Germany. The bill would be Six Trillion not billion six trillion dollars. Germany will be spending between now and the end of the century one trillion dollars just to try to bring 17 million East Germans to the same level as the rest of Western Germany. And even this is a bit of an illusion witnessed the fact that southern Italy is yet to achieve the income income levels of Northern Italy and the flip side of this Russia is flat broke theme is the massive illegal outflows of currency beginning when Gorbachev took over in March of 1985. KGB generals party, honchos realize that mr. Gilbert Gilbert meows policies, if played out to their logical conclusion would lead to the demise of the Soviet Union the breakup of the Soviet Union. That was a correct calculation and thirty billion dollars worth. Moved out of the country illegally check with your friends at the World Bank or any major American or european bank. They know these figures. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union another thirty billion dollars hasn't left the country with simply kept abroad in exchange for bar various illegal bada deals diamonds Platinum military hardware and so forth the World Bank specialist who tracks these flows told me just a couple of weeks ago. He estimates. It was 13 billion dollars last year alone and a relative of mine who works for a major European bank has just come back from Moscow and he estimates these flows to be running now at seven hundred million dollars a month. The struggle of ideas and values did not end with the Cold War. In fact capitalism is being questioned the unacceptable face of capitalism that is now that it seems to mean wholesale layoffs of and unemployment lines lengthening daily all the way from Moscow to Madrid right across the former East-West divide. Yeltsin himself has said publicly that Russia has become a mafia great power Law and Order and security is what the people yearn for. In the 12 European Community Nations today, you have 18 million unemployed or soon will have projections show 19 million next year that impacts some 80 million people if you include dependence the 24 oecd countries, the advanced industrial societies of the world have 35 million unemployed. Today, you're talking about a hundred million people impacted and the companies don't know any other way to survive than to shed jobs to cut costs and lighten the government government imposed burden of generous Social Security benefits. So Democratic Values per se do not a foreign policy make when we talk about a new Democratic World Order, let us never forget the case of Germany's to economic collapses in 1923 in 1931 with millions of unemployed followed by the victories of the black and red enemies of democracy. Liberal democracies in Western Europe are rapidly becoming ungovernable government spending on womb to tomb Social Security is literally out of control. The gravy train has jumped the rails and the gravy has been soaked up by people who have taken five and six week vacations for granted for a long time. There is widespread disenchantment with the system. I wrote a piece about this recently after seeing people all over Europe for six consecutive weeks and in Germany alone today, you have members of extreme left-wing groups that have proliferated from 2000 to 28,000 in the past 12 months while neo-nazis are believed to number about 50,000. Most of them jobless skinheads. You might say that's not very much. For a country now of 80 million people but then Hitler embarked on his Crusade against Bourgeois values and Marxism with just 600 brown shirts and a rather electrifying slogan, which was six million unemployed. social programs which most workers I'm talking about blue collar workers, which most workers equate with liberal democracy are failing. The social programs are failing and there is a growing sense of foreboding about the future a feeling that major social upheavals lie ahead. Leaders admit quite frankly and off the record conversations that they can no longer tell their people the truth because otherwise they simply get thrown out of office. So you go on promising things that you know perfectly. Well you cannot deliver on Chancellor Kohl finally steeled himself the other day and told the nation that democracy democracy means finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems. And in Germany's case, the proximate means shorter vacations harder work and fewer benefits as a result only one German in for thinks the chance of coal is doing a good job because he told them the truth in Italy. We now see one Social Security and pension fund contributor for each beneficiary an intolerable 141 ratio. And Italy as a result appears to be fragmenting into three separate parts in tiny Belgium where I was born you have four different countries. Basically today. Nobody was focusing on this because it happened during the summer the height of the Bosnian crisis and again social benefits Frank fragmented the country because the Flanders got fed up with paying for wiluna ETC. I won't go into details except to give you one fascinating figure is that the social security tab for 10 million people runs 36 billion dollars a year in that small country, which means that Belgium now has the highest debt of any country in the Western World 150 percent of GDP. The Asia Pacific Nations by comparison are leaving Europe in the dust as we all know China is growing its economy at fourteen percent a year and is determined to avoid the mistakes that American and European academic advisors encouraged in Moscow. My view is the China got it. Right and Russia got it wrong. After a decade of double-digit growth China now has a GDP already comparable to Britain's and one which will easily surpass Germany's by the year 2000 and Japan's a few years later and less present Trends are reversed. No one can possibly predict the shape or scope of things to come but I think we can be reasonably sure that grand designs like the famous Maastricht Treaty of 91 for a single Europe Western Europe of 12 nations with a single currency common foreign and Defence policy was a vision too far A little bit like that World War II movie which some of you may have seen called A Bridge Too Far Europe center of gravity has already shifted from the worst to Central Europe namely Germany, which has common borders with nine countries facing north south east and west that's the center of gravity. There are now incidentally some 40 Wars going on in the post-cold war period there are no less than 60 current or emerging conflicts in Europe alone. And the Royal the prestigious Royal Institute for international Affairs in London estimates, 125 ethnic and or minority disputes in the old Soviet orbit, 25 of them classified as armed disputes. There are 3500 groups of people in the world that feel they're entitled to nationhood and yet there are only 180 roughly speaking Nations recognized by the International Community. So that doesn't quite compute. I think the answer is going to be the search for new structures. I probably won't see it in my lifetime, but it's got to come new structures probably Regional in nature, but we will have to come up with new organizations going beyond the nation state. And very few Democratic leaders always busy with their next election campaign seemed to understand that they've been overtaken by events, but there is a growing abbess. A growing Abbas between the political economic technological geo-economic geostrategic even psychological knowledge of the masses and their representatives on the one hand meaning Congress or parliaments in Europe. And on the other hand the knowledge required to reach logical rational and moral conclusions. No attention is being paid as far as I can see to the kind of world. We want no great nation today with the possible exception of China seems to understand where its National interest lies and come up with a policy to pursue that interest. We have did it and procrastinated after being dealt more winning hands than any nation in contemporary history and by that, I mean the end of the Cold War and the Persian Gulf victory. Twenty years ago microprocessors could put five thousand transistors on a single tiny computer chip now. It's 1.2 million. And about to come out of R&D Labs is 3.2 million. You have a new supercomputer made in Japan that can do 360 billion not million billion calculations per second. I can't relate to that but that's the real world and how does one reconcile that with a congress in our country for instance of 535 would be secretaries of state that managed to micromanage everything into unworkable programs. How relevant is a national governments resources when you see 200,000 currency Traders hunched over their computers all over the world trading over one trillion dollars every 24 hours. What can a national government do so I know that I had to lead time for some questions. I just wanted to get off a few other thoughts that are far more important that Somalia or Bosnia or Haiti for that matter high-tech high-tech means that almost any third world country today anxious to even scores with its neighbors. Let's say Iran versus Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf or even farther afield can now produce a crude cruise missile with a bite with a biological or chemical Warhead. All they need is a GPS system a global positioning system which anyone can buy for $1,300 coupled with a computer and you've got a sophisticated version of Hitler's V1 or V2 in World War two or more recently of Saddam Hussein's scud missiles. So, I'm not too impressed as George Bush told me I should be by the agreement that in the year 2003 and that schedule seems to be slipping every day that we and the Russians will have Downsized our respective nuclear arsenals from 30,000 to 11,000 to 3500 City Buster's sometime early in the next Century, especially when you know that each one of these weapons contains a nuclear a plutonium pit with a life span of twenty five thousand years. These weapons are to be dismantled not destroyed and desperately poor Russian custodians of these storage sites who know? No Legions today will inevitably be tempted to sell these little goodies to third world countries. Peace is not unfortunately a normal human condition though. None of us should ever give up that Quest for Peace. There have been 5800 Wars in 5,000 years of recorded history. We have seen five major defense draw Downs in this country since the beginning of this Century four of them with disastrous consequences. I don't know how the fifth is going to play out. Nobody can forecast this but I do know having spoken to many military experts on both sides of the Atlantic that are famous win hold when Doctrine which overnight became a win-win strategy is more theology than reality. We couldn't even duplicate Desert Storm tomorrow. Let alone fight to Regional War simultaneously. Once in awhile history seems to Lurch with the suddenness of a cataclysmic earthquake followed by many years of aftershocks and a changed geopolitical landscape. We've already suffered three such as earthquakes in the 20th century with some 300 million killed many of them, of course by despots and tyrants such as Stalin and Hitler and Moe Jim Woolsey who is our new DCI and a former colleague of mine at csis head of CIA has testified that the post-cold war world is infinitely more complex and in some ways even more dangerous than it was when the two superpowers confronted each other with clearly understood Rules of Engagement. Will they says we're now in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes and poisonous snakes can killed just as much just as effectively as a nuclear weapon will see his predecessor. Bob Gates reminded us before stepping down that there are two dozen nations in the world today who are forging Arsenal's of such destructive capacity as to defy or Reason in nuclear biological and chemical weapons along with the missiles to deliver them. So I think trying to analyze all of this a case can be made for drawing a parallel between the collapse of the Berlin Wall on November 9th, 1989 and a famous date October 31 1517. And for you history Buffs, you will remember that's when Martin Luther broke the Stranglehold of the Catholicism held over Christianity, but that fantastic upheaval was followed by rather bloody. He upheavals called the reformation and the counter-reformation. That's where I can see us today in a historical perspective. I can't possibly forecast what will follow but we can be reasonably sure that it'll be a great deal of turbulence various forms of bloody ethnic unrest and profound ever fast faster changed. Now lie ahead I think that in a broader context again trying to broaden the discussion we have to ask ourselves how it's possible that nearly 200 years. Is after the Industrial Revolution? The birth of the Industrial Revolution the number of people living in abject poverty in the first and third world has grown exponentially in 1800. The urban slum population of the world was estimated to be about 7 million people today. It is 600 million which means that slums of grown 16 times faster than the rest of the population during histories or Humanity's greatest period of economic growth growth and despite these unbelievable technological breakthroughs that we witnessed misery has increased dramatically and continues to do so worldwide. So I don't think the age of ideology is behind us new ideologies are coming down the pike without any doubt. The population explosion is of course party to blame 250,000 babies born into the world every 24 hours one whole New Mexico every year one whole new China every 10 years. Most of them. Unfortunately into families where the per capita income is a few hundred dollars a year. So it seems to me that we permissive liberal democracies must come to grips with the fact that we are on our present course becoming ungovernable and that we are also to blame for many of these things. There is a Democratic Leadership deficit democracy doesn't mean that you allow 535 congressmen or in our case the media to set the agenda. We are no longer incidentally perceived as that beautiful shining Citadel on the hill as you people who travel around the world have noticed the u.s. Now has 1 million plus citizens incarcerated or subject to various forms of Criminal Justice, which is more per capita than any other country in the world a number that is Rising by 13 percent a year. We have 1 million unwanted babies every year. Produce for the most part by teenagers from the underclass 30 percent of all births are now two unmarried women of figured that shoots up to 71% in Detroit and 66% in Washington DC more young blacks in jail than in college, you know the litany as well as I do that is how we are written about in the European press or the Japanese prayer. So the South Korean press liberal democracies have indeed prevailed over totalitarianism, but they won't long survive in the historical perspective in my judgment by following the line of least resistance, which we are now doing in this country. The fact is that man's attitude to the world must undergo a radical transformation or liberals and conservatives like Marxist before them will be consigned to the trash heap of History. I am not a one-world ER I don't think there's any such thing as one set of social political and economic rules that together will somehow produce a universal solution. But I agree with Peter Drucker a man of vision which means apparently someone who can see things that are invisible to us lesser Mortals when he says the one thing that we can be sure of is that the world that will emerge from the present rearrangement of values of beliefs of social and economic structures of World Views will be different from anything that we can imagine today Drucker can foresee. I can to a post-capitalist society whose primary resource will be knowledge which by definition will mean a society of organizations shifting gradually if we're lucky violently if we're not from the relatively recent nation-state concept to a pluralism in which the nation state will be one rather than the unit of It'll integration. The others will be a blend by definition of transnational Regional local even tribal organizations. You might ask what will be transnational I can give you one glaring example, and that is global organized crime today. It's the fastest growing industry in the world Bar None Global organized crime, and I'm working on a program right now at csis on that and testifying before a congressional committee on November 4th, unless we address ourselves to these problems. Now, we will find ourselves submerged far beyond our economic social and cultural capacity to absorb to assimilate and to integrate This was without any question by way of conclusion the cruelest and bloodiest Century in human history and we are nowhere near the end of his histories bumpiest ride. You might ask is the Clinton Administration up to the challenge. I think there are indeed occasions when the wisest course is to refrain from taking sides. Nobody would like to see our president fall flat on his August derriere. I certainly don't Which reminds me of maybe a bit of a cop-out but it reminds me of Niccolo Machiavelli that apocryphal story on his deathbed and his father Confessor said please Niccolo. This is your great moment repudiate the devil. Please repudiate the devil and Niccolo Lean Forward drawing on his last breath said, please father. This is no time to be making enemies. Well my horoscope in one of the papers I picked up this morning said Emphasis should be on seeing things as they are and it advises me to avoid wishful thinking that's what I tried to do. Thank you very much. Thank you. You're listening to are known to Bourgeois veteran journalist and foreign correspondent and now the senior advisor to the Center for strategic and International Studies speaking to the Minnesota meeting on the stations in Minnesota Public Radio. We have a first question here from Edmondson who is with Benson and Company. Sir, are you optimistic that Russia will be able to adopt a new constitution within the next six months that will contain property rights. Yes, I think I would be optimistic on paper but whether this will translate into reality. I don't know because it'll be a long time before they adopt a legal system that will that you and I can relate to but that they will pass a constitution. I have no doubt that they will have elections. I have no doubt, but don't try to equate their definition of democracy with our own all these Expressions such as Parliament or a public opinion. They use it in a different sense than we do and I don't think we should be engaged in a debate again. As I said earlier as to whether or not Yeltsin is a real Democrat or an autocrat in Democratic clothing. Thank you very much. Mister divorce craft. We have a question now from Scott silver. He's a senior at Augsburg College. Yes, how do you think the events in the former? Yugoslavia are going to affect the European community in the future. Impact the European Community they already have so the European Community. It seems to me has turned its back on Bosnia the Bloodshed 200,000 killed so far or missing presumed killed two million refugees. And what are they done very little and yet it's on there. It's on their own Frontier. It seems to me it was incumbent upon them before it was incumbent on the United States to do something about it and they haven't and I think they're desperately still trying to stay out of any kind of involvement and we are to today and I think that's only right. It's too late to put 25,000 troops in there plus another 25,000 Europeans. The French of already said incidentally, they can't afford to put one more Peacekeeper in there. Let alone somebody is going to go in there and try to enforce because there's no other word for it enforce a piece of cord Serbia. Let's face. It has won that war milosevich has won that war now he's going to I think give it a respite for about a year before he goes on. To fulfill his Ambitions for a greater Serbia, which in turn could trigger a regional war in the area which in turn will split the NATO alliance between the pro Greece faction and the pro turkey faction turkey lining up with the Muslims and grease lining up with the Serbian Christians so-called. So all of this is they see it coming in Europe and they still don't want to get involved. It reminds me very much of the run-up to World War One and the run-up to World War 2 It's a combination of the two appeasement plus the the period prior to World War one where nobody understood he his or national interest anymore. Thank you. We have a next question here from Rick Lewis who was an administrative law judge with the state of Minnesota. Thank you. Mr. Debogorski, Rob. Do you what future do you see or for South Africa or maybe more simply is South Africa ready for democracy? Well, I wish I could be optimistic. Unfortunately my first reaction when Nelson Mandela and FW de klerk got their well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize was to hark back to the days when Henry Kissinger was twinned with lead octo for the same Nobel Peace Prize. They belong to a generation that can relate to a multi-party democratic multiparty democracy and a in a peaceful solution and a multiracial solution more important almost than anything else, but can the younger generation. I don't know. I feel that we're headed towards some form of partition with some white enclaves and black enclaves that we have extremists on both sides. We have some young people and older whites and younger blacks who do not relate to a peaceful solution of this to a multi-party multiracial approach to all of this, so I'm not too optimistic as to How it's going to play out. I think we're going to see unfortunately a lot of Bloodshed then what concerns me? I think more almost more than anything else right now is the impact that this might have on inner cities in this country with the instant real-time television coverage. Thank you very much. Mr. De Porres craft. We have a question over here and I guess we're going to be going all over the map today. This is from Lawrence. Koslow who's a professor at st. Thomas? Yes, you made some very positive comments about the passage of NAFTA and I wonder if you care to elaborate on those comments. Well, sir, I'm a free Trader. I think that if we get doesn't go forward and if NAFTA is scuttled, it seems to me we're going to go back to the 30s and protectionism. Is that a good thing? I don't think so and I see that the people who are against NAFTA engaging in demagoguery of the worst kind. One prominent one who shall remain nameless happens to be a pathological liar. I have proof of this. But I'm glad I didn't mention his name because I might wind up in court. But seriously when you're told that it's got its being sold on the wrong basis in my judgment. I don't want to hear that NAFTA is going to be creating jobs or that it's going to be stopping immigration from Mexico. That is not maybe down the road. That's what it'll do. If people really believe that free trade is going to create more and more employment than look at Western Europe today. They have free trade and they have 18 million unemployed. So I am in favor of it because I'm in favor of free trade and against a return to the dark ages of protectionism and the Great Depression. I feel that if we don't go forward with this we could talk ourselves into a Great Depression. It could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thank you. Mr. Devore. Trap. We have a next question from Paul Bennett. Who's the council with the Canadian consulate? Thank you very much. In terms of some of the possible solutions to the situation that you have described as wondering if you could be more specific as to the the possible role that the United States may play in terms of diplomacy financial assistance and peacekeeping or peacemaking and I would just point out the fact the the cold feet that the administration currently has regarding some alley Etc and the difficulties that the nation experienced as a result the of involvement in Vietnam, and secondly, I was just wondering if you had any comments as to the role of the United Nations does the United Nations have a role in any of the situation that you have described. Thank you. I think the United Nations says certainly had a role at the end of the Cold War and the beginning of boutros-ghali is rain as secretary-general and I've known Boutros since 1952 while farook was still on the throne. We became friends. He was a young law professor at the time. So we do talk to each other quite frequently. I think we had a great window of opportunity at the end of the Cold War. Especially after the Gulf War Victory. NATO could have become that particular instrument on behalf of the United Nations very much. And of course NATO means American command very much the way it was a during the Korean War back in 1950 and 51 that General principle. I think that window of opportunity has closed and you've seen the endless arguments and misunderstandings now between the UN the United States our allies, I don't see much of a future for peacekeeping in places like Somalia not on the part of the United States, certainly We can't wait to get out and determine not to get involved in another similar situation witness the fact that we don't want to put one single American Life at risk in order to restore president aristide to power in Haiti. Now the Canadians are a lot better at this than we are and peacekeeping for you seems to be less controversial. I think that we are too high profile is too high immediately when America gets involved somewhere. We are the obvious Target when the French and the Italians and the Canadians get involved somewhere. They are not necessarily viewed as a hostile power intervening in that particular country. We are viewed that way it's not because the Cold War ended that we are not still considered by many radicals around the world as the enemy. We are we forget that there are tens of thousands of people who were trained during the Cold War. Remember when the Israelis invaded Southern Lebanon in 1982 and the documents they captured at that time. They had names from 22 countries of people who had been trained first by the PLO and better elements have been sent on to Eastern Europe and Russia for Advanced Training in the lot of these people or their successes are still around. It's not because the Cold War ended that this is stopped and we are still the target witness the World Trade Center. You are not the target we are so I think that Canada short answer is Canada going to be far more effective in this particular field than weekend. Thank you. Mr. DeBarge craft. We have a question now from Barry night. He's a asset consultant with Kidder Peabody in town. Thank you. You've been incredibly pessimistic. So I'll assume that you know what you're talking about. And now that was the Henry Kissinger rule. I'd like to bring things closer to home. We seem to have leadership that is not very Adept at leading and we seem as individuals captive captive by our fear of people who are different than us are who behave differently than we do with specific examples. Could you give us some Clues as to what we can do to make sure that we don't end up in a similar fractured state to the countries that you've been describing around the world. Well, so I think the first thing that this Administration could do is at least draw on the expertise knowledge background of people who understand roughly where it's at around the world. I'm talking about people like Brzezinski or Kissinger or Holland Cleveland. There are lots of people around this country who understand they don't want to Take over they want to help this younger generation, but they're not even being consulted. When Kennedy took over. Yes youth took over but they relied on older people and the older people were only too happy to give them credit. This is how the system worked today. It's not working. And you see Tony Lake. I don't know if you read today's paper in a sober post-mortem of an extraordinarily difficult period for the wide for White House foreign policy National Security advisor. Tony leg on Wednesday said the Clinton administration had made a series of mistakes in its handling of crises and Somalia and Haiti. I happen to know that the people who could have helped them avoid these mistakes were never consulted. And I'm not talking about myself and I'm no great expert. In fact, I reject the word expert for the simple reason that I've always considered add a two syllable word X as a has-been and spurred as a drip under pressure. Thank you. We have a next question from Jack Burbage from IDs. Thank you. Mr. Debogorski review implied earlier that part of the source of the conflict in Yugoslavia and elsewhere is related to the Moslem versus Christian dichotomy. I wonder if you'd be willing to expand on that and particularly. Do you think there's any hope for an ultimate resolution through reconciliation of the great religions of the world? I think I began my presentation said by telling you that political forecasting it made astrology look respectable. So, I really have no idea when you if you told me what was going to happen in Bosnia three years ago. I would have bet you a lot of money that you were wrong. If you had explained to me after the Berlin Wall came down where we would be today. I would bet you a lot of money that you were wrong. I thought that at last we had an opportunity to create a new world order based on the disintegration of the last great Colonial Empire in the world called the Soviet Union. I was wrong. How could I possibly forecast after what we've seen the horrors we have seen and we're about to see the same thing again replicated this winter in Bosnia. Sarajevo was shelled most intensive shelling yesterday in the day before it just boggles the mind. How could I possibly predict whether there's going to be reconciliation or not? It's like Lebanon. I think it has to play itself out Lebanon lasted 16 years and if we had sustained per capita the same amount of casualties as Lebanon, we would have had 12 million Americans killed and there is still no resolution of the conflict. The syrians are still occupying Lebanon. And the maronites and the Muslims still haven't reached a fundamental understanding as to how Lebanon should be governed in the years to come and foreign capital is still reluctant to go in and rebuild downtown Beirut. Thank you, sir. We have a time for one last question. We have some special guests here today. We have a group of students from benilde Saint Margaret who are the guests of the Opus Corporation and two groups are st. Thomas one guests of the 3M Company and another group guests of Oppenheimer wolf and Donnelly and Tiffany Leffler. Do you want to ask the last question? Thank you. I'm wondering if we could switch to a different part of the world and look at North Korea and its rapid increase of nuclear weapons. It's a subject that I find a little frightening and something that I don't think many people quite realize and I wonder if you could speculate on the magnitude of such actions being taken by North Korea and I believe Pakistan and the nuclear increase. Well, I mess up I did allude to this. I did say that there are quoting Bob Gates 24 Nations involved in this type of activity today and North Korea happens to be one of them Kim il-sung is 82 years old has some Son Kim Jong-il is a bit of a nut case according to most reports and a totally unpredictable fellow and that's why we are negotiating with them which is of course taught countries like Ukraine or Kazakh Stan don't give up. Let's not give up our nuclear weapons because America will lose interest. Unless we have nuclear weapons. The only reason America's interest in us because we have a hundred and Seventy-Six icbms. That's what they're saying in the Ukraine. And today North Korea is being treated very gingerly by South Korea by Japan by the United States trying to bring them. We know that they're producing you're trying to produce nuclear weapons and what concerns me more than anything else is whether this will trigger a similar reaction in Japan. The Japan will feel that it can no longer rely on the American umbrella and has to go nuclear itself. China is already nuclear North Korea is going nucleus. So it would be normal to Japan being an economic superpower would want to go nuclear, too. So all of this I find very frightening, but I have no solution the North Koreans have been very good at concealing things underground you're too young to remember but many people in this audience remember these tunnels that they dug under the DMZ wide enough to move entire divisions right under the DMZ and pop up on the other side Andre invade South Korea as they did in on June 25th 1950. So as long as you've got these two characters in charge of the Destinies of Destiny of North Korea, it's totally unpredictable and has to be treated very very delicately. Thank you very much.