YouSaid · the spoken record

Leslie Gelb

lines on the record: 92
first: 2015-08-14
most recent: 2015-08-14
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, it's not like. You hear about it because McNamara at first started the project to answer 100 questions that he and a few other people had set down about 10 of those questions were historical. And the others were about the pacification program, about the political process in Saigon and could it work and so forth. There were 100 questions that one of his military aides wrote out by hand.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Perspectives in two places. One is the Daily Beast. I've written a lot for them over the last eight or nine years or so. And in the National Interest Magazine.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and the like, the people who funded these jihadis all over the world. What do you think the Taliban got their arms and money from? They got it from heaven? They didn't get it from heaven.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I hope it lessens our interest in the Middle East because I don't, as you could tell from other things I've just said, place much hope or reliance on our Gulf state allies. They've done us some great harm. And I think we've done it.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Including with people who oppose the agreement. It will, because they've gone too far in interfering in American politics.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I don't know if it was horse trading, but Schumer could go ahead and make his announcement, which I think wasn't based on much substance, without fearing that he was going to kill the treaty off.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think that before Schumer announced his opposition that they did a vote count in the Senate. And they came to the conclusion that a presidential veto to bring the treaty into force would be sustained. So Schumer's vote was not going to.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But they are concerned about it. Again, everything we know from the reporting country-wide is that there is considerable support for having these nuclear peaceful programs. Not that people are calling for Iran to have nuclear weapon. There's no evidence of that at all. None. And even the Ayatollah, who we don't like and really is a troublemaker, keeps repeating. They don't want to build a bomb.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that the Iranian people from everything we know from all the reporting we have going on in that country, Iranian people support a peaceful nuclear program.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Still to this day. Yeah. And when he finished, I said, I think there is no chance the United States of America is going to invade Cuba. And then I gave him the reasons why he started to cry. He stood up”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Elsewhere Some people thought those revolutions were good, others thought they were terrible that certainly weren't liked by the United States. So I'm not making any excuses for Castro. But they are really afraid that the United States was going to conquer them. Attack And they had plenty of reason to believe that. Castro was well aware of all the attempts that we made on his life. Another meeting we had was with the Cuban chairman of the joint chiefs, of their joint chiefs of staff. Who gave a long spiel to my wife and me about how they believed we were still going to attack them full scale American slaves?”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“His brother running the country also. Yes, and they put a lot of innocent people away. And there's no disregarding that. And they did foment revolutions.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Versus Well, I think almost all of it was memorable, but the sense that, look, he is a dictator and he's done some terrible things.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A fascinating way to gun lobby controlling guns. You look issue to issue. Who controls financial legislation? It's Wall Street. And that American democracy is minorities rule. So what is Castro Castro to that? He said, you see, that's what I'm talking about. You don't have a democracy. Yes, I said, but we do because we have the power to change the minorities who do rule. And that can't be done here in Cuba. You're the minority and you can't be changed.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Jewish American groups are the primary influence on Middle East policy. The Greeks on Greek policy, the aged on elderly”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Negotiations, you know, in 1994-95. My wife and I were invited by Fidel Castro to Cuba, and we had dinner with him one night, the two of us he and his foreign minister whatever. And we were talking about what democracy was. And I interrupted him and I said, you know, you don't understand that democracy is minority's rule.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We got them to dramatically reduce it, which is why I think this agreement is a good one. We can come back to that later. Okay.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We had economic sanctions against them. We tried to tighten the noose around them in every way possible. It doesn't work. Economic sanctions can hurt a country, and sure it's hurt Cuba a great deal, but it can't bring them to their knees. It can't make them capitulate. We face the same issue with Russia and Ukraine, and we never learn the lesson. And when the economic sanctions don't work, people start talking about, well, maybe we have to go to war.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, way, way overdue. And the only thing that prevented it really was the power of the Cuban American Foundation, a group run by Cuban emigrays who really locked on Cuba policy in many ways like the American Jewish community locked on Middle East policy and on Israel. So the Cuban American Foundation prevented doing any kind of opening with Cuba when it didn't make any sense. They're here for 50 years”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because our government lets them get away with it and doesn't make an issue of it. But it's a fact that the arms that ISIS used at first came were financed by the Saudis and the other Gulf states.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let's focus on that. That's fascinating. Let me just explain that because most Americans just aren't aware who on earth funded all these jihadis, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, al-Nusra. Where do these funds come from? Where did the arms they've been fighting with come from? They come mainly from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. They've been financing it. They've been creating the problem. Our big partners there from that part of the world for their own reasons, usually religious reasons and their opposition to Western values. And you see this most clearly in the thousands of madrasas. These are Islamic schools funded by the Saudis and other Gulf states around the world.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, Iran has been a troublemaker, but if you ask me Saudi Arabia has caused the United States far more trouble over the last thirty, forty years than Iran has.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, in the case of the Gulf states, let's say, they have so much money they don't have to worry about five extra dollars per barrel or $25 extra dollars per barrel. They're loaded. So their primary concern is foreign policy. So why is the price of oil as low as it is? It's as low it is because they're keeping it that way. And they're keeping it that way in anticipation of Iran joining the oil market again in a major way. And they want to make sure that Iran can't put its hand on as many bucks. So they're keeping it low. They realize that Iran is going to have more money and therefore more impact, but they want to lessen that blow.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Collectively, it's one of the biggest, but it doesn't do a very good job of exercising economic power because the dam organization is so bureaucratic. And it thinks less in terms of using power to accomplish difficult things and more in terms of just getting along without creating problems.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now Europe is a second tier power at best. Its military punch is far, far less than it has been historically. Germany used to be one of the great powers the world, Britain and so forth. But now they're really all second tier.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For hundreds of years, Europe was the center of the world. And that's where power was located. And they went out and they, in effect, ruled the world, conquered all these territories, created colonies, and the like.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a new era of foreign policy generally. Because problems are becoming more and more difficult to solve, not just within our country domestically, but worldwide because major powers don't have anywhere near the power they used to have. We used to be able to combine with Europe and get a lot of things done. And now The problems, as I explained before, are less between nations where you can apply that power, that leverage, more within nations. They have their own political problems. They have their own civil wars, and it's much more difficult for the power of the United States or China or Russia, whatever, to influence events within countries rather than between them.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“South Korea, and so forth, Philippines. We have treaties with these countries, and they feel the threat coming from Chinese muscling, Chinese musling into the islands in the South China Sea and claiming them as part of Chinese territory and the like. But you see, As much as the nations of Asia are turning more and more to the United States for security protection. They don't want to go too far. They don't want anger because China is still the most important factor in that part of the world when it comes to trade and investment.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but China is ensuring that it controls its borders and the immediate water areas. And that does mean something because we have allies in that area.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it is a very big number. And the Chinese military budget probably is in the neighborhood of $12,550 billion. And we're still up around 500 billion. But it's not just that. It's having experience and being able to control military technology, to make it operational. We've been in wars, so our military knows how to use this stuff. China is much less proficient at it.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But just to finish the point, China counts around the world, not because it can apply military force in the Middle East or Africa, whatever. No one even thinks of China militarily in those places, but because of its trade and investments.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that's the necessary qualifier, at least at present. What they're doing is what China has done throughout its history, really, to make sure that they were the strongest country on their borders. They're shoring that up right now. But in the process, they are developing a capability to project their military power further than they ever did before. But there's still nowhere near it. They're a decade or two away from having that kind of capability”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To become a world military power, you need bases worldwide, and you need the capabilities to move navies and air units around the world. They don't begin to have this.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Around the world. See, China is a perfect case of what I'm talking about because China is the first global power. Global great power not to be a global military power. China has no real military punch worldwide. China's military strength is restricted almost entirely to its borders and to adjacent seas.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, Russia isn't in open conventional warfare. They sent in their special forces and they built up units of Russian-speaking Ukrainians. And basically that's how the war is being fought, rather than by main force Russian units.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The economy, of course, was important in sustaining a large and effective army, but it wasn't a typical instrument of foreign affairs. When things came to be settled between tribes or nations, it was by force If you look at most international transactions today, there is very, very little force historically unprecedented little force between nations. They used to go out and fight each other all the time. It's very rare now, you see one nation attack another nation. Almost all the wars are within nations, within Afghanistan, within Iraq, within Vietnam, and so forth.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Economics is really now central to power in foreign policy, to power in international relations. Throughout history, it was military power, military force that was the main arbiter of things. Big countries made demands on lesser ones if they didn't obey, they got cracked. They got defeated on the battlefield.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right, Ellsberg, Daniel Ellsberg, leaked almost a full set to the times. He didn't include the four volumes on the secret negotiations.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“John McNaughton, who was Was promoted from that Assistant Secretary job to be Secretary of the Navy. A few days later he and members of his family died in a crash. But I was at the time director of policy planning in the Pentagon, another office for which I was not qualified I was 30 years old. And I had that job. But then within weeks of having that job, I was also given the task of doing what became the Pentagon Papers, the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That project, or am I misremembering that? It didn't happen that way. My immediate boss, the Assistant Secretary of Defense,”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it gets done, it gets done at a decent quality. And I demonstrated that. So the rest of the career just flowed almost miraculously and without any planning. I mean, when the New York Times offered me the job as a diplomatic correspondent, I told Abe Rosenthal, who was the executive editor of the Times. I said, I've never even been on a junior high school newspaper.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You get jobs initially based on connections, who you know where. And when I was doing my PhD at Harvard, I met a lot of people. Some of these people were involved with Republican politics in Congress. And one of these guys heard that Javitz was looking for an executive assistant to focus on foreign affairs, international economics, defense, so forth, and recommended me, went to see Javitson, that all the rest of the career kind of flowed Because, and this is something your business people, financial people will appreciate, there's actually justice, I think, to jobs. If you show, you know how to get things done, you're in a 1% at the top, and everybody wants you, because it means they don't have to worry about doing it themselves.”
2015-08-14 · Masters in Business · Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source