US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
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RATHER: I have no stomach for discussing — I share with you, Mr. Kristol — no stomach for discussing greatness in terms of Hitler, Lenin or Stalin. But a case can be made there would not have been a Stalin had it not been for a Lenin. There may not have been a Hitler if there had not been a Lenin. So, if we're talking about most influential people, then I would rate Lenin certainly ahead of Stalin because, to repeat for emphasis, Hitler in a way was a fascism and reaction to what Lenin had set in motion. As for Hitler, I would not for one second underestimate Hitler's influence. I hate having to say this but I believe it to be true. That one of the most discouraging discoveries of my reporting career has been that the teachings of Hitler are alive to this day in Moscow, in Marseilles and in Montana. So, let's don't underestimate his influence. It is an influence that has continued for the rest of the century. I would bow to your superior knowledge about whether it is less or more than Stalin's but it's lasted a long time and I would argue more likely to come back in the case of a worldwide depression say than would be Marxism-Leninism. But, you know, my two for the century Mahatma Gandhi and Churchill. With Churchill his memory fades with younger generations but here was little David against Goliath. He used the only weapon he had, words. He had nothing else in his arsenal. And this is something, if not unique in history, something very special in history that he stood against everything; all of Western Civilization, I would say civilization as we know it, worldwide stood in the balance. He only had one weapon, his weapons were words. His ability to do that, to, to stop the tide and then turn the tide is not to be underestimated.
CUOMO: I, I have a soft spot for him, Dan, he's a great consolation to me, because after he did all of that they beat him in an election.
[Laughter]
KEARNS-GOODWIN: But he came back, he came back.
ROSE: Those ungrateful voters. Mao Tse Tung, anybody want to make the case for Mao Tse Tung, because if you look at this century and the talk of who might be the most powerful nation in the next century, China is sometimes is said will be the second most powerful if not the most powerful at the end of the next century. Walter?
ISAACSON: When you look at this century, the big thing is the struggle, first of all, between totalitarianism and liberty, and more specifically between Leninism, I would say, communism and liberty. And that's why, although it is about as foolhardy as you can be to go up against Professor Rice on Russian history, it seems to me that Leninism which takes various forms, I would argue, it's Ho Chi Minh, it's Mao, it's Che Guevara, it's Stalin. All of them totalitarian, all of them part of the evil that we had to fight in this century. It stems from Lenin, it goes through Stalin and Mao and others, and that's the great struggle of the century and it was a wonderful century because it gets wrapped up at the end of the century. We know who the victors are and the victors are the good guys. But it starts with Lenin at the very beginning of the century.
RICE: It begins with Marx. Let's not forget Karl Marx in all of this?
ISAACSON: Does it really?
RICE: Yes, it does, because —
ISAACSON: Why?
RICE: — I think that Lenin, what Lenin was very good at doing was putting Marxism into practice. You know, there are wonderful stories about Lenin being told a Marxist wouldn't do that and he says, well, the Germans are not on the doorstep of the Marxists. And, and, so, Lenin was a very practical man. But let's also remember that people used Lenin's name readily whether or not Lenin had anything to do with what they were doing. And I think that in that sense the power of the Soviet Union that becomes [unintelligible] under Stalin and then permits this thing to spread. Whether it is through and his adventures in the Third World or whether it's the Cubans, it's really the power of the Soviet Union and its ability to use foreign aid and military assistance to help these revolutionaries.
ISAACSON: Does that cause Mao, is Mao a consequence of Stalin?
RICE: No, China, China is the one exception and there let me —
ISAACSON: A big one.
RICE: Yes. But there let me say, it may not be Mao, it may be Deng that we will remember.
ROSE: Why is that, why is that?
ISAACSON: The kids, the person will remember that kid standing in front of that tank.
RICE: But it is —
ISAACSON: Because he wins —
RICE: — if, if —
KRISTOL: — in the end.
RICE: — if, if China is to become the power that people think that it's to become, it is not because of its ideological message, it's because they will finally harness the economic resources and that's Deng, that's not Mao.
RATHER: Charlie, you mentioned the possibility of Mao affecting the next century and you used that as a measure of his influence. Now, I come back to my man, Mahatma Gandhi. Remember he was 1931, I think he was on the cover of TIME Magazine. And keeping in mind everybody's focused on China at the moment, sometime early in the 21st Century India may very well be, I think it will be the most populous nation on earth. So, while we're fixed on China, the idea that India is going to be a very important country in the 21st century. What Gandhi set in motion so early non-violence, Mandela flows from that, Martin Luther King flows from that, the death of empire flows from that, he was far away and it's been long ago, but let's don't underestimate Mahatma Gandhi.