Lessons About Power From Assad and Putin

No matter how often it happens, sitting down with a world leader never feels ordinary. We might spend days or even weeks refining our questions until only the most important ones remain. Then our correspondent takes a seat across from a person whose choices can alter the future of an entire region or determine the course of a war.

We interviewed Bashar al-Assad twice. Our second meeting took place at a palace in central Damascus, not at the heavily protected compound outside the city that required driving through fields for nearly a mile to reach. Assad began by offering his condolences for my mother, who had died about a week earlier. I was completely caught off guard. Still, the interview itself could not have been more consequential. We had secured an interview for 60 Minutes after the Arab Spring had spread to Syria and Assad was fighting a full-scale civil war against his own people.

Assad was not a likable person, although he appeared to be making an effort to seem agreeable with me. During that second interview, we confronted him about the use of chemical weapons. His response remained with me for years. He argued that if someone intends to kill an enemy, the method used to do it is ultimately irrelevant. His reasoning followed its own chilling logic, and the calm way he expressed it made the answer even more disturbing.

Vladimir Putin created a different kind of unease. Charlie Rose conducted our two-hour interview, and we were free to ask whatever we wanted. That degree of openness was unusual, although we would never have accepted restrictions on our questions before interviewing anyone. When the interview ended, Putin invited us into another room at his residence outside Moscow. I expected tea. Instead, we were served an excellent traditional Russian dinner with several courses arriving one after another over nearly two hours. Charlie, Andy Court, Sara Fitzpatrick, and I were all somewhat astonished by the experience.

During dinner, we spoke with Putin about nearly every subject we could think of. Toward the end of the evening, I asked whether there was a story he believed we should investigate. He immediately claimed that the United States held a significant advantage over Russia in short-range nuclear missiles and suggested that the subject deserved attention. When I returned home, I brought the idea to our Pentagon correspondent, David Martin, and asked him to investigate. David was one of the finest reporters ever to work at CBS. Knowing that the suggestion had come directly from Putin made him especially eager to examine it.

David ultimately produced an excellent report about nuclear anxiety and American fears concerning Russia. What he uncovered was precisely the reverse of Putin’s claim. The greatest concern inside the Department of Defense was that Russia possessed substantial short-range nuclear capabilities. Officials feared that Russia could detonate a nuclear weapon in the woods just outside the Baltic nations, triggering panic around the world. It took me years to understand what I now believe Putin had done. He had offered us the idea of creating concern rather than providing useful information. It was a calculated move presented as a casual suggestion during a friendly dinner, and it reflected the cunning and manipulative qualities so often associated with him.