October \u00a025 and November 1, 2017.<\/p>\n
Transcript, Part One<\/p>\n
NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>We\u2019re now only a few days away from electing the next president of the United States\u2500<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>\u2500turning its attention back to the election\u2500<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>With the election just days away, the president\u2500<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Election day, 2016. As Americans headed to the polls, U.S. intelligence agencies were on high alert.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>\u2500making the urgent push to get out the vote.<\/p>\n JOHN BRENNAN, CIA Director, 2013-17:<\/strong>Well, in the days before the elections, there was constant interaction between the experts at CIA, FBI and NSA. We were monitoring and using our collection capabilities to understand what the Russians might have up their sleeve at the 11th hour.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>Breaking news here. Wikileaks is about to release, quote, \u201csignificant material\u201d tied to Hillary Clinton\u2500<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>The campaign is doing damage control tonight after Wikileaks released\u2500<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>The intelligence agencies had been tracking a multi-pronged effort to influence voters\u2500 leaks of hacked emails, ads on Facebook and Google, on social media, trolls and bots spreading fake news, all they believed connected to Russian president Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n JAMES CLAPPER, Dir. of Natl. Intelligence, 2010-17:<\/strong>This was the most aggressive and most direct and most assertive campaign that the Russians ever mounted in the history of our elections. And what characterized this were the variety and intensity of the techniques that they employed.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Now they detected what they call OPE, operational preparation of the environment.<\/p>\n JOHN BRENNAN:<\/strong>The Russians will map the architecture and the environment of their targets.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>The target, state electoral systems, registration data bases, voter information.<\/p>\n JEH JOHNSON, Sec. of Homeland Security, 2013-17:<\/strong>I\u2019ll never forget one day, John Brennan said to me, \u201cI\u2019m going to come brief you.\u201d Now, it was not often that the CIA director by himself came to DHS to meet with me by myself to share intelligence.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Brennan had told Johnson the cyber intrusions traced to Russia could be the first step in a plan to directly interfere with voting.<\/p>\n JEH JOHNSON:<\/strong>The thing that immediately has to come to you is, Hey, somebody might be trying to eliminate from the rolls voters in key states, in key precincts. Through a very targeted, careful effort, you could really do a lot of damage.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>\u2500going to the polls, casting their ballots\u2500<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>And history will be made today\u2500<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Inside the administration, the question, just how far would Putin go?<\/p>\n JOHN BRENNAN:<\/strong>I didn\u2019t know if the Russians were going to do anything at all. And I thought if they did, it clearly would be a sign that Putin had authorized an aggressive assault against this country that to me would have been tantamount to\u2500 to war.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>It would be Vladimir Putin\u2019s revenge for a lifetime of grievances.<\/p>\n Pres. RONALD REAGAN:<\/strong>Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Reviving the old cold war with new weapons.<\/p>\n Pres. BILL CLINTON:<\/strong>We have the responsibility to advance freedom and democracy\u2500<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>An epic struggle\u2500<\/p>\n Pres. GEORGE W. BUSH:<\/strong>Everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear\u2500<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>\u2500between the leader of Russia and American democracy.<\/p>\n Pres. BARACK OBAMA:<\/strong>The United States will continue to stand up for democracy and the universal rights that all human beings deserve\u2500<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>The story begins on New Year\u2019s Eve 1999. In Moscow, the future of Russia was about to change. With his country in turmoil, President Boris Yeltsin had an announcement to make.<\/p>\n MASHA LIPMAN, Russian Journalist:<\/strong>President Yeltsin rose on immense popularity, his sense of love and admiration, was progressively losing that.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Across Russia, they tuned in.<\/p>\n BORIS YELTSIN:<\/strong>[through translator]<\/em> I have made a decision. I\u2019ve been thinking about it painfully for a long time. Today, at the last day of the departing century, I am resigning.<\/p>\n YEKATERINA SCHULMANN, Russian Political Scientist:<\/strong>I watched it on December 31st. I remember I was crying my eyes out. He just said, \u201cForgive me for what I haven\u2019t managed to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n BORIS YELTSIN:<\/strong>[through translator]<\/em> I want to ask your forgiveness, for many of our dreams have not come true and for the things that seemed easy, but turned out to be excruciatingly difficult.<\/p>\n MASHA GESSEN, Author, The Man Without a Face<\/em>:<\/strong>He gave this absolutely heartbreaking speech. He said that he wished that he had done a better job by the Russian people. And he said, \u201cI\u2019m tired, and I\u2019m leaving.\u201d It was\u2500 it was impossible not to cry.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Yeltsin\u2019s final act as president\u2500 the father of Russian democracy turned over the country to his little known prime minister, a former KGB officer.<\/p>\n BORIS YELTSIN:<\/strong>[through translator]<\/em> I have signed a decree giving the responsibilities of the president of Russia to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>The new president escorted Yeltsin out of the Kremlin.<\/p>\n VLADIMIR RYZHKOV, Opposition Politician:<\/strong>[through translator]<\/em> Next to him, a young Putin was standing. And Yeltsin shook his hand. And this famous footage, actually, the whole world saw. And Yeltsin said, \u201cTake care of Russia.\u201d Just those words,\u201cTake care of Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>Yeltsin\u2019s resignation came as a complete surprise to almost everyone.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>Even Yeltsin\u2019s top ministers didn\u2019t know about\u2500<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>From his first days as president, Vladimir Putin was obsessed with creating the appearance of a 21st century leader.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>\u2500decision to step down could not have come at a better time for Prime Minister Putin, Yeltsin\u2019s choice to succeed him as president.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>He commissioned film and photo shoots.<\/p>\n JULIA IOFFE, The Atlantic<\/em>:<\/strong>He is a man who is obsessed with TV. He watches tapes of the evening news over and over and over again to see how he\u2019s portrayed, to see how he looks.<\/p>\n YEVGENIA ALBATS, Russian Journalist:<\/strong>He wears very good suits, like any other Western leader. He speaks fluent German and he understands English.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Putin cultivated the image of a reformer and a democrat.<\/p>\n MASHA GESSEN:<\/strong>Russian narrative was the victory of democracy, the triumph of popular will, that sort of thing. So a young guy who speaks a foreign language fits into that narrative\u2500 as long as you ignore everything else about him.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Putin quickly learned how to sell himself with the help of his public relations guru.<\/p>\n GLEB PAVLOVSKY, Fmr. Adviser to Vladimir Putin:<\/strong>[through translator]<\/em> He began to think that everything can be manipulated. Any kind of press, any TV program is all about manipulation. It was decided what TV channels would show what news.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>They made sure a dynamic, vital and charismatic Putin was on display for all Russians to see.<\/p>\n MICHAEL CROWLEY, Politico:<\/strong>He\u2019s healthy. He\u2019s young. He\u2019s virile. He casts himself as a savior. Temperamentally and in style, he is the anti-Yeltsin. He\u2019s bringing back a kind of dignity and strength to the Russian presidency that had been missing under Boris Yeltsin.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>President Clinton arrived in Moscow carrying a message of cooperation\u2500<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Putin\u2019s first test with the United States, a visit from the American president. Bill Clinton had come to the Kremlin to evaluate Putin for himself.<\/p>\n STROBE TALBOTT, Dep. Secretary of State, 1994-2001:<\/strong>President Clinton wanted to get a little bit of a feel. He wanted to meet him in the\u2500 in the Kremlin as president.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>Two presidents, one near the end his term, the other beginning a new era\u2500<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Putin seemed indifferent to the American president who had championed Yeltsin and liberalization and expanded NATO.<\/p>\n JAKE SULLIVAN, Dep. Chief of Staff, State Dept., 2009-13:<\/strong>Putin conveys a huge amount through body language. He tries to show you that he\u2019s the alpha male in the room through the way he spreads his legs, through the way he slouches a bit in his chair, through the way that he will look at people and kind of give them a dismissive hand wave.<\/p>\n PETER BAKER, Co-Author, Kremlin Rising<\/em>:<\/strong>Putin doesn\u2019t have much time for him. And this is not what Clinton was used to when it came to Russia. He was used to having somebody he could relate to. And Putin is a cold fish and Clinton didn\u2019t respond well to him.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>If Mr. Clinton was hoping for a foreign policy triumph, he won\u2019t get it here.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Later that day, Clinton received a warmer reception from Boris Yeltsin and issued a warning about Putin.<\/p>\n STROBE TALBOTT:<\/strong>Bill Clinton looked hard into Yeltsin\u2019s eyes and said, \u201cI\u2019m a little bit concerned about this young man that you have turned over the presidency to. He doesn\u2019t have democracy in his heart.\u201d And he reached over and poked him in his heart. And I will never forget the expression that came over Yeltsin.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Yeltsin\u2019s confidantes say by the end of his life, he would come to agree with Clinton.<\/p>\n STROBE TALBOTT:<\/strong>Before Boris Yeltsin died, he told intimates that it was a great mistake for him to have selected Putin as his successor.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>At the Kremlin in those first months, Clinton\u2019s fears were realized. Putin began to centralize his authority.<\/p>\n SUSAN GLASSER, Co-Author, Kremlin Rising<\/em>:<\/strong>He more or less laid out the path that he was going to be taking, which was to reduce democracy, to consolidate authority back into the Kremlin. And he took steps, some of which were small and symbolic, like going back to the Soviet-era anthem.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>It was Joseph Stalin\u2019s national anthem with the words rewritten by one of the original authors.<\/p>\n JIM COLLINS, U.S. Amb. to Russia, 1997-2001:<\/strong>What Putin did when he came in was said, \u201cOK, I\u2019ve got a different project. We\u2019re going to make\u201d\u2500 if you will, to coin a phrase\u2500 \u201cI\u2019m going to make Russia great again.\u201d<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Behind Putin\u2019s vision for Russia, a resentment built up over a lifetime of believing his country had been humiliated by the United States.<\/p>\n PETER BAKER:<\/strong>There\u2019s this resentment, there\u2019s this grievance that\u2019s eating away at him, and it\u2019s fundamental to his tenure, this sense of grievance.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Putin\u2019s project to make Russia great again would lead to conflict with the West and interference in an American election. But the seeds had been planted long before, when Vladimir Putin was a young man. He was trained in the Soviet secret police, the KGB, to see the United States as the enemy. It was drilled into all the officers.<\/p>\n YEVGENIA ALBATS, Russian Journalist:<\/strong>The KGB was a monopoly that produced violence. It was a monopoly that was responsible for political surveillance on an everyday basis of Soviet citizens. Nothing could go without the KGB.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Putin\u2019s first assignment wasn\u2019t undercover espionage. They thought he was better suited to counterintelligence.<\/p>\n SUSAN GLASSER, Co-Author, Kremlin Rising<\/em>:<\/strong>And a counterintelligence officer, right, is somebody for whom conspiracy theories and the enemy within are the job and rooting those out and carrying that kind of paranoid, everyone might actually always be out to get us.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>The job was a disappointment.<\/p>\n MASHA GESSEN, Author, The Man Without a Face<\/em>:<\/strong>He\u2019s an unhappy man. He has wanted to be a secret agent all of his life, as long as he can remember. And then he gets posted to East Germany, and not even to Berlin, to Dresden, which is just such a backwater.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>It was in East Germany that Putin first came face to face with the conflict between the USSR and the United States.<\/p>\n Pres. RONALD REAGAN:<\/strong>Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>This protest movement may now be reaching a critical moment.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>\u2500remembered for communism\u2019s loss of influence in the world.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>Here the feeling is the end of the cold war is at hand.<\/p>\n SUSAN GLASSER:<\/strong>For many people, there is a defining moment in their history, when all things after that moment refer back to it in some way.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>From ABC, this is \u201cWorld News Tonight\u201d\u2500<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Putin saw such a moment when the Berlin wall came down.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>They are here in the thousands, they are here in the tens of thousands.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Marking the waning power of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>\u2500in Eastern Europe continue to\u2500<\/p>\n DAVID HOFFMAN, _The Washington Post_\/FRONTLINE<\/em>:<\/strong>Putin sees that this thing that had always seemed to be glued together well, seemed to be impervious, that had gone from generation to generation of change in the top party officials, seemed to be a rock\u2500<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>\u2500one battle in a non-violent war\u2500<\/p>\n DAVID HOFFMAN:<\/strong>It was starting to crumble before his eyes.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>1989 will be a year remembered for communism\u2019s loss of influence in the world.<\/p>\n JOHN BRENNAN:<\/strong>Mr. Putin joined Russian Intelligence during their waning days, in the latter years of the Cold War, when they really felt aggrieved and the much lesser power than the United States. So I think they just reinforced some of his feelings of insecurity.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>\u2500say they\u2019ll never return to communism and promise free democratic elections\u2500<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>The protests spread to Dresden. The angry crowds marched on the German secret police, the Stasi headquarters, then Putin\u2019s KGB building. It would be the first time Putin confronted a group of protesters.<\/p>\n JULIA IOFFE, The Atlantic<\/em>:<\/strong>He calls Moscow, trying to understand what he is to do, trying to get orders. And Moscow doesn\u2019t respond.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>A Soviet military officer told him, \u201cMoscow is silent.\u201d<\/p>\n JULIA IOFFE:<\/strong>And this is a massive, massive trauma for him, that this massive historical event is happening, Soviet influence is collapsing before his eyes, and he calls home. He radios home, and home isn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>Freedom and democracy are coming to parts of Eastern Europe and a rusty iron curtain is beginning to come down.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>By the time Putin returned to Russia, the USSR was falling apart. Even in front of the KGB headquarters, the statues were coming down.<\/p>\n DAVID HOFFMAN\u2019<\/strong>For many people, this was a time of great excitement and enablement and experimentation with democracy, and Vladimir Putin missed this.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>The American president, George H.W. Bush, declared it a triumph.<\/p>\n Pres. GEORGE H.W. BUSH:<\/strong>This is a victory for democracy and freedom. It\u2019s a victory for the moral force of our values.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>But to Putin, the end of the Soviet Union was a humiliation.<\/p>\n PETER BAKER:<\/strong>The quote that he said once that really was so revealing, that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. That\u2019s how he saw it.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>In the new Russia, Putin had to reinvent himself. The former KGB officer became a political operative and a bureaucratic fixer.<\/p>\n JULIA IOFFE:<\/strong>He\u2019s a master bureaucrat. Russia has always been a bureaucratic autocracy. This is how, for example, Stalin became the general secretary. He was an amazing bureaucrat. He out-bureaucrated all the other bureaucrats. And Putin does, too. He is very good at the bureaucracy of all of it.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>By the late \u201890s, he even earned the confidence of Boris Yeltsin. They were an odd couple, the former spy and a progressive politician who was trying to bring democracy to Russia.<\/p>\n DAVID HOFFMAN:<\/strong>Boris Yeltsin decided to break totalitarianism, to crush what was left of communism with a simple idea, which is maximum freedom first.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Before long, Yeltsin promoted him to lead the KGB\u2019s successor, the FSB.<\/p>\n SUSAN GLASSER:<\/strong>He undertakes this remarkable rise, basically, having nothing to do with the center of power in Moscow, to running its most important security agency, working in the Kremlin.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Putin had convinced Yeltsin that he shared the president\u2019s democratic goals.<\/p>\n YEVGENIA ALBATS:<\/strong>He\u2019s a professional liar. To lie is what he was taught in the intelligence school. He was pretending that he was going to pursue the same development of Russia as Yeltsin did. But that\u2019s all is just one big lie.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>Another major shakeup in the Kremlin. Yeltsin fires his entire cabinet again. Who\u2019s in charge?<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>Putin rose to become Yeltsin\u2019s prime minister, the second most powerful man in Russia.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>\u2500a new prime minister, Vladimir Putin, a man of little political experience but\u2500<\/p>\n VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA, Opposition Politician:<\/strong>The biggest and the initial reaction when people heard his name being announced as acting prime minister on the 9th of August, 1999, by President Yeltsin\u2500 the first reaction was, \u201cWho\u2019s that?\u201d Most people had never heard of this guy.<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>But the perception of Putin would begin to change less than a month later.<\/p>\n VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA:<\/strong>Just a few weeks, really, after he became prime minister, we had a very suspicious slate of apartment bombings across Russia.<\/p>\n NEWSCASTER:<\/strong>A bomb destroyed an apartment building in Moscow, and it does appear to be\u2500<\/p>\n NARRATOR:<\/strong>There were suspicions about who set off the bombs. The government claimed it was the work of separatists from the Russian republic of Chechnya.<\/p>\n