Secretaries of State Offer Advice to Next President

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• RAY SUAREZ:

  Finally tonight, some advice for the next president. It comes from former secretaries of state. They gathered recently at a University of Georgia program produced by the Southern Center for International Studies.

  The moderator was Terence Smith, former media correspondent for the NewsHour. Here's an excerpt.

• TERENCE SMITH:

  Our goal here today is to tap the wisdom and extraordinary experience that we have around this table and provide some bipartisan foreign policy advice to the next administration.

  Polls suggest that over half of the world's citizens believe the U.S. is playing a mainly negative role in the world and that less than a third feel that the U.S. role is largely positive. So the question: What can or should the new president — Secretary Powell, let me put this to you — do to repair the U.S. image abroad?

  COLIN POWELL, Former U.S. Secretary of State: Our image abroad has dropped significantly in recent years. The administration has gained the reputation of speaking too harshly, backing out of international agreements, and things of this nature.

  I think it will begin to change with a new president, no matter which of these three candidates win. You get a reset at that time. And if that new president begins by reaching out to all of our friends and allies around the world and not only convey our points of view and what we believe in, but listen and hear what we are listening to, actually hear it and act on it and show that kind of comity to other nations of the world, we'll begin to turn that around.

• TERENCE SMITH:

  You are suggesting that we haven't listened very well?

• COLIN POWELL:

  We haven't listened as well as we might have.

  One point I do want to make, though: There is still a solid reservoir of respect and affection for the United States of America. I think all my colleagues would agree with me when I tell you in every consular office this morning there is a line throughout our system. And when people get to the front of that line and they look across that counter to our consular office, they all say the same thing: I want to go to America.

  And so I think that the situation we find ourselves in now is reversible, and that will begin with a new president.

  I think there are some things the new president can do right away that will begin to return to us a more favorable position. For example, close Guantanamo immediately and, by closing Guantanamo, saying to the world we are now going to back to our traditional respective forms of dealing with people who have potentially committed crimes.

• TERENCE SMITH:

  Because you believe that's been damaging to the…

  (CROSSTALK)

• COLIN POWELL:

  It has been very damaging.

• TERENCE SMITH:

  All right.

  Secretary Albright, do you agree with that, that's a task for the new president?

  MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, Former Secretary of State: Absolutely. I personally have never seen the world in such a mess. I am the youngest one up here so the others may disagree with me.

• TERENCE SMITH:

  It's cruel of you to point that out.

• MADELEINE ALBRIGHT:

  Right. But I don't think I have ever seen it like this, and I think that the next president is going to have a very big job.

  I think a lot of it does have to do with our actions. And Colin, I think, has described those. But, also, you asked what does it matter to us?

  And I think it matters in the following way. Since the president and the secretaries' of state job is to protect the national security of the United States, it hurts us if we are so disregarded or maligned because we're not able to get the kind of support we need for whatever the issues are, whether they are going into Afghanistan, or dealing with a financial crisis, or dealing with climate change issues.

  And so it does matter not whether we're loved. I don't care whether we're loved or not. I think, though, we need to be respected and not necessarily just feared for doing the wrong thing.

  And I would hope that one of the first things that the next president would do, would not only close Guantanamo — and I totally agree on that — but also make very clear that we will rejoin or lead an effort on climate change, because that's part of what has to happen.

• TERENCE SMITH:

  Secretary Baker?

  JAMES BAKER, Former Secretary of State: I think it's regrettable, frankly, that Madeleine is so young that she didn't live through the Cold War…

  (LAUGHTER)

  … because the world was not a happy place to be in during that period of time.

  But, on the other hand, I agree with you completely that the next president should lead an effort among the nations to try and do something about climate change.

  A lot of the problems that face the country today are not discrete with respect to specific areas of the world. They are transnational problems, dealing with terrorism and global climate change and trade and economic issues. And that's what the next president — kind of thing the next president is going to have to deal with.

• RAY SUAREZ:

  The full conversation, called "Report from the Secretaries of State," will be broadcast on PBS stations. Check your local listings for a date and time.