September 11, 2025 • 39 mins
I had the pleasure of hosting one of the most extraordinary guests I’ve ever had on Chatter That Matters during the 80th sessions of the United Nations Assembly happening in New York.
My guest is someone who has made a powerful and positive impact on our universe: Dr. Oscar Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and two-time President of Costa Rica. Oscar takes us back to a time when Central America was on fire, civil wars raged, and the United States and the Soviet Union armed opposing sides.
The region was drowning in ideology, bloodshed, and fear.
Then came Oscar Arias, the newly elected President of Costa Rica, a nation that had disbanded their military decades before.
While others escalated the violence, Arias chose defiance.
He stared down Ronald Reagan, had U.S.-backed rebels expelled from Costa Rican soil, rejected global pressure, and authored the Arias Peace Plan. This bold diplomatic initiative helped bring five nations to the table and bring an end to years of war.
Oscar Arias didn’t just defy world leaders; he defied the odds and changed the course of history.
In 1987, Arias was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But he didn’t stop there.
Through the Arias Foundation for Peace & Human Progress, he helped spark the UN Arms Trade Treaty—the first legally binding agreement to regulate the global weapons trade.
And now, in his 80s, Oscar Arias is on another peace mission.
To build a Global Peace Museum in Costa Rica. A place to remind the world that peace isn’t idealistic, it's possible, if given a chance.
(And for history buffs, you will be mesmerized by the stories of how Oscar Arias encountered and, over time, built extraordinary relationships with Reagan, Bush, Thatcher, Gorbachev, Castro, Mulroney, the Pope and many more.)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
We can create a culture of peace with different
values. I've had an incredible life.
I've met some of the most wonderful people, people that have changed
the world, won gold medals, Oscars,
Grammys, solved some big health care crises.
But I've never sat with a Nobel Peace Prize winner. I
(00:27):
personally went into public service because
I wanted to help people, and not only the Costa Rican people
or the Central American peoples, the whole of humanity.
I never sat with somebody that, as an individual,
put a dent in the universe based on one simple
premise, one purpose, one overriding passion
(00:49):
was life, and that is peace. The Romans said, if
you want to live in peace, prepare for war.
That's quite stupid. If you want to live in peace, don't spend so
much money on arms. And that passion I think he was
born with. He certainly took into one of the most
contested times in our history when Central America was ablaze with war
(01:12):
and brought about the Arius peace plan. I decided to
tell the people what people need to know, not what they want
to hear. And even Today, in his 80s,
what he's trying to do is to build a peace museum,
an oasis where we can go and realize that if humanity can come together
and put down their arms and focus on education and health
(01:36):
care and focus on putting the human back in humanity,
we'd be a much better world.
Hi, it's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter that Matters, presented by
rbc. If you can please subscribe to the podcast and
ratings reviews, well, they're always welcome and they're always
(01:58):
appreciated.
Oscar Arias. Welcome to a Chatter that Matters. Tony, thank
you. I want to thank you for this opportunity. You knew you were going to
be a politician? Yes, I knew that I
was going to be a politician. And my dream was to
(02:18):
become president one day. So many kids dream. But how did
you make that manifestation come real for you?
Well, I prepared for it. When I was in
primary school, for every birthday, my
father used to give me a biography of
great men, from Lincoln and
(02:41):
Napoleon to Churchill and
FDR and de Gaulle. And I read
so many biographies, Gladstone and
Israeli. This is why I decided to go and do my
postgraduate work in the United
Kingdom, because I fell in love with particularly
(03:03):
Western church. And as you started to read these biographies,
was there a common theme? Was there a certain
DNA that someone that decides to serve their country,
to seek the highest office? Yes, yes. Different
times, bringing about different people. Obvious.
I mean, I am a great admirer of the
(03:27):
first emperor, Octavius
Caesar Augustus, as well as Julius Caesar. He
was murdered in 44, before
Christ and then Napoleon, this is
the beginning of the 19th century, he
became emperor. On the other side, you have the
(03:50):
British prime ministers who are true democrats,
as well as Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson
and Madison and John Adams.
So it's quite a mixture of great people who
became involved in politics, always
fighting for their ideals. Costa Rica was a
(04:12):
country that said no to the military in the 40s. When
you take over as president, surrounding your country, there's a lot
of war going on. Paint a picture what was going on, what you had to
deal with in terms of your neighboring countries and more importantly,
Gorbachev and Reagan maybe treating this as a little
chessboard where they could play with their military. Well, I happened to be
(04:34):
elected in 1986. In
1986, the whole of Central America
was involved in a very bloody
conflict. The two superpowers were
fighting a proxy war. I used to say at the
time, the Soviet Union and the US provide
(04:57):
arms and we Central
Americans provide the debt. There were
conflicts in Guatemala, in El Salvador and
particularly in Nicaragua. The US
government was obsessed with getting rid of Daniel
Ortega, the President of Nicaragua, of the
(05:17):
Sandinistas, through military means.
I had campaigned for more than a year
promising an negotiated solution
to the conflicts in the three countries, using
diplomacy, trying to bring the differing
parties to the negotiating table. The
(05:38):
Americans knew about my promises
or pledges to the Costa Rican people and they
didn't like my candidacy. So they
supported my opponent. A few years
after I had stepped down from office, I had the chance of
meeting Roger Ailes. He had been
(06:01):
advising my opponent, paid by the
Republicans. And I asked him, what did
you tell my opponents? And he said to me,
laughing, you just have to break Oscar
Aria's knees. So that was a tough
campaign. I won it. For my
(06:22):
inauguration, President Reagan sent Vice President
Bush. And I said to Vice President Bush, you
know that we are very close friends, Costa rica and the U.S.
most Costa Ricans admire the U.S. but
sometimes friends have agreements and
sometimes disagreements. I need to tell you,
(06:44):
Mr. Vice President, concerning your policy towards
Central America, I strongly disagree
with your government. So,
Daniel, since the very beginning, that I was
not going to support the Reagan administration
looking for military solutions to. The conflicts, to
(07:07):
stand up to United States. What gave you the courage to say to them that
when it comes to my country, you're not going to have your
military here, you're not going to have your rebels within my boundaries,
from. My value system, from my principles, I
couldn't lie to the Costa Rican people. I had promised
I was going to look for a negotiated peace.
(07:30):
In my political career of more than 50
years, I decided to tell the people what
people need to know, not what they want to hear.
You could become a politician lying to people, telling
them what people want to hear. But that's the
denial of real leadership. So
(07:52):
I tried to be very honest intellectually
and morally also for sure. So you talk about these
skirmishes and wars that are happening, how military
seem to be the blinders that the Americans had on. Talk to me about
how you started to build not only support within
Costa Rica, but within Europe. I was inaugurated
(08:14):
in May of 1986. In
December of that same year, I was invited for the first
time to the White House. I never expected that I was so
important to visit President Reagan. In my first
visit to the Oval Office, I realized how
committed he was to a military solution,
(08:36):
particularly here in Nicaragua, our neighbor to the
north. All my pledges to the Costa Rican people,
you know, I wasn't able to fulfill any of them.
If the contrast, the Contra rebels, as
they were called at the time, were using our
territory in order to fight the Santinistas. So I
(08:58):
expelled all the Comandantes. I expelled
everybody from our territory. And
that obviously annoyed the US Government. I found
out eventually that AID
had hired many houses to keep
the arms for the Contras, the medications
(09:20):
for the wounded. And I realized, well,
we have been taken by the Americans. Vice President
Bush invited me for a gin and tonic at
his house. We had a couple of drinks. I came back
from Washington committed to draft a peace
plan. A peace plan, because we had nothing on the
(09:43):
table but war. This is the Arias peace plan. I invited
the President of Guatemala, Vinicio cerezo, the President
of Salvador, Napoleon Duarte, and from
Honduras, President Azcona, to come here
to San Jose. That was February of
1987. Eventually, I visited
(10:04):
Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, to talk about my
peace initiative. I decided to go to Europe, to go to
the rest of the Latin American countries in order to
get their support. I got all the support from the whole of
Latin America, but Europe was much more important.
I remember visiting Portugal, Mario
(10:26):
Soares, Spain with Felipe Gonzalez,
Helmut Kohl in Germany, Francois Mitterrand in
France, Pope John Paul in the Vatican and
many others. At the end, I visited the uk.
The Queen invited me to have lunch at Buckingham
palace with the Vice Chancellor of the University of
(10:49):
Essex and some of my professors, where I got a
PhD. And she asked me, what's the purpose
of your trip? And I said to her, I have
launched a peace plan because it's trail
America. There is a novel war that we are killing
each other. And I want to pacify the region
(11:11):
through diplomacy. But unfortunately
Her Majesty Margaret Thatcher is very busy
because she is campaigning. She has an election
in two weeks and I'm going to see her
Deputy Prime Minister. The next day
I got a phone call from the Foreign Office and
(11:34):
I was told, Mrs. Thatcher wants to see you at
11 o', clock, 10 Downing Street. So it was
really interesting. She took some time from her campaign.
We met for hour and a half, we had a long
discussion and her main argument was for a
real peace. Democracy is a precondition.
(11:57):
We have democracy, free elections
if we want to have real peace in the
region. That implied that for the
Sandinistas they needed to hold an election.
I do remember Fidel Castro telling Daniel Ortega
all the time and telling me, don't ask for an election.
(12:19):
In Nicaragua, revolutionaries don't hold
elections. And he used to tell Daniel Ortega in front
of me, don't fall into aria's trap. Anyway,
Mrs. Thatcher was very skeptical about a
communist government in Nicaragua holding
elections. Not only her, but all the
(12:41):
members of the Reagan administration used to tell me, you are
so naive. I had no answer for that question,
because all I could tell them is, well, there is always a
first time. Let's wait and see. But I need to
tell you that if he signs the peace plan, the
international pressure is going to be so strong
(13:05):
that he has to hold free elections. And that's
exactly what happened. He held those elections
and he lost the elections. And Violeta Chamorro won the
elections and became the next president of
Nicaragua. How was the transfer of power? Because I have
to believe when you have Fidel Castro whispering in your
(13:26):
ear when you're a revolutionary is quite a defeat. It's much
bigger than a defeat in a democratic country. So how was the transfer
of power? Were you ever worried at a time he wasn't going to
abandon the power and just say the election was fake or was
rigged and I'm staying in power. At one o' clock in the morning, I
was talking to Tomas Borge, one of the commandantes,
(13:49):
a Marxist, and I told him, you must
transfer power. You have lost the election.
And President Carter the next day went to
see Daniel Ortega and Tollen saying,
the inauguration was held in the
baseball stadium. It was full of people,
(14:13):
people from everywhere. It was a very nice
ceremony. I thanked Violeta
Chamorro because she said a few words
about me, thanking me for being the
author of the peace plan. I almost cried because
I Felt very moved. You have to feel moved. I mean, you're dealing
(14:35):
in a foreign country, it's a stadium full of people and they're
cheering their freed. Then we had to wait and see if there
was the will in the Central American
governments to comply with what we had agreed.
Bernie Adelson as well as the deputy Foreign minister
from the Soviet Union were very supportive
(14:58):
and eventually we silenced the guns in the region.
What was the role of Gorbachev during this time? Because the history
sees Gorbachev and the Berlin Wall coming down. But
how was your relationship with Gorbachev compared to your relationship with
the American presidents? I never met Gorbachev while I was
President. We became very good friends later
(15:21):
on because he always invited me to a
conference that he used to hold in San Francisco.
It was called the State of the World Forum.
So we had a chance to talk about many things. One of those things
was not one inch. NATO
won't be expanded not one inch
(15:44):
to the east. One of the big lies from the US
governments because NATO was expanded
until today. Let's go back to the
Arius peace plan. How did the Nobel Peace Prize come about?
From what I understand in reading the history of Costa Rica, it was one of
the most, the proudest moments of this country. Were you surprised?
(16:07):
Well, I do remember In June of 87,
I was staying with my wife and some ministers
of my cabinet at the Charles Hotel in
Cambridge. I had been invited by the Kennedy
School to address the students. Suddenly
in the lobby there were like a hundred students from
(16:30):
Latin American countries, from different universities.
Harvard, mit, Brandeis, bu,
bc, Tufts, and you name them. And
they were telling me, this is June of 87. We
would like to nominate you for the Nobel Peace
Prize. So I said to them, well, that's quite an honor.
(16:53):
But let us remember that the last day
in order to nominate is the end of January.
So you can nominate me, but this will be for
1988. So then when I was
called at 4 o' clock in the morning. Get up.
You have been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. Later on I
(17:16):
found out that I had been nominated by three
Swedes whom I didn't know. And they
simply read about my confrontation with the
two superpowers and nominated me. Must have been a
very proud moment for you. Everything that happened, the stadium,
Nicaragua getting the Nobel Peace Prize. If you were
(17:37):
leaving this planet tomorrow, what would you say would stand out the most for you?
And would it be the Nobel Peace Prize or would it be the fact that
you freed the Nicaraguans of a Communist regime. Would it
be just the fact that you honored your principles to Costa Rica? Is there one
thing that stands out. In my second term as president of this country?
From 2006 to 2010,
(17:59):
the General assembly of the UN approved
the arms Trade Treaty. The Arms Trade Treaty was
born at the Arias foundation for peace in the
mid-90s. And while I was a private citizen
making speeches in universities all around the
world, making speeches and receiving
(18:22):
honorary degrees, particularly from the U.S.
as a matter of fact, I have 93 honorary degrees and
85 of them are from U.S.
universities and colleges. I was always
mentioning there is a need to put an end to
the trade of weapons in the world.
(18:44):
The so called Arms Trade treaty.
And in 2013 it was approved by the General
assembly and came into effect in
2014 in GD. I think
that is the greatest contribution of Costa Rican
diplomacy to humanity. We're going to get to the Peace Museum.
(19:06):
But the thing that hurts you the most is the trillions of
dollars every year we just spend on weaponry and weapons
of mass destruction. Tell me a little bit about that economic
engine and how could we repurpose for a better
planet? It's very simple, but it's quite difficult.
It's quite difficult because with the value system that
(19:28):
prevails today in our societies, it is
not possible to spend scarce
resources in satisfying
the basic needs of people. For one simple
reason. The leadership of the US is so
strong. And the US has been a people of warriors.
(19:51):
And you believe in strong military. You were
born fighting The English In 1776,
in 1812, in 1823, you
drafted the Monroe Doctrine. In 1846,
you invaded Mexico. In
1898, you fought the Spaniards
(20:13):
and got Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Then you got
involved for good in the First World War, the
Second World War, Korea, Vietnam,
Afghanistan, Syria,
now you bomb Iran. You've
been involved in so many conflicts because you want to be
(20:36):
the most powerful military power on
Earth. The Chinese spend less than one third of what the
Pentagon is spending. You are spending $1 trillion
and the world is spending $2.7 trillion. $2.7 trillion
is like 12 times more of what
(20:57):
the world is spending in official development assistance, that is
foreign aid. And only recently you have shut down
usaid. In other words, you
prefer to spend building tanks and fighter
jets and nuclear submarines than feed the
people in Africa, in Asia, in
(21:20):
poor countries. The Romans said, if you want to
live in peace, prepare for war. That's quite stupid. If you
want to live in peace, don't spend so much money on Arms
and soldiers. Now, it's not easy to
contradict the US Government. Only recently,
President Trump succeeded in persuad,
(21:43):
not persuading, I mean forcing the rest of the
NATO members to spend 5%
of GDP in the next five years. That
is the most wasteful way of
spending your scarce resources because official development
assistance is going to be used in order to
(22:05):
spend more on arms and sophisticated
weapons than on people. And as you know, poverty
needs no passport to travel. If immigration is one
of the big issues today, it is going to be worse
when you cannot feed the
hungry in Africa or in Asian
(22:27):
countries or even in Haiti here in this
hemisphere. But you know, as Hendrick Kissinger once said,
it is difficult to be an enemy of
the US but to be a friend is fatal.
It's not easy to persuade American governments that
to spend on arms and soldiers is a waste of money.
(22:50):
These are the wrong priorities for a more peaceful
world in the future. And these are the
wrong priorities simply because the values are wrong.
And if the values are wrong, then the priorities of governments are
wrong. Do you think there's a young Oscar aria set that can
emerge in this world and bring together the
(23:12):
superpowers the way you brought together the presidents in Central
America? Lock them in a room, get them to realize
spending on military can't lead to anything positive? Do you think
that's a possibility? Or are they just so obsessed with
who's got the biggest stick wins that we'll never
get any of them to even consider repurposing that money
(23:34):
for what the average person in their hearts and their minds,
what every mother would want, is to have a world where their
sons and daughters didn't go to fight? Or have we gone so
far in the civilization that all the
negotiation and diplomacy that you showed in
1986 can't exist in 2024, 2025,
(23:55):
2026? As Jesus said, it is more
important to give than to receive. I
personally went into public service because I
wanted to help people. And not only the Costa Rican people or the
Central American peoples, the whole of humanity.
Where do you get the money to spend more on potable
(24:18):
water, on infrastructure, on electricity,
on health care, education,
on culture from where governments are
not willing to increase taxes. The
US is always cutting taxes to the wealthy. The only
way is to cut or to freeze military spending. Why
(24:41):
do you need $1 trillion? And why do you need more nuclear
submarines and more fighter jets and more atomic
bombs? It's a waste of money. I do
remember President Reagan who said something like, we declare
war on Poverty and poverty won. Now when I
see President Trump trying to remove the
(25:03):
poor people in Washington D.C. he
doesn't want to improve the living standards
of poor people in the US or
in the world. He wants to hire the poor people. And
the only way, for instance, to stop immigration
is if those poor people can stay in their
(25:26):
own countries. But the people of sub Saharan Africa
are prepared to risk their lives, you know, through
the Mediterranean in order to go to European
countries as the Latin American countries. And here
through Panama, you know, you find Pakistanis,
Indians, Africans, people from
(25:49):
Cambodia, from Vietnam, from everywhere
trying to walk all the way to the Mexican
border with the US Instead of building walls. We
could spend more on the poor people of the world. Do you think
democracy can continue to succeed? Because when
I look at democracy right now, I'm seeing leaders ignoring
(26:11):
Congress, they're suspending parliament, they're making decisions
that are somewhat, the conspiracists would say are much more global.
Democracy can continue if it delivers the goods.
If you can improve through democracy and
democratic institutions and enjoying freedom, if
you can improve the living conditions of people.
(26:33):
But if democracy doesn't deliver the goods, then
what you will have is a lot of autocrats.
Now in Europe, the predominant
parties in government are right wing parties and
the main concern is immigration.
I do think that they are right.
(26:55):
They should be concerned about immigration, particularly
Muslims, because it's not easy
to assimilate such a different culture and religion
as Islam. But your answer is if those countries could
find a standard of living, they wouldn't have to leave. They'd be very happy where
they are. Yeah, for sure.
(27:18):
When we return, Oscar and I talk about a speech that
was heard around the world. And then he'll explain his thinking behind
the Peace museum and why it's not just for Costa Rica,
but for humanity.
Hi, it's Tony Chapman. Investing in Canada, well, that matters
(27:41):
to RBC. $500 billion in sustainable financing
to combat climate change. 500 million for future launch
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Helping to discover the next generation of Olympians, Artists monetizing their
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(28:03):
matters to rbc.
With the smallest percentages changes,
we could equip all homes with electricity, achieve
universal literacy and eradicate all
preventable diseases. These are
the dividends of peace. That is what we
(28:26):
could gain if we put an end to our Russian
gillette of military spending.
Joining me today, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate,
Oscar Arias, who also holds the Honor of being Costa
Rican's president on two separate occasions.
(28:49):
Oscar, you made it one of the most important speeches in 2008.
Maybe you can share with us what you said and
how those words roared around the world. This was
in 2008. I addressed the Security Council
with the presidents attending that meeting.
The presidents of the five permanent members. President
(29:12):
Obama from the US President Sarkozy from France,
Prime Minister Gordon Brown from the UK
Met Bedev from Russia and Hu
Jintao from China. And I said to
them, in the year 1945,
when the smoke of the worst war ever fought by
(29:35):
humanity was still clearing, the founders of this
organization wrote in Article 26 of the UN
Charter, in order to promote the
establishment and maintenance of international
peace and security with the least
diversion for armaments of the world's human
(29:56):
and economic resources, the Security
Council shall be responsible for
formulating, with the assistance of
the military staff Committee referred to in Article
47, plans to be submitted to the
members of the United nations for the
(30:18):
establishment of a system for the regulation
of armaments. The wording of
this article is not innocent. It
makes a judgment that must be understood
by this Council. The spending in armaments
is a diversion of human and economic resources,
(30:41):
meaning a destination that is different to the
proper use of such resources. And
then I want to remind you what a great president of
the US Once said. These are the words of President
Eisenhower. Every gun that is
made, every warship launch, every
(31:04):
rocket fire signifies in
the final sense a death from those who
hunger and are not fed, those who
are cold and are not
clothed. This well in arms
is not spending money alone. It is
(31:26):
spending the sweat of its laborers, the
genius of its scientists, the hopes
of its children. Talk to me about
your dream of having a museum dedicated to
peace and why you want to have it in
Costa Rica. Because, as you said, the diplomacy that
(31:48):
came from this country is something that every Costa Rican should be
very proud of. No other country in the world, Tony,
has the moral authority to build a peace
museum as we do. We abolished the
army in 1948 and by doing that we
declare peace to the world. In my first term in
(32:10):
office, I held a hemispheric summit here. President Bush
attended. I invited all the presidents and
prime ministers except dictators. I didn't invite
Peter Che or Fidel Castro. Only a few weeks later,
the US invaded Panama City. It dropped
bombs in Panama City in order to
(32:32):
kidnap Noriega and they soaring
Guillermo Andara as the new president of Panama
because he was soaring in the US
Canal Zone. No Latin American country
wanted to recognize him as the new president.
And since I was about to finish my term,
(32:55):
I said to him, since we are neighbors, I would like to
recognize you as president and establish
diplomatic relations with your government. Under
one condition. If we get rid of the Panamanian
army, that's Costa Rican imperialism. And
he agreed. We got rid of the Panamanian army
(33:17):
by amending the Constitution. And eventually, a
few years later, with President Aristide, we also got
rid of the Haitian army. Then I went to Sub
Saharan Africa and spent four months. I
lived in Tanzania, in Arusha. I held
many conferences with prime ministers,
(33:39):
with presidents, with defense ministers. In
order to freeze military spending or if possible, get
rid of an army. I failed. I wasn't
able to persuade anybody. But since
the most perverse way of spending
scarce resources is in arms and soldiers.
(34:02):
So we have the moral authority to tell the world we can
create a culture of peace with different values.
We should highlight those conflicts that have been
solved at the negotiating table. Like Northern
Ireland, like Camp David, like Arafat
meeting with Rabin and Shimon Peres
(34:26):
in Norway and winning the Nobel Peace
Prize for 1993 when they decided,
well, the only way to solve this conflict is if
we believe in the two state solution. I
believe that the use of military force should be the
last, last, last resort. And in this museum
(34:48):
we would like to show what philosophers in the last
2,500 years have
said and written about peace.
And most importantly, I would like to highlight
the so called peace dividends. What it means to
spend your resources building roads,
(35:10):
hospitals, universities, schools,
educated nurses, doctors instead
of soldiers. Only Costa Rica has the moral
authority to tell the world this kind of
spending is really immoral. So you've
got a world renowned architect, a Costa Rican, Benjamin Sachs.
(35:33):
You're working with a variety of different people. What is it going to take
to have this museum built? How do you hope it
celebrates and fosters peace going forward? I
bought a piece of land in front
of the Democracy Square, A Democracy
Square that I built in my first government.
(35:55):
In front of the Democracy Square is the National
Museum. Here is the Jade Museum,
and here is the piece of land that I bought. So
around the Democracy Square there will be
three museums. I am using all the
money of the Arias Foundation
(36:17):
Endowment, but with still a little bit
more in order to build it
and to pay for the museography.
There's always a game you play at dinner parties. If you could have anybody at
your dinner table pick six guests, alive or past,
who would be the six people you would invite to dinner? The Most
(36:39):
brilliant statesman that I got to
know in 50 years in politics is Helmut Schmidt.
Then I would have loved to sit with Winston
Churchill, with Charles de Gaulle, Willy
Brandt, with Martin Luther King, and
with the wisest of all, perhaps the
(37:01):
bravest, Abraham Lincoln. You know, I always end
my interviews with my three takeaways. The first one is
tell the people what they need to know, not what they want to hear.
I think it's the most powerful piece of advice. It's a piece of advice
I think parents should have with their children, I think leaders should have with their
business, and leaders should have with their citizens is the fact that we
(37:23):
focus on what they need to know versus what they want to
hear. The second one, interesting enough, was the only time you actually
cited religion was Jesus. It's better to give than
receive. That's five, six words. But if we approach
that as humanity and we put it out in the world
we just gave versus receiving, I think the world would be so
(37:45):
much different. And it's the simplest way to crystallize your values.
But I think the third thing and the most important thing that is
that kid that grew up waiting for their birthdays to read an
autobiography and read about all these wonderful people
that you just quote. There'll be a book written about Oscar
Arias and his peace plan and this kid from Costa Rica that not
(38:06):
only brought peace to Central America, but had the General assembly
vote on something that began in your foundation. So I've been
sitting with an individual who talks about Martin Luther King and
Caesar and Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and Helmut
Schmidt as people he admired. But I realized
he belongs. He belongs at that table. He belongs in the
(38:28):
same conversation. Tony, thank you. I want to thank you
for this opportunity. The purpose of political
leadership is to educate. And that's why you need to
tell people what they need to know,
not what they want to know to hear.
(38:49):
Once again, a special thanks to RBC for supporting Chatter that Matters.
It's Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening and let's chat soon.
We can create a culture of peace with different
values. I've had an incredible life.
I've met some of the most wonderful people, people that have changed
the world, won gold medals, Oscars,
Grammys, solved some big health care crises.
But I've never sat with a Nobel Peace Prize winner. I
(00:27):
personally went into public service because
I wanted to help people, and not only the Costa Rican people
or the Central American peoples, the whole of humanity.
I never sat with somebody that, as an individual,
put a dent in the universe based on one simple
premise, one purpose, one overriding passion
(00:49):
was life, and that is peace. The Romans said, if
you want to live in peace, prepare for war.
That's quite stupid. If you want to live in peace, don't spend so
much money on arms. And that passion I think he was
born with. He certainly took into one of the most
contested times in our history when Central America was ablaze with war
(01:12):
and brought about the Arius peace plan. I decided to
tell the people what people need to know, not what they want
to hear. And even Today, in his 80s,
what he's trying to do is to build a peace museum,
an oasis where we can go and realize that if humanity can come together
and put down their arms and focus on education and health
(01:36):
care and focus on putting the human back in humanity,
we'd be a much better world.
Hi, it's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter that Matters, presented by
rbc. If you can please subscribe to the podcast and
ratings reviews, well, they're always welcome and they're always
(01:58):
appreciated.
Oscar Arias. Welcome to a Chatter that Matters. Tony, thank
you. I want to thank you for this opportunity. You knew you were going to
be a politician? Yes, I knew that I
was going to be a politician. And my dream was to
(02:18):
become president one day. So many kids dream. But how did
you make that manifestation come real for you?
Well, I prepared for it. When I was in
primary school, for every birthday, my
father used to give me a biography of
great men, from Lincoln and
(02:41):
Napoleon to Churchill and
FDR and de Gaulle. And I read
so many biographies, Gladstone and
Israeli. This is why I decided to go and do my
postgraduate work in the United
Kingdom, because I fell in love with particularly
(03:03):
Western church. And as you started to read these biographies,
was there a common theme? Was there a certain
DNA that someone that decides to serve their country,
to seek the highest office? Yes, yes. Different
times, bringing about different people. Obvious.
I mean, I am a great admirer of the
(03:27):
first emperor, Octavius
Caesar Augustus, as well as Julius Caesar. He
was murdered in 44, before
Christ and then Napoleon, this is
the beginning of the 19th century, he
became emperor. On the other side, you have the
(03:50):
British prime ministers who are true democrats,
as well as Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson
and Madison and John Adams.
So it's quite a mixture of great people who
became involved in politics, always
fighting for their ideals. Costa Rica was a
(04:12):
country that said no to the military in the 40s. When
you take over as president, surrounding your country, there's a lot
of war going on. Paint a picture what was going on, what you had to
deal with in terms of your neighboring countries and more importantly,
Gorbachev and Reagan maybe treating this as a little
chessboard where they could play with their military. Well, I happened to be
(04:34):
elected in 1986. In
1986, the whole of Central America
was involved in a very bloody
conflict. The two superpowers were
fighting a proxy war. I used to say at the
time, the Soviet Union and the US provide
(04:57):
arms and we Central
Americans provide the debt. There were
conflicts in Guatemala, in El Salvador and
particularly in Nicaragua. The US
government was obsessed with getting rid of Daniel
Ortega, the President of Nicaragua, of the
(05:17):
Sandinistas, through military means.
I had campaigned for more than a year
promising an negotiated solution
to the conflicts in the three countries, using
diplomacy, trying to bring the differing
parties to the negotiating table. The
(05:38):
Americans knew about my promises
or pledges to the Costa Rican people and they
didn't like my candidacy. So they
supported my opponent. A few years
after I had stepped down from office, I had the chance of
meeting Roger Ailes. He had been
(06:01):
advising my opponent, paid by the
Republicans. And I asked him, what did
you tell my opponents? And he said to me,
laughing, you just have to break Oscar
Aria's knees. So that was a tough
campaign. I won it. For my
(06:22):
inauguration, President Reagan sent Vice President
Bush. And I said to Vice President Bush, you
know that we are very close friends, Costa rica and the U.S.
most Costa Ricans admire the U.S. but
sometimes friends have agreements and
sometimes disagreements. I need to tell you,
(06:44):
Mr. Vice President, concerning your policy towards
Central America, I strongly disagree
with your government. So,
Daniel, since the very beginning, that I was
not going to support the Reagan administration
looking for military solutions to. The conflicts, to
(07:07):
stand up to United States. What gave you the courage to say to them that
when it comes to my country, you're not going to have your
military here, you're not going to have your rebels within my boundaries,
from. My value system, from my principles, I
couldn't lie to the Costa Rican people. I had promised
I was going to look for a negotiated peace.
(07:30):
In my political career of more than 50
years, I decided to tell the people what
people need to know, not what they want to hear.
You could become a politician lying to people, telling
them what people want to hear. But that's the
denial of real leadership. So
(07:52):
I tried to be very honest intellectually
and morally also for sure. So you talk about these
skirmishes and wars that are happening, how military
seem to be the blinders that the Americans had on. Talk to me about
how you started to build not only support within
Costa Rica, but within Europe. I was inaugurated
(08:14):
in May of 1986. In
December of that same year, I was invited for the first
time to the White House. I never expected that I was so
important to visit President Reagan. In my first
visit to the Oval Office, I realized how
committed he was to a military solution,
(08:36):
particularly here in Nicaragua, our neighbor to the
north. All my pledges to the Costa Rican people,
you know, I wasn't able to fulfill any of them.
If the contrast, the Contra rebels, as
they were called at the time, were using our
territory in order to fight the Santinistas. So I
(08:58):
expelled all the Comandantes. I expelled
everybody from our territory. And
that obviously annoyed the US Government. I found
out eventually that AID
had hired many houses to keep
the arms for the Contras, the medications
(09:20):
for the wounded. And I realized, well,
we have been taken by the Americans. Vice President
Bush invited me for a gin and tonic at
his house. We had a couple of drinks. I came back
from Washington committed to draft a peace
plan. A peace plan, because we had nothing on the
(09:43):
table but war. This is the Arias peace plan. I invited
the President of Guatemala, Vinicio cerezo, the President
of Salvador, Napoleon Duarte, and from
Honduras, President Azcona, to come here
to San Jose. That was February of
1987. Eventually, I visited
(10:04):
Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, to talk about my
peace initiative. I decided to go to Europe, to go to
the rest of the Latin American countries in order to
get their support. I got all the support from the whole of
Latin America, but Europe was much more important.
I remember visiting Portugal, Mario
(10:26):
Soares, Spain with Felipe Gonzalez,
Helmut Kohl in Germany, Francois Mitterrand in
France, Pope John Paul in the Vatican and
many others. At the end, I visited the uk.
The Queen invited me to have lunch at Buckingham
palace with the Vice Chancellor of the University of
(10:49):
Essex and some of my professors, where I got a
PhD. And she asked me, what's the purpose
of your trip? And I said to her, I have
launched a peace plan because it's trail
America. There is a novel war that we are killing
each other. And I want to pacify the region
(11:11):
through diplomacy. But unfortunately
Her Majesty Margaret Thatcher is very busy
because she is campaigning. She has an election
in two weeks and I'm going to see her
Deputy Prime Minister. The next day
I got a phone call from the Foreign Office and
(11:34):
I was told, Mrs. Thatcher wants to see you at
11 o', clock, 10 Downing Street. So it was
really interesting. She took some time from her campaign.
We met for hour and a half, we had a long
discussion and her main argument was for a
real peace. Democracy is a precondition.
(11:57):
We have democracy, free elections
if we want to have real peace in the
region. That implied that for the
Sandinistas they needed to hold an election.
I do remember Fidel Castro telling Daniel Ortega
all the time and telling me, don't ask for an election.
(12:19):
In Nicaragua, revolutionaries don't hold
elections. And he used to tell Daniel Ortega in front
of me, don't fall into aria's trap. Anyway,
Mrs. Thatcher was very skeptical about a
communist government in Nicaragua holding
elections. Not only her, but all the
(12:41):
members of the Reagan administration used to tell me, you are
so naive. I had no answer for that question,
because all I could tell them is, well, there is always a
first time. Let's wait and see. But I need to
tell you that if he signs the peace plan, the
international pressure is going to be so strong
(13:05):
that he has to hold free elections. And that's
exactly what happened. He held those elections
and he lost the elections. And Violeta Chamorro won the
elections and became the next president of
Nicaragua. How was the transfer of power? Because I have
to believe when you have Fidel Castro whispering in your
(13:26):
ear when you're a revolutionary is quite a defeat. It's much
bigger than a defeat in a democratic country. So how was the transfer
of power? Were you ever worried at a time he wasn't going to
abandon the power and just say the election was fake or was
rigged and I'm staying in power. At one o' clock in the morning, I
was talking to Tomas Borge, one of the commandantes,
(13:49):
a Marxist, and I told him, you must
transfer power. You have lost the election.
And President Carter the next day went to
see Daniel Ortega and Tollen saying,
the inauguration was held in the
baseball stadium. It was full of people,
(14:13):
people from everywhere. It was a very nice
ceremony. I thanked Violeta
Chamorro because she said a few words
about me, thanking me for being the
author of the peace plan. I almost cried because
I Felt very moved. You have to feel moved. I mean, you're dealing
(14:35):
in a foreign country, it's a stadium full of people and they're
cheering their freed. Then we had to wait and see if there
was the will in the Central American
governments to comply with what we had agreed.
Bernie Adelson as well as the deputy Foreign minister
from the Soviet Union were very supportive
(14:58):
and eventually we silenced the guns in the region.
What was the role of Gorbachev during this time? Because the history
sees Gorbachev and the Berlin Wall coming down. But
how was your relationship with Gorbachev compared to your relationship with
the American presidents? I never met Gorbachev while I was
President. We became very good friends later
(15:21):
on because he always invited me to a
conference that he used to hold in San Francisco.
It was called the State of the World Forum.
So we had a chance to talk about many things. One of those things
was not one inch. NATO
won't be expanded not one inch
(15:44):
to the east. One of the big lies from the US
governments because NATO was expanded
until today. Let's go back to the
Arius peace plan. How did the Nobel Peace Prize come about?
From what I understand in reading the history of Costa Rica, it was one of
the most, the proudest moments of this country. Were you surprised?
(16:07):
Well, I do remember In June of 87,
I was staying with my wife and some ministers
of my cabinet at the Charles Hotel in
Cambridge. I had been invited by the Kennedy
School to address the students. Suddenly
in the lobby there were like a hundred students from
(16:30):
Latin American countries, from different universities.
Harvard, mit, Brandeis, bu,
bc, Tufts, and you name them. And
they were telling me, this is June of 87. We
would like to nominate you for the Nobel Peace
Prize. So I said to them, well, that's quite an honor.
(16:53):
But let us remember that the last day
in order to nominate is the end of January.
So you can nominate me, but this will be for
1988. So then when I was
called at 4 o' clock in the morning. Get up.
You have been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. Later on I
(17:16):
found out that I had been nominated by three
Swedes whom I didn't know. And they
simply read about my confrontation with the
two superpowers and nominated me. Must have been a
very proud moment for you. Everything that happened, the stadium,
Nicaragua getting the Nobel Peace Prize. If you were
(17:37):
leaving this planet tomorrow, what would you say would stand out the most for you?
And would it be the Nobel Peace Prize or would it be the fact that
you freed the Nicaraguans of a Communist regime. Would it
be just the fact that you honored your principles to Costa Rica? Is there one
thing that stands out. In my second term as president of this country?
From 2006 to 2010,
(17:59):
the General assembly of the UN approved
the arms Trade Treaty. The Arms Trade Treaty was
born at the Arias foundation for peace in the
mid-90s. And while I was a private citizen
making speeches in universities all around the
world, making speeches and receiving
(18:22):
honorary degrees, particularly from the U.S.
as a matter of fact, I have 93 honorary degrees and
85 of them are from U.S.
universities and colleges. I was always
mentioning there is a need to put an end to
the trade of weapons in the world.
(18:44):
The so called Arms Trade treaty.
And in 2013 it was approved by the General
assembly and came into effect in
2014 in GD. I think
that is the greatest contribution of Costa Rican
diplomacy to humanity. We're going to get to the Peace Museum.
(19:06):
But the thing that hurts you the most is the trillions of
dollars every year we just spend on weaponry and weapons
of mass destruction. Tell me a little bit about that economic
engine and how could we repurpose for a better
planet? It's very simple, but it's quite difficult.
It's quite difficult because with the value system that
(19:28):
prevails today in our societies, it is
not possible to spend scarce
resources in satisfying
the basic needs of people. For one simple
reason. The leadership of the US is so
strong. And the US has been a people of warriors.
(19:51):
And you believe in strong military. You were
born fighting The English In 1776,
in 1812, in 1823, you
drafted the Monroe Doctrine. In 1846,
you invaded Mexico. In
1898, you fought the Spaniards
(20:13):
and got Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Then you got
involved for good in the First World War, the
Second World War, Korea, Vietnam,
Afghanistan, Syria,
now you bomb Iran. You've
been involved in so many conflicts because you want to be
(20:36):
the most powerful military power on
Earth. The Chinese spend less than one third of what the
Pentagon is spending. You are spending $1 trillion
and the world is spending $2.7 trillion. $2.7 trillion
is like 12 times more of what
(20:57):
the world is spending in official development assistance, that is
foreign aid. And only recently you have shut down
usaid. In other words, you
prefer to spend building tanks and fighter
jets and nuclear submarines than feed the
people in Africa, in Asia, in
(21:20):
poor countries. The Romans said, if you want to
live in peace, prepare for war. That's quite stupid. If you
want to live in peace, don't spend so much money on Arms
and soldiers. Now, it's not easy to
contradict the US Government. Only recently,
President Trump succeeded in persuad,
(21:43):
not persuading, I mean forcing the rest of the
NATO members to spend 5%
of GDP in the next five years. That
is the most wasteful way of
spending your scarce resources because official development
assistance is going to be used in order to
(22:05):
spend more on arms and sophisticated
weapons than on people. And as you know, poverty
needs no passport to travel. If immigration is one
of the big issues today, it is going to be worse
when you cannot feed the
hungry in Africa or in Asian
(22:27):
countries or even in Haiti here in this
hemisphere. But you know, as Hendrick Kissinger once said,
it is difficult to be an enemy of
the US but to be a friend is fatal.
It's not easy to persuade American governments that
to spend on arms and soldiers is a waste of money.
(22:50):
These are the wrong priorities for a more peaceful
world in the future. And these are the
wrong priorities simply because the values are wrong.
And if the values are wrong, then the priorities of governments are
wrong. Do you think there's a young Oscar aria set that can
emerge in this world and bring together the
(23:12):
superpowers the way you brought together the presidents in Central
America? Lock them in a room, get them to realize
spending on military can't lead to anything positive? Do you think
that's a possibility? Or are they just so obsessed with
who's got the biggest stick wins that we'll never
get any of them to even consider repurposing that money
(23:34):
for what the average person in their hearts and their minds,
what every mother would want, is to have a world where their
sons and daughters didn't go to fight? Or have we gone so
far in the civilization that all the
negotiation and diplomacy that you showed in
1986 can't exist in 2024, 2025,
(23:55):
2026? As Jesus said, it is more
important to give than to receive. I
personally went into public service because I
wanted to help people. And not only the Costa Rican people or the
Central American peoples, the whole of humanity.
Where do you get the money to spend more on potable
(24:18):
water, on infrastructure, on electricity,
on health care, education,
on culture from where governments are
not willing to increase taxes. The
US is always cutting taxes to the wealthy. The only
way is to cut or to freeze military spending. Why
(24:41):
do you need $1 trillion? And why do you need more nuclear
submarines and more fighter jets and more atomic
bombs? It's a waste of money. I do
remember President Reagan who said something like, we declare
war on Poverty and poverty won. Now when I
see President Trump trying to remove the
(25:03):
poor people in Washington D.C. he
doesn't want to improve the living standards
of poor people in the US or
in the world. He wants to hire the poor people. And
the only way, for instance, to stop immigration
is if those poor people can stay in their
(25:26):
own countries. But the people of sub Saharan Africa
are prepared to risk their lives, you know, through
the Mediterranean in order to go to European
countries as the Latin American countries. And here
through Panama, you know, you find Pakistanis,
Indians, Africans, people from
(25:49):
Cambodia, from Vietnam, from everywhere
trying to walk all the way to the Mexican
border with the US Instead of building walls. We
could spend more on the poor people of the world. Do you think
democracy can continue to succeed? Because when
I look at democracy right now, I'm seeing leaders ignoring
(26:11):
Congress, they're suspending parliament, they're making decisions
that are somewhat, the conspiracists would say are much more global.
Democracy can continue if it delivers the goods.
If you can improve through democracy and
democratic institutions and enjoying freedom, if
you can improve the living conditions of people.
(26:33):
But if democracy doesn't deliver the goods, then
what you will have is a lot of autocrats.
Now in Europe, the predominant
parties in government are right wing parties and
the main concern is immigration.
I do think that they are right.
(26:55):
They should be concerned about immigration, particularly
Muslims, because it's not easy
to assimilate such a different culture and religion
as Islam. But your answer is if those countries could
find a standard of living, they wouldn't have to leave. They'd be very happy where
they are. Yeah, for sure.
(27:18):
When we return, Oscar and I talk about a speech that
was heard around the world. And then he'll explain his thinking behind
the Peace museum and why it's not just for Costa Rica,
but for humanity.
Hi, it's Tony Chapman. Investing in Canada, well, that matters
(27:41):
to RBC. $500 billion in sustainable financing
to combat climate change. 500 million for future launch
a 10 year program to prepare youth for the jobs of tomorrow.
Helping to discover the next generation of Olympians, Artists monetizing their
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(28:03):
matters to rbc.
With the smallest percentages changes,
we could equip all homes with electricity, achieve
universal literacy and eradicate all
preventable diseases. These are
the dividends of peace. That is what we
(28:26):
could gain if we put an end to our Russian
gillette of military spending.
Joining me today, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate,
Oscar Arias, who also holds the Honor of being Costa
Rican's president on two separate occasions.
(28:49):
Oscar, you made it one of the most important speeches in 2008.
Maybe you can share with us what you said and
how those words roared around the world. This was
in 2008. I addressed the Security Council
with the presidents attending that meeting.
The presidents of the five permanent members. President
(29:12):
Obama from the US President Sarkozy from France,
Prime Minister Gordon Brown from the UK
Met Bedev from Russia and Hu
Jintao from China. And I said to
them, in the year 1945,
when the smoke of the worst war ever fought by
(29:35):
humanity was still clearing, the founders of this
organization wrote in Article 26 of the UN
Charter, in order to promote the
establishment and maintenance of international
peace and security with the least
diversion for armaments of the world's human
(29:56):
and economic resources, the Security
Council shall be responsible for
formulating, with the assistance of
the military staff Committee referred to in Article
47, plans to be submitted to the
members of the United nations for the
(30:18):
establishment of a system for the regulation
of armaments. The wording of
this article is not innocent. It
makes a judgment that must be understood
by this Council. The spending in armaments
is a diversion of human and economic resources,
(30:41):
meaning a destination that is different to the
proper use of such resources. And
then I want to remind you what a great president of
the US Once said. These are the words of President
Eisenhower. Every gun that is
made, every warship launch, every
(31:04):
rocket fire signifies in
the final sense a death from those who
hunger and are not fed, those who
are cold and are not
clothed. This well in arms
is not spending money alone. It is
(31:26):
spending the sweat of its laborers, the
genius of its scientists, the hopes
of its children. Talk to me about
your dream of having a museum dedicated to
peace and why you want to have it in
Costa Rica. Because, as you said, the diplomacy that
(31:48):
came from this country is something that every Costa Rican should be
very proud of. No other country in the world, Tony,
has the moral authority to build a peace
museum as we do. We abolished the
army in 1948 and by doing that we
declare peace to the world. In my first term in
(32:10):
office, I held a hemispheric summit here. President Bush
attended. I invited all the presidents and
prime ministers except dictators. I didn't invite
Peter Che or Fidel Castro. Only a few weeks later,
the US invaded Panama City. It dropped
bombs in Panama City in order to
(32:32):
kidnap Noriega and they soaring
Guillermo Andara as the new president of Panama
because he was soaring in the US
Canal Zone. No Latin American country
wanted to recognize him as the new president.
And since I was about to finish my term,
(32:55):
I said to him, since we are neighbors, I would like to
recognize you as president and establish
diplomatic relations with your government. Under
one condition. If we get rid of the Panamanian
army, that's Costa Rican imperialism. And
he agreed. We got rid of the Panamanian army
(33:17):
by amending the Constitution. And eventually, a
few years later, with President Aristide, we also got
rid of the Haitian army. Then I went to Sub
Saharan Africa and spent four months. I
lived in Tanzania, in Arusha. I held
many conferences with prime ministers,
(33:39):
with presidents, with defense ministers. In
order to freeze military spending or if possible, get
rid of an army. I failed. I wasn't
able to persuade anybody. But since
the most perverse way of spending
scarce resources is in arms and soldiers.
(34:02):
So we have the moral authority to tell the world we can
create a culture of peace with different values.
We should highlight those conflicts that have been
solved at the negotiating table. Like Northern
Ireland, like Camp David, like Arafat
meeting with Rabin and Shimon Peres
(34:26):
in Norway and winning the Nobel Peace
Prize for 1993 when they decided,
well, the only way to solve this conflict is if
we believe in the two state solution. I
believe that the use of military force should be the
last, last, last resort. And in this museum
(34:48):
we would like to show what philosophers in the last
2,500 years have
said and written about peace.
And most importantly, I would like to highlight
the so called peace dividends. What it means to
spend your resources building roads,
(35:10):
hospitals, universities, schools,
educated nurses, doctors instead
of soldiers. Only Costa Rica has the moral
authority to tell the world this kind of
spending is really immoral. So you've
got a world renowned architect, a Costa Rican, Benjamin Sachs.
(35:33):
You're working with a variety of different people. What is it going to take
to have this museum built? How do you hope it
celebrates and fosters peace going forward? I
bought a piece of land in front
of the Democracy Square, A Democracy
Square that I built in my first government.
(35:55):
In front of the Democracy Square is the National
Museum. Here is the Jade Museum,
and here is the piece of land that I bought. So
around the Democracy Square there will be
three museums. I am using all the
money of the Arias Foundation
(36:17):
Endowment, but with still a little bit
more in order to build it
and to pay for the museography.
There's always a game you play at dinner parties. If you could have anybody at
your dinner table pick six guests, alive or past,
who would be the six people you would invite to dinner? The Most
(36:39):
brilliant statesman that I got to
know in 50 years in politics is Helmut Schmidt.
Then I would have loved to sit with Winston
Churchill, with Charles de Gaulle, Willy
Brandt, with Martin Luther King, and
with the wisest of all, perhaps the
(37:01):
bravest, Abraham Lincoln. You know, I always end
my interviews with my three takeaways. The first one is
tell the people what they need to know, not what they want to hear.
I think it's the most powerful piece of advice. It's a piece of advice
I think parents should have with their children, I think leaders should have with their
business, and leaders should have with their citizens is the fact that we
(37:23):
focus on what they need to know versus what they want to
hear. The second one, interesting enough, was the only time you actually
cited religion was Jesus. It's better to give than
receive. That's five, six words. But if we approach
that as humanity and we put it out in the world
we just gave versus receiving, I think the world would be so
(37:45):
much different. And it's the simplest way to crystallize your values.
But I think the third thing and the most important thing that is
that kid that grew up waiting for their birthdays to read an
autobiography and read about all these wonderful people
that you just quote. There'll be a book written about Oscar
Arias and his peace plan and this kid from Costa Rica that not
(38:06):
only brought peace to Central America, but had the General assembly
vote on something that began in your foundation. So I've been
sitting with an individual who talks about Martin Luther King and
Caesar and Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and Helmut
Schmidt as people he admired. But I realized
he belongs. He belongs at that table. He belongs in the
(38:28):
same conversation. Tony, thank you. I want to thank you
for this opportunity. The purpose of political
leadership is to educate. And that's why you need to
tell people what they need to know,
not what they want to know to hear.
(38:49):
Once again, a special thanks to RBC for supporting Chatter that Matters.
It's Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening and let's chat soon.
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