To our interview collection of occupants of the office (Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, George Schultz, Madeline Albright) we must add Warren Christopher. He  filled that most important cabinet position during all of the first term of Bill Clinton. Here in 2001 he reminisces about such problems as Bosnia, Haiti, NAFTA and Yeltsin on his good and bad (drunken) days.

The question has often been asked. Here, former CIA Director William Colby addresses one  famous instance: the case of KGB defector Yuri Nosenko. Curiously, one important CIA personage, James Jesus Angleton, ended by madly accusing Colby himself of being a double agent of the KGB!

Yes, of course. The list is a long one that does not begin and end with Edmund Burke. Here is a discussion with a thoughtful and well-informed historian who has done a fine book about 14 American conservatives who help to define that political species.

Two makers of modern dictionaries discussed their always challenging task (decisions, decisions, decisions!) and the questions of why in 2003 and how all languages are always  in the process of changing.

Some of the earliest dinosaurs – from which the later and larger ones evolved – were found in the U.S. by Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago. Here in a 2004 discussion he describes how he and his student assistants went about finding them and extracting them from the ground and, dating them.

Jack Germond was one of the great print and TV journalists  focused upon national politics. In 2004 he took a cynical but amused look at the unreliability of his journalistic brethren – particularly as they offered their quick and dramatic appraisals on weekend TV.

In 2000 we were joined by Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita’s son. He had by then become a professor at Brown University and had just  published a definitive volume on his father’s personal history and political career, his role in the Cold War and his ultimate fall from power. We were joined in discussion with this fascinating guest by John Bushnell, professor of Russian history at Northwestern University.

We are joined by Tom Fleming, author of “The Great Divide: The Conflict Between Washington and Jefferson.”

Shortly after he got out of prison, Erlichman, a central White House and Watergate figure, came to chat. He told us how his boss – President Richard Nixon – should have handled the Watergate affair once it was disclosed to the public. Here’s a memorable excerpt.