And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN, the Axviles, with your

host, David Axelrod.

In the pantheon of people with interesting lives, Salme Kallazad would have to figure on

that list.

Born in Afghanistan, he became one of America's leading diplomats in Afghanistan.

In Iraq, as UN Ambassador at a very frated time in our history, I had a chance to sit down

with him last week at the Institute of Politics to talk about that journey and about the

royal world in which we live today.

Ambassador, welcome.

This is a bit of a homecoming for you here at the University of Chicago.

We're here at the Institute of Politics.

You spent a number of years here getting your doctorate.

And one thing I wanted to mention to you is you wrote somewhere that your classmates

here having heard your story of early life in Afghanistan calculated that it was a miracle

that you had survived to that point.

Why did they feel that way?

Tell me about your early years.

Well, thank you very much for this opportunity.

It's a delight to be back at the University of Chicago.

This place had a profound impact on me and on my trajectory.

With regard to the observation, they had looked at my friends from the University of Chicago

at that time at life expectancy for an Afghan.

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