And the Hi, I'm Bill Crystal. Welcome to Conversations. I'm very happy to be joined today by Larry

Summers, a professor at Harvard, former Harvard President, Treasury Secretary, White House

advisor to President Obama, a top economic advisor. I want to begin with a crisis.

I remember you handling it was for I'd met you a little bit before that, but I remember suddenly you were all of prominent, had a prominence that maybe at the time you were not so eager to have, suddenly you were thrust into the middle of this major international economic crisis at the end of

1994, the Mexico-PASO crisis.

I didn't know anything about it honestly and I was, I guess, launching the magazine,

the weekly standard and talking with someone who served in the Reagan or in Bush

administrations and economic policy and after you guys resolved it and saying this

was a they really did a good job it was something they won't get much credit for because it's very

complicated and people once it's solved they won't forget how dangerous it was

before it got solved you know and there was a political sales job involved with

obviously with the Republican Congress I I think at that point.

So I don't know, were you then already Deputy Secretary?

Are you still under Secretary?

I was actually the Undersecretary for International.

So I was the point, I was the point, I was the point, right?

I was the point. How does that work? I was the point I was the point I was the point I think people be how I was I was on I was on people about I was sort of on point on that one and I was extra on point as it turned out because Secretary Benson left at the end of

December. Towards the end of December of 1994 the Mexicans found themselves forced to devalue their currency and heading

towards a kind of economic apocalypse.

The department had no permanent secretary for several weeks after

secretary Benson left before secretary Rubin was confirmed.

So there was a stretch when I had the misfortune

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