Transcript: Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin Talks To Mike Wallace In An Exclusive Interview

(CBS)  Wallace and Putin discuss a sport that the Russian president excels at: Judo.

WALLACE: Judo. It is not just a sport; it is a philosophy, you say. What does that mean?

TRANSLATOR:First of all, sports like judo teach us about relationships between people, and teach you to respect your partner. It also teaches us that a seemingly weak partner can not only resist you, but also beat you. It’s not only strength that can change the result of a match. It’s also the ability to think and to use the right stance. This is very important. What is very important is to have a strong character and a strong desire for victory.

WALLACE: And you have both.

TRANSLATOR: Well, we are not talking about me; we are speaking about this sport.

WALLACE: Yes, we are. Now you became a judo champion at a very young age. How come?

TRANSLATOR: I was champion of my city. It was quite a big city with a population of 5 million.

WALLACE: St. Petersburg.

TRANSLATOR: The City of Leningrad. Yes, absolutely right. I worked hard at this sport. I think that if you do something, you should do it not only for the pleasure of the process, but you should be results-oriented.

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Wallace and Putin discuss the president’s daughters, ages 19 and 20, who stay out of the public light.

TRANSLATOR: I am pleased that they aren’t seen on TV or in magazines.

WALLACE: Because?

TRANSLATOR: Because this is their choice. Several years ago I had a talk with them, and I told them that they can be well-known, and not have a normal life with their friends, or they can choose to be modest and not famous, and thereby have a normal life. They chose the second option.

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Wallace and President Putin are looking at a photograph of Putin as a young man.

WALLACE: This fellow, how old were you here?

TRANSLATOR: I think about 14.

WALLACE: You were a very serious young man.

TRANSLATOR: Not always.

WALLACE: Oh! A bad boy from time to time?

TRANSLATOR: Well, I was born into a family of workers. My father and my mother were just ordinary people. We lived in a small room, all three of us, in a communal apartment in Leningrad with no private facilities. We didn't even have our own bath or shower. My parents worked a lot, so I spent lots of time in the streets with other teenagers. And it was just a normal and ordinary life.

WALLACE: Yes, but you were chasing rats with a stick?

TRANSLATOR: Yeah, and I made a very interesting discovery: If you corner a rat, it turns on you and attacks you.

WALLACE: Yes.

TRANSLATOR: And a rat attacks aggressively. It even chases its adversary when they run away.

WALLACE: How big? How big? The ones that you were chasing?

TRANSLATOR: Well, it just was a normal city rat.

WALLACE: I see.

TRANSLATOR: I think such large rats as you have shown can only be found in the United States, because they have much better food there. I think that's why they can grow that large. We don't have such big ones here.

WALLACE: Now this is a picture of Putin when he's determined. Or maybe even angry. Yes?

TRANSLATOR: Well, I can’t remember where this picture was taken.

WALLACE: It doesn’t say.

TRANSLATOR: I think that some of my character can be seen in this photo.

WALLACE: Yes, he’s a tough guy. He can be angered. He loses his temper.

TRANSLATOR: No. I don’t remember one time in my five years as president of the Russian Federation that I lost my temper. I think that this is absolutely unacceptable.

WALLACE: Really?

TRANSLATOR: Definitely. You have to be tough and consistent in your actions. It is important to take responsibility, and not hide behind the back of your government, of your law enforcement agencies, or of your armed forces. That’s what is important.

And it is also very important to find the right people for the job. This is definitely the most difficult task for leaders. Being tough is not the most difficult task for a person who has the position I do. It is probably more difficult to be patient and forgiving.

WALLACE: It is more difficult?

TRANSLATOR: Well, I think that in the position that I have, it is easier to be tough or harsh.

WALLACE: Well, that's your reputation.

WALLACE: OK.

TRANSLATOR: I think that, to a certain extent, some of this might be true. I have already told you that without being tough it is impossible to be a head of a state.

WALLACE: Yes. This is the final picture that I'm going to be bothering you with. This is a picture which with this line under it, "A few seconds later, Boris Nikolayevich turned to me and said, 'Take care of Russia.'" And if you take a good look at your face in this picture, you look as though either you're overwhelmed or unhappy or worried about --

TRANSLATOR: Definitely. This picture was taken after the decision was made about my running for president. And all the thoughts you have mentioned [are true]. When President Yeltsin suggested that I run for president of the Russian Federation, I told him that I was not prepared because this, in my view, was a very difficult, complex fate, and I had never thought about becoming president.

But President Yeltsin was persistent. He said that the issue wasn’t over, and that we’d talk about it again. And finally the decision was made to participate in the elections, and this picture is after the election, after I was sworn in as president. I've given my oath. President Yeltsin knew at what stage the country was in its development. As he was leaving the Kremlin, he spoke sincerely and from his heart. He was thinking about the future of the country, and he was convinced that he was giving the country over to reliable hands.

WALLACE: It's astonishing how quickly you rose. Why did you want to go to the KGB in the first place? And what did they say when you presented yourself to the KGB office?

TRANSLATOR: Well, that was a different life, a different country. Everything that is now said about the KGB is about the bad times – the repression by Stalin, for example – but the KGB has done a lot to protect the interests of the country, for example during and after the war. So it’s no surprise that many young people of my generation were proud to be a part of it.

I worked in the foreign service, in which people largely work abroad. Thus they had some other views, some liberal views, if we can speak about liberalism within this group of people in the security forces. They could see how they lived in the West, the state of affairs in the West and in the Soviet Union.