Jens Stoltenberg

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:41

My castaway this week is the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg. His commitment to and skill at diplomacy has defined his public life. In an age of febrile politics and politicians, he's known for his cool head. He's the first Norwegian to become Secretary General, a role he's held since twenty fourteen. Before that he was the Prime Minister of Norway twice. His second term in office included what he calls the darkest day of his life, when seventy seven people were murdered in a bomb attack in Oslo and a mass shooting on a nearby island. His response was to call for more openness and more democracy, but not naivete.

Presenter1:21

Despite being born into a political family, he says it's unlikely that his schoolmates would have earmarked him as world leader material. He didn't learn to read until he was ten. He soon caught up though. The first book he went for was a nine hundred page account of the siege of Leningrad.

Presenter1:36

He's also a former anti-war activist who once opposed his own country's membership of NATO. Now that he runs the seventy one year old alliance, he says I'm attracted by bringing countries together, working together, and especially in uncertain times, I think it's even more important that we try and sit down to find solutions through peaceful means.

Presenter1:56

Secretary General Jens Stautenberg, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Jens Stoltenberg2:00

Thank you so much. It's a great honor to be with you.

Presenter2:04

Calm global leadership has of course never been more important. How do you build successful alliances with President Trump, who has been critical of NATO and can be unpredictable when it comes to making his foreign policy announcements?

Jens Stoltenberg2:17

It's accepting that yes, there are differences between the thirty allies and there have been differences between NATO allies for as long as this alliance has existed, going back to the Suez crisis in 1956 or when France decided to leave the military cooperation in NATO in the 1960s or the Iraq war which also divided NATO allies.

Jens Stoltenberg2:40

But my message to President Trump, as my message is to all the NATO allies, is that

Jens Stoltenberg2:45

North America and Europe has to stand together, especially when we see

Jens Stoltenberg2:50

The rise of China, which is actually shifting the global balance of power, is even more important that we stand together.

Jens Stoltenberg2:56

And my message to the United States is also that

Jens Stoltenberg2:59

Of course, NATO is good for Europe, but it's also good for the United States. Peace, stability in Europe adds also to the security of North America and the United States.

Presenter3:07

NATO celebrated its seventieth anniversary last year, but many citizens of its Member States don't actually know its history, should they?

Jens Stoltenberg3:15

It's not so very important that they know the history of NATO, but what is important is that they understand that peace is not something we can take for granted. Peace is something we need to protect and defend every day.

Jens Stoltenberg3:27

And living in Brussels, it's a very stark reminder for me personally about

Jens Stoltenberg3:31

How close war has been for such a long time. I'm living close to battlefields, like for instance Flandersfields.

Jens Stoltenberg3:38

And to go around there and to

Jens Stoltenberg3:40

Visit the cemeteries and see all the suffering, all the killing that took place there.

Jens Stoltenberg3:47

stark reminder of how brutal war is and there are many of that kind of battlefields around uh Brussels.

Presenter3:54

We're about to hear your first disc, Secretary General. How important is music to you? Do you have much time to listen to it?

Jens Stoltenberg4:00

When I was younger, I listened a lot to music. I have less time now.

Jens Stoltenberg4:05

But I still very much enjoy listening to uh music and uh I have to admit that much of the music is the same music I listened to during the nineteen seventies when I was young myself.

Speaker 24:14

I will see you home by sound.

Jens Stoltenberg4:16

But I also listen to for instance some Norwegian bands and one of them is Madrugada and Lift Me Up which is something I turn on when I really want to relax.

Speaker 34:25

Lift me.

Jens Stoltenberg4:27

Uh

Speaker 34:27

Lift me from the ground

Speaker 34:33

And don't ever put me down, oh no.

Speaker 34:41

And don't pick a five with me

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Just flip a coin, my love, you have won.

Presenter4:54

Lift me up. Madhru Gada and Anna Brun. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, you mentioned the rise of China as one of the biggest security challenges facing NATO. What else are you dealing with? What are the main challenges on that list?

Jens Stoltenberg5:08

For many, many years, NATO faced one big challenge, and that was the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The challenge now is that we're not faced with one challenge or one threat. We are faced with a lot of uncertainty and predictability. And I have always been very careful about predicting too much about what will be the next crisis, what will be the next threat we face, because if you look to the past, experts have been very bad at predicting the future. Hardly anyone predicted the follow-bery war. Hardly anyone predicted 9-11, which really changed our security environment.

Jens Stoltenberg5:44

And as late as in the winter 2014, when I was asked to become Secretary General of NATO, very few had heard about ISIS. A few months later, they controlled big parts of Iraq and Syria, territory as big as the United Kingdom, eight million people. And then Russia annexed Crimea, the first time borders have been changed in Europe since the end of the Cold War. One country annexed another part of another country. So for me, the important thing is not to list precisely what we think will be the next crisis, but more to be prepared for the unforeseen, be ready to act and adaptable when things are changing. And NATO is the most successful alliance in history exactly because we have been able to change when the world is changing.

Presenter6:27

Has the pandemic affected NATO's operational readiness?

Jens Stoltenberg6:31

NATO's main task is to make sure that a health crisis, the COVID-19 crisis, does not become a security crisis, and we have been able to do that. Of course, we have adjusted some of the ways we do our activities, like some protective measures, quarantine and so on. But the main message is that we have been able to uphold deterrence defence, our operational presence throughout the pandemic.

Presenter6:58

It's time for your next disc, Secretary General. Tell us about this one. Why have you chosen it?

Jens Stoltenberg7:03

That's because I I'm very proud of my uh children, as my son and my daughter. Uh my daughter, Katerina, is together with another girl in a band called Smart, so they have established this band and they

Jens Stoltenberg7:16

play all around the world and I have to admit that the music is a bit different from the music I used to listen to in the 1970s.

Jens Stoltenberg7:24

Uh but uh Katerina has told me that uh

Jens Stoltenberg7:27

A song called No Harm is perhaps the best uh song for the audience of this programme, so then I choose No Harm.

Speaker 27:38

Fuzzy friends have a

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Never come when I wait for me to do a spot

Presenter7:43

So tell me good lies, I know you got it Like we all know, Leon, cause we grown up snow Tell me good lies, I know you got it

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I'm gonna let go.

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I wanna, I wanna f

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I wanna go for my

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I wanna feel

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Uh

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Schmerz and No Harm. And I'm very glad that you included that one, Secretary General, because I saw them play it live in London not long ago and they were absolutely fantastic.

Presenter8:16

So let's go back to the beginning. You were born in Norway in nineteen fifty nine to a family which already had quite a tradition of political activity. So your mother was a geneticist and politician, I believe, and your father was a diplomat. Tell us a little more about them.

Jens Stoltenberg8:32

My father was a diplomat, but then he ended up as a minister. He worked in the trade union movement for some years and then he ended up as defence and later on a foreign minister. My mother, she was a civil servant for many years, but she also was very political and she served as a deputy minister for some years and they're both social democrats or part of the labor movement in Norway.

Jens Stoltenberg8:55

My mother was very a very strong feminist and she was one of the first to formulate a lot of what we call modern family policy in Norway about kindergartens, parental leave.

Jens Stoltenberg9:05

Gay marriage and all these kind of reforms that modernized Norway in the seventies and eighties.

Jens Stoltenberg9:13

Both of them have been extremely important for me, both personally, very close to me, but of course also politically because they inspired me and I learned a lot from both of them.

Presenter9:22

So what was it like when you were young? Did you talk politics at home and were you encouraged to participate in those conversations?

Jens Stoltenberg9:29

So so the reality is that they told me a lot about big and important events in history. Uh the Second World War. I at at some stage I almost thought I lived through the Second World War because they told me so many stories about daily life, my grandfather in prison in Germany and so on, made me very interested in society and the world around us. And then I

Jens Stoltenberg9:51

I ended up in the Young Labour Party as a 14-year-old boy and since then I have been there.

Jens Stoltenberg9:57

Not in the young lay part, even the lay part.

Presenter9:59

Was there a point that you realized that your parents weren't your average mum and dad?

Jens Stoltenberg10:04

So I realized at some stage that they were um

Jens Stoltenberg10:08

different than many others because they lived a different life. They they both worked a lot, they both traveled a lot.

Jens Stoltenberg10:15

And also my father, he had this idea or this concept of kitchen table diplomacy, so he brought back in our flat.

Jens Stoltenberg10:23

A lot of people from all over the world. In the sixties and the seventies, people lead leading different liberation movements in South Africa from Mozambique and Angola and later on Nels Mandela came to that kitchen table and sat there and we were able as children and then later on younger people to meet all these political leaders from all around the world. My father had this idea that bringing people into his private home and then serving the breakfast was the best way to

Jens Stoltenberg10:54

Conduct uh as a diplomacy. The reality was that the break was not very impressive. It was

Jens Stoltenberg10:59

Norwegian mackerel and and then some brown cheese.

Jens Stoltenberg11:03

But the bread was quite okay because he had been out buying that the the same morning. And he was quite good at making coffee. And then he served this and the protocol, you know, in the foreign office was a bit they were always a bit shocked, but it worked very well.

Presenter11:16

Did that make an impression on you, that the informal approach to diplomacy?

Jens Stoltenberg11:20

But I thought that was the normal thing. So I thought it was an absolute normal thing to have, you know, freedom fighters at the kitchen table early in the morning and some of the slept over. I I think that was uh the way it

Jens Stoltenberg11:31

Everyone grew up. So I actually was quite old when I realized that that was not normal.

Presenter11:36

It's time to hear your next piece of music, Secretary General. Tell us about it.

Jens Stoltenberg11:40

That's um so long, Marianne, uh with uh Leonard Cohen and the reason why I have chosen that is that

Jens Stoltenberg11:47

My mother married, so before she later on married my father, a Canadian poet in Montreal in the 1950s and uh

Jens Stoltenberg11:56

He knew another Canadian poet and that was Lena Cohen and she became a friend of Lena Cohen and

Jens Stoltenberg12:02

In two thousand eight.

Jens Stoltenberg12:04

I actually brought my mother to a concert in Oslo, where Marianne was also there. So it was Lena Coven, Carlin Stoltenberg, my mother, and Mariana Ile or Marianne. They were all together in Oslo and then they were all in their 70s and now they all have passed away.

Speaker 312:24

Uh

Speaker 212:24

Uh Now so long married

Jens Stoltenberg12:29

It's time we begin to light.

Jens Stoltenberg12:36

Right.

Jens Stoltenberg12:38

Bye.

Jens Stoltenberg12:40

Yeah.

Speaker 312:49

Well you know that I love

Presenter12:53

So long, Marianne, Leonard Cohen. Secretary General, you grew up with two sisters and your eldest sister gave a TED Talk recently in which she described you not learning to read until you were ten. Why did it take so long?

Jens Stoltenberg13:06

I really don't know. But I struggled a lot. I was not able to read. I was not able to write. I I actually had problems with uh speaking. I stuttered uh and uh

Jens Stoltenberg13:17

If you saw me when I was seven, eight, nine years old, I was also a bit fat, so there was nothing with me that indicated that I should become.

Jens Stoltenberg13:28

party leader and prime minister.

Jens Stoltenberg13:31

and Secretary General of of NATO.

Jens Stoltenberg13:33

But I had my parents who supported me. I went to something called Judo Steinerschuolen in in Oslo. They accepted that I was a bit different and suddenly I started to learn. My first book was then to read Nine Hundred Days about the siege of Leningrad and since then of course I have appreciated very much the ability to read books.

Presenter13:51

Yes, you caught up very quickly. As a teenager you were quite active in protesting against the Vietnam War. What did you do?

Jens Stoltenberg13:58

It was my bigger sister who brought me into that and and and she brought me into

Jens Stoltenberg14:02

When we were very young, into the movement protesting against the Vietnam War. And I don't regret that because a lot of bad things happened, and it was.

Jens Stoltenberg14:10

The protests against the Vietnam War all over the world that helped to end that war.

Presenter14:15

So your your political passion was kindled very early. Was there ever a different career that you seriously considered?

Jens Stoltenberg14:21

Absolutely. I in one way only made one deliberate uh decision regarding my career, and that is not to become a politician.

Jens Stoltenberg14:30

So I I finished my studies at the University of Oslo in statistics and mathematics, economics, and I started to work in the research department in the Central Bureau of Statistics in Oslo. And my main

Jens Stoltenberg14:43

Focus was to become a professor in statistics and economics, but then I was asked by the

Jens Stoltenberg14:50

the Minister for Environment back in nineteen ninety whether I would like to become his deputy minister or state secretary. And then I said yes, and I promised my wife and myself only to do that for a year or two and then to go back to mathematics and statistics. But now I've been in politics since then, so my academic career is quite limited and not very impressive either.

Presenter15:13

Time for your next piece of music, Secretary General. What are we going to hear, and why?

Jens Stoltenberg15:17

We are going to hear Bruce Springstring, partly because I like him, but the main reason why I'm going to listen to

Jens Stoltenberg15:24

This uh specific song, uh Hungry Heart, is that he was in a small town or a town out to Oslo, giving a concert in the beginning of nineteen eighties and then

Jens Stoltenberg15:36

One girl was then taken from the audience up to on the stage and he danced with her and that girl was my little sister Ninny and then the song was Hungry Heart when they were dancing at the stage Ninny and Bruce Springsteen.

Speaker 315:51

Everybody's got a hungry heart.

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Everybody's got

Speaker 215:57

Hungry hot

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But I'm your money and you play your heart.

Speaker 216:04

Everybody's gotta hold more than we are.

Presenter16:23

Bruce Springsteen and Hungry Heart for your younger sister, Ninny Secretary General.

Presenter16:29

She very sadly passed away in 2014 from drug-related problems. How do you choose to remember her?

Jens Stoltenberg16:36

The strange thing is that I only remember the bright sides of her life. We actually shared bedrooms, so uh we slept in the same room for many, many years. We were very close, we traveled a lot. Uh

Jens Stoltenberg16:48

to Latin America together and she was beautiful, also really, really beautiful and she was extremely brilliant, very intelligent.

Jens Stoltenberg16:56

But but then uh when she was also in late twenties, she started to get a drug problem and and she ended up as a drug addict and uh she passed away when she was in uh her early fifties and uh

Jens Stoltenberg17:09

And for me, it will always be a paradox and something I will never be able to explain.

Jens Stoltenberg17:14

Why in a family with three children?

Jens Stoltenberg17:17

My bigger sister, Camila, she ends up as a medical doctor, a professor. She's now the director of the Norwegian Public Health Agency working with the COVID-19. I end up as a Prime Minister and Secretary General of NATO. And then my little sister, growing up in the same room as I did, in the same streets with the same friends, attending the same school, she ends up as a drug addict and passes away much too early.

Presenter17:43

You were very much in the public eye during the time of her troubles. You were the Prime Minister of Norway when she passed away. How much help were you able to give her?

Jens Stoltenberg17:52

Of course, not enough. I tried, I know my biggest sister did a lot to help try to help her, both as a sister but also as a medical doctor. But especially my parents, they spent

Jens Stoltenberg18:03

years and years to try to help uh in different uh ways. And very often we thought that

Jens Stoltenberg18:09

She was on her way out of the drug problems that was we saw some progress, and especially my parents, they always.

Jens Stoltenberg18:15

convince themselves that this time it's different, this time she's really able to stop using drugs, but every time we ended up being disappointed.

Jens Stoltenberg18:24

After a few years it was very public that she had a drug problem. So she became kind of the public Norwegian voice for people with drug problems. And she got a lot of sympathy, but not least I, my parents, the whole family. We received letters, support, we were stopped at the streets from other family members of people with drug problems because some of the shame, some of all the efforts to try to hide

Jens Stoltenberg18:52

was taken away when one of well known family in Norway was so open and and Nini was so open and about the drug problems. So just by becoming a public voice,

Jens Stoltenberg19:03

Standing up for the rights of people who have drug problems, Nini actually played a political role and helped to change.

Jens Stoltenberg19:10

uh the policies in Norway on how to deal with uh drug problems.

Presenter19:14

In what way, and how did she shape the policies?

Jens Stoltenberg19:17

mainly by helping to make this not an issue which was regarded as a criminal issue for police, but more as a health issue for the health services. And that was perhaps the most important thing she did.

Jens Stoltenberg19:29

The other thing she did for me personally is that she taught me about how the Norwegian society looks like from the bottom. So I was sitting there at the top as Prime Minister and of course I travel around, but of course when the Prime Minister arrives, everything is a bit changed.

Jens Stoltenberg19:43

But then when I met my sister for family dinners or for a coffee, then she told me about how the Norwich society, which we normally look upon as a very successful, good, inclusive society,

Jens Stoltenberg19:56

actually how bad it was for those who are at the bottom of that society. So so I I still when I walk in the streets of Oslo I can see people with drug problems coming to me and they tell me about Ninja and uh they feel that they know me so they stop me and we talk and they convey the same message that uh it was important to have Ninja as a voice uh on behalf of their cause.

Presenter20:17

We've got to go to the music. It's disc number five. What have you chosen and why?

Jens Stoltenberg20:21

We are going to hear something that actually my wife told me to choose and I have great respect for her. She's a strong woman and she's a diplomat in her own rights. So I always listen to her and she told me that we should actually choose a song which is a Bob Dylan song, but it is delivered by Arne Brun and this is Make You Feel My Love.

Jens Stoltenberg20:48

And the important thing with this song is uh also that it was played uh in the BBC series Normal People, which is now extremely popular in Norway.

Speaker 220:58

When the rain is blowing in your face

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And the whole world is on your cave.

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I could offer a warm embrace

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To make you feel my love

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When evening shatters and the stars appear

Presenter21:25

And there is no one there to dry your tears.

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I could hold you for a million years

Presenter21:35

To make you feel my love. Anna Brun, make you feel my love. Secretary General, you were Prime Minister of Norway twice. During your second term, Norway experienced a day which shocked the whole world. On the 22nd of July 2011, eight people were killed when a bomb exploded outside your office in Oslo, and then 69 young people were killed in a mass shooting on the island of Utoja. What are your memories of that day?

Jens Stoltenberg22:02

For the memories are very dark. It's about um

Jens Stoltenberg22:05

Killing, it's about death, it's about brutality.

Jens Stoltenberg22:09

But the paradox with the twenty second of July is that it's both the darkest day of my life, of Norway's history after the Second World War, the most violent day we have experienced since the Second World War.

Jens Stoltenberg22:21

But it also mobilized the best things in the Norwegian society.

Jens Stoltenberg22:26

love, solidarity and the ability to support and comfort each other. So the twenty second of July is something very bad, but it also demonstrated the best and the brightest sides of the Norwegian society.

Jens Stoltenberg22:40

Of course.

Jens Stoltenberg22:41

The victims are those who lost their lives and those who lost their loved ones.

Jens Stoltenberg22:46

I was very close to many of them because partly

Jens Stoltenberg22:49

I was working in the building where the first bomb exploded and then the the mass shooting took place at this island Utoya.

Jens Stoltenberg22:56

And that's an island where the Young Labour Party has had summer camps for decades.

Jens Stoltenberg23:03

I have been there every summer since nineteen seventy four, so I in one way grew up

Jens Stoltenberg23:09

On that island, and then I was actually going there the day after the attacks, and many of the people that were killed were.

Jens Stoltenberg23:15

Friends and people I have

Jens Stoltenberg23:17

known for many uh years. So

Jens Stoltenberg23:20

So it was a brutal day, uh but also a day where we

Jens Stoltenberg23:23

saw the importance of standing together.

Presenter23:26

As families waited for news on that day, sometimes hearing the worst, you were there with them. How do you comfort someone in a situation like that?

Jens Stoltenberg23:37

It is very hard, but just to be there, to hug people, to talk about those who have passed away, share good memories.

Jens Stoltenberg23:47

And I also try to continue to contact at least some of them. So I call, meet them still and call them also before Christmas, before the twenty second of July. So I think it's important to remember that

Jens Stoltenberg23:59

Many Norwegian, of course, twenty second of july twenty eleven is now

Jens Stoltenberg24:04

a long time ago, but for those people who are really affected,

Jens Stoltenberg24:07

This is something which is still very present. There's still a child missing, a brother not there, or a

Jens Stoltenberg24:14

family member who has passed away much too early. So

Jens Stoltenberg24:17

So I think it's important to remember to show comfort, also long after the loss.

Presenter24:23

It's time for your sixth disc, Secretary General. What are we going to hear, and why have you chosen this?

Jens Stoltenberg24:29

We are going to hear Tilungdommen, and that's to the youth. It's a Norwegian song, and it's

Jens Stoltenberg24:36

In Burg Dottland. She's going to sing it. She also sang this song actually in the cathedral when we had the commemoration a few days.

Jens Stoltenberg24:47

After the terrorist attacks in twenty eleven.

Jens Stoltenberg24:50

And this song

Jens Stoltenberg24:52

became in one way the symbol of

Jens Stoltenberg24:55

the twenty second of July.

Jens Stoltenberg24:57

And almost all Norwegians are able to sing it and it's a s song with a very strong message about peace, about being against violence and the trust in the future.

Presenter25:08

Be thy test

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It's a

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Uh

Speaker 225:12

Com chadusperiomst

Speaker 225:17

Who did open?

Speaker 225:22

Vo scampe.

Speaker 225:33

Her determin Heritage

Presenter25:40

Ingebaord Bratlan and Til Undomen recorded specially for this programme.

Presenter25:46

Secretary General, outside of politics you have a passion for cross country skiing. You went to Antarctica and skied to the South Pole in twenty eleven to celebrate the centenary of the first Norwegian reaching it. What was that experience like?

Jens Stoltenberg26:00

To be at the South Pole is like being on another planet. It's three thousand meters of thick ice. It was minus thirty or forty degrees. The sun was standing in the middle above your head all the time, and it's extremely beautiful. I like to say that I have skied to the South Pole, but that's not entirely correct because we actually went in with a big aircraft and landed there at the scientific base. But then I got some skis and I skied, I guess, two or three kilometers from the South Pole and then I skied back. So in that sense, I've skied to the South Pole. But when you say that in Norway, They think that you actually skied from the sea also, and then for weeks living in a tent and skiing all the way to the South Pole. I have not done that.

Presenter26:38

Plus

Presenter26:44

Another interest of yours is vaccination and global child health. You were director of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, Gavi, working alongside Bill Gates and Nelson Mandela. So many people talk about the Mandela effect. What was your experience of it during that time?

Jens Stoltenberg27:01

Nels Mandela led the whole effort. And to see him being so strong on these issues, of course, inspired me, inspired many other people, and just demonstrate the greatness of Mandela.

Jens Stoltenberg27:15

I also had the great privilege of being able to invite him

Jens Stoltenberg27:19

to a big concert. The concert was called 46664.

Jens Stoltenberg27:25

That's the prison number of Nelson Mandela when he served his sentence in prisons. And uh that that was a concert uh in Trumse, north of the Arctic Circle. We brought him from South Africa to northern Norway.

Jens Stoltenberg27:37

And uh we had people like uh Annie Lennox and Peter Gabriel there. This was in June two thousand five. And I remember the artists, they wanted all to be at the stage uh when it was dark, when the sun had gone down.

Jens Stoltenberg27:50

But I tried to tell them that it will not be dark because in another north we have midnight sun.

Jens Stoltenberg27:54

So we ended up with Nels Mandela, Anne Lennox, Peter Gabriel and many others on the stage with you know snow on the mountains, sun shining down on all of us and then the barren sea outside the the stadium where we had the concert. So that was a great night and we stayed awake the whole night and Nels Mandela gave a great speech and it was a great concert and everyone in Trumpse remembers that concert even today.

Presenter28:20

And did he remember you as the little boy at the breakfast table?

Jens Stoltenberg28:24

He said so. Whether that's correct or not, I don't know. But he's a good good politician, so he knew that that was the right thing to say.

Presenter28:29

What's the right

Presenter28:31

It's time for your next piece of music. What are we going to hear?

Jens Stoltenberg28:34

Free Nels Mandela. And it's important for me because I grew up with that song as part of the anti-apartheid movement in Norway. But of course important for the movement all over the world. And then meeting Nels Mandela later in life. That is an important song for me, but also for many other people all around the world.

Speaker 329:00

Twenty-one years captivity. His shoes too small to fit his feet. His body abused, but his mind is still free. Are you so blind that you cannot see?

Speaker 229:15

I'm not sure.

Presenter29:24

Special aka and free Nelson Mandela. Secretary General, I'm about to cast you away to a solitary life on your desert island. What do you hope it'll be like?

Jens Stoltenberg29:35

I think I would like to g actually go to an Arctic island because for me to stay on a beach where it's very hot, that's something I would not like to do for many hours. If I can go to an Arctic island,

Jens Stoltenberg29:46

I can then at least combine that with my favorite sport, cross-country skiing.

Jens Stoltenberg29:51

And therefore if it's uh possible I would actually choose to go to an Arctic island.

Presenter29:55

I don't see why not. Now, we've all been a bit more isolated than usual lately, I think. I wonder whether your experience of lockdown has taught you anything about yourself.

Jens Stoltenberg30:04

It has actually taught me that I don't like to be isolated. I'm a very social person, both when it comes to private social life, um my wife, my family, my friends.

Jens Stoltenberg30:14

But also when it comes to working, I like to be in the same room as the people I work with. If we are going to discuss a text or a message or whatever, of course we can do that on phone, we can do it on video conferences and so on, but it's not the same. If I'm going to read, I can be alone, then I can sit and read. But as soon as I'm going to do something more to be creative or to try to shape or to formulate something, then I like to be together with others and discuss and interact.

Presenter30:42

We're going to hear just one more disc from you today. What's it going to be and why have you chosen this?

Jens Stoltenberg30:47

This artist is a friend of mine. I have known her for many years. It's also because she is very much connected to this island, Utah, where we had this mass shooting in 2011. She has played there many, many times. And then she is also a great artist. So Ingri Ulawa from up here.

Presenter31:07

Here you can see it makes sense.

Presenter31:11

You don't wanna change

Speaker 231:13

You don't wanna be anyone else

Speaker 231:17

Please all right.

Speaker 231:19

Could enough as yourself

Speaker 231:22

And you're free.

Presenter31:31

Some of us go where the wind is blowing.

Presenter31:36

So we travel every night

Presenter31:39

Ingri Oliver and from up here. So, Secretary General, I'm sending you away with three books. You can have the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and another book of your choosing. What will that be?

Jens Stoltenberg31:51

I think actually that would be a textbook in statistics, partly because I really want to study statistics. That was my favorite subject before I left the Central Bureau of Statistics and moved into politics in nineteen ninety.

Jens Stoltenberg32:05

But also because actually it's extremely time consuming to to read uh textbooks in statistics. You can spend days uh just uh reading and learning and understanding.

Jens Stoltenberg32:16

three, four pages. So if I only have one book, I think I can spend a lot of time on that. While if the alternative is a kind of novel or some other normal book, I will read it in a few days and then I don't have anything more to read. So a textbook in statistics is something that I can

Jens Stoltenberg32:31

Comfort me and give me something to do for many, many days.

Presenter32:35

It's wonderful, a wonderful choice, and all yours. It does quite sound a little intense, an Arctic Island with a book on statistics. So I think we'd also better give you a luxury item, something to make your stay more enjoyable on the island. What would you like?

Jens Stoltenberg32:48

It is obvious that that has to be a pair of skis because on the Arctic Island that's the only way to move across the snow and it's also the only way to have some kind of activity. So a pair of skis would be a great luxury item for me to have on that Arctic Island.

Presenter33:03

They're yours. And finally, which one of these discs would you save above all the others if you had to?

Jens Stoltenberg33:09

Tilung Dommen in because it symbolizes so much about everything I care about. So that's the song I would like to keep.

Presenter33:18

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Jens Stoltenberg33:24

Thank you again for having me.

Presenter33:37

Hello. I really hope you enjoyed that interview with Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO. You'll have heard him refer to the time that he spent working with Nelson Mandela and Bill Gates on the global vaccination program. Bill Gates was cast away to our island by Kirster Young back in 2016, and you can find his brilliant programme in our archive and if you search through BBC Sounds. Next time my guest will be legendary DJ Annie Nightingale. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 334:17

Bloodsport is the story of how the Russian state doped the 2012 Olympics and everything that followed.

Presenter34:22

2012 was just um a bit of a bit of a kick in the nuts. I don't know if I can do it. People that had been placed here by the Kremlin to try to find Dr. Richenkoff.

Speaker 234:30

Uh

Jens Stoltenberg34:34

Uh

Speaker 234:35

Bong.

Jens Stoltenberg34:35

Uh

Speaker 234:35

They could have stopped that. They had the information. They had the sources.

Presenter34:38

Smoking gun.

Speaker 234:40

It's the most extraordinary sports story of all time. How many people were working in the laboratory then though at that time, didn't they?

Speaker 334:42

I deny denying

Jens Stoltenberg34:44

Time

Jens Stoltenberg34:47

There.

Speaker 334:48

Yeah.

Jens Stoltenberg34:51

Join me, Matt Magentine.

Speaker 334:52

As we tell the complete story for the first time.

Speaker 334:56

That they're incredibly brave people, aren't they?

Speaker 334:58

That's

Presenter34:58

Flexible A rubber.

Speaker 334:59

Russia doped the 2012 Olympics. You can subscribe to it on BBC Sounds.