CNN Moderator: Sir Jeremy Isaacs is one of Britain's most acclaimed filmmakers. He is best-known for "The World at War", an award-winning documentary chronicling World War II. Jeremy, when were you first approached about the COLD WAR series?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: In August 1994 Ted Turner had the idea of doing the COLD WAR, he asked me because he was a fan of the World at War that I produced in the 1970s which is still playing in the US. Anyway Ted is a fan of it and he asked Pat Mitchell to find me and produce COLD WAR for him.

CNN Moderator: What was your initial reaction to Ted's invitation?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: At the time I was the general director of the Royal Opera House in London but I realized that a history of the Cold War would take me personally well beyond my time at the Opera House and I realized that it was something that I very much wanted to do. It was, if you like, a sequel to "The World at War". So I came to Atlanta, met Ted Turner, liked what he had to say, and shook hands on the deal that I would do it.

Chat Participant: Do you think that with current political and economic problems in Russia, that we could see a return to communism and the need to revisit the Cold War again?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: I think it is not impossible that there could be a return to communism in Russia, but I do not believe that that would lead to the major power block confrontation that we saw in the Cold War. Whoever governs Russia in the next few years, will have major difficulties to cope with at home and will be in no shape to start up another international confrontation.

CNN Moderator: You conducted more than 500 interviews for this series. How were you able to track so many people down and convince them to talk about the history?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: Well there are two sorts of people interviewed for the series; political leaders, i.e. statesman, and men and women of power and authority. They are all easy to find, it's just a question of whether they will agree or not. Most of the people we talked to wanted to be put on record in this series. It helped that they knew that everything they said would be put on record on the Web, not just the small proportion of what they said that we actually use on TV. But it is very important to the series that we also hear from ordinary men and women, who are not big names, who simply experienced the Cold War for themselves. Whether as G.I.s in Vietnam, or Russian soldiers in Afghanistan, or women in Berlin or Prague or Warsaw or Budapest whose lives were affected by the Cold War. These people were hard to find but we had the best researchers in the business. We were able to tell all sides.

CNN Moderator: How were you able to ensure the accuracy and fairness of the series?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: We had the great benefit of three historical advisors, a Russian, an American, and a British professor of history; Vlad Zubok, John Gaddis, and Laurence Freedman. They read every outline we wrote, commented on every roughcut, checked every final script.

Chat Participant: Who do you think the next major threat to the allies is?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: In the world today, the big problem is not the confrontation of another major power - though if it were, that power might be China - but the instability caused by lesser powers brandishing their weapons and threatening neighbors. I'm thinking of the Balkans and the Middle East.

Chat Participant: What significance was there in the more assertive position the Reagan administration took in the end of the Cold War? Some say the Soviet Union would have fallen anyway.

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: I think that Ronald Reagan's outspoken views against the communist system and his insistence on strengthening America's defenses did help end the Cold War sooner than it might have otherwise. But I also believe that Mikhail Gorbachev played an important role. The most remarkable thing is that for all his harsh appearance, Reagan turned out to have a loathing for nuclear war, and to seize the opportunity of reaching agreement with Gorbechev.

Chat Participant: Do you think the U.S.A. will end up in a Cold War with China?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: I think it is possible that there will be some sort of standoff between the United States and China in the next century. But history never repeats itself exactly. If there is a confrontation, it may be very different from the Cold War.

Chat Participant: Could you speak about the influence of writers like Solzhenitsyn in the demise of the Soviet Union?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: I think the bravest people in the whole of the Cold War were those who lived within the Soviet system, whether in the USSR or in Eastern Europe, and spoke out against it. There is no doubt that the great writers like Solzhenitsyn helped keep freedom alive. Maybe the bravest person was Andrei Sakaharov. He managed to speak out against tyranny while still remaining in Russia, true to his own nationality.

CNN Moderator: The series features rarely seen archival footage from behind the Iron Curtain -- where did you get it and how did you get it?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: Our film researchers and in particularly and our senior film researcher, Alison McAllan, spent many months in Moscow at various film archives; principally the one at Krasnagorsk. She was there at a good time because the archives were open. And people in them were willing to deal with the West.

CNN Moderator: As mentioned earlier, you interviewed hundreds of people for COLD WAR. Is there one key player who you weren't able to film for the series?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: Lady Thatcher was not willing to be interviewed. In her book, in her memoirs, she reckons that she won the Cold War. We think maybe she preferred not to be in a series which examined other claims. But of course, she is in the series because she was so cogently on the record at the time.

Chat Participant: How much of a player do you think Fidel Castro might be in the next century?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: I think Fidel Castro has been a considerable player in this century. One of the things we discovered about the Cold War is that Cuba was not a mere Soviet puppet but a player in its own right. But Castro is getting on in years. He will not be a major figure in the next century.

CNN Moderator: Who was the most fascinating person you interviewed for the series?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: The most fascinating person I interviewed is an impossible question to answer. What makes an interview fascinating is the story that a man or woman has to tell. Over and over again, we hear extraordinary stories from people who survived the Gulag, the Soviet prison system, or escaped across the Berlin Wall or survived a war in Angola or in Central America.

I can give you the most terrifying story in Cold War. (It) is told by a prime minister of Hungary, Nemeth. He tells us that the freedom fighters who were captured at the end of the failed revolution of 1956 were shot. He also tells us that young men, actually boys, who were captured (at) the age of 16 or 17 were kept in prison until their 18th birthdays, and then shot.

Chat Participant: With the Cold War basically over, do you think the world is a safer place than before?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: In one way the world is safer. Two great powers are no longer threatening each other with nuclear weapons, but there are many local wars. You are not safe if you live in Kosovo. The other danger now is that more powers have nuclear weapons and are beginning to threaten to use them.

Chat Participant: Could we possibly see another Hitler, Stalin, or Mussolini in the 21st century?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: Yes, I fear so. Human nature does not change so completely as to mean that an evil figure cannot lead a powerful state.

Chat Participant: Am I correct in assuming that the aftermath of the Cold War could be a "hot war"?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: The Cold War kept the peace in Europe for 45 years, Gildore. It did not turn into a hot war. But now that it is over, there seems to be more danger of small hot wars. We must all hope that there is not a big one.

Chat Participant: What advice do you have for a budding documentary producer?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: Learn to use a camera and a recorder! Learn to tell the truth about the situations you report. If you are interested in historical documentaries, get to know your way about the archives and good luck, Sutoke!

Chat Participant: Seeing the trouble Russia is presently facing, do you see the possibility of a return to a communist state?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: The Communist Party is the biggest political party in Russia, but I shall still be surprised if there is a simple return to the past.

CNN Moderator: Was 24 episodes sufficent to tell the whole story of the Cold War?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: Yes, 24 episodes were long enough to do it. I tried at first to do it in 20, but Ted Turner persuaded me to add episodes to make sure that important subject matter did not get skimped. So there is more in the series about Africa and Central America than there would have been. There is also a program on Spies and it is a knockout.

CNN Moderator: Was it more difficult to produce COLD WAR or "The World at War"?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: In one way, it was more difficult to make COLD WAR, because the subject matter is tougher. Because there is so much political negotiation and thank goodness far less actual fighting. But I and my colleagues found COLD WAR quite easy to make because we knew exactly what we were doing and the techniques of this sort of documentary film making have become much simpler over the last 20 odd years. It is easier to shoot interviews on tape than on film, and easier to edit in a modern edit suite than with the old methods of a razor blade and sticky tape. Computers have helped a lot.

Chat Participant: What lessons could we learn about the Cold War, and so far has the world seemed to have learned anything from it?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: In the Cold War, we came very often to the brink of using nuclear weapons. Because statesmen on both sides behaved responsibility, we always avoided it. So the principle lesson for world leaders to learn, particularly if they have nuclear weapons, is think THINK THINK before you act.

Chat Participant: Do you think that some day the Communist powers Russia and China will unite?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: No. I think that world unity is no longer a credible aim for any communist powers. Russia itself may not revert to communism. China may not continue to be Communist. I think there is more likelihood of big power rivalry than of ideological conflict.

Chat Participant: In hindsight, how accurate do you believe the framers of the policy of containment were ... and who do you credit most for the success of originating the policy?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: I think the policy of containment was successful, and that the credit belongs both to George Kennan and to President Truman's advisors in the State Department at that time. And I think the credit for carrying out the policy over 45 years belongs to every American president and to the bipartisanship support they got in the United States and from their allies abroad.

CNN Moderator: What impact do think your series will have on school children?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: I hope very much that the series COLD WAR on broadcast, backed up on the CNN COLD WAR Web site, supplemented by the book which I have written on COLD WAR to accompany the series with my colleague Taylor Downing, will enable young people in the United States and across the world to learn about and to understand the major events of their parents' and their grandparents' lives. And that this will help them understand their parents and grandparents, and will equip them to better understand their present and their future.

Chat Participant: What do you think might happen in Cuba after Castro dies?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: I think Cuba will cease to be communist.

CNN Moderator: Why?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: Because if people are given a choice, they choose not to be communist. Castro is a very remarkable man. In the last program of the series, he says, he asks us, 'Why do you think that communism will not continue?' He suggests that selfishness is not a proper basis for society. And that vision of the communal good deserves to survive. But Vaclav Havel, president of the Czech republic who speaks in the program immediately after Castro says that any system that is evil, that denies people their freedom, cannot survive indefinitely.

CNN Moderator: You interviewed Mikhail Gorbachev for the series -- do you think history will be more fair to him than the Russian people?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: I believe that history should be kind to Gorbachev. I can understand the Russian people were not kind and are not kind to him. He achieved his international goals but his actions in government led to the end of communist rule,and to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Some Russians regret both of those developments and the economic situation has got, if anything, worse. There is not enough to eat. But history will judge Gorbachev as the man who did as much as anyone else to end the Cold War. The American historian and former diplomat, Raymond L. Garthoff says that it could not have ended the way it did without Gorbachev, and that cannot be said of anyone else.

CNN Moderator: If you had been given the opportunity to interview Ronald Reagan, what would have been the question you most wanted him to answer?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: 'When did you make up your mind that there was an opening here, for agreement on arms limitation that would lead to peace? Was it always something you had in mind? If so, why did you use the language you did about the Soviet Union in the early years of your presidency?' I would point out here that throughout COLD WAR we find an ambivalence between the rhetoric of political leaders and their actions, when it comes to the point. They are often more pragmatic in their dealings than in their speeches.

Chat Participant: Did the fall of the Berlin Wall only symbolize the collapse of the Cold War, or was it something more?

Sir Jeremy Isaacs: The fall of the Berlin Wall was more than just the end or nearly the end of an ideological and military confrontation. It was an event so joyous, so redolent of human happiness as to mark a milestone for humanity. Entire nations which had been, and I quote, 'buried alive' rose up like Lazarus and found their freedom. It was a transcendental moment. But of course life doesn't necessarily get any easier after that. I would like to thank everybody who has asked a question and to hope that all those who are interested in the Cold War will watch the series and find it worth doing so. Thank you and good night.