4:37 pm welcome. my name is andrew olmem and i'm the managing partner of mayer 4:38 pm brown washington, d.c. office. i'm thrilled that you could join us tonight for what's going to be a fascinating and very insightful discussion with my colleague, former ambassador john sullivan, about his terrific new book, midnight in moscow, about his tenure as ambassador to the russian federation. for our program tonight. following our discussion, there will be an opportunity for book signing as well as a social hour. so you'll have a chance to ask john some additional questions. but if you do have questions that you'd like to ask during the program, we have ushers who you can submit questions to, and they'll hand them to me to ask. so feel free to ask any question you liked of ambassador sullivan tonight. if you can, as you can also notice, we're very fortunate to have c-span with us tonight and they are recording this event. so just be aware that the cameras are rolling. now, i want to begin by...
