author jeff quinn. you open your most recent book, waco, with this quote from rick perlstein, the historian. a fog of cross-cut motives and narratives, the complexity that defies storybook simplicity at a that is usually the way history happens. i think the quote is the most cogent of ever heard. rick does a tremendous job himself and it's true. know historic event happens in a vacuum. it's tied to many other things. and that's the fascination in research and writing on narrative, nonfiction, history. what i read a quote from you as well, and this is from 2021 in

the cleburne times review. a lot of people no longer want to buy nonfiction to learn things. they want nonfiction books to reflect what they already believe. want books to reinforce their opinions. they want books that tell them everything they believe is absolutely right and that the other side is even worse than they thought. if you take a look at the bestseller list for nonfiction, for the last several years, there's three categories. generally represented. the first books by political commentators who are associated in the public mind with one side or the other, talking about how the nation isn't. nation is in danger from the opposition. america is going to hell. here's what we've got to do to save the country. starting with you, watching my network and buying my books.

the second category is religious in nature. how i came to understand god's plan for my life. what god wants us to learn from reading the bible. and the third category is what i call the magic button. ten ways you can make your fortune. nine ways to ensuring a happy marriage. there are fewer and fewer titles represented on the bestseller list that are simply in depth fact filled objective looks at certain aspects of american history. but there are still people who want to read those, and it's still important to get the history down. that's what i tried to do. well, tell us then, jeff cohen, what do bonnie and clyde wyatt earp, jim jones, david koresh, charles manson have in common?

people that you've written about. is there a similar is there a thread through that? oddly enough, there is. my goal has always been to write books that capture the sweep of american history from the final settling of the west to the present day. and each of these subjects are iconic. we remember them. people tend to remember them in different ways. and a lot of the time they want myth rather than fact. i've always thought that the facts are far more interesting than anything could be made up. when i pick a subject, let's use manson as an example. what i wanted to do was write about the late 1960s in america, which in terms of a chaotic time, makes today look peaceful when we're all living in unison. to write about that era, you need someone or something from that era that will make readers want to pick up the book and

open it. for better or worse, charlie manson represented a lot about the late 1960s. the culture at the time, the things people wanted to talk about, the things people got obsessed with. so i wrote a book about manson, but it's really about the late 1960s. everyone in you named is represented a certain era in america. what people were doing, thinking, believing at thewhat , thinking, and believing at the time. >> regardless of your topics, and tell me if i am wrong. i find in your writing you treat your subjects and topics with respect. maybe respect is not the right word. but, that is what struck me. jeff: thank you for saying that. i think the worst thing you can do if you want to write a book about some aspect of history is to go into it thinking you already know everything you need to know about it. it and you have already formed opinions about everything you

will write about that are unshakable. people that take that approach are really only telling readers what happened. some dates, some names. i think it is important to try to learn how things happened and why they happened. and, what things, earlier might have precipitated the events that bring about bonnie and clyde's short two year spate of crime. if you do that, you may not agree with the people that are the subjects of the book. but, you can at least demonstrate understanding of what -- made them become what they were. if you can do that, i think readers not only get a better sense of them, but a better sense of the time they lived in. if you can do that, i think a book has succeeded. >> when it comes to bonnie and clyde, i almost felt sorry for bonnie. most of those two years she was in pain from being shot and

riding around in a ford through undeveloped america. jeff: that is what i mean about mythology. there was a wonderful movie in 1960 7, 1968 about bonnie and clyde. it was fascinating. you went to the movie and watched it and you were gripped by it. at least 5% was historically accurate. it was a fine movie, but it was entertainment. i wanted to know what they were really like. bonnie parker is a poor girl coming from a dreadful dallas slum. her dream was to be famous. to be a world-famous actress. people did not come looking for pulitzer actresses where bonnie lived. she was tiny. she was the brightest people throughout her school years. girls in those days, it did not matter how smart they were. she wanted fame. she wanted attention. for a poor kid, when she got together with clyde barrow, and

the newspapers needed something to write about besides the depression and farm foreclosures, here is the romeo and juliet of crime pulling off during robberies and high-speed escapes. they were bumbling criminals. they did not rob banks much because they were not sophisticated enough to do that. if we look at it from the aspects of poor kids that when they had no other option in life, when they are ambitious, have to turn to something illegal, this does not forgive the they committed. people died. it is horrible. but, at least it lets us understand why, to them, it was the obvious and only way out of the poverty stricken lives they were going to be living otherwise. in the same light, -- >> in the

same light, how did a movie and mythology develop around the ok corral? was it that big a video? jeff: it was a big deal in a different way than it is remembered. let's state the obvious. it was not a shootout. it was a police stop to take a couple weapons that went bad. it did not happen in the ok corral. but, when western history became a thing in america around the turn of the 20th century, the 1900s, that masterson that we remember saying -- seeing on tv with a bowler hat and a cane who was a gambler and buffalo hunter turned journalist made his living writing these wonderful tales of authentic western heroes that still walk among us. when he picked was wyatt earp. who had a checkered past at best.

that fabulous shootout at the ok corral is what we remember. guns drawn around horses and everything else. but what the ok corral really meant is this was a time when survivors, the earp brothers and a doc holliday were brought to trial. for people dying at their hands using guns. while they were acquitted, the case got great coverage. it really sent a message to the frontier. before, you could use your excuse that if you pulled your gun and kill somebody, i thought he was going to kill me. i pulled first. this meant the restrictions of w had come to the frontier and will be there to stay. that what was -- is what was important about the subsequent trial. the gunfight itself at the ok corral was popular mythology

that helped that --bat masterson cell stories to a lot of newspapers, formed the basis for a lot of movies people still like watching to this day. but it was not really what happened. >> how is it wyatt earp became the known earp over virgil earp, who was actually the sheriff in tombstone? >> wyatt earp in his law enforcement days was never the head honcho. he was always one of the deputies that had to do all the work that the sheriff did not want to. when wyatt was working for wichita, his job was scraping dead animals above the street in the sidewalks. but, wyatt was friends with the notorious doc holliday. doc was notorious even in his own time. he looked right. this tall, striking, handsome man.

he was greatly ambitious. he wanted to be rich. he wanted to be famous. he wanted to be well known. in his later years, when his image had become across -- had become famous across the country through newspaper articles he worked to get his memoir out to take advantage of that. so the marketing of wyatt earp is greatly responsible for the shows we remember today. the truth is so much more interesting. about a multidimensional man who, like all of us, had good points and bad points. but he was ambitious and determined to make something of himself. his only regret at the end of his life was he was about to get really famous but did not make any money out of it. >> sitting in tucson we are what, 45 minutes, one hour from tombstone, arizona. the founding of tombstone.

how did it become a town? >> tombstone was one of those towns across the frontiers of america in that era where there were great mineral deposits discovered. in tombstone's case, silver. the pesky apaches had been moved out. or at least, partially moved out . when the miners settled in and began producing large quantities of valuable minerals. a silver in tombstone, mostly, that is when all of the businessmen came roaring in. you needed restaurants. you needed bars where they could drink. you needed ladies of the evening so they can have a little companionship. and, the towns would spring up and mostly die out within a few years when mineral deposits were all used up.

tombstone lasted a little longer than that. and it is still there. for a lot of people it is their chance to go to where the old west still really exists. this is exactly what it looks like. and, the simulated shootout at the ok corral is exactly how it happened. people love going to tombstone. >> what is it like today as a tourist attraction? >> i say this with respect for people in the town that have managed to survive and even thrive by making use of the things that happened there. for wild west history buffs, this is the equivalent of disneyland. you can go there. you can meet larger-than-life characters. you can have a couple throw brides so to speak. and, you can feel like you are back there just like it was. except, nobody will shoot you in the back.

there are no drunken minors staggering around. and there are no dead animals in the street. >> one thing that struck me about the last gunfight is every western town you have charted and researched kaplan laws. -- kept gun laws. there were no handguns allowed in the city when -- city limits. >> this is a wonderful thing about writing and reading history. one thing i firmly believe his history is cyclical until we make a final effort. during the time of the herbs in tombstone, these were the great things of the day. government. how much of it did we need. how much of our lives should government stay out of? immigration. we cannot have these people crossing american borders and taking jobs away from real americans. and, gun control. this is my gun.

if i want to wear it in town, who is to say i cannot? the very people today that idolize the old west. they think we can stroll around downtown with our six shooters strapped to both thighs. with my trusty winchester shotgun across my shoulder. they had gun laws. you are not allowed to bring your gun into town. you had to check it. they knew that a combination of liquor, macho tendencies, people that want to prove how tough they are. if you have guns, bad things will happen. so, they would not allow the guns. the nra would not last an hour in old tombstone when virgil earp was in charge. i think the nra does not mention that in any of their popular literature, yet it is a fact. these issues that were splitting

america apart in the 1880's, we have still got them. the reason we do is we do not look back at history and see where all of this began and it gives us threads to decide, ok, we now have to stop and get some common sense gun laws. laws regarding immigration. and, we have to have some national assessment, some agreement of how much government is necessary in our lives. today we have people lashing out and screaming at each other. we really don't have these debates. 100 years from now our grandchildren may very well be saying, and you believe in gam plus -- in grandpa's time at a the 20 20's they are talking about the same thing we are now, immigration, gun laws, government intervention? if we are going to stop we have to go back to genesis and say, ok, this is what we have to do.

otherwise, we will repeat this again. peter: in your next book "manson: the life and times of charles manson". what was your goal with that book? so much has been written about him and this did not come out until 2013. jeff: charlie manson in his lifetime was always the wrong man in the right place at the right time. if he had committed the crimes he was originally jailed for, eyes and he most incompetent temp -- i think he was the most incompetent pimp in the history of american prostitution and an incompetent car thief. if he had been jailed in nebraska and appeared in downtown omaha claiming to be a prophet and handing out drugs to adult kids looking for somebody to tell them what to do, the locals would have stuck him on a pitchfork and put him in a field as a scarecrow. but just in the time in american life or california was where

everybody on in america was looking for inspiration. i was in college at austin, texas. all i think why can't i be in san francisco or los angeles where the culture is great, the music is wonderful, the philosophy is there? manson gets out of prison. he ends up in berkeley, california. a hotbed of protests. then, he goes across the bay to san francisco. these were places where young kids flocked. they were looking for gurus like the beatles had. i found people that knew manson at this time. they would describe how manson would go to golden gate park where every day there would be dozens of self-appointed gurus that would preach to the kids gathered around them. all of the kids hoping they would hear some great wisdom. charlie would call two or three things that seemed to be very

effective. then he would go to the free clinic in haight-ashbury where sick kids were jammed in the lobby and preach to them there, getting his patter down. then he would go back to golden gate. he would proclaim himself as a prophet. it worked enough with some ragtag kids that they decided charlie was some great profit. maybe even some religious figure. he made sure they had all of the drugs they wanted. and, he pursued his dream of musical superstardom. which did not happen. have you ever heard any manson tapes he made at the time? i had a son who wanted to be a musician. at 12 he and some other six graders formed a garage band before our neighbors asked us to close it down or move. that wasn't charlie manson's level of music sophistication. it was never going to happen. but only in that place and not

that time could he have gained his followers he did. and been able to talk them into committing a couple horrific crimes that just at that moment caught the attention of the country. there was a newspaper war in an a. the papers were vying for who could have the most lurid story about the tate love younger murders today -- tate labianca motors. thus the charlie manson mythology springs up. at this little hippie man with magical powers. but he was a scrawny little thug. we remember him differently because of the times he lived in. that is why i wrote the book. peter: there is an image stuck in my head from 1960 9-1970 of charlie manson with susan adkins, leslie karen winkle, patricia van halton. the three women part of his gang.

it is stuck there in time. jeff: of course it has stuck there. it is very dramatic. i spent a lot of time with leslie and patricia researching the work. they are in corona california women's prison for life. they will never get out because no california governor wants to be the one to let any of the manson family out on the world. but, they remember the whole trial. vince, of course, the prosecutor, right that fabulous true crime book "helter-skelter" that has sold over 9 million copies in the years since. for charlie it is what he dreamed of. he is the center of international attention. every day before the trial opened and the media came in, charlie, his lawyers, and the three women are who were -- women who were on trial with him convened for strategy sessions and charlie would say, i will do

this outrageous thing today. what i do it, i want you three women to jump up and say this. he orchestrated every step of it. if he had gone into selling vacuum cleaners instead of crime, he might have been a multimillionaire. but, he had an image and he told them. he told these women that he was going to play crazy charlie. the knot case. at -- the nut case until it became so obvious that he was too crazy to be incarcerated for the crimes. but, they did not see the crazy charging just charlie. they saw the calculating charlie. having them, houton and krewinkle two that gives -- to attest to that gives us fascinating inside. i did not know much about charlie manson before i started.

when i started the book i sure did not like or admire him. but, you had to shake your head at some of the man had. he knew how to sell himself and he sold himself in blood. peter: what was it like sitting across the table from leslie van houton and patricia krenwinkle knowing what they have done? jeff: in that prison if you are visiting them you are not allowed to bring in a pan or pen -- a pad or pen or a recording device. i spent a day interviewing one or the other because they aren't friends anymore and it didn't want to sit at the same table are the same time. peter: and they are olladies? jeff: we remember them fren in time and in a way they still are. leslie, the popular pretty girl on a high school is 21 all of this happens and she still has the little girl gestures.

when she is talking to you, she plays with her hair. she giggles. she reaches out to pet your hand like the pretty flirtatious girl in high school would do. they would talk and i would have to raise back to my hotel and try to write it down. patricia krenwinkle at one point, an old woman now that spencer days in prison training rescue dogs to be guide dogs for the blind. she will not remind you, as you see her, of anybody dangerous. she is telling me about stabbing abigail folger on the lawn of the house on the night of the first murder. she is remembering how it does not hurt your hand when you stab unless you have bone. then your hand really hurts. i went back to the motel. i was trying to transcribe is

best that i could. about three in the morning i finished. i tried to go to sleep and i could not. for months afterwards, my wife would wake me up in the middle of the night because i was screaming, having a nightmare about women with knives coming towards me. it is not easy sometimes hearing what people say. but, you have to listen to what they are saying. if they are honest enough to really come out and tell you these things, then, you better not go, oh, i do not want to hear it. you have to hear it and write it in such a way that the reader is sitting right there with you hearing somebody tell you this thing. you want the reader emotionally invested. because, that is when history counts. that is when it matters. when it is not a high school textbook. peter: what was the process like of getting into the present and

convincing the two women to speak with you? jeff: it was difficult. in some form, they will occasionally talk outsiders because they think that if they talk about what they did and that they were guilty it will have weight with the parole board. it took a little while. i think i went back five different weekends and spent the weekend there doing interviews. but, once people feel like they are having a conversation, that somebody is listening, then, they tell their stories a little bit differently. the trick is not to say to someone, tell me about this god awful crime you committed. does it keep you awake at night? people do not want confrontational questions. if you can say, can you help me understand how this happened and what brought you to this point? everyone wants to explain. there again is the challenge of the historian.

make people comfortable enough to try to help you understand their viewpoint that does not mean readers read of the manson book and oh my god, patricia krenwinkle, leslie van houten they are wonderful people and i hope they are my neighbors. it does not forgive horrific crimes. we need to look beyond what happened for why and how. that is where the story really matters. peter: was your next book about jim jones and jonestown a natural follower to the manson book? jeff: i have never really been categorized as a writer of a certain type and i never wanted -- a certain type of history and i never wanted to be known as a cold writer. i do not think there is a generic type of cult. from the manson family to david

karesh and the branch davidians there are similarities and differences. but haven't written about the late 1960's i wanted to learn more. i am 18, 19, 20, growing up now. how do we segue from the chaos of the late 60's into, let's go with ronnie reagan and conservatism? that is sweeping the country in the 70's. what has to happen? five was going to write about the 70's i thought two teams would resonate with readers. one was watergate. i thought there was nothing new i could bring to watergate. whenever there is about that is there. the other was people's temple and what happened in jonestown in guyana. supposedly the prime example in our history of when some charlatan gets a bunch of sheepish followers to do his bidding up to and including killing themselves.

don't drink the kool-aid is part of our lexicon. i thought, could there be something in that? i started poking around and learned two things. first, it was not kool-aid. it was a cheap knockoff called flavor aid and as many as one third of the people that died in jonestown did not voluntarily drink it. they were forcibly injected. it was mass murder. the second thing is if jim jones had been hit by a car and killed in the late 50's or early 60's, he would be considered one of the leaders of the early civil rights movement in america. i found people that said to me, i would not be alive without jim jones and people's temple. how could he change into what he became? how could he have attracted such attention at this time in america? why would he have been driven overseas by bad press and decide

on this final fatal and historic way of demonstrating his disdain? i did not think of myself as writing my follow-up cold --cu lt book. i was writing a book about somebody that unexpectedly achieved great infamy but unlike manson actually accomplished a great deal of good. how does that fit together? peter: just, the survivors that left the peoples temple, do they still hold an informal reunion in november? jeff: the surviving members of the people's temple are in a way kind of like your extended family. they have squabbles. but, up until a few years ago, every year they would all come together around labor day. not just a comfort each other, but to know they were with other

people that would understand. they were treated with such great disdain when they survived jonestown. oh, you are the kool-aid idiots. what's the matter? 12 -- weren't you thirsty that day? what kind of full are you that you could follow someone like jim jones? the people of -- that joined and followed jim jones did not materially benefit from anything. he was using his church, and when i say church i use quotation marks. because, it was really meant as an institution to bring about social change. racial equality, economic equality. gender equality. they came to give rather than to get. bit by bit, they got sucked into something far worse. they do not think people understand what happened. i will say this. i have written 25 books now. when i did the road to

jonestown, when i was done i had about a dozen new lifelong friends that i see to this day. former members of the people's temple. they are some of the most intelligent, culturally concerned people you could meet anywhere. they are wonderful. and, getting to write about them and the things that happened was a great privilege for me. i learned so much writing the book. peter: good afternoon and welcome to book tv's monthly index program. this month we are at the tucson festival of books in arizona and our guest is historian and investigative reporter jeff quinn. -- jeff guinn. we have talked about several of his books and we will go through a couple more in a minute. we want to make sure you have a chance to get involved in the program as well. we will be taking your phone calls this afternoon along with your text messages and any social media comments you would

like to make. 202 is area code for all of our numbers. 748-8201 if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones. if you want to send a text message, include your first name and a if you would. you can send it to this number 202748 8903. we will scroll through our social media sites. remember, @booktv is our handle. just -- jeff guinn, we will get to a couple other books. i want to go from jonestown to your most recent book "waco". reason we go. see you rush in dean's lived in a large sprawling house with a cold mount carmel on a hill

outside of waco, texas. they pretty much kept to themselves. they literally believed every word of the bible and they believe that david koresh was the book of revelations and he and his followers were about to bring about the end of time of revolution by battling the forces of babylon. they have come to the attentions ofme atf, out cold tobacco firearms for being an possession of semi automatic weapons that had been converted to automatic weapons. there's nothing illegal about doing that in 1993. you can register each weapon and you save tax for doing so. the branch davidians had not donet that. disgruntled former branch davidian had made claims m to af that those that were left following david koresh were quite likelyfo to take some of

theire automatic weapons, the ones they didn't sell at gun shows and descend into waco or some other place and slaughter innocent people as a means of bringing inme the government, bringing about the end times of the bible. so atf thought it was not acted to confiscate illegal automatic weapons but in fact public safety was involved. they thought it was going to be the easiest operation possible. these obviously believe this from somebody who simplifies fraud. they planned to make this a bloodless hugely successful raid. their budget hearings were coming up in march and they wanted to film the whole thing and prove to senators and congress that they weren't bloodthirsty people trying to wipe out innocent gunowners.

the branch davidians were waiting and there was a three-hour firefight. six of the branch davidians died, four agents died in 16 more per wanted almost a third of the agents. a long siege ensd with the fbi surrounding mount carmel. negotiators thought they were makingt progress in getting koresh to agree to come out for the fbi lost patience on april 19 and they decided they would smoke the branch davidians out for a couple of days. the ranch davidians died except for nine whon skate -- who escaped and that became the

genesis with all the controversy afterwards that clearly has led to a number of violent incidents ever since, so there is not just a mount carmel story detail of the consequences. that the branch davidians, is it fair to say they started out as a pretty legitimate offshoot? >> the branch davidians, first called the shepherds rod in los angeles were started in the 1920s by an adventist named victor how it is to believe that is all adventist did that you had to live by the rules of the bible and then sometimes in the reasonably near future that they would come when would judge everyone and the only people who would survive that judgment go on to live in the gray season of god to be the ones who strictly adhere to the structure.

they believe the seventh-day adventistse -- adventist when their leadership didn't agree he and his followers went off in a move to waco, texas this land was there and they wanted room for all the souls that were going to be saved on the last days to be able to gather together. they kept to themselves and they tried to recruit new members in the adventist church. they believed only people that went to that church would ever be able to follow with a straightened out. a couple profits of continued to follow. a woman took us her disciple a young stammering bubbly young guy from houston named perdue wayne howell.

under her tutelage he revealed himself as being informed by him and of kingyr cyrus the old testament.t. he had to take the name koresh because cyrus was renounce koresh in hebrew. he was the lamb of the book of revelation. it was to lead his followers to the final end of days. they are not only coming now we are the ones to do it. whatever else we talk about today this is what we must remember.. they firmly believed in the survivor still believe this that the god they believed in had told them through his profit david koresh what they must do and so they would do it even if secular law said no because law is the only true law. whatever else we may think with

all the things that happen they sincerely devoutly believe they were doing the work of god. i really had to work to learn that and accept it before i could start writing about their perspective on things. if you read the book, again it doesn't mean you're going to say oh they did what was right but at least you willll know why thy did things and how to. the really critical elements of history. >> charles manson, jim jones, vernon wayne howell aka david koresh not very good children. >> know but it's also true that children with much worse childhoods don't grow up to proclaim themselves profits and lead people to their deaths. manson didn't want my book to

come out when i found out i traced his sister and cousin and would be able to write about his somewhat childhood. jim jones had an childhood that he was always loved. vernon wayne howell was born to a 14-year-old girl and was raised with a lot of uncles and stepdad's but he never wanted for food or attention. we can understand when people have problems how it might affect them but that doesn't mean we have to also believe that it was inevitable. >> how many children of david koresh survived and why so many? >> david koresh's children, most of them, died in the final fire. that was deliberate on his part.

all told he fathered 23 children by just about a dozen women. he said that the bible quoted that the lamb shall spread his seed so the lamb of revelation didn't have children so burn in the lamb had to have children. obviously he couldn't have those with just one wife and to these children of his were really old souls being born again and when the time came they would be thee magistrate of the book of revelation in the new kingdom of god. three ofof his children were out at of mount carmel by the time to atf operation took place. they are two mothers have become disenchanted withh davidians. during the siege itself he sent out of their children from mount

carmel. they were never his children. he sent out the children of followers that he fully expected his followers as was expected, they are going to have to die here. the fbi atf previously are doing what the bible predicted so their children come the little children of the followers would be sent out two or three at a time because they don't have any vital role. koresh' children have to stay and koresh's children burned to death on april 19, 1993. this by the way points out one of the big mistakes the fbi made. they never bothered to learn what the branch davidians and koresh really believed. they called it bible babble, a delusion and they wouldn't even talk to them about it because

they said we are just buying into their delusion that we do that. they did not know child welfare workers did try to tell them, koresh is sending his own children now. the fbi iske taking this as a wonderful sign. he's letting the kids out and he will send more. he's not sending his children out. that means he hasas some plans r a grand finale of the fbi didn't listen. they just said the kids are comingffi up. maybe it's working. think about that is. your followers of koresh are in there and surrounded for sakes. you expect any minute you are going to be blown to smithereens and you are pleased. this means david prophecies were correct. we are going to be translated up to heaven and come back in the

army of. if the fbi knew that you think maybe they wouldn't have finally decided after seven weeks okay we are just going to go in there and knock them down. they won't be old to stop us. everybody misunderstood everybody else and chaos inevitably follows. >> did you have good results talking to survivors and participants of branch davidian? >> there aren't many left. a lot of them were young and only nine adults escaped the configuration. i talked to five and had a phone conversation with another one who lives in england now, who so the questions i was asking he decided that i was sent by the. these people, the survivors to this day believe that david koresh really was the lamb, that

everything he said was true, that the things that happened in waco really are the beginning of the end times that will happen any minute and today is going going to return just like you promised. they do not regret what they did. they believe strongly that god approves of what they did. they were living. and they are still living. i talked to them and they were very open andl. very helpful. i feel like we had a pretty good relationship and then the book came out. and if i what they say but i also the fact that vernon wayne howell and david koresh stole all of his prophecies and plagiarize them from an earlier koresh in florida almost 100 years ago word for word and these are people who for 30 years have just sustained themselves by hanging onto this belief, this is what they built their lives around here comes

this outsider who said look i respect you you followed someone who wasn't what he said he was. it's not like you to just say thank you. they haven't. i've got all the facts in the book and i invited them, please check it yourself. don't take my word for it. but they are doing that. they don't feel they have to because they know the truth and the truth is what david said no matter what i may think or uncover. >> we are turning the historian investigator reporterte jeff gun on booktv and now it's your turn. we want to hear your voice is as well. we'll put the phone numbers up and we will hear from glenn who'ss calling from freeman, michigan. one good afternoon to you. >> thanks everyone. my question is about and -- the narrative of the capitol n.

for the example they jussie smollett hate crime which was quite obviously yet lots of people immediately accepted and promoted it including the current president and vice president of the united states. that was because it served a bigger narrative about racism and home of phobia and blah blob, blob, blob. in the case of manson and his supposedly abusive childhood, until you came along just pretty much the, entire world uncritically accepted his story that he was a victim of his family and society at large and all that. even john lennon of the beatles spot into it. why do you think that was? what if any larger narrative do you think was being served by this sort ofra blind faith in ts

fictionalized narrative of manson's? >> , i think we have got it. we appreciate that and that goes back to where we started our conversation about the mythology of america. >> you've got to remember that in 1968 and 1969 in america anything seemed possible and what seemed impossible just to few years before. you had young people radically changing. previously in america the kids were going to grow up to be like their parentsmp and all of a sudden you're finding young people thinking it's not only our right to be disrespectful, it's necessary because we need to make things better. you've got music becoming a cultural touchstone instead of books, instead of tv. for the first time you got national news that's broadcast pretty much on the 24/7 basis.

you can always listen to walter cronkite. a man walks on the moon. the new york mets win the pennant. richard nixon comes back from obscurity to become president of the united states. there are riots in the streets. civil rights, there's everything going and people want something that they can glom onto in c. and at what they want to see. charlie manson provided that. he wason a very appropriate sort of figure. nixon got into hot water because he said in a news conference that it's obvious the man is guilty. why is the news media glorifying it and that of course gave manson the chance to sayy the jury has been persistent. the president said this and we need a mistrial.

studentid rebels all thought tht manson was great. bernadette dorn and some of those, they had their gesture like this. in the la bianca murders a fork was jammed and the the abdomen. if you wanted to believe that manson would that manson was like shaver far as you could believe that if you want to believe he was proof that all this was full of danger you to be that if you wanted a true crime mystery with drugs rock 'n roll entertainment you can have that. manson saiden so well into that time when every headline and he was sensationalistic in some way. he served the nation's need for something to believe in an all

different categories of belief to see in them what they wanted. that's the fascination of the 1960s and charlie manson that we were at a timee and place for someone like him could mean so many things to so many different people. >> cornelius and alexandria, louisiana you are on with other jeff guinn. >> hello jeff and peter. god bless both of you all. just i want to bring up two things that haven't been asked and you know the story [inaudible] >> i'm sorry can you broke up there. y >> cornelius can you keep your mouth closeco to the phone. >> can you hear me now? yes, go ahead.. >> okay do you know the story of the lone ranger? >> yes, i do.

i grew up liking tonto when i was a little boy. >> that's great. there's a guy named bass read and he was an martial and oklahoma territories and stuff and that's what the real lone ranger was based upon. i saw smithsonian museum show about that and they had his granddaughter or daughter on there talking about that. he had an indian companion and he worked with the hanging judge in oklahoma territory. he was an escaped and everything after the civil war and stuff and he headed toward oklahoma. they say he was greater than bass masterson and stuff. >> let's get a comment, let's get a comment from jeff gwen. thanks cornelius. >> cornelius makes an excellent point and that's another reason

why studying history and researching and writing about it is important. and particularly minority americans that are so misrepresented throughout history. there's a feeling right now if you are a historian who can't properly understand minority figures in history. i hope that changes just as i hope we'll have more minority writers writing about subjects and will understand each other better. he was an amazing character and i'd like to say to everyone out there who's interested in wild west history look this man up. you will be fascinated by his life and times. >> there's a connection to the lone ranger. >> very much so. >> let's move onto carl in chicago. carl please go ahead with your question or comment. >> yes i have a comment and a question. i accidentally matt the

jonestown boys sometime after the incident because they were flying from new york city to dayton where he lived and returning home did i think indiana. my question is, why does, why do humans have such a fascination with colt's? >> that's a fair question. i think the best way to answer it is at the word is misused. we tend now, we are in the habit. started with manson or jim jones in the branch davidian. anytime there's a group that separates themselves and may have some religious beliefs that is not mainstream it's easy to say oh they are colds and they probably aren't very bright in there following some fraud. that's not the case at all but

because the mythology is so strong a lot of the media picks up on it and puts it out there and it just intensifies theou ceiling. the manson family had nothing in common with the people's temple where the branch davidians. a cold is widely misused and i think that's the reason people make assumptions about what a colds must be. >> jim jones's son survives today correct? >> a couple of them yes. >> did they talk to? >> jim jones jr. and proud to say is one of my best friends in this world. he calls himself the first child adopted by a family in indiana. jim jones andst his wife wantedo develop a rainbow family and preaching equality of the races let's adopt children of different races so we can show everyone can live together in harmony and jim and steven who

was the only blood child of jim and marshall and jones are still alive. i've met both of them and i'm closer to jamie then steven was very reluctant to speak to outsiders. we are talking about good intelligent people who have become the kind of american citizens we all aspire to be, involved in the community, have loving families. they managed, they had rough times and they got through it. again with a cult we think anybody who's involved what must they w be? they must be a. apsley not the case. in any of these groups you usually have highly intelligent people who have been looking for like-minded others that they can feel comfortable with. jimmy and steven have very well adapted now to the world as it

is but they were there when their father was doing healing tears in eyes on during his drug usage and understood what a flawed person he was that they also saw that the people's temple itself the causes were very just that they were working towards but they say, and it's true that jim jones deteriorated into drugo addiction and paranoia, people stayed in the people's temple not because they thought he was a god or a great man because they thought the goals of the temple were were counted. they did it in spite of him instead of under his leadership. i would say to anybody who met them, you would like them and you'd learn a lot from them. i've learned a great deal from cult members in rome because of it. >> jeff guinn is it a fluke that

both jim jr. and steve are alive today? >> yes. jim and steven were part of the jonestown basketball team that had been allowed to leave jonestown which by the way is buried in the middle of the impenetrable jungle. to get in there to take a look at it i had to charter a plane, land in the middle of the jungle on a muddy landing strip and used machetes to cup -- cut a couple of mileses into the junge to find where this had happened. the guyanese government tolerated jonestown that were not necessarily enthralled with jim jones himself. the idea of the jonestown would have a basketball team that could go into georgetown and play exhibition games against the guy on the east national team, maybe that will help said jimmy and steven and some of the other young men from jonestown

were in georgetown when the big moment came the congressman and a couple members of the news media were killed. jim jones gatheredd everyone together to die as a political gesture and he called the sort of office they had in georgetown and jimmy took the call. his father used code words. kill yourself. and jimmy and steve oh no, we are doing that. do it and there were some followers who were there in the building who still believed in jim jones. one woman took a knife and killed herself and her children. jimmy and steven thinking maybe before he has everybody die in jonestown he will do one of his four hour services and racing to

the american embassy to see can we get a helicopter, can we get a small plane? if we can get there we could stop this. we will stand next to him and say no you can't do this. the embassy was closed for the night in no one would talk to them because they thought people were a bunch of americans who are doing questionable things. the next morning the surviving basketball team members in georgetown were arrested by the guyanese police in per held on suspicion of murder. it took a long time to get out of there but it was by sheer luck that the jones boys lived through that and i think it was ourjo great good fortune. >> government responds to jonestown to hand to waco did not save lives. >> no, it didn't go though there are different circumstances in both cases.

jim jones had gone to guyana to jonestown after his reputation in america had been literally destroyed by some investigative reporting that indicated lot of negative things about his ministry people. but he was still considered by the government to be legitimate. there was going to be congressional investigation because relatives of some of his followers and the people's temple complained their family members are being held against theirow will. whether they were not is questionable. but when that government pressure came, when the congressman simply chose to show up pretty much and say i'm coming in, maybe two dozen of the people in jonestown really wanteded to leave and if jones d

said fine everybody's free to go, there still would have been over 900 people there jones was a drug paranoid and he believed if we let one come in and take a couple dozen people another one will be here next week and he will takee more people and soon everybody is going to be gone. that's why he decided to got to kill the congressman and we are die andg to >> jars to remind everybody congressman jackie speier who just retired from congress was leoo mccarthy's assistant and was shocked when she was down there in 1978. >> that's right to the branch davidians, one thing i have to remind people of is that their three groups involved in what happened in waco. we have the atf, the fbi and the branch davidians. that and it and it didn't have to end the way it did.

but for atf and the fbi the best result would have been a clean operation, not a shot fired nobody dies and we come out looking great. only the branch davidian agenda required people to die and that's a fact. and we shouldn't forget it. >> my, detroit, please go ahead with your question or comment for our guest jeff guinn. >> yeah jeff it's great to hear from a real historian. it's good to listen and you know i wonder i lived in arizona and i lived in missouri and one thing that struck me about the situationg in tombstone who waa civil war brought west. you have had the former union soldiers and he had the texans and i think even the father was

an abolitionist. it just seems like the war never ended from the border states to 20 years later. maybe that generation is just kind of died out, you know? >> you know that's a great observation t and it's one thats critical. thank you for raising it. up until the civil war most of the pioneers were heading out west were coming from the coming from under these because they are so little available land. they wanted to become landholders and have farms and ranches. after the civil war the majority of the people who were coming their fortunes are former citizens of the confederacy who want to get away from the union. now suddenly in the southwest, in arizona to particularly you got people moving in who are trying to get away from any

government control. the government shouldn't tell us what to do. we came here to avoid that. then you get people like the's particular morgan who identified with the union with law and order saying now we have got to have some laws about your cattle herds in where you can get your cattle and where you can carry your guns and where you can't and taxes were a big issue too. if i'm a former confederate soldier who lost an arm and i've come to arizona to try to make a new life i don't want some who was fighting on the other side that day to be the sheriff and tell me some of my cattle look suspicious and they might be wrestled and i'm just going to take your whole herd to make sure. the civil war certainly exacerbated this tension about that conflict into a different area of america where the tension would continuefl to ris.

so great point, sectional rivalry is really important and i'm glad you raise that section. >> gary sends in a text to you jeff guinn, what is your favorite cinematic or tv adaptation of a white doc holiday story i know i should say something deep about this but i like the -- i think they are quite of few movies and tv shows that have great -- been great entertainment and sacrifice to distort facts and i'm still hoping someday somebody will say let's make a movie let's make it realistic. in the meantime may the force be with you for asking the question, gary. >> thebe next call comes from ames, iowa and this is nancy. nancy please go ahead with your question or comment.

>> my, and of how history touches their lives. just by absolute chance i was having lunch at the lbj ranch with lady bird johnson and a group from the wildflower center. i was a magazine editor and we were doing a story and very quietly during that lunch the woman came in, bent down and over ms. johnson i was sitting next to her and told her what happened at waco. it's an indelible memory of my mind. mrs. johnson's composure is something i will never forget. she said thank you very much and she went on. the propagation of what we had but i could see in her face and herio body language her distres. on the point of being just another point this happens to be the selma march anniversary and again how history can touch ones

one slides. my husband and i were married by the reverend james reaves in washington d.c. and the most wonderful man. those are my comments and i'm enjoying this wonderful historian who we all need to let them come to cherish and to promote them inan any way we ca. thank you. >> nancy you dropped a couple of names of some historical events but can you tell us a little bit about yourself? >> yes, i can. i was a magazine editor. i founded a magazine for the hurst corporationra in 1987 my background before that was i have a master's degree in american history which i love. m i have been a fanatical observer. i was also an editor at american heritage for sure period of time and was a colleague of the wonderful david mccullough.ou

we worked together on a book on world war ii. so those are some things about me. are you associated with iowa state university? >> my husband is retired however he still associated with the university because he has been involved with the foundation that maintains the beautiful -- they have there but he had a 30-year career at iowa state. we are both now retired and giving our papers. >> thank you, maam. jeff gwen any comments for nancy? >> i think it's wonderful that we have people and not only care about history but have been active part of it. good for her and thank you for sharing the story about lady bird johnson. i think if lady bird had been in charge is any other government agencies in waco we never would have had the tragedy but she would have been more thoughtful and willingac to take her time. >> in know you live in fort woh in you and i were talking about

the george w. bush library and the lbj library in austin ahead of time and you told it very fascinating story that i think nancy and others might like to hear. people always ask when did you really get interested in history?y? oneon important moment when i ws a sophomore at the university of texas austin they began building the obj library on campus and lyndon johnson retired to his ranch in the hill country would come on campus by helicopter with his assistance doris kearns goodwin and some family or friends and when the museumm opened he would take them on little tours around talking about different things. johnson would allow some of us college students, maybe three or four at a time to join his group and over devonte -- dozen times i was able to follow lyndon johnson around his museum and hear him talking about this eventng or that event.

what he said to martin luther king at this moment, how he called george wallace at one point in his presidency and said i know you think yours, referring to other like this i've got bowling. and hearing the stories and seeing that there is some great historic figure who is real made me want to know more and essentially that's what i've dedicated a lot of my career to so thank you very much lyndon johnson every time i see a bowling ball i i always here if you sir. >> i hope the story goes viral at some point for those a great one. this is a text from jeff. jeff i'm a for gunsmoke and i like westerns and i'm puzzled by the fact that none of your books which i have read contain any footnotes, sources, bibliography

or documentation but can you help me understand that? >> if you're saying that you never read my chapter of notes. i'ms. careful to list everythin. i would urge you to go back and look again, thank you. >> next call for jeff guinn is from rick in providence, kentucky. rick please go ahead. you are in booktv. >> thank you very much for taking my call. my question is about waco. at the end of the operation when the assault i guess it would be called happened, did it turn the general reno and president clinton both have to sign off on that or was it just a decision clearly made from the local level? thank you very much. >> thanks for asking that question because it's an interesting story attached to it. janet reno was sworn into office approved by the senate in the

middle of the waco standoff when the fbi had taken er. the fbi brought to her a written plan to end the siege. they are ideal with a would use tear gas gradually over two days into mount carmel and everyone inside, their eyes had become irritated and they finally get fed up with it and they would come out. reno approved this plan only after she was assured that the amounts of gas would not be dangerous particularly to the children still inside the compound. she called in the experts from the army to go over the plan before she finally said yes i think this is what he can do and she did take that plan to president clinton who also approved it. what is a fact is that she believed it was going to take place gradually over two days

because the gas itself is not dangerous or combustible except in great quantities. what happened on april 19, starting at 6:00 a.m. is almost immediately they fired all of their gas canisters but it was supposed to last two days instead it lasted for three to four hours and great floating clouds of the gas permeated the hallways. the fbi had cut off electricity into the building. it was a cold rainy sort of spring in waco. for warmth the branch davidians had coleman lanterns that were lit with fuel oil. the clouds themselves in thi amount were almost bound to explode if a flame was initiated. there is to this day the question to did the fbi deliberately set the fire or was

it when a coleman lantern got knocked over and did the branch davidians decide to commit group suicide. they would have called it the translation up to heaven. the fbi should not have done what they did with that gas, there's no question after reno said on the record to congress that she was lied to. the fact remains that it was done and so we can say to reno and clinton approved the plan and they did but not that plan. as you can see it it's sort of a gray area. >> your 2019 book the vagabonds, how much of it was true that thomas edison, henry ford and harvey firestone all went camping together? >> this is one of my favorite books i've ever written because it was so much fun.

before the vagabonds as they called themselves their camping trip started and they would take theirse cars and a procession of trucks hauling food and tents and other comforts and they would simply go out on the road for a week long strip. the purpose of it in some ways it was recreation but it was also very candy marketing. when the first model t's are introduced to the country and all of a sudden your family can afford a car people generally thought of cars as transportation to and for work. ford wanted the nation to understand the car was freedom. there was no reason not to go out on the family car trip in over a 12 year.ip not because they were the most famous men in america and the media covered every day of both of their trips we switch from a horse and buggy arroyo road culture to a car culture. when they started their trips

there's about 800,000 cars in america. by the time they finish there are millions of cars and well over half of them are model t's. edison and ford were great pals. they really love going out together and roughing it. of course their idea of roughing it meant the servants would cook a nice meal and then wash and then washed and ironed their clothing while they were asleep in their tent so they could have fresh clothing the next day. if any of you ever get a chance to go to the ford museum in michigan please do so. they have got the tents in the cars of the bag of muncy's but it's a that shows america changing but there are no blood and guts involved in a really enjoyed them riding about tragedy. it's a wonderful story and i hope more people get to learn about it. this is in the early 20s at the same men sold tires and build cars and built lightbulbs andth went out and camped.

how big was their entourage that they took with them? >> they might have eight or nine cars in their entourage that you've got to remember there are no highways in america but but s is the time in american history where you would let say in the little west virginia hamlet and there was a road twisti through town that you might hear the rumble of car engines. you run to the roadside and by god that is henry ford. that is thomas edison. they are getting out of the car and going to your aunt edna's café. this brought important people out to do the parts of america where that never happened before. ford and edison were the carnations of their time. maybe we have kids standing right out here to see and everybody would go is a wonderful we are getting to see someone special? it just depends on your outlook.

thewi vagabonds i love riding tt book and it's only book i've ever written that i'm trying to relax and go back and look through some of it on the richards. you follow the book up with more on the border about punch avia general blackjack pershing. how much of that hunt for a poncho by his index? >> the greatest myth that made me ride that book is i avidly watched political campaigns. i'm a historian. i'm also an american. i want to pick the right ones and i heard a specific candidate in the run-up to the 2016 election saying i'm going to build a wall on the border to keep all the we don't want from crossing in mexico is going to

pay for dean's going to be wonderful. and i thought to myself, well don't you think if the wall would have worked somebody might have thought of it before? maybe i ought to research border history and write a book about it and lo and behold there were to build an impenetrable wall across the border between the united states and mexico. 1904 and 19 away, 1912, 1914, 1917, every time there was great fanfare over building a wall and then there was still no wall because you couldn't maintain it in many of the wild areas and people who were determined could climb over it or under it or break through it. it never worked in the past. how can a candidate say that? i guess he never studied the history. i thought it might be helpful to write a book that has a history

of maybe the wall builders might like to see it and saved themselves some frustration. along the way i got to write for the first time andnd learn about the pershing and his% of poncho by and the raid by he and his bandits. i never heard about any of this stuff. that's why i love researching history. it will surprise you with reels tories that are so much better than the myth and. a 's sake in 1916 we wouldn't have all this timee and money talking about building the wonderful wall. it didn't work before it does work now and it will never work. speak in your view jeff quinn was poncho by the thread that took the u.s. army moving down to texas to combat? >> americans have always believed that no matter what else may happen around the world

that our borders are secure. by wanted to incite the american troop movement across the border into mexico. he had basically been out journaled by a civilian named costanza and he felt the only thing he could do was make the people rise up that the americans are coming back to mexico was part of the land land grab that took so much of their territory and at one point we invaded the city of veracruz for no particularly good reason and held it for many, months. carranza was seen as the government endorsed by americans. bf thought if i attacked and killed some americans they will have to come after me into mexico and i can say see, here come the yankees again. they are trying to take more of our country. first he killed a bunch of american engineers in mexico.

a lot of the territories in northern states was on by americans and when the government income he decided he need to cross the border and show theby americans they can die in their country so across the border into columbus, oaktown, killed some people. the government, the american government had to sende pershig in to find vella. >> did world war i stop that mission? >> world war i stop that mission because of what happened in mexico america was prepared for entry into world war i and that's part of the great story again this is what's wonderful aboutat history. pershing goes chasing after the villa into mexico but he's given quite of few constraints by the american government. whatever you do don't get into an all-out fight with the. so he gradually finds himself

trapped by the army in northeast mexico and he's got the truths -- troops with him. they can't move in any direction or the up a fight that the army in pershing. he realizes the american army is the prepared to go into battle. not just against the so he uses this time to train troops. they have never had thiso befoe so when america entered world war ii months later pershing becomes the commander over there if his troops that he brought to mexico were the only battle ready troops we had so america could immediately get in on the fighting without pershing and the expedition, america would have o had the pull down for much -- month longer who knows how history may change. 202 sierra cut two sierra cut is the container two sierra kunzig

and dinner conversation with author and historian jeff quinn 748-8220 nays turned central timezone 74880 to one for those in the mountain pacific and if you can get her on the phone you want to make a comment dry social media and you can text a question or comment (202)748-8903. those are for text messages only. please include your first name intercity if you would. let's hear from gary in sioux falls south dakota. hi gary. >> hi and thank you mr. gwynne for having the historical facts. i'm a history major -- a history major and a vietnam veteran. we were talking about the turmoil in the courts we know of a kennedy and martin luther king jr. were killed in malcolm x in any waynd of war or you doing

about that time since you were about the same age? >> i'm about to turn 72. i was in college. the 1960 presidential campaign certainly lends itself to the increase in paranoia and anguish in america. i was a student in texas. i was following lyndon johnson around in his library and i felt guilty because i developed an admiration for eugene mccarthy who in essence had forced johnson not of office. think if i told lbj that i wouldn't have been allowed to follow along on any of his library tours like you i think i was interested that oliver wendell holmes said you need to share in the compassion of your time and i think a lot of us di that. again people like you are people i write my bookstore and i thank you very much for being interested in. >> dorian st. louis, good afternoon to you.

>> are you still there? perry we. please goo ahead. >> are you still there? >> welcome back to calls in just a second as soon as we get them straightened out. we will come back to those calls in just a second. one of the things we always do with our authors here at booktv on "in depth" as wetv asked them what they are read is here is what jeff quinn told us he washe currently reading and s written in a world war ii trilogy an army at dawn where atkinson said in that seat as well to talk in depth about l hs work and why have you picked up that serious? >> every time i write a book like waco ibook that is just amount i spend maybe three years

feeling scared that there are so manyg moving parts, that they there are so many people to includee in the story and i'm always afraid when i start riding that the book. i think i'll never be a will to do it. and then i realized there are so many great historians who have done that and i like to look at their work and be comforted by the fact that it can be done. i think atkinson is one of the true major historians of our time. i don't flatter myself that my work is equal to his when i finished b waco i wanted to refresh myself just by seeing how a real pro could do it who could write about such complex issues withow so many moving pas and not only make it accurate that make you want to keep turning the pages and he does that but he's got such a wonderful voice and such a

wonderful writing rhythm. so i read his books just to feel good about the possibilities of writing history. >> the 30th anniversary of the waco incident in april of 1993 and your book just came out. this was about the most contemporary history you have written ever written. >> so far. >> why did you choose to write about waco? >> there were some supreme court decisions 5-4 votes during a pandemic. two megachurches, one in los angeles and one in new york, sued the governments of those states who had put a limit of 75 people at gatherings because of pandemic. according to the church is violated their freedom of religious expression but they wanted everybody together in the same room. the supreme court found 5-4 in their favor. now some people in the justice

department and their reaction was to thrownt up their hands ad say oh no. now any religious group that wants to say this is what we believe in you have to let us do it because now there is legal precedent. and i thought to myself all right i'd like to know more. where in american history have we had some conflict between people who believe their religious beliefs superceded the law? waco seemed like a possibility. i read the different books about waco that were out there but i never want to write a book that has done what i would want to do and there were some but i thought were quite good especially the book about waco but i also felt there were things that were never i answer. there is no mention at all of the atf or what would make the atf get involved fair. it was like david the branch

davidians sprouted full-grown waco. where did they come from? how and why did they get there? and i thought this is a story worth learning and worth telling. you have to believe that if you will spend two or three years of your life doing nothing but working on this. 24/7 when i'm researching writing the book that's what i do. i so that was what got me here curious. could the branch davidians here today if they were put on trial after all the events in waco say our religious belief is we were attacked at the babylonian agents and we have to fight them to the death. and we are sincere in that. could they cite a 5-4 supreme court decision in a matter of the churches saying religious freedom outweighs public safety? there's a legal precedent now and you know i could find some

lawyer who would argue it. it's something to think about. i think one of my next books may take this a little further. >> do you want to say more about that next book? >> well i want to write looks to bring the readers read it to the present. in fact i'm gone people could starting my book the last gunfight about the finally settling of the west and follow how america changed all the way to the present day. the legacy of this subtitle examines how waco and events there had been used by militia in violent anti-government protesters to this day for the actions they took. i'm thinking maybe it's time to take a look at some of those militias and how they turned out to be whate they are improved themselves to be on january 6, 2021 or maybe even someone in the media let's say alex jones who has made quite the career of

encouraging conspiracy theory arguments. maybe these folks deserve a good close look at them, at themselves. we'll have to see. i'mol thinking about it. >> michael in broward county florida come please go ahead with your question or comment for jeff quinn. >> yes, i wonder if you have thought of the msb murders down here in florida but a kind of ties in with a lot of what you are talking about especially the contemporary religious freedoms and things i want to add on public safety in florida there is no vaccination requirement. if you want to get out of any vaccination you simply sign a form. it really does affect things. dmsd situation in particular a lot of people aren't aware and i know you like to dig into things when it gets into issues of how guilty is the community at at-large versus say the person?

the community was outraged that he was not put to death because of his childhood. you mentioned childhood and i wonder if you have heard of something called adverse childhood experiences quickly noww know from this large study that was done amongst large groups of people our brains are like plastic and what happens in our childhood completely changes them. it's not just experience success changes it in almost identical ways that we are all familiar with ptsd. >> i'll tell you what a lot there. we'll stop you there and we'll see if jeff quinn has anything you want to add to that. >> i think you are right about the florida situation being interesting. my bighe frustration is i'm not going to live long enough to write all the books that i want to write and again i would encourage people if you love history and if you are interested in it, there is no trick to trying to write looks.

you just have to tell a story that wasn't just people in an engaging way. maybe i will get into florida. i don't know that i ever will if i don't i hopell somebody else goes in and does a book that you're hoping to read. say a text message from rita from green bay, wisconsin. find fascinating discussion, thank you. my question is regarding the manson women. did either of the two women that you spoke with display any regrets for knowledge meant that the that they perpetuated? >> i found both of the women to be very interesting and i spend enough time with them that i felt we were getting past sort of the general comments they were making hoping the parole board would see them. they both say that they take personal responsibility for what they did, that they hate that they did it.

leslie van houten believes that she has seen mass murderers who did far worse things get paroled and out of prison while she stays there and she makes the argument that she never killed anybody like the others. she had just desecrated a corpse. she feels for this reason if no other she deserves to be pardoned. the parole board or at least the california governors have not agreed to this point. she says she's sorry and i think she is but i also think she thinks she sees herself as a victim that there is suggested that has been placed on her. patricia krenwinkel has told me in tears that she did things and her excuse is that she was scared of manson and she knew he was capable of doing things to

any follower who didn't do what he told them to do but she then added i know that's no excuse. and she, i believe does not see herself as a victim. but as somebody who has been punished deservedly for something.o i hope that helps answer your question. >> i apologize for the fascination about this what was that first letter that you wrote to those two women and why did they allow you personally to talk to them? >> one of the advantages of having written a lot of books is when i'm contacting someone and saying i want to talk to you and i'm interested in the facts and not mythology and whatever you tell me is what i'm going to ride in ther book. i may not say it's cherlin i may not agree with it your perspective, i can send them copies of previous books so they can see the kind of writer i am. that can make a difference so i

always tried to send a certified letter particularlyer with mans. there were people involved who were trying to keep the fact that they had anything to do with the secret and here's a letter from the same hey i know who you are and that you are trying to avoid everything all these years but now tell me the truth. i just explained that i'd like to send him some books and if after reading them they are willing to just consider talking to me can we please have a conversation stats what i always do and usually it does work. i'm pretty good at tracking people down and in a couple of cases people have not wanted to talk. they have their lives trying not to and i have to respect that. they have no legal obligation to talk to me and in particular some of the younger manson women now have children and grandchildren who have no idea that they were part of the

manson family and they have been trying to hide it. what am i going to do? were not for them? no, i can tell the story anyway and so i do. >> as you're book manson allowed in the prison where krenwinkel and van houten were? >> i wasn't even allowed to send them a copy of the book so that they could read it. i wish they could read it. i don't think that like everything in it but i believe they would think a fuller story has finally been told. send text message hello my name is dr. mitchell in new brunswick, new jersey thank you for your awesome body of work. my question is when and what compelled you to become a historian? >> to become? >> a historian. >> a couple of things, maam. i started down the path when i was 13 and wrote a book called travels with charlie by john steinbeck. i'm reading the book and i'm

thinking okay this guy who i only know because teachers made me read the parole and the red pony come he got to get in the car and drive all over the country, talk to interesting people, write about it and he got paid for it. i want a piece of that when i grow up. and then when i was in college following lyndon johnson on his tours around the library listening to the way he told the story i thought it was so much of. to the biographies written about him in the autobiography that he'd written. they were all and formal and i kept thinking there were better ways to tell all of those. i became a journalist. i was an investigative journalist. i learned how to dig and how to look for things and i got very lucky. i was one of the very few fortunate enough when i wrote looks about history that fascinated me, not copies sold like to give up my day job and

just do it. so big shout out to john steinbeck, lyndon johnson and charlie the pool wherever they mayte be. you are my inspiration. >> we also asked the authors who appear on "in depth" what their favorite books are and according to jeff quinn john steinbeck as well as favorites along with catherine owens and t. h. white's the once and future king. could you speak to those two books as well? >> catherine drinker book looks at oliver wendell holmes but i did not want to read the book when i was in high school because it was. but the high school i attended was oliver wendell holmes high school in san antonio. we all had to read s the book ad i was mesmerized. it was from catherine drinker bowen in that book that i realized writing history didn't have to be.

it wasn't just facts and names she created such context starting the story with his grandfather, a minister and his father a famous poet and how everything a he learned it into his time and place and how the decisions he helped to render on the h supreme court that changed america forever for just based on law but on personal experience. if you can write of look like that and not make it dry i thought gosh it must be possible to write history that's factual, that tells important stories thatle people don't know but people can enjoy rereading it. and that's an inspiration but i go back to that book a lot when i'm writing. as far as t. h. white's the once future king i think anyone who who has read it the austrian

legend presented by a great historian tallies -- storyteller could take the story that we all think we know about the sword in the stone and everything else and he could make it seem to apply to modern times forer he wrote during the outbreak of world war ii and he was veryt much a pacifist. he wanted to write a book that made people think about certain philosophiesab particularly this fight. i loved the book ford storytelling and i love the book for the way he could put fresh light on something we thought we are at a new from agency. those were the people who inspired me and still inspire me. i read those books again and again and it's always like the first time. i would learn something new. >> only 15 minutes up with our guest jeff quinn. donald is in huron ohio. please go ahead donald we are listening. >> this is don smith. we are in norwalk. i'm in a nursing home called the

twilight gardens and on about 90 years old. i was with my beautiful wife in waco and an entire summer at the enclosure down there and i can't remember who is in charge of it. it was an elderly couple before koresh but we went down because we were seventh-day adventists and we had been to seven day adventist colleges and high school's. we were going through the country with their private ministry studying all he could about the offshoots of the church. we went to waco and spend the summer there and there were a number of things they did including keeping the old names of the passover and the tabernacle and all that stuff. the only thing that carried over into the new testament was

keeping the seventh day sabbath which we tried to do. anyway we went down there and a summer with these guys and we found out there was corruption. the secondary man down there was married and was having an affair with a 16-year-old girl and we had all kinds of stuff we didn't like so we got out of there and left there but we were at waco for three g months and we knew wasn't a place for us. it was after us that david koresh came and my daughter had gone to grade school with david koresh in a church school in dallas but she knew who he was so we had all this background and we knew the history started by bt how this and went to the people that we were with and went to david koresh's later. >> donald, thank you. thank you for sharing your story. let's hear from jeff quinn. >> i'm curious whether his daughter david koresh in school

or were in and wayne howell because he had become koresh after he left school. other than that there were some things that were unsavory at mount caramel again i would point out the branch davidians believe they were dealing with the bible so they chose secular law even though outsiders thought might be disgusting but then it sounds like donald was referring to mr. and mrs. mrs. rhoden. tell us a little bit about that. >> the road and's were seventh-day adventists to left. then rhoden first believed he had been called by god to succeed victor howden and he said message was the need to follow the jewish ceremonies and celebrations rather than the christian ceremonies which are. that's why they celebrated passover and other things. lois after her husband died gained ascendancy by saying an angel had come to her and revealed that the holy ghost was

male and female meaning that god thinks women are every bit as good as men. for that she was acknowledged as aa leader. she also acquired that statement from an earlier koresh cyrus in florida long before david koresh stole an overtly or otherwise lois rhoden was doing that so cyrus had quite the effect on what happened in waco. >> the branch davidians were somewhat interactive for the town of waco. >> a lot of the branch davidians had day jobs in temperate koresh had one legal wife rachel and she was a check or. self like to take his guitar and go to chelsea street at night and sing his songs which for some reason no record producer in l.a. ever wanted to acquire. when the media came in the media

we followed in february 28 the atfat operations they wanted stories every day. the more lower thees better andt wouldou fan out to waco to try o find people. do you know any of the branch davidians? have you seen them do disgusting things in all they were ever told was look they are kind of strange but they keep to themselves. they are okay. they couldn't find people in waco who complained about the branch davidians. these many years later, they are quite of few people who say i was there the whole time and i always suspected they were no one was saying that at the time. >> chuck and mike arrowhead, california. please go ahead with your question or comment for author jeff quinn. >> have you ever thought about that christian scientists and what they have done to the americans?

>> i have to say that's a subject i never thought about getting into but maybe another writer. >> let's talk to john billings, montana. john please gogo ahead. we are listening. >> yeah hello. have you ever thought about writing anything about the zodiacac killer because they hae been saying for years and years they wanted to find him when he is actually doing a life sentence in montana. >> i know there are a lot of unanswered questions about that but i feel the zodiac killer has a historic impact across our culture so i don't think i'll be doing that.. >> just we are about to ours and we have 50 minutes left for one of the subtitles of your the last gunfight book is how it changed the american west in the o.k. corral and what do you mean when you say that?

>> the event itself wasn't really a gunfight. it was a please stop to take a couple of weapons of and it never happened at the o.k. corral. arrests a couple of blocks from the o.k. corral in enough itself the event is negligible. it's built in mythology but in real history this was i think the time. laws with were very elastic in the frontier and if you had gotten into a shootout and it showed someone you could use to get off by saying how bad that is going to shoot me so i got him first. when the erpa's and doc holliday were brought to trial for killing that took place in houston that dave that was the signal that in the west courtroom a was going to be the operating and decisive factor. it wasn't going to be the love the streets.

that's why we would need to look at it and understand it as a turning point in american history. the other stuff is entertaining but it's also mythology. >> steven kensington, ohio text message, does jeff quinn consider himself something of a myth buster and does he see developing in america today that would be busted 50 years from now? >> an lot of belief in history is based more in convenience than actual fact-finding. i don't want to call myself a myth buster. so many people take comfort from a myth i'd like to say like to think of myself as a factfinder but i do not believe an alternative facts. if i write a book i'm going to let you know in my chapter notes exactly where i got every bit of information are not going to tell you what you have to believe because of them permission but i just want youg

to know it so they can make your own decisions. seeing steve in topeka, kansas. steve, please go ahead. we are listening. >> yeah hello mr. gwynne. i guarantee i will go out and buy one of her books. two questions into points. first of all a question. in the 19th century in the town of tombstone. they have made a movie on tombstone and i'd be surprised if you haven't seenn. it. there parts of the movie that are myth but their other parts that are very real and when you look back in history and some of these characters you look at the

names, they are real. so the first thing is what he thought of the movie and the last thing is my grandfather quit school before he graduated and they think he was 16 years old when he headed west from ohio. he went to kansas and went into retail for much of the summer and in the fall he went to work on the railroad but at that time the railroad at that time had been there and it's quite a place. that was about 1918 and in the 1960 it turned 19 years old. the first thing he does as he is he finds poncho bea and new mexico and after that he gets

into the military into going to france. snake steve we are going to drop itit there for the running short short on time for the starting tombstone and we ended in france but what would you like to comment on for steve? >> i think steve like a a lot americans family has been part of history forhi so long it's wonderful that he knows that and i think that makes it more fun to learn about how these different things evolve and when wewe went to point a to b, c and the mac. office the help comes from a colorful family has had it's share of adventures. >> was deeper mind me calling from kansas were two things the texas cattlee drives that you write about in the term texas rangers which do not have the same connotation along with cowboys that it does today. >> i will say this, in the history of different organizations the fact that they may sometimes enter periods when

they do things that are unconscionable doesn't mean that they don't have other yearnings for what they believe they are. in the eras of the texas rangers that i've written about so far they are worse than the desperados they were executing. i have respectful of thera organization but i have to tell the truth and the truth sometimes is uncomfortable and it bothers people. as far as cowboys are concerned, i'm a great dallas cowboys fan. they are for mari part of the country but the original term cowboy was meant to beor an inst if he called somebody cowboy on the early frontier you were saying he is so disgusting he's outside normal society. it was only after bat masterson built up western history that cowboy became a nicer term. all you folks who call yourselves cowboys want to look into where the term came from in

the first place. send doug in jackson mississippi we have one minute left. please goom ahead. all right that's it. we will and we will end it there unfortunately we couldn't hear from doug. you and i were talking about the book festival at the beginning before the show started and you were mentioning tucson where we are now and the mississippi book festival which is held every august. >> when you do a lot of different festivals, book festivals it's inevitable you will develop some favorites. i can't think of an author who doesn't love being invited to the tucson book festival. it's wonderful and the crowds are so friendly and the best organized festival. i could be here for a week and still be looking forward to every day. the mississippi book festival is an up and coming festival but it shows every sign of becoming one

of the great ones. it's where -- well-organized and takes place at the state state l on the grounds of the state capitol. such a beautiful setting and i hope everybody who loves to read gets a chance to go there i'll be worth your while. for the past two hours we've been talking with author investigative reporter jeff quinn. here is his most recent book but it's called waco, david koresh, the branch davidians and the legacy of rage. mr. gwynne we appreciate your time with last few hours. and thank you for all the great questions but i appreciate it. >> thank you audience as well.

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welcome everyone. it's nice to see some friendly faces, some new faces. i make -- my name is chris to. as you can see from our guest tonight everyone in our club is very politically active. those people have worked on