>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> the new york times announced earlier today that executive editor jill abramson would be replaced. former washington bureau chief will become the first-ever

african-american editor of the newspaper. joining me now from washington, dylan byers from politico. he broke the news. i'm pleased to have them here on the program. dylan, tell me about what happened and why this decision was made. >> it was very sudden and it goes without saying that we don't have all the answers yet. with the publishers said is that it was due to an issue with management to the newsroom. there were some frustrations among members of the staff and in some cases condescending. we do not know how much of a role that laid. she also had struggles with the times ceo, mark thompson, who took a more aggressive approach to handling editorial operations

in the newsroom than in the past. we still don't have the full answers as to why she left. >> you have been covering the story and you clearly were the one to break it. trace for me what's been going on at "the new york times" for the last year. >> it's been a time of great changes. the times has been doing well in terms of its digital operation. it suffered in terms of print revenue. it had to do a round of buyouts but jill oversaw. there is frustration that she was not more present while the buyouts were going on but it's turbulence there and turbulence for a lot of sort of legacy media organizations and i think what the times needed if you listen to what sulzberger said today as they needed a more concrete leadership structure. clearly, there was something not working out with jill abramson either in general or a specific issue so they're trying to write that ship and bring in some

stability to the newsroom under the new executive editor. >> we will come to him in a moment. jill was not present at the meeting in which the publisher announced the change. >> which is very strange. usually when the torch is passed from one leader to another, you have both of those people in the newsroom at the same time. that was not the case. she put out a statement saying she enjoyed her time and that was about it. it was very terse and she was not there when the statement was made to the newsroom. >> are people suggesting, as i think they did at an earlier time, that there may be sexism? >> there are certainly charges of sexism regarding the criticism that she was a combative leader and she could be condescending. there were criticisms when we reported a year ago that would never be leveled against a male editor. it certainly looks now that

those complaints may have been legitimate. >> there is also this, the notion that mark thompson played a role, the former head of the bbc, a man with some controversial issues that had to go back and testify, that he played the kind of role being speculated about, that there was conflict between him and jill abramson. >> there was a report that jill abramson "chafed" at the way he wanted to come in and make the decisions that were usually under the executive editor, video, digital. some ways that the video strategy would affect editorial. she had spent decades at the times and has a long career in newspaper journalism. it was very hard for her to see this in of the business side into the editorial structure. >> what's the relationship between dean and jill abramson?

>> publicly, they have spoken supportively at of one another and there were some very tense disagreements between them and the newsroom. as we reported, there was one meeting that got so contentious that dean walked out of jill abramson's office and punched a hole in the wall at "the new york times" headquarters. clearly it was up and down. they managed to weather the relationship and produce what is still a great product. i don't think they were hanging out on the weekends, so to say. >> my impression from people who know him is that he's a very popular manager. >> he's a very popular man within the newsroom. it's abramson suffered that she was cold and unapproachable, dea loved to be the guy that everyone loved.

morale was very important to him and he let people know it was very important to him in a way that jill abramson did not and i think that won him over a lot of fans in the newsroom. >> everyone was surprised except for the people who made the decision and came down to announce it? >> everyone with the exception of sulzberger, abramson, and mckay were surprised. >> congratulations on breaking such a huge story. we'll be right back. stay with us. ♪ >> glenn greenwald is here, an investigative journalist who reported for "the guardian" recognized with the village surprise. his stories are grounded in the classified documents leaked by edward snowden. the disclosures have unleashed a national debate about the balance between security and

civil liberties. he recounts his story of the revelations in the new book. it is called "no place to hide: edward snowden, the nsa, and the u.s. surveillance state." i'm pleased to have glenn greenwald at this table for the first time. welcome. let's start with the title, "no place to hide." comes from frank church? >> the famous church committee of the mid-1970's that discovered when surveillance apparatus were in the government without transparency or oversight, it would inevitably be abused. nobody knew that this had been amassed and the mandate of the nsa was never talked about domestically. just the existence is so dangerous because if it were ever turned up against the american people, there would be no place to hide. it has come to be that the nsa does directed at the american foreign population and abroad. >> do you believe these disclosures have changed the nsa? >> they've certainly change the

debate surrounding the nsa. i believe they will change the authority the nsa has as a result of congress. i think it made the nsa, for the first time since at least 9/11, question whether on not just because they have the capability to do something it means they ought to. >> do you believe it's changed the attitude of the president? >> i do. as is a serious question to the extent that president obama knew about the reach when angela merkel was revealed to be primary target of the agency. they were adamant he had no idea there was this level of arsenal civilized surveillance against allied leaders. >> would you find it surprising that he did not know? >> he did not know at the granular level every target that they choose but it must be the case after five years in office he had a pretty good sense of the reach of the nsa. >> at some point, you have to say as you get that. >> there has to be all sorts of

indications in every presidential daily briefing that there is a wide reach in the nsa, far wider than he would have known as a senator on the intelligence committee. >> do you think it has changed the mind of the american public? >> it has. pew has asked every year if you fear more the threat of foreign terrorist of the threat of government to your rights? every year since 9/11 they had feared terrorism and for the first time ever since 9/11 in 2013, it was a radical reversal, something like 65-35 fear more the threats from the government than terrorism. >> you believe it's because of the disclosures? >> it has to be. onere you certain that no had been either arrested or killed because of these disclosures?

>> i am and i will tell you why. as everybody knows, we have many tens of thousands of documents that were given to us by edward snowden and we've had them now for almost a year. a very small percentage of them have been published. before we publish something, we vet them with huge numbers of editors, we talk to the government, two lawyers, to make certain that nothing in them -- >> do you talk about the meaning? >> the editors with whom i work go to the government and say, here's what we intend to publish. make your case my anything should be withheld. all of the foreign media outlets i've required to do that as well. >> required by you or their own principles? >> it is something i insist upon before i share. make sure you go to the government, tell them what it is you intend to publish and let them make their case to you and to me why they think these things should not be published.

>> and you decide based on their answers whether to publish. you make your own decision based on what they tell you. >> overwhelmingly we have gone forward to publish them there's a big criticism that we actually have not published enough and i find that more criticism -- more valid than we have published to much. >> do you believe this has damaged u.s. security interests? >> no. >> under no circumstances that means or methods have been disclosed to harm intelligence gathering that might be legitimate in terms of america's national security. >> there has been zero evidence presented by anyone that it has. >> lots of people from national charity step forward and said it had. >> the thing about that is -- if you look at every case of unwanted transparency where a light has been shined on the government going all the way

back to the pentagon papers, widely regarded as heroic and noble, the government says the same thing in every case. this transparency will cause blood on people hands, people to die, jeopardize security. it is never presented with specificity and no evidence. it is a script from which they read. >> you think the people who say that are lying or want to deceive in order to shut down surveillance? >> i think it's both. it's not a conspiracy theory. one of the ideas, this principle of the founding his power exercised without transparency will be abused and the national security state believes that unless everything it's doing is kept secret that it will be less effective and that will in turn result in security. >> you have to have some kind. everything cannot not be transparent in a national security operation. >> which is why a small percentage of the documents have been published.

we recognize that there is legitimate secrecy. the broad contours of what the government is doing have to be known to have a healthy, thriving democracy even though specific rogue rams, tactics, targets may be kept secret. >> how do you choose what you release? >> we look are the significant stories, we consult with experts. when they are ready to be published, we publish them instantly. meaning we have a very good understanding of what the material is and what the revelations are. we fill in the gaps with extra reporting and we consult with experts and we are convinced by talking to our lawyers am a government that we can safely and responsibly publish it. >> i'm quoted in your book asking where the balance was. what's your definition? >> to me, there is a great and exciting aspect to that question. we can look what we did in the height of the cold war when we had all of these intercontinental ballistic missiles, terrorist groups, and

what we did, the framework of we created was that it's important that the government be able to eavesdrop, but they need to go to a court and present evidence on the person that they have actually done something that merits surveillance, not this indiscriminate mass surveillance but very targeted -- >> metadata? >> the government collect billions of calls and e-mails every single day. they collect so much of the content of communications around the world that they cannot even store it all even though small amounts of data can be stored on a thumb drive. >> the disclosure from you, i think, about how routers and things are being shipped overseas were opened, repackaged with a security device inside. >> back door. this is why i feel like the

journalism we've done has been in the public interest. for many years, they have been warning the world that the chinese do that to the product of chinese companies. do not buy products from the chinese because the government goes into the product inputs a backdoor in. the whole time, the nsa is doing exactly that. when you have a government misleading the people, democracy is in peril and it is the role of journalists to make people aware. >> you don't necessarily occupy the high ground here. thanks it is certainly something that american people have a right to know they're being told by the government that they are evil for doing the same things they are doing. >> does everybody do it? >> not everybody. >> not everyone is capable. >> no one surveilled the internet and world communications to the extent of the united states. >> that definition may be about competence. others might do it and they do

it in part. they may do more if they had the competence. >> nobody thinks that's buying in and of itself and all of its permutations is legitimate. it has always existed and always will. if the united states were targeting a traditionally recognized legitimate target, military officials, heads a foreign state, there would never have been anna edwards snowden, no controversy. it is the indiscriminate nature, the goal of the nsa as they collect it all. >> in terms of your own reporting, is that exactly the issue for you, the catch all, the indiscriminate all that is the most offensive thing that here you disclose in this book as you tell us the story? >> it is absolutely the most significant part of the story, the limitlessness to turn the

internet and all forms of digital communication into a field where there is no privacy, literally. it is the definition of the case that if you subjected that the privacy ceases to exist. >> how did you first meet edward snowden? you were an investigative reporter for various organizations. >> i was at the time writing for the guardian and i had written about civil liberties, surveillance for a long time because i got into political journalism is a constitutional lawyer interested in the policies adopted in the wake of 9/11. i had actually written a book back in 2006 on the nsa scandal of that time, much more limited, about telephone calls. edward snowden was a reader of mine for several years and decided i would be a person with whom he would want to work with on the story.

>> what was it about you that made him decide that? >> a lot of people assume it is because i was warning about the dangers of surveillance and he therefore thought i would be sympathetic to his viewpoint. it was much more my views on journalism. i have been very critical with "the new york times," at the behest of the bush administration blocked him from publishing a story when he summoned bill keller to the oval office and said it would damage national security. he only did so and they won the pulitzer prize for it. snowden was very worried he was going to unrivaled his life to bring this information to the newspaper to close to the government. he thought i would report aggressively and me being at the guardian but let me to that, and environment more conducive.

it was much more my views on journalism than surveillance. >> how did he reach out to you? >> he was petrified for very good reason of saying anything specific about who he was. he wanted me to install encryption. i did not know anything about them or know how to install them. because he would not tell me who he was, i really did not prioritize it. he kept urging me to do it and over seven weeks he finally went to a documentarian and academy award winner filmmaker. she's one of the founding editors with me. she did have encryption because of the film she have been working on and he communicated with her and ask her to involve me and then we spoke online in the encrypted environment and he insisted i come to hong kong.

i said i would as long as i got a sense of what he had and he sent me a few documents that were shocking. >> what were they? >> one was the prism program about nsa access to facebook, google, yahoo!. others were training materials that nsa analysts get to show the range of the information they could get and that point, i knew this was the most important leak in history. i met with my editors at the guardian and the following day, i went with lawyers and laura to hong kong. we were there with him for 10 days. >> tell me your first impression. >> i was shocked because i had assumed he was this very senior official because he had access to all kinds of information that was top-secret. he had a very sophisticated inside, this world-weary viewable at the national security state had become. when i saw this kid -- he's 29 but looks six years younger wearing jeans and a t-shirt, it

was very disorienting. i thought it might be a scam or the son of the actual source and you would be hiding behind the curtain. but then i sat down with him immediately and questioned him for six straight hours and saw that he was extremely serious and credible and that i could rely on him as a source where i put the credibility of not just the guardian but myself and my career on the line. >> do you believe that he has disclosed or perhaps not made public, but disclosed to the chinese government or the russian government? >> i absolutely do not believe it. you can never prove a negative so i cannot said at the table or in any way prove to you that something did not happen including that but i can tell you the evidence and they are adamant in the same way that i am that it is very unlikely that it happened. in part, he is a highly trained

operative from the nsa and how to protect the general information from invasion from the most sophisticated foreign government. most of all, he did not unravel his life, risk prison, to turn over information to a foreign government that would help them better surveilled. >> it would destroy his credibility. >> it would turn him into a traitor in his own eyes. >> is anything about what he's done traitorous? >> absolutely not. he could have sold this material in been extremely rich for the rest of his life. he could have secretly handed it to an adversarial government. he came to journalists and ask us to make the decisions about what should be published and what should not. >> he does not come in an act of civil disobedience. >> there's a lot of a different debate for what civil disobedience and tales. there is a brilliant op-ed saying that he was right to flee. >> there are other people who

argue that if you prepared to engage in civil disobedience to violate the law that you should be willing to stand up to the punishment. >> there was a very good chance that he was going to end up in prison for the rest of his life and we assumed in hong kong it was by far the most likely outcome. he managed to escape that. i don't think it requires that you turn yourself over two decades in a cage in order to prove that your act is noble. >> what is he asking for? >> he was very clear that he did not want to unilaterally, single-handedly destroy these programs which you could have done by uploading all the documents on the internet. he wanted to trigger a worldwide debate to see if this is something whether we want to happen to the internet and he has been extremely gratified that a debate more sustained than anything we thought would happen has actually happened and what he wants is exactly what's happening, democratic bait.

debate.atic >> you expect them to continue to live in russia? >> there's a real debate about whether to extend a silent to him in recognition in germany and brazil, the two countries that probably reacted most strongly to the revelations. i think that's a possibility but it is very possible that he will end up in russia for the rest of his life. >> a lot of very tough, pragmatic, hard minded people have said to me that it's impossible but something has not happened in russia precluding to allow him to stay there and that he must have given the russian something. >> it's very easy to make accusations or claims about evidence, as people have done, about that. i've never seen him lie and i believe him when he said he went to russia without any of the digital material. >> where is it? >> he got rid of what he had

physically. he gave it to journalists and purposely did not take it with him. let may say something about putin. it's easy to see why putin wants him there. he has command of the extradition of all sorts of people who are russian in the united states in the position of the united states is we're not giving them because there is no extradition treaty and it's a huge propaganda coup to say they are protecting the rights of this whistleblower from persecution. he loves the fact that snowden is in russia. he gets them all kinds of perception benefits. >> does he look more favorably on what russia does than the united states? >> why haven't you talked about russian surveillance? the answer is because he looked inside the american surveillance and he knows very little about russian surveillance other than what publicly is known. there is a theory that noam chomsky and others have talked about that if you are a citizen of the country, your first duty is to stand up and object to the wrongful governments as opposed

to standing up over those which you have no influence. >> i understand that argument. >> it's the fact that the u.s. government is so far ahead of any other country in terms of capabilities and resource devotion. there's a reason why we are so far ahead. we spend $75 billion per year on the surveillance state. >> we've led the technology revolution. >> we created the internet. there's lots of different reasons. >> for you, the nsa was contrary to the spirit of the digital culture. what did you mean? >> the idea of the internet was that it would be this vast, free place that would equalize the playing field, liberate people and tear any of the only way it would really work as if we were able to express ourselves with privacy, coordinated and organize with our fellow citizens.

what the nsa has done is converted the internet from this unprecedented zone of freedom into the most powerful means of surveillance ever known in human history and it really has subverted the internet and its greatest promise what it could have been and that's why younger people are so supportive because they understand what internet could have been because they grew up in it. >> and you cite privacy as a central component of what it means to be an american. >> privacy from the beginning, the american miso as has always been this is my land. the government cannot enter it unless there is probable cause and the idea being left alone has the supreme court said is the anchor right to everything else. >> as you release the information to newspapers and other distributors, do they pay so they can print it? >> they don't pay me for the

work i do as a freelance journalist. >> they pay for your right instead of what your release. >> if i were to cooperate, the government could say i have converted myself from a journalist to a source and have lost the protections legally that i need to publish top-secret information. it's important to do it within the framework for legal reasons. >> you said you were offended when they described you not as a journalist but a blogger or an activist. >> i don't really mind what labels people apply because i think ultimately they don't have much meaning. they are shorthand signifiers. the reason it was disconcerted is that it was "the new york times" who led the way calling me an anti-surveillance activist and a blogger. there are very serious legal questions that come from publishing top-secret information. it is by no means clear that it is legal. you act as a journalist and can invoke the first amendment free press provision. to have other journalists while i'm doing and go out of their

way to depict me as something outside of journalism i do think was disturbing. >> here's what i don't understand. how deep does this go? not the surveillance but the information that somebody -- you or others -- who's in charge of it? >> laura and i are the only ones that have the full archive. they all have very substantial numbers. there are many tens of thousands of top-secret documents. the question now becomes, we are thinking about ways to expand access for other media organizations around the world. >> have you seen all of them? >> i have looked at all of the documents at least once. >> give me your sense of it. >> it is just stunning to watch. i have written about this for a long time and i have been learning for a long time and i thought the nsa was an out-of-control agency engaged in indiscriminate surveillance and i remain shocked to this day

just to see him practice the idea that all of our communications electronically, telephone, internet, all of our activities in the eyes of the government should be collected, monitored, and stored. it is remarkable to watch them put that into action. >> are there american secrets that go beyond surveillance in these documents? deep american secrets about how we go about our national security? not how we obtain information but information we have? >> the nsa is part of the defense department. to cooperate on things like the drone program, things like the deployment of troops around the world. one of the first reports i did in our new journalist adventure was with how the nsa uses metadata analysis to determine who should live and die through the drone program. yes, there are a lot of very

sensitive documents in the archive that he gave us that go beyond surveillance. >> he described the last piece of material you released it will be like a firecracker, the great finale. >> right. >> what consequences will come from the great finale? >> if you look at the surveillance abuses of the past, the principal question has always been, on whom is the government spying domestically and for what reasons? who are their targets? that's the missing part of the puzzle in terms of the reporting, who specifically are the targets domestically, american citizens, u.s. persons legally inside the united states. the investigation and the reporting we are currently doing that i do think will complete the picture is to answer that question in a very comprehensive way. >> when will that happen? >> as soon as it's ready. if i give you a timeframe, my editor will murder me.

i don't want to put that pressure on myself. >> i don't want to be responsible for that. >> i appreciate it. >> suppose you do find out that in fact you have done grievous damage. you seem like a rational man to me. grievous damage to american national security. what would you do? would you say, i was wrong, i'm sorry? >> all reporting entails risk. i think we are the best judgments that we can. if that did happen, i would be the first to acknowledge that it did but i also think there is grievous harm from allowing a very powerful government, the world's most our phone, to do extremely consequential things. >> that point is made. >> as a journalist, you realize that when you disclose secret documents, there is a risk that you can make a bad judgment.

you could make a mistake that could result in harm to somebody. i say that and i take that risk because the risk of allowing this information to remain suppressed is quite great. like i said, i don't expect it to happen and if it did, we would hold ourselves accountable. >> what fears do you have? >> we will not find the right way to get all of the information that should be public out into the public in a responsible way. i feel a burden and an obligation to make sure that what should the reported gets reported in a timely fashion and it's a difficult challenge. i worried about the legal consequences of my doing this. there were senior obama officials arguing that it was criminal and we could be arrested if it came back to the u.s. >> did you have conversations? >> i have lawyers who have good contacts in the justice department trying to get assurances that if i came back

to the u.s. i would not be arrested. we were given no assurances. they purposely kept us in a state of uncertainty about whether they intended to do it. they would not give us any information. my partner was detained. there was an act of terrorism and when you have many tens of thousands of secret documents, there are lots of intelligence agencies that would like to get their hands on that. there are security risks, physical risks. >> doesn't that say something that they would like to get their hands on it? >> they want to know how to defend themselves against the invasions of the communications network. if the united states government is invading the communications of government officials, consulates, embassies, you would rationally want to know what they are doing and how to protect yourself. maybe you want to know what they're doing to replicate it. >> are there any discussions going on to somehow allow

snowden to believe that he could come back and get whatever it is he's looking for? >> there are some negotiations but they are not very fruitful. i don't say that the government will allow him to return he has lawyers including the aclu and others. >> and negotiates with him? >> the justice department. >> they just have not addressed at all. >> when will you see him? >> i expect to go to russia at some point in the very near future for an interview -- >> to be interviewed with him were about this book? >> i cannot disclose the details you because it has not been announced that it will happen in the short future syllable being the reunion of our one-year anniversary. >> the book is called "no place to hide."

back in a moment. stay with us. ♪

>> christopher buckley is here. he has been called a him a humorist, a term that he despises. you are truly better off if they do not introduce you as a humorist or satirist. his new book is a collection of essays and it is called, "but enough about you." my pleasure to have mr. buckley back at this table. >> you introduce me very deftly by saying that i don't like being called a humorist. satirist is an even trickier term. and that's what my late dad would have called an out-of-town word. >> he knew something about that. >> $10 word.

i was once speaking at a civic event in ohio, much nicer than we are in the east, although they are nice and the carolinas. it was one of those 11:00 a.m. things, civic auditorium, 1000 blue haired and silver haired ladies. my host was a sweet, sweet person introduced me as a satirist. not just once but the introduction went on and referred to me three or four times. it is unwieldy. >> witty get the title, "but enough about you?" >> do you like it? >> i do. >> it got your attention.

it's not easy getting the attention of influential people, as you know. >> first of all, dedicated to christopher hitchens with this faithful old. >> it's a dedicated to my late, great friend christopher hitchens. it's a line from brideshead revisited, a very flamboyant character says in various points to the narrator, i'm a faithful old body. i've been keeping my eye on you. christopher was a fellow of infinite jest who adorned table many times. this was a very heartfelt tribute to a dear friend. there are a couple things in here about him. i wrote my appreciation of him

for the new yorker. there's a review of his very last of which is called "mortality." he was diagnosed almost on the day his memoir was published. it was eerie. he wrote a marvelous book called "hitch 22." it was the very week he was published. he was stricken. >> he had given a lecture that night. >> he did. with salman rushdie. he was terribly stricken and he received a few days later the diagnosis for esophageal cancer. he threw the kitchen sink against it. one of his primary care physicians was francis collins,

head of the nih, and the other was head of the n-i-something. he underwent every protocol there was. i visited him down at m.d. anderson down in houston where he died. he lasted 18 months. he probably got himself at least 12 of them with his protocols. he kept record of it. he wrote until the very end about his dying, the land of malady. >> he showed uncommon courage and the way he faced it. >> nothing so became him in life such as the way he left it. he was a very dear friend. i miss his takes on everything. >> this preface really is about on writing.

>> it's about the writers ego, as my editor said. this is an occasion for a meaty introduction of the ego of the writer. i asked why he would turn to me for that. >> can one write without having an ego? >> could one do anything without having some ego? i quote an authority named george orwell at the end of that and i say -- who is rather tough on writers and he says all writers are vain and selfish and exhibitionists. >> you also quote, he will think you a trivial fellow board him in the right way and your reputation is assured -- bore him in the right way. >> isn't that a great quote?

it's such a great quote. i say in the first sentence of the preface that i will cop to being a trivial fellow. i've never had any illusions about that. i can say with a straight face that my goal has never been to bore the reader. >> this follows the quote. this irksome quote weighed on me as i brought this collection together. i can say with a straight face that might goal has never been to bore the reader. maybe i've been going about this all wrong. i'm 61 now but it's a bit late in the game to be worrying about that. what else don't you worry about? how does christopher buckley see life at 61? what's good about that and not so good about that?

not life but how you see it. >> despite the aches and pains, you see i'm heavily medicated right now. [laughter] i find myself calm her. -- calmer. the ego, which you so delicately introduced, is a little calm er. >> have you essentially as a writer done what you intended to do? >> yes and no, charlie. this is my 16th book. >> what are you the most proud of? >> who can choose?

it is such a bounty. there are essays written over the course of 25 years. i picked what i thought were the good ones. >> you wrote an obituary. for gore vidal. >> i was asked by the new republic. >> your dad and gore vidal -- >> they had a certain amount of history. for some reason, he did not like me either although we never met. when my father died, he weighed in and said, "r.i.p. w.f.b. in hell," and called him a number of things including mr. go queen which i wasn't sure where that came from. then he called me "creepy and brain-dead." [laughter] hello? was it my aftershave?

i was asked to write about him and i made a few observations which were that i thought he -- he and my dad had one of the more famous in tv. it was televised live in 1968. my dad never really -- he sort of let go of it, my dad. the only time i ever heard to him referr to gore vidal. it was usually admiringly. he was offered membership in the influential american academy of arts and letters. do you remember his response. "thanks, i already have diners club." [laughter] >> he was like that.

>> but vidal took his demons to the grave. he was an angry guy. gore vidal. my dad was a great christian. i never asked him what went on in his soul vis-a-vis gore vidal, but he wanted to move on. life is too short. >> i want you to respond as best you can. what was it like living in the shadow of a father who was considered by many a great man? it's hard to know because you only have one father.

>> well, you have been a way answered it. it is your normal. it was not until -- sitting there at home you're not thinking "my father's a great man," but when you walk through an airport and every 10 feet someone stops and says, "mr. buckley, i love your show." i was obviously cognizant. what i admired about him most was not his fame. it was his extraordinary goodness, i would say. >> goodness. >> i've known a number of splendid men in my day.

might that would be the finest. george h.w. bush, for whom i worked, would be up there. >> he had kindness, too? >> there was a gentleness to them. these people had been through a crucible and yet retained a gentleness of soul. >> might you have been a better or different writer had you not have had william f buckley junior as your father? have you ever asked that question? it was at times a contentious relationship was not? >> we fought a bit. we also had intense love. i was an only child which made it all the more intense. it's an impossible question to answer. whether or not i would have been a worse writer if my father had -- i learned an awful lot from him.

he was one hell of a mentor when it came to writing. he was a tough grader. i did not spring from the womb writing well. i had to learn this. >> have you ever thought about that question? it is an unswerable there for you never think about it? >> it's not something attend wake up in the morning puzzling over. it is what it is. i consider myself the most fortunate in the world. >> nazis, commencement butterflies, a short history of the billionaire. then you go into out and about

rambles with maggie, a short history, statecraft, langella, nixn, the inaugural farewells in which you have written a goodbye to people including gore vidal. new criticism from his injure on china. >> volume two on the joy of sex. >> are you a francophile? >> oui. bien sur. as christopher hitchins would say -- [speaking french] [laughter] >> continuing education and finally essays. as i was saying, henry kissinger. >> that's an essay on the name dropping technique. >> as i was saying, henry kissinger has so much respect for me that we would be having serious conversations.

>> i'm tempted now to changing, "as i was saying to charlie rose." [laughter] >> you just don't let go. i like this one, i like to drink a martini. >> i like to drink a martini, but only two at the most. three i am under the table and four i'm under the host. [laughter] >> good to have you here. if you want to laugh, laugh with christopher hitchens -- christopher buckley but dedicated to our friend christopher hitchens. i cannot even pronounce the title. why am i doing this? >> give it a rest. go home. [laughter] >> it 7:00, for god's sake. christopher buckley, "but enough about you." thanks for joining us. see you next time. ♪

>> live from pier 3 in san francisco, welcome to the late edition of "bloomberg west," where we cover the global technology and media companies that are reshaping our world. i'm cory johnson. uber is headed toward evaluation of $10 billion. big question -- is it worth it? critic's on both the left and right are already pouncing on what internet fast lanes could