little thing like this bother me? it happened so long captioning sponsored by comedy central captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> stephen: tonight this year's nobel prize winners are announced. i can't wait to see which economist won the swimsuit competition. then an cup date about a criminal loose in florida, that's right, i'm on to you, half of florida. and my guest evan thomas has a new book that says dwight d eisenhower was the father of modern nuclear policy. that we know of. the inventor of the cardboard bike says it will change the world. provided that change includes never raining again. this is "the colbert report."

>> stephen: welcome to the report, everybody, good to have you with us. thank you, ladies and gentlemen. >> stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! (cheers and applause) >> stephen: thank you, ladies and gentlemen. thank you sop much. i'm not sure, i'm so thrilled by that ovation but i'm not sure whether you are actually clapping for me or just trying to shake all the rain off your arms. but folks, you know me. i love seeing mankind

overcome obstacles. that's why i'm always pushing chairs in front of people. (laughter) and yesterday, another barrier fell as daredevil felix baumgartner became the first man to-- aaaahhhh-- (laughter) felix baumgartner became the first man to break the sound barrier in freefall. parachuting from a record altitude of 24 miles. ladies and gentlemen, this proves that our days of human exploration are not over. because we did it! we put a man on the earth! (laughter) (cheers and applause)

it's a brave same world. (laughter) and folks, millions around the world tuned in to witness this historic event and or hideously gruesome death. (laughter) but the real victory here went not to the man who plummeted from the messosphere without being turned into a face suit full of wet dog food, no. the day truly belonged to his corporate sponsor, red bull. it's perfect synergy. red bull gives you wings. and baumgartner flu toward the is unlike icherus. i never finished that store even. he had a parachute, right, he did? folks, we need more private companies stepping up to explore the known university. how else will we find evidence of life cereal on mars. now nation, if you know me,

you know i'm not big on gossip. because between you and me, gossip is a two-faced-- this is tip of the hat, wag of the finger. (cheers and applause) folks, i have never liked the nobel prideses. any gold coin that big should have chocolate inside. (laughter) and this year is no exception. the nobel in literature goes to chinese novellist mo yawn. have you ever tried to get through red sore gume? the mo i read the mo i yawn. and tonight-- (laughter) i am awarding the wag of my finger to norway for who they selected to win the peace prize. >> the nobel committee has decided that the nobel peace prize for 2012 is to be awarded to the european union. >> stephen: oh, what a shock!

congratulations, europe. you gave yourself the nobel peace prize. (laughter) that's the same humility oprah showed when taking her magazine cover mod-- when picking her magazine cover model. (cheers and applause) nobel committee chair thorborn jaglund explained their rationale. >> the european union has helped to transform most of europe from a continental war to a continental peace. >> stephen: oh bravo, europe. so well deserved. after all, it's been a whole 13 years since your last genocide. by this logic, by this logic, i should get the nobel prize for not murdering anyone lately. oh, that's right. i'm no longer eligible.

(laughter) but since political unions can now win nobels these days i've got to ask, how about one for the united states of america. because i see-- (cheers and applause) >> stephen: yeah! because i don't know about you, i seem to remember someone putting an end to a couple of dustups that europe started. what were they called again? oh yeah, world war i and world war ii. no biggie! we had plenty of free time digging ourselves out of the great depression. oh, and who spent billions on military base all over europe to keep the communists from boot stomping your wafel fans and vespa dealerships? oh yeah, oh yeah, we did! that's when you stepped up and called on us again. oh, you know what, you should have called norway. you seem to be on great terms with those guys.

well, you know what? maybe the united states will just take the next global conflict off. keep us and our massive peacekeeping military at home. maybe give ourselves a people's choice award. (laughter) after all, we haven't had a war since 1945, that we've declared. (laughter) next up on the-- folk, while i'm no fan of vegetation i believe our schools can teach our children one thing. it can teach them their place in social pecking order. because the table you sit at for lunch is the table you'll sit at for the rest of your life. i sat with the most popular group. the av club. and now i work in both audio and video. but a new bit of liberal social engineering is threatening the natural order. >> it's called mix it up at lunch day. october 30th is the day, it

encourages kids to sit with classmates that they normally wouldn't talk to. mix it up at lunch is about breaking up cliques. >> don't fall for it, kids. mix it up at lunch day is an attempt to erase all the proper social boundaries. we're not talking about just jocks sitting with nerds but also sitting with dorks and losers and lamos and spazs. (laughter) and for what, mutual understanding? that sounds like what some twerp from the moddle u.n. would say. that's why i'm giving a big tip of my hat to the conservative evangelical group american family association for seeing through this plan. >> this year the program though is being targeted by the american family association, a conservative evan gel call group saying the project is this, a quote nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools. >> stephen: exactly. oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, wake up, everybody. mix it up day promotes the

homosexual lifestyle. it's adam and eve, not adam and dweeb. it's a devious plot. get kids to learn that despite our outward differences in our hearts we're all pretty of the same. that leads to open mindedness, which leads to open pantedness. and the next thing you know, timmy and bobby are making monkey butter. that's the pc term these days. that's the term you are supposed to use. (laughter) i understand. now no surprise, mix it up day is the brainchild of the far left southern poverty law centers teaching tolerance program. which puts its homosexual agenda right there in the logo. i means that's a freaky four-way reach around. we'll be right back. (cheers and applause)

>> stephen: welcome back, everybody. nation, whoever coined the

phrase as fun as a barel of monkeys never had to hose out a 50 gallon drum of bonobo filth. this is monkey on the lam. (applause) >> stephen: nation, for seven years now i've been bringing you the latest in breaking monkey fugitive news. that the cow ards in the lemur stream media won't touch. now i don't do it for the peabody's, though it is nice when somebody acknowledges your work. no, i do it because i'm looking out for you. my hire pri mate viewers. and you might remember back in march of 2010 during what many call the spring of the monday qui, i blew the lid off the story of a rampaging mack qia. >> tonight a long dover due warning of the res dens of synth petersburg florida where last night they

spotted a rhesus mack qia monday qui that eluded authority force over a year. so citizens of florida you must catch this monkey before spring break because while girls may go wild, monkeys on the lam go ape [bleep] (laughter) now i know, sick stuff. but don't worry, monkey goes ape [bleep] shows up on your credit card statement as banana maintenance. now but when i sounded the ape alarm two and a half years ago, no one in st. petersberg listened. and today this monkey maniac is still he luteding the long harry arm of the law. >> the search is on for the mystery monkey of st. petersburg. >> not too much traffic. nice tall trees. really is the kind of place where a monkey could make a home. and that's exactly what happened in this neighborhood. the mystery monkey settled down here, got comfortable. the wildlife experts say maybe a little too

comfortable. >> stephen: that's right. they're calling it the mystery monkey. instead of catching the simian psycho they gave him a nick name. and worse the nick name wasn't simian psycho. now what am i supposed to do with all these t-shirts? (cheers and applause) folks, the people of st. petersberg have ignored my self-less attempt to macaque blowsom. and now this monkey has come back to bite them, literally. the rhesus mack qia has bitten someone in the area of boyd hill nature park, an elderly woman. >> i don't think it was an attack. i think the monkey jumps on her back, both freaked out.

>> stephen: sure, yeah. (laughter) sure, not really an attack. both sides freaked out. i mean at this point who knows who started it. maybe the old lady jumped out of the tree. nation, give then monkey's latest actions we need to update our graphic. this is monday qui on the gram. >> stephen: folks, we cannot let this monkey go around malling innocent seniors. unless that's a social security plan mitt romney is not telling us about.

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>> welcome back, everybody. my guest tonight has a new book on america's atomic arsenal in the 1950s. so it was a simpler time. ben we could blow up its world only nine times. please welcome evan thomas. (cheers and applause)

>> hey, thank you so much. okay, sir, thank you for coming on here. you've got a new book. it's called ike bluff president eisenhower's secret battle to save the world. now i got a beef with ike that i didn't know i had. because i like ike, you like ike, everybody likes ike. turns out ike was a huge approximates ussy. (laughter) >> no, he wasn't. >> stephen: he was. he was. he was afraid of going toe-to-toe with the russskies in nuclear annihilation. >> he was not, he was brave, he was a brave soldier. but he didn't want to fight wars. he wanted to bluff the russians. 1950s. communism was on the march and he didn't want to fight a nuclear war. he didn't want to fight any kind of war but he bluffed with nuclear weapons. >> stephen: he was the ally. he knew that we won world

war ii with nuclear bombs, did that escape his attention. >> he didn't want it to do hiroshima or nagasaki at home or in russia. he saw what nuclear bomb kos do and didn't want to use them. >> stephen: but you say he was unwilling to do first strike. >> well, he didn't-- yes, he didn't want to go first. he thought about it. he actually, interestingly, he thought about going first and trying to knock out the soviet downbefore they could knock us out. he thought we had ray moral duty to at least consider that but thought about it and thought immoral, bad, wrong, so they didn't do it but they did think about it. >> okay, but why is the general, was he so hesitant to use massive military support. >> because he used it he had seens it, he had seen the effects of it he flew after world war ii he flew in a small plane from berlin to moskow and over the roofs, the german army and russian armee, and he didn't see a single building left standing. he knew what war could do. he knew how horrible it was

because he had run a war. sow wanted to avoid war. >> is this why we shouldn't elect generals any more? >> well, we-- . >> stephen: guys like rom know and george w. bush without didn't actually serve in i war, you know, still have the balls to send other people to go in to fight. sometimes the post dangerous guys. >> are the ones who haven't been to wa, they call them chicken hawks. >> stephen: proud one right here. >> unfortunately, i am deaf this one year but or i would have served in many, many wars. >> military guys who have seen war sometimes know enough to try to stay out of it. >> stephen: okay. but you say that he was a poker player. >> he was. >> stephen: what hand was ike holding? >> because if it's a bluff that means he didn't actually have the cards. what hand dow say parker did not have? >> america was not actually going to use these weapons. he wanted to make the russians think man, we're going to nuke you but he wasn't going do it sses but didn't russia immediately know that we weren't when he didn't help out the

hungarians and the soviets sending those tanks to crush those -- >> he was smart enough not to go into hungary because it might have pro-- provoked a world war. we couldn't have saved hungary. >> stephen: sometimes you have to nuke a village to save it. >> eisenhower was smart enough to stay out of wars he couldn't win. and that was a war we couldn't win. >> stephen: i got another beef with ike here. this is a long-standing beef but i have forgiven him for it before until i almost read your book. ike warned us about the military industrial complex. what de mean by that? >> he means the military sometimes exaggerates threats, because they want more money to build more weapons. and so military contracts doesn't get more money. ike was a soldier, he had been at the pentagon. he used to talk about those boys down at the pentagon. he knew that they sometimes-- he wanted to dial that back and he was worried that civilian politician was didn't know better would get sucked in by the military. >> stephen: he said that as he was going out the door, right. >> yeah. >> stephen: why didn't he say it while he was

president and could do something about it. >> de do something about it. >> stephen: what did he do. >> military spending under ike went down, not up. even though-- . >> stephen: really? >> he kupt into his own service because he didn't want to use them. he cut into them. he built up nuclear bombers and missiles because he had to, because that is what the rush arnes were doing but he spent less on his own service. he was brave in doing that his own army was mad at him. >> stephen: what do you think ike would do about some of the present military conundrums we're facing. if he didn't go into hungary would he go into syria? >> no. he was an all or nothing guy. he didn't believe in small wars. he thought small wars-- . >> stephen: not feeding weapons to anybody. >> he would have done covert stuff. >> stephen: he put the shaw of iran in. >> he liked the cia a little too much. he-- . >> stephen: he had a bro-mance with the cia. >> he was a romantic guy but not with the cia. >> stephen: he was said to be a romantic guy.

(laughter) >> so he wouldn't send-- he wouldn't send weapons or ground troops into syria? >> no. >> stephen: what about keeping iran from getting the bomb? >> well, that's a hard one. and i'm not sure what he would do. he would really not, not want iran to get the bomb. i think he would do everything through covert action that he possibly come he would unleash the cia but he would not, he wouldn't want them to get the bomb. >> stephen: now ike was a moderate republican. >> he was. >> stephen: for our younger audience, what are those? is. >> yes, too bad it is almost extinct. (applause) >> stephen: is there any sort of captive breeding program or anything like that? you look at one, they are beautiful plumbage. >> they were great to have around. because they would actually compromise, they would get stuff done. >> stephen: they would do things, but they believed in big government like ike built the interstate highway system, sir. >> he did. >> stephen: a true republican would have let

individual corporations pave their own streets and decide which side to drive on. >> a true stupid republican but the smart republican like ike would understand you have to have infrastructure. you have to have some government. ike did not dismantle the new deal. a lot of republicans wanted to just get rid of the new deal, they were done with that. ike preserved that and he knew to do long-term things. like build highways that we need because he knew the economy needed it. even though he was not a fan of big government. in fact he was a balanced budget guy. he controlled government spending. i wish we had more guys today like ike who did that. but he did. he was a balanced budget guy. >> stephen: which of the two candidates are more like him, romney or obama? >> fleert. >> stephen: all right, thank you so much. (applause) >> stephen: evan thomas, the book is ike's bluff. we'll be right back.

>> stephen: that's it for the report, everybody. good night. (cheers a