and the other hand the reason why we say it's not true is that in fact eventually despite all the wars and the problems, egypt made peace. jordan made peace with israel. and today as we see, some of the arab states that used to be anti-israel are trying to have a common interest with israel against what they all see is a similar threat of iran to their governments. so i would not say kennan was right. >>, i guess, i said that was the last question but one final one from me. [laughter] >> so i assume my privileges. what did you learn about executive american presidential decision-making. because this was really an extraordinary instance in which there was a virtual open bureaucratic revolt benefits the president of the united states. and he had to -- this was a

president who had not won a mandate on his own. he had a cabinet filled with gigantic egos and figures. what lessons do you draw about effective presidential decision-making from this whole episode? >> well, truman was very aware of what was going on and in hindsight when he wrote his memoirs he said that this was an endemic problem in the united states government. and his position always was that the president -- it was the president's prerogative to make foreign policy and that all presidents had to be very aware of the fact that people in different bureaucracies were going to try to undermine that because they would be there long before the president left. and i think this is a continuing issue. >> the other problem is that truman right from the beginning

said that he would deflect on other issues he really was on top of the state department foreign policy but he said from the beginning the one area i do know about is palestine and that's something i want to be in charge of myself. and he made a distinct conscious distinction that he wanted to be on top of and micromanage palestine policy much -- it's not the case with the over areas, the cold war, soviet union. i mean, you know, came to major decisions the truman doctrine, dropping the atomic bomb. he himself said the decision to drop the atomic bomb which many consider something he must have lost sleep over and he said it was nothing compared to dealing with the palestine issue. >> well, on that note -- [applause] >> i wanted to remind the audience that mr. stephens didn't know he was going to be speaking here tonight.

[applause] >> so a special hand to mr. stephens. [applause] >> please obviously no major league political statements or anything of the sort. i just wanted one point clarified. you said that after churchill left being the prime minister of england, was it bevan -- was that the name you gave. >> ernest bevan. >> i thought -- >> he was prime minister -- >> no, ron, it's the opposite. adelaide was prime minister and bevan was -- >> atley was winston churchill's both his predecessor and he came after -- >> over here? >> i've always been curious

about george marshall. he threatened to resign and then he didn't resign. >> uh-huh. >> and he's such a large name in american history. do we know anything about his thinking? was he antisemetic. what was his thoughts as to why he opposed so much? >> some people thought that he didn't have very strong feelings about it before he became secretary of state but he was very influenced by the state department once he did become secretary of state and kind of adopted their attitude toward the middle east and a partition and israel. >> also, he had -- he had a long it talk right before the leaders of the jewish agency were going to vote in palestine about whether to proclaim a jewish state. he had a long talk with mosha and he came to see him in his

office and the text is available. and he gave him analogies between his experience trying to negotiate between the nationalists and communists in china. and the chinese civil war. and the chinese armies and how everything he believed collapsed as a reality hit him in the face in the strength of the mao's army and he tried to warn him and he seriously gave him long armies saying, serious long, long argument using that situation in china as an analogy. as to why the hagana would not be able to win and he tried to warn him. i understand what you're saying. i understand your passion. but please go back there and tell them we can't proclaim a jewish state in may. vote against it because you're going to lose and i found reality was not what i expected in china and you're going to

find the same thing when your fight starts. he really believed that. he spoke to him as a military man giving him a military assessment. he said i can understand your passion. and he listened very seriously and reported back to him. he gave me very serious arguments we really have to consider and think over. they were not ideological arguments. they were not the arguments of kennan and henderson. when he spoke to him it was all a military assessment. and he believed that. >> the gentleman here and then -- >> how significant was the participation of bernard bernstein in the events that you described is this >> bernard bernstein. >> he was counsel to the -- at the united nations to the conference of the jewish organizations?

at the time of the partition. >> i would say we researched it probably very little. since his name ever appears anywhere as far as we can see. >> because of the arms embargo, israel was getting all its arms from czechoslovakia. how come israel didn't become a member of the communist bloc? >> i think the labor zionist leadership was not particularly procommunist. there were procommunist elements but the mainstream labor zionism was democrat socialists and considered themselves not friendly to communism. they were glad they would take the support and aid where they could get it from. they were delighted the soviets changed their line for a while and they could get arms from czechoslovakia but they were not procommunists. >> those arms didn't come during

that brief period between when he was in -- those arms came even after the soviets had taken over the arms came from czechoslovakia. >> the soviets were already powerful and influential in czechoslovakia. it was not yet a people's democracy. >> nobody mentioned that as soon as truman had supported the establishment of israel he enforced the arm embargo and, therefore, israel was forced to get the arms from czechoslovakia. >> right. one of the things, you know, some people again the difference between the zionists and truman -- the zionists had complaints even after recognition and we quoted at the end of the book speaking years later in a speech at hebrew university about why he

considered truman great. there were a lot of things truman did wrong afterwards in the united states, zionist movement -- the new nation of israel supporters constantly attacked truman to lift the embargo. and the left in the united states used the analogy with the spanish civil war. there's an embargo of arms to the republic of spain during the franco years and we're doing the same thing with the israel because they are continuing to get arms from wherever they can. the embargo, nobody is stopping them from getting arms. lift the embargo, truman wouldn't. on the other hand, again, truman was afraid that would bring the u.s. too closely on one side. it was not until kennedy as warren bass points out in his book a few years ago that militarily the relationship with israel began to change. and that israel would begin to get arms from the united states,

but, you know, truman did not want to get involved militarily and he thought that kind of thing would lead to u.s. military involvement he wanted to avoid. on the other hand, they gave israel to truman the first economic loan they desperately needed in order to be able to settle jews in palestine and truman put through that economic law. so, you know, truman was not really a zionist. even afterwards. he didn't do everything israel supporters wanted. >> also, i think he was picking his battles with the state department, and i got the feeling that after the recognition of israel he just wanted to back off for a while and he was well aware that israel was getting arms from czechoslovakia and they were receiving a lot of money from american jews to buy arms and after that the french came in

and sold israel arms. >> even j. edgar hoover looked the other when they broke up and raided -- there was a famous incident when marlon brando was packing arms for israel but vegetables and foodstuff and they were putting arms in the crates and the fbi busted a whole -- and hoover said let it go throughúu and looked the oth way. we're not going to stop them and we know it's illegal but let it go through. >> we'll have two more question questions. >> i believe eleanor roosevelt was very sympathetic to the jews and even tried to influence franklin roosevelt. did she have any role in this era with truman? >> she did. she was a u.n. delegate and one of two or three u.n. delegates

who were against what was going on in the u.n. as ron described with the state department. so i would say that she did play a very important role and she was also close to truman. truman really did listen to her and was influenced by her. and her position was, if you want the new u.n. to succeed, how can you turn against partition when this is what the had voted for her. and she really did push this with truman. >> on the other hand, publicly she was supposedly chairman of -- during this period when epstein called and said the state department was engineering in his words a big conspiracy to destroy partition, and frieda put together a huge dinner, rally where prominent speakers were going to come to protest the efforts of the state department to turn back partition. and eleanor roosevelt was supposed to be chairman of the

meeting. and they put out the ads stop the state department conspiracy against jewish palestine. and eleanor roosevelt said this is a grave embarrassment to me. i'm a delegate to the u.n. the president has appointed me. i cannot be at this dinner where you're slandering the president and making this public protest. privately she was tough with truman but she didn't want to go on record at the same time do something like appear at this mass-pressure dinner. >> what you're saying reminds me of my mother many decades ago went to a meeting where an american communist spoke and said the state department will always remain the same. presidents come and go. >> there you go. >> as i'm reading your book and as i'm watching also pbs behind closed doors, i'm impressed with roosevelt's thought that he could charm the people like

stalin. and we now has a president who feels likewise. i don't know if there's a question in there. your book is terrific. >> everybody can buy it. we're going to sign copies. don't forget. [laughter] >> we watched last night's episode, too, and yes the charming of fdr's attempt -- he thought he could charm even saul. and as we argue in our book that, you know -- even saul walked all over fdr as soon as he got there he totally capitulated to him. he thought he was going to come in and charm the pants off him and everything work with the arabs because all they had to do was listen to him. of course, in fdr's case by then fdr was quite ill. he would soon pass away and have his stroke. he was very, very sick. one of his chief aids, i forget who who was actually on the ship with him thought when he read

the text of the transcript between them, he said fdr is really sick. i don't know what he knows he's just been saying. and barack obama is vigorous he was no where in the state fdr was when he was trying to charm everyone in that period. >> but fdr is not a charmer. he keeps calling everybody s.b.o.s. >> no he's not a chammer -- charmer. >> on the s.o.b. note and the questions, just before i make a couple of announcements, i just want -- the business about bevan saying that americans want the jews, you know, to leave, i remember reading that g.k. chessshire was a zionist because he couldn't wait for the jews to leave britain and also i wonder if truman was aware that by separating the jews, of course, this is a personal thing for me

separating the made it possible to bring the movement to smuggle jews into palestine far easier. in other words he helped create israel in the back hand odd ball way to make it possible for the jews to organize in the camps. >> i don't think he was thinking of that. >> no, but i'd like to think he was. now, some commercial announcements. first of all, actually, i want the audience to thank our guests, ron radosh, allis radosh and bret stephens. [applause] >> for a really wonderful dialog especially it was very, very dramatic. it was a perfect kind of classroom situation and you had the lectures and the beautiful interplay and the audience got together. books are available in the bookshop and ron and allis will

be signing copies for those who are interested and on a programming note, our next event will be shagol with benjamin harsha who's a noted expert and i think a man who has 17 ph.d.s at yale and jay pearl, the art critic of the new republic and on june 11th we'll be proudly presenting a program on the jewish impact on the creation of punk rock. [laughter] >> that's not a joke featuring tommy ramone of the ramones, dick manitoba and patti smith and this is not a typical yivo event but it's a story of jewish children from brooklyn and queens who decide to go over to manhattan. it's very much the story, you know, of my contemporary but they went downtown and created

punk rock. we thank you for coming to yivo and we look forward to seeing you at the lecture and the punk evening. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> ronald radosh is the author of many books culled commies a journey from the old left, the new left and the leftover left. he's an adjunct senior fellow at the hudson institute and professor emeritus at the city university of new york. this event was hosted by the yivo institute in new york city. to find out more visit yivoinstitute.org. >> bookexpo america new york city 2009 we're here with a publisher of basic books. what does a publisher do? >> a publisher is just the title i have. i run the imprint of basic books so we have editorial, marketing, publicity, design and i just end

up making the final decisions on things. i say a lot of yes or no's all day long. >> what do you say yes to. >> whether we'll acquire the book, how much we'll pay it and how much resources we'll put on promoting it and the final call a lot of a over b i like this jacket over this one. what the price should be. a budget of small decisions. it all adds up to big decision because bunch of small ones along the way. >> now, how long have you been in books and where did you come from before basic. did you always want to be a publisher? >> no, imúx found the book business -- i was in retail. i ran a bookstore in washington for 10 years. and finally decided i enjoyed the book business so much i wanted to try something different than retail. so i've been -- you're going to date me here. this almost 20 years of bookexpos, abas as they used to be called. half in retail and half in publishing now. >> let's talk about some of the books you said yes or no to.

decisions on, i should say. we'll start off with rick steves. >> he's the europe through the back doors his travel series and he's really got some of the best travel books on the market but rick is also politically very active and the travel guides it's not appropriate to have political activism of travel guides but a lot of people want to make their own decisions but this is a long essay on the fact that when you travel that you actually are committing a political act and that when you travel you should -- that you you should consider where you're going and how you behave when you're in a place and that americans need to basically travel better and that you can learn as much from the culture you're going to visit. you'll see the cover has this suitcase on it and the idea is that when you come back from a place you should bring back as much of that place as possible, make america a more interesting interesting person.

>> the cover, did you make that decision? did you have anything to do that? how did that come about? >> so that cover was actually originated by one of the marketing people at perseus. we struggled because we knew it couldn't look like a conventional guide that have a single destination and we didn't want it to be too overtly political, old-fashioned and we put stickers on it. it's not a stock photo that we found. we put it together and then designed around it. i like the way it's clean but it's fun and the message gets across really clearly. >> so when you're viewers are at the bookstore they know a lot of thought has been put into a lot of those covers. >> oh, yeah, we agonize covers are one of the toughest things we do because everyone has a legitimate opinion about what works as a cover and sometimes what i'm doing is just filtering through the many different legitimate voices and trying to pick the one that i think is going to help us in the long run. >> all the books we're talking about here on the table are out

right now. these are spring titles? >> that's right. this show is to talk a little bit about fall books but then we bring spring books that just landed and it published last month. >> let's talk on two books on the economy. you talk about two takes on the economy. >> certainly from two different perspectives. robert frank is just to simplify things is a liberal economist. he has a column for the "new york times." he speeches at cornell and he's done this economic naturalist this is a second book he's done for us and it's a collection of pieces about how to think about the current crisis through economic terms. he helps people come up with a vocabulary to help understand all the kind of garbage that you hear in the news to sort through it. he has a lot of prospective solutions as well. then on the other side you have tom sowell who's a conservative economists out in the hoover institution in california. very widely respected. both these men are widely respected and we approached professor sowell we would like

to you write a book on what happened with the economy and he said without a doubt i need to write about the housing crisis because in his opinion the housing crisis is what precipitated the entire economic boom/bust. >> so we have some travel. we have the economy. and then we have this book by chris mooney about science in america. you want to tell me a little bit about that. >> chris mooney is a science journalist and he wrote a book for us a couple of years ago called the republican war on science which was a bestseller. now he's moved on to the idea that we have a problem with scientific literacy in this country. and i think the argument he would make is that when you read the front page of a big daily paper and you look at the problems that this country faces an enormous number of them are scientific problems or maybe i should say they're problems that have scientific solutions and one of the things that we're struggling with in this country is that we don't have the capacity, we don't have the infrastructure to build scientists who can help solve these problems. and so this is an argument saying that we need to increase the scientific literacy in this country and that's -- that includes some obvious things

like our education system but it means scientists have to do a better job of talking about scientific solutions to our problems in accessible terms for the public. >> now, you had mentioned that this is the convention where people come out and talk about their fall books, fall being the biggest season for the book industry. when you would release your largest titles. >> that's right. i mean, the consumers sort of come out to spend for the hollywoods is the assumption. you did your fourth of your business in november and december. i don't know if that number still takes but publishers do tend to push their biggest books for that type of year. it's when gift books, a lot of illustrated books come out and for us because basic doesn't do illustrated books and gift books per se we do history, psychology and that kind of thing we put the giftie in the jargon of the industry come out that time. there's two i wanted to -- >> i should add real quick. john is holding a catalog here.

this is something book buyers, librarians, media -- this is what you put together so they know what's coming out and you can essentially pitch them on those books. >> publishers think in terms of seasonal lists and again, i don't know if you can read this but this is the fall list and what we do is just descriptive copy for every book. it has a bio of the author and jackets and some -- just sometimes it's quotes or examples from the book and i think you summarized it perfectly. i think the main tools for book sellers but the publishists use it for media, we use it for authors and agents so they can see what individual publishers are doing. and, you know, we have to plan books into the marketplace, six, nine months ahead of time and so you have to have something that's sort of polished like this so that the retailers and publicity folks can see what the final books are going to look like because some of these books haven't finished and they are still being written. >> let's talk about two of

those. >> eugene rogen is a historian at oxford. this is what we think will be a major new history of the arabs. and he's taken an interesting approach. he chose to start this history in the 1500s and his concept there is that the when the ottomans first conquered one of the arab lands and one of the final characteristics of the arab history they've frequently been an occupied ethnic group. and so he decided that that was the key -- that that -- rather than start with, say, mohammed which is where other histories have started, that this was the defining moment. arabs value history in ways that those of us in the west we don't think of it. first of all, their history is much deeper and richer. there was -- for most of their history they were a dominant power and i think one of the things that's going on in the middle east now is that arabs are seen as -- that the west sort of looks down on them and that's something that's very

inconsistent in their history it's important to understand arab history if you're trying to unravel what's happening in today. >> would you bring him to the united states to talk about his book? >> yeah, we will bring him to do -- it's funny 'cause history is a little tough to get media because the media is sort of obsessed with what's in the news and even though i just tried to make the argument to you about why that is relevant to you, that will be a little bit of a battle when we try to pitch it. books about the economic situation. it's easier to tour but we thought this is such an important book that we would bring him over and we will get some media for that. >> and the second book for the fall that you wanted to talk about. >> this is a book by seth. he writes regularly for "the wall street journal" and, you know, he decided that -- that americans don't know enough about the american constitution and, you know, you can buy a constitution a dollar. they're sort of available. it's a pretty short book but

what he decided is that people don't read the constitution because they don't understand the context of it so his idea is to do an annotated constitution so the book itself is the full text of the constitution but for each amendment and for each article of the constitution he goes back and looks at the historical context into which the amendment or the article was written. he looks at the ways it's been applied throughout history. he looks at it in terms of how the court has applied it. i wish i had this book out right now because he would be really quick to comment -- 'cause we're all talking about the courts' interpretation of the constitution. so when -- and since we know there will be another supreme court justice to be nominated and approved, we'll be ready to roll this out but seth is a very well known conservative and journalist. we're decided about this. it's his first book and we think it will get a lot of attention. >> john sherer a former bookseller currently publisher of basic books. >> thanks. >> here's a look at some of the upcoming book fairs and festivals over the next few

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