mr. williams produced millions of counterfeit dollars over 14 years until beingaught by the secre service. the program was recorded during npr's "the diane rehm show" in washington d.c. it's an hour. >> you know, this guy's childhood beat everything i have ever read in my life. honestly. >> yeah, it was atrocious. >> i found myself thinking, no wonder, you know? no wonder he had such a terrible, terrible life. my god, his father, his mother, everybody was nut si. >> it was crazy. >> yeah. >>hen you meet him, y're astounded that he is as wel adjusted as he is. >> and he's got how many more years to serve? >> he'll be be out in 2015.

probably mid 2015 if he's -- >> maybe. >> -- if his behavior's good. >> exactly. >> 85 percent time. >> okay. okay. but you gotta talk about his childhood. i'm telling you. >> sure. >> when i read about that, i thought, oh, that poor kid. i mean, he, he just really, he didn't know which way was up literally. >> no, not at all. he was really just bush whacked by fate. >> yeah. yeah, absolutely. and yet, i mean, his father started out sort of reasonably sort of. >> trying do the right thing. >> yeah, exactly. >> there were legitimate jobs that his father held. >> right. >> but his father was a criminal himself ultimately. >> yep, absolutely. absolutely. it's a great cover. >> oh, isn't it beautiful? i waso happy when iaw that. >> just wonderful. >> you never know what you're going to get. >> yeah. who designed it for you? >> i've goto get her name.

>> todd. well, the author photograph is todd -- >> yeah, that's my friend todd. >> jacket design is ray. >> never met him, but he's great. [laughter] >> no, i couldn't stop reading is yesterday. i was doing all kin o stuff, and i just found myself thinking, oh, my heavens. i can't believe all this. okay. ♪

bad ♪ >> here we go. thanks for joing us, i'm diane rehm. arthur william is a craftsman who learned his trade from a man nicknad da vinci. this particular da vinci taught the age-old art of counterfeiting. under his telage williams went on to become one of the most skilled counterfitters of the last quarter century. his masterpiece, a perfect replica of what was once the most secure u.s. bank note ever made, the 1996 $100 bill. journalist jason kersten details the story of this master counterfeiter in a new boo

it's titled "th art of making money." he joins me in the studio, i hope you'll jo us as well, call us on 800-433-8850. send us your e-mail to dr show at wamu.org. jason kersten, what a sry u've told. >> thank you. >> i must say in reading about his childhood i found myself thinking, this has got to be the most ghastly way a kid can be brought into this world one could ever imagine. talk about him as a young oy. >> well, that was one of the most surprising discoveriess i researched the book and got to know him better. he started out as quite a gifted young l. he had skipped two grades by the time he was 11. >> very, very bright and alws

at the top of his class. >> yeah, right. one of the thingthat sort of developed that in him was that his family was constantly moving around all the time. not a very stable family at all. his father was an on and off crook himself, a paper hanger, and his mother was mentally ill. and his father also had a mistress, and he was constantly going ck and forth between th two, so that was really the only stability he had as child which was his mind and his creativity. now, when his father abandoned the family completely at the age of, when art was 1 years old, just right after that the mom was diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenia. >> she really had a total breakdown. >> oh, yeah. >> couldn't feed th kids, was sitting there just totally demoralized. >> so they wound up in the bridgeport homes which was a housing project on the south side of chicago and really just a couple months after they got

there the was just no food in the house because his mother had an episode. wasn't taking her medication, and for two days the chiren were starving. >> they were crying, weeping -- >> they were hungry. >> yeah, of course. >> just an animal need. and art being the oldest of three kids and at that time he was about 12, he goes out into the stree. he doesn want to go to social services because he's afrd they'll take his mothe away which had happened to him before. an he startsnocking on the parking meters on hall stead and he hears the change, and he thinks, if i can just get that, i can get some food. so he builds a little key that'll unlock some of the change boxes, gets about 50 bucks, and him and his little brother go to the grocery store and come back with food. of course, he ses the day, and his mother's very proud of him for that. and that is the first crime he ever committed was out of survival.

and being in those projects where there's also a gang, he quickly realizes that's how people are making mey there. >> well, and, of course, he raids many, many parking meters before the police finally catch up and realize that somebody is unlocking these meters. so they put new locks on the meters. he saves that little key thate devised. what a brilliant guy he was. >> yeah. >> t begin with. i mean, his artistry. he entered a, an art competiti came out on top. >> this was when he was in a boys' home for a perio when his mother was hospitalized, and he had wound up in a boys' home, and his school -- he was still attending the same school, and theyad an art contest. one of the older boys in the ys' home helped him learn how to draw and helped hone his

abilities as an artist. so he enters the contest, and h wins. [laughter] >> he wins the contest, and we are not here to glorify a criminal, but on the other hand this young man had so much talent. he was so gifted. had he been able to put this talent to use in some other way, he could clearly have gimately made quite a name and quite a living for himself. >> i think so, and i think that's one o the real tragedies of the story. and one of the things i try to explore and capture was this transformation fro this brilliant, glowing little boy into an arch crimina >> we're talking about a new book, it's titled "the art of making money: the story of a maer counterfeiter." do join us, 800-433-8850.

sends your e-mail to drshow at wamu.org. we are talki about a man named arthur williams who did become a master counterfit. he is now serving time in prison after he was ultimately caught, and we'll, of course, throughout the hour be bringing you more of this story. we do look forward to hearing from you. 800-433-8850. he actually shared his secrets with you. >> he did. i had to keep pressing and pressing him. he was very reluctant at first. he had spent years perfecting his craft and especially with the '96 new note which was his masterpie -- >> why did he pticularly go

after that one? >> i think there were a couple reasons. i think first and foremost he wanted -- he was proud of the job he did on this bill. and he wanted recognition, i think, jt for his pure craftsmanship and abilities. i think woven into that motivation was also the idea that he wanted to stop. he wanted to quit. and by, you know, by confessing to a journalist his metd and his secrets, in many ways he was committing criminal suicide ising his profile that high certainly did't do anything to keep him off the map of the secret service in the future. so those were two motuations -- motivations going on there. >> tell me exactly what led to his abili to become such a master counterfeiter? >> well, picking up where we left off before, as he goes into these projects, he starts committing street crimes, and he

joins a local gang. pretty much everybody in the bridgeport homes had to join that gang unless you wanted to get beat up on the way to school. and the gang members start gettin him into car theft. we can steal the cars right next to the meters, that's more money. so he gets into that. and he's quickly on his way to prison or death. and his mom's boyfriend who she meets while she's working in a diner across the street takes an interest in him and sees him going dow a very dead-end criminal road as a street criminal, and he is a master counterfeiterimself, vinci. and one day after art gets out of juvenile hall, he says, you know, art had just had a young he's a teenager dad a this point. he h a son. >> how old is he? >> he's 16. >> ah. he's already got a son, and he's committed a crime. what has he been caught for?

>> he's been caught for auto theft, but he's underage, so he only does a couple months. when he comes out, da vinci is ght there, and he says, you know, if xou'r willing, i can show you something that's a lot safer thanhat you've been doing, and a day later da vinci brings him io his print shop. >> and da vinci is a fellow who has been success isful for a long time -- successful for a long time counterfitting. what kinds of bills is he counterfeiting? >> da vinci's specialty, like art's, was the 100 dollar bill. this was the little heads as we remember them as opposed to the big head bens which we currently have. so da vinci has been doing this for my years when he decides to bring on art as his apprentice. and that's how countfeitin works with a master unterfeite there's always the master and the apprentice. this is a legacy crime. someone has to sw you this

because there's advanced printing techniques, it's very difficult stuff, and art was very intimidated by it at first. but after they did their first batch, about $10 o ,0 of $0 bills and he sees those bills coming offa vinci's press, he readses he's looking at a method of survive far better than what he's been doing. >> so what does it take for him to learn this craft? >> a lot of patience. there are many stages and processes inigh quality counterfeiting, and this wn the older days th were using a big offset press, so he has to learn about photography, he has to learn to photograph negatives to create a plate, he has to learn about mixing inks, he has to lea about the qualities of a convincing currency paper that can pass. manyundreds of steps to create a convincing bill, and he's overwhelmed by it at first.

so it's sething that you graduay learn overime. >> and he learned it so well. the fbi, the secret service, people just could not tell the difference. you've got one bill with you. >> i do. >> would you pass it to me, please? >> sure. >> how did he pass these bls? >> well, that's another interesting thing about art williams. not only was he a magnificent counterfeite he was an astonishingly good passer. one of the things da vinci tol him was never spend your own money, but after he did the '96 note, he decided he wanted to take his own money out. so what he and hisirlfriend would do is they would hit mal all across the united states. >> jason kersten, we're talking about his new book. it's titledthe art of making money." ♪¢

>> that is one handsome $100 bill. >> it is. and it's funny, if you have -- you can see if you have any doubts about it and you hold it up to the light, you see what you expect to see, the security strip and the wer mark. >> and he could do all that. >> yeah. >> he could do all that. >> yeah. that's his. he made that with his own hands. >> did he give it to you? >> there's a story behind that bill. >> okay. >> it was stuffed into a journal somebody had given me as a keepsake. >> i sent you a tweet. >>kay. you sent me a tweet. why bother -- what's your question? >> i've always wdered how much it costs to make these phony bills. >> yeah, okay. >> interesting. i don't know the exact number. >> you don't know the answer. >> i can talk about some of the things he did to get the materials, that's for sure. his scam for the paper is extraordiny. >> 30 cents on the dollar?

>> that's what he wou sell them for. >> oh, that's wt he would -- okay. "the art of making money" is the book we're talking about. it's the story of a master counterfeiter, a man whose name is arthur williams. he's currently serving time in prison, he'll be out when, jason kersten? >> his scheduled release date is 2015, i think january of 2015. that's full time. you have to do 85 percent in the federal system. with good behavior he should be out mid 2013. >> where is he serving? >> he just got transferred to big sing, texas. >> and what kind of conditio is he under? >> this, i beieve, is a minimum to medium security. >> what ds that mean? >> it means that the worst of the worst are not there.

it's bunk style housing. they enjoy more freedom than, you know, a medium to max. >> since he is not considered -- >> it ain't club fed. >> it's not considered violent crime. >> not at all >> all right. we've gotten a tweet from sandra who says, why bother counterfeiting the new, more secure bills when the old ones are still legal tender? >> that's true. he would occasionally do the der bills. one of the reasons he did the newer sff was because it gas so convincing when people saw the water mark and saw the security strip that things moved much faster, and he could raise the price on his bills when -- retailed tm to crina organizations and drug deale. >> how often do people look closely at $100 bills? >> not often much. >> -- enough. >> yeah. >> and it's funny, looking is

sort of the established norm. really the feel is going to tell you more than anything whether it's genuine. >> may i tak that out? >> yes, you can. your fingerprints a now on that bill. >> and what does that indicate? >> if you feel the portrait part of the bill, on genuine currency you're going to find millions of tiny ridges, and thatomes from the press they use. it's a very expensive process, and it leaves t ink raised on the surface of a bill. you notice the feel of this bill you have in your hands is flat. that's a dead giveaway of what's probably a counterfeit bill or it's very old, very, very old, but even very, very old bills tend to have some texture to them. >> okay. how much does it cost to make this $100 bill? >> you know, i never actually sat down with art and calculated his eenses. and he never did either. he was very obsessed with the craft d doing it well.

expense wasn something that he worried about too much because he knew that once he had it perfect he could just make more of them. but to giv you an idea of the lengths that he would go to to make these bills, obtaining paper was one of his best scams. and the paper that he uses, it passes the pen tect. so when you put that anticounterfeiting pen on that bill, it's going to mark yellow, and you're going to be completely convinced it's real. and the way he found this paper, and he found that there are only certainlaces he could get it. and so -- >> you're not going to tell us now, is that right? >> oh, i can tell you what he did. >> okay. >> he would show up to the loadin docks often posing a a schoolteacher or a sunday schoolteacher or sometimes a student himself saying he was working on a school project, and he would ask for what's called the butt roll. and these are at big printing houses where the per comes in rolls that weigh a couple tons. the butt roll is that last

little bit left on these giant rolls, can weigh a couple hundred pounds. so he would beg for the per pong as a sunday schoolteacher. >> interesting. >> and usually they' give it to him. >> how much did these printing presses cost? >> his printing presses? >> yeah. his offset presses -- well, the most expensive one he ever had was about $14,000, and that was -- >> i wr if he paid for it with real cash. [laughter] >> well, i know how he got that one. that one he got for free because it was taken off the floor of mccormack place in chicago. because every year there's an annual printers cvention, and he was connected to people who work there, and so this was a real inside job. that was a stolen press. >> a stolen press, okay. now, tell me how he used the money. you started talking about a shopping spree he went on with

his partner. >> right. two ways he'd clean this money. the first thing, he had compliants that he would -- clients that he printed for and would sell to them for 30 cents on the dollar. and they were from the chinese mafia, russian maya -- mafia, and so you have regular clients, and he'd also print extra for himself usually after one of these big deals, and he and his girliend or sometimes a group of friends would drive around the country, and they'd go to shopping malls where if you buy an item worth 10 or 15 dollars, yore getting back $90 in real currency. with three or four people in two hours they could pull $5,000 worth of real money out of the maul. andhat's interesting is that, of course, they have a trunk full of stuff they've gotten from the mall. >> yeah. >> a then they quickly got into donating that tohe salvation armies or churches in the same towns because they felt

like -- he had grown up poor, and seeing all this stuff go to waste was horrible to him. that became alsts addictive as counterfeiting itself, he told me. >> really? >> yeah. he really got off on this robin hood thing. >> so it wasn't as though he'd take this stu and then return it for cash, he would take this stuff and done it to worth organizations? >> yeah. no, he's going to charity bins basically. >> so in other words, he was feeling guilty about his crime. >> well, is funny. as it says in the book, a therapist years later asked him about that, and he said, well, you know, maybe that's a good assessment, but i'd have to feel guilty about counterfeit anything the first pla for th to be tree. >> and he didn't. >> he onl had guilt about the effects on his family and friends. >> which was? >> he witnessed a criminal lifestyle take over for a lot of

them. everyone around him who saw the money was spending it. all of his friends, many of his mily, and the sort of got sucked into the crime, too, because that money looks and feels so real that they got accustomed to this that it was real. and in art's mind he spent so much work on that that to him it s real money. it was money that he had sweated overnd slaved over. and counterfeiting is a very addictive crime. they say the recidivism rate for counterfeiters is high or tha that of heroin addicts. >> so it really gets into the mind and blood -- >> almost a sexual rh, they say. >> here's an e-mail from gregory in salt lake city who says why is it so hard to make a good counterfeit? it would seem that with modern chnology making a convincing copy would not be that hard. >> right. well, anyone who's ever tried it could probably tell you why it's

so hard. with the mn technology, and art incorporated some of the modern technology into his bills, you know, with using computer programs like photo shop and high end scanners he did a combination of the offset and the modern stuff, but there are a lot of scurity measures build into copiers, mor and more every day, to prevent this. and, you know, why is it so hard? go down to your kmart, and you see next to every register there's a really bad counterfit, and usually it's made on poor quality paper and barely passes. it's easy to pass o or two bad bills. doing it very, very well like he did it requires tremendous work. >> and here's another e-mail that is from steve who says, did you have any ethical issues writing this book? >> no, i didn't. i wried maybe there was a minute where i worried that i was glamourizing the art of counterfitting, but once i got into his life -- and i think

that that's really the core of the book. it's not art as a counterfeiter, it's art's story and the story of his family. there was nothing glamorous about it. this was a hard story to write. i mean, there are parts of it that are gut wrenching, and it was ultimely his quest to find his father again that was the driving force for me. >> it's interesting that he says and you quote, i felt a huge see of power, more power than i had ever felt in my life. he was powerless as a child. of course this gave him a sense of power. >> yeah. that was after doing the first batch with da vinci when he suddenly had that money in his hand and passed his very first counterfeit note which he stole from the pile they had made. >> oh, he stole it from da vinci? >> yeah, da vinci had not begin

him any of the counterfit. he sd, no, i'll pay you for this, but you're not going to go out there passing counterfit. your mom would kill me was basically the sensitivity. but art snuck one from the pile, and the moment that bill passed, that's when he talks about feeling this power. because then he knows he has a way to provide that's not just effective, but can theoretically make himich. >> what was his girlfriend like? what was his son like? >> well, you know, there were a couple girlfriends i talk about. the mother of his first child, his son, she was a girl from right the same block as him. and he had known her since they were kids. she was an aspiringhicago policefficer, and she is a chicago police officer today. and when they were together, she would tell me, you know, i knew he was up to something. and i was always asking him

questions, but he always had an answer for her. and she could never get to the bottom of it was he was dng. >> he was providing for her very, very well. >> he was. she would ask him where the money was coming from, and he said he was working construction which is sort of the ubiquitous crime every criminal works, and she asked for a pay slip, oh, i lost it. >> did they live well? >> yeah, much better. once he learned this, he was able to move out of the projects, and he was also able to help his mom and sister get out ofhere too. and he increasgly -- he got away from the projects by doing this basically. >> a lot of our listenersant to know about the scifics of how he dealt with the challenges of the 1996 $100 bill. >> okay. now, if everybody remembers, there were a couple things about this bill that made it so unique. one of them is suddenly we have

this thing called the water mark in i when you hold the bill up to the light, you see this smoky image of benjamin franklin, and that comes during the paper-making process. it's very old, old world technology. bu it's also ver difficult to copy unless you're actually making the paper. and there's that, there'slso the security strip which you see that little strip running through the length that would be on the left side of the bill? >> yes. >> okay. now, that will also glow red under ultraviolet light, and that foils the scanners on -- it'll show up on a scan. so these things make it vy hard to just photocopy a bill. >> but it's the ink itself. >> the i is actually not that difficult to replicate because the color you can achieve by mixing various colors of ink. ..

so that it was so thin it was exactly the same weight as a guine bill. >> wow. >> yeah, he was exacting. the color shifting ink or omni directional ink. he got that by using automotive paint and what's fascinating about color shiftingn automobile paint. it is patented by the same technology that patents it for the genuine currency. >> at 26 before the hour you're listening to the "diane rehm ow".

you say that there is the phone directory paper. >> right. >> host: that's an exact match to this? >> guest: exact. well i'm sure people at crane and company who makes the genuine currency per are going to say no, no, no. the secret service will say oh, no, no,. exactly enough. counterfeiting is very much the art of satisfying people's expectations. when youeld that bill in your hand i don't know if yo snapped it or not. >> no, i didn't snap it. i didn't snap it. but that is also part of why this one is so good. >> right it's starch free and that pen when you put it on the surface of say just a little piece of copy or papert is going to come back black because the iodine in the p reacting to the starch in the paper. took them a while to find this. they were calling in paper samples from all kinds of place. finally out of frustration his girlfriend srted marking everything in the house.

she was marking a phone book and all of a sudden it came back yellow and they got very, very seeks -- excited. there it was in front of em the answer. at first could couldn't find it thin enough to do the method but he would get aroundt using vario chemicals and sprays give them an amb mark back. >> all right. we've got a lot ol callers waiting. if you'll p those head -- headphones. we'll take some calls. let's go first to brian who is in fort lauderdale, florida. good morning brian. you're on the air. >> hello diane and listen. thank you so much. i've been a faithful listener for 1 years. i'm down here in fort lauderdale. and i listen to wlrn. >> i'm so glad. >> my question is how bad was this man? i mean, in modern in many modern respects we judge people differently based on their crimes. he obviously wasn't convicted of any violent

crime given where he's located now but did he ever, i've always gotten the impression from hollywood i admit this was kind of a gritty kind of a dark world and i don't know if that's true or not. >> well, certainly when he was grong up and he was in the bridgeport homes he was tough m you -- you didn't want to mess with art williams he had to learn to survive on the south side of chicago but vlence was never his thing. he did others -- other things. sold drugs he was in the gang before he ever got into counter fitting. >> did he use drugs? >> oh, sure. one of the reason he didn't wind up rich fromhis is h had a cocaine habit. sort of one of those classic criminal stories. but in terms of h being bad if you met him and spent some time with him you wouldn't think of him a a bad person at all. or a mean person at all. he comes off as very humble

a little intellectual and he's quite charming. that's a difficult word. bad. what does that mean is he a bad person? he's certainly done bad things. but i think his motivations are a little more complex than that. he's done bad things. i don't think he's a bad person. >> did you like him? >> sure. absolutely. when i started doing the core interviews for the book we were sitting in his basement. heas telling me the story of his childhood. he was telling me things he neverold anyone before and it was quite emotional. i was seeing this guy would t up this extremely thick suit of ar -- armor over his heart for many years breaking down and crying. >> i must say that's how the beginning of this booif he coulded me. i'm -- affected me. iried for him. it wasust such a terrible childhood. jason rsten "the art of making money".

you can take those off. we have a two minute break and when we come back we'll -- there's an engraver with the bureau of engraving on the line. >> i think this is crucial. that one rht there. >> okay. >> guest: secret service? >> host: no, no, n, no. no. yeah. yeah. oh, i love these questions from listeners. >> host: oh, yes. yes. yeah, somebody was wondering whether you were writing about frank the guy -- >> oh, sure. i can talk about that. >> yeah. >> i can talk about that. >> host: and talk about an appealing young man. i mean, at least he's

portrayed in the film. >> guest: sure. >> host: you probably saw that film. >> o, yeah. absolutely i love the film. >> guest: should i put these back on? >> in one minute. in o minute. >> hsbc this is how we're going to get to this. >> guest: got some from the bep there? >> no, thiss there an individual who received koubler - counterfeit bill. >> oh, was it o of hours? >> host: i don't know. let's see. >> guest: they're probably not happy. >> host: exactly and that's this first e-mail. >> sure. >> host: now headphones please. >> standby please.

♪jf. >> host: and we're back with writer jason kersten. he's wrtten a fascinating story about a master counterfeiter whose name is arthur williams. he is currently in prison for counterfeiting. the book is titled "the t of ming money". this story of a master counterfeit. here's an e-mail from misty in carry, north carolina. -- karrie, north carolina who says if the counterfeit bill is so good who is hurt? by the counterfeiting crime? >> well, banks do not accept

counterfeit bills. >> host: how do they know? do they know immediately? >> guest: most of them do. it depends on the particular machines they're using to count it. it also depends on the counterfeit. but a lot of them will use a detector that detects the magnetic insqk the content of it. >> host: is that usually the first time the counterfeit is discovered. >> guest: with arts bills certainly. >> host: when it got to the bank? >> thas what he wanted. he wanted a bill that went all to way to the bank the way he liked to put it and make no mistake people are hurt by this crime the business owners who received the money that he passed were hurt by the crime. they didn't get rmbursed by anyone when they received -- how many of his bills are still out there. do we kw? >> we don't know how many are still out there. i don't think he has any circulating right now. because one thing that differentiates counterfeit from real money it's life span. real 100 bill lasts about ten years in circulation. i'd be surprised if one of ours lasted six months.

given the chemicals swarming around it ins surface. -- in its surface. he would try toarget big chains. that was one of the ways he justified it. i'm hitting kmart. he didn't like to go to mom and pop stores where he kne mom and pop are going to lose $100. >> here's another e-mail from elizabeth in ports smith, new hampshire. do you think the government will increase security measures in the currency in response to release of your book? >> guest: oh, boy, no. i'd really like to say the book inspired a change in our currency. that would be incredible bragging rights but there are already plans to reinvent the currency every ten years in response to the rapidly growing thnology. there were stories that we were going to have a new 100 dollar bil last september with this incredible technology in it it called micro lenses where you'd

actually see floating above the surface of the bill a hollow gram of either a denomination mark or perhaps an iconic image and this was supposed to come out in september according to the associated press and i called the bureau of enaving and printing a count weeks ago and i said where's this new money we've been hearing about and this a.p. story came out and sounded like we were going to have a n 100 dollar bill. they said there was never a schedule for this and they seemed to be goingack on what they said. i think it could very well have something too with the economy. because you d't want to curren when theñi stability of the dollar is already in question. >> i see. all right. lets take a caller who is an engraver with the bureau of engraving and printing. kenneth n baltimore. you're on the air. >> hello. i'd like to speak to mr. kersten if i may. >> ht: go right ahead. >> caller: yes, i was

wondering arthur williams dide ever use what we call in our profession hand engraving this is enal owe or -- intaglio. i guess you call it place. making reference to offset almost everything offset. i was just wondering i have several queions but my first question is did he ever use intaglio at all in making this countfeit money? >> host: go ahead jason. >> guest: no, he neversed intagliond he would do photo lithographic process. >> host: and your second question kenneth? >> caller: yes, it is very easily availab this information? n regards to paper many canvses will take a one dollar bill and bleach the note that will clean off the entire inknd sohey have act chill currency paper in regards to counterfeiting as i'm speaking right now again i'not working, not

speaking as an official person for the bureau. because of the counterfeiting north korea has been for a number of years producing what the secret service and what we call the super note. it's perfect 100 dollar bill that is in circulation and there's a latin america country that is producing a perfect 100 note. >> host: that's very interesting. >> guest: i talk about the super note in the book. art's chinese client chinatown, chicago would0 facing l -- occasionally get access to it. when they could get access to the super note they wouldn't buy art's bills. >> host: the super note is even better. >> guest: the super note is made with the intaglio process. $10 million intaglio press. ment -- it takes millions of dollars to perfect that technique. there's a whole team. >> host: how do we know that isn't in circulation? >> guest: it is in circulation rig now. >> it is in circulation. >> guest: this was a major issue we had with the north

koreans and just a couple weeks ago there was a revelation in the "washington times"hat we not only know that the bill comes from north korea and that's a rar statement for us to make because we've sort of held that over them with the six party talks. not acknowledging expolice it isly that it -- elicitly that it comes from north korea and using that as a bargain chip the washington times reported we not only know it ces from north korea we know the general in charge of producing it. >> all right. if i go to my bank and cash aheck for $1500 and ask for 15, $100 bills am i at all likely to get a counterfeit? >> very unlikely. especially in the 100 dollar bills. the hundreds are very often used to transfer balance between banks and it could be coming straight from the b e pp.

art -- bep. art told me a story once. i'm not totally sure how everything works the circulating through banks and federal reserve and all that. art told me a sry once when he was doing the old money tt he was out with a friend who had gone into a bank and gotten some bills and he swers to god thatne of the bills was his this is the old money not the new stuff and when his friend saw that he wanted arlt to reimburse him right there. for the bill and art refused to do it. >> host: did the counter have any technique for aging a bill >> guest: he wasn't that obsessed about aging it i know in the movie to live and die in la you have the great scene where they're throwing the poker chips in the drier wit all the bills swarming around in there to age it but they would you know, sort of crumple it up a little bit. rub it on their clothes a little bit. but they didn't want to ruffle these bills too much

because remember they are two sheets glued together and if they start messing around with that they could have real problems which also happened to him in the south. if you remember in the humid climates his bills would occasionally peel apart. >> host:. there's an e-mail from carla in strat ham, -- tra tham, new -- stra tham new hampshire who said i was positive listening to the intro for this show that the counterfeiter was going to be frank. can your guest comment on this t similarities between the two men and did they ever meet? frank was the subject of that really fascinating movie. what was he called? >> "catch me if you can". >> catch me if you can. who became a master counterfeiter. >> guest: well, he did checks. he counterfeited checks. he wasn't a currency y. and so that's one of the differences between the two. one of the things they had

in common is they were both very young when they started doing this and they were both also you know, -- >> very bright and very artiskly -- artiskly oriented. >> and scam artists they could talk their way into anything. >> did they ever meet? >> no, they never met. frank i think he might be in kansas omt -- i'm not sure exactlyhere he is right now. but yh, he's sort of a different generation than art and frank went legitimate. he made millions of dollars as a consultant for document security companies and i had really hoped that that was the path art would take when i met him. he was free when i met him he had expressed a desire to do this. to use his knowlge in a way that would help people after having spent so many years scamming people and a company in upstate new york actually hired him to do a speech and he went and gave a speech befor about 400 to 500 law enforcement

officials and he was nervous to death when he did this because he's rlly coming out and giving away some of his secrets. he got a standing ovation and the company was going to put him on the payroll. unfortunately he shortly there after failed a drug te with his probation officer and she consequently refused to let him leave the state of illinois which he would have to do to have this and he used that -- this job and he used that as an excuse to start counterfeiting again. >> host: and he began counterfeiting again but he also broke one of or several of his master teacher's rules. what did he do? >> guest well, the fst rule that he broke was spending the money himself rather than just selling it to other criminal groups because then you're putting yourself in a much closer position to where the money is appeang.

so that was the numbe one things he did. another thing he d is he got greedy. he had always told him. you can survive if you a good life,ot necessarily you're not going to become a multimillionaire. but you can have a good life if you just keep it on the low. print just enough to sell. 100,000 here. that was the most da vinci would usually ever print was $100 thousand and he's get 3g 0 cents on the lar for f.e.a.r. that. not 100,000 it's 30,000 dollars which you could live off of for quite some time. but art started printing and- more and more. his drug habit started to sperear causing him to print more. >> host: and he began looking for his father. >> yeah and that's really the heart of the story for me is this pursuit. to find out what had happened with his father and why his father had left the family. and he finds his dad. i don't want to give away

too much in the book. but finding his dad leads directly to what gets him caught. >> jason kersten his book is titled the art of laking money. the story of a master counterfeiter. let's go to charlotte, north carolina. joe, you're on the air. our. >> caller: hi diane. i just wanted t relate a quick story. i was a bartend ner washington in the late 70s and through the 80s and mr. kersten's exactly correct. you do, you can feel the difference from the paper. i was night working on a busy satday night and received a 100 bill for a drink which at that time was $2.507. for -- 2.50 for just a mixed drink and immediately i could tell. at that point i had been tending bar for about seven years so i worked inome of the most popular places in washington so handled a lot

of money and it's dark in a bar late at night or at night. a lot of distractions but i could feel it immediately and i sensed it and walked over to the guy that i was working with and asked him and he couldn't tell any difference i said well, i think this is funny. so i lked around and the guy was gone. as it turns out he had gone up to another area of the bar where i worked in where there was yet another bar and the guys at that particular bar ended up accepting three of them from the guy and each time buying one drin and getting $97.75 and i'm sure he left a 2-3 dollar tip. >> sure. >> caller: didn't occur to them that hey, this guy keeps buying drinks and paying with a hundred dollar bill. >> host: so what did you end up doing joe? >> caller: called the d.c. police the metropolitan police department and they told me they wouldn't handle it i said i've got the guy right here and they sai you have to call treasury. so i called the treasury department and a couple hours later an agent showed

up. i still had the receipt from contraband that he gave me but he told ie indeed this gentleman had been in that pard of 19th and m streets and had passed about 40 of these around to various bars. >> host: wow that is a lot of change. at 6 minutes before the hour you're listening to the "diane rehm show". so that gets us to how police, treasury fbi, secret service react. when a bartender like this who is pretty darn sharp. i mean, what happens? the guy's gone. >> guest: that was surprising to me that they told him to call treasur or the secret service i'd think. but police usually will respond to a call. i guess suppose it depends on how busy they are and the

to they're in. bars are ideal places for counterfeiters to pass currency, they're dark, they're busy. people tend not to study the current i -- currency very well because money is passing so quickly. but that's certainly surprising it would take hours for someone to show up. >> host: so jason, are you still in touch with arthur williams? >> guest: yeah, he calls me usually once a week from prison and his calls are limited to 15 minutes. >> host: does he have a radio? do you suppose he's heard you this morning? >> guest: it's certainly possible. i know they have radios in a t of the federal prisons. i hope he is. >> you hope he is. >> yeah, sure. because? >> because it is one way to reach out to him and know i'm out there telling his story. it was very important to him that i tell the story what happened to him as a cld as i did this. there was this -- the

fascinating part. the counterfeiting part was obviously very fascinating but the human side of it. his journey as an individual was what he really wanted to get out. >> but the qstion becomes once he's out. do you think he'll go straight or is this addiction still part of who he is? >> well that's going to be the number one conflict within him. i thought he quit this te. and i really hoped he would. but when uncertainty rises up around him this is the one certainty he's always known. so you know. i would call it a 50/50. >> what aut his girlfriend? >> his wife now. but i've heard they're getting divorced now. i'm not entirely certain about the fure of tt. >> do you intend to see him again soon? >> oh, sure. absolutely. i'd like to visit him in texas. >> well, texas is one of our big listening states.

so it would not surprise me if he has access to a radio. that he's listened this morning, heard you tell his story which i must say i was extraordinarily moved by not the ill legality but the cruelty of the treatment that this young man received early on d even later in life just boggles the mind. the book is titled "the art of making money" the story of a master counterfeiter. jason kersten is the author. that's spelled kersten. thanks for writing this. >> guest: thank you diane. >> host: and thanks for listening all. i'm diane rehm. >> the die yam rehm show is pro -- "diane rehm show" is produced by sandra, nancy, jonathan, susan.

>> host: you've got really, really take a deep breath when read this because some of the parts of it, i mean just boggles. >> guest: his dad was no good. such a bad guy. >> host: oh, well --. >> and his sister. >> and his sister. you know. i dn't even want to get into that. >> in some ways she had it rougher than he did you know. because he externalized all of his sort of anger. >> would you sign that for me. >> sure. >> thanks. >> he invested that in what he did but she internalized all of that. >> absolutely. well, thank you so much. i hope the book does well. [inaudible] >> that's a story in and of itself. he got an n an argument with his son and his son got him busted. >> isn't that somethi. >> you said he broke all of

these rules wel the one rule that got him was that. >> it's very much a father and son story in that regard. the ire next that -- irony that it comes back around to bite him. >> this north korean super currency book does that pass the bank? >> i think it will. >> it will pass the bank. >> that will go all the way through that's why i said it'ss in circulation. you can spend it. you'd be all right. wee it the university of north florida talking with dr. aaron sheehan-dean about his book "why confederates fought". family and nation in civil war. dr. sheehan-dean your book ek plors virginia soldiers

and their families in the civil war. why did you choose to concentrate on virginia as opposed to other con federal states? >> because virginia is really the most important theater of the war and what i was looking at was trying to assess questions of loyalty. virginia soldiers usually fighting in a national army close to their homes but not at them. so they're subject to the pressure of wanting to be home and wanting to defend their state as well and i wanted to see how those variables played out. >> what types of stories emerged when you were writing the book? >> the big story that emerged was a surprising one. the traditional telling is that over the course of the war confederates slowly give up. particularly poor and middle-class men. i found in fact they tended to stay in. and looking at the way in which they talked to their families about why they were staying in is really what i became the main part of the book. the mai argument. >> why did you find they were fighting in the first place? >> certainly a strong enthusiasm built on a sense of sort of betrayal by part of the north. virginia is a unique state.

part of the upper south. virginia conservatives have really put a lot behind lincoln sort of went out on a limb extending themselves saying lin wen-tang con is no threato us and lower south after fort sumter lincoln calls up troops and the unions really see that as a betrayal. there's a strong outpouring of marshal enthusiasm. that's what gets them in. my concern is why do they stay in. so the question is confederate persistence. >> in addition to taking a look at going into some of the diaries and other things, you take a quantitative look at who fought. what types of things did you come up with there? >> first thing is the standard argue system it's a rich man's war and poor man's fight. really a rich man's feig. rich counties overwhelmingly send high numbers of men. in terms of correlation. you get a very strong correlation between wealth and slave holding and enlistment. the more wealth a county has the more slaves a place has the more men go the fight some rich men are actually

over represented in the army as posed to under represented. the other statistical element that is importants desertion. i found overall a 15% rate of desertion in confederate forces 10% because some those go bk the desertion peaks in 62. the traditional argue system that it peaks late in the war. it steadily goes up and in fact what i find is that desertion peaks in 62 cause men are angry about the draft act and then it goes down and sort of levels off after that and isn't subjected to continual escalation over the course of the war. >> was there a difference in how the soldiers viewed the war as opposed to the people on the homefront and their families? >> there is not initially. by 1864 those views start to diverge. at's important about the civil war. all-volunteer army. particularlyn virginia ose soldiers are never very far away from their homes in constant contact with their family they're as much a part of home communities as they are a part of new communities in the army.

by 64 and particularly the trench warfare around petersburg which lasts for 10 months you start to get this strong divergence where soldiers have bece hardened and hardened to confederate civilians suffering and doing -- viewing things differently than civilians are but that' late in the war. >> how did yoq conduct most of your research for the book and how did you compile it into the book? >> a lot of it was traveling to archives around virginia and the south reading diaries and letters that's the main qualitative evidence is diaries and letters and newspapers as well and then a lot of statistical work drawing on a gat regimen history series produced in the state of virginia that has come bile -- compiled out of the national archives all the service records of virginia soldiers so i cated a statistically valid sample using those books and drawing soldiersut and going back to the u.s. census and trying to get demographic information about soldiers their rang in the houseole their amount of wealth, slave holding and then ran