and like i say, in early september, they both were broke. it's worth noting, for those who take shots at some of the people who are operating during september and october, that those two institutions, cne and friday were chartered by congress and were ruled by congress. for those who have heard them criticize the leverage in the banking system, it should be also noted that they allowed that fix to operate with the 421 leverage ratio and they let them guarantee over 100 times the amount of capital they had in mortgage guarantees. so these two institutions, which were vital to the very integrity of the united states, and which had received in this complicated hanks problem. in a very short period before september, the watchdog agency that congress had established to

watch the situation, had given them a clean bill of health. a clean bill of health may be fun to go back and read that now. well, let's get onto hank spoke. when i got this book, i got it a little early and i expected to learn about financial advisers and make it. but i didn't realize that i'd also learned something about how to attract women. it's a little late i realized. by tank at a sure fire approach, which would need to wendy out on their first date and said i would like you describe if you do want to elaborate on that little bit, i'd like to hear about it. >> well, but he said before that, first of all, i'm delighted to be here today and all the hot. the snow would be just like

washington. .. about -- hank essays in the book i'm a tough guy, i forget what

point you say that but he said he was at dartmouth as a tackle i think but when the president asked him to become secretary of the treasury, and hank's initial reaction was not to do it but he decided to give it -- that he had won a bid to become big worry and the crowd might be interested in knowing what makes a grown man crumble. >> warren is talking about my mom, and i'm quite close to my mother. she's a strong woman, very engaged and interested in politics and policy and she wasn't an admiral george bush and was very unhappy with the war and very interested in women's issues and so on so there's been a fair amount of speculation in the press that i might go to washington and i turned down the opportunity a couple of times and i assured her a was not going to go because i had no intent of going

but then when on a reverse myself and decided very suddenly it was the right thing to do not to say no to my country i was it l.i.e. where we still have our primary residence and i was there on memorial day weekend because the president was going to make the announcement the tuesday after memorial day weekend, so i was going to see my mom. unfortunately at church, we were a church together i had a long time friend asked me about what i was doing next and i told her as of course she went up to my mom and cities in this great and mom didn't think was great so when i eckert life to to tell my mom she had already known about it and i didn't see her sob that much but she was sobbing and very angry and crawling and said to me i started with nixon and now i was going to end up with

bush and i deserved everything i got. [laughter] and i was jumping on a sinking ship. i will say this though, at the and i say by the time i finished in washington my mother had a different opinion of george w. bush, but it was -- it's not a good way to start off and wendi wasn't much happier with me. [laughter] >> one of the most interesting things i found in the book and i haven't heard a word about this before, was your account house on top russian officials had gone to some top chinese officials with the suggestion and essentially they start dumping the bonds of probably friday and fanny at that time, and that almost sounds like a rate. that was like the sort of thing the evil guys on wall street didn't tell me about that. >> it never happened, but we

were very, very concerned about stabilizing fannie and freddie because there were $434 million of securities either directly or indirectly secured by these institutions. and these securities were held i think about 1.7 trillion outside the u.s.. the biggest portion was inside the u.s., and we had gone -- i had been trying to get reform legislation from congress to get it 2006, and to get the kind of reforms we need it but we were unable to get action until they were just on the edge. so we were able to go to congress and get the authorities and that we needed to spend time poring over their books understanding of the financial

situation. i had in the book i recount that i was in china for the olympics, and i was given to understand the chinese had been approached by the russians with a suggestion that they could sell the some of the securities together may be to test the results. who knows why -- >> why do you think? >> i would say probably just -- i don't know why. but we had so many conversations with the russians, the chinese and everyone else i just knew any kind of sudden selling would have spooked the market's and it never happened, but it was -- some people say justin of everything bad that could have happened did happen.

i would say not quite. it felt that way sometimes. i worried about another possible the of a sudden decline in the dollar or other things that never happened. and one of the biggest concerns i had was getting fannie and freddie stabilized and in the sense we tell the story how suddenly we put them into conservatorship which was essentially guaranteeing their debt because it was in essence and implicit obligation by the united states of america. it was sort of like the banks had their conduit's which were off balance sheet and with implicit guarantees. that is a little bit like what fannie and freddie were. we were racing against time to stabilize those before we knew better earnings were going to be coming from the banking sector

and particularly the lehman brothers loss is so that was a race against time and i was fortunate -- we were fortunate we were able to get it done without the markets becoming spooked or unsettled, so that is why when i heard that in her china it got my full attention. >> there was a front-page story in the journal this morning about freddie and fannie, and it's very much worth reading. i believe it said there is now 111 billion that's been put in by the federal government. but it's expected much more will, so in effect it presently looks like the federal government will lose more money freddie and fannie than aig in some margin. >> i look at these programs, okay we will get every penny we put in to the banks back with a profit. i think when you look at all the other programs we may be

suppressed will we get back and actually even of fannie and freddie my thinking the fed will make a lot of money by holding the securities but you're right in terms of the losses and to me the important thing about freddie and fannie is right now the u.s. needs them playing the role they are pleading but one of the things that got us into the problem is not just freddie and fannie but if you look at the weight of all of the programs to stimulate housing and it just is going too far and freddie and fannie are not going to be able to stay in the present form. i think the mission needs to be shrunken. they need to be restructured the very fundamental ways. but right now we need and where they are but i think how we

online to the situation is going to be very important. >> when you were getting grilled by the congress and they would point out how there was too much leverage in the banking system did you ever get tempted to say the institution they ran had the most leverage of all? >> i was tempted to say a lot of things. [laughter] but i resisted that temptation because one of the things i am pleased about was that i was able to build enough relationships on both sides of the aisle that congress did act before the system collapsed and if they had collapsed we would have easily had 25% unemployment. it would have been a terrible situation and the crisis -- the book is to a large extent the story of the collision of market forces and political forces and the crisis came at in many ways

the first time within an election on the horizon, and so what i needed to do was to get action from congress and actually what we got on freddie and fannie, which was on a limited authorities -- i use the word on specified. it sounded better. but we needed those. but i had to keep reminding people that i didn't design this thing and didn't create that. >> hank, you had relations with the chinese long before those and used them to good effect during the crisis i think you told me china maybe 70 times or so. what would be the american public's greatest this conception about the chinese and other economic system? >> well i do believe there's a lot of misconceptions the americans have even about our own economic system.

but i think the thing we all need to keep in mind is we are operating in a global economy, and so one other important economies don't do well hurts us just like when we don't do well in spurts of first. so the worst thing that can happen to us and that could have happened during the crisis would be to have had the chinese economy falter and stop growing and looking ahead. we try to keep doing well. it's in our best interest to have them keep doing well. there are plenty of differences and differences in the economic area and other areas, but i think that the most important thing for americans to understand is there is a

relationship we are both to a large extent dependent upon the other. we of course in how the u.s. -- [inaudible] excuse me. can you hear me okay? in the u.s. we don't save enough. we have a tendency to save too little as a people and a nation. we borrow too much. and so the chinese savings and capital are very important to the capitol markets. now the chinese save too much and the need to continue to open up their economy and continue to open up to competition to move forward with the reform process to reform their currency and move quickly to a market driven currency. all of those things so there's a very important difference and

but we just need to remember this is a relationship we need to get right and work hard to get it right. >> you would tell them that in much more general terms from time to time. what sort of response did you get when you talk about saving bonds and so one? >> i would simply say that one of the things we started with under george bush was the strategic economic dialogue which is being carried on, and what i generally said we agreed on principal so they agreed to open up, the needed to open their economy to competition, needed to continue to move the currency so it was to a greater extent determined by the market. but we agreed in principle and in the philosophy but the -- it was a matter of speed, so i would be thinking of the needed

to move it this far in this period of time and they were thinking of the needed to move it this far in this period of time, but we've talked very darkly about that and i think the thing that you need to remember is in dealing with the chinese or any other sovereign nation we need to put it in terms of what it means to china and their people and i was totally convinced him to the extent they sped up the process of the reform it was only going to benefit them and help them get where they wanted to get over the longer term and i would say to them i believe in free trade and open markets but it will make it easier for me to fight to keep our markets open if you speed up the process of opening up your markets. but i felt we got very good

results if you look at the history and what happened to the currency when i had a dialogue with the chinese i think the record will show that it moved and i was very proud of this ten year framework on energy and the environment because again, we are not going to solve the issues of climate and environmental issues we have and energy issues unless you get the two biggest among the two biggest importers of oil and in matters of carbon to work together, and there's a lot we can do working together between the two countries. and again on a big believer in engagement because there is very little you can do in this world that's important globally that stunned on a unilateral basis.

>> you mentioned president bush. i'm a little bit like your mother. in fact want to get to me turn now. [laughter] >> she changed her mind. scaap maybe when i get through with her she will change it back. [laughter] i got more appreciation for this than what i did, but i've read various economists eloquent, adam smith or david ricardo or canes and all of that. i never have heard of more eloquent statements that six simply summed up the economic world that george bush made in september i think 2008 when he said in a memorable ten words if money doesn't loosen up this sukkur can go down. [laughter]

that was like the gettysburg address, short but to the point. [laughter] and as i read the book i got appreciation for the fact that he understood what was going on and he understood what needed to be done. was there every time you went to him with proposals that he shot you down on? >> no because he wasn't -- he was always surprised when i was surprised. and i was surprised more than once. >> what was the biggest surprise? >> i would say that i spoke to him -- one of the fleet as i learned from my previous career is no matter what you negotiate i can have all kind of understandings about the relationship we would have but if i didn't have the right relationship with president it wouldn't be his fault, it would be my fault. so i had a year before the

crisis to get to know the president, to work with him and remember he went to business school, he understands he had a good fundamental understanding of markets and economic issues and he cared about them, and so the conflict he dealt with was what was the same conflict i dealt with or anybody that watched the markets. we believe in the united states of america that risktakers should bear the responsibility for their 01 losses so the big interventions were not something -- i didn't go to washington to do that and he certainly didn't. but from day one he understood the financial markets were about to let economy and jobs. so repeatedly i commented to him, and i wouldn't have to sell him halfway through the conversation he would back me up and say listen, hank, we will get through this.

we are not always bring to look good. these will be -- this will be publicly on the popular but we are not willing to let our economy go down. we will do what it takes to save jobs and save the economy, and that was his point of view and to talk about my mother and sometimes he was almost like my mother to me. he would tell me i need to work out and get more sleep. [laughter] >> in terms of the people the other political stage, it seems the wind up to the election you probably felt that barack obama was both more knowledgeable and more interested in what was going on in the financial crisis and john mccain. is that a fair assessment? >> i would say it's no doubt fair that the conversations i had with john mccain or frequent as they were with barack obama.

they were more difficult, and he certainly gave me more anxiety about all of that and it was now president obama was attentive, engaged, and i felt comfortable he was going to support what we needed to do. but i'm quite grateful to john mccain because, and i have real respect for him because let me tell you in who the election six weeks away when we went to congress if there is no way we would have in my judgment t.a.r.p. if john mccain had come out against that and if he played the populace card we would have been left defenseless, and so as i look back i am increasingly grateful

of the way he handled himself during this period but during that time i lost a few hours of sleep -- >> you describe that one place you issued a veiled threat and i read what he said and it didn't sound very veiled to me. >> well, that was when he came back and there was quite a scene when he interrupted the campaign to come back and i remember i was testifying at the time and michele davis here with me today was sitting behind me when i was testifying and handed me a note and my blood sort of radical right there. she said to me if someone asks you -- excuse me about john mccain coming back just simply say i welcome the involvement

of, you know, everyone in this so she's afraid what might come out of my mouth. >> before we came up here -- >> she talked to me on the flight on the way down. as it turns out again it was a couple of days of anxiety, but again john mccain when he was back spent time with house republicans rallying them, so he did his part and then even after we got the t.a.r.p. he did not jump on or criticize some of the things we have done which again were very unpopular. american people, and i am proud of the fact on one level the american people, none of us like

bailouts, again i looked at a poll once and after the election, after we'd done some of the things we've done, and this may be a slightly exaggerated, but i recall something like 93% of the american people oppose the bailouts and 60% oppose torture and so 70%, 70% were worried we would go into something much worse than eight bad recession, so we've never been able to explain to the american people this wasn't for wall street, this was for them. >> hank, to have consultations with obama also i understand the sort of ended after the election -- >> leave out the circa part.

[laughter] >> both the president and members of the administration repeatedly said during the past year they didn't anticipate the tough things would be in the economy, but from the message you were giving you expected things this tough, didn't you? or am i wrong? >> i would ask you what you expected because i did not expect them to be this tough. i knew when we went as seeing in the book we talk about where bin bernanke and i told congress we're going to need these authorities, and the difficulty we had at that time was as more and said better than i could. the arteries of the financial system were freezing up, and so i knew with certainty that

business was going to turn down because when you have companies it is uncertain whether they will appeal to raise short-term funding. most of the cfo's are going to go to the ceo and say i may not be able to have all of the funding he would like for the next 30 days so what does a prudent company do? they start cutting back but the congress had an seen this yet so they hadn't seen it in their district so i knew with certainty it was going to get worse. i'm not sure i knew it was calling to be 10% on an employment but i knew we was going to be bad. so then, and i knew if they didn't do something in the collapsed, then the businesses wouldn't be able to find themselves, wouldn't be able to pay for the inventories and pay the supply years and would let employees the and the would ripple through the economy and

we would have an armageddon. so then when the economy did turn down, we had a terrible situation of as the congress saw because the congress saw it the way the american people had seen and we went up and said give these authorities and if you don't we are going to be in deep doo-doo. it's going to be bad. they gave the authorities and we were in deep doo-doo and as barney frank said it's hard to get credit for presenting -- preventing a disaster that people never saw or could see. >> did you get down on your knees to plead with nancy pelosi? >> i did. but you have to understand that i was in a cabinet room witnessing when both senator

mccain and senator obama were there in the middle of the campaign with a congressional leader we're not only did we not come to get there but it broke out people didn't come to the physical blows but they were verbally and it was chaos, and then the democrats assembled in the roosevelt room, and i went in uninvited and i did it just to break the tension and get a smile or laughter and they didn't really have it's decided affect. [laughter] because i remember as i recount in the book, i said please don't go out and blow this thing up and the speaker said to me we are not the ones pulling it up

and she was right. >> you've got a great investment background and you've seen the government operate here abroad. nobody has had a better perch from which to view the economy and make judgments about the economy going forward and as i understand when you were secretary you had to have your money in a blind trust and now the blind trust presumably is over i don't want you to give the names of the stocks also if you want to do with your free to do it but give an idea of the composition in terms of the bond, stocks, with the fervor of the portfolio would you had a chance to establish in the recent months. >> well, warren, first of all, you are a great investor. you do very good and very careful work. one of the things i learned

during my career is i'm not a great investor so i need to find great investors. i believe the system is, the financial system is stable, banking systems are in better shape. i do believe clearly the recovery process has begun to. you and i have a common worry about the fiscal crisis in the country. >> we will try to get to that. >> you have one of the best lines as it relates to that. but anyway, so i am the -- you just need to understand also that what we are looking to do, we're going to do for the balance of the career to the conservation in the environment and that is where the money is going so i am not looking to

make more. i am hoping to keep what i have, so i'm not looking at it with a freely long-term horizon because i continue to believe with a long-term horizon it is to invest in high-quality companies and stocks. that is what i believe in and if i was a young person i would be looking at companies with good, strong market positions for the long term, so i have a lot of what i had in fixed-income markets and money markets cash. but the others tend to be in growth because i believe the economy can go down and sideways and what ever. but outstanding of a well-managed companies and particularly companies that know how to operate globally will

prosper over a long period of time and that is the we need to look at investments is over a long period of time. i don't put much stake in the quarterly economic data or what happened to the stock market today or tomorrow. the right way to look at it for younker person is over a longer period of time. >> you said you had a fixed income. does that mean you don't worry that the decline or the devaluation of currency? >> well, warren come you are certainly not great to get a former treasury secretary [inaudible] -- [laughter] >> because i really do believe that, and i worked very hard on this, it is very much in our interest and essentials to the success and pre-eminence of the united states of america, and i believe the best way to have a

stronger dollar is looking at over a long-term view, have a strong economy and have fiscal discipline. now i'm not going to have another dollar in the next five for ten years which is what i really focused on because we tend to give away a lot of the money over a relatively short period of time. >> if i made you a trustee for my children and said you got to buy fixed-income would you prefer tips, bonds, which the treasury inflation predicted tide for the straight bonds? >> i would go to you, warren. [laughter] >> i would take your advice. >> i would ask myself the question which really gets backed where you're going to go which is which gets to currency

a little bit that it spent a lot of time in my country and all of my major economies, and believe me, every other major economy, china included has many more significant challenges and problems than we do. they really do and we're the richest and strongest economy in the world but have to deal with a relatively few very important challenges, and the biggest one is the fiscal crisis, and i shouldn't call with a crisis because it's not a crisis immediately is a challenging immediately. but one of the things i've learned one of the things i write about in this book is that it's very difficult to get the

government to act and get congress to act and do anything that is dade and difficult and controversial unless there is immediate crisis. we had an immediate crisis and we still haven't got the regulatory reform we need, and again that this something that is absolutely critical. but, so i have no doubt that we will deal with this fiscal challenge at some point in time. but the earlier we deal with it the less costly it will be and the greater the nation will become the stronger the nation will be and the less burdened the younger generation will have to bear. >> let's go back to the fall of 2008 and then and the very fateful weekend of september 12- 15, and at that point on friday it wasn't only the extent of the aig's problems

even though they were going to come cascading in a few days but you had a big problem with lehman brothers and called to together a group of people on wall street and you thought you had barclays signed up and i think they wanted to be signed up and ran into problems with british government subsequently. but it seems to me that on, forgetting about lehman brothers, if you had merrill lynch that followed the lehman brothers bankruptcy i think you and i would agree that it would have gone almost instantly. what would happen if they hadn't made the deal on merrill lynch on that sunday? >> it would have -- they wouldn't have lasted in my judgment it wouldn't have lasted a week. but people mess and i think it's easy to miss is this was a

doozy. the excesses have been building up for a long time. i knew we were overdue for the credit crisis and i told the president that when i came to washington but i didn't expect anything of this magnitude but had been building up and building up in the united states and europe and as you can see from reading the papers it is still working its way through the european system but it's been building up for a long time , and the institutions have been sitting on losses. we've been pressing them to recognize losses and raise capital. but simultaneously we have on the same weekend we learned about the extent of aig's problems on saturday. lehman brothers, the room already started on the lehman brothers. so you had those three institutions and as warren said,

we had washington mutual shortly thereafter wachovia, and we had over the next week's six european nations have to step in and recognize the institutions of this was coming at us pretty quickly from all sides. >> it's ironic that in effect i think you talked about kenneth lewis having an appetite for deals or something of the sort. but if in a fact he hadn't made this deal which doesn't look like this is only the greatest deal to offer a 70% premium on their next day the stock might have been zero but didn't he kind of save the system force? >> i tell you, he was a confident and decisive ceo, and there's no doubt that was very much at a stabilizing action.

>> do you think we would have gotten to to stay on the aig if there hadn't been action of merrill lynch that they? >> i don't know what would have happened because i don't think, warren, i don't think we could have taken one other big institutions failure, do you? the system is i think the thing hard for people to understand is we had ten institutions that had 50 to 60% of the financial assets in this country and they're so interconnected i just think in many ways as bad as this is, and it's terrible, but we look at what could have happened. we are pretty fortunate.

>> hank, the british have given you that warned about the situation a couple of days earlier, but in effect they blocked the barclays acquisition of lehman brothers. do you think they understood what the consequences were? >> i don't know everything they understood but remember there was a requirement for a shareholder vote -- >> we overcame a lot of things in this country. >> that's right. >> but the -- what we needed was we needed a buyer that could do what jpmorgan did with bear stearns which was filled the capitol and guarantee the trading during the shareholder vote because there was no

authority to do this in the u.s. and what i think people have a hard time understanding because we are the united states of america and i had a hard time understanding on till i started overturning every stone to see what authorities we had that there was no authority to guarantee liabilities or to put capital into institutions, but i'm not sure -- the british were -- i have said in the book i used some rash language when i was disappointed, but as i said in the book as i reflected on it, they obviously had their own issues they were looking at and the regulator it was for them a very difficult, it must of been a very difficult decision to let

one of their banks go ahead and in the middle of a run lehman brothers the stepped in and make the acquisition and be confident they have the wherewithal to do that. >> lehman brothers did go down on that sunday, and barclays then bought a limited part in a much smaller transaction. i think it was tuesday or wednesday that the british -- i guess the british authorities said if you have an account with lehman keeping securities you couldn't take it out. they froze the accounts basically, which i gather can as a big surprise, certainly came as a big surprise to me. spec about was i think it shocked the markets. my recollection was tuesday

because i recall learning about it tuesday and that was actually the day that of the aig rescue but what happened is the collateral third-party customer and collateral accounts on the broken dealer and others were frozen for a while and investors needed to know that their accounts were safe, and of course when they were not with lehman brothers in the u.k., then there was a big erosion of confidence in the investment banking model, the viability of the investment banking model. >> that wouldn't happen in the united states. he would have access to your securities. as i remember, that didn't get publicized but it was a huge shock.

did they consult? >> if they didn't wasn't with me. remember the sec was the regulators of the sec was a regulator for lehman brothers and was the one that had the lead in preparing for the bankruptcy because we knew that was going to be a possibility and we hope to avoid it but they were the ones that would have been talking to the various authorities during that period of time, but a short came as a surprise to a lot of investors and a surprise to me. >> hank, you and i own a huge investment banking trading room, and it's our only family asset. we can't sell it. and we've got all these talented people making lots of money. you are the head of the compensation committee. what sort of arrangement do you have? can anybody make 25 or

50 million a year? how are you going to treat these people? so they keep making money for us and they don't leave and go someplace else? >> i would say we have to talk about when it is we are doing this -- >> let's say we are doing it today. [laughter] >> well today, warren, you've got to know that you and i as i say and as i write in the book and i would have these conversations all the time that i think the compensation levels on wall street are in the wac, just during the the benign times, just in general in terms of how you had, and number two, today, in light of everything that is going on in the fact that the tax payer team and

granted the reason the taxpayer did was to prevent calamity that it came in and helped the whole financial system, so not just the big banks and investment banks but hedge funds everywhere. i think that today the restraint is very much in order by the top people, and i think the anger is coming from if you have long since you are supposed to be bearing responsibility for those losses. so the way that i've talked about it is i said i would like to see this anchor channeled and i would like to see congress feel pressure, and i know they are working on a very hard to get the regulatory reform we need so that you don't need to ever have taxpayers come and prop up the bailout and their

present form in a ceiling financial institution. we need resolution authorities of any financial institution, any type of a financial institution, if it is going to fail it can be liquidated all side of the bankruptcy process in a way which it doesn't take the financial system down and the economy down with it so i would like to see congress get that done and get the systemic risk regulator that can look at every institution no matter what the size and the type of and if they see risks that are prudent, restrain them so i would like to see that. in terms of the longer-term compensation clearly you need compensation, my view is the same as yours that it should be in equity for the highest-paid people and it should be -- it should be something that rewards long-term performance. that's the only thing that

counts, long-term performance and aligns incentives of the individuals with the company. >> are we getting the hook? >> gentlemen, we are done. [applause] >> thank you. >> henry paulson served as u.s. treasury secretary for 2006 to fill some nine and as the ceo of the investment firm goldman sachs from 1999 to 2006. this event was part of the greater omaha chamber of commerce 2010 annual meeting. to find out more, this it omahachamber.org.

we are at west virginia university in morgantown west virginia with john temple, author of the last warrior the

fight to save death row inmates. ken rose and said boe jones. >> to man about the same age and they both live in north carolina. boe jones was a farm hand from the plan county north carolina who was convicted of murder and 1993 for a murder that occurred in 1987 and he was sentenced to death and spent i believe 13 years on death row. ken rose is the lawyer, who in 1997 took on his case shortly before boe was scheduled to be executed and he has represented boe ever since and i spent four and a half years following that case. >> what got you interested in this case? have you always been interested

in the law? >> my wife is a lawyer but it's not a field life studied. all i was drawn to the idea of writing about lawyers who exclusively represent death row inmates because i thought i just wanted to know why someone would do that. it isn't a field that has a lot of rewards financially or in the community or the legal profession so i wanted to know, and it's really hard work, your clients often by when you do it along period of time so it can be difficult to do but that is the story that i was drawn to that i felt like no one had written about. there's been a lot for about the death penalty in cases that followed and have written about in books but no one, to my

knowledge, has written about the lawyers from the sort of journalistic point of view. >> how closely were you able to work with the characters to get your story? >> very closely with ken. with boe was harder. he's a stubborn character and he didn't want to speak to me for a long time eckert he would work with his own of lawyers for a long time. he had problems with the way they were handling his case and he said he can be a difficult person and that was something interesting to me. to see lawyers working on behalf of someone who wasn't even cooperating with them on top of everything else difficult about the field, even their own client wasn't working well with them. >> you said it took a few years to put together the book. how much time was research versus writing, did you travel a

lot? >> i did travel a lot considered a work of emerging journalism which is different to pilaf when you live in a west virginia and the case you are writing about is north carolina so i had to go down there a lot. i think it took something like 17 trips over the four and have your period including one month i just moved my whole family down and looked down there for a month. >> who do you want to read this book and take from it? >> i think it is a book that can appeal to a wide variety of people because it is written in accessible style. it's not written primarily for lawyers. it's not really a book about death penalty -- it isn't a book that is toward an audience that already knows about the death penalty. it's a book that is kind of a courtroom drama is the way that i try to think about it and go

about, to a wide variety but i think certainly anyone that is interested in the law as well or particularly civil rights in the death penalty would be interesting. >> what are ken rose and boe jones doing today? to the still have a relationship? >> they do. it's not particularly close. ken is continuing to work for other inmates on death row and he is a very important figure in that arena. he's probably one of the most -- it's hard to gauge exactly but he is one of the -- she's been doing death row work since 1981 since he got out of college pretty much or all school so that makes him by default one of the most experienced people in the field if not huge field.

so, he has been very important and well respected in that area and argued a lot of important cases. >> where do you stand on the death penalty and did your views changed after doing the research and writing on this book? >> well i didn't go into it for ideological reasons or to write a book about why we shouldn't have the death penalty, however it is a book that concentrates more on one side of the argument and the other. i chose to concentrate on the death penalty lawyers, i mean, you know the lawyers to represent death row inmates. i don't know that my views changed a lot. i felt like going in and that from the research i had done and ready and people i talked to, that it was at a system that worked particularly well and

that view has only been reinforced by what i've seen. >> and what you teach here at the university? >> the journalism school and the associate dean as well. >> we've been speaking with john temple, author of the last lawyer the fight to save death row inmates at how west virginia and university. thank you. >> thank you. in his new book, why are jews liberal scum commentary magazine editor-in-chief norman

podhoretz ladens to answer the questi heays he's been asked more than any other in the four decades of journalism. the to the semi miami book fair international posted this program. >> speaking of only for myself, but for the miami book fair international, we are delighted to see such a big crowd. we had no idea florida had such a substantial population of masochists. [laughter] come on, admit it, a lot of you are here in anticipation that norman pub hornets will make your blood we'll and even cause your head to explode. you know that it's true. mr. norman podhoretz knows it, too. he's been in theory getting people to the better part of six decades. he's even written entire books about all the people who wanted to kill him after reading his other books. after he published a book with a self-explanatory title x friends

one critic congratulated him for the invention of a whole new literary genre, the memoir organized around the principal of the mutual antipathy. lillian hellman didn't like mr. norman podhoretz, even though the almost joined together. joseph rode a spiteful novel about mr. norman podhoretz. allen ginsburg threatened to turn his children and to beat next debate having once read a piece by mr. podhoretz's son, john come in the folsom praise of metal rock i can tell you the threat was empty. gore vidal called mr. podhoretz a fifth columnist for israel. he has acquired most of his enemies or ex france by a we of startling political metamorphosis. i haven't checked the biography of everyone speaking at the book fair but i am fairly certain that the only speaker to have both written forhe