>> up next, syndicated columnist and former three-time presidential candidate pat buchanan joins booktv for a three-hour in-depth interview. >> host: pat buchanan, in your 2007 book "day of reckoning" in the chapter of entitled "the gospel of george bush," you write that ideology is modernity's golden calf. ideology is our substitute for religious faith. is ideology bad? >> guest: i don't know that it's bad. but what it is -- it is a substitute for faith. it is political religion. it is a belief system one foot of which is rooted in reality. the other of which is rooted basically in this idea or concept of -- what the world is all about and how it ought to be. and i think it is the great rival to conservatism.

a conservatism is traditionalism. it's a system of belief that comes out of the wisdom and the experience of the people and the human race. and basically out of natural law, philosophy. what mankind's human nature is like. let me give you one example of that. woodrow wilson said back in 1917, we're going to war to make the world safe for democracy. it was nonsense. we went to war because our ships were being sunk by the germans and that's what got us into the war. the british empire, the russian empire and the japanese empire. and italy, which wanted shares of the austrian hungarian empire and romania which wanted to carve out part of hungary. none were going to war for democracy and the idea that the united states could bring democracy to the world was preposterous and in that world we lost 116,000 dead.

and, of course, that war ushered in hitler, stalin and mussolini. and the idea that we can create democracy worldwide or something like that, it is a belief system that's not really rooted in reality. and it is the great antagonist of conservatism. >> host: so you do not have an ideology? >> guest: no. they call conservatism an ideology. but russell kirk is right. conservatism is the antithesis of ideology. now, there's socialisms and ideology, libbism is an ideology. certainly fascism is an ideology. we're antiutopian and many ideologies are utopian. >> host: "in a day of reckoning" you dedicate it to russell kirk. >> host: >> guest: he was a wonderful man. not a great political strategist.

but he had me up there marching in the st. patrick's day parade in bay city, michigan, which was on st. patrick's day. and after it was over, i went into a bar, as i recall, and there was a bartender -- she was a gal, she said pat buchanan, what are you doing in bay city, michigan? and i said, i don't know. [laughter] >> guest: it wasn't the center of the votes in michigan. russell kirk was a good friend of mine. and, you know, peter, when i was younger, i tended more toward the burnham-buckley school and the older i got i think the wisest of all that generation of conservatism was russell kirk. >> host: are you a populist? and what do you think of that term? >> guest: i am part populist. >> host: in ideology? is it an ideology? >> guest: no, it's not an ideology. it is basically -- i'm a believer that you -- in politics, that obviously you represent your philosophy and convictions and belief.

but also the people whence you came. and let me contrast two matters. i used to be free trade all the way. and free trade is an ideology and i believed into it finally i went and saw what was happening to the people whence i came up in new hampshire. you go to town after town and seeing factories shut down. people out of work. and you see all the ruin it brings and you say what is the benefit we're receiving because of this? all these goods down at the mall. and so i felt -- i came around to represent the people whence i came, and i came around to believing that free trade is an ideology and it's something i believed for 30 years and no longer believe in it anymore. and that's why i wrote the book "the great betrayal." you go back -- look back in history, i said where did i go wrong? and i find out all these washington -- all four men on mount rushmore were

protectionists. all of them were economic nationalists. the republican party from 1860 to 1928 that built america. economic nationalism, protectionism is in every republican platform. and so i came to change my point of view about free trade. i think it's an ideology. >> host: from whence did you come? >> guest: i'm as we write in the beginning is whence i came. as i said, i'm catholic. i'm conservative. i'm a buchanan, scot-irish, german origins. we grew up in washington, d.c., northwest. d.c. -- chevy chase d.c. which is very, very different from chevy chase, maryland. and i came out of a big family, nine kids. and i think as i wrote in there, i come out of the midcentury america, middle class. and all those middle class values. >> host: good afternoon and welcome to booktv's in-depth.

our guest for the next three hours is author and political commentator and politician, pat buchanan. pat buchanan has written 10 books starting in 1973, i think, is his first one "the new majority" it was called and we'll go through all his books and at least get a flavor of each one of them. but if you would like to participate in our conversation with pat buchanan, numbers are on the screen. now you can send an email. we've gotten a lot of emails for mr. buchanan. and you can send those to booktv@c-span.org or send us is tweet. our twitter address it's at booktv. pat buchanan, who were your parents and tell us about your brothers and sisters. >> guest: my parents are william baldwin buchanan. he grew up in georgetown.

the old georgetown which was an irish neighborhood. his father left him when he was about 8 or 9 years old and he was raised by his mother, mary smith, who was the daughter of irish immigrants. and he grew up here in georgetown. went to high school where his seven sons would all go to high school. and about a dozen of his nephews had been through there or are there now and my mother is katherine elizabeth crumm. in the deposition she came down to d.c. at 17 years old as a graduate of high school and became a nurse at providence hospital and a visiting nurse and she met my father there and they were married around 1934. and they lived -- we first lived up in northwest washington. then i lived in white evan parkway. not the hillary clinton section of white evan parkway but in a little row house near georgetown university.

and during the war, the colonel that owned the house -- he reoccupied it 'cause he was called to the pentagon and so my father had to go out and make two mortgages and he bought a house out in northwest washington, chestnut street, which was farm land beyond there. we were right on the edge of the city there. there was nothing there. i was raised there until 12 and i moved into utah avenue. all seven of us went to school in northwest washington, blessed sacrament and we all went to the high school. my father was an accountant, a cpa. in 1946, the fellow that ran the firm fell over dead right in the office, i think, and they carried him out and my father and a couple of others in the firm effected a coup d'etat and took over the firm. >> host: who in your family is a where ir.

>> guest: no one in my family was a writer or in politics. except my uncle and he was a democrat. and he'd gotten into a little bit of trouble up there. but he was a wart healer. he was a boss but nobody in d.c. was -- when we grew up here -- the interesting thing about d.c. the capitol and the white house were simply not part of our lives. this was a southern town. we lived in washington, d.c. and it happened to be the capital of the united states. and so none of us was involved in any way in politics at all. but my father was tremendously interested in issues. and he was tremendously -- he had grown up here. and his uncle charlie had fought in world war i. and he was very hostile to our having entered world war i and what happened to all those people. he was an fdr democrat. al smith democrat. in '28, fdr in '32 and '36. we couldn't vote. there was no politics in washington.

we had no vote. we had no mayor. no congressman. no city council, no school board. and it was a colony. and frankly it was a well run colony of the federal government. so he was interested in world affairs and communism and the spanish civil war. as i told people, i was only -- probably the only kid in first grade at blessed sacrament who knew the lusitania had been carrying contraband when it was sunk after the irish coast. because he turned very antifdr and very anti-harry truman and he read books and the old times herald in washington, d.c. when we had four newspapers. it was a mccormick -- colonel mccormick paper, sissy patterson paper in town and i used to deliver it -- i think it went under in 1954. but his politics were not so much conservative as they were antifdr, anti-truman.

i mean, he was not a great one for dewew. he was for dewew. -- dewey. >> host: and we'll get into the some of the war themes in your book because it's a consistent theme. "churchill, hitler and the unnecessary war," we'll talk about those themes. but pat buchanan, when people found out that you were going to be on "in depth," there were some certain themes that were raised regarding you that i'd love to get you to respond to. >> guest: sure. >> host: charming, combative, catholic, political theater and wishes it were 1950 still. [laughter] >> guest: when i ran a radio program back in '93 to '95, i

had cohost -- one of them was bob biechele and he would say, buchanan frozen in the 50s most there's no doubt -- that's when i was raised from 1950 i guess i turned 12 to the time i turned 21. and frankly people talk about, you know, how dreary and dreadful it were. it was a wonderful town. i had good friends. and i loved the schools i went to. the buddies we had. they were just -- it was just a great time in america. and eisenhower was sort of a distant grandfatherly figure. but -- i mean, i think those were some of the best times we ever had in the country and i went up there to columbia to graduate school. >> host: journalism. >> guest: journalism. and they had the demonstrates, antiwar demonstrators and peace demonstrators they were there. ban the bomb. and it was -- it wasn't as well organized as it came to be. and i went out to st. louis as a journalist from about '62 to '66, jane. -- january.

and, of course, that's when the explosion came in the 1960s. and basically it was a revolt against everything i had been raised and immersed in when i was growing up. and, yeah, i do tend to defend -- this was -- i mean, you can't go home again. but washington, d.c. was a up to. this was a great country in the 1950s. >> host: when were you first publishing? what attracted you to writing? >> guest: well, what attracted me -- my father, you know, when he would work down here -- as i said -- i tell a story and i've told it to mike barnacle. we used to play cyo catholic football down on the east ellipse. and i went down there. and my brother was a big star. but even before he was, i think i was about in the fifth or fourth grade. we went down there. my older brother was on the team. and coming across the lawn was harry truman. and he had a secret serviceman beside him and two behind him. you know, he used to take long walks and things. and i remember looking over there, and i said there's truman.

you know, and i was stunned. then i thought, my father is going to attack him and hit him. [laughter] >> guest: from all the things he had been saying and i looked over, what's going to happen after all he said about truman. what my father would do when i was a kid, again in the '40s, he would go down to his office on saturdays because i had he did -- it may have been before he was -- maybe it was still -- he'd become a senior partner, '46, '47 and he would take me down there and he would get to the office and he would bring in all these columns, these syndicated columns. he would clip them out and it was about west book pigler. he wrote like hunter thompson did later on. and george, who was much more serious but they were the two people he loved. him and shirley when we started getting "the washington post."

it almost got on your nerves you had to read what they had said. but he would let me read these things. and i was very impressed. and i said this must be interesting living with what these people do. i had some trouble in georgetown in school in 1959. idaho -- i had been expelled. father salinger over in baltimore building is named after him. and salinger expelled me. and i went to work for my father. it's the one person who would hire me and given my situation. and i was an accountant for a year. and then i went back to school and i said, i don't want to stay in school anymore. i don't want to go to law school. just because i didn't want three more years of school. and i didn't know what i was going to do. and i had never worked on a paper or a school paper. and i said, you know, why don't i try to get good grades and try to get into columbia journalism school, the best journalism school in the country. it's only a nine-month program

to a masters degree and see if i can do this. and when i put on my application -- i went to look at it years later, i said i wanted to be a syndicated columnist at the end of my journalistic career. and i regret to say i put down what was your favorite tv program. it was the 20th century. with walter cronkite. we would eventually suing cronkite, my brother. we went up to columbia and i went up there and i went at it. i couldn't type when i got there. but for me -- i mean, in custody it because i didn't know anything about journalism. so everything was new and fresh. writing headlines and doing all these things that i guess students learn in high school. at the same time, reporting and writing editorials and writing movie reviews and how do you do it. we had all these folks coming from the "new york times" the very best journalists coming in. it was a tremendous experience for nine months. and from there, i wrote to 17 newspapers. and i wrote -- worked all night on this -- wrote this thing.

and tailored my opinion to each of them. four of them came back with job offers and the best job offer was a reporter for the "st. louis globe-democrat." and so i went out there and they had me the first couple days i was doing obits. and then they sent me out to cover a couple of stories because they gave me an economic writing fellowship to columbia. i'd never taken a course in economics but i was an accountant and so they gave me a full scholarship to columbia on tuition. they said you're an economist, pat and all of believe. so they moved me to the business page because there was somebody on a six-week vacation. so then there's a fellow who quit the editorial page so i went back and applied for that job. and i think about six weeks after i was there, as my friend danny walsh the pulitzer prizer and my roommate, he has an office north of the john and i'm impressed and i was back on the

same row with the executive editor, the publisher. and me. and so i was there for 3 1/2 -- 3 1/2 years. marvelous experience. until i went over and met richard nixon who was doing a speech. >> host: your first two books written if 1973 and 1975 "the new majority" and "conservative votes, liberal victory." how did you meet richard nixon and tell us who was the new majority in 1973? >> guest: i first met richard nixon -- i was a caddie at burning tree. >> host: a golf club. >> guest: burning tree country club. we went out there. we didn't have a job in the summer and we used to walk around looking for jobs. and so we went out there and we stayed on the caddie bench. we were the last two there. and late one afternoon this car pulls up. and i said that's vice president nixon. and he gets out and the deputy looks over at us. he didn't want us to go out with

the vice president 'cause we were green caddies. so he called us over. and so pete got nixon's bag and i was with this general and we walked around the course with him. and i don't think nixon and the general knew it, but i was pretty astute at 14 -- i knew who was what. and nixon was making all these comments yelling over to stewart simmington. i knew exactly who these people were. so i met him there. and so he was filling in for dirksen in 1965. and i was having trouble with my publisher. he was filling in for dirksen over in belleville, illinois, a speech where dirksen was ill. and so there's a cocktail party afterwards given by the cartoonist for the globe democrat who was a nixon admirer. he was the herb locke of the midwest. i said don, invite me to your party. i want to meet nixon. he said okay. come on over. and i went over there. this is 1965, december.

and so nixon was there. and he brings me in the kitchen and said, how are you, mr. vice president. i've always been an admirer. if you're going to run in 1968 i would like to get aboard early. and what do you do? i pretty much write editorials and everything under the sun and i was explaining to him -- we only had two editorial writers and the post dispatch had seven. we were much more versatile and we had to get more on deadline. we had to write a lot more so he kept questioning me. and, you know, i was -- i didn't carry your bag but i was with you at burning tree. just to prove i wasn't fooling. i gave him the name of the pro and the deputy pro and i described his golf bag. so he was persuaded that i was authentic. and i got in the -- the cartoonist got to work the next day. he said, you know, i drove nixon to the airport and he had to drive all the way from belleville to lambert, which is an hour drive.

and he said all the way out there, nixon was asking about you. and sure enough, i get a call in a couple of weeks and it's from a rose matter woods. -- rosemary woods and they were sending you a ticket. i got there about 12:00 noon and from 3:00 to 6:00 he kept me in the outer office for three hours and from 3:00 to 6:00 he called me in and we were going over everything left, right and center. i was a goldwater guy. asking me -- i thought of goldwater, why they lost and what's the conservative movement. and he would interrupt -- remember one of them senator john williams called. and, you know, rosemary said, john woods is on the phone. i said i'll leave. stay right there. and he talked to woods at the tax bill. here at the center of world politics. and when the meeting was over and he walked out he said i want you to come to work for me for a year. i want you to handle my mail.

and my correspondence. i want you to write with me -- write a syndicated column i've just signed up to do and i want you to travel with me 'cause i'm going to campaign in '66. and it's only a one-year commitment. and so i said, okay. i said i'm on. i better give my publisher a call 'cause he doesn't know i'm here. so i got back to st. louis. and the publisher came in, were you up seeing richard nixon yesterday and that was it. i was gone from st. louis. never went back. >> host: who was the new majority in 1963? >> guest: i wrote that. that's gerard bank came to me. and they had done james the year before. right after we won the election. and so i said, sure. and i took my two-week vacation. i wrote that book in two weeks. and my entire vacation working day and night. it's a very slim book.

and then, you know, gerard bank in philadelphia, i don't know if they exist anymore, and we went up there and they had a big annual lunch. and they sat me down next to frank rizzo. i will not relate everything that frank rizzo told me we should have been doing. the day that book was announced and was let go, there were 30,000 printed out and i think they gave them away and sent them out to their depositors and everything was the day mcchord went in and told the judge there are higher-ups in watergate. the new majority was the majority we had worked with nixon from '66 to '72 putting together a majority. this is one of the great -- or one of the great achievements of nixon he never got credit for. how we cut to pieces the new deal majority of fdr by moving the northern catholic ethics, folks like my father, who are

catholic, and whose fathers have been democrats but who are socially conservative and patriotic, you know. and we're just -- we're not leftists. and southern. and my father's family was from mississippi. and he talked about him, you know, and confederate veterans. and he was -- he was very prosouthern. and at the same time he was catholic. he was a mixture. and so -- and this is what we worked with nixon to do. was to bring the socially conservative patriotic democrats catholics union, folks like that, and my mother's folks who were democrats from the north into the republican coalition and in the south get these southern protestant conservatives and move them away from the democratic party and drive particularly wedges right through the new deal coalition. we knew we would lose the left wing of the republican party. but it was the fair trade. and so what nixon did -- he went from 43% in '68 to 60, 61% in

'72. we'd taken the new deal -- new  deal, pulled away two huge pieces of it. attached it to the republican base. and we had the new security. -- majority. we won 5 out of the next 6 elections. using the same formula. and it was a triumph. the only one we lost was with carter was after watergate and after gerald ford liberated poland. [laughter] >> host: well, in 1965 your second book came out, "conservative votes, liberal victories." >> guest: i wrote that after i left the ford white house. i stayed there three months ter nixon left. and i went out to -- and the "new york times" came to me and asked me to write a column for their syndicate. not for the "times" itself. you weren't up in the level. they wanted the syndicate. but clifton daniels, one of the ones who came to see me, he's very nice to me, took me up to

his big century --. >> host: he was married to margaret truman, wasn't he? >> guest: married to margaret truman, exactly. he was a nice man and he was very nice to me. and harrison salisbury came to see me. scottie reston wrote me a letter and things. they all wanted me because i had testified before the watergate committee. as a matter of fact, the "times" wrote me in about '73 and they said we're looking for a conservative columnist. and so i wrote him back a letter, and i said here's the ten people who could be conservative columnists. i had mentioned kevin phillips and a number of different people. and so they came and said bhab you? -- what about you, you know? and i said fine. so i went to work for them and he's the one who put the deal together for me. i published that book with quadrangle which i think is their "new york times" book publisher. and what that book was about was how basically we put together a

conservative coalition. but my old boss richard nixon didn't want to do anything because many conservatives were howling and it was to make the case why it was happening. conservative votes, liberal victories, what is the subtitle? it's something about the right in the subtitle? >> host: why the right later failed. >> guest: that suggest we were fail for 30 years. [laughter] >> guest: so that's what it was about. we got all these votes together, for example, on the -- we were supposed to put together a conservative supreme court. and i worked with nixon on that. the whole idea of breaking the power of the warren court. and yet we appointed three of our appointees voted -- or four voted for roe v. wade. and so we had failed. and we were -- we continue with the great society. i mean, nixon -- lbj may have laid down the first floor but we built the skyscraper.

2 million on food stamps, 16 million when we left. i mean, all the domestic social programs nixon maintained all of them. he added to a lot of them. i think because his certain concern was foreign policy. he really believed -- he was sort of a neo-wilsonion. he actually believed that he could produce a generation of peace. >> host: well, then how is richard nixon -- this will be the last question before we go to paul's so i appreciate everybody hanging on. how then is richard nixon from george h.w. bush and george w. bush, both of whom you have problems with? >> guest: richard nixon was my innocentor. -- meantior. -- mentor. [laughter] >> guest: he treated me like a son. avenues wonderful man. -- he was a wonderful man. he was a wonderful conversationist. my belief was we had lost with goldwater. we had gone with barry goldwater

and we were wiped out, 38% of the vote. and i realized the country wasn't ready for goldwater conservatism. and of the two candidates running, nixon and romney, nixon was far superior in terms of talent, ability. he was a figure of history when i met him. he'd been, you know, involved in his case when i was 9 years old sore. -- or so. he did want to name conservative supreme court justices. he was badly misled in the people he named. he did want to -- you know, leave vietnam with honor. i think he would have preferred to win the war and so an awful lot of issues i think he agreed. but basically i don't think he was a goldwater conservative at all. >> host: do you have a problem with the bushes? >> guest: well, you know, i think they have a problem with me. look, george bush was a friend of mine. let me tell you a story of

george h.w. bush. i had bought a house in northwest washington and i was gone from the white house and my wife was still there and i left. and i was unpacking at my house. and the first visitor to the door was george h.w. bush and his wife, barbara bush and their dog and he had a bottle of champagne and he said welcome to the neighborhood. he was chairman of the republican national committee. i like george bush. i worked in the white house. in reagan's white house he was right down the hall. i would have considered him a friend. i supported him in 1988 and i was glad he won the nomination and frankly i wrote editorials and columns. i was one of the most supportive of him, in that election. sxaith many notes from him. -- and i got many notes from him. and it got to 1989 and '90, and my feeling was that they said, you know, reagan has had his time and the reagan people are yesterday.

and he began moving away. i was on tv once. and i was telling that george bush is not going to raise his taxes. he's given us his word. and we had one showing and sure enough they convinced him to raise the taxes and we left with egg all over our face. i just didn't know why the united states had a vital interest there and whether or not kuwait was under any saddam -- it was not a vital interest to me and i thought saddam evil as he was was a good balance against iran. but then he went up there in october and went to the u.n. and said we're going to build a new world order. and then after -- we were with him in the battle for clarence thomas and then he signed a quota bill. and this is about december, almost december, november, 1991. and i called my little sister up.

and i said, you know, this doesn't represent us. and if he's going to run we've got to say george bush may be the republican nominee. and he probably -- he's going to be the republican nominee. but he's not a conservative. and why don't we just go in and challenge him in new hampshire. and so we went in and challenged him and in 10 weeks we went from nowhere to -- within 14 points of president bush. and so -- and i think young george thinks -- i think he read somewhere i put 100 knives in him and perot put a hundred more and i think they have a problem with me. on a personal level george bush was very good to me. i thought we were friends but obviously something like this happens. i'm sure they blame me. >> host: pat buchanan wrote a series of booksn the late '90s, early '00. "state of emergency third world invasion of conquest of america. the death of the west how dying populations and immigrant invasions imperil our country and civilization. day of reckoning how hubris,

ideology and greed are tearing american apart and finally where the right went wrong, how neoconservatives subverted the reagan revolution and highjacked the bush presidency. this is just four out of pat buchanan's ten books. thanks for holding. shaun in vancouver, washington, you're on with pat buchanan. >> caller: mr. buchanan when i was a kid growing up in the '80s i considered myself a reagan republican because he seemed to be the most patriotic. today i'd have to say i'm more of a michael moore patriot. when i looked as your country, when i look at what's happening to the environment and the gulf of mexico, when i look at what's happening on wall street as goldman sachs raids the pub treasury and our disastrous foreign policy, i say to myself the only thing that's ever stood up to that kind of corporate wall street power in our nation's history has been the power of government. the power to regulate. labor unions, fdr-style policies. and so whei hear people like you -- when i hear the tea party

people are going back -- or rush limbaugh talking about, you know, protecting what's best about america, i don't understand how they don't look back to the legacy of anticorporate behavior. like nafta was a free market idea. and nafta is what's responsible for the destruction of the livelihood of the mexican farmers who --. >> host: we have a lot to work with. thank you. >> guest: i agree with you in part. i was an opponent of nafta and and i think ross perot and ral have nader and the head of the afl-cio at the time. we were the main people fighting nafta and, quite frankly, we had the majority of the country with us against nafta. when you got such a disparity of wages what's going to happen you're going to send american jobs to mexico and american factories to mexico. and they will leave the united states. when i came out against -- against free trade. and i was against the world trade organization. and on the foreign policy, i agree with you.

i do believe during the cold war we faced an ideological and imperial empire of an enemy in the soviet empire that we had to resist because they were enemies of everything we believed in. everywhere they took power. they murdered people who believed as we do. but once that cold war ended, 1989 to '91, i argued for the withdrawal of american forces from europe. give nato to the europeans. let the south koreans defend themselves. bring the troops home. take care of our own country. and if we'd done that, we would be far better off when china is surging in power and wealth and strength by staying out of conflicts. and we're running around in all these wars in the middle east. we didn't do that. i do agree with you with regard to wall street to this extent. clearly if the federal government is going to guarantee the deposits of a bank like

jpmorgan chase it's got hundreds of billions of dollars in assets -- if we're going to guarantee those deposits they got to behave in a certain way and they can't do certain things. i am in favor of getting the casinos, the goldman sachs' casinos out of these banks. people want to bet money on those crazy derivatives and the rest of it, fine. but let them go to vegas. and we shouldn't have to finance them or bail them out which their bets go back. so i agree with you on partway. i don't agree on all what fdr did. i think the new deal did some good things. i think deposit insurance. and i think in other cases it went too far. >> host:nd in 1998, pat buchanan wrote this book "the great betrayal: hour american sovereignty and social justice are being sacrificed to the gods of the global economy." mark, staten island, hi. mark, you know the rules. you got to turn down the volumes. we'll come back to you. and we're going to move on to asheville, north carolina.

jay, you're on with pat buchanan on booktv. >> caller: thank you very much for taking my call. mr. buchanan, it's a great pleasure to speak with you. >> guest: thank you. >> caller: i have two historical questions i'd like to ask you. number one, after 1945, the japanese sort of developed what many have called a collective amnesia regarding what -- some of the atrocities that their troops committed especially in china. manchuria and nanking. do you think that the chinese suffer from the same collective amnesia? i personally do not. the other question i have is, after the russians plotted out of afghanistan, there was a lot of material written about the soviet army. their problems with such things as clothing, conscription,

equipment. but now you really don't hear much about it. and my question to you is, what do you think the current state of what used to be called the red army is? i ask because ralph peters in his book "endless wars" states managing putin's russia could be our number one security problem. >> guest: you've got there a lot on the plate. i will say there's no doubt that what the apologize did, the atrocities, rape of nanking, the rape of manila, the experiments of our soldiers over there. these were appalling atrocities. and the chinese do remember them very well. the chinese also remember the humiliations they suffered under the -- under the western imperialist powers especially those of the opium wars where

the british, in effect, imposed opium -- the right to sell opium to the chinese people and fought wars to maintain that right. and the chinese were humiliated very much in the 19 -- that's why you've got the box rebellion in 1900, where the americans, marines and others, went up there 55 days to beijing. charlton hesston saved the situation for us, i guess. but let me talk about the red army. i agree to this extent about russia. putin is a nationalist. america's enemy was the soviet empire. it was the communist empire. it was their ideology and their imperial ambitions. i think with the collapse of the soviet empire and the collapse of the soviet union, russia is not an enemy of the united states. there's no doubt russia wants to be dominant in what it calls its near abroad. but in the -- not only the long term but the near term, russia has a hellish problem.

when russia broke away from the soviet union or became independent and the other 14 countries broke free, russia had 150 million people. this is the book i'm writing right now. it is down to 143, or 142 people. they lost 8 people in two decades. they're going to go down to around 114 million. russia, germany, and ukraine will together between them lose 60 million people between 2010 and 2050. the west is dying. if you include russia and the west as i do. is russia a long-term threat to the united states of america? no. i think we made a terrible mistake moving nato right into their front yard, right onto their front pomp. and they reacted to that. they believed we took advantage of them after we won the cold war. i share some of their beliefs about that. i think we made a series of stupid imperial blunders. in what we did. now putin is somebody we should work with.

let me give you one example. i mean, i was when putin went to captain forest and in effect said we will -- the stalinists, the soviet union -- we're responsible for murdering all these polish patriots and heroes in the forest. and the way he handled that funeral, i think the russians and the rapprochement they are seeking with poland -- there are good signs here. i mean, is it tough minded nationalists who would like to kick the americans out of central asia, yes, he is but i mean, that is simple nationalism on his part and i think we can deal with folks like that. i don't think making him an enemy is a wise thing to do.n< and i think -- i think in a way president obama -- what he has been trying to do, maybe he hasn't done it well or deftly, i agree with a lot of what he has tried to do. >> host: and from churchill, hitler and the unnecessary war, written in 2008, you write, had britain never given the war guarantee to poland, the soviet

union would almost surely have bourne the brunt of the blow that fell on france. the red army ravaged by stalin' purge of senior officers might have collapsed. bolshevism might have been crushed. communism might perished in 1940 instead of living on for 50 years. >> guest: i think the greatest mistake in british diplomacy in the history of the british empire and the british nation was the war guarantee it gave to poland. it was not munnish. -- munich. great britain couldn't go to war to keep the land which is 90% german. keep these unhappy germans who have been put under czech rule by the people of versailles including wilson against their will, against the principle of self-determination and against the terms under which the germans had signed basically an armistice. they put these germans under there.f and you knew -- the germans in the land wanted to go to berlin.

the austrians and the others. and what happened was you couldn't go to war for them. now, what chamberlain's mistake was not in not going to the war. it was the right decision. but it was in coming home and saying, hitler, i really understand this guy. i mean, he trusts me. we work together. we cut believe deal. it is peace for our time. instead of coming home and saying look there's no way we can fight for the land but we better prepare ourselves 'cause believe guy is a liar. and you can't trust him. and so instead of that, chamberlain got himself all worked up that he was a miracle worker with hitler. but what happened in 1938 or '39, march, czechoslovakia came apart as you could predict it was going to come apart. at the end of world war i, they put 3 million -- 3.25 million germans under the czechs. you put 2.5 million slovaks, 500,000 ukrainians and 800,000

hungarians. you think this thing is going to stay together? i mean, anybody knows anything about ethnonational it's going to come apart. at munich hitler told chamberlain when we get the land the poles are going to want their share and the hungarians are going to want their share. the hungarians took a slice in november of 1938. the poles grabbed a slice. so it comes to march -- and the slovaks say we want to be independent and the czechs send in the army. and they save us and hitler says if you break free to declare independence we'll make you a protectorate and the czechs come in and the slovaks are gone and he tells hitler give us the same deal you gave the sloracks. -- slovaks.

hitler had a real animus against the czechs. and it comes apart. it's a mess that should never have been together. that means hitler is going to conquer the world is preposterous. what do the brits do? chamberlain sees it breaking apart goes to make his first speech. our guarantee of the czechs is gone because the country is falling apart. so the foreign minister -- i'll think of his name in a second. the foreign minister comes to him. no, no, this isn't good enough. he pushes chamberlain and pushes him and pushes him. and hitler gets the hummel back who has schlep it. -- stolen it. and we want danzig back. you can hold on. hu hitler wants to bring the germans back in and instead of handling this and realizing that they can't effect policy in the area of eastern europe.

chamberlain gives the dictator, he gives him an unsolicited guarantee. great britain and the british empire will go to war against germany. they gave polish colonels the power to bring the war against hitler germany. hitler was an admirer of the british he didn't want anything in my judgment rest of the rhine river. any ambitions he had were in the east and frankly even the soviet union. if you had not given the war guarantee to poland and let's say poland cut the deal gave danzig a little town back to germany, how could hitler have invaded germany. he had poland and he had an ally in hungry. he had an ally in slovakia. and an ally in spain and portugal.

in other words, he's surrounded by friendly countries. so i think there might not have been a world war ii. >> host: well, you do write in "churchill, hitler, and the unnecessary war" one short sentence that world war ii was a just war. >> guest: there's no doubt it was just. was it necessary. no i don't believe it was necessary. it came -- that's hitler -- excuse me, not hitler's -- the phrase is winston churchill's. and fdr says what shall we call this war? and churchill says why don't we call it the unnecessary war because there never was a war that was more easily prevented than the one we're in right now. and my view the fatal mistake was with the british giving the war guarantee to poland. people say what should they have done very simple? they should have formed a solemn alliance with france. sent troops to france. drawn a40 line in front of belgm and france and defended the

channel ports, defended the british empire, defended france and told hitler, if you cross that line, you're at war with britain and france.7#ñ then still being neutral they could have brought all the planes and everything they wantedwv:hu'ited states. hitler would never have come west in my judgment. he didn't want to come west. when he did come west, he conquered france and went back home. he didn't ask for the french colonies. he didn't ask for the french fleet. he didn't ask for bases in syria. he never wanted a two-front war. i'm not sure he wanted war with the soviet union because he'd pretty much gotten -- i mean, all his neighbors were friends and allies. now, was that a controversial book? you bet. [laughter] >> host: mark in california, you're on with pat buchanan. >> caller: mr. buchanan, i have the honor of having voted for you three times. >> guest: well, thank you, sir. >> caller: and i grew up in the san gabriel area where the church i only remembered was%vve

one general patton used to preach at. >> guest: is that right? >> caller: that's right. and i just wanted to run something by you. kind of a pitch as it were. i'd like for you to consider this concept that here in california, we have an initiative process given to us by hiram johnson about 100 years ago. >> guest: uh-huh. >> caller: and i would like to see a more direct form of democracy i hate to use the word stabbed in the back, but when we put politicians in and then they want to maintain their status, they sell us out. so what we need is what we only have every four years. and that's -- we americans vote as one only every four years for a president or vice president ticket. what i want to see is a national referendum and we can take back our country. >> guest: now, let me say the national referendum idea i believe theodore roosevelt had the same idea. you'd need a constitutional amendment. but i agree with you to this extent. you know, i'm a believer that america is a republic not a

democracy. and mass democracy i'm as skeptical as jefferson and madison and others were. but i do believe on some issues -- let's take relatively simple issues. should we or should we not have a death penalty? i mean, that's something people can decide one way or the other. the right to life issue. these issues are -- people can understand and know about. and i think a national referendum, frankly, would be an excellent idea. but i don't know that you're going to get -- you would have to get it through two-thirds of both houses of congress and then through the three fourth of the states in a period of 7 or 10 years and i think you would get real resistance to it in the congress. but again, theodore roosevelt was in favor of that as i recall. i think i mentioned it in one of these books, "the national referendum." >> host: a republic not an empire by pat buchanan was written in 1999. next call mississippi, hi.

>> caller: thank you, mr. buchanan for taking my call. >> guest: thank you. >> caller: i want to know is there a conservative out there on the national level that we can get behind that is a true conservative for our next president? >> guest: well, you know, as the bible said in my father's house there are many mansions. there are many different kinds of conservatives today. each claiming the title. and a lot of the folks who are conservatives don't agree with me. many of them are absolute free traders. many of them believe in intervention. they favor the war in iraq, the war in afghanistan, war with iran. so we don't agree on that. social conservatives, we know some are right to life, some are not. so is there a conservative out there, i don't see -- ronald reagan was perfect for his day and his time. i don't see a ronald reagan out there right now, quite frankly. i mean, he was the political leader with whom i agreed most often on almost everything. and i had the honor of working for him for two years.

i don't see a leader out there whom i agree with on all those issues right now that i think are vitally important to us. and so the answer is no. but there are a lot of good men out there. good individuals. and good women out there. i agree on some things but not on everything. >> host: okay. mitt romney is described as the front runner for 2012. >> guest: i think that's correct. mitt is a good family man. i know there are a lot of conservatives that are severely conservative of him. he governed as a moderate republican. he seemed to be liberal on the -- on right to life and gay marriage and things up there or gay rights. and he's more conservative now and they don't know if he's authentic. i agree with you he's the front runner and i would also agree he may be the strongest candidate the republicans could nominate. in an election against barack obama. mitt romney could put into play a number of states like michigan. certainly michigan.

in some northern states that republicans have not done well in or have been going democratic for five straight elections. at the same time, i think given the conservative areas of the country and the south and the west until you get to the pacific coast, they would vote -- might vote for him because he's far preferable to them than to obama. >> host: you write those who believe the gay rights movement is the 21st century civil rights movement miss a basic difference. the civil rights cause could successfully invoke the bible, natural law and thomas jefferson on behalf of equal justice under the law. gay rights cannot. in letter from a birmingham jail martin luther king wrote, a just law is a manmade code that squares with the moral law or the law of god. an unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. by dr. king's conditions, gay rights laws are unjust laws out of harmony with the moral law. >> guest: that is exactly right.

and i am a natural law conservative. a believer of thomas aconfinuus- aquinas. he wrote a letter from a birmingham jail that is perfectly consistent with what i believe, which is with regard to the african-americans, for example, they are children of god and they have a soul and under the constitution they have equal constitutional rights as all of us and as christians you have to treat people with decency and dignity. i was at the march on washington. i was up in the lincoln memorial. and i was right up there when dr. king was there. and peter, paul and mary were up in there. i talked to -- what was it the fellow from -- i'll think of it. the civil rights leader the entire time. and lena modern was there.

-- lena horne was there. and i got my brother -- i think this is going to be important. come on with me down there. and let's go on. we went up to the monument grounds and lincoln rockwell was over there with the nazis and the whole gang and it started in the afternoon and i was up in the lincoln memorial. the guy i was talking was reverend shuttlesworth and lena horne came by and he said take it easy, pat. but i was there. i'm getting away from the story here. and that is take the vote of gay marriage in california. the people who came out and voted 70% against -- or to outlaw gay marriage were who? african-american folks who came out of the churches. and i believe that homosexuality has to do with conduct and behavior. with what you do.

nobody has any control over -- i don't know people have control over their tendency or desires or things like that. they have control over behavior and conduct. but african-american are as god made them. and god made all men good. and i think there are evil people in every group. and so i think they are children of god and they're under the constitution so they have a right to be treated with respect and dignity and equality. now, is homosexuality -- i say homosexual marriage, is that equal to traditional marriage. homosexual marriage is abnormal. it is unnatural. it is morally wrong. it's inconsistent with our moral beliefs not only religious beliefs but in natural law. and so that is why it is -- it has never found the kind of favor that the civil rights movement did. as i mentioned, 70% of african-americans coming out of their churches in california voted to outlaw gay marriage.

53% of hispanics did. they're always traditionalist culturally conservatives. the white vote in california went in favor. it's very a liberal vote out there. it went in favor to abolish the banning of homosexual marriage. so even the black communities sees this distinction. you know, d.c., they authorized gay marriage. and the folks in d.c. -- the black preachers, they said put it on the ballot. so you can know. there is a human right. it's not going on the ballot. they didn't put it on the ballot 'cause they'd get whipped even in washington, d.c. so that is exactly right. martin luther king's statement there is a clear statement of natural law philosophy. >> host: next call for pat buchanan comes from right here in washington, d.c., concern, hi. >> caller: pat, i'm very happy to be able to talk to you. and i want to thank you. i'm a german american. i want to thank you for the many

things you've written showing crimes against germans, the internment of german-americans in the second world war and the u.s. the expulsion crimes against the germans in eastern europe. and i had a specific question. you've praised -- or mr. putin for his declaration. but putin -- although admitting that the russians committed that crime does not apologize to the families of the german soldiers that were executed for having committed that crime. nor has he ever apologized for the rapes and murders that took place during the -- i think alford talks about 3 million rapes across greater germany. >> guest: you're right. putin is a russian nationalists and the crimes and the atrocities and the harms of the

red army as it raped its way across eastern and central europe and in hungary especially and in germany were appalling. the germany expellees as the book written by my friend, i think it had later it had a different title. he talked about the 15 million germans who were moved out of east and west prussia, brandonberg, and others. all of these areas and just moved out of the land which is bohemia and they were driven out en masse in sort of a trail of tears of 15 million people in which 2 million did not survive. it's the greatest exodus and the ethic cleansing and it gets no attention. alfred wrote a couple of books on that. and he's a human rights lawyer and author.