didn't want to. like, for instance akeley had a couple of patents for dentist the equipment. [laughter] but the reading of the correspondence, and also the -- rochester, he grew up in rochester at the university of rochester and found a lot of personal correspondence that enabled me to just kind of get into his head really. he comes across very humorous sometimes put other kinds piece just liked he is really funny. i wish mickey had written more. she wrote for jongh gold portraits, and her second one was called j.t. jr., the biography of an african monkey. [laughter]

very good book. i wish she had written more. .. >> have you ever come across somebody in your writing that you have not been able to sympathize with because of their actions? this guy, did he do anything that you personally can't

justify it to yourself? in your looking at this guy. >> many things that i found reprehensible, absolutely. again, you know, the things that i was drawn to, that i found most compelling in terms of him being a character. he was very paradoxical. so, yes. you know, he was engaged in this enterprise at face value that was very brutal. go kill these animals and bring them back. i guess that could be morally reprehensible. at the same time as i said my objective was to try and see it from their point of view and see what was going on. you know, he wasn't the only to be there were definitely characters in the book that i found to my research that were

morally passed the point of ambivalence. there were just jerks. i didn't want to write about them. [applauding] >> abcaeight. >> j. kirk is a creative writing teacher at the university of pennsylvania. for more information visit his website. from the c-span archives a program from 2003 with a journalist mimi shorts and former enron vice-president sharon watkins who presents a behind-the-scenes look at the collapse of the gas and energy trading company in round. the book traces the company's

money laundering schemes this, fictional accounting, and manufactured profits. enron debt was downgraded to junk bond status on november 20th 2001. >> good evening, and thank youn. for coming. i would like to welcome you to h discussion with mimi shorts and sharon watson's. they will discuss their book power failure, the inside story of the collapse of enron. sharon watkins is known as the enron was a blower and one of time magazine's 2002 person of the year. amy schwartz is an executiven editor at texas monthly and hass won a national magazine award in the public interest category in 1996. 1996 we will start with ms. schwartz

telling us more about her bookeh and then proceed with sharon watkins. afterwards we will have a question and answer session.seso if you would like to ask a if y question please go to the microphone so that everyone els, can hear. when all of the questions of finished we will start. now, let's get started.e questie please welcome the me shorts.ar. [applauding] >> i'd like to thank you all very much for coming. the way we have been doing thisa is i've been doing a shortet reading so that you can get ahek feel a for the book. sharon is going to talk about the book. i will start. is the p this is the preface to the bookk i wanted the book to be a where i livey because this is where i live. i thought the book could be usee to illustrate a lot of thespectf aspects of houston life and culture. will this chapter would give you a feel for what i was trying to

do.e it's called put m ie in enron. for as far back as anyone can remember, since 1958 when he started his firm the families i houston had referred to him by his first name only as if he were a secret they all shared.it these were the families whose wealth dated back to cattle and cotton and timber.ies more important there were the bl families to have made their money in oil early, and the first 20 years of the 20thst 20 century.0th to them the enigmatic egyptian was a flawless mannered impeccably tailored suits and robert -- art collection, someone to beat its respectednd and revered. they admired him in general.eon they always seem to know what he e> best.d mostly they admired his fate tasting money.ed his taste when you just how volatile the business was.

so dependent on him and his investment firm which managesenm th more than 40 billion in assetsb. for stability. he was the man for whom consistency was a daily practice. throughout 2001 from a for a instance, he ate his workday day lunch with the same moment, hiss secretary, misses white at the same club, the coronado, inside the old bank of the southwest bf building at the same tablee adjacent to the giant television screen stench routinely to cnbc is market report. cnbc' he was neither handsome nor particularly and handsome. in late middle age she was in balding, his eyes were narrowdig and he wore glasses with heavy square france. like many prominent houstoniansr manydured some volatility in his personal portfolio. his $250 million divorce had made news. so had the revelation of his ans misecrett life, the requisite parallel texas family l that included mistress, a child, and

someone.s, but he spoke to the press. his lawyers advised against it.e the story faded and he returnede soon enough to his life ofh to e carefully crafted obscurity. cay nervous energy is a great destroyer of wealth. he lived by those words. likedo he detested risky investments. his firm's philosophy, the one that enable it to outperform thh standard and poor index and 11 stanrd & poor' years was as follows. for we believe that long-term stock price appreciation is based on s long-term earnings growth. sustainable earnings growth is . predicated on dominance in an attractive industry. dominant businesses usually resides in large companies thate can produce superior earningsr growth and market over longin 13 time. in 1993 the new york times seraf called him at top-0 with awith a passion for brand names. in 1997 he was called a brandons name champion.n. he liked johnson and johnson,

procter and gamble, general electric and coca-cola. in the late 1990's something 19s happened to his clientele. the market was raging and they wanted him to invest their money in a company called enron. enron was then the world's worls leading energy company by its cs own account and everyone else's. its glossy annual report showed earnings in the hundreds of repr millions. those attorneys grew by almost 20 percent every year.. fr pre bou and 2000 the stock price share to com around $20 a share to close to $90lo a share.etter better yet it was a houston company. wie old money crowd was very taken with enron ceo. they work for them to raise mofor the the united way and houston's museum of fine art. alongside him at the greater houston partnership. he was a good man, they they insisted. they knew what he was doing. by enron. put me in enron. it was like a fever.

se he might have seemed familiar. but he was immune to such entreaty. irvous energy is a great destroyer of wealth, and he would refuse. his explanation was very simple. i can't understand their balance sheet. expnati crumblingon his clients would grblin, not their heads and retreat. they were sure they were losing out on the deal of the century and would call again and amenda the stock. d by enron. put me in enron. again in that soft and calm ande resolute voice he would refuse.d he did not put his clients in in anything he didn't invest in himself and he was investing in enron.it wasetting buyers were getting old. children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.en of the did not see the future when itee was staring him in the face. he was mired in the past. too damned old fashioned. by it, they said. thank you. now i'd like to introduce my

great partner. [applauding] >> i do appreciate all of you coming out on this pre-holidayja weekend. a handful of remarks about my, l of writienron but also the process of writingng the book ad what our goals were in doing tht book. i had heen first off i had been at enron not quite eight years when i,ent changed jobs and went back to ay work in the summer of 2001. i was doing a really simple job called commercial support work so that i could getpo homeo be to bewi with my two year-old daughter. my travel was not outrageous. my job was simply to prioritize the assets and ron has for salei i was lookingor at book value,ln estimatedg market values, seeint where enron could get the biggest bang for the bike in

selling assets and raising cashs i stumbled across a handful of assets that were hedged with these raptors structures. of yoe most of you were prole aware the chief financial officer has been able to form an outside venture. he was a general partner of a partnership to be raised over i $600 million of innevestment money. his partnership main purpose was a do business with enron, bybus assets and transact. the board of directors had in a rather unprecedented move waived the code of conduct for andy to allow him to enter into this conflict of interest.just realla really what that means is in the was chief financial officer of enron where his fiduciary duty was to look after the value of enron, yet he was also the the n general partner of thispartners partnership called l.j. him cald where his duties were to ljm w increase the return for his

limited partners. he has an inherent conflict. con if he tries to do the best deal for his partner's at l.j. and he is hurting and ron.ying to if he is trying to be cfo of enron he is hurting his partners. ow know from theess ar complete and press articles tha when it came time to make a decision and the favored l. j. m. and not in ron. weht even he -- it's in the book. we might even twant to quote it directly, but his investment in the first held j.m. was something like two or 3 millionl and teammate 20 million plus in under a year. his investment in the second was 3-5000000, and he made it $20 20 million plus. sog likel take, was something like 53. forty to 50 million from these partnerships. that is just an incredibler you. return for your money. some o

he led in some of his buddies from enron.ted acouple of people invested $5,800.1 within a month they got a million dollars. that was quite -- we talk about money growing on trees, its ofig falling out of the sky at that f point. h are very aware of his shenanigans. of i happened -- none of us knew about that kind of money thatin. they were making.mble when i stumbled across with cald these vehicles called the raptors.ies of they were subsidiaries of andy's l. j. m. partnership, and they d done hedging transactions with enron. a hedge transaction is just a transaction where enron hasns hd agreed to sell an asset at a to particular price to the wrap thr structure sometime in the future. well, at this point the assets have declined in valueicantly significantly. o over $700 million worth.and thef and the flaws were readily t

apparent because come to findapt out they were capitalized withre nothing but a promise of futuree ennon shares. enron shares had declined inhadd value so that even this plot structure didn't have enough value to pay and run the $700 million added node. i think people that were close no this now understood their flaws. a little bit too late to speak speaup. quite often used the emperor's new clothing analogy to describp what happened at enron. in that story first have an emperor focused on his own appearance and the next new setn of clothes and not running his kingdom. that really fits because he had been focused on getting used in the state of the art baseball stadium so that he could keepnga all astros. he was focused on getting george bush elected, focused on a loten he wery wonderful community and charitable giving barry was ahal

distraction from his real job.at so what does that allow? does llows swindlers and. might offend opinion there were just going.tow. now it's quite elaborate. it is a beautiful cloth there c dse weaving that has thousandstn of callers, changes colors in the light. it has zero cats do it.ch you can't see it if you are fitr stupid or not fit for office. well, the very similar to these rapid structures. they put them up on a a presentation and act like this is cutting edge accounting. this is so innovative, this isyu only because it enron hires thee best and the brightest. we have come up with the have cw structures. they're going to work magic forest. t basically it was an intimidating

presentation to the point of yor get this, right?questi your not contest the question t has said that you aren't smart so, er of understand the structures. so a number of people that weres were around when these structures were created were really intimidated into not asking questions about. plus the fact that the raptors were really relying on thea promise of future enron shares was almost like a footnote that you could ignore, barring the of problem of the underlying assets in the emperor's new clothes' "m the emperor sincepe then the minister to check on the progress of the weaving of the cloth.heck on e pro he steps into the building, thee brown, this one last describe t how gorgeous the clock this. h he panics.loth he says, well, i know i'm not stupid. possibly i'm not fit for my office.sibly he lies. offic playown insecurities come into play and he says he can see the cost.

we played the emperor cents and another minister. the same thing happens. he can't see the cloth, but he t has the double breasted that the minister before him could see the clock. he lies and says he could see the clock.e cloth in the translation i h.ave oflah this hundredav and 50 year-old fable but before the emperor isf about to go on a parade naked the ministers think to themselves individually, i think we are being swindled.he parad it was too late for them to go up and sinay anything to them tn emperor because although the emperor would be very grateful that he was saved the embarrassment of walking down the parade route he, of course,r would eventually fired them because they lied to him in thee first place. that is such a perfect analogy enrowhat happened at enron. i found these raptorsuctures, my structures. my first reaction was that this was horrible accounting fraud, f misstatement of earnings in 2000 that amounted0 t to over 50 pert of our net income pretax overx.

over a t one-third ofhi our net income aster tax. was a very significant fraud.teo i wanted to just get out of fast there as fast as i could.interve i started interviewing with other companies.as to confro my intention was to confront jeff on my last day. well, he beat me to the punch and resigned august 14th 2001. that really let me know thatt even tught, anrse than i even thought.a gut retion i reacted out of a gut reaction that this was horribly unfair for can to be coming out of c c.e.o.ment, stepping back in as ceo.a he had no idea of what hadmpany. really happened to his company in the last several years.warn so i wanted to warn him, but idt also wanted in ron to do the right thing, which in my mind lls to restate financialan, rea statements, come clean and cang, test that you have done something wrong. accrued $2 billion on a balanceo sheet for shareholder litigation and form a crisis management team to try to address the

problems that always happened to a company when you are accusedco of cooking the books.o all o well, he tested the executives around him to say could she be s right.or you can see this for yourself in the interview notes. ndmost all these executives saya don't ask me, i can't judge fory myself as to whether or not you've got on closed. hav arthur andersen is the expert. i would go ask them. i have noar expertise in this er ask th so heem was able with no one ele backing me up to gravitateo toward the good news. vinson and elkins did a very limited scope review of my concerns. the company did one of the worst things that could possibly do.df on october 16th 2001 they just tranctionsese raptors transactions that i was sot res concerned with thatul resulted t almost a $700 million hit to the income statement and a

sharolders' eduction of shareholder equity. of aexplanation was it was an un wind of a previously disclosed transaction. d well, that didn't quite like. investors and the financial community understand when youine make bad business decisions areb when you pay too much for an aso asset or a company and you havet to write it down. they understand when you investd too much in telecom and the whole sector craters. they don't understand and on wind of a transaction. that is kind of like saying we - want a deal over prefer going to have and never mind on that transaction please. on th thatat would be fine if it did result in huge losses, but to ls say you won the duel for. never mind, let's pretend we never did these transactions.ont by the way, that's costing us w, $700 million in our incomeon the statement and 1 billion in on shareholder equity. equity, it well, it sure makes investors think. you'r writi you are writing this off because it was in your income earlier?

what is the story?hat's e el of the uncertainty reallyhad had enron spiraling out ofrol. there control. there were three front-page expose a articles in the "wallnp street journal" onicle october 17th, 18th, ands in thel 19th.. the the dayda enron made the earnins it opecement the stock closed at $33 opened about $33. kind of remained.emainedle. october 17th on its marchedocton steadily downward.ched think,1 centf november it was, i think $0.11 a share. company dece.ompany declared bankruptcy second. it was such of fast spiral out of control, but the alarming thing for so many of us thathing enn ed at enron was the depth of the moral bankruptcy of thef the company.cause onecembe on december 3rd enron laid off over 4,000 people three weeks before christmas with nothing, $4,0 a paint and a promise that

a $4,000 severance check that doesn't get you very far that you can buy your own cobra insurance if the bankruptcy judge approved a payment to the insurance company. all of these employees heard last friday was the last empes h paycheck. go back to your desk, clear at l your personal items in belt. out come to find out in january 200j it was disclosed that nearly 25 executives -- 25 executives paid themselves nearly $55 million the last week before bankruptcyt one person dead 8 million.anothe another person 5 million. a couple people got one-and-a-half million. several $750,000 amounts. this was to stay at the company for three months until the end of february. now, that was just an outrageoua amount of money to stay for three months. threeexecutives gave themselves a 3-5 year cushion if. a their annual base pay, usually

usuaaton the maximum base pay was about $250,000. these executives gave themselvee quite a large cushion and then have the gall to stand up in front of thousands of other t employees and say, you know, could buy three weeks beforeefoe christmas trees are you don't have anything more. it's been great working with you. sorry to haveso to do this.geou. that's outrageous. i just think those top guys that made the decision to do such large bonuses are just as th stuckas andy. they stuck their hands inefore that-sure the week before bankruptcy and piled as much cash in their pocket is the kid. that was so alarming.larming. of course that was in the press. there has been a deferredon scal compensation scandal. but tually peen various scandals. but part of the reason for doing the books on my behalf was to show a real human story of how a many pit smart people could see coul

warning signs was still stayed. and so using me as a character in the book she says that even a as early as 96i saw someggressie aggressive accounting that may be very uncomfortable. however, when the stock price is rising, your pay is get, the business trips a lavish and when your business leaders, your top to guys were on the front page of business week or forbes or it is really easy to, younow say, you know, i'm going to put. those nagging concerns behind. maybe i just don't get. a maybe i'm just a littlened in m theoes, and thin myac accounting and the world is changing. it is very easy to stick with that company.at how did you of for instance. the most recent corporate scandal is health self.ent it turns out they have been cooking the books since their inception 15 years ago. been now, because of the enron scandal before the act wasarbans passed in july 2002, and it now

makes it criminal to knowingly pushed out misleading financialo statements. the top executives have to sign financial statements certifying that they have no knowledge of misleading information in the financial some didn't. there are two guys the stillilln signed those financial statements.w whether i i don't know whether it was arrogance that they just wouldn'ty get caught, but there are a number of people that havl already pled guilty to a financial statement fraud intha, that case. when you read about health soutk it ise like a mirror story of enron. their top ceo sounds like a combination of can and jeff. the company is based in birmingham, alabama, a small town. he gave generously to the community. the community just love seventh. in that instance he's like can, illing.was also like jeff, he is described as a hypnotic, hyp charismatic, had a cold likec.

eflling from his employees.d lij and like jeff he hired everyired year people, paid them more than they ever thought there wouldd make, treated them to leverage e business trips and it bought a yot of company loyalty, a lot o people, you know, in to second-guessing themselves and looking the other way. so the reason i was interestedih in working with mimi is she hado done a story on in run in the fall of 2001 for texas monthly. i felt like she had captured the culture and the spirit. he felt like you were in the building. anted to be able to explainsome n aiwork with someone that could explain the morality tale year, explain how so many good people in bright people could be sucked into. man i hope that you will enjoy the book. i also would welcome questions, not just of me and my quperiences, but also mimi. she interviewed hundreds of shed people. herorn experiences in meeting l

of these employees. thanks. [applauding] >> stand back here. >> >> okay. >> we are going to start the question and answer segment nowo if you have a question to answea -- ask, a question to ask, if id you would co cme over to the oro microphone over here and ask ite that would be great. could >> they could ask and i couldifu just repeated if you're more comfortable staying seated. >> that's good. we can do that. >> that sounds great. all right. >> how did you all put out the work? >> the heavy load is right here i have my own list, and then sharon supplemented it. every time -- almost every time shar i had an interview with somebodt i woul back to her and tell her

what i knew. refitted into a structure that we had in mind. the general narrative structured >> people call you out of theoul blue? >> only a few. it wasn't that hard.n'hat har it was so muchd. harder to getas people to talk for the story i wrote in october for texas octor monthly was the company had fallen and people were so angryt that they did come out ofhl the woodworks. >> there were certainly thanks.d start with a white page and then sent chapters to me that i would add or revised. she was charging on the head. as she finished she came backhe through then reworked when ind r have added an.it, use it, not use some of it. there were some things. oh, my goodness to be ready to get this?, well, i can release my sources.s yeah.iles but great institutional memory. there was one clipping from 95

about just being led out of the building in handcuffs.g led it was a false rumor. handcu all of these reporters came dowh here.everything, it just worked out perfectly in the story we were trying to were try tell.>> i'm >> of a pack rat.>> she jushad a >> great.nk again, it gave the story so much more dimension. >> how are enron folks reading it? i have had some people say it all reads pretty cheerfully. [inaudible conversations] >> any other questions? all right. have ge >> would you really have gone t? mack. >> well, i think when i have >>ally gone? you know, just to let you know how intimidating he was it was my intention to do that. one day i was going from one elevator back to another walking

in front of the starbucks stands he comes back this way. hi, sharon. i thought, just seeing him. i don't know if were going to be able to give up the courage to get talent.can thinof is concn th thing i can think of is his concern that i was out there working for another company would it have forced him to try to clean it up?le but anthen again i think he hask rationalized his behavior. the visible to testify because he firmly believes he had non me one's interest in mind but thees shareholders. keep the stock price going upbeo because that'sd it for there shareholders.t they all left with stock or $0.20 or $0.9 or nickel. f he sold out $66 million worth in theck last year.ear. that's a little hard to take. i don't know. it would have been tough.it wou it would have beenld tough.

>> the legal department. >> spend time with them. wt >> the question was what about the legal department. the story was a lawyer verycarel carefully. they read it. thvery nice lawyer there who read it pretty carefully. the wonderful thing about that,t truth is the ultimate defense. make sure you have not printed the goodves. >> and a good thing is there was a lot of documentation to some a of these banks. testimony before the senate.uff. >> but also all of the powers report, the board of directors d finally did the right thing. in late october day and the neww board member, the u t long been. he hired a special committee. cutler and pickering.ickeringut they spent $4 million, three t monthsou interviewing all of th people pouring througherviewinge documents. ocey interview notes at thisandd

time. you thknow, we got all. you have pat -- the one thing we isould have printed is the winding.on's he's one of the people that invested 5,800 get a million a month later. that is really not that much of a big return. the chicago look at enron international. this guy's got big payments. bin >> oh, my goodness.d that w good, hud. sterday.uff. >> i heard you on the radio yesterday. >> yes. >> enron employees. >> yes. emplees in t >> how long has that been going on t to mack the employees >> yes. y he was asking the question about

tadioent i made on a program about the message chat room. if you go when anti been in the, company you get all of thisyou f information on that company, the publicly traded company. you can then click through to a message to chat from.for acally actually at least since 1999, maybe earlier there was always a lot of chat. you could tell it was enron employees that had made fake names for themselves, cute and clever names. there were logging on aftere log hours from home and reallys sendin messagees to stay away from the ss tock. this is a short. quote from there's a "in the book directly from one of the chat rooms wherd a person said enron has done the worst rioting in years. the executives will be led aways in handcuffs.>> i want this is like 99. >> a lot of.

>> that is really your best defense when you are a board of directors.there's some make sure there is some w way of getting employee feedback. employees don't like to beishon. surrounded by dishonesty. and f accountants were at a junior level seeing this and not liking it.vel seeinghis, not in the finance people wereeoplee junior levels seen this and not liking it. there were venting their frustrations on that chat board. rd.t to give you a for instancea when i was doing research for fr some of the speeches that andhe doing a lick the world. it's now the largest bankruptcye in u.s. history, but it was a as very simple fraud. stateoved expenses from the income statement to the balance sheet. they have -- it involves less than half a dozen people in a pn very short amount of time all pleading guilty except scott sullivan, the sea of love issco, trying to find it. c.f i went back and traced e-mail trains all the way back.trains there is no hint of any kind of

problem in world, message from itcause it wasn't thative. pervasive. it was limited to six people in the cfo's office that were making top-level interest. granted that company is in nknkruptcy because of thaty's in fraud, but there are likely to come out any month now. layoff, they have had layoffs.el layoffole sector has. that company will still remaintl healthy. they have all their businesses. intact, and they will emerge from bankruptcy with the emoyees of their employees still employed and the shareholders still getting f mething at the end of the dayo now with enron the shareholders are going to get nothing. creditors are going to get six of the dollar. the dol it will not emerge frommerge bankruptcy.ptcy. that's a very last resort place to look. at think it is telling, and it l directors th of directors that they need a way to get anonymouy feedback from employees and feeb investigate when the chadic it's that loud. justeems >> this seems to me.

[inaudible] >> that's a hard thing to dothat aretty need money peabody neede job. a lot of people knew about that. >> i think they were infatuated with the trappings of the job, the salaries. you were told you are theyou we smartest person working for the smartest company in town. sm erings like that were reallythiw seductive. >> also in reading the book youe will see where a number ofding e employees made complaints toects their managing director ofut it office, but it didn't go anywhere. that could be because those managing directors were part ofr paidperformance unit plant that paid them 65 managing directorse over $300 million in bonus

mill payments in february 2001 based of the fact that the stock price outperformed the top s&p t companies for three years endin2 in 2000.. so those managing directors dir incentivized want to not rock the boat.ed not t what happens when people speak up mike offense kaminski vin committee goes back to his apartment and says i got nowhere. well, that reverberates through of the organization to be better not speak up because one of our most highly respected executivet did and it got nowhere.t got but this is pointed out in the. book. to go in 2000 and start interviewing, you have that little bit of a suspicion. enr why arone you leaving enron? h it was the hot place to work.yow ngly beissume that you were being pushed out, not that you were choosing to leave voluntar voluntarily. and you start -- also people kae

left. s we jus don'tt know how many hundreds did it close to this stdardsve. >> changes to standards have done anything to prevent this? >> the question is whether orstt cause e changes in laws that have happened will preventandal? future scandals. well, i think once we see we se executives going to jailse particularly because of this act anrb and recent fraud it will start to change behavior certifying the financial statements by top. executives is a grade longer c requirement. no longer can executives hideact behind theha fact that i just didn't know the details. if they can actually go to jaila

which if you make $100 millione he have to pay a fine of 50, you're still filled the rich. if you have to go to jail for al couple years that's a whole yeat different ballgame. i can most seep executives to death. i can almost see ceos marching down to their accountingsaying departments and saying i don't want aggressive accounting. can was even sang in in the end. ken you know, plain vanilla is just fine. i don't think we need to think t outside the box that often. let's go back to plain vanillaa accounting. totress whent ceos are going to stress when they know it's potential jail time if they push ou tt misleading financial statements. i think that was actually very helpful. okay.>> is >> clear you mean from jail time? well, i think it's very telling any ofeff did not assign any of the approval sheets.ever

he never did sign something that required his signature.erprints because he left his fingerprints of this, that's almost a telling sign. t he als he also o claimed in front of rl congress thay t he really couldt recall the restructuring of the rafter transactions the first quarter of 2001. and so he might actually be put in jail on perjury because thiso going to be a whole line of witnesses that say it was very . important to him. he came down off the 15th floor and talk to us about it. that was so rare. he had never done that before li ever. a what's you line up in front of a jury of these witnesses reb that are sayinger a remember itr being very important to him it's hard for him to say i wasn't it' aware of that transaction. it's very well documented thatot he knew about the transactions. it will be interesting to see. say.ither of youe

>> the bankruptcy attorneys. cot >> well, insist interesting. tm. >> what was the question? >> with the care to comment about the o bankruptcy attorneye the cul just interesting that te culture of the company is inconsistent from beginning tono end. i can't remember the figure. kn? there is some astounding number. >> it's >> the most costly bankruptcy io u.s. history. le's closing in on $500 milliong every single law firm that gets some sort of project immediately just expands the scope. t bats and ht examiner and his firm are building 8-$10 million a month, and they aren't thentho highest building law firm. they have expanded their scope and acting like the department of justice and prosecutors.de they are subpapoenaing witnesse. bankers, documents. it is like their mission in lift is just to advise the enrone i

estate do they should sue in order to recover funds. y should you soon certain topdo y executives? do you have a case? the use use certain bankers? ine should use to malpractice? it is supposed to point a roaddo map. they are doing so far as to be doing the department of justice's job on he should go t jail.ju theyst areic taking it too far. the problem is as i mentioned,o. likely to emerge.the all of those bankruptcy consultants are working hard ant fast. nkruptcy enron. is a big, fat, miti did e carcass that will never live live again. it it has these vultures just biting each other over how manyw much o of them can get a big piece of the meat. >> and the company has $5 itilillion in cash. as 70 billion liability, but that's a lot of cash. the see these guys. seaso they stay at the four seasons, l

the most expensive hotel in town when they could stay at the t doubletree which is nice enoughs it's connected to the building a throw walkway.they have they have limo's going back and forth. they kept one of the corporate jets so they don't have to worry with commercial traffic back and forth from new york.and it is really outrageous. the new york bankruptcy judge is not helping matters. the houston chronicle had a houn areat article where an employee was quoted that the judge is the counting nickels but letting dollars poor out the door. he denied in ron paying payin $4 million a year in fees to administer the existing retirement plan. the retirement plan still hasg retire current employees in it.nron if you are above a certain age you can leave it in their for along time. that. ye denied that. he is letting these law firms build 10-$20 million a month. it just proves that the culture.

continues. >> at think we are going to dorg -- we are going to wrap up here and do book signings. at think we probably will have more time for questions andlitte answers in just a few minutes. we are just going to a thank you right now for coming and showing your interest in the story. >> thank you very much. [applauding] >> that list percy's pants benefit. [applauding] >> that cbs movie was a little made bit of a joke. i had a banker tummy that thenkr bank to enron for saw 12 years and some more cleavage than he hadca inva all the 12 years.ately, isl afortunately it is still ais -s financial story. this is a morality tale. likes t but hollywood likes to make it so dramatic. i'd

and so i would rather not see any more and ron movies. >> sea-tac year's leave.texas >> yeah. i go back in the summer. me >> yes. i actu yes.lly theeally enjoyed this. it was a little tighter than itd liked. aside from that it was 400ghtful. >> how hard is it to write 400 pages? >> really hard. i mean, in me w i mean, in some ways it was vera freeing. most are so short that you have to convince them to 16 double spaced pages.pages. in no way this was great. i'm sorry to write you such a'mt long letoter, but it's easier.os it was actually really fun.

>> were going to stay with this. >> we can certainly answercominu questions as you're coming through. thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> this program first aired in 2003. to watch any of booked tv's archive program visit booktv.org and search the book title or of his name. >> made for goodness is the name of the book. well-known author desmond tutu along with his daughter who is here at the national press club of the night. what is this book about? >> i think most of what this book is about is the essential quality of human beings, that we

are good. our recent to quality is our goodness. our behavior does not always bear out the essential quality, but it is my belief and my father's believe that our essentials quality is goodness and everything else is an aberration. we relate to stories from both our lives, both of us are clergy, both of us. my father famously chaired the truth and reconciliation commission as seen in all kinds of places where he has seen all kinds of grief and horror. i have seen the same kinds of grief and horror, but on a more domestic scale in my role. so i have a very clear sense of the pain that we can inflict on one another, but i also know that is not the essence of our

being. we respond with horror to what is terrific because word is not the essence of our being. >> are you also a resident of south africa? >> i'm not. i have a residence of alexandria virginia. >> how long have you lived in the state's? >> more than 20 years. i'm only 23. >> the miss on? >> yes, i do. i miss, lot. in my role as the executive director of the institute's i get to go on at least once a year taking people with me on pilgrimage. >> the co-author of made for goodness and why this makes all the different spirit her co-author is the rev. desmond tutu.

>> every weekend book tv brings you 48 hours of history, biography, and public affairs. here is a portion of one of our programs. >> a look, everybody. i want to thank the host for their gracious hospitality. i am honored to be here alongside the doctor. my name is resin kelly lee. i hope i am not schering anyone. the face and the voice. i was a student here in the 70's. after the revolution i went back and hoping that i can help my country. my best friend was in the revolutionary guard.

i joined the revolutionary guard my expertise would help the establishment. shortly after eyewitnessed events. i witnessed torture, rape in prison just because they did not agree with the establishment. execution, i witnessed this respect to human beings, dignity i could no longer take it. i decided to travel back to the u.s. i thought to myself that i could take my family and go back to the u.s. it was a second home to me. i studied here. i have friends here.

but i thought that i could not remain silent in the face of all the horrible things that this regime was doing to these people i thought that by contacting the u.s. authority i could help bring change to the government. if the americans knew what was going on day would help me help the iranian people. so i contacted the fbi, and they put me in touch with the cia. after several meetings they es me if i was willing to go back to ron and become a spy. i was sent to europe and that was trained of their invisible

letters. transferring information. i had expected. perhaps the james bond car. none of that happened unfortunately. i will send an some pencils and paper said. two of my years of waiting in the revolutionary guards, i had to battle a lot of mixed emotions because i had to repeatedly lied to my family and why i was being loyal. i could not reveal to them what my true nature was and what my purpose was. the would be in danger in the whole family. i think the biggest shock to me was when i realized that they

aren't getting the message or realizing the dangers of the regime. willing to sidestep its principles for what? for greed. for oil. for more contracts. not only the iranians and their blood splits on the streets, but it was the americans also. the beirut bombing, over 241 servicemen were killed. many other incidents. so my hope was that the west wood finally realize that this regime poses a great danger not only to the iranians in the region, but for our very own

national security. the reason i wrote the book was out of frustration, but even to dismay. we were trying to negotiate as opposed to helping the iranians with their aspirations of freedom and democracy. so i guess the point of want to get across tonight but if you look back in history and see that whenever we have risen or defended the human dignity we will be presented. evil in shacks of segregation, slavery, fascism, ethnic cleansing, communism. we succeeded. and today it is decision time.

we have to make sure that we no longer the vacillate and remain indecisive. we have to help iran free itself. it will be good for the iranians and great for the war. thank you. >> to watch this program in its entirety go to a booktv.org. simply type the title or of his name at the top left of the screen and click search. >> historian thomas allen has written a new book, tories, fighting for the king and america's first civil war. >> there were a people who did not want to have independence from england. they started to a talk. it was all political a pencil concord and lexington then there was a time when you could take the position of being against the revolution and not get into too much trouble. but once the declaration of

independence comes along he suddenly have to americus. the america that has declared for independence is now fighting the americans who are not. they align themselves with british troops. they formed the appellate jerry units. 150 military units. they go and fight. uniforms, weapons, the whole thing. and when the battles take place the british who have a grand tradition of keeping a history of their regiments kind of look with disdain and to these colonials who are fighting with them. the result is you get a lot of british descriptions of battle. it's very hard to find descriptions by the loyalists as they call themselves. and when the war comes to an end

and they have to tell the british commission on loyalists what they did then they're is a whole bunch of documents that describe exactly what it was that they were doing. and what they're doing was killing other americans. it is a very interesting story. >> what percentage of america were tories? >> contemporary estimates by john adams who was running around 25%. more modern estimates take it to that same parameter. you have a population of about 1,200,000. you have somewhere between 80 and 100,000. in terms of who leads the, you can kind of get the numbers about who goes up.

but it runs in that area. it is an amazing story. the people who don't want a revolution at the end of the war had to go somewhere. they are exiled. the british give them a lot of land up in canada. they found canada. and so you have a country here that is formed by revolutionaries command you have a country up there that is formed by non revolutionaries. that is the basis for the canadian character and the basis for the american character. the revolutionaries and non revolutionaries. >> where did the term story come from? >> it is kind of lost in antiquity, but probably it was an irish term for ne'er-do-well. it was used in british politics, parliamentary politics long before the revolution.

it still is. >> yeah. and it still has essentially the same meaning. even in parliament there would be a split between how much you support the king's ministers and how much she support the opposition. and so they were the tories. and then when the revolution began they inherit that name. these rebels were patriots and our sons of liberty, they all get their own name. that's the way a lot of the politics starts. but then when the guns are fired you have people who are picking up guns. >> that was a preview of thomas allen's new book fighting for the king in america's first civil war. book tv covered mr. allen in along event. he liked to watch that cut that booktv.org. use the search function, and you can watch the full event on

line. >> in this encore program per march of 2001 history professor kaymer and skinner discusses her book reagan, in his own hand, a collection of personal writings from throughout ron reagan's life. the book revealed that many of his positions were developed long before he became president. >> co-editor of reagan in his own hand. what did people get? >> basie unvarnished ronald reagan long before the presidency. ..

cold war, and i said, 'i'm deeply fascinated by the american side of the story. most of the research in the 1990s that i saw in the scholarly literature focused on the soviet side and on eastern europe and, you know, for good reasons. the revolutions were fascinating to people, and all of a sudden documents were opening up that scholars had never seen before. but i was interested on the american contribution. so i wrote her... c-span: what were you doing at the time? what were--what were you... >> guest: i was a post-doc at ucla and i was a fellow at the hoover institution. and so i wrote her and said, 'i'm interested in the american side of the story. i don't think there's enough reporting on it, and i'd like to look at the president's private papers.' i didn't know what would be there, but i thought there might be something to help me to unravel the american contribution. and so she granted me access to the papers and hundreds of archival boxes. into the project i came up--upon

a few boxes, actually storage boxes, filled with hundreds, really--literally thousands of pieces of paper of reagan's handwriting. and it took a while to figure out what it meant. some of it was disorganized. some of it was organized in file folders, but not all of it. and it was fascinating. it was... c-span: wh--where are you from originally? where's home? >> guest: i was born in chicago, but i grew up in the bay area, so i have to claim the bay area. i moved there at age three, so i grew up near stanford. first san francisco and then in a little town called redwood city, a few miles from stanford--i would claim that as my childhood home. c-span: and where did you get your undergraduate degree? >> guest: spelman college in atlanta and... c-span: in what subject? >> guest: in political science. and my master's and phd from harvard. c-span: and where are you getting your interest in political science along the way where did it come from? >> guest: probably having parents that were civil rights activists in the '60s in the bay area. that was probably my initial interest. i saw their activism, and that was important.

but also, i think i became interested in international affairs at spelman, in particular for s--from some courses that i took, and then harvard was a wonderful place to study international relations. the end of the cold war story became important to me later on in my graduate career when i took a job, to the dismay of my dissertation adviser, to do the research for george shultz's memoir and--out at stanford. c-span: why--why to the dismay? >> guest: oh, because it was such a huge project for some--someone who was working on her own dissertation, to take on another project, and--but i thought it was a great him opportunity. c-span: how did that happen? >> guest: in 1989, i moved out to california to work with condi rice, who was my outside reader on my thesis committee, partly, and also to be in the bay area, and she got a job in the bush ad--the first bush administration, and so i just happened to meet shultz one day and asked him if i could interview him for my research. and he'd just left the reagan

administration, and he was allowing students to interview him. and so he allowed me to interview him, and it led to me working for him to do the research for his memoir. c-span: now how did condi rice become your--what?--outside of what s... >> guest: my reader. c-span: harvard? >> guest: yeah, the--an outside reader on the dissertation, but from another university. c-span: but from ucla. >> guest: no, at harvard. c-span: at harvard. ok. >> guest: yeah. she--we met just, i think, through the field. i met her at stanford and she would come to harvard and give talks, and so i thought she would be a good person to--to work with. c-span: now are you political along the way? do you have strong feelings about anything? >> guest: no, but the press has made a big deal of the fact that i'm a registered democrat and i--you know, i've done this book on reagan. but i've not really been actively involved in politics. when i was younger i had internships, one in washington for pete mccloskey, who was a republican, but the main reason i worked for him is that he was very supportive of a school i went to in east palo alto, an elementary and high school, and him him him him him he--he offered me the job.

him him him so that's the--the reason. but i've never really been him him him involved in politics at any serious level. him him c-span: now what was the george shultz experience like? him him him >> guest: oh, it was wonderful. and i think it really, in some him ways, led to this book, because i became interested in the american side of the story, and him him him the soviet side, but him him particularly the american side, because i got to see the end of the cold war from the s--vantage point of central him decision makers, which scholars rarely do. i got to work with him very closely, got to read his files and interact with him as he drafted chapters. and so it was a wonderful experience to have. and it led me to have a great interest in--in ronald reagan. c-span: i think what we ought to do, before we talk a lot more about it, is to play one of the many pieces that are in here. before we do--and it--and you--it's on a cd that w--you brought with you. >> guest: right. c-span: basically, what's the--the meat of this book? what are people reading? >> guest: the--the--the heart of the book includes radio

broadcasts that reagan gave between 1975 and the end of 1979. after he stepped down as governor--and you'll remember this, i think--at the end of '74, he went into private life, but not really. he wasn't in elective position but he worked very hard in the public space. he decided to give a radio broadcast to support himself. it was daily, five days a week, about three minutes a day. he gave over 1,000 in the late 1970s. he would stop them to campaign for the presidency in late '75 and '76. when he was defeated by gerald ford at the republican convention in '76 he turned back to the radio broadcasts and continued them until the fall of '79. he also had a newspaper column, which you may remember; first copley news services and later king features syndicated those columns, and they were biweekly by the late '70s. the radio broadcasts were--many

of them were written by reagan. we found over 670 in his own handwriting in the archives. he could--he probably wrote more. that's what we found in the archives that--they were saved. c-span: so when you opened that box up, those first boxes, that's what you were looking at. >> guest: that's what--that's what i saw. but then there were other things as well. there's a section in the book titled other writings. it includes childhood writings, but interestingly, speeches, which constit--constitute strong policy documents on the economy, on foreign policy, during the presidency, before the presidency and during the 1980 presidential campaign. some of that's in the book as well. c-span: by the way, i have one question. it does--you didn't cover it in any of the intros or anything. where are the tapes of the radio addresses? >> guest: that's a great question, and we have the tape here today. they're at the hoover institution archives. and this project could not have happened without both archives. the radio broadcasts, the handwritten versions, and all of the private papers are at

the reagan library, although they are not controlled by the library. there's not a deed of gift. they are controlled by the reagans. they're private papers that happen to be housed there. so that's one place where reagan material is. the second place is the hoover institution, which controls the tapes. it was able to get hold of the tapes. harry o'connor was the producer of reagan's radio broadcasts. in fact, he was in hollywood at the time, in the '70s, and suggested the radio broadcasts to reagan as his governorship was coming to an end. he gave those to the hoover institution, and the hoover institution, as a result partly, i think, of this book, has had the old crumbling tapes and vinyl records from the '70s converted to cd so that they will be preserved. c-span: so they're all on cds now? >> guest: they're--they're all on cds. c-span: how many of them are there? >> guest: oh, gosh, there are, you know, over a thousand. so they're every... c-span: over a thousand radio broadcasts. >> guest: broadcasts, and they've all been saved. and so that's a--just a great project. and i think it--our book really--it--it works well with

the radio broadcasts to see what he wrote. you see the original draft. the radio--the actual broadcasts are slightly different, if you read along, because that was a final version, and he might change a word or two. c-span: it--it strikes me that if you hadn't asked for this, they would have--we wouldn't know this. >> guest: a lot of luck, serendipity, has gone into this project at every turn, and i can tell you, you know, some of these stories--meeting the andersons, and they became crucial to the--to the project, and... c-span: who are the andersons? >> guest: martin anderson and annelise anderson. they are economists at the hoover institution who worked with reagan in the '76 and '80 campaigns, very closely with him. martin traveled with reagan on the plane, was a close adviser. and i saw his name quite often in the archives, and annelise's as well. they're fellows at the hoover institution, and so since i was there, i could go to them and show them documents, and they helped me understand what i was seeing. and so that collaboration became central, because reagan--as you

notice, looking at the book, he covered every--almost every issue facing the us, domestic and foreign: abortion, africa, arms control, weapons systems, taxation, regulatory policy. he was doing this all by himself. but we as scholars, most of us focus narrowly on a single area that we specialize in. and so the andersons and i really needed each other for this story. they could do the domestic and economic, and i could focus more on the foreign-policy side, and then we did joint parts together. so there's a lot of luck that happened at every turn with this book. and--and they also had the confidence of mrs. reagan. c-span: but is it a surprise to you that if you hadn't asked mrs. reagan to s--to--to get into this, that that box would have never--maybe never been looked at for a long time? >> guest: that's the beginning of the story, if i had not asked for it, and--but the--i think there are other things as well. most scholars who look at big outcomes in world history, especially in t--in the us context, tend to look at the diplomatic record, at the official diplomatic record, at

government documents. what's interesting about this book is that there's not one government document in the book. these are all private writings, before the presidency or during the presidency, writings that did not make it to the official government channel as a government document. c-span: let's listen to this first one that you brought along with you. >> guest: ok. c-span: which one is it? >> guest: it's called "looking out a window," and it was broadcast in th--at least taped in january 1978. it's an important one. it's not a policywonk document, as many of the--of them are, but it's important because it gives reagan's philosophy about the american people, his--his great confidence in their judgment and who they are, and also the fact that he does not see himself as distant from the people. he sees himself as one of them and he identifies with their daily lives. c-span: as we do that i want to show the cover of this. where is this picture, by the way, on the cover? do you know where it was taken? >> guest: it was in an office somewhere or a study of his. it was a--it was a study. and i think that is one--i think

it's before the--the presidency. c-span: let's listen to it. this is how long, by the way? >> guest: they're no more than three minutes. c-span: ok. mr. ronald reagan: it's nightfall in a strange town a long way from home. i'm watching the lights come on from my hotel room window on the 35th floor. i'll be right back. i'm afraid you're in for a little bit of philosophizing, if you don't mind. some of these broadcasts i must draft while i'm out on the road traveling on what i call the mashed-potato circuit. a little while after i write them, for example, i'll be speaking to a group of good people in a banquet hall. right now, however, i'm looking down on a busy city at rush hour. the streets below are twin ribbons of sparkling red and white. taillights on the cars moving away from my vantage point provide the red, and the headlights of those coming toward me the white. it's logical to assume all or most are homeward bound at the end of a day's work. i wonder why some social engineer hasn't tried to get

them to trade homes. the traffic is equally heavy in both directions, so if they all lived in the end of town where they worked they'd save a lot of travel time. but better forget i said that, and don't even think it, or some bureaucrat will try to do it. i wonder, though, about the people in those cars, who they are, what they do, what they're thinking about as they head for the warmth of home and family. come to think of it, i've met them--oh, maybe not those particular individuals, but still, i feel i know them. some social planners refer to them as the masses, which only proves they don't know them. i've been privileged to meet people all over this land in the special kind of way you meet them when you're campaigning. they are not the masses or, as the elitists would have it, the 'common man.' they're very uncommon; individuals, each with his or her own hopes and dreams, plans and problems, and the kind of quiet courage that makes this whole country run better than just about any other place on earth.

by now, thinking of their homecoming, i'm counting how many more hotel room windows i'll be looking out of before i'm in the rush-hour traffic heading home. and yes, i'm feeling a little envious of the people in those cars down below. it seems i've said a thousand goodbyes, each one harder than the one before. someone very wise once wrote that if we were all told one day that the end was coming, that we were living our last day, every road, every street and all the telephone lines would be jammed with people trying to reach someone to whom we wanted simply to say, 'i love you.' but why wait for such a final day and take the chance of not getting there in time? speaking of time, i'll have to stop now. hello, operator. i'd like to make a long-distance call. this is ronald reagan. thanks for listening. c-span: what was your reaction

the first time you heard that? >> guest: oh, it was emotional. i've heard it ma--a few times now. we've played it to audiences as we've discussed our book in the last couple of months, and it's a--it's an emotional one, because you also see rea--reagan as a--his kind of emotional side. and it's authentic reagan. it's just who he is and how he thought, and it just, i think, gives a lot of credibility to the--the book, because you see him writing as he's talking. you see him thinking, looking out of a window, thinking about, you know, the fact that he has to write these things. he's really writing this as he's watching the cars, so i think it's wonderful. c-span: now did--did you go into this project with a certain idea of who ronald reagan was? and have you changed your mind? >> guest: i didn't, and so i didn't go in with a certain view. i think had i--had i had a s--fixed view of reagan, i don't know that i would have even asked for the papers. i was much more interested in the american side of the end of the cold war, and i knew from what i'd done in shultz's work that reagan was an important

figure and that he wasn't just a puppet. but i wasn't really trying to prove that. i really wanted to understand what i saw as the strategy, on the one hand, of trying to evince an interest in mutual cooperation with the soviets, al--while at the same time deploying military strength to make that happen. and that was the kind of puzzle that i was interested in. i learned a lot more about reagan in doing this book, but i never intended to be a reagan scholar, and i guess i'm well on my way to becoming one now. c-span: this book went to the best-seller list. >> guest: new york times and to about five other best-seller lists as well: wall street journal, washington post, publishers weekly. it--it's still, i think, on publishers weekly now, and amazon... c-span: are you surprised? >> guest: yes, i am. and i didn't have the easiest time, the andersons and i, getting a contract for the book with a big publisher. i don't think most of them thought there was anything there to publish, just some old radio

broadcasts by reagan. and so it took a while, and so this is a surprise. c-span: how did you do it? >> guest: hard work. c-span: well, first of all, it's published by free press. >> guest: by the free press. simon & schuster is the parent company. a lot of hard work selling the book, selling the idea, believing in it, and really working with the documents and trying to present them in an interesting way. and i think what was most convincing to people--and that's why i brought a copy of the--the actual yellow sheets, or a draft of it, so that you could show it... c-span: this is a legal-sized yellow sheet that's... >> guest: he wrote most of them on yel--on legal size, though some on letter size. most of his speeches, his--his radio broadcasts, drafts of letters to people, that was his--his--his--his working copy. what was convincing to editors eventually is the actual drafts, when they saw reagan's writing, when they saw the range of issues that he thought about, when they saw the sources he was using, his notes in the margins, and the clarity of his thought. that's what eventually

got a book contract for us. reagan sold the book. c-span: go back to 1996 again. you wrote mrs.... >> guest: mrs. reagan. c-span: ...reagan a letter. have you met her, by the way? >> guest: only a couple of times. i've met her--i met her soon thereafter, and--but not many times, no. c-span: did you interview her? i mean, she's interviewed for the book. >> guest: she was interviewed. martin anderson conducted that interview for the book. and--and that was--it was the great confirmation of--of what we'd been finding in the archives. we thought it was important to interview those who were around reagan in the '70s, and so she was one of the most important people. c-span: so you're at the reagan library, simi valley; who brings the boxes to you? how's that work? >> guest: the archivist. have you ever been there? c-span: yes. yeah. >> guest: ok. the archivist brings them out. and they're private papers so they're--they're handled a bit differently than the other papers at the library that--you know, that are open to the public, but--and i just would sit there and go through them. c-span: where were you located in the library? >> guest: at a table, just at a

table in the archives, just like everyone else. c-span: do they--do they trust you with these? i mean, what's the attitude about having outsiders come in and look at them? >> guest: they really don't have outsiders coming to look at them. the--it's restricted access, so edmund morris had access to those files, and then i was the first scholar that i know of to get access to the--the papers after him, and i don't--they're not open now. they're--they're still private. c-span: so he had access to these same radio broadcasts. did he use them in his book? >> guest: i don't think so. he had access to most of the private papers that i know, but this was not something that was a big focus in his project, you know. c-span: so as you're first looking at these, and tha--was it--what year did you actually first look at them? >> guest: i can't remember. i know i got access in '96, but sometime in--in the next year or so i saw them. c-span: what did--what was the next thing you did that--that furthered this project along? >> guest: well, i had to pause from my own work on the end of the cold war to figure out what to do with these, and i went to the andersons and we decided to join forces and produce this book, that it was so important. we all had major projects on our

own that we were w--were working on, and we decided that this was such a special set of documents that we had to bring it to light. and i think, at least on my part, i was motivated by the fact that the assessment of reagan is so bad, but the paper trail seems so different, that it would be important to bring this material forward. and the andersons--i think they brought a special quality to the project because they'd worked with reagan. they'd seen him write. but even they were surprised at the breadth and diversity of what he was writing. so we were both coming at this in some--somewhat different ways, but with j--we both recognized that we had something that would be important, not necessar--necessarily a best-seller, but important. c-span: there's a quote in here that you have from--i wrote it down; i've got to find it... >> guest: ok. c-span: ...from bud mcfarland, who was one of his foreign-policy advisers. >> guest: in the foreword that george shultz wrote. c-span: yeah. he--this is a quote from bud mcfarland: "he knows so little and accomplishes so much."

what's the--what's the origin of that s--that statement? >> guest: secretary shultz wrote the foreword to--to this book, and--and--and that was wonderful for us, because he was by reagan's side for six and a half years and for one of the most important events of the 20th century: the beginning of the end of the cold war. and so, shultz wrote that himself and--from a meeting--they came out of a white house meeting with reagan, and--and i guess mcfarland was shaking his head and--or was just surprised at how much reagan accomplishes. i think this book explains why they're so much surprise, the fact that reagan was associated with big outcomes, like the end of the cold war. reagan wrote privately and he never talked about it. he thought and he read privately and he didn't try to expose it. he never told people that he'd done all of this work before the presidency. and if you look at some of the headnotes that we wrote, we tried to link things that reagan wrote about before the presidency to actual things he

did as president, and s--but he never told people about it. he just felt that they either knew, they heard him on the radio, and he felt no reason, no need to brag or ex--or expose his intelligence. so i think it fueled the assessment that he didn't know very much. c-span: you--you quote nancy reagan in the introduction as saying, "nobody thought that he ever read anything, either, but he was a voracious reader. i don't ever remember ronnie sitting and watching television. i really don't. i just don't. when i picture those days, it's him sitting behind that desk in the bedroom, working." now the image that we had of him was always watching television. >> guest: right, and you see the cover of the book in a room, with just--in--writing. c-span: but what--what's missing in this thing, though? i mean, are you convinced that he did write all that, all these... >> guest: absolutely. when you read what he wrote in the margins and when you listen at what he said, it--it's really authentic reagan. and we interviewed so many people--peter hannaford, those who were around him. many of--of--of your listeners

won't know--viewers won't know the names of these people, but they were with reagan all the time. and then many of the speechwriters during the presidency, they know this story; it just never came out. and one thing that martin anderson did in the interviews with nancy reagan and some of the others for the introduction--at the end of the interviews he would say, 'who has asked you these questions?' and for the most part, they would say, 'no one's ever asked us about this, about his writing life, about his thinking life, about his reading life.' so it's--it's not a surprise to those who know him. c-span: now, edmund morris found--and you have one or two of them in the back--the early writings when he was in high school... >> guest: right. c-span: ...in a box out there, and then you found this. there were the letters that doug brinkley wrote about in the new yorker... >> guest: right. c-span: ...to the lady, i think, in philadelphia or someplace like that. >> guest: it was a--his--a fan that he corresponded with for decades. c-span: did you look at those, by the way? >> guest: some of those, but not too much. there's also nancy reagan's 'love letters' book, which has become a best-seller, and then when you look at lou cannon's

biography of reagan and some others, people mention he wrote this speech, he wrote that speech. there's--you know, there are anecdotes all over the place, but no one kind of put it together as a coherent story. c-span: do you know whether he has a personal diary? >> guest: well, during the presidency there was one. i've not seen it, but edmund morris refers to it. and that's--it's--but i've not seen that. but i don't know if there was one before the presidency. i'd love to see that if there was one. c-span: ok. go back again to--to how this all came together. you got together with martin anderson and his wife... >> guest: annelise. c-span: ...annelise anderson, and the three of you--how did you make the proposal to a publisher? >> guest: we had a--we wrote a small proposal and we attached some of--copies of some of the documents, and that's what--initially we just sent out proposals, but that wasn't enough. they really had to see reagan's writing, 'cause i don't know if everyone believed he was doing this work, and given the reputation that he's had, especially in the media and among scholars. so we sent some of the

documents and we just kept pressing our case. c-span: how much of this--michael korda has been here, who is the--the big editor at simon & schuster, and he was the guy that put together the book that ronald reagan wrote, or he didn't write it, but he told the story right here about how they would come to meetings, and ronald reagan didn't write it and other people wrote it for him. do you think that had something to do with impacting people that he wasn't much of a writer? >> guest: i think so. what martin has said before, and--and i think it's a--a good way of describing this book--this is the first book by ronald reagan. we know that in earlier books that his name was attached to, like his o--official biography and an earlier one, they were ghost-written or co-written. but this is really reagan's writing. so it was never intended for publication. it's a--but it ends up being a coherent body of work on policy issues in the late 1970s and some before and after. so it is unique. it is his first book. c-span: in the acknowledgments, you acknowledge three people i want to ask you about... >> guest: ok. c-span: ...somebody named byron skinner, somebody named gloria skinner and somebody named ruby skinner. who are those people?

>> guest: byron skinner is my father, and i'm somewhat of a namesake. i'm kiron skinner. i was supposed to be a boy, and when i wasn't they made up a name that rhymed. c-span: how do you like that, by the way? >> guest: i think it's fine. and so at least i'm not byronetta, which was another choice. i don't think i'd like that very much, though i--i've been told i have a cousin with that name. c-span: byronetta. >> guest: yes. he is a historian of american history, of afro-american history. he got his phd at berkeley, but he spent most of his career in academic administration. and i think he wishes that he'd done more as a writer, and he's really proud of this book. and he s... c-span: where is he now? >> guest: my parents are retired in southern california, in victorville, and he spent much of his career in the community college world. he was president of san jose city college; at one point in the early '80s at university of maine at augusta. i believe he was the first black person to be president of a state university or a university in that--in maine.

and then he ended his career at compton college in southern california. c-span: and who is gloria skinner? >> guest: my mother. and so i had somewhat of a stage mother who--she's also very proud of the book, but she encouraged me in not only academics but public speaking and drama and other activities. and... c-span: what did--what was her career? >> guest: she sometimes was a homemaker; a lot of times she worked in child care, in that field, and that's what she did for most of her career. she ran a day-care center, a very successful one, that she started. she's extremely independent, so she started her own business and--and--and that worked well for her. c-span: and you say they were both civil rights activists. >> guest: mm-hmm. c-span: now did they have any problem with you getting close to ronald reagan on all this? >> guest: no, because--i think especially because they see this as a scholarly project, but then i think they would--wouldn't mind what i would do if i was doing it from an informed standpoint. but i think they're pleased with the scholarly nature and that it's not a polemical book.

and we worked really hard in our own writing, in both the introduction and what we wrote in the headnotes, not to goad the reader in one direction or another or try to make the case for reagan. it's not a victory school piece at all. and so i think that they were pleased that it was done as an objective piece of--of work with real documents and evidence. and i think that's the key to why the book is working and it's become a best-seller. c-span: who's ruby skinner? >> guest: she is my sister, and she's finishing up a surgery residency in the bay area right now, and she's going into the field of trauma surgery and moving to university of pennsylvania in a couple of months. c-span: any other siblings? >> guest: just the two of us. that's it. c-span: the--you also say that you had strong support from someplace in new york called hamilton college. >> guest: hamilton--i taught there for a year, and it was a wonderful place. that's actually where this all began. i--by--i'd left ucla as a post-doc and it was my first teaching job, and it's a wonderful liberal arts college in upstate new york. and i started presenting my ideas to students there about

reagan and carrying big archival boxes around and starting some of the research. c-span: you mean they saw the boxes? >> guest: they saw--i couldn't bring the actual boxes but, you know, drafts of things or mainly typed scripts that, you know, were easy to take away and use for--in--in a more public setting. c-span: what's the reaction of the students when they see you working on this? >> guest: i now teach at carnegie mellon university in pittsburgh, and i've had great support from faculty and students. they've been supportive. they like it. they think it's entert--interesting. many don't like reagan. they're very surprised. but i think they appreciate the way in which the project was done, and i think that's important to me. c-span: and then you had support from the olin foundation... >> guest: yes. c-span: ...which, if i read correctly, is a conservative foundation. >> guest: it has that reputation, but it gives lots of money to scholars at harvard, at university of chicago, in all fields, in social science and in law and economics, so it's very

much a respected foundation among researchers. c-span: they support you in this? is that... >> guest: they supported my faculty leave to complete this book. c-span: but then on the other side of it's the council on foreign relations. >> guest: and the council on foreign relations, where i am a fellow. and les gelb brought me on there. he's the president of it. and--and the council's been very supportive of--of what i've been doing this past year. and so there was no attempt to try to look balanced; it's just the life that i really am leading. c-span: so at--at what point in this process, from '96 until today, did this thing look like it was really going to take off? >> guest: we... c-span: when'd you get the contract? >> guest: oh, god, it wasn't very long ago. we got the contract in the fall of '90--the--we actually completed the contract in february of 2000 and turned the book in at the--the end of august of 2000, and then it came out a year later. c-span: so you worked on it for about three or four years without anybody saying they're going to buy this. >> guest: right. the hoover institution press was going to publish it if we wanted

to, and we, in fact, had a contract with hoover. it has an archival series, which is excellent, on--on--on documents and books related to revolutions and th--of the 20th century. but i thought it would be good to mo--go with a publisher that could bring it to perhaps a wider audience and have wider distribution. and once it became a best-seller, that was a--a good thing, because they--we're--the book is in its fourth printing, although it was published on february 6th. c-span: now did--did--did this get wides--for those people who've never heard these broadcasts, did they get widespread listenership back in the '70s? >> guest: oh, it did. it was an--on over 300 radio stations. and so i met harry o'connor, the producer and distributor, last week for the first time at the reagan library, and--which was holding an event for the book. and he said--i think he said maybe 380 or 350, but i know at least 300 from the archives.

so it was reaching--reagan says the--in the archives in a letter--in several letters that between the radio broadcast and his newspaper column, which went to, at its height, i think, about 200 newspapers, he was reaching 20 million americans a week. c-span: do you get any sense of what impact this kind of a book will have on the legacy of ronald reagan? >> guest: i think it changes everything. and what's surprising is how fast the--the reassessment has--has--has started--begun. it really does change our understanding of reagan, because the--the idea, the notion that he didn't know very much, that he didn't do very much, that he was handled by advisers now means we've got to look at--look at him differently, his mode of operation, and so it changes our understanding of him and, i think, also of the american presidency. and we can talk about that a little bit if you want to. c-span: yeah. how does--how do you think it changes the american... >> guest: i think that what's interesting about this book is that it's about the presidency, in a way, but there are very few documents from the presidential period. we look at the period of

his--right before the presidency, that five years when i've watched television programs, specials on reagan, that said, 'oh, in the late '70s, he was at a santa barbara ranch chopping wood, relaxing.' i think it makes it--it suggests that we begin to look at--at different periods to understand what a president will do and--and follow his paper trail very closely. most scholars have not looked at reagan's activities when he was not in office. the g--gubernatorial years have been mined and the presidency not has--hasn't been completely mined, but there's work there. but this sheds light on the presidency in a period where reagan wasn't in office. we looked in much the way that social historians do in a kind of bottom up way. we're looking at the documents that are out--outside of the government channels that reagan wrote himself that are in his private possession, to understand him. and i think we get a sense of his mode of operation, how private he was, how contemplative he was, and we did that without focusing on the presidential year and the big

events that happened. c-span: you get a sense that, in reading--and i know you edited the foreign policy section--that he always wrote off of something. i mean, there were--like the rostow, eugene rostow's... >> guest: right. c-span: ...speech. explain that. i mean, you have as many as, i think, six different... >> guest: i--i put those in there intentionally. we--we really worked hard at presenting a sampling of the documents. as i mentioned to you, before we got started, that we--what we present in this book is just a small portion of what we found in the archives. i mean, the book is 549 pages. we couldn't have done any more in one volume and kept readers going. but he wrote so much that we had to make decisions about what--what to print. and we printed--basically we tried to find something from every year during the '70s, some early ones, some later ones, that covered all the topics he was writing about and interested in. that was our basic methodology. i included the rostow ones to just show how he could take a speech or a document or a piece

of material and work with it and--and--and develop a story. and so he did on the foreign policy side. he would really rely on experts, and you'll see a lot of that. he does on rostow on one case, but others as well. he's mentioning them throughout--paul nitze and others. so he's relying on them to help him make the case he wants to make. c-span: let--let me just bring out on that eugene rostow thing. he was a liberal democrat, as he points out in this. >> guest: right. c-span: how often did you find him, say, taking somebody who was on the opposite side of him politically to prove his own point? >> guest: quite often. he went everywhere and he would use almost any source that he felt was credible, but that was helping him make his point. and so, you know, he joined the committee on present danger, which was led by neoconservative democrats in the late 1970s, and that they actually came to his camp, kampelman, max kampelman and others who then served in the reagan administration. so he was--he... c-span: max kampelman was a good friend of hubert humphrey's here

in town. >> guest: so--right. and so his--and so i've actually interviewed him in the past when i was just starting this m--this project. but--so reagan would use sources from all over the place, and not just conservative sources. he does cite human events, as you notice in the book, and national review and--and those conservative publications, but other things as well, the economist, the los angeles times, of all things, but also government documents. and i think that was surprising for many who've seen the book who were even close to reagan. he--ncs 68, national security council 68, was a centerpiece document of containment for the us in the cold war, drafted by paul nitze and others at this policy planning staff in the state department to 1949 and '50 presented to president truman. it was declassified in 1975. reagan devoted two radio broadcasts to nsc 68. and i actually went back and looked at that huge

government document and--to see what reagan was quoting, and he was quoting from all over that document, trying to talk about what rearmament--what mean in peace time and why it was important and what the soviet threat was like. c-span: do you get any sense of how he got it? >> guest: i did and i couldn't find--i initially found a document to suggest that richard allen provided him with nsc 68, and i didn't cite that in the book. i--i couldn't find it as--as we were finishing. we did this book very quickly in--a year ago. and so i couldn't find the original letter from richard allen, so i refused to cite it without that. but richard allen provided him with it. around '78, richard allen came on as a foreign policy adviser to reagan. so he did have more people helping him by the late '70s and giving him advice, but he put these things together in his own voice the way he wanted to. and some of the most important radio broadcasts were written in '75 right when he started r--started them s--a few months after he stepped down as governor, like the one titled "peace" in the philosophy

section at the beginning of the book. this is reagan without advisers. he's just mapping out his own philosophy, his own understanding of world politics, of democracy, of domestic life and that--those were important ones and we put them in. c-span: where did he write them? and you said earlier that--usually on a legal yellow pad. >> guest: a lot of them, right. c-span: but where did he write them and how many did he do at a time? >> guest: he wrote about 15 at a time. he would--every three weeks, he would go into a taping studio in hollywood at harry o'connor's outfit, and go through 15 of them so that that would last for three weeks. and he made a commitment, peter hannaford said, who helped reagan with all of these; he was crucial during these years to reagan. peter hannaford said last week at the reagan library that reagan early on, he and b--o'connor said this, made a commitment to arrange his life around his taping schedule. so although he was

giving 10 speeches a month around the country on behalf of conservative causes, he was always in the radio sta--the studio to do the broadcasts. so he would write them on planes, at the ranch, in the back of cars, wherever he could write them. and i don't know if you'd like to play the second one, but he describes how he writes them in his final radio broadcast in the fall of 1979, the very day that he announces he's going to run for the president of the united states. c-span: and this is also--i mean, this is from the o'connor collection. it's at the hoover... >> guest: right. it's at the hoover institution that's now preserved on cd. c-span: yeah. well, let's--let's run this one, ok? >> guest: ok. mr. reagan: [from radio broadcast] for the last time, i'm cleaning up my desk with a few items you should hear. i'll be right back. i believe my, my friends, i speak to you today with mixed emotions and maybe it's fitting that i make it the final desk cleaning day. the first item is, in my opinion, very serious for all of us and another indication of how far we are straying from the very basics of our system.

the mountain states legal foundation has filed a suit with the federal government claiming the constitutional rights of several states are being violated. when congress voted to extend the time for states to ratify the equal rights amendment, it refused to allow several states to change their position and rescind the approval they had given earlier. a few weeks ago, the us department of justice, which, above all, should be the defender of constitutional rights, filed a motion with the idaho court where the case is being heard. the motion was to disqualify the judge appointed to hear the case. now hear this: the justice department wants him disqualified because of his religion. he is a member of the mormon church. i leave it to you to imagine what such a precedent could do to our entire system of justice if judges can be either assigned or disqualified on the basis of religion. these next few items may make you laugh, but you will hurt a little, too. a former california superintendent of education, dr.

max rafferty, has uncovered a few items having to do with extremes in the battle of the sexes. the department of health, education and welfare has discovered that in one public school system, more boys than girls were being spanked. if the school system doesn't want a million dollars in federal aid to be withheld, it will henceforth spank girls and boys in exactly equal numbers. in woonsocket, rhode island, the city council has ruled that from now on those metal-covered holes in our streets we've long called manholes will henceforth be known as person holes. and in missoula, montana, a peeping tom ordinance is now a 'peeping person' law. well, that's all the desk cleaning for today. and as i indicated when i began, it's been my last such chore. this is my final commentary. i'm going to miss these visits with all of you. i've enjoyed every one. even writing them has been a lot of fun. i've scratched them out on a yellow tablet in airplanes,

riding in cars, and at the ranch when the sun went down. whenever i've told you about some misfortune befalling one of our fellow citizens, you've opened your hearts and your pocketbooks and gone to the rescue. i know you have because the individuals you've helped have written to let me know. you've done a great deal to strengthen my faith in this land of ours and its people. you are the greatest. sometime later today if you happen to catch me on television, you will understand why i can no longer bring you these commentaries. this is ronald reagan. and from the bottom of my heart, thanks for listening. c-span: do you know how old you were when those were around? >> guest: oh, i don't want to think about that. i was a t--a teen-ager. c-span: did you ever hear them when you were that age? >> guest: no, not at all. i didn't hear them, didn't see the newspaper columns. c-span: what do think of wha--the way he says things? >> guest: he has an incredible knack with words and language and--and it's--it's--he just really draws you in to listen to him.

and he has a--he has a great voice and it's--i'm--i'm impressed by how clear and powerful his voice sounded then, strong and... c-span: do you have any old friends at spelman college who say, 'kiron, you're getting hooked on it. you--you're get--you're getting used on this stuff'? >> guest: i have not--no one has said that to me, surprisingly. and a couple of people have asked similar questions, but i have not been asked that. but i'm not sure what you mean by 'used.' c-span: just, you know, that you--former democrat or a democrat at one time, a father and mother involved in the civil rights movement and--and often those people who have been involved in the--civil rights activists don't like ronald reagan. >> guest: uh-huh. no, i haven't had that really as--as a--as a focus of--of this project at all. i thought there might be some of that, but no one's really kind of focused on that point as--as the--as the center of what i've been doing. c-span: if he were running right now, could you vote for him? >> guest: sure. and if you look at what he's--he's saying and--in the--in the--in the broadcasts, especially, for me, on the

foreign policy side, the fact that he's--was so committed to ending the cold war without having a major nuclear war and that he thought it was possible and--at a time when the cold war was seen as status quo, and--and the fact that he thought detente was not the way to get to mutual cooperation. it took a lot of strength and determination and bravery, actually, to make the set of arguments that he made, the way that he did, at that time in the '70s. he was going against his own party. you know, he does challenge jimmy carter quite a bit, president carter, in the broadcasts, but he's really also talking about the nixon-kissinger grand design of detente, and he saw it as a peacement. others said it, conservatives at the time, both democrats and republicans, ross dowe said it and--and others, but reagan was unique in the way he put the pieces together. he kept saying, 'we want to have mutual cooperation with the soviet union and peace, but that

means that that system has to fall apart, because it's--it's squashes freedom of every sort internally and it's illegitimate as a result. if we make it clear to the american people we agree with what we th--what i think is their preference to end the cold war from the strategy that we have to implement to make that happen, which is peace time rearmament. if we make it clear as leaders that we're doing one thing to achieve the other, i think they'll support it. it can't happen through detente.' when you look at the writing, the scholarly writing at that time and you look at the influence of kissinger and others who were much more on the side of detente, reagan just seems to be a really clear, dissident thinker about grant's strategy in international relations. and so i could definitely support him on that, as well. c-span: this is not your section. it's domestic and economic policy and it's september 21st, 1976. but i--i wanted just to read out loud what he said, and i wonder whether you could do this today. he said... >> guest: what's the--which--what's the title of

that one? c-span: the title is "the hope of mankind." >> guest: oh, i read that one. go ahead. it's great. c-span: well, actually, i want you to read it. i--there's no sense in me reading it. just--i just want you to read that--this paragraph right here where i have underlined. >> guest: that's--well, you've underlined a lot. ok. 'i love america because people accept me for what i am. they don't question my ancestry, my faith'--i just read this by--actually, the--the other day and was quite moved--'my faith, my political beliefs when i want to move from one place to another, i don't have to ask permission. when i need a needle, i go to the nearest store and get one. i don't have to stand in line for hours to buy a piece of tough, fat meat. even with inflation, i don't have to pay a day's earnings for a small chicken.' c-span: do--was there ever a time, when you read this--these radio broadcasts w--as you were going through your research, where you said, 'this is just off the mark. he missed it on this'? >> guest: i--in what way? c-span: in any way? in other words, he--he--he... >> guest: yeah. oh, sure. that one is a--is a good statement. i think he's contrasting our free system with closed political systems

and totalitarian regimes, clearly. and--but--and--and i--and i don't think he missed it; i think he really believed that personal freedom was so important, and i've had long discussions with annelise anderson about that 'cause she--she really helped choose those documents. and--and we have a--a copy of it there. but there are--are ways that he missed the mark, and--and we do say so at times. we--we try to point out some contradictions in things that he said in the broadcast in the '70s and things that happened later in the presidency, and we provide examples of that. i give one where he--he talks about, in very negative terms, us ambassador to the un andrew young's visit to southern africa, where he met with samora machel, the leader of mozambique. and he talked about, you know, this marxist-oriented leader that--that andrew young is meeting with, and then i put in

the head note, 'but years later, as president, reagan had one of his most convivial meetings with a foreign leader with the meeting he had with samora machel in the white house,' and--just to point out some things there. .. morally repugnant, but he didn't see that direction that the american people would go in the

1980's on that so he didn't see the future better than most people who do this kind of work but he did think that understand a big game of the cold war story better than most. c-span: what has happened to you since this has come about making the tour and the speeches and television appearances? >> guest: my life is about the same. i have so much research and writing to do that nothing really has changed. it is great to do television and radio programs and talk about the book but it's much more fun to do the work. so i have another book that we are doing of reagan's writings as i mentioned this is so small fraction of what we found. we are doing a follow-on book with the free press on reagan's letter and correspondence before the presidency decades before right up to the campaign during the campaign and throughout the presidency during the white house years. c-span: where are you getting those? >> guest: again, private papers that the riggins's for

giving us access to. [crying] have you been successful with this and they say we wanted to get further with you? >> guest: we really presented the project because it is such a natural -- it is kind of a follow on to this project and it shows to me it is coming to be in some ways more illuminating than this book because it shows reagan's writers as things that were never intended to be broadcast, but they are not inconsistent with what he says publicly. things on race, religion, there are some of letters in a debate with ministers and theologians about his understanding of scripture and his belief in a prayer, so i think that the public will enjoy seeing this material. c-span: what is the timetable? >> guest: we have to have that book -- i think it will be after 2002. c-span: howarth free if you going about this? how you work together?

>> guest: we haven't figured out how we are going to to the labour but it is diving into the archives and letting the the -- really doing a bottom-up story, letting the empirical record of influence how we put the material together. c-span: the making of a movie star takes 433. "des moines register." where did you find this, 1937. >> guest: that is marti andersen's work of being in touch with someone in los angeles who collects regan's posters and me about this essay that regan road. it wasn't letters to the editors. c-span: a movie poster. >> guest: and mardy was in touch and knew about these, so we got a hold of them and we couldn't print all of them and we printed the first one, but ronald reagan last 26-years-old leaving iowa on his way driving to southern california to begin his new life with his first

movie contract and studio contract and he's describing -- he set this up and said he didn't get paid for it, set it up to write back some day come special pieces for the new speaker on his new life and it was a great piece of self-promotion and rode these early on. so we just felt we had to put one in the book to show what he was writing and thinking back in and you can just envision him if you read them is this young man trying to southern california being stopped by police along the way trying to get out of getting a ticket, meeting beautiful women once he gets there and so it was just great to read it. c-span: the last thing you put in this is the letter that he wrote to the nation about his disease. >> guest: right which has been published before. c-span: what is the reason you wanted to close with this? >> guest: we thought it was an interesting way to kind of punctuate what we had done because we start on the other

writing with some of his childhood writing and then here is his last kind of public letter to the country as he moves into another phase of his life, and it just was so clear and powerful and emotional the wave radio broadcast we just listened to looking out a window was complice it on his emotions and dreams for the country and his feelings, and we thought it just really showed him in a way that nothing else did at that time. and we wanted something from the post presidency period and that was the perfect document. c-span: how many pieces to you actually have in the? >> guest: we have around 270 -- 220 rebroadcasts and then a couple dozen others and the other writing section of the book. the bulk of the book is just 220 radiobroadcasting. c-span: what if people want to see them all? >> guest: we have news on that front. what we have done is they are not all available of the

rebroadcasts that we present in the book have been preservation copies have been made of them and they are now at the ronald reagan library for scholars to look at. c-span: to listen to or just to look at? >> guest: to look at. c-span: what about that part? and people listen to them? >> guest: i don't think they are open yet and there will be work to figure out what to do with the audio version. but it is i think very important that we have now a set of files at the reagan libraries that scholars can see that show his private papers, really the first material to be leased to the released to the public from the private boxes so you can see what we did. c-span: are you -- don't know what word, a heroine to the reaganites always thought he deserved better, people supportive of you know? >> guest: i think there are people very supportive of the book and have think all of us for doing this book and so that they knew that there was more to

reagan. and so i think it is natural that the supporters of reagan lit embraced this book. but what is interesting to me is critics of reagan have embraced this book. if you look at the dozens of refuse that have been written many in the quote on quote liberal press, "the new york times" has done to pieces in "the new york times" magazine given front coverage in a book review in january and it's been in other papers as well. the subject of editorials all over the country is that reagan critics are interested and there is a way in which in this information age real evidence still matters. had he done this on a computer it wouldn't have worked. we wouldn't have been able to do this book with the kind of authenticity that we've been able to do it. but i think the fact that we produced reagan in his own hand with his own high draft not trying to protect him in any way, queen of the material -- some people said don't present a draft ec is spelling errors and things he didn't intend to put

on the air you shouldn't do that, his notes and the margins. the fact we did that i think has brought a lot of reagan critics to say no we don't agree with his views on all of these issues but the fact that he was working through them, that he was reading the sources slightly in thinking is important to the way we understand the presidency. c-span: what is your own personal goal now? >> guest: just to keep doing the work i've been doing on the end of the cold war. i have a book i'm working on with the university of michigan press on the break down in the 70's to it's the same time period have this book but now we think there will be a reagan dimension where there wasn't one before. but to keep doing my research, teaching. it hasn't changed my goal. c-span: any interest in getting into the government situation at some point? >> guest: not necessarily. maybe doing some consulting, but not on a full-time job. there's too much to do in the archives. c-span: our guest is the

co-editor of reagan in his own hand the writing of ronald reagan. she reveals his revolutionary vision for america. thank you very much for charness. >> guest: thank you. kiron skinner is currently a research fellow with the hoover institution stanford university and associate professor of history and political science at carnegie mellon university in pittsburgh. for more information about the author and bouck teacher encore booknotes, visit booknotes.org. alex's latest book is the

envoy. ms. the envoy? >> the holocaust greatest hero. some people say that he saved 100,000 lives at the end of the second world war pitted he became -- there are only two honoree americans, winston churchill and ronald reagan made him an honorary american to recognize the fact that he saved over 100,000 light switch today some people say is a million, so we have one guy who went against the greatest evil in modern times and the result is there are a billion people alive today who wouldn't be. >> how did he do that? >> he was very clever. he used bribes, he controlled, he did everything he could as a swedish diplomat in hong doherty in 1944 to try and stop it off like men from killing the last jews of europe. in 1944 there was