just the sheer psychological effects of covering more. there were a few, i think, tends dinners as they tried to tease out of me what was troubling me. and it was not always pretty. >> here it is. "war is boring" by david axe. new american library is the publisher. a birdie you go next? >> guest: i have ot ..yet. every time i come home from a war zone i announce that i've retired. i'm in retirement. give me about six wee

robert shogan discusses his book that politics and prose bookstore in washington d.c.. the program is a little over 50 minutes. >> i want to thanked those of you who are here for coming and i want to thank, looking ahead, forward i want to thanked those of you who were tuned in on that model of public service television, c-span. thank you for watching and i hope you will find reason to stay with us. i also want to thank thanked allowed another public service service institution politics and prose bookstore for hosting this event and i want to say a special word of appreciation for carl cullen, co-founder of politics and prose who has many of you know, lost her brave fight against cancer only about 10 days ago. along with her partner barbara meade, carla did a great deal to

bring energy chair reading and writing and in this city and its environment. i think barbara tells me they are hopeful they will find someone to carry on the tradition and it's good work. she told me that she had been told having the store here adds to the property value of the neighborhood. and i don't doubt that is the case. this book was inspired so to speak by a story in the "washington post" on the anniversary of one of the first protests by american jews against hitler. it may well have been the first. this was in march of 1933, only days after two shura had taken power. some 4000 jewish veterans of world war i assembled in downtown manhattan to warn that the threat that nazis pose for not only to jews but to the countries that the veteran spot for. they carried the stars and

stripes and banners with the star of david to city hall where they called upon new york's mayor to get the u.s. government to protest the anti, help give the u.s. government to protest the anti-semitic violence which was already underway in hitler's germany. then a few days later there were some 50,000 new yorkers of various faiths who fought through a protest rally in the mass meetings around the city. echoing demands of the jewish veterans they called for an economic voigt cut of germany. as time went on even in hitler's war against the jews mounted in intensity to public protest against american jews really most part failed. american jews have at the time were the richest most influential jewish community in the world. government and progress and the arts. but some jews fear that even in america their so-called golden maiden or golden land, most

americans might resent jewish agitation for their own special cause. others were worried by nazi threats to retaliate against german jews because of a protest of american jews. and others became discouraged by the difficulty of getting attention for this cause in the midst of the great depression. so instead of protesting, many american jews, most decided to put their faith and trust in the nation's new president, franklin roosevelt. if hitler represented the jews greatest nightmare roosevelt was their brightest hope. a jewish judge at the time said the jews now have three worlds, do belt, this world, the world to, and roosevelt. [laughter] so, yet by the time this has been noted roosevelt died and as you well know by the time

roosevelt died 6 million american jews, 6 million european jews have been murdered by the nazis with neither fdr nor the american jewish community lifting much more than a finger to help them. had roosevelt in the country he led and the american jury permit this to happen? that is the question this book tries to answer. of course there were whole horrific social conditions that had to be taken into account. the revival made worse by the great depression, anti-semitism was spreading like a plague, and the threat from the active powers, particularly germany made it all seem less consequential. yet for all of that, people had free will and the decision to act or not to ask control the fate of the european jewry were made by human beings and it was their judgments that needed to be held accountable.

now, to analyze these judges, the book tries for the first time a different approach. i try to look closely at the behavior of a handful of jews so close to roosevelt that they could be considered the presidential, the president's jews, and trend that was incidentally coined by a distinguished israeli scholar, julia arrived. their actions and often their interactions i think helped explain the conundrum that i posed before. it helps illustrate one of the greatest dramas and dilemmas of american politics. the conflict between conscience and self-interest and between principle on one hand and expedients on the other hand.

now, it helps to understand, to grasp what happened, and helps to understand the reasons underlining the jewish faith and fdr. though he was moved to the oval office in 1933 he was something of an old friend to jews, where he had succeeded al smith who had begun to incorporate jews into modern american politics particularly in the democratic party. he had run for governor, roosevelt had come in 1928 against republican candidate george lewis who was a formidable candidate and he had defeated him. roosevelt had holstered their allegiance of jews, the legions of jews by promoting economic and social reforms that embodied jewish, cultural or religious traditions. amidst all of this good feeling toward roosevelt, viewed jews seem to take note and spoke out directly in what could consider

a jewish issue are anti-semitism. over the years he rarely mentioned the excesses of the nazi's. an exception came on kristol knocked the night of the shattered glass when he pronounced himself deeply shocked by what was up to then hitler's worst program. yet when it came to politics, even realist to share with their fellow americans the tendency to project onto politicians do believe in attitudes they wanted them to have. we see some of this today and all through history. besides, there was tangible evidence of roosevelt high regard are jews and the number of jews that the new deal brought to washington. this was a big change. in past years, there had been not that many jewish appointments into washington and roosevelt recruited an unprecedented influx of jews. so many that anti-semites began

to call the administration did shoe deal. for all of that, the jews could shrug off such influences because they felt they had friends at court, and having the people i called the president's jews in the white house or near the white house or had access to the white house gave them hope that a time when they knew world jewry faced a worst threat since the czar. and so the president, the president's jews did not get into roosevelt's inner circle because they were jewish. he certainly knew of their faith but that was incidental to him.

he brought the men because they were men who he thought could be useful and helpful to him. and it was only later, as roosevelt presidency went on and a the threat to jewry became magnified and became so critical that the significance of their jewishness and hands. now who were the president's jews? the first to mention because he was first in seniority and prestige was lewis brandeis film woodrow wilson had made the first jewish justice on the supreme court. the next most prominent was felix frankfurter, who at the time roosevelt took office with as a harvard law professor and formed allies with the president. he would join the supreme court himself six years later. then there was sam rosen who was officially a new york state

judge, courtesy of an appointment by then governor roosevelt, but whose true significance reflected his role as fdr's chief speechwriter and leading overall adviser. next set of an importance and though often overlooked by outside jews was the only cabinet member among the president's jews. this was treasury secretary henry morgenthau. finally there was benjamin cohen a relative newcomer to roosevelt's inner circle who would gain access to the oval office because his, because of his skill as a legislative craftsman. he transferred some of the most important economic reforms of the early new deal. and he, like frankfurter and brandeis was an ardent scientists. it was amidst the early new deal with hitler's presence looming ever more threatening abroad that the president's jews became

a potential influence on the fortune of american jews. as it turned out, the high hopes that american jews had for the president's jews did not work out. the president's jews, specifically the most influential, brandeis, frankfurter and rosenman were not what the jews outside of government wanted them to be. instead of serving as conduits, they served chiefly, they served as the president buffers, shielding him from the pleadings of the increasingly desperate jews out by the government. the explanation for their conduct stems from their shared experience growing up jewish and a precarious train of late 19th and early central america this was as much is jews felt comfortable and wanted to feel at home in their new promised

land. they were still uncertain. this brought home to me that the pervasive anxiety when i was a kid by my grandmother. isaac jacobs -- she had a question she asked whenever there were some great event. when the stock market crashed, when roosevelt was elected, when the japanese bombed pearl harbor. she asked one thing. what does this mean for the jews? and it was a question that reflected, that concerned that jews had because they were afraid of some moment, memories of the programs under the czar and the threats elsewhere might loom. so this in part explains the reticence and the response of the president's jews. in addition, the president's jews all have particular aspects as you might expect, to their

character and background that helps explain how they acted. as i said, lewis brandeis was a senior in prestige and age among the president's jews, and he was regarded by fdr with such respect and reverence that roosevelt referred to him as isaiah after the old testament profit. no wonder american jews looked upon him as a potential key ally in this juggle to get roosevelt to check the excesses. but as it turned out brandeis was reluctant to act. indeed he sometimes used his influence on roosevelt to act but on jews, urging them to left the president be. an early example came in 1933 wood in the midst of the early nazi outrage if permanent jews in america were planning a visit to roosevelt to protest the nazi attack dix, but they were

devised that quote florence court -- the name of randomized' residence and was used by insiders as a kind of a code word for brandeis himself, counseled against the idea so the visit was scrapped. brandeis' misgivings, though he never explained them but apparently the -- explained from his own experiences where he began to practice law and by the anti-semitism that emerge when he was nominated for the high court i've wilson in 1960. brandeis was not reluctant to advocate a whole range of social and economic reforms. however controversial. they tended to benefit society generally, but to argue for a cause that specifically benefited jews that the expense somewhat argue of other americans was a high-risk

proposition, which is brandeis sought, placed american jewry in brandeis's exalted status in jeopardy. then there was the case of brandeis' protége, felix frankfurter. while frankfurt did not quite match brandeis' renowned in the pantheon of jewish political leaders he was actually closer to fdr. frankfurter's closeness to brandeis and in brandeis' work, have some half-brother created a potential for two gifted comrades working hand-in-hand for the jewish cause. when this design was flawed by one troublesome reality, frankfurter ultimately it became clear was just as reluctant as brandeis to jeopardize his own relationship with the president. so the brandeis frankfurter connection instead of providing

a mechanism for jews to pressure and cajoled the president, became a sophisticated apparatus for fending off such efforts. the way it works, when rand eyes, people with lead with brandeis to get the president to help the jews he would explained and relay these requests to frankfurter. what frankfurter would do, he would pass these requests on but almost never to the president. instead to frances perkins who was secretary of labor and sympathetic to the jewish cause and some other assistant some other assistant secretary of state or under secretary of state. anybody but roosevelt, which made him apparently with which he was uncomfortable doing. so frankfurter, early in life, had earned a reputation as a liberal firebrand. that may discretion his watchword. and his attitude sometimes, his response reflected a mixture of

apprehension and ambition. sometimes he exceeded even his considerable gifts. for once in my life i wished for a brief period ever not a jew he wrote with characteristic self-absorption to perkins. then i would not have the appearance of being sectarian writing you as i have written. while jewish leaders are range of meeting with fdr to discuss easing these restrictions, he demurred. he would be unwilling to act as a quote conduit exist it would create holy war with implications about unwarranted implications about his relationship with the president. his character idea was exquisitely nuanced. he would not join such a delegation, though he would be willing to accompany it provided the present himself as specifically for frank ritter to attend. so he got out from under that onus.

the next jew and prominence was sam rosenman who had been a little more than a political journeyman until he caught the eye of governor franklin roosevelt and became his chief speechwriter, and of course of which he coined the term new deal as it where. and then he became his chief troubleshooter. like frankfurter rosenman was determined to protect his status with the president by telling the president what he believed he most wanted to hear. this was relatively easy to do because in most cases this is to what turned out to be what frankfurter belonged to anyhow. frankfurter belonged to one of the conservative groups of jewish political activist, group called the american jewish committee. it was older and more established than the american jewish congress which was more fakir is then active. his answer to the problems of american jews was through

educational efforts to improve public attitudes over the long-term. it was tantamount to the booker t. washington approach in combating racial bigotry. he had an educational foundation which showed that, which aimed to show this is the right way to prepare himself for self respecting life in the christian community. so there was little room and brandeis' syllabus for the kind of agitation that might distress are upset that community. rabbi stephen wise, the most prominent american jews outside of the government circles at the time said, i am sure that jewish lee, his influence, meaning rosenman is all for the bad. well, he had reason to suspect that. early in the spring of 33 only a

few months into roosevelt first term, when hitler's outrages were at their height, rosenman told the group of american political leaders that they didn't need to bother the president because he knew fdr was quote concerned over the german situation, whatever that meant. fdr took no action but the jews following rosenman's prompting laid off. five years and kristallnacht which i imagine was one of the great horrors perpetrated, rosenman without being asked sent roosevelt a memo urging him not to make any change in immigration laws to permit jews to come in. he said any such move, any such move in such traction would produce quote a jewish problem, i'm quote.

exactly what that meant i don't know but i suspected the worst. as for benjamin cohen, fortune called them a really and other worldly young council. carl was often asked by jews outside of the government circles to pressure fdr in one way or another and he refused to do it. he didn't discourage them from doing it himself but he said he wouldn't do it because there was no point in trying to ask fdr to do something he was not interested in doing and he did not want to. carl was not a zionist. he was an anti-nazi. carl devoted himself to helping britain was at that time was in 1940 and was the only country in the field against germany. he conceived a plan -- might didn't conceive it be conceived a legal rationale for a plan of dubious constitutionality for

the u.s. to trade or dish 50 old destroyers in return for naval bases. it was very helpful to britain. patrick moynihan later suggested that roosevelt could have been impeached for pulling this thing off, which he did with cho and's guidance or excise. cohen must have known that this plan the impact would be on the ships and insured the u.s. would win the war against hitler and ultimately lead to his destruction. all of that worked out but it was somewhat too late for 6 million jews in europe. but that was because he took. now, these are not -- there is a hopeful sound here in the good guy that emerges here in this book and that was an unlikely

hero. this is henry morgenthau, roosevelt's treasury secretary longtime friend, a neighbor of roosevelt and dutchess county. he lacks the prestige of his colleagues among roosevelt so they didn't ask them to pressure roosevelt because they didn't think he was that significant. to use a modern idiom he could be considered the rodney dangerfield of the presidents choose. once he got involved, he provided a striking contrast to the hypocrisy and pusillanimous that undermine the hopes held by the jewish community for the presidents choose. he had taken advantage of this personal rapport with the skipper which was the presidents choose name for roosevelt, currently an illusion to is not a coolidge's. he had taken advantage of that and it gave him the confidence to overcome his insecurities and to take on the u.s. state

department. roosevelt was drawn into the fray by a proposal in 1943 by the romanian government saw the handwriting on the wall and knew that they were doomed. they thought that they would try to save themselves from future war criminal action by offering to ransom some 70,000 jews were a considerable sum of money. the money would somehow not go to the axis of powers until after the war. treasury secretary morgenthau was in charge of making the financial arrangements for the payment of the ransom. he founded every move he was frustrated by the state department, whose key officials involved in visas were suspected of anti-summit system. anyhow, morgenthau carried the

fight directly to roosevelt himself. he was not reluctant to do that, unlike some of his colleagues andy sent roosevelt, had one of its aids dry report entitled report to the secretary on the acquiescence of this government and the murder of the jews, i'm quote. that got roosevelts attention and helps gain approval for a broader gain with the creation of a -- which help save the lives of about 20,000 -- 200,000 jews, mostly from romania and hungary. in addition to his rescue efforts the board backed the proposal for american jewish leaders to bomb the gas -- gas chambers at auschwitz. even know what allied planes were repeatedly hitting military targets near auschwitz. the main problem was with the board and the efforts was late

and little i would say. morgenthau was rarely suspected of eloquence. in a remark to samer rosen man he abided the best epigraphs of the residents choose. rosenman characters higley urged morgenthau not to take his case against the state department to roosevelt because word might leak to the press. morgenthau shrug off the advice. don't worry about the publicity he said. what i want his intelligence and courage. courage first in intelligence second. if more of his colleagues followed that, the history of the jews in the 20th century might not have been quite as tragic as it turned out to be. be. and away the attitude the presidents choose with the notable exception of morgenthau and that many american jewish lawyered -- leaders can be illustrated by a joke that made the rounds amongst those agitating for action on behalf

of the jews trapped in hitler's europe. the story goes -- facing a nazi firing squad. the nazi surgeon comes forward to offer the victims cigarettes. they tear the blindfold off and spit in the nazi's face. please see big still make trouble. [laughter] in a larger sense this attitude simply represented the latest element in a quandary that haunted american jews for all their time in the golden made in that was behind my grandmother's question, what does this mean for the jews? they had to urge to assimilate and submerge their special identity in the american melting pot and not to quote make trouble. even as the holocaust loomed abroad, and yet there was a call to conscience and concern about their -- which inclines some to

spit in the executioner's eyes. while the question arises, what else could they have done, what might have done some good? here are some of the mistakes or things they didn't do that i think i have helped. first of all they undersold the jewish case. the idea they did not press hard enough on the economic why can't because they claimed it would make any difference but there was evidence to the contrary. actually be nazis were caught up in the great depression too and the idea that they might lose or be hurt in the market in america was enough, it was signs that it wouldn't have turned the whole thing around but it would have slowed the deadly juggernaut. another strategic error was in casting the nazi persecution of

german jews and narrow turn as simply another outbreak of anti-summit just. it would have been more effective and in the long run more realistic to portray hitler's early brutality against the jews as a tip of the military and political iceberg which endangered the jews and western civilization. fortune pointed out at the time the connection between fascism and jew hatred is not accidental. fascism having nothing for sale but dictatorship and no selling. but necessity for force requires civil rights in order to advertise its good and a civil trying to complete the sale. while the fortune magazine came to that conclusion in the 1930s, that idea could have been spread and propagated against other americans that may have helped reduce the feeling among jews, the apprehension they were pleading for a special cause when they were pleading

actually for a broader cause that affected the nation and eventually saw the nation plunged into world war ii. perhaps the most fundamental error was that they underplayed the jewish political hand. they fail to take advantage of their electoral strength. now it is true that they choose were relatively few in number at the time, three or 4% of the population but they happen to live in clusters in key states. just a little bit of arithmetic, in the 1940 election at the are carried new york wendell wilkie, the nation's most popular state i hare breadth, 225,000 votes and it was an advantage that would be reasonably linked to the huge jewish vote. some argued that jewish loyalty worked against them because it allowed them to take their support for granted and deprive deprived enough leverage for the

labor movement was just as loyal and yet roosevelt when aggressive labor leaders like john l. lewis and sidney hellman called for action, roosevelt was in. labor got his magna carta guaranteeing in the midst of the sitdown strikes that rocked american middle class in 1937. roosevelt took no action because he didn't want to offend or disturb his labor leaders. a. philip randolph leading social rights spokesman of the day for a group that was even more isolated or downtrodden than the jews, black americans. black americans, roosevelt took no action apart from what he did for americans generally against discrimination, racial discrimination in the early years of the new deal.

when the defense program began in 40 and were left out in the cold randolph, this was in 1941, randolph announced the march on washington. the expression has since become the thing for everyone to do but at that time it was a new idea. 50,000 people to fanfare and treatment for blacks, you could avoid a national embarrassment. roosevelt defied the will of the southern barons who control the party on capitol hill and got randolph to call off its march by establishing the fair employment practices commission to curb racial discrimination. and to some degree it worked. it was better and it was a step in the right direction. for jews the potential payoff for such tactics was the impact of the palestinian jew, peter bergson, one of the leaders of the campaign to rescue european

jewry who was an effective organizer and pressured congress to address resolutions calling for immediate action on the refugee crisis and it was bergson's tat takes as much as morgenthau's along with morgenthau's pressure that persuaded roosevelt to create the war refugee board rather than face the embarrassment of having congress acts. intimately, perhaps not incidentally for those of you interested in the subject, there is an excellent film, documented film about works and end its movement called idly by by a prize-winning filmmaker. energized by the tragedy of the holocaust american jews saw the need for political action and they thought openly in the

political arena for u.s. recognition of israel which made possible in a new state survival. they were helped in this case with truman in the white house by a president's jew. german was a president and the jew was david niall, the key aide who was a shrewd political operator. he saw that german whose heart was in the right place, who supported the idea, had some sympathy for zionism and he also had an old partner in the haberdashery store. he also understood the realities and politics. as he said during the battle over, the u.s. political battle, he said i have hundreds of thousands of constituents as president who are for the zionist cause. i do not have hundreds of thousands of their access constituents. that was terrific opposition to

u.s. recognition but george c. marshall thought it would be a threat to u.s. security. nevertheless, the point of course is that for the jews and for blacks and latinos, for any minority of significance, what i believed in what i think our experience as a country is, that this is a political arena and democrats are allowed to and if they know what is good for them, they should make their case legitimately or honestly but as hard as they can. but not do is sort of an application, i may not only of the responsibility to their own members but to the country at large and to the whole idea.

now it may be some scholars suggested that the various strategies i mentioned might not have saved a single life. we do not know that because they were never tried, but we do know that it is impossible to imagine a more terrible results than the ultimate total of the holocaust. the brutal efficiency of the nazis, pervasive anti-semitism in the military burden of defeating action, it is true all stood in the way of helping the jews. but there was another more subtle hindrance and that was the difference. the government, the media and the public along with most of the president's jews had higher priorities than the lives of the european jews. as edmund burke put it two centuries ago, all that is necessary for evil to try and is for good men to do nothing. thank you very much and i would love to take your questions. [applause]

the microphone is there, waiting for somebody to heckle or cajole. >> i heard john tarski described his meeting with frankfurter. he had escaped from poland and he really gave the first reports on the holocaust as it was unfolding and i think there is a footnote in your book where frankfurter said i am unable to believe you. did frankfurter do anything at all because tarski did get to meet with roosevelt and i wonder did frankfurter follow-up on that? >> no, no. i talk to people about what that meant but i am unable to believe there. i can't believe you or your story is so bad that it is hard to believe. and a would have meant but i

would really amounted to us an objection. here was a guy as you pointed out who had been an eyewitness to these horrors. this was not some secondhand account and what frankfurter seemed to be saying was well, you are probably telling the truth but i can't accept that. i don't know why he couldn't. he didn't want to do anything about it, and he couldn't say well yeah, that is a sad story but it is too bad. roosevelt would take a big headache. he could've said yeah he wouldn't do any good but it is what people said at the time. to answer your question, i am sorry, he didn't do anything about it. he did in response. i don't know if denier would be the case but it does believer. other people were too. rabbi stephen wise to imagine and who became the instrument for trying to alert people to

the holocaust to the world jewish congress which he headed, he received what was probably first really direct -- i am sorry. one of my daughters has calm. he was probably the first evidence of the holocaust and what he did because wise had his own problems, was he went to the state department. for 10 years in the state department doing everything he could to stop any kind of action on behalf of the jews, so what they said, this is so terrible we can't leave it. besides, i mean they said privately among themselves, what can we do about it? they told them to weight. finally he waited for a while until it got to be impossible. even the state department could not shed doubt about it so he made the news public.

but he himself says he said, it is so horrible i can't believe it. that kind of disc -- expression of disbelief seems to be the rationale for not do anything. what are you doing about it, you know? you can say well i don't want to see roosevelt because it will get them mad and then i can't ask them something else so you just say well it can't be true. anyhow, to answer your question i think that explains a lot of the people who express, the jewish leaders and sympathizers that i guess frankfurter would be. they were reluctant to admit it was true. and it was horrible, but after a while, when you had all the seventh piling up and as you mentioned cars he himself was a first eyewitness you have to say well there were arthur horrible things that happened and this was the latest and maybe the biggest. perhaps there is something to be

done. anyway thank you for your question. >> you started your talk by noting that neither roosevelt nor the american jews, leaders, lifted a finger to alleviate the plight of the jews. i would like to raise the question of the plight of the jews on the ss st. louis. the state department and white house denied landing rights of this ship, which contained a ship load of jews who were allowed to leave germany. the result was that many of them, when the ship turned around, were killed in concentration camps.

the question i have is, why, why did the white house, why did the state department, why did the jewish advisers to the presidenn consulted, turn a blind eye and a deaf deaf ear? >> well, thank you for the question. it was notable, but the only answer i can give you is that they turned as you put it a blind eye and a deaf ear and chose to ignore it or not to respond for the same reason that they chose to ignore everything else that had gone on. anything touching on immigration they regarded as too sensitive and too dangerous politically and for them, so i don't know generally. excuse me, i don't know that the president's jews were consulted

directly. i rather doubt it. those were things that the government preferred and what roosevelt did in most cases like that were collected to the state department and he had a pretty good idea of how they were going to react. that was how they reacted. i would like to mention this. it goes to the broader image of immigration which was the battle could present use. they accepted the idea that because we had 10 million unemployed or whatever the terrible number was, that anybody would just add to that. their arguments to be made about that although this may seem counterintuitive. first of all refugees, there is one person who will take a job from one american which you lead in presumably the family. one person might look for a job and the other three might you know go to the grocery or the department stores if they could. so it was a whole attitude that

st. louis was perhaps the most dramatic incident but it would have meant they would have had to go back on all the other things they hadn't done anything about them they were just in no mood to do that. roosevelt would have had to countermand the state department and get them back so i don't mean -- i'm not justifying it i am just saying it is part and postural of the whole policy that went on for decades. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> eye of the question about the subculture of anti-semitism. you had the ku klux klan, you had nativists and they were politically powerful. why was this? >> well, first of all it is hard to measure that.

i mean, you know it is hard to mention how powerful politically people are. i spent part of my life trying to make a living figuring out things like that. what i've understood about politics and my friend mark shields help me to address that idea is that the fundamental character of politicians beyond everything else, beyond stupidity or ambition, is that they are risk-averse. they don't want to take chances so it may be that those people were not powerful and maybe they were. anyhow, they made a hell of a lot of noise, didn't they? that with their business just as some might say, i am not making an analogy by the folks today on the right wing you have some kind of a party, tea partier whatever, they make a hell of a lot of noise. if you are in politics you are not going to take the chance so

i can't explain it to you. if you ask me why anti-semitism, that is a different question. i am sure, you sound as if you have explore that issue and you know the difference, why people have turned to anti-semitism over the years. but that is a different thing. i'm saying people are really going to vote that way. if you have a congressman or a senator running for re-election and he hasn't done some kind of things on labor law or economics or foreign policy, than the presupposition is that whatever that is, because he happened to do one thing or didn't attack the jews that the people are going to be so caught up with anti-semitism that they are going to vote against him. that is kind of a dubious proposition but not any politicians are willing. >> i have a question mr. shogan and that is once they were robbed of their stated disbelief

by facts and reality, did any of these prominent roosevelt advisers who were jewish, where where they contrite either in public or private for the failure? >> well, and private i don't know. there was no public action on their part. nor was there any from roosevelt, from people who weren't jewish. there was not a lot of publicly. i think there was a feeling among jewish leaders, not as fairly the president's jews are people of government but jewish leaders that they have not done enough or they hadn't done anything come most of them, the more could be done now. i am just presupposing that and i think that helps account for the tremendous mobilization of jewish political support behind

the effort. you are mark shields, aren't you? i have seen you. is this your first time on television? [laughter] >> i am just a fan of robert shogan. >> we are running out of time. this is going to be the last question. >> you talked about all the men in you said they were all men so you conceded that. i wanted to talk about influence and just get your opinion on whether franklin listen to eleanor because traditionally when it was herded eleanor was far more sympathetic than her husband to the jewish cause. >> well, yeah. i couldn't find much evidence to that. the evidence, that may be but she was neither of the roosevelts were very concerned with these issues before they got to washington. i mean both of them had certain

what you might call social anti-semitic tendencies. so did eleanor. i think she changed in many ways but i don't know of jewish groups particularly taking her help for intervening with roosevelt. i know she tried you know on racial issues. i think she tried to get him to support something you would think as safe as anti-lynching legislation. he wouldn't do that. thank you professor. >> thank you, bob. [applause] >> this event was hosted by politics and prose bookstore in washington d.c.. for more information visit politics -- pros.com.

>> hugh pope where did you get the title "dining with al qaeda"? it was better than eating chinese with al qaeda which apparently some people thought would need -- let it become an episode in the book, one chapter where i'm in riyadh and very soon after september 11 i was sitting down with a missionary from the al qaeda camps where most of the canon fodder struck the world center and washington. the dinner started off with him saying i'm going to kill you. i said i assure you that is not necessary. i speak arabic if that tells. after half an hour to convince them that i was a person who wanted to get his story. in those days you could still be innocent in the middle east and i learned lot about the way he thought, what he told me about the kids that were on the plane.

the americans who believe most people have normal lives back home. that is what my book is about, trying to humanize -- but to claim what the context is. >> how would you say you hooked up with him in riyadh? >> as usual these things are quite random. i had a friend who gave me a contact and a certain point you are driving on the outstretched as his uptown and somebody -- i was lucky, my colleague i was with "the wall street journal," danny pearl. something that was more like an ambush but still not much different from that. with danny had his head cut off so i feel very yvette i got a way to tell the story. >> what did you learn from your contact? >> i think they learned that the reason he wanted to kill me at the start of the interview was he believed i wanted to kill him, and that is the key thing.

remember that in most conflicts, it always feels much more when you receive the product and when you give it and i think that is the main lesson. when america is conducting military expeditions all over the middle east and drones, you should be aware that is felt quite deeply by the people there and it is not just what is being felt in america that matters. >> hugh pope are you still in contact with anyone associated with al qaeda? >> no. it is the reason i gave up journalism. i was 25 years in the military and after the iraq's war which i was the only correspondent for my newspaper going to baghdad trying to explain to americans why the war was logically unsound and with low up in their face literally, not being taken seriously at all and finding

that actually it doesn't make a difference. i was so happy i was a journalist for a long time but ultimately i couldn't go on with the old system in the middle east. i had it british passport and we have done a little damage in the middle east. i went with "the wall street journal" who supported this war. i'm going up to the people in the middle east saying tell me your story and it it'll make a difference. that was the old deal and i did feel it made a difference in the past and then i stopped believing it. i resigned and luckily enough two years later i joined international crisis group with conflict resolution in jail and i'm feeling a lot more happy in my work now. >> hugh pope is the author of dining with al qaeda, three decades exploring the many worlds of the middle east. thank you, sir. >> bolo booktv on twitter. send this to tweeted otb with

your favorite booktv program from 2010. from now until december 10, we will select one tweet for day at random to receive booktv swag in the tweeted program will be included in our holiday schedule over the december 24 through 26 weekend. we look forward to seeing your favorite tv programs from the last year. thank you for watching. >> neal wilson is a lutz or prize-winning naturalist and we are here to talk to him about his first novel called "anthill."l". how did you come up with the wit titleth of your book?tle oyour >> because there are a lot of van till senate. it is really a coming-of-age on on the whole about a young boy who grows up in the deep south deep south and becomes the enamored, in love, a rare

package, end begins to developed special liking and understanding and that he will do anything when he grows up to save from developers in that part of the south. i saw things like that under threat of developers. in the course of studies of natural history he focuses on and -- ants who make up two thirds of the weight of all insects. they own the earth. that is where ants come in. a little boy learned about them when he goes to college. >> after writing about nature and biology, why did you choose to write this one as a novel? >> here is one reason. i wanted to continue to push awareness of nature and how fast it is disappearing in this country and around the world.

i have found something that you would know very well too. people respect nonfiction which was what i have been writing all my life. but they read novels. this is one reason i decided to write a novel. >> tell us more about the main character and is there a biographical elements to his character? >> i have to admit his childhood, for his early teens, closely parallels that of your faithful author who grew up in that part of the country but then they diverge as rafael salmons cody, his mother's made a name, for reasons of his own, though late hero of the confederacy, after that, proceed on to law school and find

solutions that he sought to be an effective conservationist and save this precious land for what he learns of the law. >> what do you think readers will take away from this book being that it is a novel that they might not pick up from a nonfiction book about the same topic? >> for my fellow southerners, my heritage especially, the preciousness of the natural environment and the rapidity with which we are losing it. second, the importance of knowing in detail for purposes of fiction and not just nonfiction their rich environment around all of us. the natural environment which skimmed over by novelists and it is not here. nature becomes a virtual character. third, takes up a quarter of the whole book, the account of the

ant wars, colony against colony until one finally exterminated the other another comes in and exterminate the second one, all of that is in particularly iraq scientific detail. when you follow the life cycle of the colony, their wars, tournaments like military groups on parade, they demonstrate their strengths to other colonies and the way they communicate chemicals is based on fact. >> he will be presenting at the national book festival. what kind of information would you like to impart to the audience, what you hope they get from your talk? >> the most important is pretty much the themes we touched