>> joseph e. persico, author of "roosevelt's secret war." when did you get the idea for this book? >> ryan, i was a kid growing up he'sng e roosevelt e >> guest: brian, i was a kid growing up during the roosevelt era. he's always been a hero of mine. i wondered how i would be ableeo someday to write a book about franklin roosevelt. franklin roosevelt. i couldn't imagine there was anything that hadn't been said. i pulled up on the internet the catalog of the library of ngress and i went through it line by line and there were something like 600 books on franklin d. roosevelt. and i thought it's all said. but ve witten a great deal about intelligence and maybe i could combine the two and there was nothing in this list of 600 books in the catalog about f.d.r. and intelligence. my reaction was, joe, you are

either brilliant and you've thought of soething that nobody else could think of or you're a fool and wasting your time because there's no story. >> in the end, when did you start to see a story that had never been told? >> well, i started going down, brian, to hyde park, tothe roosevelt archives. i stared virtually from ground zero. as i srted through papers of george marshall d bill donovan and f.d.r.'s paper, i realizized there was a lot of untold stories. >> let's pick one of those names, bill donovan. who was he? >> bill donovan was an authentic hero of world war i, a congressional medal of honor winner, subsequently a vastly successful wall street lawyer. now, he becomes, in effect, the first head of a central intelligence agency in the united states.

franklin roosevelt appoints him in the summer of 1941 as what eventually becomes the office of strategic services. kind of a strange choice because donovan was a staunch republican, had run for governor of new york on an anti-roosevelt, anti-new deal platform. but he was also a plan of irrepressible spirit, boundless optimism, full of ideas, nd, in a sense, he reflected the qualities of franklin roosevelt. so, he was named the head of our first spy service. >> as you know, they call him wild bill donovan. tell us a wild story. >> well, one of the -- one of the conclusions i reachedabout donovan was that he was a magnificent magnet for attracting talent. his o.s.s. attracted collge presidents, philosopher,

writers, journalists, photographers, actors, cameramen. arthur goldberg had been an o.s.s. veteran, subsequently goes on the supreme court, historian arthur schlessinger jr. was with the o.s.s. the french chef, julia childs was with the o.ss. what struck me about donovan is the cat-brained ideas that he could advance. one of which was that his agets would somehow intrude into hitler's diet, substance that is would cause the figures breasts to swell, his -- furors breasts to swell, his voice to rise, and his mustache to fall out. another idea he had was to drop leaflets over japanese troops which show pictures of japanese women involved in copromising positions with caucasians, which

presumably would demoralize them d seeing that their women were not being faithful. the thing that was surprise prizing to me is that these crazy ideas did not turn f.d.r. off at all. he didn't reject them because he loved theer is rip tishes,the covert and the clandestine. >> you say in your book at the height of the o.s.s., he had like 1600 working for him? >> more like 16,000. >> 16,000? >> yes. that's starting from. we had no intelligence service to speak of, even the year before pear harbor. >> so, relate that to today. the president of the united states has somebody who's a friend of his who creates what kind of -- what wouldhappen if this kind of thing was developed todayed? can you relate it to what's going on in the world right now? >> the real peril here is the shocking, un -- parallel here is

the shcking, unexpectedness of pearl harbor and september 11. how could this happen? aftethe fact, t strand of intelligence that leads from a to b to c to pearl harbor, it may stand out glaringly and after the fact the strand of intelligence that runs from x to z o the world trade center may stand out glaringly. but before thefact, this intellince doesn't come in single strands. it comes in great bundles. we were breaking the japanese code, there were hundreds of messages available to the president. we now have the n.s.a., which i understand does something like $3 billion of worldwide eeves dropping. so, -- eavesdropping. what we have that's comparable is a flood tide of intelligence, which seems to overwhelm the circuitry. what we seem to be lacking is then and now is careful analysis

to say, well, we've got this tide of intelligence, what directiois it falling in? what do these jigsaw pieces tell us if we an puthem toether? that was the feeling prior to pearl harbor and obviously a feeling now. >> vincent astor. what did he do for f.d.r.? >> well, i mentioned a moment ago that the united states didn't go into the intelligence business in a serious way until 194189 we were probably the only world power that didn't have a professional intelligence service. roosevelt relied very heavily prior to, let's say, 1940 on a circle of associaite friends as his sources. there were a group of them that called themselves a club. and they had taken a shabby apartment on new york's upper east side. they had an unlisted phone number they had a secret mail drop. it sounded like the spy games of boys being carried out by grown

men. the chief figure in this outfit called the club was vincent astor, one of the wealthiest men in the country. >> which one is he in this photo at tp? >> vincent astor the the one to the right of the bar on the ship where he is standing. >> or to the left of f.d.r.? >> it looks to me -- yes. yes. >> and who was he? >> vincent astor was the hir of a massive fortune in the united states. he was -- e was as socialite, e, but also a man interested in causes, owned probably the biggest chunks of real estate in manhattan. he and his other members of the club, while they seemed like amateurs haddedhis value for f.d.r., they were very highly placed. for example, astor was a director of western union and consequently he was privity to the kinds of cables which were going from foreign embassies in the united states back to their

homelands and though it was illegal, he had these cables intercepted and he passed this intelligence along to f.d.r. otr member of the club was winthrop aldrich who, at the time, was head of the chase manhattan bank. aldrich knew about international financial dealings. he could report to f.d.r. all the money that was going into and coming out of the russian spy front in the united states, the trading company. but this was pretty unsophisticated level of intelligence for a country the size of the united states at that point. >> in 1939 and 1940, what kind of intelligence-gathering operation did f.d.r. have? did he have an official one? >> no, he doesn't begin a formal, official central intelligence agency until the summer of 1941. what he has before that are the military services, the office of naval intelligence. he has the military inelligence

division of the army and he has the f.b.i. and he has -- he tries -- he's very unhappy with the lack of coordination and doesn't that ring a bell today? for exame, at one point, to try to get these people mving in the same direion, he calls a meeting of hoover, head of the f.b.i., the head of military intelligence, and naval intelligence, hoover doesn't dane to come. >> just says i'm not coming? >> he had to be ordered by f.d.r. finally to come. we had the army and navy with the lunatic handling of the message that is we were decoding, particularly japanese diplomatic traffic. they had this rivalry in which the army would decode messages on even days. and the navy ould do it on odd days. they had a system where they would share who got to deliver the plum traffic to the

president, the armywould do it in certain months and subsequent month would be in the navy. and it was madness. and finally roosevelt himself just cut out that nonense. >> back to vincent astor, was he the one that went on the trip to try to find intelligence over in japan? >> yeah. again, this indicates the rather amateurish intelligence that roosevelt conducted prior to forming a formal agency in the o.s. astor had a magnificent ocean-going yacht called the norma hull. it had a crew of over 40 members. f.d.r. asks vincent astor to cruise the pacific, seemingly on a pleasure junket, and head places in the marshall islands, which were then managed by japan as a mandate and to report on preparations there.

and this was great fun for vincent astor and a great adventure. he ssequently thought this would lead to his becoming f.d.r.'s chief of intelligence. but hs up against tougher rivals and donovan and some others. >> jn franklin carter. you have a photo of him in your book. who is he? >> john franklin carter, interesting man, was a columnist in washington. at one point, he wangles an appointment with the president in the oval office and he, in effect, says to f.d.r., you know, i have extraordinary contacts in journalism among international government figures, among businessmen worldwide, i could easily set up for you a ring and i would report strictly to you. roosevelt lapped that up. it was just the kind of thing that appealed to f.d.r., off the books, cirumventing his own

bureaucracy, something private, clandestine. a spy thriller kind of thing appealed to him. so, he took money out of his own white house budget to set up the john franklin crter ring. had this money transferred into the state department where presumably it'sthere to buy reports about foreign governments. and then carter operates throughout the war, directly reporting to f.d.r. and the oval office. >> how many people did he have working for him? >> very small group. only about 12. but the interesting thing is that we have an osm s.s. that doesn'tnecessarily -- o.s.s. that doesn't necessarily frankly know about the john franklin carter ring that doesn't know about the astor ring. >> and you say that f.d.r. didn't write very much down? >> f.d.r., by his character and temperament, was ideally suited for secret warfare. he loved to trade in secrets.

he was a master manipulator of people. he misled his own associates when it suited him. he seemedto enjoy subterfuge for its own sake. and said it best himself. he said i'm a juggler. i never let my left hand know what my right hand is doing. and to answer your point, he left virtually no fingerprints. one of the most frustrating things that historian on the trail of franklin roosevelt complain about is the lack of written commitment to decisions that he made or expla nations as to what he did -- explanations as to what he did. >> what did you learn about him, as a person? >> i always had a sense that roosevelt was a man with a certain amount of guile. my research in witing "roosevelt's secret war" convinced me even further of

that. as i said a moment ago, he was ideally suited for ts kind of thing. he was, i think, some of the best descriptions of him, which i accept as essential to his character, one of which was made by one of his new deal associates, who said that the man always conceals the purposes of his in. and another one of his close associates said, this was robert sherwood who wrote speeches for roosevelt, said i could never penetrate that heavily-forested interior. henry wallace said the only certainty inthe roosevelt administration was what was going on inside f.d.r.'s head. my initial expectation that he would be a man who held the cards close to the vest was confirmed. somebody said to me, well, did this make you think less of him? it made him more interesting to

me and a more textured character. >> you say in the book that you're -- colin powell helped you with information on this book. did i misinterpret that or ws that from your old friendship? >>n this instance, as you know, i was colin powell's collaborator on his autobiography "my american journey." colin powell, needless to say, had very, very useful connections throughout the federal bureaucracy and what i would have queries i could go to some ofhis staff who wouldgt answers for me, for which i'm very grateful. >> how long did you work on his book? >> he and i were together for about 20 months. most of the time, i spent down in a little study in his office examining the soles of his sneakers. you know, he's a very casual guy. he propped his feet up on the desk and he would just start talking wit a tape recorder on and, essentially, what we arrived at was an extended oal history.

colin powell has an extraordinarily retentative. mind. he is a great story teller. every once in a while when we were saided with working on the book, he would regale me with his rendations of jamaican songs which had a naughty double on ton dra lyric. it was a stimulating experience. >> what do you know about him that we don't that gives you a certain view during this crisis as secretary of state? >> well, i'm not sure who would not be aware of this now, but my sense is that we're fortunate in that -- in colin powell, we have an unusual preparation for the work he's carrying on now. this man, from the military standpoint, was the nation's chief military figure as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. frequently overlooked as the fact that he had already been a national security adviser. he was reagan's man at the

n.s.c. d then he has developed a worldwide reputation for integrity, intellince, candor so that in building coalitions, this is enormously important. i think we have extraordinary combination in colin powell and i would say, in short, the man i see is resolute, but at te same time reasonable. that a comfort. >> on a personal level, if someone came to you and said, joe, i'm going to meet colin powell, i have to do business with him, what would you tip him off to do? >> i will tell you, brian, what i told my wife when i first met colin powell. i went down to the pentagon the very day eorehe retired from 35 years in the military. he's a joint -- chairman of the joint chiefs. and we were just kind of sizing each up for the collaboration. and i went home and my wife said, well what is he like?

and i said colin powell is the most comfortable man in his skin whom i have ever met and what i would tell somebody is pretty much expect a direct, casual gure with no guile, no side to him. >> so, how did you get to all this? where did you first get interested in being a writter? >> well, i wanted to be a writer ever since i was a kid. finally, i backed into writing, i guess. i was, for many years, chief speech writer for governor an later vice president nelson rockefeller. did that for a long tme, as i say, and started out the first five years i loved it. the next three years i tolerated it. the final three years i hated it. it had nothing do with my boss, it was that i wanted to write my own books and finally, rather

late in life, i would say, in my 40's, i started writing my own histories and bige 23i fis. >> -- biographies. >> i counted. is this your ninth book? did i miss any? >> not that i'd admit to. yes. >> you wrote about nuremberg, willm casey, edward r. murrow. in 1979, you wrote about " penetration of nazi secret agents during world war ii." how much of that book led to what you're doing here? >> well, it led to a sense of confidence that i could write reasonably well about intelligence. i did that book. another book that dealt with intelligence was casey, william j. casey, who subsequently becomes the director of central intelligence and who i first had met in alking to him about bill donovan's o.s.s. casey, you know, as the brits would say, had a pretty good war.

casey was posted in england during the latter part of world war ii and he was rsponsible for one of the great triumphs during that period, which was something the british said couldn't be done and that is we got a number of teams inside nazi germany, into something like 60 german cities. so, this would have been a coup for the o.s.s. and a coup for the roosevelt administration of the war. >> what is magic? >> the u.s. code crackers were working very hard prior to 1940 in breaking the japanese diplomatic code. they called it code prple. they finally broke that code. and it was broken by a team led by a man named frank rolett. rolett and his people were now able, in effect, to place the

president of the united states on the distribution list of the japanese foreign office because we're reaking these messages. they're available in a very short time. it may be a message from the foreign offices in tokyo to the american -- excuse me -- to the japanese ambassadors in washington where breaking that code and these messages go u to president roosevelt very quick and that's what the magic operation was. very important because our breaking of the japanese codes were responsible for our 1942 victo in the pacific at midway, which is a turning point of that war. >> frank rowlett is what kind of a guy back then and where did he operate from? >> frank rowlett was operating out of a former girls school called arlington hall. he operated with a very small

group of people. i can't imagine they made a great deal of money. they worked for the army as cripping toer ifs. but they were very dedicated. and their breakthrough was really a significant advance for us. one of the things that they enabled us to do, by breaking the japanese codes, we also were able to find out german intend, how did that come about, because the japanese had an ambassador posted to berlin. his name was oshima. oshima was a rabid pronazi. consequently, he won the confidence of adolf hitler. hitler would bring in oshima and say, mr. ambassador, i'm going to send you to inspect the atlantic wall. i want you to see what i'm erecting to repel an allied invasion of the continent. or he would say to oshima, i'm going to tell you how many

divisions i have deployed in norway, denmark and belgium. most importantly in france. and then he wuld say to oshima upon these rather critical revelations, and i don't want you to breathe a word of this to anybody. well, oshima did what a good diplomat does. he would report back to tokyo, virtually verbatim, his conversationses with hitler. through that diplomatic code that we're breaking and these messages then are available to the president, to his secretary of war, to the military chiefs. one of the most significant revelations was when hitler tells oshima, i'll tell you where the allies are going to strike. they're going to strike at the pad decale. the narrowest part of the

english channel. and he reports this back to tokyo. we intercept it. we now know that hitler expect it is invasion there. why is that significant? because that was our deception plan. that's exactly what we wanted him to think and we know it's working. >> you say that some 400 message that is f.d.r. could have read from oshia? >> something like 400 intercepts per year. general marshall -- >> per year? >> yes. general marshall said that he was our bet source of information on german intentions. he was our best agent, an unwitting agent, albeit, and for the president, it was not simply peeking at the other fella's hands, it was like holding the other fella's hands. >> the president is in the oval office and every day they bring in these oshima messages. did the japanese ever find out that the president knew all this stuff? >> it's really extraordinary.

in 1942, after the battle of midway, the "chicago tribune" front paged a story which practically blew the secret, the headline read, in effect, navy knew japanese war plan. well, how else would we have known it? the story's virtual saying we're ekinthe japanese code. astonishingingly, while any cab driver in chicago could have drawn that conclusion, the japanese considered their code unbreakable. they used the same compromised code to the end of the war >> you mentioned the "chicago tribune." again, i want to try to relate to the atmosphere we're living in right now. first of all, when you read this book, the first thing that comes to mind is that f.d.r. knew a lot more than the american people ever knew and i wonder if you think that our president today knows a lot more than we'll ever know about what's going on in the world?

>> i would think the esident does, i would think the intelligence gathering agencies do. because it's almost like a criminal investigation or manhunt that we're on now and by reealing everything you know, you also tipoff your adversaries as to what you know. you dry up source, you compromise people. i think it has to be that way. >> you point out that 20 cases of espionage happened here in the united states from outside coming in and that at one point there were 16 of the 20 they had in jail somewhere. but what i'm getting at is how much -- i'm looking at a story of willy copaw, is that the way you pronounce it? >> yeah. >> how much of the, you know, are the enemy coming inside this country did we have back in world war ii? >> surprisingly little. the f.b.i. had rounded up almost all agents operating with the united states.

however, hitler was very unhappy with the job being done by his intelligence service. and pressured admiral chief to do something more dramatic. the result was an operation called pastorias, in which eight germans who had lived in te unid states, two of whom had been u.s. citizen, men who had gone back to germany, were recruited to form this team. they were put ashore in the united states by subrine in the summer of 1942 to carr out espionage. one of them decided to rat on his other comrades, thinking this would make him a hero. and so they were all quickly rounded up. this story is fairly well known. what is far less known was roosevelt added towards the sabotagers. he immediately directs his attorney general, francis bittle , to organize the trial outside

of the civilian courts through a military tribunal and he said to bittle, in effect, these are agents of the enemy. they've come ashore in wartime. in civilian clothes. i don't thinkhere cabany doubt as to what their fate must be. so, he keeps this case out of the civian courts because the rules of evidence are strict, the opportunities for appeal seem to be endless. a military court, which he creates, and he names all the members, and then he directs his attorney general, bittle, to prosecute the case so that within eight weeks of these s tonighters setting foot in the united states, they have -- sabotagers setting foot in the united states, two have been put to death. six are subsequently commuted. but what i foundinterested was this hudson river patrician,

this am i can't believe, genial franklin rosevelt was underneath, hard as nails. he expressed his only regret in this case that these men hadn't suffered the fate of being hanged rather than electrocuted. >> i mentioned willy copaw. you write on page 38, he ever fit in. he was a bony 26-year-old from a good grenwich, connecticut -- good connecticut family, but a social outcast and a loner. what happened there? >> he got caught. >> what did he do, though? what was that story? >> well, copaw, s you just read, didn't seem to fit anywhere. he had german ancestry and, consequently, he was enamored of what was happening in germany and very much impressed by hitler's early victorieses and manages to get himself thrown out of the u.s. navy for being overtly pro-nazi.

manages, to through merchant vessels, to get to europe and volunteers with another figure to carry on probably the last attempt the nazis made to land saboteurs ashore on the united states. he mets one of his former schoolmates who persuades him that this is madness. copaw turns himself i, serves a modest sentence after the war. we knew we had victy in han now and there wasn't quite this spirit of vengeance that f.d.r. had expressed earlier. >> but you put -- one of the things that's interesting is he was dropped in the frenchman's bay up there, i assume, in maine. >> yep. yep. >> that's how he got back into the country. >> he did make it back tothe uned states with a bundle of money. he had a good time with the furor's dollar supply, but was useless as an agent. i think the lack of appropriateness of this man and

the previous team i talked about is an indication of how weak german intelligence was as targeted against the united states. >> who's this fellow right here? >> that man is ants hamstingle. he had been a close personal associate of hit les. he handled the foreign prss for hitler. he was a pretty good pianist and he was dubbed hitler's pi yeah know player. hamstingle was eventually driven out of hitler's circle by more ruthless nazi rivals, became fighting for his life, went to england, the war breaks out, and hamstingle is interned in a p.o.w. camp. he is subsequently sprung by one of f.d.r.'s persna agents, john franklin carter, who i mentioned earlier, and they bring him to the united states. they install him in a safehouse

in washington suburbs. now, roosevelt is interested in hamstingle because, first of all, he is half american and he comes from a pedigreed new gland family and, like f.d.r., he went to harvard. hamstingle's job is to provide the president with inside information on the cast and characters in the third reich and anything else he can provide of value. much of what he provides is more tint lating than elevating. -- tint lating than elevating. he sentreports to roosevelt about how hitler had sent out agents to recover pornographic paintings that the furor had done as a penniless artist in vienna. he was able to report to he president on how the hitler eva brown romance had begun.

hoe further was able to -- he further was able to tell the president about hitler's sexual ambiguity. he also was able to deliver some intelligence or estimations that were of substance. for example, he was the first to insist that hitler, no matter how bad things got, would not surrender, that he would commit suicide first, which is inded what happened. the president looked forward to these reports from hamstingle. he called them "my hitler bedtime stories." >> what ended up happening to hamstingle? >> well, he seemed to lose favor when he got done tellinghis bedtime stories or he had revealed whatever he knew about the third reich and he's now a number of years divorced from that and because he's kind of a pain in t neck who expects the united states to provide him

with a piano take care of all his dental work, he's finally shipped back to the p.o.w. camp in britain and that is the end of his spy career. >> also, you have sprinkled in your book some stories that, if it were to happen today, they would keep cable networks going for three months. things like the ullner, eleanor, joph lishe story. the personal side of that. did the president know about those kinds of stories? >> there's an interesting dichotomy in hoovepper's relationship with f. -- hoover's relationship with f.d.r. and eleanor roosevelt. he got along surpsingly well. you have this genial figure on one side and hoover on the other. they cooperated very closely. however, eleanor roosevelt made the mistake once of referring to j. edgar hoover as stupid because he was pressing a

background clearance of a white house staffer who ad bee around for years. hoover was not the kind of figure who would forget a slight and, consequently, when the army came up with a preposterous report tat eleanor roosevelt had been involved in a sexual tryst with her young protege joe lash, hoover kept this formation in his own private files to the day of his death. >> what was the story, though? was it ever proved that they had a relationship? >> no, the rmy intelligence people that provided this information tohoover had made a small error in their evings dropping. they had found -- eavesdropping. they had found eleanor roosevelt in a hotel with lashe visiting. but what they produced as proof of a tryst was young lashe's involvement with his girlfriend. he was having an affair with a married woman at the time who he

subsequently married himself. but the army military intelligence people are taping this, they're peeping through holes in the wall, and somehow it gets mixed up that it's not lashe and his girlfriend trudy, but lashe and eleanor roosevelt. >> how public has the sumner wells story been, the oe in the train? >> it's fairly well known. what you're referring to is the fact that sumner wels, who was the under secretary of state in the roosevelt administration, and who was an important figure, he wasrosevelt's man. the secretary of state was cordell hull and roosevelt pretty much cicumvented him and worked through sumner wells, an old family friend. wells had made some sexual advances on trains, part of his business trips to black porters on these trains who reported

him. this was concealed fr a long time. it was two or three years before it finally erupted. roosevelt is under tremendous pressure from people who fear that having a man with homosexual tendencies in such a sensive position at stae, we ha to remember we're not talking about the current world, we're talking about the attitudes of the 1940's, he's looked upon as a security threat. and roosevelt very unhappily eventually dismisses sumner. what i thought was interesting was after he has to force wells out of the state department, he considers sending wells on a mission to moscow for him. but he's talked out of that. one can only imagine what the influences of him to lead people into compromising positions,

what might have come of that assignment. >> how does william bullock fit into this? >> he was a rival of sumner wells. he had been f.d.r.'s ambassador to france. obviously he has to come back when frace falls. and he is one who is pressuring the president to do something about sumner well, to get rid of him. roosevelt is loyal to people and he is very fond of sumner ells and he is very dependent on sumner wells. and after he hears the tarring of sumner wells by bill bullock, he in effect says to bill bullock, sumner wells is doing uswrong, but what you are doing to digrate another man will send you down there, and he makes this hellward gesture.

>> there's so many stories, as you know, in this book. in the back, you have a legend of where you got a lot of it. you mentioned th library. how much time did you se at the hyde park library? >> well, i was practically living there for many months. hyde park was a commute for me, almost. it was about an hour and a half for me in albany, new york. that was my greatest source. i also had marvelous results in my research at the national archives, the library of congress. the stories i was telling about the messages that were intercepted by ambassador oshima, i managed to track down at the national archives. i don't think they'd been looked at very much, or at all, since that time. that was very rewarding for a researcher. >> one of the things you have listed is p.s., and you have the designation so you can tell where it's coming from. president's secretary file, roosevelt library. have a lot of people mined that file?

>> certain areas, things have been mined rather heavily. but there are always fresh revelations that astonish me. for example, there was some suspiciothat a by the name of lachlan curry, who was a utility infielder for president roosevelt, undertook many trusted missions, there was some suspicion about his loyalty and i'm plowing through the archives at hyde park and i find tha lachlan curry was the white house man tracking th development of the secret explosive. r.d.x. somehow soviet union finds out about the development of r.d.x. and on another occasion, he is assigneto track the development of a new bomber, th b-29. somehow the soviet union finds out about the b-29. these were things that i

discovered that i don't imagine anybody paid any attention to before. so there's still, among these millions of pages, some fresh research nuggets. >> whatever happened to lachlan curry? >> well, lachlan cury denied, after the war, tht he had ever been a spy or that he's ever been a member of the communist party. lachlan curry was one of a number of people who were useful to the soviet union, who took the position at that period that russia is our ally, why would she hold anything back from the soviet unio so, a guy like curry may not have been a spy in the white house in the most narrow, technical sense, but he certainly was a pricess source of intelligence. >> it's not often that i would cite a p.r. insert in a book, but this was the most complete p.r. advance work i've ever seen, i ess from random house? >> that's right. my publisher.

>> in spite of reading the book, it makes it so easy. i'll go down the list of things they point out here because time goes by quickly, it will give people a little nugget of what you're talking about here. it says here among the revelations discussed in "roosevelt's secret war", the u.s. intelligence to anticipate the surprise pearl harbor attack. >> well, -- >> why did they fail? >> because, as i have explained to people at the time, excuse me, after the fact, that thread of intelligence running from a to b to c to pearl harbor seems glariny obvious or x to y to z -- >> but did they have the intelligence information the >> they had he intelligence, they had the information. buff it came in a flood tide. in the rosevelt era, you know, roosevelt didn't get intelligence decrypts that had been examined by analysts and placed together like pieces of a

jigsaw puzzle. he got raw intelligence. that's very hard to snse what's the direction of this? what's it warning us about? what is our antagonist likely to do next? also, we had nobody on the ound. we had no spies inside japan, just as apparently we haven't done very much to penetrate the intersanctum of our current adds versares. >> another item. f.d.r. wanted o bomb tokeyole before pearl harbor? >> yeah. that's amazing. roosevelt was outraged by the behavior othe japanese in the war against china, machine gunning civilians in the street, bombing defenseless cities. he considered a plan, this was a year in advance of pearl harbor, whereby by the united states would give b-17 bombers to the chinese and train chinese pilots to fly them against toke coe. he was told it would take two years to train these pilots. so, the backup position was we would give the bombers to china and we would have american pilots resign from the air force

and volunteer fly them. so, we would have american pilots flying american planes a year before pearl harbor against tokyo. he was advised by cooler heads that this would be an out right provocation and could only lead to war. >> the british fed f.d.r. phony intelligence to draw the united states into the war? >> well, winston churchill was very eager to have the united states join the waragainst hitler. and, consequently, british agents were to provide intelligence that would help this happen. they told roosevelt about the fact that the germans had taken a map and cut latin america into six future nazi vessel states, that a bolivian pro-u.s. government would be toppled by the nazis, that we had 6,000 brazilian troops -- excuse me, 6,000 german troops in brazil. roosevelt used some of this information in his speeches and

in his fire side chats. it was all fabricated by he british to help encourage the united states to enter the war. >> f.d.r. is yielding to churchill led to the theft of the a-bomb. >> yeah. a curious tale. in the begin, the united states and britain were full partners in developing an atmic weapon. but as time went on and the unitestates launched the manhattan project, was putting millions of dollars into this, creating the fcility at los alamos, we became the dominant partneand started cutting the british out of what was happening for security reasons. chuhill comes to the united states at one point, sees roosevelt at hyde park. he's figure. he accuses roosevelt of reneging. so, a compromise is reached. the british will not be getting information on the a-bomb imported in to britain, but we willalw a smal eam of british physicists, mathaticians, and other scientists to work at los

alamos. one of them turns out to be carlos fukes. as we know, he steal it is secrets of the bomb. ves this information to the soviet controllers. he is at los alamos because of a deal cut between frapping lynn roosevelt and winston churchill. >> what happens to fukes? >> fukes is finally unmasked several years after the war in 1950. he was sentenced, i think,14 years in prison. eventually upon his release, he continued his work in east germany. >> how did he get into this in the first place? >> well, he -- fukes had been a young, avid communist in his native germany. things got very tough for communists in germany as the nazis came to power, so he fled to great britain and eventually became abritish physicist. >> back to the p.r. sheet here,

which, by the way, did you write this? >> i made some suggestions. >> because, you know, sometimes authors don't and they're always surprised by what'ses in there. elite f.d.r. planned hitler to declare war on the united states. >> this is frequently overlooked, brian, that the united states did not declare war on germany, we declared war only on japan on december 8, 1941. why did hitler do something seemingly so rash? there was a leak of an important document called rainbow five, a contingency plan that roosevelt had called for. what would we need, should we go to war against germany by 1943? how many divisions, how many ships, how many aircraft, how much fuel, etc.? the "chicago tribune" gets a hold of this secret plan and front pages it. does not play it as a contingency plan. the tribune plays it as a war

plan and the headline says "f.d.r., five million troops against germany by 43." and when hitler declares war on the united states, fourdys after pearl harbor, he virtually quotes this. he says president roosevelt intends to make war agst us by 1943. so, in declaring war against the unitestates, he doesn't view it as being rash. he views it as anticipating the inevitable a getting the draw on the u.s. >> the relationship between f.d.r. and joseph stalin. >> well, the president recognized that stalin was taking 80% of the casualties during world war ii and inflicting 80% of the casualties on the germans. so he was very, very eager to cultivate and placate joe stalin, would bends over backwards.

i'll give one example. there is the long-standing controversy about the katin forest, who murdered 9,000 pols in the katin forest. the germans claimle the soviet union did it. the soviet union claim it happened when the germans occupied this territory. this story was rather controversial for half a century. interestingly enough, roosevelt and churchill newel from day one that these murders of the pols had been done by soviet union on joe stalin's orders. they didn't say anything, again, because they did not want to alienate stalin, who could conceivably make a separate peace with germany than we would have been left with the bulk of the fighting and casualties. >> page 273. this semed to be one of those sentence that is people who don't like f.d.r. probably use when they're talk about him. thiss a quote. i think if i give stalin

everything i possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace. where does that come from? >> it comes out of franklin roosevelt's character. which is a reliance on almost overwhelming charm. roosevelt could charm almost anybody and he though that he could charm joe stalin by being utterly respectful and admiring and not questioning anything that stalin did. underrating the hard pragmatism of a j stalin. >> did that hurt us in the negotiations? >> well, it hurt us to the extent, for example, the story i just told about the katin forest. we are not letting the amrican people know that the

monstrousness of stalin is not all that different from that of adolf hitler. but in the end, i don'taccept the charge that roosevelt gave the story away at yata, which is a cmmon conclusion of many who discuss this era. he was too forgiving and too accommodating to stalin. but i don't think he gave anything away that created our post-war confrontation with -- >> so, the only thing about his relationship with winston churchill that you hadn't known in the past? >> it was a relationship that started poorly. franklin roosevelt had a tremendous ego. as a young assitant secretary of the navy, he had visited britain and he'd come away with a very poor opinion of winston churchill. he said that winston churchill had not shown any respect for him. he called winston churchill a

stinker. subsequently, when pearl harbor was attacked, churchill calls him and says we're all in the same boat now. they pretty much behaved that way, although we have two men both with giant egos, and they do collide ccasionally because britain's objectives are not the united states' objectives and this is clear and churchill's determination to win this war, at least in part, to be able to restore the british empire, much of which has been taken away by the japanese. and roosevelt wants to go in the opposite direction. he wants this war to serve the human end of allowing countries to develop their own independence, their own freedom. so, there is a real collisn. >> you say that president kennedy's father, joseph kennedy, called him at one

point, quote, he was angry, called him a crippled s.o.b. do you remember where that quote came from and why did he call him that? >> joe kennedy had a son, oe kennedy jr., the elder brother of a future president, roosevelt was very insistent that a certain secret operation take place in which an aircraft would be loaded with high explosives. the pilot and co-pilot would head it towards its targets. v-1's and v-2's, german secret weapon launching sites. the pilots would bail out and a guide plane would, in effect, leads this flying bomb towards the target through radio remote control. churchill opposed this. churchill was afraid that the nazis would retaliate against london and roosevelt took the position we know they're developing these secret weapons. they're going to strike london anyway. so, this plan aphrodite went

forward and on the first mission, joe kennedy and his pilot take off with this explosives loded in the aircraft. it explodes mysteriously. both men are killed. joe kennedy sr., who had one point had been roosevelt's ambassador to great britain, runs intoharry trumn at an event. tran is then roosevelt's vice president, candidate in the 1944 election. and joe kennedy says to harry truman, harry, what are you doing working for that crippled s.o.b. who killed my son, joe? >> there's a woman that is always around f.d.r. in your book, someone named margaret sukley. daisy sukley. who was she and where did you get the information about her? >> daisy sukley was a distant

cousin of roosevelt. >> she's in the middle in this picture. >> let me take a closer ook. yes. and daisy ws a person who roosevelt would confide in, things that he would not tell to anybody else. he felt perfectly comfortable because she adored him and he knew he had her absolute trust. so, he told her things that, for example, would have very much surprised other members of the roosevelt team. one of which was the state of f.d.r.'s health. from the last year, at least, of f.d.r.'s life, he was a dying man. he had been examined at the bethesda naval center by cardsologists. they realized he had astro no, ma'amic blood pressure. that he was suffing from hardening of the arteries. amazingly, roosevelt never asked

a question. he never asked wha was the result of these examinations, what had they found? a cardiologist is assigned to him in the who checks him out daily. he joshes with the cardsologist, gossips with him. never asks about is condition. so, one would have the sense that he doesn't know what's happening or doesn't want to know. but he, on one occasion, in one of these private sessions with his confidant and istant cousin, daisy, he says, in effect, i am very sick, much sickerhan i have been told and if i am sick enough, i will ot run for another term. i mu be convinced that i can complete another term. he's talkinabout a fouth term. and, as we know, he is right on one count. he runs again. he's wrong on another co, he dies only four months into his fourth term. >> unfortunately -- no,

fortunately, i have about 100 more questions for you. unfortunately, our time is up. our guest has been joseph persico. his book is called "roo to view this and other booknotes programs on line, visit booknotes.org. >> "capitol hill cooks" is the name of the book. the is linda bauer. booktv usually doesn't talk about cook looks at why would we want to talk to you? >> this is cooking for a cause. 50% of all the proceeds and the

royalties and advance go to homes for our troops so build homes free of charge and gives him a wheelchair accessible home and who wouldn't want to know the favorite recipes of george washington and president obama with notes about why they like the recipes? >> what what is president obama's recipe in your book? >> he has a running in cheese and shrimp linguine. >> how did you get access to those recipes? >> the beauty of that was my husband was the longest-serving aide in history and i was an intern during watergate so i knew a lot of the folks and i godfrey recipe books books before the american series and given them to charity so this is two books in one or the same price. is a great organ and it is the best charity you could ever ask or. >> here's one recipe you have for club cake. theodore roosevelt. >> that's right. right. it is a healthy state. it is heavy and it is great. it is delicious.

>> what other recipes do have that people might be interested in? >> i think the best recipe in the whole book is probably mamie eisenhower's fudge. when she married ike she told my husband he didn't know how to boil water and after she married him she ran across this million-dollar fudge recipe and it is so good even kids can make it. fantastic in my second favorite is ronald reagan's pumpkin pecan pie because it is just like an empire but it has got pecans and all the notes are on top so. >> you also have a recipe from harry reid. >> as i i do. does chicken and paprika cream sauce and it is very good. i have ron paul's too and michelle bachmann so every political persuasion you could want. >> "capitol hill cooks" is the name of the book. linda bauer is the author. recipes from the white house, congress and all of the past presidents. ..