[applause] >> thank you for coming. think the two of you for coming. the difficult assignments of two whitterse wh >> i think of two writers that are different. i interviewed pat chron reand rick russo. pat conroy had given rick russo a quote from one of his earlier books. pat conroy didn't remember. they were warm with each other.

i know you two both work for "the new new yorker," but i was looking for a deeper connection to ask you about your writing, i noticed in david's new book in the peace about the obsessive conan dole's hand and scholar who is mysterious found dead. you say that arthur conan dole in 1906 began to turn his powers to solve mysteries, including the case of serial killer. that's something that you have in common with detectives. that you turn your powers of observations on the world to solve real world mysteries. david, if you could talk about that large task and malcolm, i'll ask you about that too. >> i think that's very much the case. many of these stories are about

the art of detection. and the protagonist in these stories of sherlock holmes, often sleuths themselves. there are a con man that assumes he maybe getting conned. there's a story about scientists trying to unravel the mystery about the creature, the giant squid. there's a story about a working class detective who is investigating whether a postmodern polish novelist may plan the clues to the murder in his novel. and in the sherlock holmes story the main character who's great conan dole and sherlock holmes scholar. he had become obsessed himself by trying to write a biographer and piece together the narrative of conan dole, and in the

process is driven slightly mad. so in that story, you have both the story of the protagonist trying to unravel the conan dole who he was and be the sleuth in the narrator, in some extent i'm the narrator for holmes as i try to tell his story and figure out who he was after, what he was searching for to try to unravel, and also to find out why he was in the mysterious circumstances. >> how do you go about researching a story like that? when you come to the story where nothing is really clear in how things worked out? how do you map your ways mentally and physically through the research and the writing and come to your conclusions and that story ends very neatly with sherlock's friend? >> i mean in that case, and in

almost all of the reporting cases, the stories also begin with just a look, a include, a tantalizing clue. i'm sure this is true of malcolm. you hear somebody say something in the case of the sherlock holmes, somebody had mentioned just in passing that the great scholar had been found dead in mysterious circumstances. that alone was tantalizing. in that point, i try to read what this is in available literature. then there's trying like a treasure map to go from one person to another person, or one document to another document. it's trying to first penetrate richard lance in the circle, who knew him. and in that case, what was interesting the case had been taken up but all of the amateur sleuth who conan dole's scholars who saw this case as a real life

mystery that was greater than anything that conan dole had. they are working the case in their own way. that allowed me to follow them and make sense of their discoveries and it allowed which i try to do in the stories is to kind of go into a world that you wouldn't ordinarily see. a subculture, a hidden world. who knew that the people that were obsessed and if i gnat call about sherlock holmes and conan dole. >> yes. do you claim that? >> yes. who knew two clubs, sherlockians, who pretend that conan dole are not exist and won't refer him by name. sherlock holmes is a character. they produce more than all of the books in the bookstore. never has so much been written for so few. the leadership of the scholarship is to try to look at

story and prove any inconsistencies to show the true stories as opposed to fiction. and the conan dole scholars are those who recognize as the author and creator, and his scholars. the thing that was interesting about richard lance and green, the protagonist was found dead in mysterious circumstances, he was one the few that went back and forth. he was five something, yes. >> in david's book, he writes about the search for this loss in the amazon. we talk about one person that we met in the '90s, james lynch, i think. he was drawn into intellectual, as well as physical in order to eliminate the little known asset of the world. there seems to be a difference of similarities too. and yours is the physical -- on a physical trail of people and that you are doing the things

that intellectual trail of people. what do you think of that? how do you think of yourself? >> my message means i can write my choice in my apartment. and david has to go to the amazon. i would no more go to the amazon than i would go to the moon. that's exactly right. [laughter] [laughter] >> no, no i meant -- [laughter] [laughter] >> i was referring to the -- [laughter] [laughter] >> no -- i -- i -- did i answer the question? or did i humiliate myself? >> i guess the thing that david

was talking about in coming up with the skit or something. >> yeah. >> he said with your ideas you will become obsessed and want to figure something out. the intellectual quest that you are on to figure out how people work. >> yeah, you know, i grew up on sherlock holmes' thinking. i grew up on the kind of steady diet of british murder mysteries. that's all i read for -- really it's still all i read. into the book sellers at laguardia and all of the paper backs. i've read every one of those. some of my oldest memories are my father reading sherlock holmes stories to us. and father brown and agnus christie. i must have read 50 of those books by the time i was 10. that's been my home form.

you write some kind of fax. the minute i think i can write nonfiction, i'm gone. >> you say you made an honest effort to concentrate more on people as opposed to the experiments or the social experiments that are going to be the tipping point? >> yeah, i mean -- i did not -- i wanted to stop being -- i wanted to be a little less chilly. and so i was -- i had made a very conscious effort, partly actually from reading people like david and being so taken by the driving and thinking that i should go in the direction as well. i made a conscious effort to

write more about people and their stories as opposed to kind of theories. >> well, and your book "what the dog saw" is divided similarly to david's "the devil and sherlock holmes." how do you do the dialogue and make it sound real? >> you could read it and i might say i don't. there isn't -- my profiles don't involve the times, especially the person i'm profiling. you may notice if you read them, we quickly move on to other things. in fact, one of the profiles -- >> what they are. >> yes, the profile in "what the dog saw" and accustom to talking to a couple of hours. he proved so chatty that i ran out of tapes. back in the day. i ran out of tape.

it was so embarrassing to say to him, i thought i'd be good for a few hours. you have more than that. hi to make up -- i had to make up an excuse that i had an appointment. i drove all the way down. you have to drive like five miles and brought cassette tapes and came back and resumed the meeting. that was the rare case. >> you think you would have had some on hand if he was working. >> yes, you would have thought he would have a tape-o-matic. >> well, david going back and forth, do you remain -- people might not find -- i read that you made an distinction between obeying the leader and engaging the reader, you want to engage the reader. >> yes, it's persuasion and convincing.

so this is a distinction not that i did make up, but rather a very famous distinction in sociology. the name of the sociologist, i've forgetten. they wrote the wonder where he talks about these are two very different modes that -- when you convince someone of something you marshal a series of logical facts and assemble them and present an argument that ought to be persuasive to anyone that's of sound mind. it's kind of a very general -- to persuade someone is not about marshaling of facts to a broad general audience. it's about using emotion and stories for a specific audience for a narrow, carefully selected audience. and i started out in general as in wanting to convince people. now all i want to do is persuade them of things. >> well, you are saying -- they

have to count on the man that was executed but seems innocent of the crimes that he committed. that he would request a lawyer that's saying about who he represents. a lawyer doesn't really believe that his client is innocent. so he's working to persuade in the way that you were talking about rather than convince. a lawyer in a trial is sort of what you were talking about, i think. i just remember that you said that you first wanted to be a lawyer. it worked perfectly. >> i think in the -- in both of our works, i think we both believe in telling stories. i mean malcolm's stories were more often engaging and intellectual. they are built around stories and narratives and character and have a minority. you go on the journey. it makes it much more satisfying in picking up a scientific journal. and in my story similarly, i

really want to tell a story. i want to take the reader on a journey. and i really see my job as an nonfiction writer as gathering the facts and presenting them and showing them and i try to have faith that the reader can interpret them. and clearly i make judgments and i'm organizing things, but i was a terrible writer. i just don't think that way. i don't think in that kind of convincing way. the way i see the world is in stories and characters moving through these stories. and really my job is to show the reader what i've seen or what these characters have seen and i also grew up on literary fiction. i love reading sherlock holmes when i was young. but the thing that draws me to these stories is that they are not -- while characters inspire to be sherlockian, and i inspire, we are inevitable

mortal. we don't always see the picture perfectly. you wrote a lot about this in your stories about misinterpreting data or information. we can't see as clearly as we wish we were or pretend to be. these stories are not fairy tales. they end without that kind of sense of qed. >> it's about observation certainly in a blink. how do you sort of balance as a writer that sense of you know the immediate grasp of the story and where you are obsessed. both of you in writing in your introduction, et cetera, about what interest. you both talk about the stories that are kind of obsessed that david in his book talks about how a writer who loves the stories becomes obsessed with it. you don't wash and shave and et cetera. you seem to say the same thing. and when you have an idea and just because it becomes

obsessive to you, you become obsessed. how does that work in the things that you talk about? does it always prove over the long term that you are right at the core? >> no, the upset, i mean the reason -- the reason that it's necessary is i think to tell the kinds of stories that i would like to tell. i think david would like to tell as well. it takes a lot of time. and it takes a lot of time because most of what is interesting about the stories, you don't figure out for a long time. you discover it at the end, or it's because of some turn in the middle. i very often start a story thinking i'm going to say x and end up says y. right? i expect it to end up saying y, i don't expect it to end up where i started. but you only get those kinds of twists and turns if you are willing to kind of wrestle and play with something for a long time. some of the stories that i

write, i have had it in the back of my head for years. there's things i've been thinking about -- of all of the stories in "what the dog saw" in one case there was six or seven years before the idea and story. >> in the case -- there's a story in here about how the world was kind of creating in the prison escape artist. certainly the greatist prison escape artist broke out of every prison, including alcatraz. he broke out on the side and said rub-a-dub, he robbed a bank with what turned out to be a police wire up to his ear. when i read about the line of time, it was several years before it hit the store. he would never agree to speak. i wrote him a letter every month

in prison. if i ever change your mind i'm here. if you ever change your mind, i'm here. i'd write it and sign it and maybe change one word. and eventually after two years, he said come on down. he just decided he was willing. >> he finally found the time. >> he finally found the time. [laughter] >> i think he was at that point, he was about 80. he didn't think he was going to get out. although he had aspirations. just to go to the other point of not knowing where you are going to go with these stories. these stories are journeys. and for example, there's a story in the collection about the search for the giant squid. i found out about the great giant squid hunters that have spent their lives trying to find which at that point had never been seen alive or adopting it alive by a scientist. there were dead carcasses 30 feet long with tentacles the eyes the side of head. that receives the clothing. no one had ever encountered one

of these things alive. and eventually i tracked down this wonderful squid hunter, steve down in new zealand. i convinced david of "the new yorker" it was worthwhile sending me down. he was heading out to try to capture -- he had to capture the baby and grow it in captivity. i went out with him and i spent months on the story and weeks in new zealand with him and really the circumstances going out in the cyclone with this guy trying to catch the baby giant squid. there came a point in the story when i was with him where it looked like we've captured the baby giant squid this man has been searching his whole life for. i had the moment of ecstasy. thank god. we got it. we get to take it home. we are going to grow it. this is going to be huge, literally, and metaphorically.

just like that, it slipped away. we looked at the container. we had been up for a night straight working in extreme condition. it was there and we lost it. like an illusion. i remember thinking my story is -- like it's over. what am i going to do? i've been here. done this journey. and in other words, i had hoped for that. and in some way i was looking at why. then i went back that night and i thought about it. and why was the way the story was supposed to be. because here was this man who had obsessively tried to find this thing, nobody could ever get it, and right there and slipped through his grasps, and the pace and emotion was so much more true than the artificial concept that i had perceived in my mind. >> that was very similar. did that leave you to the story

and entering a shore that went in search of the lost and it's not exactly similar, but same close or seemed to come close in looking for this. and it's like a mirage. >> certainly, i mean many of these characters are chasing something that's illusive. so me what's interesting is the obsession. because it makes good storytelling. they are fascinating characters. the reason why they have one the greatest characters of literature. good. good. but what else intrigues me is what they are obsessed with. they are obsessed with squids, i'm going to do the story. the object of the obsession is to me equally as fascinating. here was the incredible creature that seemed and opened up to how explored the sea was. in the case of boston that was searching, welling -- well, i

brought up reading all of these books. there was no a society in amazon. it had to be perimeter. it was too humane to sustain a large civilization. the question that he was after, it was also equally fascinating. >> a lot of them in your stories play into typically much more about actual experiments. do you feel -- do you wish that -- they seem to me less open than the story of david. i mean do you -- having worked at it and having worked through the sort of uncertainty a lot of the times in your book. how do you make that book work as a story? the obsession. >> i mean what you try to do is find a principal, an idea in science and illustrate it with a

story. keeping in mind that the science is always a level of uncertainty in the science. you are kind of choosing a particular path. both interesting and kind of thought provoking path to take. and you necessarily have to -- it means a loss sometimes. i think that -- i think that readers are sophisticated enough to understand that. what i tend to be doing in my stories is posing a question. what if we thought about something this way? and then 90% of people are, i think, are just getting up to understanding that you can quick hit the pause button. and you can go in another direction for a while. it maybe a lot of fun to do that. even if you don't ultimately agree with the conclusion. i think i say in the introduction to "what the dog

saw" not interested in winning concerts in my ways to see the world. i'm simply interested in provoking people to think about things differently. even if they ultimately go back to their old way of thinking. >> i mean not only the title, but in the art of your book, narrative art, you have crystallizing an idea that people do take away. a watch phrase that people have a sense and get the cultural phenomenon. i remember as i read your books as they came out, they are the kind of books that as they really know, they are sort of amazed. do you want to allow the book? did you ever think of this? i mean you have that ability. to make people taking a certain way that's presumed a while until they come back to their sense?

your ideas are some compelling. i don't need to tell you that. what i'm interested in you were talking about a dog in reporting as you say to get the bank robber to speak to you. trailed after him for years. and similarly in the lawsuit, if you are in search of the very old document in the brazilian national library and hasn't been seen in decades or centuries or something like that. somehow we are able to persuade the librarian to let me see him. if you could just tell us about that. what leads you to do things like that? to take that risk? >> to take that risk. usually it's not so planned or preconceived. usually i get -- i kind of just

bore in and if there's some crueler piece of information just very focused in on getting it. and i don't know -- you know, where exactlyly -- i guess partf it is like a lot of the characters in the story, i really want to make sense of things. i want to understand what i've been investigating. everyone is tantalizing and frustrating to me to have some clue that's locked up in a vault that i can't see. and i really want to -- i want to get that. and so, you know, in the case with this document which i was at the brazilian library because i thought it was the main character and looked at it and used it as the clues to come up with the theory that there might be an ancient civilization in the middle of the jungle. i usually -- i guess, you know, it's like i find often if you

just kind of hang around long enough, without that, i don't fit any of the stereotypes of being the abraisive reporter. i don't. i don't grill people. i just try to observe them and let them be. but i kind of hang around. if you hang around enough, the bank robber will ultimately say come on down. you are the only one left. [laughter] >> in this case, you had been refused access to this from new york. >> right. >> and he just went to rio even though he had refused. and so you meet the librarian and the historian. you go there and start to make the case. and she basically after she finishes said, well, i already have it laid out. i figured if you were willing to come here, you must want to see it. [laughter] >> she's one the heros in the book. i'm wondering not that you now have such a famous name for doing what you do.

do the people that you want to study, be with, write about their work, are they more obsessive, less obsessive? less a fly on the wall that you could have been ten years ago? >> i don't know. i haven't detected any difference. you know, because my stories have always been -- i very rarely write things about someone that person isn't happy with. it's rarely confrontational. i'm usually interested in finding what's interesting about someone works and celebrating it at some level. so i've never really -- it's never been difficult to get people to talk to you. and because i've always hit you with academics and try to take care and with the work and so i can have myselfs a conversation with them and be very careful in how we describe it. so i don't know whether -- you

know, whether i started at "the new yorker" things are similar to the way they are now. there's little difference in how we do our job. >> you don't have any of the academics that you want to share with the process of what you writing about? >> she's funny. not at all. not in the slightest. the child of an academic, i didn't know -- i know something about the psychology of epilepsy. the reason that you go in is because you are not motivated by it. [laughter] >> you mean you would; right? >> no, i just got a grasp on english this week. it's not working. [laughter] [applause] >> the nice thing is you are intrinsically motivated, not

extrinsically motivated. it's a beautiful way to look at world. good for you. [laughter] >> you write in the beginning of "what the dog saw" that you were always so intrigued as a child that a mathematician can spend the day working inside his head. how much as a writer -- and you said i stay here and he goes to new zealand. how much in both cases are you just working in your head and trying to make it come out right? even though you are spending a lot more time on the trail? >> well, typically i think like malcolm said, i have preconceived idea of what it might be. you also find yourself in different places. and i think some of my doubts come from feeling insecure.

if i work harder to get the information, i can get a better story. the cameron story, it's about the man that we've executed for setting a fire that killed his three children and may in fact have been innocent. when i began the story i called his defense attorney. you mention his defense attorney. yeah, he did it. he definitely did it. i hung up the phone, i said he has to be guilty. his own defense attorney thinks he's guilty. that was where i began. then i went on a journey that began to raise serious questions ab the -- questions about the liability of the evidence in the case. >> so many -- that story in particular is about time. and there's another story that's not about a murder but about identity. i don't know if it's identity threat. -- theft. there's a frenchman.

very secret. just how the man that poses and has loss on the american family and began asking just a chilling how these were grooved in. and what they do to the people. but i'm just wondering, especially with the story about william, are you at all conscious of forebearing at "the new yorker" and the lilian law and the name could go on obviously. but david, what is that legacy as you go into a story for "the new yorker" where it's so separate? >> i think it's an asset in the sense that i look at a lot of these people, i read "in cold

blood" "and then " execution" which didn't come out of "the new yorker" which is a great crime -- well, it's based on nonfiction. these are templates. then when i'm working on a story, i try not to think about those things. if i had in my head i'm truman caponi, i don't think i'd ever get a word out. [laughter] >> so i use it as inspiration. i often for each one of my stories, i will look to certain stories. and i will read them. and say, okay, these provide sometimes inspiration is not so linear. and it's about trying to portray a character and getting inside a character or more essays on the piece by janet malcolm. i look at these. and they help me.

once i'm working on the story, i tend to forget all of that stuff. i'd be paralyzed if i was thinking too much about truman. >> so the writers inspire you. malcolm, do you have writers that inspire you? >> yes. like i said -- >> other than that. >> yes. like i said i think -- i've been reading other pieces from the "new yorker" and i think maybe i should read my partner's stuff. [laughter] >> also some of the [inaudible] has had a huge impact. the thing about the hydroguard atom has the absolute practitioner of of "the new yor" story. the story that he has, the

difficulty is so high. so it's not like -- he's taking something. which there's nothing there. right? [laughter] >> i mean it's just kind of -- it's just so pro mosaic thing. he has turned it into gold. i read one paragraph four times in a row to figure out how he did that. it's something that i was the midnighting -- minting component. critics take a look at something. they make a judgment. is it food or bad? that's always the first question that you have to ask. the second question is how hard was it? if you are telling an extraordinary story of something that's incredibly ordinary, you get points. i feel like with adams, he's sort of opened the possibilities as a writer.

you can write, you can take just by virtue of your own envy knewty. i don't have his iningenuity or writing ability. he allows me it's possible to do extraordinary things with extraordinary material. that's been incredibly powerful. >> and there are stories that i find -- what i find i could never imitate them. i just kind of know that. i've still never figured out quite how he constructs the story that they maintain the power. they are not chronological. you know, they are great stories. how he managed to put the facts in the order that comes together with such power. i look at them and i still read them. i'm hoping at some point i'll find that very secret. that's the key. that's exactly what he did. i can't be constructive as a writer. a lot of writers look and there's some where i just kind

of tip my hat. >> you can really torture yourself trying to learn from -- [laughter] >> i was reading some recently and had that same them. it's just like you were struck dumb. you'll read it forever. and turned the phrase and it's just -- you know, it's just -- i could never write that. >> you know, in a weird way, part of thing is what motivates me in finding the stories that i find is a belief that if i can find a great story, if i can find the gold, then i can tell you a great story. and so part of my motivation when you ask me getting these things is that i just want to get the gold because it's a lot easier.

>> they are explaining you are a lot more like malcolm. and you don't even know it happened. >> all we do is -- [laughter] [laughter] >> i read that a lot. [laughter] >> yeah right. >> you know, it really is though. other than when i report. i think somebody -- other than what i report -- >> that's a caveat; right? [laughter] [laughter] >> i would have a very, very boring decision if it weren't for these reporting changes. >> both of you, what is your confidence in the future of the publishing industry, the magazine industry to be able to support the kind of long storying that you are talking about. i mean six years between and feeding on it and writing it. it's the reporting that you do going around the world and "the

new yorker" and other magazines. what did the future hold for that kind of brace? and actually world war ii and before? >> i, you know -- because all that's gone away -- that all disappears to go away is the kind of -- is the liability of the existing business model for supporting a certain kind of journalist. that's all it is. the need for that journalist hasn't gone away at all. some of that was, for example, adams story revenge of the [inaudible] it's one of the most incredible stories i've read. at the end of that story, you cried. everyone cries. the need came to being moved by something that they read is constant. we needed to be moved by

literary experience a thousand years ago. and we need to be moved a thousand years from now; right? all we are doing is serving very, very fundamental human needs. the needs to be engaged by a story is fundamental. it's not going away. you can't have a world -- sometimes we think of a world of tweets and blog entries and web site entries. you can't have that. because none of those satisfy the need to be moved or the need to be engaged in a story, or the need to be -- so we have a model to support. that's all. people are very -- are meticulously working on the problem right now. they will solve it. when we solve it, we will be find. >> i wanted to get out the difference for the fundamental testament. you know, i actually really like the notion which i think --

anyway what we do and also what our stories are about, many of what my stories are about are people and their people are narratives and trying to tell stories and try to make sense of their lives and arrange the fact that order that has a certain logic and means and emotional means. whether it be the fireman from 9/11 who suffered amnesia and was the only survivor from the group that went down. he's trying to make sense of what happened to him, and also this larger calamity. i do think that's something that's wired into our dna. and it goes back whether you look at why the bible was powerful, if you look at any kinds of forms of literature. and i don't think that it's going to go away. i do worry about the economics of it. that's why he's a smart guy. hopefully he'll come up with a business plan. there's a cost to this stuff.

in the willingham story, i spent six months at least on that story. whether trying to get government records, tracking down the geohouse informants who didn't have an address or prone. i could not have done that without "the new yorkers" backing and finding things. so that does concern me because right now we are in this moment of chaos. but i do think that desire doesn't go away. hopefully malcolm meets the paradigm that support will come into play. it's just at that moment of crisis. >> so what you are saying is when you finally get to the middle or talking to the people who have studied this and that a lot of people whether erroneously or not believe that the amazon was so unsuitable to human life, there wasn't

humanization which is the need to storytelling that you are talking about. the art of the human being and you come to that city and leave at the end with questions about whether they were capable, but you were there. there was a kind of push for buildings. >> without question. without question. and just a few weeks ago, i mean it's just been astonishing to me. we've discovered the enormous in the middle of the amazon which spread out over nearly 200 clip -- 200 kilometers. they were the equation of the earth spread out. we don't know what the purpose of this were. but they get the expression that people are trying to find the purpose that makes sense that we could probably have some religious purpose maybe. they are looking to start this. of people trying to impose some order and some meaning.

but some people do it better, some of malcolm's stories we talk about the dangers of this proceeding and the willingham case of misinterpreting data. >> often i think that's not only the time to do the book signing and people will line up and that sort of thing. thank you to malcolm and david. >> malcolm gladwell works from 1987 to 1996 as a staff writer. he's currently a staff writer for "the new yorker." david grann is also a staff writer for "the new yorker." for more information writ

thenewyorker.com. >> author and former cia analyst and head of the cia bin laden unit michael scheuer has a new book coming out in february 2011. it's a biography on osama bin laden. michael scheuer joins us to preview his book. mr. scheuer one the things you write in your book is something i'd like you to expand on. bin laden is not the caricature that we made of him. if i had ten qualities in a sketch of him they, pie us, brave, visionary, stubborn, egalitarian, and most of all realistic. >> guest: yes, sir. i think he's very much an enemy who we need to respect because of his ables. much like the allies felt about

oramel in world war ii. they knew we needed to kill him. what we have as a caricature of bin laden as either a criminal or thug or realist or a madman. i don't think that's true. i think it retards our ability to understand the enemy that we face. >> what's the danger of that caricature in jr. -- in your view? >> guest: the danger is we under estimate capabilities of the man. he runs an organization that's absolutely unique in the muslim world, for example, because it's multietheth -- multiethnic and multilinguistic. it's more like an organization than a terrorist group. we also -- the danger -- another

danger that we face is simply that we under estimate the patients the piety and most especially the motivation of bin laden. he's truly within the parameters of it lam. -- islam. he's not some renegade or someone who's outside of islam or making -- or hijacking the religion. he is apieced, what's called a sunni muslim. and his appeal comes from the fact that he is believably decenting the faith against what is deemed by many muslims as an attack from the west. >> host: knowing that or assuming he's within the muslim faith and tradition, what should the u.s. strategy be? >> guest: well, i don't know exactly what our strategy should be. i think before you can have a strategy, you need to have the american people on board in

terms of understanding what the enemy is about. we have spent now fifteen years as of this coming august when bin laden claireed -- declared war on us fifteen years ago in august 2011. we have spent all these years telling people we have being attacked because we have liberty and women in the workplace or one or more of us may have beer after work. that has nothing to do with the enemy's motivation. if we were fighting an enemy who hated us in how we lived, the threat would not even rise to a lethal nuisance, because there wouldn't be enough man power to make it more than that. we are really fighting an enemy who is opposed to what we do, what the u.s. government does,

and until we have really understand that, i don't think it's possible to form a strategy. >> host: you are a subchapter in your book called luring america. you talked about osama bin laden wanted to lure the u.s. to work for afghanistan? >> guest: yes, sir, he worked hard in 1996 when he declared war on us until 2001. i think we frustrated them on several occasions. we wanted us on the ground in afghanistan so they could apply, they the mujihadeen could apply against the force and believing that we were a much weaker opponents than the soviets. and that a fairly limited number of deaths would persuade us to leave eventually. and so the attacks on us in saudi arabia in 1996 and 1995 in

east africa in 1998 on the uss cole in 1999 were all designed, but failed to get us into afghanistan but 9/11 did the trick for them. >> host: in your upcoming book "osama bin laden" mr. scheuer, you also talk about some of the other books that have come out on osama bin laden and his family. what do you think of steve calls and lawrence wright? >> guest: i think many of those books are very worthwhile. what i tried to do is to take a different tact than those books so i wouldn't be repeating what had been written already. steve coles book is an excellent book, i think. there are a number of very good books on bin laden. jason berk, the british journalist. the problem that i had with those books were they were primarily books that were based on what other people had said

about osama bin laden. not what he had said or done himself. and i have found over the past decade that whenever bin laden speaks, he's often described as ranting or raving, or issues yet another diatribe. so i thought i would take the primary sources based on interviews, statements, and speeches he made and write a book based on what he said and see how it turned out. and i think very frankly that when you take the primary sources which number in my archive and i'm certainly don't have everyone that's available, but i have other 800 panels. -- 800 pages. when you take that information, the man that emerges is not like the bin laden that emerges in lawrence wright or steve cole's book as sort of someone who is mentally disturbed or hateful of

our lifestyle. but rather a man who is very clear about what he believes, what he intends to do, and most especially matches words with deeds with which is very unusual for any politician in this day and age. >> host: because of your background with the cia, does this need to be cleared through the cia? >> guest: yes, sir. everything that i write, even if i was a book or poetry, it has to be cleared by the cia. this book had to be cleaned by the cia twice. once after, and once after we made changes that the editor wanted. the agency, i'm very careful to try to respect my obligation to have that reviewed before it's published. >> host: was anything taken

out? >> guest: no, nothing. in fact, i've worked with the the agency now for six years since i've retirened and have published -- well, two books and probably 200 articles. and i really only had four or five things taken out by the agency over that amount of time. and i have to say that at least on four of the five occasions, they were correct and i was wrong. they are simply looking to protect the classified information in sources and methods. and they've been very good to work with. i've found them very accommodating and very helpful. >> host: three different presidents have chased osama bin laden. are you surprised we haven't found him? >> guest: well, i think we have found him. certainly between 1998 and 2001 mr. clinton had 13 opportunities to either capture him or kill

him. and certainly mr. bush's general had a chance to capture or kill him in december of 2001. i think now, specially in the last five years, sir, it's not surprising that we haven't gotten him. first, like any other thing in life, if you have an opportunity to do something and you don't do it, sometimes the opportunity doesn't come around again. but second we have so massively under manned our operations in afghanistan. that they are simply not enough american soldiers and intelligence officers to go around. they have so many tasks and so few people to do them that i don't think it's a surprise that we haven't got them at this point. >> host: well, that said, what would you like to see the u.s. do in afghanistan? beef up or pull out or what? >> guest: i think, sir, that we've been there too long. i don't think we have enough

soldiers in the u.s. military if we committed every ground troop that was available to really rectify the situation. america as a society no longer knows how to fight a war and has the stomach for it. we have lost, you know, less than 2,000 people in afghanistan from a population of 310 million. we are rapidly wanted to leave. my view is we should have fought and won. i'm a hawk if we win. i'm afraid mr. bush and obama have never been able to define a winning strategy. my own view it not worth another american soldier or marine's life to stay there. the one thing that i will add, when we leave it will be a

tremendous defeat for the united states. however we dress it up, if we say the afghans had their chance and they couldn't do it, if we say that we have somehow satisfied what we went there to do, we may fool the american people but we will not fool the muslim world. when we leave afghanistan without accomplishing what we said we were going to, it will be viewed as the mu -- mujahideen will flow and certainly more will take up arms in the united states. >> host: michael scheuer's new book "osama bin laden" will be in bookstores in february 2011. >> this is coverage of the 61st annual national book awards in

new york city. now we are joined by megan stack who is a finalist in the nonfiction category. her book "every man in this village is a liar" an education in war. what was your experience in baghdad and afghanistan? >> well, i was in baghdad and afghanistan covering stories for "the los angeles times." in afghanistan, it's my first time as a reporter. it was amazing and memorable. i went to iraq later on on and off for years after the invasion in 2003 just covering the events and watching everything more or less fall apart has been my experience in afghanistan and iraq. >> so this book has been about nine years in the making? >> yeah, that book is drawn from

reporting that goes from 2001 to 2006, 2007. andand -- yeah. it took a few years to write and get out to the market. yeah, it's about a decade. >> where did you come up with the title? >> it comes from afghanistan. somebody had said to me every man in the village is a liar. it derives from an old freak -- old greek paradox. i think it says all the key -- creaton is. if he's telling the truth, he's lying. it's the elusive nature of truth and war and difficulty of reporting in a war zone. village in some ways is a global village as well. there wasn't anyone that came

away with their hands clean. everybody was lying to some extent. >> where did the picture on the publisher come from? >> ask my publishers? i don't know anything about it. they showed it to me of i thought it was beautiful. i believe it's afghanistan. but i don't know. >> if somebody reads" every man in this village is a liar" will they learn about the daily lives? >> yeah. afghanistan and iraq and other countries. it's about libia, saudi arabia, it's about israel, jordan, egypt, it trying to take in the totality of the regional experience. it's not necessarily focused on combat zones excusively. it's also about the war of ideas and the islamism. there's a lot of themes that are woven into it. >> you ae