>> we've been friends for 25 years, so i called her and asked her. >> water some of the other books you've written? >> i have written an awful "and my shoes keep walking back to you," and quite a few essays and i also co-wrote a rock-and-roll joke book and i am the founder of the literary rock band the rock bottom remainders, so i've written a book with my band mates as well. >> i wrote a book called how to play the harmonica and other life lessons and it is a humor book, and i also work, right columnist kathi called the author enablers. it's kind of dear abbi for inquires and i am also a member of the rock bottom remainders by double nepotism, because my brother, dave barry, is the lead guitarist, sort of come and kathi of course founded the group. >> thank you both very much for your time. ..

>> it's just over 45 minutes. >> i thank everybody for coming out. i am going to do my best impersonation of dwight d. eisenhower which doesn't make sense given i'm the only one up here who is not a eisenhower but i thought it would be good to just give the section of the speech that's relevant to our discussion because sometimes we only hear a sentence of it.

this is a few minutes of it. it comes about midway. until the latest of our world conflicts, united states had no armaments industry. american makers could with time and as required make swords as well but now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. added to this, 3.5 million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. we annually spend on military security more than the net income of all united states corporations. this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the american experience. the total influence, economic, political, even spiritual is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. we recognize the imperative need for this development yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. our toil, resources and

livelihood are all involved. so is the very structure of our society. in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought by the military industrial complex. the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. we must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. we should take nothing for granted. only alert and knowledgeable citizenry can propel the proper. military defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together. so that's what we're talking about. and what we're working from. david is going to give some context and then i'll talk a little bit about the contemporary applications of the concept. >> great, well, thanks, a lot, bill. and lou, thanks for that introduction. it's a real pleasure to be here at barnes & noble on broadway.

this is a real thrill to be here in new york city on this night. [inaudible] >> excuse me? >> thanks for coming. >> oh, thank you. [applause] >> i want to graduate bill on the completion of quite frankly, prophets of war" which is his book which is the history of the rise of the military industrial complex from the 1930s forward and the development of the phenomenon that dwight eisenhower drew attention to in this speech in which he warns against the unwarranted acquisition of influence by military industrial complex. i'm going to provide a little bit of background you and context about this speech and how my book "going home to glory" picks up from it. this was given 50 years ago. it describes as the experts that bill read -- it describes a permanent condition which had developed in his lifetime in

national affairs. he draws attention to it. he acknowledges that the problem of standing mobilization is something that is compelled -- that we're compelled to face -- this is not something we do as a matter of choice. this is something we're compelled to face. it is not offered specific proscriptions. there is no 5-point plans for restraining the industrial military complex. what he does he comes up with an interesting and a sort of broader -- draws a broader moral proscription. he calls for an alert citizenry. that is he's calling on the political branches of government as well as all of us in our daily lives to follow these events and be aware of it. and so understand that any military industrial complex will require a certain momentum and affairs but they must justify themselves as we justify ourselves as well and i believe

your book highlights some stories that i'm aware of, the fitzgerald story, william proximate meyer who's a senator from wisconsin that i know well and other clashes between the military industrial complex and the political branches of government. to give you a little bit of background on this speech, my own book picks up about 65 hours it was given and i would stress a somewhat different aspect of it by way of background and this has to do with alert citizenry. "going home to glory" opens shortly after the speech is given and the eisenhowers are driving back to the gettysburg on the winter chill that john kennedy was inaugurated president of the united states. these are remarkable times. in the year 2000, martin medhurst a professor at texas a & m polled teachers of

rhetoric in the united states on the outstanding speeches delivered by americans in the 20th century. what were they? and on that list dwight eisenhower's farewell address stands 18 out of 100. but thousands and thousands and thousands of speeches given. so one of the top 20 speeches. on that list the john kennedy inaugural stands 3. these are two speeches delivered within 65 hours of one another. and the confluence of the greatest inaugural of the 20th century. and perhaps the greatest farewell address ever given by an american president draws attention to the significance of this transition. and what the transition was, of course, the wartime leadership is yielding the reins of power to the junior officers of world war ii. and there's a generational shift that happens in 1961. the other thing that is significant about it is that it occurs in the wake of perhaps the closest election of the 20th

century. and it is an election that produced a 50/50 split. and i think the dignity of these two statements -- the kennedy inaugural and the farewell these two speeches are worthy of a democratic transition. we were able to overcome a great divide in that period and find the way forward during that transition and that was a very successful transition. it is also a nostalgic speech because of the preeminence of the united states that the eisenhower farewell address presumes the preeminence of the united states that the kennedy inaugural presumes as well. this is a preeminence that may never be repeated in international history. there's a connection baubetween the eisenhower farewell and the kennedy inaugural. a classic statement and that connection is citizenship. the eisenhower speech is in the

final analysis about citizenship. his proscription and alert citizenry says something about citizenship. his word choice, the way he addresses the american people and so forth makes assumptions about citizens. which are also made in the kennedy speech which serves a different purpose. eisenhower is reflecting on citizenship in the changing context of his lifetime. he's born in 1890. he's raised in rural kansas where everybody is a self-sufficient farmer. in a self-sufficient rural area, citizenship works in a certain sort of way. by the time he's bequeathing office or leaving office in 1960, we have entered the computer age, the space age, the atomic age and world population has tripled. and america is an international power. and so so forth the world has gotten very complicated. and in this complicated circumstance the question is how does citizenship work?

and he identifies barriers to it. and a military industrial complex, that is a vested interest that drives decisions and potentially corrupts our democratic processes is a barrier to effective citizenship. john kennedy's inaugural was about citizenship. it is about the changing patterns of citizenship and he's offering himself and his new administration as a model of citizenship. in other words, how does a new frontiersman. he worries about the timelessness of this speech. a great farewell seeks timelessness as does an inaugural. there are certain kinds of speeches. they are both epidacic that is ceremonial and it reaches for timelessness. >> the eisenhower address address rises in an interesting way. and i'll summarize this, bill, quickly. i think that the early drafts of it -- it was a speech that was in progress for a long time. i think the planning for it began in may, 1959 and so it was

planned for 18 months. i have seen versions of this speech, drafts on final in abilene, kansas, there are now new stories that another set of drafts have appeared in the files of malcolm moose who was involved in the drafting it out. the picture that i saw and speak of from memory here tonight is the early drafts of the eisenhower farewell. they are very forward looking. and i think they reflect the sense that he is losing ground, that his administration is losing ground and then after the democrats win the 1960 election, they reflect the disappointment of the outcome of the '60 election. sour grapes so to speak. he's warning the country in effect against successors who may not have judgment. somebody gets to the president in the drafting or it occurs to him that this is not the task of a farewell. a farewell is to ease the transition, to make it easier so

you have another set of drafts where this warnings are sort of modified and taken back. and then finally, this crystallizes into the great farewell address that it is. when he ceases worrying about specific proscriptions for the months and the years to come and allows his gaze to look back over his career and to extract lessons from his 50 years in public service and to formulate from that a set of insights and proscriptions that will stand as timeless, something that we may even be talking about 50 years later, as we are tonight. interestingly, the kennedy speech develops the same way, all the pressure on kennedy during the transition is to acknowledge the closest to the election, to issue an appeal for unity, to bring as many republicans as possible into his government. and i think they took those suggestions very seriously early in the drafting of that speech. finally, because of the logic of his position and his

responsibility, what takes over in the final drafts is a decision to look forward. eisenhower is surrendering power. kennedy is assuming power. kennedy's obligation is to lead and whether he looks forward and eisenhower look back and they stand back to back, that's when these two speeches delivered within 65 hours of each other become timeless. they both are in our culture to conservatives eisenhower is saying are you going to allow yourself passively to be dominated by a vested interest, by a military industrial complex? are you going to allow that to stand in the way of effective citizenship? kennedy to reformers are saying, are you going to allow laws to equip all of us in our daily lives full responsibility for what we are and can be as citizens. it is sort of in this spirit that the torch passes between two generations who have a great deal in common and so on. but also passes from one party

to the next in which leaders did disagree. one, it passes. in a memorable, colorful month, 50s years ago in january, 1961. in very different moods, kennedy is an exaltant speech and eisenhower is a farewell. it's a cautious speech. it's almost as well you have visions of the roman triumph and the conquer and the splendor of triumph. and reminding even the headiest of all leaders that all glory can be fleeting. this is how the speeches sort of interact in january, 1961. they contain a timeless message about the future. kennedy asks in 1961, would any generation trade places or times of the generation that's taking power in 1961? i guess the question for us today is, would we do so today? i think the answer then was, no.

the answer today is no. the future, as demonstrated by the past is ours to make. it depends upon us and it depends ultimately on our willingness and determination to accept responsibility for our lives and to face the future. that is the moral of eisenhower's farewell. that is the summons in the kennedy inaugural and these two extraordinary speeches that happened exactly 50 years ago tonight. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, david. i think that give us a good context. i'm going to talk about the present, the military industrial complex in action today. i'm going to look at a recent battle on capitol hill, the battle over the f-22 combat aircraft, the most expensive fighter plane ever built, built to fight a soviet fighter that was never built, as the soviet

union fell apart. and something that the obama administration very much wanted to end the program and members of congress and lockheed martin had quite other ideas. and ultimately lockheed martin lost the battle but i think it's instructive why they lost, how it was fought. i think it's a glimpse into the industrial complex at work. and i have a surprise ending which i will save. so i'm going to do this by way of some excerpts in my book. this is the very beginning. it is a striking ad, an intimidating aircraft soars in the background with a slogan up front. 300 million protected, 90,000 employed. the ad for lockheed martin's plane was part of the company's last ditch effort to save one of its most profitable weapons from being terminated as they say in standard budget parlance. the ad ran scores of time, in

print, on political websites, and even in washington's metro. one writer at the "washington post" joked that hock heed martin's barrage of full page ads was the main thing keeping the paper afloat. and then jumping ahead a little bit. as soon as there was even a whisper of a possibility that the f-22 program would be stopped at only 187 planes, about what the pentagon wanted, but only half what the air force and lockheed martin were striving for. in 2009, months in advance of president obama's first budget detail submission, lockheed martin and its partners had lined up 44 senators and 2 members of the house of representatives to sign a save the raptor letter. at the heart of the lobbying campaign was the mantra of jobs, jobs, jobs. jobs in 44 states or so the company claimed. lockheed martin's public relations barely bothered to mention whether the f-22 is

needed to defend the country. that argument was there in the background but it wasn't the driving force. lockheed's ads for the plane got more and more specific as time moving on showing people at work on components of the plane with legends like 2,205 jobs in connecticut. 125 skilled machine rists in hella, montana and 30 hydraulic system specialists in mississippi. all that was missing was ads for 132 lobbyists, washington, d.c. [laughter] >> although they probably would have gotten around to it if they needed to. so the importance of this battle was laid out by senator john mccain on the senate floor. there was an amendment to stop the increase in f-22 spending that he and senator carl levin a democrat of michigan brought together. and this is what he said about the amendment. this amendment is probably the most impactful amendment i have

seen in this body on almost any issue, much less the issue of defense. it boils down to whether we're going to continue the business as usual of once a weapon system gets into full production it never dies or whether we're going to take the necessary steps to reform the acquisition process in this country. mccain ended with a flourish quoting two paragraphs from president dwight d. eisenhower's famous speech about the unwarranted influence of the arms lobby and the need for an alert and knowledgeable citizenry to keep it in its rightful place. mccain suggested that the only addition he would make to the speech was to replace military industrial complex with military industrial complex in addition to the role of congress in funding unnecessary weapon systems like the f-22. so that was sort of the flavor of the debate. and i guess the question is, you know, if they have all this power, why did they lose? and i think there's a couple reasons. first, secretary defense gates, a republican holdover from the

bush administration made an excellent case against it. he said, first of all, there's no mission. here we are we're fighting two wars. we're not using in either of those wars. if we look ahead to china, even if we don't build a single more f-22, we're going to have 20 to 25 times as many sophisticated fightier planes as china has even 15 or 20 years down the road. so whether it was the current mission, the future mission, he made a good case of why we didn't need it. he also pointed to the price. he said it was obscenely expensive. which i think it's true $350 million a copy. i think the second thing that caused them to lose was bipartisanship. john mccain and barack obama finally agreed on one thing. that we didn't need than plane. maybe the last thing they'll agree on for all i know. and then obama himself made a threat to veto any defense bill that included the f-22 and this is unprecedented but not only in

his presidency but ever as far as we can tell. there has never been a veto targeted on one specific system like this. and then the administration fanned out across the country twisting arms of democrats who were leaning to vote for the plane to get them to vote against. and so this is the surprise although they lost, they didn't lose any money on the deal. because even as they reduced the f-22 by $4 billion, they increased the f-35, another lockheed martin plane by $4 billion. and secretary of defense gates made a statement that, well, you know, i think i've taken good -- [inaudible] >> call 215, please. the f-35 not only was increased by $4 billion but it had jobs and companies in many of the same states and districts. so essentially they were replacing f-35 spending for f-22 spending so in a sense it was the exception that proves the

rule. they couldn't get it done without throwing a bone to the military industrial complex of $4 billion bone at that. so, you know, that's just one example of the resilience of a company like lockheed martin which comes from its size. it gets $36 billion a year of our tax money which amounts to about $260 per tax-paying household. so i've been empowered to collect those checks this evening. [laughter] >> and i will pass them on to lockheed martin. so if you come up to get your book signed, have your checkbook ready. it's also a company in addition to size that's involved in many aspects of our lives that you might not expect. not only does it make weapons, it cluster bombs, it be designing nuclear weapons, it be combat ships, it fighter planes but it also works with the is their is their, the national security agency, the fbi the department of homeland security,

the irs, the census bureau. pretty much any agency of government that we interact with, probably lockheed martin is involved. i wrote a piece recently on the web that described that lockheed martin's shadow government. and, you know, i think it remains to be seen whether they're going to serve that role or not but i think -- there's certainly that danger given the aspects of our government and our lives. that's what i really have to say to get the conversation started. and, you know, i think, you know, david, do you have any other thoughts that you want to share? >> well, you know, i was struck by that passage earlier in your book where you describe how senator mccain wanted to insert a congressional military industrial congressional

complex. that was something that was actually in one of the drafts of the eisenhower military industrial complex speech. they were going to include industrial complex and it was struck from the draft because -- i think because of the logic of it. the speech is really directed at congress. how effectively do you and i pose as alert citizens to bring lockheed martin to heel or to bend them to our purposes? when we read books, of course. but in the final analysis, what we're depending upon is the vigor of congressional oversight and the strength of our political branches. so the eisenhower warning is directed to congress. it's a call on congress to exercise oversight. and to represent us and not fall in the trap of representing them.

and for that reason, this very -- what mccain is a living demonstration of is that congress really is the key variable here. and so there's a mccain speech, a lot of the eisenhower speech but it was -- both men were conscious of it. >> and on the question of oversight, i would say senator william set the gold standard and he was very much connected to the lockheed story. they created a transport which was supposed to be able to take large numbers of troops and material anywhere in the world on short notice. lockheed described it as a flying military base and there were some discussion of whether this was really a good idea. whether if we could get anywhere quickly we would intervene more quickly in more places but it never came to that because the plane was $2 billion overestimated costs. they couldn't do the mission it was set up to do so there was no

possibility to intervene because it wasn't working but this was buried in the bureaucracy of the air force until a whistle blower came forward. he put his career and he actually lost his job over this but it was william gave fitzgerald a job on the committee when he lost his pentagon job. he really went to the mat to make sure the public understood that this was an abuse of our tax dollars that we could not stand. and he claude back some of the money from the cost overruns. the company did have to pay some hundreds of millions out of a $2 billion overrun that it ran. and then he stepped from there to opposing a $250 million loan guarantee to bail out the company as a result of its problems with the c-5 and with its airliner business and that vote -- he lost by one vote in the senate and it was the jobs issue that made the difference.

the senator alan cranston button hole the senator from montana lee metcalf with one vote to go. you want to be the guy responsible for all these people losing their jobs and metcalf said no. so the jobs argument keeps recurring and recurring but, you know, i think people weren't going to let them get in the way in doing the oversight that he felt was necessary. >> if dwight eisenhower were to live today and see the military industrial complex, and i assume the industrial complex means the connection to the corporations and to banks, what do you think he would say about the picture today?

>> well, i think it would have been hard to imagine what we have today. we spend twice as much on the military as we spend when eisenhower left office. a company like lockheed martin is made up of 18 different companies that came together to form this one large company. if you have lockheed martin, northup grummond and boeing, you have, you know, the bulk of the defense spending goes to these large contractors. so in terms of sheer size, he would not have imagined it. and in terms of what i talked about before, companies being able to do pretty much everything the government does, whether it's outsourcing intelligence or whether it's, you know, counting up tax revenue. so in that sense i think it's quite different, of course, in eisenhower's day, many of the same techniques were occurring, things like advertising, weapons, that bothered him very much. things like the revolving door where people went from the

military into the defense industry and lobbied their old colleagues. that existed. so many of the same tools i think exists now for influence, but i think the amount of money being spent, the size of the companies, the amount of money at stake i think is significantly different than what it was under eisenhower. >> he could look at other things as well. he would look at the military industrial complex and i think he would see it. bill i think has put his finger on this as best i take from this book and other articles i've read on this, the way the mill industrial complex today works different. he would look at other things and he would look at campaign finance, how are campaigns financed? in our country. what percentage of citizens turn out on elections? how vigorous is the democratic process? you know, when i say he looked back on his career and his life

and times, and when this is a seen as a classical farewell, it's a farewell of about the great riddle of his lifetime. the riddle that faced the wartime leadership and the people who came afterwards. and how is it in the early mid-20th century we could have such progress on one side and such horrors on the other? world war i, the great depression, world war ii, the cold war and all of the threats that sort of hung like swords over western civilization as he is passing kennedy in 1961. his answer to that as someone who had been a supreme commander in europe and who had made a study of his adversary as well as everybody he went through that war with. that the reason that a country like germany became totalitarian -- the reason europe lost its morale and so forth is that people ceased to be citizens. people who could have been ceased to be citizens.

they withdrew from public affairs. and they allowed people to make decisions for them. they yielded to the loudest voices in the most i seeable-looking movements. they simply stepped out. this is a phenomenon that is common throughout europe. and i think, again, building from his experience, i think this is the real moral that i take away from it. and that is it's the vigor of the democratic process and oversight. defense industries are going to organize themselves as best they can. they are going to retain military people, military people know their business. there's going to be an interlocking directorate. there is going to be a complex. we are, quote, compelled closed quote to have one. the question is how vigorously are we overseeing them? >> do either of you agree with

abraham's theory that the whole cold war was caused by them lying about how the soviet union was getting ready to make war with the u.s. and that do you believe that he was murdered to shut him up when he was dying of cancer? >> well, for me that's pretty easy. my answer's no. >> well, the question did he call the cold war? the cold war was well underway before james became secretary of defense. in fact, my grandfather was assigned -- he was acting as informal jc chairman under forest hall and, of course, was detailed by truman to counsel him and take him under his wing as he sunk into a profound melancholy that led to his suicide. and my grandfather knew him well and his writings about him and his diaries are very

interesting. i think james was someone who was listened to in government but he was not -- his views on the soviets were considered alarmist within the government. the real causes of cold war is much deeper. i think probably the best -- it's not james. it's kennan. kennan's telegram in early 1946 lays out a cold war -- what's causing it and what the american and western side of this is going to be with great prescience. this is an analysis of the soviets written by somebody who -- who spent most of his professional life at that point to the soviet union and understood the dynamics and western dynamics and opposition to it. and he and other people who i think had sensible views on the cold war which predominated for

the most part, understood war could be avoided. that the danger of war was ever-present because of the soviet experience because of the great losses in europe, the great devastation that that war caused and so forth. a conflict of some kind was going to ensue. >> yes, over there. oh, wait for the microphone. [inaudible] >> we couldn't hear. >> i was thinking in terms of the claim of kennedy in terms of the missile gap. and i was wondering if there was some evidence of chagrin on the part of eisenhower being frustrated and being put in a

corner, of the republicans being put in a corner with this creation of this myth that there was of a missile gap. did you find i find of that in your search? >> very much so. as i say the question of did he mean this warning. did he mean the full import of it? his whole second term doesn't make sense except in light of his farewell address. when they began planning this address in 1959, they planned about 10 others along with it. this was to be the capstone of these addresses. and what they were reeling from or responding to at the time was this public psychology created by the soviet sputnik success in october, 1957 and the cries of missile gap. there was a feeling in the eisenhower administration that the voices of reason were being overwhelmed by pentagon-generated propaganda. by vested interests that wanted to keep a cold war going because

it was good for whatever. and they felt, therefore, that they were going to inject a voice of reason. and this speech definitely stems from that. but what's missing in this speech that might have been present in some of the earlier versions of it, if my recollection is correct, because i did see many drafts of it years ago, is that, i think, the tone of regret and here and now is drained out of the final versions of this speech. this speech sort of rises above it and puts it in a wider context and that's 20th century. this thing is here to stay. when we organized a national government and we acknowledged our energy dependence we won't have independence. we have a national food distribution system, we have a national medical system and everything is national and we're all interdependent on one another, this is something that has been chosen.

a way of life we have chosen in the 20th century which is different from 19uth century. citizenship is going to work differently. military industrial complex is just simply part of this. and we just to have understand that the -- you know, the essence or the principles of citizenship have not changed and that we are in the final analysis responsible for our own lives and active members of a mill society. but i think, you know, looking back that i'm emphasizing, dwight eisenhower town of abilene probably had more in common with the high middle ages than it had in common with the society that he was president of in the late 1950s. and this is more qualitative change than any generation experienced in history and so he reflects on it. i mean, the speech he reflects very, very in many ways because we're talking about this very thing 50 years later and we'll be talking about it for decades to come, i'm sure of that. >> i'd like to talk --

>> just a second, the other point being that eisenhower really held the line until sputnik. he kept military spending relatively level even during the period of anticommunism and he stood up to the bomber lobby to some extent to the missile lobby even though there was insubordination sometimes in his own ranks. his own secretary of the air force testifying on behalf of a bomber that eisenhower did not want to build. so i think, you know, his struggles were very concrete with the lobbyists and that's what generated the rhetoric of the speech. it was from his own experience. >> when i study lockheed and think about the concerned alert citizenry, one cannot help but realize that the amount of corporate lobbyists in washington today mean that there are -- a congress person could spent their entire day to meet with the lobbyists who come to visit.

it's not impossible to think 50 years later to change the military industrial complex and call it the military industrial congressional complex. and in relation to lockheed, if you could comment, sir, the fact that this company has control of homeland security information systems, our postal information systems, the census. there seems to be absolutely no concern among our congressional representatives about the need for checks and balances. >> i think that's right. you know, when i did the book, i was surprised myself at how many different aspects of our lives the company is involved in. and i think, you know, there was the period where privatization was all the rage and it was felt that private companies could do things more efficiently and effectively. that's hard to see how you're going to get that result from a company that's had huge cost overruns in their defense business and it's been a mixed

result in terms of performance. in terms of the reach of the companies, i think a lot of times we don't even keep people in government who have the technical expertise to monitor some of the things that these companies are doing. so i think there's got to be some taking back of competence of government if we're going to be ride hard on these companies. it's something that doesn't exist. if you have, for example, the cia has more half contract employees now so you've got people who work for private companies running agents, helping write the president's daily brief, doing things that prior were really considered governmental functions. so it's bad enough trying to keep tabs on an intelligence agency with all the secrecy involved but if you add a corporate layer and a corporate confidentiality, it's all that more difficult. >> we have time for two more questions. yes, right here. behind you, yeah.

is there a microphone for -- it's true that we're waiting but the questions are going to be really good so it's worth it. [laughter] >> good evening, thank you very much -- >> it's not on. >> your mic. >> i wondered if you could shed any light on the connection between the interstate highway system, general motors and the interstate highway system was purportedly developed is a national defense strategy? >> well, it was called the national defense highway act and that was notion that, you know, in a pinch it can land bombers on it. if we had a national defense subway, we would probably have

better subways. [laughter] >> although lockheed martin failed in putting cameras in our subways. so just as a little advertisement for my little axe i have to grind. >> i was going to -- the thing i can add to that is that shortly after armistice day in 19 -- early 1919, i think, then i guess he was -- i don't know if he reverted to greater or whatever but dwight eisenhower four years out of west point volunteered for a transcontinental convoy that was commissioned by the department of the army to test the american highway system. they spent about four months or five months of going from the ellipse in washington all the way out to sacramento, california. it took four or five months to do that trip. and their mission was to develop an assessment about the american road system.

and this was a historic journey. eisenhower was on it. and when he had the power to accelerate a national -- a national highway system as part of -- bill's point is right, infrastructure in 1954, '55, i think this was something that he was all too happy to do as a president. to see that help that go through. and i think also he was justified in military terms as many programs were in the 1950s. this was cold war-era but i think it was an infrastructure project and i think it was something -- it was the product of many years of planning. i think it was shelved by world war ii. the roosevelt administration actually had planned that way but it was fulfillment of a vision that planners in washington, the army corps of engineers and others had for making the united states a truly continental economic system,

which is what we have. >> we have time for one more question. if you could just speak loudly. >> we need a microphone. >> okay. >> speak louder. >> no, wait for the mic. >> oh, okay. your question is worth waiting for. >> speak from the diaphragm. [laughter] >> yes. mccain and obama -- result of their actions is so cynical that the program that was cut and the money was added back. in working on your book, do you see any real desire given our needs to control the budget -- is there -- is there any sincere effort, anybody who's really trying to cut back on the military industrial complex in the government today?

>> well, i think it's just the beginning of some debate and some hope. representative barney frank has joined with ron paul to come up with a proposal to cut $100 billion in the military budget, $100 billion per year over the next 10 years. i have other 50 members of congress signed up of him. paul is of interest because, you know, he's a favorite of the tea party and his son rand paul has called for cutting spending as has eric cantor and this is all tied to the notion of deficit reduction which has its own issues, you know, whether we should be reducing the deficit in the middle of a recession and so forth. but if there's going to be a deficit reduction plan, there are much forces at work saying the military should take it's fair share and since it's 50% of i say budget it would be a substantial reduction.

and the arms lobby is going to fight back and lockheed martin is to buck mckeon and daniel inouye who has the appropriate subcommittee in the senate. he's the number one guy for earmarks so that means, you know, what takes away with one hand he might try to give back with the other. but i think there will be a battle. there will be a debate which is new, something we haven't really seen in the last 10 years i would say. >> so i think we're -- i think that was great. thank you all. [applause] >> this event was hosted by barnes & noble booksellers in new york city. to find out about events at any of the barnes & noble stores around the country visit bn.com and click on the events tab at the top of the page.

>> booktv is on twitter. it's on nonfiction books and authors. twitter.com/booktv. >> why a nonfiction? >> well, the truth was, it's for my son. and 8 years ago on the night my son was born i said i'm going to write a book that lasts his whole life and i was coming back from the hospital and it's that great moment when you can dream anything for your child. you can be a great person and a generous person and with all that idealism i said i'm going to write a book that lasts his whole life and i came home and started writing rules for him to live by. there's pictures of it. and what i wanted was -- i think i'm going to write rules down. i said one, love god. two, friends with the fat kid in class. but the truth was i knew nothing about being a father. i knew nothing so a friend of

mine told me this amazing story about the wright brothers. that every time the wright brothers would go out to fly their plane, they'd bring enough materials for multiple crashes which means every time they went out they knew they would fail and they would crash and rebuild and rebuild and that's why they took off. and i said i love that story. i want my son to hear that story. i want my daughter to hear that story. i want them to know if they have a dream and they work they can do anything in this world. and i said that's the book i'm going to write. not a book of rules but a book full of heroes and heroes for my son is really that collection of 50 heroes from rosa parks to mr. rogers to jim henson -- all of them showing them what we're capable in our best days. >> who is barbara johns. >> barbara johns is a teenager. i want the book to have famous people. it has someone like martin luther king, jr., or abraham lincoln but i wanted it to have regular person and barbara johns was a high school student and almost an unwitting civil rights

activist. and barbara johns at a time in 1951 basically saw a school bus ride by her and her school bus was broken down and they saw another school bus that was full of the white kids that was going to the good school and her school had no books, no materials and it was a horrible school. and she organized a walkout. she said, you know, we're going to protest it. we're going to say forget about it. she's one of the unknown people and her test case as they walked out was one of the cases used in brown v. board of education. where did it come from? a teenager, a teenager is one of the people who is responsible for it. the book is filled -- there's a guy named frank and frank is a police officer. and he found out about a boy with leukemia who also wanted to be a police officer. so he had a little motorcycle course made for the boy and a little uniform made for the boy and frank finds out the boy with leukemia goes into a coma. so this police officer goes to the boy's hospital room and he

says to the boy -- as the boy is unconscious, he says to the boy, i want to put a little motorcycle wings on them and this is a true story, the boy wakes up out of his coma and smiles. the boy eventually goes back in the coma and eventually dies but on the way home from the funeral, frank looks at his boy we made that boy happy for one day and that's how the make-a-wish foundation was born and i never knew that story and i want my son to know that story and that's what heroes for my son is all about. celebrate all these people who can share one dream and change an entire world. >> we only have a few minutes with our author brad meltzer. who are your heroes? go ahead and start calling in now. who is on the cover here?

>> you know, it's funny everyone thinks it's my son. i have two sons. and my publisher wanted me to pick between my kids. i'm not that stupid. you can't pick between your boys so that's actually my very good friend rusty and elizabeth -- it's their dear son. my kids are in the back but i will say we kept it a family affair. the last heroes in the book is my favorite hero in the book. it's my mother. and my mom died two years ago from breast cancer. >> teri medicalser >> and before she died my publisher was shutting down and this is early in my career. if anyone would take over my contract i was terrified that these were my last moments of watching my career. and i called my mom, and i said, mom, i'm so enforce about this and she said i'd love you if you were a garbage man and she wasn't taking a crack at garbageman. but she says i don't care what your and i love you and every day i write those words i'd love you as a garbage man soaking in her strength. the best hero in the book they are on the last two pages because they are blank.

and they say your hero's photo here and your hero's story here and i promise you take this book and you give it this holiday season or on a birthday or whatever it and you write one sense about your father, your grandfather, a military member of your family about what they mean to you, that will be the most beautiful page in heroes for my son and i wanted the book something you could give to your son at any age and say thank you for being my hero. >> you included two contemporary u.s. presidents in this book. who are they? >> the book has no politics and prose so nobody is in it for political reasons i putt george bush in there and president obama and not for political reasons. and bush was in there when he was flying -- he was one of the youngest pilots in world war ii and there's the picture of him and his plane was going down. he had two men on the plane with him he was flying with and ass the plane crashes and is crashing into the ocean, he maneuvers the plane so they can get out before he can. and uses that moment of selflessness rather than saving

himself first, they lifted them out first and he jumps out and crashes in the ocean. he's vomiting. he's crying. he's terrified and when i saw him and i heard this story, he told me he still thinks of these guys all the time and here's the guy who became the president of the united states and never told anyone that story and never ran for it and never promoted himself. i want my son to have that humility and barack obama is in the book not because of any political reason. no one knows where he'll be in the end but i will say this, what he represents, whatever your politics are as one of the greatest ideals in all of america. and that is that anyone can be president. i want my son to know that anyone can be my president and i want my daughter to know that anyone can be president so they were both put in there for nonpolitical reasons. >> how did you get to know george h.w. bush. >> one day i got a letter from a real person who said i like your books a lot and it was a fan letter but it was written by

george h.w. bush. and i don't care what you're a politics you're the president and you wrote me a letter and i'll send you a free book. >> first call on heroes, maryland. go ahead, please >> caller: yes. i wanted to thank you for creating such a wonderful book. i think it's extremely important that people really understand that, you know, the heroes are not just the people who are famous but i like that you did put in people who are not famous. and a kid who has an opportunity not only your son but anyone who's giving this gift to their family to let them know that ordinary people, not only can do extraordinary things but also be truly extraordinary by pursuing their goals and dreams and really going after and trying to make a difference so i want to thank you for this and it's something that i share with my family. >> thank you. >> who's your hero? >> caller: my hero would be my

mother. she was an african-american woman from the south. had a ninth grade education, raised my brother and i and my brother went to we see lian and today he's president of institutional trading on wall street and i have my master's degree. >> all right. >> and that's exactly right. the thing is, is that we all know and say oh, our heroes are george washington, martin luther king, and lucille ball and all these amazing people but the real heroes are the heroes we live with every day. and that is vital. in fact, i should tell you if you want to talk about the hero who i spent my time with, is my son, my oldest son, jonas, i wrote the book for him. and this is a moment i recently gave him the book. and this is a moment i waited eight years and i'm presenting it to him and he doesn't care about eleanor roosevelt. he doesn't care about rosa parks he goes looking for the athletes in the book. and he is flipping through and

he finds a book of roberto clemente but i tell my son all the time do you know what being a famous athlete means. nothing. it seems nothing. it means you're good at sports. it doesn't make you a better person or nicer or anything. i say to him do you know what's selling a lot of books and being on the bestseller anything, it doesn't make me smarter or nothing. he's reading it because there was a earthquake in nicaragua and roberto sent three plane loads of food and medicine for the victims and they were stolen. they were confiscated so he sent a fourth plane i'm so determined to make sure the fourth plane will get there. i'm going to get on the plane myself and make sure it gets there. and he gets on the plane and the plane crashes in the ocean killing everyone on board. and it says -- he's not a hero 'cause he died. he's a heroes 'cause of why he got on board. and so my son is reading this and he's so inspired waiting for

i'm the greatest father on the planet and he says dad, this is sad and i realized for the moment i'd broken his heart and the next day the book has backfired in my face. i don't put the book out for him to read. he comes racing into the room on his own. he grabs the book by himself and says, dad, who are we reading tonight and i said what about roberto clemente and he said like him and he gave his life to save those people and that's what "heroes for my son" is all about. we all complain about there's no good heroes in the world we focus on athletes, we focus on celebrities. we have a say in who our kids emulate and i wanted this to be my say. >> hope sound, florida, you've got 15 seconds. >> caller: thank you. my hero was daron frye and he was from a old white protestant family who went to marseilles

and basically saved the intellectual of germany. and used so many ruse to get passports and visas for them to get out of france and nazi occupied france into spain and eventually to the united states. and saved them and saved their body of intellectual work for the western world. that is a hero. of mine. >> great hero. we put in the book in that list that you have my favorite person is miep gies. and i had anne frank in there. but she's actually the woman who saved and hid anne frank's family from the nazis and here the nazis come rushing in and they raid her house and at that moment miep can say i didn't know they were there and never apologize and see she tries to

bribe the nazis and don't take the people away and the nazis tear up her place and they rummage her stuff and the one thing they discard and forget about this one red checked book. miep is the woman that history doesn't really know about. she actually died last year and basically she's the one who saved the diary. she's the one who preserved it and when otto frank came back and said, you know, my daughter is dead, she never read the book. she kept it for anne frank. she handed it to her father and this is your daughter's legacy to you. and that's the reason that we have anne frank's diaries because this you know known woman saved it. >> and very quickly before this next panel starts, brad, how much research, political research, goes into your thrillers? >> listen, i wish we didn't live in a world where we don't get our news from comedians and we just get jokes but i realize over the years people like to get the real facts out of my books. and i take that seriousl