bringing in. so people have to become much more aware of the information they're bringing in, was it to help them understand or to recruit them to a cause? this is what this book is designed to do, to help them use the process, the methodology of verification that the best truth seekers use to create their own news package. >> bill kovach, tom rosenstiel, "blur: how to know what's true in the age of information overload." >> up next, william hartung and david eisenhower, the grandson of dwight eisenhower, discuss president eisenhower's farewell address delivered on january 17, 1961, in which he warned about the growth of a military

industrial complex in the united states. mr. hartung's latest book, "prophets of war," contracts the rise of lockheed martin. david eisenhower's latest looks at president eisenhower's life after he left the white house. their conversation takes place at barnes and noble booksellers in new york city. it's just over 45 minutes. ..

american makers could with china and as required make swords as oil. but now we can no longer risk the improvisation of national defence. we have been compelled to create a permanent industry of vast proportions. added to this, 3.5 million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. we annually spend our 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, has 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 feel to comprehend its grave implications. our toilet resources and livelihood are all involved, so is the very structure of our society. in the council of the 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 lead of this combination in danger of our liberties or space process these. we should take nothing for granted. on the alert and knowledgeable citizenry can have the meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security of liberty may prosper together. so that's what we're talking about and working from. david is going to give some context and then i will talk a little bit about some contemporary applications of concept. >> great. thanks a lot, bill and lou for the introduction. it's a pleasure to be here on barnes and noble. it's a thrill to be here in new york city on this night. >> [inaudible] >> excuse me? >> [inaudible] [applause]

>> thank you. i want to congratulate bill on the completion of "prophets of war," which is his book. this is a history of the rise of the military industrial complex from the 1930's for work in desolate of the phenomenon that dwight eisenhower drew attention to in this speech, and which he warns against the unwarranted acquisition of influence by military industrial complex. i'm going to provide a little bit of background 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 excerpts bill read, it describes a permanent condition, which developed within his lifetime in national affairs. he draws attention to it. he acknowledges the problem of standing mobilization is

something that is compelling, that we are compelled to face. this is not something we do as a matter of choice. it is something we are compelled to face. it doesn't offer specific prescriptions. there is no 5. plan here for research and the military-industrial complex, and in fact, what he does is comes up with an interesting and a sort of broad prescription. 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 to understand that a military industrial complex will acquire certain momentum in national affairs but they must justify themselves as we justify other things as well, and i believe that your book highlights some stories that i am aware of, the fitzgerald story in the pentagon, william proxmire, senator from wisconsin on remember well and so forth and

other clashes between the military industrial complex and the pull of local branches of government. to give you a little background of the speech, my own book picks up about 65 hours after it was given coming and i would stress a somewhat different aspect of it by way of background and this has to do with a lurch citizenry "going home to glory" opens shortly after the speech is given when the eisenhowers are driving back in the winter chill the david john kennedy was a moderate president of the united states. these are remarkable times. in the year 2000, martin medhurst, texas a&m, a rhetoric professor, told teachers of rhetoric in the united states on the bills standing speeches delivered by americans in the 20th century. what were the? and on that list, dwight

eisenhower's inaugural address stands 18 out of 100, but thousands and thousands of speeches given so, one of the top 20 speeches to be on that list, the john kennedy inaugural stands three. these are to 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 with the transition was of course load wartime leadership is yielding the range of power to the junior officers of world war ii. there is a generational shift that happens in 1861. the other thing significant about it is that it occurs in the week 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 the two

statements, the kennedy inaugural and the eisenhower farewell, the quality of the expression in the two speeches are worthy of a space transition. we are able to overcome a great divide in that period and find a way forward and during that transition, and there was a very successful transition. it's also a nostalgic speech because of the pre-eminence of the united states the the eisenhower's farewell address presumes the pre-eminence of the united states that the kennedy inaugural presumes as well. this is a pre-eminence that may never be repeated in international history. there is a connection, by the way, but in the eisenhower farewell and the kennedy inaugural classic statement and in that connection is citizenship. the eisenhower's speech is in the final analysis about citizenship. his prescription and alert citizenry assumes 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 and the changing context of his lifetime. he was born in 1890 comer raised in rural kansas, where everybody is a self-sufficient farmer and a self-sufficient rural area, citizenship works in a certain sort of way. by the time he is bequeathing office or leasing office in 1960 we have entered the computer age, the space age, the atomic age world population has tripled, america is an international power and so forth the world has gotten very complicated coming in this complicated circumstance, the question is how does the citizenship work, and he identifies barriers to it. the military-industrial complex, that is a vested interest that drives decisions and potentially

corrupt so our space process is a barrier to the effective citizenship. john kennedy's inaugural about citizenship 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 frontier confront the challenges of the world. a word about the timelessness of the speech. a great farewell seeks timelessness come as does an inaugural. there are both certain kinds of speeches that both epitaph speeches at a ceremonial speech reaches timelessness. the eisenhower address a arrives at that in an interesting way. and i will summarize this, bill, quickly. i feel that the early draft of it -- and there was a speech in progress for a long time. i think the planning for it began in may of 1959, so it was planned for 18 months. i have seen versions of this speech, drafts on file in ethylene kansas, there are no

news stories that another set of draft has appeared in the files of malcolm, involved in the drafting and so that tells of the picture. the picture that i saw and speak from memory tonight is the early draft of the eisenhower farewell or very forward looking, and i think they reflect the sense that he is losing ground, his administration is losing ground on and after the democrats when the 1960 election the reflected disappointment of the election. sour grapes so to speak. he is warning the country in effect against successors who may not have judgment. somebody gets to the president in the drafting or in ochers to him that this is not task of a farewell para a farewell is to ease the transition to make it easier. so another set of draft swear these warnings are sort of modified and taken back. and then finally, this crystallizes into the great farewell address that it is.

when he sees those worrying about specific prescriptions for the months and years to come and allows to look back over his career and extract lessons from his 50 years in public service, and to formulate from that a set of insights and prescriptions 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, the pressure on kennedy during the transition was to knowledge that the election and offer 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 positions and his responsibility, what takes over in the final draft is a decision to look forward.

eisenhower is surrounding power and kennedy is assuming his power is to lead coming and when he looks forward and eisenhower looks back if they stand back-to-back, that is when the two speeches, delivered within 65 hours of each other become timeless. they are both aimed at our culture, to conservatives. eisenhower saying are you going to allow yourselves to be dominated by a vested interest, by a military industrial complex or stand the way of effective citizenship? kennedy reformers are saying are you going to allow laws to equip all of us in our daily lives for the responsibility for what we are and can be as citizens is sort of in this spirit the torch passes between the two generations who have a great deal in common and so on, but also passes from one party to the next in which the leaders did disagree.

it passes in a memorable moment, january, 1961, very different moods. at the kennedy inaugural is an excellent speech, the eisenhower farewell is a cautious speech. it's almost as though you have visions of the ruling triumph where the conquer exults in the splendor of a triumph, but there were voices of caution. remembering, reminding even the heaviest of all leaders that glory can be fleeting. this is how the speech is sort of intertek in january, 1961. they contain a timeless message about the future. kennedy asks a 1961 with any generation trade places were times with the generation sticking power in 1961. i guess the question for us today is what we do so today. i think the answer then was no and the answer today is no. the future as demonstrated by the past is ours to make. it depends on us, it depends upon will dudley our willingness

and determination to accept responsibility for our lives in the face of the future. that is the moral of eisenhower's farewell and the kennedy inaugural and peace restored three speeches that have been exactly 50 years ago tonight. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, david. i think that gives us a good context. i going to talk about the military industrial complex of action today. i'm going to look at a recent battle on capitol hill, the battle for the f-22 combat aircraft, the most expensive fighter plane ever built, built to fight a soviet fighter that was never built. 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 of your ideas.

and ultimately, lockheed martin lost the battle, but i keep its instructive why they lost, which 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 from my book. this is the very beginning. it is a striking and come and intimidating aircraft lessors and that background with the slogan up front in all capital 300 billion protected, 95,000 employed. the ad for lockheed martin's f-22 fighter plane was part of the company's last effort to save one of its most profitable weapons from being terminated as they say in standard budget parliament. the f-22 had scores of times, in print, on political websites, and even washington's metro, one writer at "the washington post" joked that lockheed martin's gracia full-page ads with 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 the pentagon wanted, but only half of the air force and lockheed martin were striving for, the company started racking up big numbers on its side. buyer early 2009, months in advance of president obama's first detailed budget submission, lockheed martin and its partners have lined up 44 senators and 200 members of the house of representatives to sign onto a save the rafter 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 needed to defend the country. that argument was there in the background but it wasn't the driving force. lockheed martin's ad for the plan got more specific as time went on with a series of showing

people that work on the components of the plane with things like 2025, f-22 jobs in connecticut. 125 machines helena montana. 50 titanium manufacturing jobs in ohio. and 30 hydraulic systems specialists in mississippi. all that was missing were 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 the battle was laid out by senator john mccain on the senate floor. there was an amendment to stop the increase in the f-22 spending that he and senator carl levin, democrat of michigan, brought together. and this is what he said about the amendment. the segment that is probably the most impact full amendment i have seen in this body of almost any issue, much less the issue of defense. it boils down to whether we are going to continue the business as usual, once the weapons system gets into production and

never dies or whether we are going to take the necessary steps to reform the acquisition process in this country became ended quoting two paragraphs from president dwight d. eisenhower's famous military-industrial complex speech about the unwarranted influence of the arms lobby and the need for an alert 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 military complex in the role of congress and funding unnecessary weapons systems like the f-22. so, that was a sort of 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, republican from the bush administration, made an excellent case against it. he said first of all, there is no mission. here we are fighting to wars,

not using it in either of the wars. if we look ahead to china, even if we don't build a single f-22, we are going to have 20 to 25 times more sophisticated fighter planes as china has even 50 or 20 years down the road. so, whether it was the current mission, the future mission, he made a good case of whether they needed. he also pointed to the price. he said it was obscenely expensive which it is true with $350 million a copy. i think the second thing that caused them to lose was by partisanship. john mccain and dhaka, finally agree on one thing, though we didn't need this plan. maybe the last thing they will agree on for all i know. that obama himself made a threat to veto any defense bill that included the f-22. this was a president could not only in his presidency, that effort as far as we can tell. there had never been easy to targeted on one specific system like this. and then the administration standout across the country

twisting arms of democrats who were leading 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 the reduced the of 22 bye $4 billion, the increased the of 35, another lockheed martin played by $4 billion. and secretary defense gates made the statement that well, you know, i feel that's taking -- >> [inaudible] >> the f 35 was only increased by $4 billion but had jobs and companies in the same states and districts, essentially they were replacing the f35 spending for f-22 spending. so in a sense, it was the exception that proved the rule. they couldn't get it done without throwing the bone to the industrial military complex, 4 billion-dollar bill and at that. so that's just one exit of the

resilience of the company like lockheed martin, which comes from its size. it gets $36 billion a year as our tax money, which amounts to about $260 per tax paying household. supply have been empowered to collect those checks this evening. [laughter] and i will pass them on to lockheed martin. so if you come to get your book signed, have your checkbooks ready. [laughter] it's also a company in addition to a size that's involved in many aspects of our lives that you might not expect. not only does it make weapons, cluster bombs, nuclear weapons, the combat ships, fighter planes, but it also works for the cia, the national security agency, the fbi, the part of homeland security, the irs, the census bureau come pretty much any agency of government that we interact with probably lockheed barton is involved either in doing surveillance or information processing ore and

other essentials aspect of the agency's operation. i wrote a piece recently on the web that describes it as lockheed martin's shadow government, and i think it remains to be seen whether they are going to serve that or not, but i think it's certainly that danger given their involvement in so many aspects of our government and our lives. so, that's what i really have to say to get the conversation started. and i think, david, do you have any of your thoughts you want to share? >> i was struck by that passage early 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 office of our industrial military complex speech. they were going to include congressional complex, and was

struck from the draft because i fink because of the logic. the speech is really directed at congress. how we effectively do you and i pose as alert citizens to bring lockheed martin to been given to our purposes when we read books of course. but in the final analysis we are depending upon is the vigor, congressional oversight and the strength of our political branches. so the eisenhower warning is directed to congress. it is a call on congress to exercise oversight and represent us and not fall into the trap of representing them. and for that reason, this very, what mccain is a living demonstration of is that the congress is the key variable and

the office of our speech, both men were conscious of it. >> of the question of oversight, senator william proxmire said the gold standard. he was closely involved in the lockheed martin story. in the 50's they build the aircraft called the c5 which was supposed to be able to take large numbers of troops and material anywhere in the world in short notice. lockheed described it as a fleeing military base and there was some discussion whether this was a good idea, whether if we could get anywhere quickly it would intervene more quickly in more places but it never came to that because the plane was $2 billion over estimated cost, couldn't do the missions it was set up to do, so there was no possibility of using it to intervene anywhere because it just wasn't working. but this was buried in the bureaucracy of the air force, they were not going to reveal this to congress until

fitzgerald steps forward and put his career risk and lost his job over this bid was proxmire for the public. he had fitzgerald testify about it and the trouble the committee when he lost his pentagon job he wanted to make sure the public understood that this was an abuse of our tax dollars the we couldn't stand and he pulled back some of the money from the cost overruns, the company did have to be some hundreds of millions out of the 2 billion overrun and then he stepped from their to opposing it to of 50 billion-dollar loan guarantee to bail out the company as a result of its problems in the c5 and its airline business, and devotee, proxmire lost by one vote in the senate and was the jobs issue them a difference. senator alan cranston was one vote to go sit if you want to be responsible for all these people losing their jobs and he said

no. so the jobs argument keeps recurring and recurring, but i feed they were not going to let them get in the way of doing the oversight he thought 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 banks what do you think he would say about protection today >> i think it would have been hard to imagine what we have today. we spend twice as much on the military as we spent with

eisenhower left office. a company like waukee and martin is a devotee to different companies that came together to form the large company. if you have lockheed martin, the northrop grumman and boeing, the bulk of defense spending to the large contractors, so in terms of size he wouldn't have imagined it and in terms of what i talked about before, companies being able to do pretty much everything the government does with its outsourcing intelligence or whether it's, you know, accounting of tax revenue, so in that sense i feel it's quite different now, but i think the question in eisenhower made the same techniques were occurring, things like advertising, weapons that bothered him very much. things like the revolving door when people went from the military into the defense industry and lobbied the colleagues that existed 70 of the same tools exist now for influence with the amount of

money being spent, the size of the companies, the amount of money at stake if it is significantly different than it was under eisenhower. >> to look at the other things as well he would look at the military industrial complex and seat see it. bill has put his finger as best i take from the book and other articles i've read on this. the pattern or the way the military industrial complex works today is somewhat different. but he would also look at other things, campaign finance, how are campaigns financed in the country, but percentage of citizens turned out on the elections? how vigorous is the process? when i say he looks back on his career and his life and times and when this was a classical farewell, it is a farewell in the final analysis about the great riddle his lifetime the

face of the wartime leadership and that is how is that in the early mitt 20th century we could have such progress on one side and such tour of the other world war i, the great depression, world war ii, the cold war and all of the threats that have hung like swords of the western civilization passing power to kennedy in 1961. his answer to that as somebody that had been a supreme commander in europe and the study, others as well as everybody the reason a country like germany came to a totalitarian reason that europe lost its moral and so for this people cease to be citizens, people who could have been ceased to be citizens they withdrew from public affairs and they allow people to make decisions for them. they yielded to the loudest voices in the most irresistible.

they just simply stepped out and i think this was a phenomenon throughout europe and that again building from his experience this is the moral that i take away from it and that this is the vigor of the space 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 is going to be an interlocking directorate. there is going to be a complex. this, quote, compelled to have one. the question is how vigorous we are overseeing get. >> would you agree with abraham's fury that it was caused by lead about how the

soviet union was getting ready to make war with the u.s. and [inaudible] >> for me that is pretty easy. and the answer is no. islamic the question is did it cause the cold war? the cold war was well under way beach for james became secretary defense, in fact my grandfather was assigned as, he was acting as an informal chairman and was detailed by truman to counsel him and take him under his wing has he some kid to a profound melancholy. my grandfather knew him well the and his writings about him. i think that he was somebody that was listened to in government but he wasn't his views on the soviet were

considered alarmist within the government. the real cause of the cold war are deeper. i think probably the best, and it's not forestall come its cannon. his long telegram in the early 1946 lease out the cold war what's causing yet a and with the american and the western side of it is going to be with a great science. this is an analysis written by somebody that spent most of his professional life to that point in the soviet union understood the dynamics of not only that regime but western dynamics in opposition to its. he into the people who i think have sensible views on the cold war which predominated for the most part understood that the war could be avoided, the danger was never present the of the

soviet experience because the great losses in europe, the great devastation of that and so forth, a conflict of some kind was going to ensue. >> yes, over there. >> wait for the microphone. >> [inaudible] >> i think in terms of the claims of kennedy and the missile gap, and i was wondering if there was some evidence of sugar in on a point of eisenhower being frustrated and put in the corner, the republicans being put in the corner that there was a missile gap that could find evidence of that?

>> very much so. it was a question of what the eisenhower mean. his whole second term doesn't make sense except in light of his farewell address. when they began planning this in 1959 the plant about ten 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 is public's ecology created by the soviet sputnik in october, 1957 and the cries of missile gap, if there was a feeling in the eisenhower administration the voices are being overwhelmed by pentagon generated propaganda, by the vested interest the wanted to keep the cold war going because the was good for whatever, and they filled therefore they were going to inject a voice of reason and this stems different

from that, but what stems from the speech might have been present in the earlier versions of it if my recollection is correct because i did see many drafts of it years ago is i think the tone of regret and the here and now is streamed out of the final versions of the speech. this speech sort of rises above and puts it in a wider context and that is played century. that is to stay. when we organize the national government and technology or interdependence, we don't have independent states anymore. we have a national transportation system, a national food distribution system, we have a national medical system, national communications system, everything is national and we are interdependent on one another. this is something that has been chosen, a way of life we've chosen in the 20th century which is different. citizenship is going to work differently.

military-industrial complex simply part of this and we just have to understand the essence of the principals of citizenship and in the final in all this is responsible for their alliances and active members political society, but i fink this looking back i am emphasizing, dwight eisenhower's town of abilene probably had more in common with the ages than with the society that he was president of in the 1950's. and this is more change than any generation experienced in history so he reflects on it. in the speech he reflects a lot of ways because you we are talking about this very thing 50 years later and will be talking about it for decades to come. >> i would like to -- >> just a second. the other point being that eisenhower really held the line until sputnik. he cut military spending

relatively level even during the period of the anticommunism and he stood up to the bomber lobby, some extent the missile lobby even though there was insubordination of his own ranks, the secretary of the air force testified on behalf of the bomb of the eisenhower didn't want to build, so i think his struggles were very concrete with the lobbies and that is what generated the rhetoric of the speech from his own experience petraeus bixby two -- the concerned alert citizenry, one cannot help but realize a corporate lobbyist in washington today means a congressperson could spend their entire day meeting the lobby to visit them. it's impossible to think 50 years later to change the military industrial complex and call it the military industrial congressional complex. and in relation to the lockheed

the fact that this company has controlled homeland security information system, the postal information systems, the census, they're seems to be actually no concern among our congressional representatives about the need for checks and balances. >> i think that's right. when i did the book i was surprised myself how many different aspects of our lives and the companies involved and i think it is a period where the privatisation was all the rage and was felt that private companies could do things more efficiently and effectively and you get that result from a company that has huge cost overruns in its defense business and it's been a mixed result in terms of its performance, in terms of the reach of the company i think a lot of times we don't even keep people in government who have the expertise to monitor some of the things these companies are

doing. so there's got to be some taking back of the competence of the government if we are going to able to. i think that the moment it is something that doesn't exist. if you have, for example, the cia more than half contract employee so you have got people who work for the private companies running agents come helping write the president's daily brief and doing things that pryor were considered government functions, so it's bad enough trying to keep tabs on an intelligence agency with all of the secrecy involved but if you had a corporate leader and confidentiality it is all but more difficult. >> we have time for two more questions. >> yes, right here. behind you, yes. >> is there a microphone. >> we are waiting but questions are going to be really good.

>> [inaudible] >> i wondered if you could shed any light on the connection between the interstate highway system, general motors and the thoughts that the interstate highway system was purportedly developed as a national defense strategy. >> well, it was called the national defence highway act and there was a notion that in a pinch it could land bombers on it, but i think probably more importantly it was a way that justifies an important investment infrastructure. if we had a national defence act we have better subways. although lockheed martin failed just as a law advertisement for.

>> shortly after an early 19 and i don't know if they reverted to what ever but dwight eisenhower for years of west point volunteered for a transcontinental conley that was commissioned by the department and the army to test the american highway system. they spent about four months or five months going from washington all the way it to sacramento california. about four or five months to do that and the mission was to develop an assessment about the american system. this was a historic journey to the eisenhower was on it and when he had the power to accelerate the national highway

system as infrastructure and 54, 55 this was something that he was all too happy to do as president, to see that go through and i think also he was justified in military terms as many programs were in the 1950's this was cold war but it was an infrastructure project in the something that was a product of many years of planning shelled by world war ii, the roosevelt of fenestration planned that way but the fulfillment of a vision that the planners in washington, the army corps of engineers and others had for making the united states a truly continental economic system is what we have. >> time for one more question. yes.

>> [inaudible] >> wait for the microphone. your question is worth waiting for. >> the results of their actions are so cynical that the program was cut, the money was added back and working on your book do you see any real desire given our needs to control the budget is there any sincere effort, anybody that is trying to cut back on the military industrial complex in the government today? >> well i think there is just the beginning of some debate and some hope. representative barney frank is joined with ron paul to come up

with a proposal to cut about $100 billion from the military budget, 100 billion per year for the next ten years they have 50 of the members signed up with them his estimate of the tea party and his son brandt paul khator military spending as eric cantor, one of the leadership of the republicans and this is tied to the notion of the deficit reduction which has its own issues whether we should be reducing the deficit in the recession and so forth. but if there is going to be a deficit reduction plan there are forces at work saying that the military should take at least it's fair share and since it is more than 50% of the discretionary budget there would be substantial reduction so this is the fight that's going to happen now and the arms lobby is going to fight back obviously. lockheed martin is the biggest donor to buck mckeon, the incoming chair of the armed services committee. also the biggest donor to the

democrat daniel inouye who has the appropriations committee in the senate. he's called himself the number one guy for your marks. so that means what takes away with one hand he might try to get back with the other but there will be a battle, there will be a debate which is new, something we haven't seen in the last ten years i would say. >> stomach that was great. thank you. [applause] >> this event was hosted by barnes and noble booksellers in new york city. to find out about even said any of the barnes and noble stores around the country, visiting bn.com and click on the stores and even tab at the top of the page. >> we are here the national press club with sam barry and kathi kamen goldmark to talk about their book, "write that book already!." what's the book about? >> it's about how to get a book

published and get your career up and running. so we do encourage people how to write, but it's not so much a craft of writing books as the business of being in author >> what is some of the advice you have? >> your book will not get finished unless you start. that's the thing. you have to apply your butt to the chair and write every day if you possibly can, and we have a lot of tips for the moments when you get stuck, the moments when you feel insecure, tips about finding an agent, and we sort of what the author through the publishing process from beginning to end, and we hope to give people the sort of more realistic sense of how the whole thing works. >> i notice that the foreword is by my angelou. how did you work that out? >> i will admit she and i have been friends for 23 years. i called her and asked her. >> what are some of the other books you have written?

>> i have written a novel, my shoes keep walking back to you, and i have written quite a few essays for anthology and i also co-wrote a rock-and-roll joke book and a founder of the litter the rock band the 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 schumer book, and i also write a column with kathi called the author enablers, if a dear abby for the writers and i was a member of the rock bottom remainders by double nepotism because my brother's dave barry is the lead guitarist sort of come and kathy in the group. >> thank you very much for your time.

author and former cia analyst and head of the cia bin laden unit michael shoyer has a new book coming up in 2011. it's a biography on osama bin laden. michael joins us to preview his book. one of the things you write in your book is something that would like you to expand on. bin laden is not the caricature that we need of him. indeed, if i only had ten qualities to enumerate drafting a biographical sketch of him they could be pious, brave, generous, intelligent, charismatic, patient, visionary, stubborn, egalitarian and most of all realistic. >> i think that he is very much an enemy who we need to respect

because of his capabilities. much like the allies during world war ii. they even know they need to kill him but they have to be respectful of his ability to fight them. and i am afraid what we have gotten from some authors and most politicians is a caricature of bin laden as either a criminal or a somehow matt mann. and i don't think that's true and i think returns our ability to understand the enemy we face. some of what is the danger of that character in your view? >> welcome the danger is we entered a state capabilities of the man. bin laden runs an organization that is absolutely unique in the muslim world for civil because its multi-ethnic, multi linguistic, and there is no other organization like it. it's more like a multinational organization than it is

certainly a terrorist group. also another danger we face is we underestimate the patient, the piety, and most especially the motivation of the lead in. he is truly within the parameters of islam. he's not somehow a renegade or someone who is outside of islam or hijacking the religion. he is what is called a pious city muslim and his appeal comes from the fact that he is believably defending the face against what is deemed by many muslims as an attack from the west. >> knowing that were presuming that he is within the muslim faith and tradition what should the u.s. strategy be? >> i don't know what i was

strategy should be, but i think before you can have a strategy, you need to have the american people on board in terms of understanding with the enemy is about. we have spent now 15 years as of this coming august when bin laden declared 115 years ago in august, 2011. and we have spent all of those years telling the american people that we are being attacked because we have liberty and freedom and women in the workplace and because we have elections or one or more of us may have a beer after work, and that really has nothing to do with the enemy's motivation. if we were fighting an enemy who simply hated us for how we live our life style and how we fought, the threat wouldn't even rise to a lethal new since because there wouldn't be enough manpower to make it more than that. we are really fighting an enemy

who is opposed to what we do, with the u.s. government does come in until we have really understood that, i don't think it is possible to form a strategy. >> you have a sub chapter in your book called war in america. you talk about how osama bin laden wanted to lower the u.s. to fighting in afghanistan. >> yes, he worked very hard from 1996 when he declared war on us until 2001. and i think we frustrated him on several locations. he wanted us on the ground in afghanistan so they could apply the mujahideen al qaeda people, the taliban people, they could apply the same military force against us that they apply against the red army in the 1980's believing that we were a much weaker opponent than the soviets and that is 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 cool in 1999 were all designed but failed to get us into afghanistan, but 9/11 did the trick. >> in your upcoming book, osama bin laden, mr. scheuer, you also talked about the other books that have come out on osama bin laden and his family's. what do you think of those, lawrence wright, etc.? >> i think many of those books are worthwhile coming and what i try to do is take a different tactic than those books so i wouldn't be repeating what had been written already. steve's book is an excellent book i think. there are a number of very good books on bin laden. jason wrote one, a british journalist, and the problem i had with those books for they

were primarily book store based on what other people had said about osama bin laden not what he had said or done himself, and and i felt over the past decade whenever obama speaks his very often described as randy or reading or issuing yet another diatribe. so i would take the primary sources based on interviews, statements and speeches he made and based on what he said he 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 certainly don't have everyone that's available and i have over 800 pages. when you take that information the man that emerges is not like the bin laden that emerges in florence right's books or steve

cole's book as sort of someone who is mentally disturbed or hateful of our life style but rather a man who is very clear about what he believes, what he intends to do and most especially matches words with deeds what is very unusual for any politician in this day and age. >> because your background with the cia did speak to be cleared through the cia? >> yes sergel everything i write whether it is a book or an article or even if i read poetry writer, which i am not come off for the rest of my life it has to be cleared by the cia and this was in fact reviewed twice. once i send it to the publisher and once it was reviewed and we had made changes the publisher wanted or the editor wanted, so the agency i'm very careful to try to respect my obligation to

have that review before it's published. speckles anything to get up? >> no, in fact i worked with the agency now for six years since i retired and probably have published two books and probably 200 articles, and i really only had four or five things taken out by the agency over the 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're simply looking to protect the classified information and the sources and methods and the have been very good to work with. i tell them very accommodating and helpful. >> three different presidents have chased osama bin laden. are you surprised we haven't found him? >> well, i think we have found him certainly between 1998 and

2001. mr. clint had 13 opportunities to either capture him or kill him and certainly mr. bush general had a chance to capture or kill him at tora bora in 2001. i think now especially in the last five years it is not surprising that we haven't gotten him first like any other thing in her 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 leslie undermanned our operations in afghanistan there are not enough american soldiers and intelligence officers to go around. the of semidey tasks and so few people to do them that i don't think it is a surprise that we haven't got that this point. >> what would you like to see

them do in afghanistan? beef up or palau or what? >> i think we've been there too long. we don't have enough soldiers in the u.s. military if we committed a free round-trip that was available to really rectify the situation. in a society no longer really knows how to sidey war, the longer has the stomach for it. we have lost less than 2,000 people in afghanistan from a population of 310 million, and we are rapidly wanting to leave. my own view is we should have fought and won, but i am a halt only if we intend to win and i am afraid mr. bush and mr. obama have never been able to define a winning strategy, and so my own view is it is not worth another american marine or another american soldier's life to stay there. thon