at some period of time, maybe 20 or 30 years, there may be repercussions of repudiation. when you are 30 and you have a life-threatening illness, it's a shock. you can't believe it and it takes a while to realize you have the chance to be okay. at least i have that chance. this last situation i just knew i was really, really sick and advanced. it was an advanced case. >> stage for? >> yeah, stage four. but they had kind of the standard -- i mean, is one of those things were they call you up in a first they called me up and said okay, we found some bad cells. ..

>> there are so many other parts of life to do justice to so to find the balance is such an important thing. with keefe friends and family then ask yourself also you go and holt-- through the whole search process. >> you are in tenth grade

your eighth grade you word dumpster diving? >> if that was to happen now with the abscess and mobile devices and facebook and twitter what would they be looking for? >> i am not sure anymore. [laughter] but i think today but the technology today is breathtaking. talking earlier how to get excited about becoming programmers and so many kids today excited and from this

or whatever i am amazed how anything works internally. and then the kids today too be excited those of tomorrows. >> i should say by the way i grew up here. and what is interesting going to the museum downstairs 2000 years of computer, for me you were there during the personal computer revolution somebody who has directly benefited who has basically been able to create has computing was the way to go.

thank zero. [applause] >> it is terrific to be baggage chicago i was here last week it was 45 degrees.

strange. i have to tell you that this makes me tremendously nostalgic for the days when nobody came to my talks. i like to tell the story of my very first book you been to them when i was living in baltimore. it was called the naked consumer. one guy read it and haiti that he was the target of the book it was about corporations by but we did get a call to go up to lancaster pennsylvania.

i have since learned sunday afternoon talks are death especially if lancaster pennsylvania on the first warm day after six months of hard winter. and then there are 40 books on the table and there you are. somebody had made a plate of chocolate chip cookies sampled them next to me. i sat there for the first hour and a half with nobody coming to talk to me and looking at the books all around me but nobody made eye contact and about the hour and a half point* this woman was coming towards me with a big smile on her face and it looks like she just takes the greatest light i

take my 10 out now i know my career is on its way and she comes up to the table to say how much are the cookies? [laughter] so it is not what you would imagine it to be. so let me say to this lovely venue i am a huge fan. i like to think of myself as in the and good jones repelling down the 900 levels of the dewey decimal system by the way created by the rabbi it -- rabid anti-semite. if you lourdes to give me a choice of night with k blanchett o or a night

locked alone in the library of congress i would take the night with kay blanchett inhofe hardie. [laughter] but i do love libraries. let talking about my book "in the garden of beasts" how it came about crown is my publishing company and i guess people are inherently lazy they call it exclusively by its acronym but it sounds like some they a cat coughed up but if you say it while growling you sound like the possessed bureau of the exorcist. [laughter] take that home with you. at first glance it may not seem like my kind of book

but the book is that 1933/34 with hitler and the whole deal but this is exactly my kind of thing because it is about a period that people think they know an awful lot about but i would argue don't. there is a tendency to view the period 1933 through 1945 as one homogeneous horror or the holocaust when really it was phases. and you may have heard me talk about this it is a hard time. talk about the dark country of new ideas.

we want to be productive. i don't want to sit around sucking my thumb so back about five 4/6 years ago wondering what i would do next. to browse the history section to get an idea of what looks interesting. what covers turn me on zero or turn may off to start my mind thinking. two bmi must read list i have never read it because it was too intimidating. some of your thinking it is the bible but when shares rise and fall of the third reich.

it is like a thriller i fell in love with the. it was a terrific book and only one-third of the way through the book i realized william had been there and had come to berlin and had stayed there as the correspondent. so i started to think he meant these people face to face. he met hitler only he met them at a time when he knew what the ending would be but when nobody had an inkling of the holocaust was coming down the pike and the second world war was in the relatively near future.

when it be to capture a sense of that time? through the eyes of a couple of characters new tours at -- new to berlin. our ripe for an american audience. i very deliberately examined my library of the university of washington campus and began to read and took out as many terrific histories as i could. and then the history of i found a lot of memoirs from that to period and before.

then come across the diary of a chicago man named william dodd and soon afterwards i find a memoir by his daughter martha. i will try to set the scene. imagine you are 63 years old and a mild-mannered professor at the university of chicago with a good national reputation but a professional -- professor of history struggling at a time with financial shortfalls and tired of the engulfing demands. all you want to do is finish of book you are working on with the books of the old south which iran at -- are chronically have been titled the rise and fall of the

north and south. [laughter] said in a very one hot day in june 1933 sitting at your desk at noon precisely it rings. the guy at the other end of the line is fdr the new president of the united states. and one little know he was president at that point* since his inauguration in march. inauguration day because the feeling was you did not want the president to be a lame duck any longer than he had to be. roosevelt is on the line and asks you, would you be the next ambassador to germany? america's first ambassador, the post has been vacant at this point*

for about six months. here is the kicker, he gives you two hours to decide. what he does not tell you is that one reason he has called do that a confidante of his recommended you and one reason he has called you is because nobody else wanted the job. [laughter] three weeks later you find yourself on a ship to germany and you have your family with you and your wife, a grown son, and your 24 year-old daughter. and morissette is one heck of a daughter she is smart, sexy and a flirt and has this thing. away about her that inflames

passions of men young and not so young. 24 she has had an affair with carl sandberg and this is why i do my own research when i was going through her papers at the library of congress, in one file i came across two blocks of carl sandburg hair and a clear plastic archival envelope tied with red. i am here to tell you his hair was as white as his beard and very thick and course. a magical moment for me. [laughter] i am just that way. she has broken to engagements of marriage and is in the midst of a divorce to escape a dead marriage.

personally i think any marriage to a new york banker would be dead. [laughter] but i don't want to cast any aspersions due to the late financial crisis in america but also very close friends with morton wilder so she has an interesting circle. she comes for the venture and immediately falls in love and with the so-called nazi revolution. she finds it intoxicating and she was not alone. this was a very common view point* 1933. the argument was you could quarrel with the methods that he was restoring the nation's pride promising too drastically reduce

unemployment and the night before it they gathered and they went to a dinner party at the very slang department of the crane plumbing dynasty he may not have realized it but having seen the crane logo staring at you from urinals around the country. [laughter] he has a party and mind you 1933 as the party winds down charles takes the new ambassador aside and says to him, let's hitler have his way it also arises dodd very directly not to happen a social interaction with jews while he is in berlin.

looking at the dice through marvell, she finds herself in the fiber charismatic city and we always think of that world as drab, black and white because that is the image and we come across there are some images that services but it seems like the black and white world not a bright sunny day in germany until 1965 she saw something very different. she saw color everywhere. trams and the main streets and every balcony had a box of red geraniums. at christmas the city went while there were christmas lights everywhere common

trees on every square and street corner so much so dodd was moved to write to would almost think the nazis believe in jesus. there were glorious cafes that set hundreds of people out of time dancing every night. fabulous roofs and like hotel eden than a very interesting establishment it was a five story structure that had a nightclub venue in it. one of which was an american wild west far from nazi germany or the germans in a huge cowboy hat served cocktails. it was a nice thought the cowboys were surveyed the drinks. it appealed to me.

[laughter] so we have ambassador daughter arriving in germany as a professor of history from his studies and a rise without a certain expectation. but in the end they also a rise to pleasant baggage. he traveled to germany to complete his graduate education. working on the phd thesis which i don't think of the logistical nightmare and it is a wonderful time marvell this week and warned people every morning so they places pilots on his pillow so he has a fine recollection. but the world is nothing like he expected where he

expected a certain amount of rationale but now finds only pathology. not just that but organic apology that about this time the leading three in germany of any other culture would be placed in the asylum. and here is his daughter who falls in love with pathology at first broke i realize the two stories provide the ideal vehicle for traveling through that period and would not have wanted to write about dodd at all. i am not a fan of diplomatic history. i don't know if i could sustain an entire book about marvell but the two together captured something much bigger and both undergo a

very satisfying transformation which is where most of the action takes place 33 through 34 when something quite horrific occurs the united states and the rest of the world should have paid more attention. so we realized this story is shed light of a more fundamental reason and why it took so long for america to realize the true danger and appeasement was the first half. another thing that surprised me. this may not come as a

certain surprise to people in this room but it was a shock to me. the extent or the intensity of the anti-semitism in the united states and also with in the upper ranks of secretary powell i was startled by that. if you try to imagine and the perfect secretary of state it would be corrado hall. but he had some quirks. and he had a speech impediment. people like and him to the cartoon character of our five. [laughter] which led roosevelt who had a lively sense of humor when he was not around he would quietly mocked him with his speech impediment if he was

referring to his trade treaties but the top three guys of the state department with a distaste for juice but they have themselves a healthy dose of anti-semitism and after they had been in berlin he complained he had too many jews on his staff. it was impairing his ability to deal with the nazi regime in particular complained about his receptionist to pueblo of the nazis. the woman sitting at the entry as the nazi officials came through i think it is made for a miniseries.

[laughter] you have died complaining about too many jews on the staff and one very strange conversation with two formal meetings but during the second, died actually tries to find common ground with hiller on the jewish problem the nazis have hijack the debate by framing it as a jewish problem wants you frame it as a jewish problem, what else do think about? how you solve the problem. dodd said we have our own jewish problem in america but we have chosen to solve it in a more humane fashion referring to university quotas but this does not qualify hitler he gets steamed up again and loses it completely.

he says if the juice don't stop this i will put an end to all of them. 1934 per pros long before the holocaust. the first whiff of what was coming down the pipe. i was struck by how do everything was and what we know as the nazi era were unfamiliar back then for example, when dodd first saw it and thought how ridiculous it seemed. there was the swastika that was so new at this point* in the embassy it was referred to as the broken across which is the terms the germans used.

but hitler salutes which has a jarring effect still to this day i would be concerned if i did it that is the moment somebody would take a digital photograph. [laughter] put it on the web and go viral then suddenly i have a lot of new friends that i don't want. [laughter] it was so novel that the council general in berlin a man named george not to be confused with the aircraft designer but he through and through hated the nazis and happily he treated the third reich the way the anthropologist would treat the aboriginal tribe to say he wrote in detail and at length of all kinds of things. this was brand new.

let me backtrack to the swastika. i personally own a collection of works of kipling and every book on the binding has a swastika for the indy and good looks fine but in the political age it was the swastika. sewed george who wrote to so many on subjects was nicknamed 40 pages george. [laughter] hero and analysis a series of observations about the hitler salute because this was such a novel thing. this is the only thing i will read. >> the salute had no modern precedent for the more nearly required salute of soldiers and the presence of superior officers. it made a unique everybody was expected to salute even the mundane of encounters.

shopkeepers come a children salute teacher several times a day. at the close of the theatrical performances a newly established custom demand that audiences stand and salute seen the german national anthem and the storm trooper and some. the german public has of the embrace this to make the ask -- act saluting almost comical especially in court or buildings especially everybody hailed one another turning it all walk into the men's room and exhausting affair. [laughter] my hope is to capture a sense of gradual i had a vision suddenly of two characters of programme bros. harry tell things get darker and darker lowered q

the wizard of there at -- was of a vase on lions and tigers and bears so talk about how godsend -- dodd talks about future not see a lot they were not was yet the traps of what was coming and including one that shock to the literal translation being the law for the killing of the incurable spur growth another foreshadowing of what was to come. also talk about marvell the many loves including one interesting character whom i think encapsulates the complexity and new ones of this period that was very complex. this guy was rudolph, the first chief of the brand new

agency called the gestapo. he held the job for one year. when he was replaced by himmler and his violin playing protege. but they deal with the unusual character. causing the imprisonment of those who had presided over and head tortured hundreds of these people and then then send out and scores but then died in particular thought of him as the good guy. as third reich officials.

if you want to get the american of dachau you go to rudolph and he would oblige. he would be the one who read and agitated for the christmas amnesty levying prisoners out of camps and later claims that was one of the finest moments of his career when he got to choose who would go free. a very interesting character who is seems very clear at this point* has a physical relationship and a charming photograph in the library of congress where martha and the chief of the gestapo sitting at a table in a lovely little country restaurant have been a grand this time i find that magical here is the evil character potentially with said daughter of the

ambassador of america to germany. also one other thing, about rudolph, just as he was the perfect environment of secretary of state imagine a villain or what kind of the land would run the gestapo? you would imagine rudolph to a point*. his then dark lean horribly scarred face the lower part was scarred by a practice engaged and of baird blade dueling. a doctor who was sitting in on the dual everybody is stitched up then that is the end of it then bear the scars for the rest of their lives but it is a badge of strength. but he was considered to be a catch. he was handsome in a dark and scarred way.

look at the photograph. you may believe me. he was said to be sexually charismatic, a charming, and i show this pitcher to a number of women in seattle to a book editor and photographer everyboby says not bad. also by the way one way they summoned people for interrogations' is by postcard. so you would get a postcard saying could you come to pissed off go headquarters -- gestapo headquarters you like to talk to you. and you had no choice. what we're going to do? flee the country?

they have these going out because they could become so anxious to fall into line and the coordinated the eighth dose of the occupying third reich that they would denounces neighbors who had not likewise or who fail to act in a coordinated fashion. also denouncing neighbors to resolve petty and personal disputes. a few didn't like the way your neighbor kept up their house you would drop a dime on them with the gestapo they would send a postcard or come to pay of this it because they followed up on almost everything. people would read out their friends and neighbors so much that even hitler complained" end quote. mack telling his justice minister, we are living at

present in a sea of denunciations' and human demons. " this is adolf hitler. [laughter] inouye i am very happy that their readers get it. i am finding there is a narrative tension that you bring to the buck that we know what is happening but here are these people that you just want to say do not go into the basement. like the fourth vellis. my further reaction and thus far is from a friend to read it just before going to sleep one night. must be a bad thing. and said she woke up weeping from a nightmare in which she was being pursued by the nazis and all she had to protector was her little purple plastic water bottle. [laughter] i have to say if i think if

somebody nightmares besides my wife, i consider that a victory. i will stop there and take questions. if you don't i have questions for you to -- . [applause] >> you have to go down to the microphone so that will add to the pressure we have c-span recording this. these people are leaving or they will ask me a question. [laughter] >> i was just curious with your writings has there ever

been an idea that you start to research or write for a book that all of a sudden decide this is and going to work and what was said about? >> yes. second question. [laughter] >> i will not tell you what it is about because you never know but just recently having been and still and in the dark country of no ideas i had an idea that seemed to have all the right elements. looking into it and looking into it it took place in california i did not know anything about this with these great characters but there was just something missing. i worked on a for a long time until i realized it lacked heart so i killed it much to my agents sorrow but i am not sorry pry am glad it is dead. good question.

>> i rode yesterday evening but what struck you as the most upright bass surprising thing? less than 1% of jewish people in germany because the impression is it is such as the overriding issue and also the fact that dodd was not reporting all the attacks on americans. that surprise me but what surprised you? we think we know this time but we don't. >> you hit on a couple of those but it is there for anybody to know the point* first made was only about one percentage germans were jewish. it is probably not that well known but most of those rare nights germans but there invaded by the nazis but

only 1% of germans virtues the whole anti-semitic thing is the abstract concept because the average german have little or no contact with the issues. they were concentrated in the big cities with the typical were role german had no contact with the jews are limited contact and it was almost invariably find so the zero anti-semitic thing was for the like believers or the party members. anybody who wants to look into that moller, i wasn't impressed by ba'ath as well. low level of anti-semitism in the state department is what i found most startling. dodd's efforts to keep the attacks on americans i found

startling but he was trying not to antagonize the germans that he could use persuasion and resend to help him alert and the government find a more moderate way to go which of course, he realized thankfully at the end was not going to happen. >> i am curious about the obstacles you might have encountered in your research and do you speak german with access to the archives? >> yes. obviously she is asking about obstacles. german was not an obstacle. i do not speak german i did have a translator working with me including lucifer he did not mind being called

that but i did have a translator but mostly i wanted to concentrate exclusively was appointed to of mind to americans entering the world. and that led me to tremendous trove of documents with the national archives and the wisconsin historical society and madison wisconsin of all places. but the main obstacle is the same my face within a book is findings the material. you have to go the distance. i loved going to berlin to see blood is there now but also a feel for berlin but subtle things. for example, one thing i did not know or appreciate this how close everything all the action takes place around

its year garden. hence the title "in the garden of beasts." all of those actions are around the eastern corridor of the park. what i've learned is everything was so close together just a 15 minute walk to dodd to gestapo headquarters to the building i don't know why that was important but it was. and the first time i opened my hotel window over berlin and looked over the year guard and i thought of corpus christi. very five.

>> i am a very big fan of yours and i know we all feel gifted to partaking in your stories you are wonderful part of. [laughter] i am sorry. i have a feeling at the end of the 21st century it would be this century's greatest books. i just guarded to read your new book and as a writer, you have an interesting manner just listening to you talk. it comes very naturally to use and how difficult is it to be a good writer such as yourself? as you encounter discouragement along the way. talk about selling the

cookies at the table. [laughter] but what did you really feel that you can do this? i know i have it i am a great storyteller and along the way. >> my middle name is doubt. >> your stories are so engaging. i feel that you are talking to me when i reading the book and it is a wonderful feeling to pick up the book that you are my voice. have you encountered discouragement along the way? >> i will let my daughter address that. this is my daughter goes to the university of chicago.

[applause] >> i live with him. [laughter] and he is wracked with itself out all the time. he works 4:00 38:00 a.m. and then worries the rest of the day. [laughter] >> that is enough. [laughter] [applause] >> that is true that the self doubt is something that i have to deal with all the time and it like to think that it drives me to hunt for stories that are the kind of thing that i will like and other people will like but i sure as hell wish caris one and elixir i could take that one was not afraid something would be a bomb. case in point* on the eve of the publication i was

convinced that my career was over. because this was of book that had to narratives that never intersected. they do at one small point* but there you go. >> you ted shawn the anti-semitism and i was not aware the ambassador was a professor of history. i guess my question is did he have been a historical inkling of anti-semitism in germany? you go back to read martin luther and he doesn't have nice things to say about the jews but there is the have

the history? >> is here is the weird thing. he did have this sense anti-semitism was prevalent that to not the day job din from mars but it was the same as dodd points out in germany for a long time. but some how dodd could nor his own tendency to be anti-semitic but on his part it was the ambien thing that people express because you see evidence that some of

these guys in their diaries know they may become public are very clear and direct about their dislike of jews. >> thank you for the thoughtful presentation indeed seeing dodd was the right person for the position and with his struggles of action and with the nazis? >> starting with the idea it was the kind of position that nobody could have done anything terribly productive or persuaded hit lourdes to do otherwise, i do have to say given his mandate, sent

with the fundamental mission to serve as the standing example of liberal values, died did at and never sucked up to the nazis and never caved in and held true to the mandate much to the absolute a no-man's of the third reich. he ticked off the germans just by refusing to give on those fundamental principles and ultimately, i don't want to throw out this boilers but i do think there is a tendency to overlook divests a failed ambassador. i don't think that is correct but if i had to give a letter grade given the curve i would give b+.

>> this better be good. >> i love your book double in the white city i'm understand there is a film so what was your level of involvement and did you are concerned about making movies out of books they turn them into hollywood. >> great question. of the option was bought by leonardo dicaprio and there is no screenplay as of the so it will take a while. my involvement will be minimal because i will espouse this tom wolfe approach that you bring your book take offense take a bag of money and run.

[laughter] [applause] if you want to have any control over your work hollywood well they will break your heart saw when you decide to sign every option you make the decision to our wanted to happen or not? i think it will be interesting because i want to see what they will make of this book particularly interesting what the music will be that goes with it. [laughter] and hugh plays the victim i am voting for scarlet japan said. [laughter] and kate blanchett. always k blanchett. that is where there will be a movie that is the level of involvement that i want which is essentially nine. thank you for coming.

[applause] >> i am susan collins a senator from maine. i have always been an avid reader i usually have a book going in washington and one in maine and the one most recently finished is lee scott brown nemours who is my colleague who is a senator from massachusetts. this truly is extraordinary and is very well written and its gets me a lot of insights about scott brown and his very difficult childhood. it is absolutely amazing he has accomplished as much as

he had considering the impoverished and difficult childhood that he had. anyone who loves force will love the book because in some ways it was coaches and basketballs that saved scott brown. of books that i am reading right now is the fifth witness. this is a series of books that one lawyer who largely practices at of the back of his car son known as the lincoln lawyer series it is great fun moving right along and is end nice break to read this before i go to bed. this summer, i will read my first e-book realize people have been doing it for years. but this is my first one.

it is supposed to be a terrific book and i am looking forward to reading that. also the advantage that it can travel with me very easily. also i look forward to reading the david brooks new book called the social animal. i think he is brilliant and i am looking forward to learning more about his insights. i and a stand he does a great deal of research on the brain gathering together with many studies and i think it will be a very compelling book

>> host: dr. kissinger great to see you as always. congratulations on your extraordinary new book which is called quite simply come

on china african not think of anybody else i would rather talk to about china. over the last two decades it has gone from a very important concern two important and urgent and primary concern for the united states. there is so many layers to the relationship we would get into all of it with you. let's begin with how china seas itself and how traditionally has seen itself as i was making my way through the book the right both in and his days in china believe they represent unique values in the world. you say the united states believes it has an obligation to set the values to every part of the world where china acts on the singularity and it has expanded through cultural osmosis. what do you mean? >> america believes the values apply every where.

in a society can adopt them and it said chinese believe they represent an undue unique civilization. you have to grow up in a cultural environment and cannot naturalized. so it is composed good = societies the concept of sovereignty to go with it. up to the end of the 19th century thought of the role does a tributary to what they call the celestial empire. that some it was expe