institute and its my pleasure to introduce roger tonight. roger is president of the herzog foundation chairman of the fund which focuses on jewish tropic interest. is what the founding partners in the legendary firm, the gold standard of investment research shops on wall street. he also served as the firm's president before its merger. and retired from its successor company in 2006. for 10 years i was privileged to work with roger when he served as chairman of the manhattan institute. his energy and strategic brilliance helped to bring the institution to a whole new level. since 2007 rogers served as chairman of the new york historical society which has also experienced a renaissance under his leadership. for as many philanthropic endeavors he was awarded the medal of the national indiana for the humanities in 2007 and the william simon prize for philanthropic leadership in

2010. more to the point for tonight he is a voracious reader and passionate student. please join me in welcoming roger. [applause] >> you can all leave now. [laughter] >> first of all, thank you all for coming. it's really a great honor having all of you guys here. this is one of those continued evening, late afternoon programs that the manhattan institute has put on for years and years. and it's something i think that brings together many different people around this town. as you know, the institute is principally a think tank, but these programs also honor authors. authors that have produced works in public policy, but also produced great work in history.

and that's what we are here tonight talk about. a great historian, someone who when i think of it as i would say is not an ordinary historian. it would be in my view the most egregious of understatements to say that andrew roberts doesn't know what the term writer's block means. prohibit me to mention -- permit me to mention just the last six of his books. preceding the one who is released we celebrate this evening, see if you can detect the pattern here. you do not need a degree in forensic accounting. "salisbury," napoleon and

wellington, 2001. hitler and churchill, 2003. waterloo, napoleon's last gamble, 2005. "a history of the english-speaking people since 1900". masters and commanders, how roosevelt, churchill, marshall and alan brooke won the war, 2008. and now we have "the storm of war: a new history of the second world war." which was released in the u.k. and was the number two bestseller on the london times book review list. and mr. roberts claims to be 48 years old.

this is up for considerable debate. either he is about 70, with a lifetime backdrop of research which allows him to put out a new book every year or two, or he runs an empire called roberts incorporated which is an intellectual selection -- sweatshop with a bunch of elves in the back room. there appears to be no other explanations of this level of productivity in terms of his output. like all andrew roberts' books, and i've a number of them in my shelf, i've never bought them, i've never gotten a discount, this one is a page turner. it gives us the viewpoint of hitler and his generals. and andrew is trying to answer the really big question that has

haunted historians, and many others, for the last 70 years. why did germany lose the war? was at the superiority of the allied powers? or was it strategic errors on hitler's part? in fact with all of hitler's advantages, how could he have possibly ever lost this war? andrew roberts' great contribution is to let us participate in effect in a grand strategy course centered upon hitler's and his generals. of all the books that have been published on world war ii, none before have you do from this perspective alone. it is an absolutely intriguing story, and i urge you all to get yourself a copy, and

surprisingly there are copies for sale in the corner on the left here. but first before you rush out to buy this copy, first a few words from the great historian himself. and yes, it does turn out to be a young one, andrew roberts. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, it's a great honor to be invited to address you this evening. and thank you very much indeed roger, for those kind words. it's perhaps true my account on the number two of the best sellers list. only beaten by michael jackson. they are we are. i'd also like to preface my remarks by saying what an honor just to appear under the auspices of the manhattan institute which i'm great admirer you're on the way out here in fact just as let's

listen to to the radio news, it has a reference to works in research done by the manhattan institute, and that is pretty fantastic, knowing that you are fine in the way that you are. in the course of researching and writing on the second world war wish i have done for 20 years, specifically to my last book, "the storm of war," i have come to the conclusion that the real reason why hitler lost the war, even if he could have won it, was because he consistently good. it's not the ideology for the best interests of the german reich. every time there was a diversion of the ways, between his fastest fanaticism and the best

interest, he always went the nazi root. and this is the underlying reason. you see it at the beginning of the war but the very start of the war because in both old and and scandinavia, the maneuver through france in may 1940, he was allowing those german generals who had a far greater strategic goal than he, he listened to them specifically in the maneuver that took the german army through the town by mid-may 1940. but after that he started to believe his own propaganda, the idea that he was as germans called him the great order of all times. this was part of the fuhrer

principle, the concepts of the fear was always right. and an essential key, as with the idea that because britain and germany were both anglo-saxon races, that they would not go to work with one another. it's an absurdity needless to say until may levels, but basically because he himself had served in the trenches in the great war when they had fought one another. nonetheless, by the time to second world war broke out their only 46 operational u-boats against the united kingdom because he didn't believe he would ever ask have to fight the united kingdom by the end of the war through 463, most of them bottled up in the baltic. but if you start the second world war with as many u-boats as the fish would've been able to have strangled the united kingdom. and when one looks at the plans to invade the united kingdom, many of which were not even a great into september 1940, when

really they should have been put in place since he came to power in january 1933. one appreciates how little he was expecting to have to attack. there is the infamous -- the list of 2820 britons who are going to be shot on sight, or at least when they were arrested by the ss when the germans invaded. in that list you will see sigmund freud who died in 1938. you would see august huxley who had come to live in america in 1936. and there were many others of that kind. indeed, when rebecca west and other side of you on the list, rebecca sent a telegram saying my dear, the people we should have been seen dead with.

on the 25th of august, 1940, they dropped the bombs on the city of london, the first actual bombing of london. it came at a final time. up until that period the loose lofa had been contrasting on air drones. they had smashed the commanded mitigation systems. had smashed the control systems. they had turned most of the actual runways into a series of critters. so as result had they continued to do this, there's a very good chance the raf would've no longer been able to have fled. but instead of such was the power of the führer principle, the concept that the fuhrer was

infallible, that he ordered an all out raid on london on the 17th of september and moved the concept of the attack. as a result the raf was able to patch up the holes in the runways and get the command and control systems running up again. ideology was given precedence over best interests of the reisch. you didn't see with the invasion of russia, operations of russia and massive attack over 3 million attacking on the 22nd of june 1941 again driven entirely by ideology. timing was all wrong. they're only four months, five months of the reins and then six months of the winter, the snows of russia.

but because he had been waiting for trying to get a final come he called it a final reckoning with the bolsheviks who have been fighting on street corners since the 1920s, because he wanted labels around his master race, he believed would not be able to put up a fight, most fighting, kick in the door and the rest would fall down. he unleashed this ideologically driven assault on russia. at the beginning of course it was an amazing success. on the first day the operation, no less than half of the soviet bomber force was destroyed on the ground. its commander shot himself that

afternoon, which in stalin's russia was a sensible career move. [laughter] again and again, however, through the struggle in russia, adolf hitler would place ideology before the best interest. he continually moved around generals whom he didn't feel he could trust politically. man stein, rommel and others were each stacked once or twice. agenda was moved to four different commands in the course of 1944 alone. and really second rate generals, were continually promoted even though they weren't as good as the other generals, because they

were radical nazis. and any other question of why it was the germans were so unprepared for the winter of 1941, and later also 1942. the matter of clothing can be put down to hitler's absurd racial period of racial superiority, the idea that they would not be able to fight as well as the germans. this is a quotation from something he said at the garden to himmler who had come over for supper. and hitler told him this. he was boasting about that was hardly enough of the master race when it came to cold weather. having to change into long trousers was always a mystery to me, he said, even when

temperatures are template i used to go about and lederhosen. that feeling of freedom they give you is wonderful. abandoning my shorts is one of the biggest sacrifices i have to make. anything up to five degrees below zero i didn't even notice. quite a number of young people today already wear shorts all the around, a special habit. in the future i shall have an brigade in lederhosen. needless to say, as result of on occasion minus 40-degree temperatures they had to face in russia, after disaster overtook them quite apart from the incredible encourage owned by the russian people on the russian army in defending, you can see buildings where there is quite literally not a single brick that doesn't have a bullet hole in it.

and the affect of the cold was completely devastating. this is a short quotation from an italian journalist who was then the café in warsaw, still there in fact, across from the railway station where he saw the germans coming, the german wounded coming off the railway. and he said suddenly i was struck with horror and realized that they had no eyelids. i'd already seen soldiers with lidless eyes a few days previous on my way from minsk. because the cold that went at the same strange consequences thousands and thousands of soldiers had their lives, thousands and thousands had the ears, noses, fingers and their sexual organs ripped off by the frost. many have lost their hair, her eyelids. singed by the cold, the eyelid drops off like a piece of dead

skin and their future was only losing. it was also wrong of the nazi ideology, they were never able to give proper amounts of authority to the ukrainians, the latvians and others. the wounded help them if they manage to bring them over to anti-moscow campaign. again, ideology. and then when we see the decision to declare war against america on the 11th of december, 1941, only four days after pearl harbor, something that they did not need to do because they had no contractual treaty obligations to do this. once again you see ideology playing a massive part. the only significant nazi leader who had been to america, from the foreign secretary had spent

four years here trying unsuccessfully to sell champagne in the 1920s. and that was considered by the reds of the nazis he had not been here means he was a great expert. and he said that because america was ron by jews and by african-americans, therefore, they couldn't possibly get together an army that would land in western europe until the year 1970. he obviously by the would have looked very carefully at the actual makeup of the roosevelt administration. and this is what, this is what he said, what he told a delegation of attack in 19 forget about the americans. i know their country, a country devoid of culture, devoid of music, above all a country without soldiers, the people who will never be able to decide the

war from the air. win is a nation like that ever become a race of fighters? that fact was needless to say that the americans in fact landed a quarter of a million men in operation torch in november 1942, and started to fight by may 1943, captured as many actors, forces as were started their own three much previously. india, any calendar year 1944 when the germans produced 40,000 more points, the russians another 40,000, and britain produced 28,000, in that same year the united states produced no fewer than 98,000 warplanes, almost as much as the rest of the world put together. it's an unpaid bill country. it was obviously an act of lunatic hubris to have declared

war against you, and it was done for ideological reasons. equally, the complete coordination with japan is an astonishing -- in hitler's strategic vision. had the japanese attacked from the east at the same time that he was attacking from the west in june 1941, there's a good chance that in october of that year the 16 siberian divisions would not have been able to have rolled across the euros to defend moscow at that key moment. only 16, 1941, stalin had his personal train made ready to take him back to katzenberg or even further back, just imagine the demoralization if that would have gotten out. if the germans got within

40 miles of the moscow subway system, it was incredibly close. up in the north, the siege of leningrad, a grueling 980 siege caused the soviets 1.1 million people killed. there were people being arrested and are willing to go to those kind of levels than give up. and then, of course, the battle of stalingrad down in the south. and yet he failed to coordinate with japan. largely because even though back in 1937 at the time of the anti-common term fact he claimed that the japanese were another area and people. he got his anthropologist out, and they get calpers out and measured the size of japanese scrolls to prove that the japanese were aryans. when it came to the work, they

thought basically two separate wars. they didn't even get so far as to exchange is nation on antitank guns. and then, of course, we come to the holocaust. it was again a concept error by adolf hitler to try to wipe out the jews what is also trying to fight a war on two fronts. when one looks at the statistics between 1939 and 1944, the number of people working in german factories collapsed from 39 million to 29 million, a drop of over 25%. at exactly the same time he was wiping a six minus most intelligent hard-working, productive and well educated

people. it made actually no strategic sense whatsoever in terms of ideology. the jews would have thought incredibly well in the first world war. his own iron cross first class was procured for him by his adjutants who himself was jewish. and, of course, ultimately with the second world war ending because of the use of the invention that was very largely created as a result of the brilliant scientific minds of many of the jews could left germany. he lost that particular great weapon as well. [inaudible] he said to me, i think what was why we won the war and i often just come back to the

realization that is because our german scientist were more clever than their german scientists. [laughter] and this can be proved statistically. the number of, the number of nobel prize winners in the scientific subjects between 1901 and had it coming to power in 1933, the number was 25 german nobel prizes, to five americans. as result of the great brain drain that came because of adult hitler between 1950 and the year 2000, when germany won 16 nobel prizes, america 167. -- america had 167. we come back and hitler himself, to the question of why the axis

lost the war. and on the fourth of february, 9042, again entertaining hitler, a conversation got round to shakespeare of all things. it was probably to him that he was referring when adolf hitler said that it was a quote, misfortune but none of our great writers took his subject from german embryo history. our show had nothing to do better than to glorify the smith crossbow and. the english on their part of a shakespeare but the history of his shakespearean was -- as far as he was concerned only with imbeciles and madmen. now, very often this is what, these are the explanations people just say that hitler is an imbecile, that he was stupid, too intellectually inferior to win the war. this is not the case as we saw

at the beginning of the war and hit stunning victories, even a victory over yugoslavia in april 1941, it was one within three weeks when he allowed his generals to have their head. he was intellectually inferior either a, adolf hitler. in his amazing knowledge of the calipers of weapons and the cages of railway tracks and so on, and the way to attacks and the speed, he was a bit of a train spotter. that's the sort of places that couldn't attack, but at least he wasn't a good by any means. neither was he madmen. he went mad at the end of his life, who wouldn't knowing he was going to die, the last three months of his life after about february 1945, there was clearly no way out. and yes, then he started to act irrationally. but i don't believe it either in his stupidity, or his lunacy

that we see the real reason why adolf hitler lost the second world war. the reason that the axis powers lost was a fanatical under general thank you. thank you very much indeed. [applause] >> we have plenty of time for question that i would just ask when your knowledge to wait for the microphone so the c-span audience can you question as well, and identify yourself. >> the question i got is his lead, his missile technology, the, the ones, struck me as he

had that a year before. >> yes, if a good question. there are a lot of what is of course the second world war and that's one area where german scientists did have the jump on the allies. very fortunate with the hitler kept changing his mind. the classic been jet technology. and he changed that any 262 from being a fighter to bomber back to a fighter. which involved enormous amounts of dislocation and industrial bottlenecks. he would do this on many of the projects in fact. and so rather than being this mankind will which the nazis constantly projected him as, in fact he changed his mind an awful lot. we're very fortunate he did.

>> how did the german people did that nazi fanaticism go? or was a situation where most of the people were simply doing what they had to do in fear of, you know, fear of being executed are going to prison? but how'd deep did the nazi ideology go? >> well, you see from the resistance in 1945, especially among the youth, that those people knew it had 12 years of nazi ideology being shoved down their throats from childhood. since 1933. did tend to believe it and act on it. the last army that hitler put

into the field, the 16 euros and 15-year-olds, some indeed in the battle of for teen -- the battle of berlin, 14 euros. some of these people have spent their entire life listening to the nazi ideology. so it wasn't surprising that they were in viewed with a. not too though of course with men further on up the military scale. it wasn't of course until 1944 that they let off a bomb successfully, the german generals let off a bomb successfully. that the detroit area occasions, and they are obvious a tremendous a great and fantastically greatest group of people that people knew, in a particular bomb plot, quite a large the german officer corps and the german general staff and service which german generals themselves were a very ambitious

group who were quite willing to out maneuver each other, they were quite willing if one was sacked, to jump into his place. they took large amounts of cash, money from adolf hitler in poland and so on. the gentleman in the back of there. >> you raise the question in the literature up to this talk about why the panthers were held back, and have trees, i never heard that. >> thank you for mentioning that. the question was why i 24th of may 194071 years ago today as it

turns out, were the panzers have it virtually surrounded the town of dunker, were on the heights above the town given the order, giving the notorious halt order, which because they didn't didn't go down into the town, allowed the british force of a court of the layman and then some 80,000 french to escape. it was finally counted on the 28th of may, by that stage the town evacuated had started. and the answer -- well, many stories have many different answers, and one answer though that, one argument that i believe i have comprehensively disproved with new information in this book, which i'm going to dismay because you should always

dismay products -- display because you should always display products, is, when conspiracy theorist tell us that he deliberately allowed the british army to escape because he wanted to make some kind of peace deal with britain, or at least the appeasers and the british government, in the course of the book i came across a letter and a complete new archive, a businessman in england led 100,000 tapers and documents and diaries and letters and photographs, which had never been seen by any historians before, before me, and you can tell how excited it is for sure to get something like that. like a child in a sweet shop. one of the letters that i found was from a major general, the commander of the operations and

headquarters who was writing to say that on the 24th of may, that he believed that the führer, he been speaking to the führer it was totally confident that there is now no way the british can escape and he's going to scoop up the whole british expeditionary force. the exact wording is in the book of course. and so i think this completely undermines the idea that hitler wanted the british to escape, not least because of course he would've been in a far stronger position in terms of negotiation, a peaceful negotiations if it managed to capture the british army. it makes no sense. so the real reasons, to come back to your question, the real reasons why he supported signing the halt order, totally against the pleadings of men like rommel and kleist, and others as well,

was having fought in the first world war he knew that in 14 days, two weeks continuous fighting was exhausting for any troops. he had already committed armor in poland, found that in the built-up areas they took a heavy toll. easily the most, the least defended part of the tank is it's rough, and so they feared attacks from above in built-up areas. they also feared that the dikes were going to be flooded and that they could have lost armor like that. and they also feared a french counterattack from north. which never materialized. but nontheless, it could happen. so, for these reasons and probably some others the store and have also come up with, he put out this order and it took four days before he realized how disastrous it was.

dearing had promised him he was going to be able to destroy the british force in the air, no ships are going to be able to cover the troops. when one thinks we lost no through the nine destroyers, and i think two cruises, with only one cruiser in the dunker campaign, it was tremendous expensive in a naval sense as well. >> one of the interesting things in your book is a remarkable contribution of the soviets on the eastern front to victory, in terms of the allied powers. and you quote a series of statistics in there that are quite revealing. >> yes. i think one of the statistics is probably the most, in my view the most central of all, and

that is for every five germans killed in combat in the second world war, by which i don't mean people bomb from the heirs, i mean german soldiers killed on the ground, on the battlefield, for every five of them, four were killed on the eastern front. so what britain, america and canada and the rest were doing was effectively killing the fifth german. and yes, we are doing lots of other things, vital things to do with keeping the sea lanes open, landing in africa, italy and, obviously, d-day, keeping russia in the war by massive operation, and then vitally also through the combined bomber offenses keeping 70% of them in the west protecting their series which, of course, had that not happened

would have been able to be used in the east against leningrad and stalingrad. but nonetheless we have to acknowledge the fact that for every american who died in the second world war, 19 russians died. >> you named of course a number of ideological elements that entered into major episodes and major themes. and, of course, he did lose the war. i'm just wondering whether it was really, really close? in other words, he didn't have to do all of these, and whether one or two that in absence of them he would have won the war? i'm thing in particular of course not just of the russian escapade, but the north african campaign, and perhaps a different way of approaching or good luck instead of bad luck on

the beaches of normandy in june of 44? >> yes. very good question. i think that had he devoted a fraction of the 3 million men, the division said at least in the operation against the russians, had he sent a fraction of those down to south africa he would have long britain off, and serving out of egypt. we had skeleton forces in iran and iraq at that time. and he would've been able to cut them from 80% of their oil. the expense in terms of blood and treasure of getting oil across to america was enormous at the time of the battle because in january 1942, the germans had added a fifth rotor to the enigma machine, mean that

our -- to something turned into gobbledygook. it wasn't until december 1942 that are able to break back into the german codes. and in that kind of sinkings of merchant vessels and naval vessels skyrocketed. so yes, had he been been able to clear us out of the middle east he would have been able to have attacked from iran into the caucuses, and only gone a fraction of the distance that he needed in order to cut stalin off from 80% of its oil. rather than coming all the way across. so yes, there are plenty of alternative strategies. the other one that you mentioned of course with d-day, and a bit more problematic, because yes, he did have the two panzer divisions place to beaches,

which could over course a matter of dislocation of the attack. however, when one looks at the air superiority that the allies had by the sixth of june 1944, when the blue swath was able to fly 300-1940s that day, the allies flew 30,680. so however well your armor might do, if you have your tanks being taken out from the air, then it pretty much is an open and shut case. >> michael goodwin. you draw a distinction in the early years between what you call ideological or fanaticism

and lucy toward the end of his life. i think for most people today we look at hitler's whole life as one of lucy, as a madman. how are you describing ideology in a way that is not mad from our current understanding? >> yes, that's also a good question. i don't see him as a madman from the beginning of his career. icm as a -- i see him as a particularly vicious minded adventure who would always double the stakes whenever the crisis may have came, he would grab every opportunity. he was the ultimate opportunist. and he's a politician. and you can get quite far in a country which has been ravaged by the great depression, and which has this concept with regard to his defeat in the

great war. but what i do think is that had a german nationalist, a more conservative german nationalist, someone who was a bismarck figure, he could have achieved the same thing in terms of grabbing absolute power. but i don't think he would have made all the mistakes that hitler did by constantly putting principles before germany's best interest. the gentleman in the back there. >> i'd like to follow up on the judge's question about the extent to which the german people, having recently come back from berlin, i was blown away i the extent to which the current german government is basically in their museums and everything about the final solution, the holocaust, is

basically saying this is not much of idealistic nazis. the german people bought into this. they were complicit. to me it was mind-boggling the extent to which they are saying the german people really supported their nazis. it wasn't just fear of retribution. i would be interested in your comment as to the extent to which the german government today is correct in blaming not just the nazis, the ideal is, the hitler's if you will, but the whole population. >> i upgrade with the german government wholeheartedly. i think it's very brave of the german government to say it as well. but the fact is that there was coercion obviously. political coercion to get those enormous deficits. you only have to work under look

at the footage of the number of people who turn out to congratulate him after his return from france in june 1940. millions of people on the streets. it's actually impossible for a regime to turn out millions of people on the streets if they don't go. and so, but on every level when one reads the works of a historian, you appreciate pretty much on every level of public opinion that it's able to quantify that adolf hitler was to visit poplar in 1940-1941. of course, he was. look at what he delivered to germany in terms of victory. to defeat france and have them

declare in '06 weeks, seven weeks into the campaign. to have, as i said earlier, to go straight through. these are unbelievably victories. they hadn't been seen on the european continent since napoleon. and so, it is understandable why the people, also as we know, have a long, long history of anti-semitism anyhow, were seduced by this man. the interesting thing is how long, i suppose come in yet, once you into a world war, it's your duty to support the government anyhow. that's something that is seen across democratic nations as well as other ones. and so, it doesn't surprise me at all the fanaticism that you get by 1945, especially amongst

people who are not, a lot of them unthinking people. the thoughtful ones start to slip away from nazism before the train hits the others. the gentleman in the front here. >> i have a question about your ideas about the origins of hitler's anti-semitism. how much of it was the fact he was like deeply and darkly anti-semitic verses being an opportunistic whose he could use to amass great our? >> great question. and one that is very strongly heatedly debated. there has been so much work done on this. you have people who will say that adolf hitler became an

anti-semite, he supposed to have caught the disease from a prostitute. turn down the overwhelming jewish office in his youth. he was, then number of sexual psycho reasons, which, none of which hold any kind of water for any reason whatsoever. the fact was though that the fifth of great tracks the red as a panelist artist, left the trenches, and before he went into the trenches, seem to have affected his long history of

austrian anti-semitism anyhow, and then yes, you're right to point out he realized how useful it was for him, politically. but they cannot just have been an opportunistic. because of osha's opportunism he would've done after 1933. and he certainly wouldn't have risked, taken all the risks he did in order to wipe out so much of european jewry. that was something that came from him. there is no example of any nazi ever suffering any career setback by not being utterly fanatical and genocidal towards the jews. he was the worst of all the nazis, and so it doesn't imply opportunism.

this implies a lifelong hatred. where it comes from i think as i say, just reading literature when he was a teenager and in the trenches and any immediate afterward. the gentleman in the back there. >> thank you for sharing so much of her knowledge with us this evening. by question is not about what you know but about what you wish you knew. as you speak without historians, what might be the holy grail for the things you still don't know about world war ii, about nazis, et cetera that you hope at some point to find a mistake now we know the instrument? >> very good question. i think one of the classic mistress is of course -- i was on the first people into the british public records wind, 50 years after the hash light in

1991 they open up the papers. we were allowed, the lord chancellor, lord simons interview for beta and transcripts interview. and it really taught us next to nothing. yes, you want to fight against come he wanted britain to change sides to fight against the bolsheviks which allow churchill to appreciate all the information that he had been hearing about the coming attack on russia was true, though haitians did not give away the dates of russia. but was a religious that he saw himself think by caring and others, in order to try to bring the one piece that he knew that they wanted to because it would

have been value. 70% could have been used against the russians. or was it just a madcap? might he have thought the nazis were not going to win the second world war was again the tower of london rather than be in berlin and nuremberg. any number of reasons, it would be nice to have a little handwritten diary on the ninth of may, 9041. and getting into the plane, that would be tremendously helpful. thanthank you very much indeed. [applause] >> spent historian andrew roberts on booktv. and to find out more visit the author's website, andrew-roberts.net.

>> the panic virus is a book that i began working on because the recent that relates to what we're talking about today. a little over three years ago, which was before i had a child, i started noticing that if conversations with my friends when the issue of childhood vaccines, started coming up, the answers i get to questions about how people went about making these decisions were answers by much in the language of giving for intuition. it feels to me like children receive too many vaccines today. it makes sense to me that the number of antigens in vaccines overwhelm developing immune systems. and the reason i found this so interesting is because that was

very antithetical to the approach in the language that might choose to use when it comes to other topics where there is an intersection between science and public policy. for instance, global warming. if we had a conversation and someone said, well, we had three feet of snow last year, it just doesn't feel to me like we should be going through global warming. or a conversation involving evolution where someone said well, it doesn't seem right to me that we could be descended from apes. those are attitudes were incredibly dismissive of. and very much look down their nose towards, you know, stupid people who don't understand or accept the science involving these other companies. and what was interesting to me was not that they were wrong in their opinion because ashley

they didn't know at the time whether vaccines were or were not connected in some causal way to developmental disorders like autism. but that this is how they went about making those decisions. so, i naïvely started working on this project thinking that it would be an interesting, maybe magazine story, looking at how we decide what counts as truth. some of these issues that get raised in this, and here i am three years later. no, i couldn't interest any magazine in it, and i think one of the oddities of book publishing is that, and i've had this experience before, it can sometimes be hard to convince someone to let you write a 5000 word magazines are but you can't let -- convince him to let you write a book. that maybe what the book publishing industry is in such trouble.

[laughter] so when i began working on this as a book, one of my thoughts was most of the books that are out there on this topic are written from someone who came into it with already in one camp or the other they believe their child had been vaccinated and that vaccines are very dangerous. or someone who involved in the medical community. and i thought i would write a book from the perspective of someone who isn't coming to this from one side or the other. and then people will read it and think oh, that's interesting. this is something i can trust. and that is not the case. the people who have disagree with my conclusions definitely have not viewed it as an interesting book that someone happens to write who did not come to this with a preconceived notion. i learned a new about mike tyson to pharmaceutical companies, and

how i'm in the paper to which i say if there are any pharmaceutical company reps out there, i will give you my bank account routing number. i am happy to take your money at this point. the book is already out, so i figure if i'm getting blamed, i might as we'll see some of the benefits of that. [laughter] so, i have really been, i've been shocked and it's been somewhat eye-opening as to how much a topic in which i think there really is not a lot of continued debate, how much debate there is in both the political and public realm. and what the implications of that are. and are very severe implication. 10 children died of whooping cough in california last year. nine of them were under six months year old which means they're too young to get action. there's a measles outbreak right now in minnesota, started when a delivery of vaccine are child returned to the country with measles. not have been over a dozen hospitalizations including

children who were too young to be vaccinated i think is an issue in arlington tuesday come up more often, and i will leave off their and i'm sure we'll have an interesting conversati conversation. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. this week on "the communicators" "thjacqueline beauchere discusss her companies computer security. ..

>> guest: so we wanted computing to be that kind of a dependable, reliable, responsive decision, so we basically revamped the way we looked at computing, and we divided it into a couple of segmented areas, one of them being security, one being privacy, and another being reliability. all of that is to provide a safer experience for the end user when he or she goes online. >> host: so you specifically, what do you do? >> guest: so i run a group of folks that specialize in online safety, and we do a lot of online safety outreach and communication work. i look at online safety as sort of two parts of one whole. it takes a little bit of

security, it also takes a little bit of privacy. specifically, online safety is taking care of the pc and the device and the health and maintenance of that device and then, also, to combat against some of those social engineering type attacks that could come to the person. and we provide consumers with some resources and materials about how they can best protect themselves when they go online. >> host: so, jacqueline beauchere, what is your number one priority right now? what's on the top of your list? >> guest: we have a host of things that we're addressing, but we're particularly interested in online reputation and helping people safeguard their online reputations, and we're also concerned with issues like cyberbullying or identity theft. there are a whole host of issues we could dwell on and look into. it's important to look at the kind of risks that people could be exposed to. we, at microsoft, categorize those into four buckets. risks could come from content, they could come from contact,

they could come from conduct, and they could come from commerce. so what i like to call the four cs. in the content bucket, as we know, when i was growing up it was just because you read it in the newspaper or just because you saw it on television, that doesn't mean it's true. and that probably goes doubly or triply for the internet. so you could be exposed to inappropriate content, kids can be exposed to inappropriate content. there are extreme views and hate speech out there. we have to be cognizant of what's going on on a content front. in terms of conduct, this is about how an individual behaves online, and we have to look at the individual as a 360-degree element. so we could see piracy violations, we could see people stealing intellectual property whether it be games or books or videos or music. and then in some of the extreme circumstances, we could see cyberbullying. we could see, when it occurs

amongst adults, it's more cyberstalking or harassment. and that is someone exercising a role, probably more in a perpetrator role whereas in the content, conduct, content/commerce, commerce we're looking at everybody's seen it in their inbox, right? they've seen the spam solicitations and so forth. and if we're not careful, those could result in identity theft or other instances, so we have to be really conscious of what we're accepting in our inbox, what we might be expose or ourselves -- exposing ourselves to. >> host: joining us on "the communicators" is the political reporter from the pretty toe, tony romement. >> host: thanks for having me. it's an effort both you and microsoft have worked with, and it's a series of statistics that kind of give a bit of understanding to what students

and parents think about top issues about privacy and security. and one that got to me is this one figure that just 6% really have an understanding of geolocation or getting geolocation education while at school, and we're talking about that k-12 group. that's particularly prescient, it seems where senator al franken had that hearing on geolocation, talked to folks from apple and google specifically about the way their smartphones and twices track the user's motions. where should washington come in on all this? on one hand there seems to be a knowledge deficit as the report itself points out, and on the other hand there seems to be this call to action on capitol hill. so what's your perspective? >> guest: that knowledge deficit that you talk about, tony, is very interesting, and i think that might continue for the better part of a generation, for the better part of about 20 years because the digital natives, we have to wait until

they become the educators in the class room. digital immigrants are there now, and that's why it's so difficult for teachers and parents and adults to get their arms around some of these issues. so in terms of what congress can do, there's a number of things. particularly you mentioned this research. so commissioning research, commissioning studies, helping to fund these activities so that we really get a clear picture of the landscape and really know what's out there, that's going to be key. there's a lot of private sector research that's done, there's other research that's done, but we're not always comparing the same thing. for instance, a little while ago i mentioned cyberbullying. there's a lot of research out there, but not many people are familiar with that term, "cyberbullying." so they might say, well, i tibet pushed around -- i get pushed around online. we want to make sure we're talking the same language. so there's definitely a research component and a commissioning studies component. also this is a k-12 study, as you mentioned, and it would be

key for some integrated online safety education in the classrooms on a regular basis. i know how hard it is. i have many friends who are teachers, and they know there are so many things that need to be woven into the daily workday and the daily school day what they have to impart to our kids. but if some of those lessons were supplemented or complemented with some cybersecurity, cyber ethics, cyber safety education and lesson mixed in, that would be a great start. so supporting that kind of education in schools is important, and there's plenty of free curricula out there that could be woven into the existing. >> host: well, jacqueline beauchere, tony brought up congress' role. does microsoft have a responsibility to help insure people's privacy and their safety? >> guest: absolutely. not only does microsoft have a responsibility, we see this as a notion of a shared responsibility among a whole host of actors. so we've got the industry and microsoft, and we have a particular role not only to create the technology, but to

provide those tools and resources and materials to help educate people about how to use the products and how to best protect themselves online. consumers also have a responsibility. consumers have to do their updates, they have to make sure, again, when i talked about the pc health and safety and maintenance of the device, they have certain actions that they need to take, affirmative actions that they need to take. and educators have a responsibility, law enforcement has a responsibility. so no one person, no one entity, no one organization can tackle these issues themselves. we all need to band together to make that happen. >> host: sure. that's an interesting point you have, though, about the difference between the digital natives and immigrants. we hear a lot about it, but maybe not so much in washington as debates over these specific privacy proposals continues in earnest this week. what are some of the specific steps congress should take with respect to companies? the i know microsoft has come out in support for comprehensive privacy reform. give me some thoughts about this

geolocation data, privacy and security from the corporate side. >> guest: yes. microsoft has been in favor of comprehensive federal private legislation since 2005, so that is something that we're definitely behind. but we're also behind industry self-regulation, particularly with these emerging technologies and particularly with this new innovation. we don't want anything to really curtail innovation. we want that to thrive because that's the ticket for children live anything this 21st century digital age. want to make sure they have the tools and resources needed to excel. we want them -- we're teaching kids today about jobs that don't even exist. we're grooming them for jobs that don't even exist on technology that hasn't been invented yet. that's the kind of role we need to play in the education space. >> host: jacqueline beauchere, you mentioned industry self-regulation. when it comes to microsoft and a lot of talk here in washington now about the collection of information, personal information online and how to safeguard that. how does microsoft safeguard

that? >> guest: microsoft has its own policies and procedures for acting as a data handler and so forth. and we also encourage consumers to take their role in doing that. so we make sure that we encourage people to really be careful what they share online. what i noted before about the online reputation, your online reputation is being created out there, and you don't even know it sometimes. you might not have a social media account, a social networking account, but these profiles and these images and pictures of you as an individual are being formed even sometimes without your knowledge. so it's an equal responsibility for the consumer to be careful what he or she posts online, what he or she shares online. we particularly share with this -- this with our young people as well because that reputation is being formed now, and kids do engage in somewhat questionable activities whether it be questionable posting of photos or videos or even just some text that goes online.

once it's online, it's there to stay. i heard a really cute quip earlier this week here in d.c., what happens on facebook and google is like it happens in vegas and it stays there forever, right? so it's really important to really be careful what is posted online, what is shared because that reputation is being formed. >> host: along that line, have you attempted to simplify some of your user agreements so people understand what they're signing up for? >> guest: there, with the privacy notices we have something called layered notices now, and many in the industry are adopting it. so you get a high-level view of the privacy notice, and it tells from there if you want some more detail. so that's really important and something that should be watched. >> host: sure. now, as something we learned last month, things can go wrong. we saw it with sony and epsilon, companies victims of data breaches. hackers came in, stole information about a large

quantity of users and could potentially use this for malicious purposes. microsoft wasn't in that, but what's the thought here on data breach, on the government? does there need to be a standard? what kind of protections would you like to see congress deliver on that front? >> guest: again, microsoft focuses on notice and control for the user and transparency, and those are the in-depth policies and practices and standards and procedures that we follow as a data handler and ohs follow -- others follow as data controllers and so forth. so when we talk about comprehensive privacy legislation and as we have been for several years now, it has to encompass all of these thing, both the online reputation and offline activities as well. not to make any real distinction between what's going on in the real world and what's going on in on line world. >> host: sure. but did you think in your opinion there needs to be a federal standard? i know something like 40 states

decide ultimately what kind of revenues are available for consumers. do you think the federal government should have something along those lines? >> guest: well, it's certainly difficult for any entity to do business with 50 different standards potentially, but that's something for the businesses and legislatures to decide. >> host: this is c-span's "communicators" program. our guest from seattle, washington, is microsoft's jacqueline beauchere. she is a director in the trustworthy computing group focused on online safety and privacy. tony romm of politico is our guest reporter. jacqueline beauchere, with the move into tablets and the mobility in the wireless, has that increased the, well, not the need, but the security preaches that could -- breaches that could happen? >> guest: meaning exposing people more? >> host: yeah.

>> guest: well, it's another, it's another -- other side of the same coin, right? so the same basic advice and guidance that we give to consumers is probably equally applicable whether you're on the go, whether you're at home or whether you're at work. so just some simple things that people need to keep in mind. again, being careful what they share online, not sharing personal information. making sure that the device itself is firmly defended in terms of beefing up all of the computer's defenses whether it's antivirus or antispyware or making sure there are automatic updates and so forth. have to take care of the health and maintenance of the device as well. not sharing personal information and so forth down the line. >> host: but when you say not sharing personal information, i mean, millions of people bank online today. i mean, that's as personal as you can get. >> guest: and you just have to make sure everything is protected as opposed to just leaving pass words or things out where they could easily be seen

or consumed or spotted by someone else. >> host: has cloud computing -- where does cloud computing fit into this? >> guest: well, a new term that we're hearing, but it's been around for a long time. when you think about hotmail at microsoft for instance, that's existed for 15-plus years, and so microsoft definitely has a good foothold and a stronghold in that area. >> host: without giving away any corporate information, what kind of security do you have at your server bases? >> guest: in terms of -- >> host: just protection for the consumer and their information be. >> guest: well, maybe that is, maybe that is a corporate secret. [laughter] >> host: okay, all right. tony romm. >> host: thanks. we can't mention tablets without talking about apps. the reasons consumers buy those awesome phones and tablet computers. but what we saw a lot of this week and last week were companies talking about how they're doing a lot in the space of privacy and security, but the apps that run on their devices

aren't doing as much. so i guess the first question here is can you talk about how microsoft approaches some of those apps and just kind of the process that goes on with that? >> guest: um, well, that's a, that's not my area of expertise. um, but i -- >> host: i guess the larger, more comprehensive question would be, you know, what's the line here? how does a company like microsoft deal with those app makers who are operating under different circumstances than you guys? you go all out with these long privacy policies, but some of these apps don't. how do you reconcile that? >> guest: well, microsoft's business is built on the partner model, so we have this large ecosystem that we work with and we help grow. and one of the things that we've gotten in the security side of things is the security development life cycle. i don't know if you're familiar with that, but i have friends who -- i'm not a technologist, i

have friends who are at microsoft, obviously, and when they went to university and when they were learning about security, it was not too long ago that security was very much an afterthought. the software would be developed, the product would actually come to fruition, and then in chapter 37 of the texas book, right, you'd find something about security, and they'd try to retrofit security back into the product after the fact. that's not the way microsoft does it. it has to go through this security development life cycle. so where security is actually baked in to the product from the beginning. all those security considerations. anything with privacy that could potentially go wrong. they're thinking about it at the earliest stages. so instead of being in chapter 37 of the texas book, it's built in up front, and that's something we would want to share with the ecosystem as well to make sure they're aware of these practices and can take hold -- >> host: jacqueline beauchere, with the advent of electronic

health care records and electronic health care interaction, what is microsoft doing to insure the privacy of those very personal records? >> guest: again, we have a division of the company that focuses on health care, health solutions group, and it's just the same thing as any other data-handling practice. they have to be given the utmost care and attention because this is about as personal as personal information can get, obviously. and we have all those standards and policies and practices and procedures for that handling of data. >> host: how widespread is cyberbullying? >> guest: pretty widespread, unfortunately. pretty widespread. and, obviously, the biggest problem with cyberbullying is where it can really wind up and where we've seen it wind up in some of the press coverage that we've seen which is, actually, children and young people, teens taking their own lives because they've been bullied to such an

extent. >> host: could you see further federal legislation dealing with it? >> guest: right now we have a collection of laws at the state level, probably about 44 states cover cyberbullying on their books now, and that seems to be working fairly well. i think we need to get at the problem from a different perspective, and that's more from an education and awareness perspective as opposed to legislating against it necessarily. but -- >> host: jacqueline beauchere spent four years in the legal department at microsoft before moving over to the trust trustwy computing group. tony romm? >> host: thanks so much. now that we're on the topic of kids, let's dig in a little bit further. there are a plethora of laws that deal with children and privacy, the children's online protection act. without digging into the specifics, are there other elements outside of bullying that you think need to be addressed with respect to children's privacy? >> guest: well, i would also focus on what, what lawmakers can do in terms of existing laws and strengthening existing laws,

in terms of job exploitation generally. so microsoft works with the national center for missing and exploited children, international center for missing and exploited children, interpol, a host of law enforcement agencies to really take a hard look at child pornography and make sure we are doing everything we can to stop that. what we can do on the international side as well, what government can do, is to make sure that all other countries are onboard with our same stance. it's important that we not only have those possession laws and the, um, dissemination laws, but possession laws as well. there are plenty of countries that exist that, where it is not a law to possess child pornography, and that needs to come to an even playing field. >> host: how well do agencies address this issue, on cyberbullying? the has the federal government taken more of an active role? >> guest: yes. particularly just last month we saw president obama hold a

conference here in washington at the white house on cyberbullying, well, bullying prevention generally, and, of course, cyberbullying was a key topic. we, microsoft, were at the table there, and that's going to continue. it's going to continue that dialogue and to see what really can be done on that front. and i would note that that effort, this bullying prevention effort that is upside way can probably -- underway can probably benefit from another effort we've seen. i am microsoft's representative to the board that's based near d.c., works very closely with the department of homeland security. last october we launched a, what we're calling a messaging convention. and it was many, many be from industry, many from business, many from government agencies and departments coming together around one holistic message around cybersecurity, cybersecurity, cyber safety, cyber ethics. and that message is stop, think, connect. i hope you've heard of it, and

if you haven't, i'm sure you'll be hearing more about it in the months to come. it's a virtual who's who around the table participating in this convention, and it's that one message that will galvanize people and bring them together so we don't have all these disparate messages out there and people talking about whatever their pet project or initiative might be. instead, we're coming together with one voice. it's google, it's facebook, it's verizon, at&t verifying, costco, walmart, you name it. all these folks are involved in that effort. and i think that's something the cyberbullying effort can model itself after, one message as opposed to a whole host of efforts where a little bit of attention is garnered, but nothing at a high level. >> host: jacqueline beauchere of microsoft, i want to read a quote by steve balmer and get your reaction.

>> host: who i say it to, where i go, what's important to me. given the recent hearing on phone tracking and given the fact that if you happen to look at a web site and all of a sudden targeted ads start popping up no matter where you go, there's a lot of concern out there about being tracked. does microsoft have the technology, and do you aggregate your -- the information that you collect from people, or can you identify individuals? >> guest: on the phone, for instance, there has to be an express action by the consumer to say that you want to know, you want to make your location known. so, no, that is not known, and that is not aggregated. every application, every encounter you can either turn it off completely or every action,

every encounter you have to expressly say, yes, you want your location to be known. a lot of people love these services. we did some research, and those who are aware of these services really like them. you'll be able to be standing on a street corner, and the movie theater's ooh there, and you want to know what time the movie you want to see is. or, for instance, you might be near a store, and they might give you an instant coupon to go in and get 25% off your entire purchase or whatever. there are economical reasons to have these kinds of features, and people who do have them love them. but other people it's a polarizing issue, so other people might be wary of them. >> host: just to follow up on tony romm's question about sony. does a breach like that keep you awake at night? >> >> guest: it's always a risk, it's always an issue, but we do take significant precautions. the company takes significant precautions investing in people on the ground in all of our

business groups who specialize in privacy, who specialize in security, who specialize in safety issues to help safeguard against it. >> host: tony romm. >> host: sure. now, as you yourself said what happens on facebook and google sometimes stays there. one of the ideas we heard floated by representatives ed markey and joe barton is this idea of an eraser button, that there be some technology available that they'd be able to click it and information about their child that's publicly available wouldn't be available anymore. as someone who kind of understands what's going on and focuses on this stuff for a living, is this a possible thing we can have? i mean, is this something that microsoft would be able or interested to do? >> guest: this notion of digital forgetting is something that's very new, very cutting edge right now, and there's a lot of focus being paid and attention being paid to it. so it's definitely something that we're going to watch in the years to come and we'll, hopefully, be playing a significant role there as well.

>> host: what about do not track legislation? how does microsoft feel about that? >> guest: microsoft made its announcements quite a few months ago in ie9, and we're doing what we can at the technology level, and i think that it's working fairly well for us. >> host: tony? >> host: sure. on do not track, have you guys gotten any metrics back on those tracking protection lists? do you have any idea -- >> guest: not that i'm aware of yet. >> host: yeah. and so if congress were to broach the issue as a company who does offer some do not track technology, if congress were to mandate some do not track technology, any thoughts on where microsoft right come -- might come out? >> guest: well, we're just going to have to see where that falls out as well. >> host: and finally, jacqueline beauchere, with bing, are those bing searches saved? do people have confidence that their searches go away, are those saved? >> guest: we're not going to be serving ads in those searches.

excuse me, in, particularly in the e-mail sector. we're not going to be when you're seasoning an e-mail, we're not going to be serving up ads that say what's going on in that e-mail or context that would allow that so, yeah. >> host: what brings you to d.c.? >> guest: oh, among other things these issues, obviously, very important to microsoft. there is a conference going on locally about cybersecurity and a strategy summit, so i'm in town for that as well. >> host: do you work with dhs on those issues? >> guest: yes, basically trying to come up with a plan for what would a cyber secure city look like? there are efforts underway right now in san diego, san antonio, and this is kind of at the state level for maryland what would a cybersecurity -- >> host: what does that mean, cyber-secure city? >> guest: well, that was exactly the question posed yesterday, what does that mean? what does that look like?

how equipped and prepared do the citizenry have to be? are government services readily and freely able -- available? do citizens not fall susceptible to worms or viruses or other types of issues? so that's what the group is trying to design. >> host: and if people want to know more about what microsoft does with regard to security, microsoft.com/security, is that the best place to start? >> guest: correct. that's a great place to start. >> host: jacqueline beauchere is a director this trustworthy computing group focusing on online safety and privacy for microsoft. tony romm of "the politico", thank you both for being on "the communicators." >> up next on booktv from the 2011 virginia festival of the book, a panel on the american revolution and the role religion play inside the founding of the united states. this is just over an hour. >> i am delighted to introduce our panel of authors this afternoon.

barbara clark smith is our scholar from the smithsonian. she is curator of the division of political history at the national museum of american history. her new book is "freedoms we have lost: consent and resistance in revolutionary america." in this and other publications, clark-smith writes about politics with a sharp, social historian's eye for drama and detail. she co-cure rated a favorite exhibition of mine called jamestown, quebec and santa fe: three north american beginnings in the 2006. john ragosta is an historian and lawyer, he's our second speaker. he teaches at the uva school of law. he has published in if three fields; contemporary law, legal history and early america. his new book is called "wellspring of liberty: how virginia's religious disscepters helped win the american

revolution and secure religious liberty." and in revolutionary virginia we can count on the baptists for some good theater. [laughter] this year ragosta is a research fellow at the international center for jefferson studies at monticello. john fea, our final speaker s an associate professor of history and department chair in grantham, pennsylvania. his new book is called "was america founded as a christian nation?" john fea has written about religion in american history and contemporary culture in scholarly articles, newspapers and online publications including a blog called the way to improvement leads home. with that, barbara clark-smith. >> thank you. well, my book offers a new interpretation of the american revolution. you only get a few minutes of it, but it does that by