1958, although he promised thurgood marshall that he was going to file a case right after brown was decided in 1954. >> you can watch this and other programs on line as booktv.org. >> next on book tv, jorge castaneda, a former mexican foreign minister talking about the challenges facing this country. >> thank you. the kind of guy who doesn't need a formal introduction. everybody knows some. a long, distinguished career. i wanted to say a few words and welcome the folks who have joined us on the internet and on the wilson formed tv. we have c-span book tv as well. glad that there is an expanded audience that will be enjoying

and benefiting from this presentation. you probably have seen or hayes buyout. i've won't go into detail about that, but i think the things that are most important is that he is well-regarded, renowned as a scholar, a thinker, writer about mexico, policy issues. this is not necessarily a policy book, but a book into the mexicans will if you well. i was thinking this morning that we in the united states has had people come and kind of put the mirror up to us and show us what americans and american democracy is all about. jorge has done our great job trying to explain a little bit to an american audience and to mexico, the uniqueness, some of the paradoxes.

helps us as foreigners understand a place that often is confusing but beloved to so many of los. we are privileged and honored to have you with us all ask him to come make some initial remarks and he will join us again at the chair. we will have a little bit of time for questions and dialogue with him. so i hope this is a good opportunity. thanks. >> thank you, eric. thank you, andrew for having me back here. it is always an honor and it is always a lot of fun. thank you, and thank you for joining us this morning. very briefly on the logistics' of the book.

i wrote this book originally in english for all sorts of reasons, but the really important reason is that it is a lot cheaper to translate from english or spanish to the other way around. my american publishing house didn't want to pay for the translation. i can make up all sorts of other reasons, but there wouldn't be true. the second point is, as eric said, this comes out sell tennis this week. the united states in english, that's the swan, mexico and spanish, as this one. the united states and spanish, that's this one. the point of this is it's a sensitive issue for mexicans in mexico and mexicans in the united states and for americans in mexico.

for americans in the united states, that's a lot of people. slighted suspension of having any kind of double discourse. one thing in mexico and something else in the note states. the best way to makes sure that's the case is to have the book published at the same time, same book, same time, different place. the book is organized in a series of double chapters, odd and even, and even, on an even, and then a final one. each one of these two chapters, four groups of two chapters is made up of one, a so-called national character trait of the mexican people. as arguable as the term may be and as upset as the anthropologist can get at me for using these sorts of terms. the second part, the second

chapter in that subgroup is a description of a reality of current mexico which conflicts or contradicts widely the character trait that we have. there several of these individualism and mexican a classicize awful fuss democracies and complete mexican a version for conflict and confrontation and competition. open economy, seven in the world in a country which is scared to death of the past and the foreign. that means more than anything else to complete the full consummation that so reluctance or rejection of the very notion

of the rule of law. something has to give. of this cheese one couple of chapters to perhaps try and explain what i mean. in that third chapter i go deeply into this notion of conflict version. why mexicans, why we don't like confrontation. we don't like verbal confrontation. we don't like physical confrontation. we don't like conceptual confrontation. we don't like competition. we just don't like that sort of stuff. and this makes it very difficult to have to coexist with a democracy where the whole point of that is that you have conflicting ideas, conflicting parties, conflicting schools of thought.

a hundred schools of thought, a hundred flowers bloom. in mexico they bloom but they don't contend. a lot of flowers, very few schools of thought. and this makes it all very difficult for that democracy to work. examples, i start -- i don't start, but i include one of them which is one of the most peculiar features of current de mexico. we are, as the new york times put it a couple of years ago, the only country in the world that is really assessed was the guinness book of world records. but, i mean, really obsessed, not just fooling around. really assessed. we are the only country that spends a significant amount of money, public money on financing the largest in the world, obviously the longest. but also the highest artificial

christmas tree and the world's largest ice skating rink. you know, mexico city is not the first place that would come to mind to have a big as giving rank. among other reasons because nothing ever freezes there. but, this is what we did last year, and we made it to the guinness book of records. so you ask yourself, and mexican sociologists ask this question a couple of years ago. why in the world that we do this? came up with a very intelligent answer. this is the kind of competition we like. we are the only ones competing. [laughter] you can't lose if you're in the competition for the world's biggest because nobody else is doing it. nobody else is crazy enough to do this and spend time or money on it. it's not going to happen. so we love that kind of competition. the problem, of course, is that aversion to competition when it

extends into antitrust policy it gets complicated. i go into the same stories. carlos. but respectful but also somewhat critical, not of his personality or persona, but of his situation which also has to do with another trait that i described, individualism. this is not often been said that not only does slim concentrate and net worth around 7 percent of mexican gdp which would be roughly three times what john d. rockefeller concentrated in 1911 on the eve of the breakup of standard oil, three times more, but more interestingly slam has -- / net worth is greater than

the net worth of the following 20 mexican magnates or fat cats. it is as if, let's say, gates had more money than buffett and the wall nice and the next 15 altogether, which is obviously not the case. the concentration is such that it is almost unfathomable which is why we always say it rightly so. mexican business community is made of two parts, slim and the rest. i get into the issue in this chapter of the tremendous reluctance because of this aversion to conflict to any kind of ideological or personal confrontation. trying to bert -- built his party after the 88 electoral defeat in fraud.

many of us for helping him try to at least oversee the polls in local elections. i tell the story of the common friend of ours. we went to a polling and the elections held just outside mexico city. we were there watching to see. britain still too many votes. some, but not too many. we were there. at the end of the day we start counting. and the local prd folks, when we showed them how many votes it was dealing we have proof here that they're cheating. [speaking in native tongue] we said that's the point. that's over here for.

that's why we came here for. obviously we left it at that. they reflected upon this later, 20 years later or never. they were right in we were wrong. why? because the next day charlie in that would go back to mexico city. never be able to really go and take care. he had bigger fish to fry logically enough. they would have to go on living right there. there would have to go on living, co hat have a tin, coexisting. with this notion in mexico that you don't want to confront, you don't want to pick a fight. you can't walk away from a fight.

once you walk into a fight you have to stick with it all the way. and so better not to have it then have it and then have to back away. i go through these different traits. the reality of the country i describe how the country has become what i consider to be a full-fledged majority middle class society with extraordinarily impressive achievements on all counts over the last 15 years. five years. six years. five years. issues as different as housing, health, cell phones, pies that tvs, access to credit, vacations, a private education, private health insurance, the works. this is now a full-fledged majority middle-class society. barely 55, 56, 57%. it has been a bit stagnant the last couple of years, although in housing the boom continues in continues in continues.

i go into the impressive status of the open economy in mexico, al open it is with the contradictions with, for example, this absurd notion we have whereby since the 1930's, says the constitution and reinforced in 1930's we have what are called los bizarreness, foreigners cannot own land on beachfront. cannot own beachfront land. they can of land on the border. i can see the logic of it. beaches, unless you think that somebody is going to swim up and invade you, that is a lot of swimmers or submarines or god knows what. the other guys don't need to own beachfront. these guys we have now that, in semi submersibles and submarines and land on the beaches. they don't seem to up need to own beachfront properties to dump their merchandise from columbia and drive it on up to the united states.

but we continue to forbid, it's not allowed, as i'm sure you all know, for foreigners to own beachfront property since the 1930's. that is on the one hand. a fantastic thing in mexico, inventing stupid laws and then ingenious ways to get around them. this is a stupid law for a country that wants to attract tourism, that once american retirees to retire in mexico, that wants them to buy houses, buy homes in mexico, but doesn't want them to own them. ..

so, we have the subsurface situation whereby on the one hand, we have laws thar not applicable and the ingenious ways to get around them because the demand we get around them and all this does is feet total disrespect for the rule of law. i finish the book which i think an optimistic perhaps somewhat naive few but nonetheless optimistic which is basically a i think this can change and will change, i think it will change essentially through influence from abroad. what does of rot mean? it means united states.

but who in the united states? mexicans in the united states clacks which mexicans? manly mexican women in the united states. basically what i say is the social cultural mental transformation of mexican migrant women in the united states can be the single most important lever of transformation of mexican culture mentality and everything. why? because mexican women who come to the united states to work illegally that's not the issue of that's not what we said, i'm not interested in those matters. i'm just as mexican as a pretty else is. fight? [laughter] mexican women who come here tend more and more to come alone. they are not coming, they are not being brought to the u.s. by the family and even when they are once they are here they say goodbye and that's it. mexican women who come here, they don't half -- they make

their money, they decide what to do with their money, they may send some home, maybe they don't, they may have kids, maybe they don't, they hook up with one guy, they leave that guy, they filled up with nobody, they've work where they want from this is an extraordinary transformational process for women who are much force always less dominant in mexico any way than we tend to think. i have much more sympathy [speaking spanish] laughter, whatever the point of departure, the social transformation, the cultural and mental transformation of mexican women in the united states to if given the freedom even for example of the domestic violence

because of the have something here they don't have a mexico and it is a lot of polling data that shows this in the book. mexican women in the united states actually trust the police which is one of the most and the mexican attitudes you can have. you can go up and down all of mexico and he will not find a single mexican who trusts the police, ma one. there's no such animal. nobody. mexicans in the u.s. trust the police, and mexican women trust the police and mexican women will use the threat of calling the police to get the ball lead off their back or whatever and try this one more time and you're going to be thrown out of here and they do at. degette in mexico. who are you going to call? maybe the medical's, the only guys who can give you some sort

of protection. nobody else can. at least then they are proper people and you can deal with them. you can't call the police or the army. there's nobody to call. here there's a incredible and legitimate threat. at least eliminates almost an enormous amount of inter domestic violence against women, mexican women in the united states. i think it's a little bit maybe pushing it, but i think there is something of real because you see these women and what they have -- what happens when they return to mexico, you see how the children grow up and the relationship they have with men and i think there is hope for changing these fundamental character traits, the 5i describe, which -- and i want to be clear on this in closing, which were extraordinarily productive and helpful to mexico over the past 500 years. it stands to this we've been we

became a nation. it's thanks to this that somewhere in the 40's, thanks to the presidency that we became a nation. there was no mexican nation between then. there were a bunch of people living in a territory. that's about it. we became a nation in that era and this was an enormous achievement which other places have not achieved, and these character traits were fundamental in helping us achieve this. the have now become counterproductive. they have now become totally contradictory, totally at odds with the means of a modern open economy, a representative democracy of middle class society with of the need for law, for the full-fledged democratic debate and confrontation, for competition. those traits which served us so well in the past don't serve us anymore, so that's what the book is about. i hope you enjoy it in any one

of its versions coming and i hope that if it helps us understand how this place works. thanks a lot. [applause] >> there with us for a minute we are going to get microphones and then andrew who have a question for you. >> we will go to the audience in a minute to start a dialogue with a couple questions appear on the stage. first of all, not only are you one of mexico's [inaudible] foreign minister, you were involved in the campaign and the democracy. you have a long history who

[inaudible] i wonder now out the youth had a chance to step back and think about some of these larger cultural traits, some of the things that are a heritage of the history of the country how would that have changed anything that you were involved with in the past? if you had written this book 20 years ago or 40 years ago, would it have changed anything you did as foreign minister or anything you did as a a political activist working for the democratization process, would it have changed anything you did as you are running for president a few years ago? >> it's hard to say, andrew. i think what is true is what i learned during those years and those fields what i didn't know then and what i know now that would have been useful for me, and i think the main thing is what you learn in the government in mexico. you can't learn this from

outside, which is how difficult it is to change the place and how you start running into all these obstacles and character traits. you can call them something else if you want. the fundamental features of this. once you are sitting there and have to deal with this stuff, you realize that it is so much more difficult, so much more time consuming, so much more slowly than one would ever writing have imagined. for people who began their career in government right out of school and worked of through the finance ministry, the foreign ministry, the central bank, any of the miniature craddock. trustees, perhaps there's no surprise because it's an incremental process so they don't really notice the contrast between being outside and sort of looking in saying why don't you do that and this and what

they should do is this and what they should do is that. inside they don't do that because they are inside, but if you have been outside for a long time coming and you have been saying why don't you this or that, all you have to do is this or that, and then all of a sudden, quote on quote it's never that separate, that drastic all of a sudden you're inside why don't you do this? because i can't. it doesn't work because i can't move this thing. it doesn't move, and it's in the book about something we are talking about we have a long list of mexico peng, very long list i put in the book of the jobs posts that naturalized mexicans cannot hold. it's a very long list. it's just about every government job in the country like naturalist mexicans are not allowed --

>> politically appointed. ischemic politically appointed, yes, he liked it and many politically appointed, know. but it's not just senior. local councilman, municipal -- natural is mexicans, not foreigners, naturalized manikins delete the mexicans and so on and so forth. >> this is a crazy idea for any country but it's especially crazy for a country that has one of every nine of its citizens living abroad fighting for her rights for them, denying a naturalized the mexicans, but that's a different sort of notion. when you look at this when i got into office and my father had had the same problem 20 years before there were several people that we wanted to appoint as investors or consular sioux were

nationalized the mexicans and we couldn't come when i was able to reform the foreign service law, the commission headed by people like that, we got everything through the congress except one thing. the one thing said under no condition what was it? around to allow them to be ambassadors for the counselor generals. why? what's the problem? i can see the advantage of having someone like arnold schwarzenegger never be governor called for the. [laughter] and obviously no naturalized mexican would ever do something like that, ever. [laughter] no mexican would never do anything like that. >> and god forbid. but, i mean, why the opposition why can't you have a naturalized mexican, someone who chose to be

mexican? represent the country in phoenix? it's not exactly the capitol of the world. what's the big deal? >> and a naturalized u.s. citizen could be governor of arizona not perhaps tomorrow but it could happen. >> absolutely. [inaudible] born in mexico? >> and number of people born in mexico a lot in the position. >> needless to say not only mexicans but secretaries of state, etc.. >> we want to give everybody an opportunity for dialogue if you wouldn't mind raising your hand introducing yourself i'm going to start with the co-sponsor of this and then come back to jimmy. >> thank you. i'm the director of the program to america, and we have had a

great collaboration with jorge and i had the privilege of editing to him from time to time at the various newspapers and it's always been an intellectual privileged to work with you and i really congratulate you on this book which is fantastic. i had the opportunity to finish it yesterday. i wanted to ask you, one of the most riveting passages was your description about the lack of social cohesion and civic engagement in mexico. when you look at the statistics of associations and, you know, non-governmental organizations and the ways in which people to interact with each other the statistics are pretty shocking obviously compared to the u.s. and people's engagement but either worth other latin american countries and i was wondering if this was mexico becomes more of a middle class country which is also something you described quite vividly, if you see that in the change now

what are some of the ways in which people's engagement in a society today to give you a sense of optimism about that trend being reversed? have we not started to see the change it? >> let me add there's something for many of us is counterintuitive which is most of us think mexico's the five strong collective culture u.s. very individualistic and you're actually saying the opposite in many ways, and not only that, but mexico versus latin america. >> that's what i say but i think more importantly than saying this, i try to rely on an enormous amount of statistics whether its polling data, participation, as of this is addition, evin religionocity wear their religious miss hayes increasingly perhaps always was a highly individualistic act mexicans do not go to mass will

go to [inaudible] that's about it. the mass, which is a collective by definition act, they don't. the mexican religionocity in all the polls this field by the individual lacked so these are numbers you can disagree with and that is a discussion that can be had but the numbers, are there. and under this perhaps that because of the new technologies and social networks this may be beginning to change. although it's hard to say -- i am not sure i would want to emphasize the collective nature of the social networks because they also tend to be highly individualistic. in other words, yes, you were collectively but if each person is tweeting on their blackberry

or their iphone and this is something which is not necessarily that collective, but it is more engaging. there's been a couple of examples of the last couple of years of people getting together manly intuitive stila lesser extent to stop legislation and push for legislation to stop bombarding a congressman with demands that they vote for something or voting against something. a little bit of that is happening but certainly not as much as i would like. just a part of that the naturalize mexicans also acknowledge the presence his question is the same story. no naturalist mexicans. not the president, okay, i could understand, but why in the world can't he be naturalized mexican who arrives as a child and grew up, married and vote to their

come he can vote but he can't count the votes. that is a strange one. >> the federal electoral institute for those of you. jenny? >> to stop talking to the microphone. >> with the u.s. institute of peace thank you for a provocative book. i was particularly fascinated by your conclusions in the transformation of mexican society is going to come through these women who've lived in mexico and return back home i want to elaborate aileron that. are the women returning to mexico and is there a place for them and politics? deduce even transforming society within families or kind of the cultural realm, and are their policy prescriptions that you might have that might facilitate this transfer? to these women were others back in mexico. thanks. >> i don't see it as a political

process. it's not that they will return home and run for office. whether it happens or not heavens i don't think is terribly important and probably won't happen. but i think it's more in terms of the message they send either by returning home on occasion or by having your to children by influencing them in the work within the united states who then go home. it's that a general sort of more cultural become more social type of transformation than political. obviously the more circularity we have we have or have, the more of this would happen. and i think one of the stupidest things the u.s. governments have done since the clinton administration is -- in fact we talked about this we have severed the circularity which means we stopped the movement of the most important cultural influences that could come to

mexico to transform mexico in a way that was obviously to the united states advantage because there's nothing more important for the united states than a modern prosperous democratic and the united states has i think unwillingly but doesn't matter for the last 18 years since 1994 and done everything to stop that circular the inconsequential, it is have a lane happening less than could happen. you have to pay $7,000. the last quote i saw 531 guys standing in the trailer truck capable days ago was 700 appalled. it's good business. 500 of these and one truck and charge each 1,700,000 bucks. that's good money. and it's just driving them across the border. unless they get caught of course it becomes a big deal and you lose the truck and the money and everything. but otherwise, it's good business.

but it really is ridiculous to stop this. >> question way back in the back corner. >> good morning. thank you. i want to to get a vantage of you been here for you to talk about the outlook. how do you see the politics in mexico moving from here to election day next year? >> welcome to been pushing for the political reform as the four most important reform in mexico. i just think this is to come in the coming months? >> to be seen from the reform. >> to bring it back to the book, i do go in the book into changing mexico's political institutions and why we need all the big mistakes more or less consciously believing we could use the same institutions in the regime and have them function in

a new space context was a big mistake. i think there's three people largely responsible for this. the main one is president fox because i wasn't able to convince them of this field miserably, and the third one was my very good friend today and better today who won that battle but lost it with and that is one of the reasons we are in the mess we are in. it's a chance for of least partial political institution and the reelection of congressmen

>> [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish]

[speaking spanish] the >> we better do that briefly in english because we have a lot of people online. including the re-election of congressmen now. the first recollected mexican senator would be reelected in 2020 for. -- 2024. [inaudible] former head of the electoral institute -- >> thank you. it's very important because this is not going to happen then in

the different scenarios we will begin fielding the impact of the reelection until 2024. because it is impossible or it is not good that a member of congress to delay the benefits therefore it would be after 2024 in the best of cases. so for decades to think it is in the mexican politics because it is this in punitive, lack of responsibility, and i was expecting something to happen but it will not happen and there for the political system will continue to work. >> talk about the mexican congress and in light of what you say about the conflict

avoidance. >> if there is rampant conflict with the stability to move probably is the mexican congress, so it is a little bit counter intuitive. how come that doesn't play out there and they get along and make policy? >> they don't make policy, they do get along. that's the first part, but the main point is you listen to them and the people and you get this notion very quickly. when by some chance, by some miracle there is a majority vote, 270 to 230, when a group of congressmen, or house members the other one uses. the losers inevitably say "after [speaking spanish] isn't that what it's supposed to be about?

>> the impose their majority in the use their majority that's the way it works. no, they don't think so. they think that what people were supposed to do in congress -- that the congressman say, then you ask the mexican people what would you like? >> this is what we need to be convened. people to agree to stop and try to explain to them that's not what this democratic stuff is about. it's not about people agreeing, it's about people selling their disagreements inevitable and often desirable disagreements in a pacific, democratic respectful way. it's not about agreeing, it's about disagreeing fit different ways, it's impossible to discuss anybody in mexico. >> what would seem to be an exception to this rule?

>> to the pope, yes, he's very atypical phenomenon. he goes for broke. but, i give the example in 2006 and i say by different roads the ended up in the same place. at that time i would speak closely and still consider them eight your friend and we spoke a lot. my sense is an 88 and he understood and 89 and bring down the government, his followers would not follow, that he understood in this a very intuitive and mexican way for such a confrontation not saying he backed off but he was prudent and responsible and quote on quote come came back to fight another day so he tried to bring dhaka government, and the people

what they would do to him, they didn't follow. when he did his he was all alone. so difficult but his followers are not atypical. >> international communications group. you see that mexicans like to compete for world records followed by carlos how do you see the acceptance of the mexicans from the point of few? is there a situation in which they want to change these because this is a monopoly of power, so how do they accept this when there is so much poverty in mexico? >> i think certainly there is a

version to competition as we were saying before providing that one of the reasons we have not set up antitrust institutions with teeth, real lasting teeth is because we don't like the idea of imposing competition and the electoral or the union arena, telecommunications and oil or anything. we don't like this idea and the tremendous aversion to it. the fact that he's very well fi is part of the problem but not the essentials problem. he would be just as well fees if he were forced to divest himself elkus offstage it's only one-third and smaller now than they should. so if you are forced to divest,

he wouldn't be significantly poorer. that would not change and the mexican people wouldn't be significantly wealthier. but what changes he would introduce such a greater amount of competition into the telecommunications that prices would come down, the economy would become more competitive and consumers would be able to use self owns more frequently for other things, and there's much more than in mexico and mexico is an under banked country, one of the most in latin america but we are not moving anywhere on the cellphone banking. among other reasons because it is too expensive. so -- that we don't like this. we are in the position anywhere. we have questions here.

>> i just want to ask you -- it seems to be a contradiction between what you stated that there is an aversion to conflict and that in general in mexico they don't want to conform to pick up around open and allow the, so how do you explain that and this is not the only fight the have picked up in the last four years with the united states. is there an exhibition about this view that you have of aversion when it comes to the united states? >> that's because perhaps as interesting as the fact that

calderon was able to apply so much pressure on secretary clinton and president obama to have to withdraw that he was forced in the way the pressure was then transmitted by secretary clinton to him i am convinced that this is what happened. this was the first u.s. ambassador in 1823 who has ever been out because this is what it was in a very complex history of american ambassadors. we have a lot of them and every mexican president had the trouble with u.s. investors.

but at the end of the day, managing things with the united states and avoiding the confrontation with the americans has happened obviously has before and i continue to think of was a very serious mistake for the petty personal reasons i do not believe there was a policy situation for the personal reasons to have thrown pascrell out it was a mistake. pascrell was probably the most sophisticated ambassador the united states has had in many years. i also think he became the most deeply attached to mexico, and i think he was the one with the best channels of communication in washington for a very long time because you can only call the president so many times.

a good friend of president bush, so you can call one sifry two, three, four, five months. every community new-car you can't call the president. i think the more traditional way if this has been to avoid going beyond the limit in confrontation of the united states and in that sense it has been wise. i don't think that by refer to in the book is really called confrontation on for third parties but the mexican obsession with the united states and other forms. >> thank you. norman bailey. thank you, jorge. i look forward and it's a pleasure to reading your book. i'm going to disagree something you said in response to a question and then i'm going to ask a question. you said that if the trust caring of the illegal immigrants

is intercepted they leave the truck, the immigrants, they don't lose the money it's already been paid and it's in mexico and they don't get it down without losing the truck and the people. that's totally immaterial. >> a better business than you said. even if the truck is intercepted, doesn't matter. >> i agree. what i want to ask about, the understand what you say about the mexican aversion to confrontation and i've experienced it myself. most people, even people who know a lot about mexican history would say how can he say something like that? during the 19th century god knows how many the bloodiest revolutions in the history of the world and the 20th century what's going on right now and northern mexico and elsewhere with the so-called drug war and so forth how can you say they

are a first to confrontation? they've been shooting each other up for decades, centuries. estimate by dillinger this episode of the revolution at some length on the number of questions because every mexican child and american student has always heard about the million who died during the revolution. first of all, didn't have a million people who died. it didn't happen. we had maybe 300 or 400,000 people die at most, but with one small minor matter. of that amount, roughly 80% died or 90% dhaka from the spanish influenza which had absolutely nothing to do with the revolution. the revolution itself more distinguished historians say people who were actually killed

in the ten years or eight years of the revolution probably not more than 30,000 which is not bad, but still it is nowhere near that famous million. >> people like adamite, all of these people have always questioned, but it's become part of the folklore. i give the other a sample which is less serious but more emblematic. it's been given for 45 years now almost that more than 600 students were massacred by the army square of the three cultures on october 2nd, 1968. we are now 43 years away. we have had truth commissions, blah blah blh. as of today, 68 names have been

found. 68. not one more. you can see the families are scared. scared of what? 45 years later? the sites, they've had two or three governments who want to find for, because they want to gain that. they would love to be able to confirm i'm writing here from the stones running with blood nicoe 600 students around me all, did. we are looking for the 600 students. didn't happen. the guards provoke to shoot across shooting where are around 60 people died of which 804045. this was not to in any way not condemn this war for deutsch it or forget or condone at, but that's what happened.

>> when the mediation's break down all hell breaks loose and the way the revolution is interpreted and if you look at the north and other parts of mexico into a deep conflict when the mediations and compromise breaks down, the result is all hell breaks loose. the country falls apart and then that is the sort of flip side of this. the same people in that moment did oppose the government but it became an outburst. they had to protect with guns, right? there was no killing but this was safe, you know, we reached our outer limit, here. is there a point at which the fear is a win in the historical learning may be partially from the revolution and the liberal conservatives where things really fall apart if we don't compromise? >> i think that is one of the main reasons for this conflict

of version that if it goes too far you can't look back and not only can't walk back but you get thrown into a much more violent or direct confrontation which is better to avoid a. that's partly true. that's what mexicans think. it's not necessarily what happens which is a plan to but a million dead in the revolution or other examples and another element of measuring this is to other countries. calderon began with this nonsense mexico had lower homicide per 100,000 death rates than most countries in north america. we were down to about eight per 100,000 still in 2007, 2006. and eight is the national average. if you break it down by regency and removed three states navy,

three or four states in 2007, which represent a very small part of the country, the average for the rest of the country was in the four, five, six willful homicides per 100,000 which is not tall of a violent country. it's much less violent than practically any of the bigger countries in latin america, much less violent than central america. what levels of around those like chellie, uruguay, the united states around five, so of course you start shooting at the sky is the shoot back. they're just going to sit there? >> it's got to be nice to start something like that. but now we are in this mess and the good part is now we are --

president calderon had this marvelous analogy that he drew the other day which really i think it helps explain to the mexican people what's going on. he compared himself to winston churchill and tried to explain to the mexican people how he was also going to stand out and not be an abuser. i remember it was chamberlain who went to munich and churchill was against the appeasement but he wasn't prime minister. other than that minor detail -- >> perfectly relevant and the people understood it perfectly. >> we will beat these guys, too. it will take only so many cells and.

>> it doesn't seem to be a reaction to anything calderon did order please state direct reaction in a direct comparison. this is the cartel. these are decisions made by drug-traffickers against each other which civilians are being caught up and the complexity of some of the authorities is also an enormous factor but do you think it is a direct result of the decision to go after them? >> the next issue that comes out in the ten days or so there's an article who correlates the numbers of deaths, kidnappings, etc.. >> the giant police military operations. is that there's a perfect correlation town by town, state-by-state. the violence goes up

dramatically. >> violence going up before they arrive. >> apparently he says you have a stable levels but rising perhaps it skyrockets. i've seen parts of the peace that comes out about having any numbers about the troop the violence has been provoked by the war iraq. the war wasn't provoked by the violence but that's a matter of opinion obviously. >> you have been patient. i go ahead. >> i'm a member of the border of the u.s.-mexico foundation. you mention the role of women returning mexican women play has changed agents in mexico. what do you see as a possible role for mexican-american leaders in the united states as possible change agents in

mexico? >> from the sense of pushing, talking about perhaps over breakfast the more white and policy on the part of the united states towards mexico where i am just so disappointed that we have now had for two years and hopefully another six years the possibility of dealing with an american president who for the first time that honestly i can remember has the sophistication, intelligence and vision to understand these challenges and that we in mexico cannot come up with anything more intelligent to say to start to the to stop the arms exports, blah blah blh, this ridiculous nonsense though. i'm susan pointed in that because there could be a much more enlightened policy towards mexico which is basically when he arrived in mexico he wanted to do which is what is the

number one item on the united states agenda with mexico? to do everything it can to transform mexico to modern space process and more equal country as soon as possible. that is what the u.s. policy should be centered on. >> on god knows what. this is not happening. the main reason it is not happening is because we mexicans are not pushing the obama in that direction because at the end of the day it's much more important for us than it is for him, the united states. we should be the ones driving the agenda in that direction and we are not doing it. i think in the mexican-american community could push that direction instead of jumping on the bandwagon which it doesn't understand which has to do with the questions of the violence and everything else which if we go into this you can figure it out some of what is going on, but if you are -- it's not natural and it's hard to

understand. and also disappointed that we don't have a stronger lobby in the u.s. and the policy towards mexico but enlightened meaning what can the united states deutsch to transform mexico's in modern prosperous democratic more equal middle class society sooner rather than later? that is what the policy should be and that's where mexican-americans should push, not just mexican-americans. >> what can the u.s. do? >> everything from policy to transferring resources from infrastructure to transferring to education to an immigration agreement we talked about for so long on so many issues working with mexico and multilateral issues, an infinite number of things can be done if you have the focus, in other words if there is a clear vision of what the policy should be and then from that main focus to fight

everything else. we are spending so much time on such silly things. it's remarkable to make this point i may be wrong on this and some people here may know more about this than i do. the last i heard of the meeting they had here was three weeks ago. the main point of discussion was to finally try to get the numbers st.. they were negotiating the numbers. and one of the numbers they mainly want to negotiate is what is the total value of the drug trade for mexico. how much money does this entail for mexico? the americans had been pleading with a range of 19 to $39 billion per year for a couple of years. and that's what they say. it's a pretty wide range. a businessman someone comes in and we are going to be making somewhere between 19,000 to $39,000 next year we probably went to fire the guy that says that. but okay.

the mexicans -- have come up with their number they are pushing for which is roughly $9 billion. now i have no way of knowing if they are right or wrong but i ask myself following question. let's just say that for once they are light its $9 billion. so this whole 40,000 dead, the $60 billion, the massive human rights violations over 7% of gdp cause that's what $9 billion is, .7%. that's 70%, .7% of mexican gdp. >> what is the fault over the and unity and the collapse of the justice.

>> there's as much as their other has been before. you won't find one. the same maybe you can find to trust he's the only guide will also say i feel sorry -- the same guy. [laughter] we have time for two more questions. we have one here and -- >> i wanted to go back to the question of the justice system in mexico and why is there no trust and what if anything can be done by mexican-americans and to improve the situation because this must be a longstanding problem. >> do you want to do both of

them? >> is there another question? why don't we get one more and then we will call it -- >> larry from the smithsonian department. if i remember correctly, in 1990-1991, the elements of a u.s. government program to mexico were in place. there was a large sort of family planning activity, democracy began to flourish in terms of the programs with the elections past, and there was an interesting economic program, but really what you describe as transformational did begin to exist and grow in the 90's. perhaps i am incorrect. >> i don't have that recollection in terms of that happening. in fact, my recollection i think was more that the president's

and then clinton as of 93 concentrated all their efforts on nafta and tried to attribute to nafta's passage many of the things you have mentioned that sort of as automatic buy products as priorities or planned outcomes they would like to achieve, and of course they turned out to be totally wrong as far as the associated by products are concerned. we can argue the cause of nafta as it was approved and whether delivered the goods or didn't deliver the goods, but the other parts did not have been and were not included for reasons having to do precisely with narrowing the agenda as much as possible. some of us here -- it would have been a better deal for both countries on the things that

were excluded had been included even if that would have held up the process of the ratification to read on the question of the justice system with a bunch of numbers there, the numbers you can see in the film which is a marvelous movie which are every day in the mexican press about how few people go to the justice system to denounce crimes and how can few people are ever really tried and how mexicans have absolutely no trust whatsoever in the justice system to read what i try to do is go deeper into understanding why. and i don't come up with any extraordinary intelligence or insightful explanations, but there are some cultural and historical traits which are important. i go back to the view that spain cut the monarchies which was an

old custodian and way of the last recourse that you did not execute a sentence like to be hitting somebody until you have the possibility of having the king review the case and then decide to go ahead and be hit him, didn't like him any way. that was then transformed into the relationship between the markey. why? because there's no way for any decision made in spain to be implemented in new spain and conversely there was -- they didn't want to be totally independent with a marquee. so they found this deal. you can send all sorts of instructions from madrid and we will make believe that we respect them and stuff, but we won't pay attention to them but

we won't say that we aren't going to pay attention to them. i seek that started the process which has led to an incredible this respect ever since mexico. and we have compounded that with the invented laws and since people are not stupid, if you try to impose the laws on them they would find intelligent ways to get around those stupid laws. they will not abide by obviously stupid laws. to that on this very mexican notion that i will only respect the laws that are just to be the [speaking spanish] which is the most and rule of law attitude you can have. in mexico, we have more of the people saying [speaking spanish] , so you put all this together and you have an unmanageable

justice system which is what the movie shows and the movie is extraordinary but it also shows you the magnitude of the challenge to a long-term support of the process of all of the trials of mexico doing away with a written system but very slowly a lot of people are getting cold feet about it. it's expensive, it's more complicated, it's more transparent, it's more expedited, so it's a very tough process to go through. we would push forward on it and we could get there but it's a very complicated process. why would anybody go to the police or the justice system? to have to be crazy to do that and most are not. most are not, so of course in the justice system. but for?

>> okay. well, you've been enormously generous with your time. jorge has agreed to sign books out and i am sure other people will have other questions but let's get a round of applause. [applause] >> [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> the first book on my reading list the spring and summer was cleopatra come and what a great insight in recounting her work. it was a dhaka was recommended to me, and so i'm excited to take it up and read it and continue with the strong woman thing with you will as elizabeth i and both of these. i have gone back to cleopatra and elizabeth and it got me on to the historical land of the older model type approach and with my bible study group i'm reading pilgrims which is delightful to get back and then

because of the movie coming out with my family we are reading atlas shrugged which is very timely i have to say for those of us that are here in d.c.. >> ..

lying is most effective when you don't do it very often and therefore you are in a position to catch people off guard. you put some examples in your book why politicians, white leaders lyne about american presidents and some specific examples about when they lie. >> guest: i have this whole slew of examples. my favorite example of what i call a noble lie was the lie president kennedy told in the cuban missile crisis. kennedy had hoped in the cuban missile crisis by getting khrushchev to simply withdraw the soviet missiles from cuba but at the end, of the crisis khrushchev told him that he would only remove the soviet missiles from cuba. if kennedy would remove the equivalent missiles that we had in turkey, those were the jupiter missiles. kennedy had no problem removing those missiles. in fact he had told a pentagon to get the missiles out of

turkey before the cuban missile crisis but he understood full well that he could not tell the american public and he could not tell the europeans especially the turks, that he had agreed to a deal where we would take the jupiter missiles out of turkey. so he in effect told khrushchev that khrushchev could say nothing about the deal and if anyone in the american media suspected a deal and asked him whether there was a deal, kennedy would have to lott. khrushchev should understand that the deal was still on and of course the media quickly picked up the possibility that there was a deal and asked kennedy and his lieutenants about it and they lied. and i think that this was a smart bayh to tell because kennedy ended the cuban missile crisis and given the gravity of the situation at the time, i think it was imperative that he bring it to an and without the possibility of war. and he did that and he felt the only way he could do it was by telling a lie.

>> host: did fdr lie back to get us into world war ii? >> guest: he lied to try to get us into world war ii in the late summer of 1941. there was a naval incident in the atlantic ocean involving a uss greer, which was a naval, a u.s. navy surface ship and it was involved in an operation with a british aircraft and they ran into a german submarine. what roosevelt did was he told a series of lies about the greer for the purposes of getting us into world war ii because of the time he was desperate to get us into the war and he was having great difficulty doing it because you was dealing with isolationist america. so he told a lie to try to get us in but it didn't work. get to pearl harbor to get us into the war. >> host: professor mearsheimer went to world leaders get behind closed doors to the lie to each other? >> guest: hardly ever in the

main reason is there is not a great deal of trust to begin with when to world leaders get behind closed doors. ronald reagan really hit the nail on the head when he said, trust but verify. but reagan was saying you really can't trust people. you have to verify that they are telling the truth. so, it is really going to be a highly unusual circumstance where one leader is in a position where he or she can bamboozle another leader so you just don't see much of that kind of lying. you c. some for sure but not much. >> host: when you see a president having a special relationship with another world leader, does that tell you anything about their truth level? >> guest: no. i think it usually is a function of strategic factors. winston churchill and franklin d. roosevelt had a special relationship before. in fact that special relationship is very intense and the year before pearl harbor

because winston churchill wanted the united states to get involved in world war ii very much, and franklin d. roosevelt himself wanted to get us into the war so the two of them worked hand-in-hand to do everything they could to drag the united states into the war. they had a real special relationship, but they had no incentive to lie to each other and in fact all the incentives were to work closely with them one another to get us into the war. >> host: politically why do leaders find it easier to lie to their own public then two other international leaders? >> guest: it is actually quite simple. it is easiest to lie when there is trust between two people are two groups, and in international politics there is not much trust between any two states. when leader dealing with another theater in most cases, there's not much trust and therefore it is kind of hard to lie rick is the other side is distrustful.

when you are dealing with your own public, in most cases publics tend to trust their leaders. they think that their leaders are looking out for their own good. when we look at the president of the united states we think that he is trying to protect us, that international politics is a rough-and-tumble business and our leader is doing his best to maintain the security of our country so there's a certain level of trust between a public and its leadership. whenever there is that element of trust, it means that the possibility of telling a lie or waging a deception campaign is very great. of course we saw this in the run-up to the iraq war. i think the american people by and large trusted the bush administration. this is not to say that there weren't some americans that distrusted president bush but most americans trusted him. and he was therefore a handful of lies that helped get us into that war.

>> host: john mearsheimer we often hear about the special relationship between the u.s. and england, and given the special status of that relationship, are there lies told between these two nations as well? tony blair, bill clinton very close, george bush, tony blair very close. >> guest: i looked very carefully at the relationship between tony blair and bill clinton and then tony blair and george w. bush. i know a great deal about the bush blair relationship because both of them were involved in dragging their countries into war against iraq in march of 2003 and i think in both cases, both the case of tony blair and the case of george w. bush, there is evidence that they told a handful of lies to their public, but there is no evidence that they told lies to each other. in fact they worked hand-in-hand to drag the united states and britain into that war.

>> host: did you write this book before the wikileaks episode started? >> guest: yes, i began the book a long long time ago, in fact in 2003. what happened was i got a call from a man named search who was in with "the new york times" and was writing a piece for the week in review section of the times on international lying. he and i had never met but he said for some reason when he thought about the subject by name popped into his head. >> host: why do you think that is? >> guest: i am not sure. probably because i'm a well-known realist and somebody who believes in rielle polity is likely to believe it's -- states lie a lot. i thought i would find evidence of leaders lying all the time and i was actually quite shocked that was not the case that lies are told quite rarely. when i used to go around the country talking about the subject before the book was published and i would tell audiences that i can't find much evidence of lying it was amazing

how cynical most people were. they said we can't believe that. you are just not looking hard enough. but the fact is there is not that much evidence of lying. but anyway he asked me on the phone with a thoughts were on the subject. i told them i had never given any thought to the subject and moreover i knew of no literature on it. so i asked him to tell me what he was thinking and i would just bounce off his ideas, which is what we did for about an hour. we had a very fruitful conversation. i made a short memo for the record and a few months later somebody asked me to give a talk at m.i.t. and i decided to talk on the subject. lo and behold a few years later i ended up with this book. >> host: would this be a different book if you wrote it after wikileaks? >> guest: no. in fact i've looked quite carefully at a lot of the wikileaks documents and stories about wikileaks that have come out over the past year and a half, and they think that what you see with the wikileaks documents is pretty much in sync with what i say in the book.

you don't see a lot of evidence of lying. in fact, it seems to me from the wikileaks documents that leaders are quite blunt with each other behind closed doors. this is not to say you don't see evidence of lying but to the extent that you do see evidence of lying, it is leaders lying to their own country more often then flying to each other and that of course is consistent with what is probably the main theme in the book. >> host: professor mearsheimer how do you compare the u.s. to other countries when it comes to the issue of lying? >> guest: i think that you will find more evidence of the united states lying than most other countries. this is in part due to the fact that the united states is a democracy. one should expect to find more lying in democracies than an authoritarian states. >> host: why? >> guest: for the simple reason that democratic leaders are accountable to their public. they have to explain to their public why they are doing x, y

or z so any time a democratic leader pursues an unpopular policy, he or she is going to be tempted to tell a lie to get the public to go along with that unpopular policy. but the leader thinks it is nevertheless a smart policy. if you are a dictator you don't really have to worry very much about what your public thinks about a particular policy. you can pretty much do what you want. so the incentives to lie are going to be greater in a democracy than in a non-democracy. also in the american case because we have a penchant for fighting wars of choice in distant places, presidents are going to have to do a lot of heavy lifting to get the american people to buy onto these enterprises. this is why president bush had to go to great lengths to convince the american people to go to iraq and why president johnson had to lie about the incident in august of 1964 to get the american people and in

particular the american congress to buy into the vietnam war and y. as we talked about earlier in the conversation president roosevelt had to tell a lie about the rear incident in the summer of 41 to get isolationist america into world war ii. the american people are not that enthusiastic about fighting wars. their leaders tend to be much more enthusiastic and therefore there is going to be a serious temptation to d.c.. >> host: is a dangerous for presidents to lie to congress? >> guest: there is a potential danger for sure. first of all, one can tell a story where it makes good strategic sense for a president who believes he has a smart policy to tell a lie to congress or to the american people and if he proves to be correct, then that is a smart lie. but often what happens in these cases is that the reason that the president has to lie is because the policy is not a very

smart one and it is actually the people or the congress who are resisting the president who has the better side of the story. if you think about the iraq war, president bush thought he had the better side of the story. he thought that he could deceive the american people and in the end he would be proved right. but he was not proved right. the iraq war turned out to be a disaster and even had negative effects on the war in afghanistan. it was an ill-conceived scheme, so all the resistance that existed in congress and in the american body politic was basically correct. all the people who oppose the war were smart and president bush and his lieutenants were wrong. i want to be very clear here, i do not think president bush and his lieutenants lied for selfish reason. they lied and they took the united states into the war in iraq because they thought it was in the american national interest. they thought they were doing good for america. but the fact is they blew it. they didn't pursue a smart policy and the naysayers had the

stronger hand to play and it is just too bad they didn't carry the day. >> host: in 1976 jimmy carter's campaign, i will never lie to you was one of the lines he used. did he live up to that promise? >> guest: no, he told at least one lie that i know of and that is, when it became clear that the iran rescue mission was going to be exposed, he had jody powell who was his press secretary, lie to the news man who smelled that this operation was about to take place, and i think in that case president carter and jody powell did the right thing. i am sure none of them felt good about it. what is very interesting about lying as a form of deception is that if you think about it, we engage in deception all the time in our daily lives. what we call it is spinning. when you ask president obama how

is the american economy today, he spends. he tells you all the positive news. he downplays the negative news. one of boy meets a girl playboy wants to date that girl and that boy goes to great lengths to portray himself in the most positive light. he is spending. deception is part of daily life, let lying is a special form of deception and most people in our society, the vast majority of the people in our society would record -- recoil at being called a liar. there is something really terrible but lying. as a result of that i don't think the leaders who lie to their people or leaders who lie to other leaders feel good about it. there may be a few exceptions. adolf hitler for example is not going to care one way or the other but someone like dwight eisenhower or even john f. kennedy, very very reluctant to lie for i think moral reasons.

it is a form of behavior that is actually quite detestable but the fact is that when you are dealing with international politics, and of the security of your country is on the line, you will not hesitate to lie not because you are an evil person but because you have to do what you have to do to protect your country. that is really what i'm trying to get at in this book. >> host: are there examples in the book of leaders lying for personal reasons or for not national security reasons? >> guest: no. i made it very clear in the front of the book that i was not going to consider those sorts of cases. there are certainly lots of them, but i left them out. i have been on a few radio and tv shows where president clinton lying about the monica lewinsky affair has come up, and people have asked me what i think about that. and i say that is a the case of the leader lying basically to save his own skin, and that

doesn't fit the category of lies that i'm looking at here. i'm looking at what i call strategic lies that are devised that leaders tell that they think are in the national interest. >> host: one more example of a lie the lie told on a nation national level. jaczko i think it good example of a lie that backfired involve nikita khrushchev. most young americans would be shocked to know that in 1957 the soviet union was the first country to number one put a ballistic missile in the air and number two the first country to put a satellite in outer space. but after watching their first intercom mental ballistic missile, the soviets and here we are talking mainly about nikita khrushchev who was their leader at the time, lie to the american people and lied to the american leadership and tried to give us the impression that there was a missile gap, that they had this huge advantage in missiles over

the united states. in fact, they did not have a huge advantage of missiles. we couldn't tell what the balance of power was because we didn't have overhead satellites at the time that could look down on the soviet union and count their missiles. so when they told us that they had lots of missiles, most people assumed that was true. of course they didn't have an advantage of missiles but what it did was that it spurred us to build many missiles, and therefore went president kennedy came to office in 1961, thinking there was a missile gap in favor of the soviet union, what we discovered was that there was a missile gap. it is just that it favored a senate favored us because they had been lying and really didn't have that many missiles and we of course in response to their lives had built this rather large arsenal of missiles. so that is the case of a lie that backfired. and i am sad to say there are quite a few cases where lies actually backfired even on

american presidents. >> host: professor mearsheimer what is your role here at the university of chicago? >> guest: i'm a professor at the political science department. ifex up in here for 28 years and it is only -- been my only economic job which is very unusual for people at my age cohort. i have only been at the university of chicago since my starting days as an assistant professor back in 1982. >> host: what courses are you teaching currently? >> guest: i teach a course on the great power politics. i teach a course on liberalism and american foreign-policy and i actually taught for the first time this past quarter at course on zionism in palestine because i've gotten very interested in the israeli-palestinian conflict and very interested in the history of zionism. >> host: what was the reaction to your last book, the israel lobby? >> guest: well as i'm sure you know, the reaction here in the

united states was loud and almost overwhelmingly negative in the mainstream press. i don't think it would get a single positive review in the united states. the most positive review we got was of israel and more or less than new york -- of israel covered the book in three separate pieces including one major review by daniel levy. all three of the pieces in horowitz were positive so we got a much better -- we got much better treatment in israel than in the united states. >> host: why do you think that is? >> guest: i think it is almost impossible in the united states to criticize israel or to criticize the u.s. is really relationship in the mainstream media and if you do it, he will pay a real price. i think israelis are much more comfortable about themselves and

much more aware of their foibles. it is a much more open and free society when it comes to talking about israel than the united states. it is really quite amazing the extent to which israel is a taboo subject here in the united states. >> host: huai? >> guest: well my view is that the strongest supporters of israel here in the united states want israel and the united states to have a special relationship. they want the united states to give israel large amounts of material and diplomatic assistance, and they want us to get that assistance unreservedly. in other words, without qualification. we just give it to them no matter what they do. this is what makes this relationship so special, so we have this large interest group,

what we call the israel lobby, that has worked overtime for decades now to put the united states in a position where it supports israel unconditionally. now, if you have an open debate where israel is criticized for pursuing foolish policies, or israel is criticized in ways that make it clear that american and israeli interests are sometimes at odds with each other, then you begin to question the special relationships. you begin to say, why are we supporting israel in an unqualified way when the interest of the two countries are at odds? so the lobby does not want people like john mearsheimer saying that israel and the united states often have different interests, because that might undermine the special relationship. instead, what the lobby wants is for everyone to sort of be on the same page and say that

israel is an indispensable ally and is virtually nothing that israel ever does that is wrong and therefore the united states should support israel. the argument steve and i make in the book is that from israel's point of view this is actually foolish policy, certainly a foolish policy from america's point of point of view but in israel we argue is a normal country. like every other country in the world is real sometimes pursues smart policy and sometimes a percy's foolish policy. we have never seen a country in the history of the world that got it right every time. so our view is that when israel gets it wrong, we ought to be able to criticize israel just like we criticize the united states when it gets it wrong. but the special relationship are habits you from doing that. and to maintain not rather unusual relationship, which again is not healthy for the united states and not healthy for and israel you have to make sure there's no criticism of israel. this is i think what explains in good part where there is hardly any criticism of israel and the

mainstream media. >> host: was there any spending or lying in 1948 when harry truman medic nice israel? >> guest: no. i mean there was a significant pressure brought to bear on harry truman. this is well documented to recognize israel immediately and to help get the united nations general assembly to accept the partition of palestine which would include a jewish state and a palestinian state. said truman played a key role there, but he was not lying or spending in that case. the real lying and spinning that took place at that point in time had to do with what the zionists and shortly thereafter the israelis israeli state to the palestinians to create the state of israel. the fact is that the land that today is israel was once filled with many more palestinians than jewish. and if 1948, the israelis had to

ethnically cleanse the palestinians to create a jewish state that was about 80% jewish and 20% palestinian. and as you can imagine the israelis did not want the world, especially the americans, to know that they had engaged in ethnic cleansing so they invented a series of myths about what happened that made it look like the palestinians were responsible for their own demise. and not the israelis themselves. but this was untrue. >> host: john mearsheimer white leaders lie, was as a fun book to write? >> guest: yes, was very much a fun book to write and in most part because i didn't know much about the subject. and i was sort of feeling my way around in the dark and i learned a lot in the process. and i ended up surprising myself. as i said before actually thought i was going to end up telling a very different story which is that there is lots of lying in international politics. the leaders lie to each other all the time but i found the

opposite was the case. there is not much lying in international politics and i was even more surprised to find out that leaders lie more often to their own people than they do to foreign audiences. so i am learning new things and it is really kind of exciting and fun and what this academic enterprise is supposed to be all about. >> host: john mearsheimer is the author of white leaders lie the truth about lying and international politics and also professor at the university of chicago where booktv is on location. thank you for being with us. >> guest: my pleasure. >> we asked, what are you reading this summer? here is what you have to say.

send us a tweeted booktv using hashtag summer reading to let us know what you plan on reading this summer. you can also e-mail us at booktv at sea -- span.org. >> and now on booktv we are joined by rachel kempster, director of marketing for dk publishing. ms. kempster to start by telling us what dk publishing is. >> dk publishing is an illustrated reference publisher. web offices all around the world and our new york office we had lovely distribution and the marketing for our books in this

territory and we publish beautiful beautiful books for adults and children. >> it looks like you publish a lot of smithsonian books. >> we have a really wonderful partnership with the smithsonian. we are really happy to work with them and we have some fantastic books this fall coming from an. >> let's start with this one. see this one actually is out of the marketplace and doing quite well. it came out this spring, and this is a book that was written by jim barber who is -- and it is just as beautiful visual history of the entire civil war told through pictures and artifacts and put you in the middle of the war, really gives you a sense of what it was like to be there. >> right next to it. >> it is a history of the earth. that is bad. problems that we have got. are getting from volcanoes come earthquakes hurricanes mudslides and tsunamis all the natural disasters that people see on the news and are so worried about this day and age and the science

in the history behind and. >> another smithsonian title, timelines of history. >> and this one is a beautiful beautiful visual guide that really just lays history out on the beginning of time with these beautiful timelines that take you through cultural history, social history, the wars, the important cultural moment and it is all beautifully laid out an illustrated say you really get into the moment understand the history and especially. >> rachel kempster are all these books available at the smithsonian museum? >> they sell them at the museum stores you can find a lot of mayor. they are big dk fans a general so you do the books they are not directly a part of a like to include our books in their shops but they are available wherever books are sold. >> finally want to talk about a book that is not a smithsonian title but by dr. alice rob or its. >> this book is fascinating. all the models you see her on the cover, we have got the models of man throug