a problem that your friend faces, one seems to be very bad, allowing people to spend five years in a position and allowing them to delegate. i think the central point is this. we should think more symbolically. the point is not khaddafi. the point is the whole middle eastern over the next 20 years and how the united states allies relate to those countries. do we get off on the right foot in our relationship? are we on this side of progress, oil-rich dictators? do we wish to be seen as making some strange neil imperial move? i thought what was smart about what the president did was that he was very limited. what he said was we are interested in protecting the civilian population. that's it. the problem then i believe is that other countries such as france and my country, britain, began to push and push and push.

we lost our patience. the ability of even the united states to save patients, relax. trending in the right direction. protecting the civilian population. better than it was in northern iraq 15 years ago, better than it was in bosnia. things are going the right direction. our tools are limited. in international operation. it became difficult. what i think we need to regain is a sense of intermediate tools that we need to get out of this black-and-white world of either engagement or isolation. hundred 35,000 troops or don't touch it. that is why it's a powerful instrument. there are things you can do which step short of calling in, and one of the things that was so impressive in bosnia is the

way in which that actually worked. we misunderstood bosnia. the story has tended to be that we were a bunch of wimps. we went in in '95, and did not do enough. we did not rectify the situation. we should have corrected, stomped on the criminals, on the war criminals. that was the mood in which we went into .. and afghanistan. actually, the reverse is true. what made bosnia work was the moderation of the international community was the decided to act. we worked disgraced for 92-95, but once we decided to act we barely put a foot wrong. it was the correct thing to do. we got those war criminals in to the hague, but we did not do it immediately. we dealt with and negotiated with those people. we tell to. we did not scare them initially. we took it very gently.

we had strategic patients and ended up where we wanted to be with those people on trial. in the process we took armed forces, which in the bosnian era was 410,000 armed people down to something in the region of 15,000. all of the frontier lines between the areas i travelled through in 99 have disappeared. approximately 1 million refugees. 200,000 houses have been returned, but not in the way we thought. not because we screamed and shouted and insisted on in the return. we allowed them to take the lead. be exploited the opportunities, put our energy behind them. young idealistic people working alongside them challenging, which is very conservative and an overly cautious. it was all done in a context of could reason. a lot of the secret was the

croatian change, the european union. in that context we played it well, and we should take away from that a message out of despair, but hope. we should also learn very plan very much, and this relates to the latest final point, to understand when the time has come to leave. understand when there is a limit to what you can do. i agree very much. seizing that moment would have been important because -- not because it made sense. it would have been symbolic. everyone can stand up and say -- it doesn't matter. this is what politicians do. this is the world in which we swim. seizing those moments, seizing the attendees in order to follow what he believed that to be the right path is the correct answer. on which that i conclude. many things the wall.

[applause] >> for more information about rory stewart visit his website. >> and now on book tv greg robinson discusses his book "ait tragedy of democracy: japanese confinement in north america". this is about 40 minutes. >> thanks, everybody, for coming. i am grateful to the rooseveltfl library for inviting me and all of you for listening.ll of of wanted to start by tellingnig you a little bit about my book and then explain more about how i came to write it and when i think it's important. "a tragedy of democracy" offers a new look at a familiar t subject, executive order 9066 and removal and confinements ofe

some 120,000 west coast japanese-americans into government camps during world war ii.o a set of events that is commonly called the japanese-americanmpci internment. i realize it may come ahes aap surprise that there is anythings new to say about this. n after all the legions ofheio memoirs, histories, please, documentaries, and so forth that have appeared.ead i have learned a great deal fro. all of these works.fho after studying the question for a long time, i have come to the conclusion that there was something missing from what hadt already been written. i don't mean that there was -- really that it was wrong. i still think that the conventional narrative is pretty accurate as far as it goes, buts it was hopelessly inadequate in time and space.adua i set out to extend it. o what do mean? d first in terms of time, books about japanese-americans in worldse war 210 to focusr exclusively on the war years. on i go beyond that to discuss thee

pre war and postwar timeframe and not just as a back story,noj but as a main part of theo narrative "a tragedy ofabt th democracy" talks about theaes masses buying that took place during the 1930's and the efforts of the federal the government to build, in collaboration with the army, ate set of camps which is called concentration camps before pearl harbor in order to hold enemy aliens that it expected it would have to confine during the war. the combination of government surveillance and the constant spreading of scares. stories ana false rumors by west coast allas created a climate of fear wherew action against japanese americans after world war two broke out, not just possible but necessary. it created a climate of mass a suspicion and arbitrary treatment on a racial basis evem before wars started. in the same way it is impossible

to understand the wartime i treatment of japanese americans without looking at the postwaree years, the time in which japanese americans left the camps, resettled both on the jan west coast interrupt the countrd , and began organizing for protection of their civiln e rights, in many cases in coalition with black americansh and other minorities to protest racial discrimination.disc also a time when right after thr war government officials startel publicly expressing regret forrf their policies and treatment ofe japanese americans and started e trying to make restitution. me that affected their policies toward all minorities. most importantly, the tragedy of democracy is the first-ever north american history ofra confinement. the book breaks new ground byrs looking at the history of thet. camps in the united statesund by alongside other areas in northts america. for one thing it looks at the l canadian government's wartime removal of 22,000 citizens andis residents of japanese ancestrype

in british columbia. i also compare official policyol toward japanese-americans with that in wartime hawaii wherehe army commanders used here as af local japanese to overthrow the civilian government after pearlr harbor and to maintain military rule on the island for threeandf years during which time civiliam courts were abolished and military tribunal was judgingd cases.ary it was not just in guantanamo.t i also shed new light on theed history of the 2200 japanese jas latin-american is who were kidnapped from their home countries under an agreemente with the u.s. state department e and brought to internment in the u.s.rn states. plus the 5,000 japanese mexicans to work expelled from their a f homes and forced to move from the west coast of mexico intothc the center of mexico. by studying japanese american confinement within a continentae and international pattern we can

learn more about the causes ofns actions as well as the resultss for the victims. he will talk more about that. the tragedy is the final producm of a long train of circumstanceo and developments. a particular treaty, must say, to be talking here at hyde park about my journey through this he book because my journey started right here at hyde park 15 yearb ago. b i was a graduate student livings in new york city.ivin thanks to a grand from the a franklin delano aesthetician i was up here to find material for what was then my dissertation topic on not brother verydiss different topic. t well, as any researcher knows, what you do a lot of when you wn are at an archive is sit aroundi waiting for boxes to be brought to you. b it is true that folks at thehat roosevelt library are quiteroost speedy, but you end up spendingn a lot of time waiting -- ordering boxes and waiting for them to be brought.e bro i was waiting for them to come.o i started puttering around the

research arm looking at things to distract myself, and i camera across a set of writings by french and roosevelt. writin it quickly drew my attention. i never thought of fdr as much of a writer cannot compared to his titles. even the various world leadersws of his time suonch as winstonrs, churchill or even lenin. before i could think more aboutm the question, there can my boxes. i put away the thought as i wene to other work. sever fast forward several months. i i dropped my dissertation, took absence, and startedrom work as a legal assistant at awt law firm. fm. at one point the editor of thedo journal invited me to write an w article about franklin roosevelt for the journal.for t i did not want to use my dissertation, and i was working lawyers hours with very little time for research. as a result i decided i would take up the idea of franklinso t

roosevelt ratings to see how what he had written before hetet was president had influenced the new deal. with help from a friend i've w ordered copies of the articlesif from the finding of fdr's ridings. especially those from the 1920', when he had polio and was ine w private life trying to recover d and had used writing as a kind of therapy for himself. when i read the articles i i discovered, to my greatmyre surprise, that fdr had written several pieces on diplomatic relations between the united o states and japan, which heben wanted to t improve. bu he declared the largest stickini point in relations between japan and the united states was the question of japanese immigration. and fdr in the 1920's had added that the exclusion of japanese immigrants from the united states and the discriminatory laws that kept them from owningt property or becoming citizens,ry while justified because they deserve racial purity against

intermarriage. well, that rather surprised me, and i began to think of that is what he thought in the 1920's,ag what did he think in the 1940'st what was the relation to the japanese-american internment? t it was a question i thought i could easily answer by lookingtt in to the books on the subject.t in fact, i discovered there waso a hole in the research. t people who wrote about japanese americans had not written about franklin roosevelt and people who wrote about beckham resin of how not written aboutfnkl japanese-americans. i started reading more.am as i asked the question of is. p i would get up early and takein the subway, the train democratik taxi to the library and spend the day researching and then run back in the evening after

finishing work at the law firm i eventually went back to school. in the process i was so fascinated in my article that it turned into a dissertation and a book by order of the president which is published by harvard university in 2001 and whichn, unfortunately is not for sale a, hyde park.which i brought a copy of it to show.i show and tell.ep the book came out shortly afterk september 11th. my message about overreacting in a climate of uncertainty anda ci fear had timeliness. as a result it was reviewed and featured in places whereatured n normally such a work would not be carried it remained ever e since the work i'm best known for. still, did not want to stop pro there, and in the process of putting together by order of the president -- first of all, i found much more information than

i expected to or could possibly fit in one volume, but i realizd how much the wartime removal of japanese-americans hasape influenced american society andy literature of law. most ordinary people did not know a great deal about what had happened. once i finished the roosevelt book, i decided i would write as short study that would give a clear and easy to follow version of the scholarly consensus in regard to confinement, the need seemed even more pressing aftert the patriot act and the u.s.ft invasion of iraq which reopenedi the old debates about race and o immigration and patriotism.vit i realize how vital the issue oe japanese confinement and its proper understanding was when the conservative columnistopar published a popular workefd reporting to defend itarti r government's wartime removal policy as a successful instance of racial profiling.ucce however, my interest in writing a new study and retelling n japanese wartime experience wasl

snatched and increasinglye overshadowed by the uneasy sensn that the accepted version was inadequate, even though notcc mistaken and that more needed to be done to flesh it out. my inspiration also came in parn from my own experience of of emigrating to montreal andea teaching in canada, which led me to study american history fromcn the north american point of view. as i learned canada's history and started teaching i saw both parallels and differences with developments in the uniteddelo states. both were useful to study as they tested widespread use assumptions about american t explosiveness, american nationae identity.dent in the same way as i read further on the wartime treatment of japanese canadians, which is not something americans know very much about and discoveredee how deeply they had been cad victimized by canada's removal policy, i was surprised to discover nobody had ever examined the similarities and b

differences across theoo board,r and it dawned on me and my booki would have to look at events ine a transnational passion beyond the mainland united states. i was further inspired by myfirt first trip to hawaii in 2006.ere very embarrassing to be a o j specialist on japanese americans and discover this entirelyt different community of japanese-americans about which i knew relatively little. i had also heard the hawaii waso a place of of racial harmony and good relations.amer japanese-americans have been scared mass removal during world war two in hawaii, something i had written about in my book contract and roosevelt. o but after pearl harbor the u.s. army commander pushed through am declaration of martial law in t the territory of hawaii andat suspended the u.s. constitutions dismissed the elected governmenh and declared himself militareyil governor. during my trip i heard some ofef the stories of martial law and the military tribunals that dispensed justice.

in fact, the army had guns civilian judges out of thet. courts and created the set of tribunals to judge all criminal cases, even those involvingut american civilians. defendants had no due process od legal protections.legal pro virtually all accuse or foundthe guilty and often given harsh or arbitrary sentences which theyar could then purge or reduced bycd giving blood or by other extra legal action. to every last it was not so r absolute and that even though military commanders in hawaii had prevented mass confinement of japanese-americans, there was an essential connection between the military invasion of constitutional rights in hawaii and that of the constitutionalbe rights of japanese-americans on the mainland.rican the fact that the army hadthe fa proclaimed the presence of sonyj many japanese-americans itself a danger and as the threat of invasion from tokyo had grown

more distant, they have increasingly fixated on the presence of japanese americans as an excuse to hold on to martial law by playing the race card. eventually i discovered that the military tribunals werebuna challenged in court. the army and the justice department in 1944, knowing that they had little chance of proving that there was any reall military emergency to make martial law necessary work threat of an imminent invasionsb instead based on continuing martial law on the threat of re japanese americans. eventually it went all the way to the supreme court is the case of dagen versus conner. in a landmark ruling the supreme court to release said thatme military tribunals that judge civilians are unconstitutional and the opinion of the court ane the concurring opinion by frank murphy contained very strongnioy language denouncing the army'son action as tyrannical and its a

attempts to justify itself by reference to japanese americans as racist. in summary the events of hawaii, island, not only presented annly interesting counterpoint to what happened to japanese americanssa on the mainland, but they tell n kinder prehistory that we should all be thinking about when wene look at guantanamo and the military tribunals. the story of martial law, the supreme court decision in japanese-americans has remainedc absent, not just from popular discussion, but fromopar constitutional law class is,aw government discourse.course it deserves to be looked at much more closely and much moreedt closely in connection with japanese-americans. i think that maybe my book's tht most original contribution because it tells a story that most americans are really nots aware of, at least at the l present. most probably the tragedy of

democracy will be looked at inoa comparison with by order of the president especially with the removal of japanese americans. they are really rather differenr works. by order of the president was largely an executive history of which brought franklin roosevelt and the white house into the well try narrative of thetory history of the camps, but it ha, little to say about say japanese-americans themselves.s. while i did a great deal off research at hyde park and make usend of what i found, i also me made heavy use of existing literature lite and available public documents. in fact, i was mortified when bt both praise and criticism byf order of the president focusedod on my discussion of the largerry history of the camp, which is cm something i have not done. i did not want to be praised org blamed for something i did not do that was not original with me. the tragedy of democracy is in much more of ambitious work which attempts to synthesize a great deal of new information onf the experience ofexperi japanese

americans and canadians and mexicans andns americans, al different countries and in differentht languages.ag at the same time it brings together histories in different countries, histories that have up to now the been studied inhis isolation.n ironically, even though the story that i set out to tell was so familiar, there is more original research in treasury -e "a tragedy of democracy" then there was skin by order of the t president. part of it is the fact i have the good fortune to be aroundt c for the explosion of internet's original documents as a researcd tool. working on the internet, including the website of frenchmen delano rooseveltigit library, i'm glad to say, icume. found a great number of sources, newspaper articles, an interview transcripts, legal briefs, census records and such. the intermission is the resultnc of several years of devoting res considerable time to poring oveo resources in different libraries

and archives. part of it also is that my booka takes account of the massive new scholarship, including my ownf research and a different newly available source.ce but i hope people take away from both books is a sense of how fragile our liberties are. not just those of americans ande people in the united states, bud people in democratic society throughout the continent.nd just how easy it is in a time of emergency to suspend judgment and give excess power too military authorities or government officials with a plausible claim of national security.ying the studying the wartime treatment j of japanese americans in a new weight against the wartime treatment of japanese to five at the japanese and otherway m countries.p u it may help us to understand our current situation a little better.f the case t of the japanese-americans underlines most strongly those wise wordsis attributed to benjamin franklin. those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither

liberty nor safety. so thank you for listening. let's have a little bit of discussion. [applause] [applause] >> yes, sir. [inaudible question] >> the question is, was there any actual evidence that led to the confinement? this was a key question because michele malkin and those who followed her have claimed that the magic intercepts of the u.s. intercepts of the japanese diplomatic code displayed massce espionage by japanese-americans. my contention is that, in fact,n they don't show any such thing. they show pious hopes by japanese authorities who are recruiting spies that they coula get to recruit japanesey americans and that even if there had been evidence of that it

committee was not shown to theee people who made the actual decisions on the d ground. t the best answer i can come upp with is no. th the best evidence is that there is no actual evidence of any a sabotage by any japanese american on the west coast.n again, this is one area where we the comparative history helps us. the fact is that in canada themy military authorities proposed mass confinement.f the chief of staff of thecaan canadian army said there was noo threat from japanese canadians., a small number of unarmed people are not going to be able to bring about any great rising against canadian troops and than the greatest danger, in fact, t was to them from writing rathert than from them.hem. nevertheless, such was the influence of west coast rights in canada, the governmenternmen

yielded to the fears and and hysteria that was going on and agreed to remove all people of j japanese ancestry from the westy coast of canada. yes, sir. [inaudible question] >> the question is whether the e japanese exodus were deported ot whether they have their ownth camps. the answer, in a sense, is no to both. mexico, unlike the other latinan american countries that collaborated with the u.s. stats department, refused to give the united states any of its nationals for confinements,for internment. on the other hand, mexico had the same kind of hysteria and fear of ethnic japanese.ears so even before mexico declared war onap japan it declared an forbidden zone 100 miles away from the border -- i'm sorry,

200 miles away from the border and 100 miles inland. all residents of japanese ancestry were forced to moveorce themselves. mexico did not set up campsxi except for one kind of internment camp that it arrestet some people that it suspected of criminal activity. by and large japanese mexicanses were forced to move themselves. they've lent largely todalajara guadalajara, mexico city where , there was already a japaneseommt community. quite a notable one. the survey escaped mass confinement. on the other hand, they were impoverished. their belongings were taken onwithout compensation, except r a very few who had mexican wives to take care of their property or children. there were forced to rely on thr goodwill of the local japanese y community in mexico city. >> i'd like folks to come up to the microphone, please, and ask the question. >> go ahead, sir.qsti

i'll answer your question, too. [inaudible question] >> okay. >> thank you. >> could you summarize very quickly. >> i have been asked. you are speaking of the japanese american who john is executiverd were 9066.6. this is as opposed to the duncan case in hawaii. the case was one of of americana of japanese ancestry heexecute challenged executive order 9066 and mass removal and the courts. in the case he refused to leavef the west coast, and he got caught.head he had done non-japanese gulf and he wanted to stay with. once arrested he decided it wase a matter of principle and he was going to not give up his giv

citizenship rights.ight with the help of one of the branches of the american civil liberties union he brought ail suit challenging the basis of t his constitutional rights, theua government's policy of removing remo and confiningvi him.ow in the lower courts he wasconvte convicted of violating public law 502 and 503, congress it packing executive order 9066.his the supreme court agreed to hear the appeal, and the federal government which did not want tr lose the case because they wered scared that if any of thef japanese americans succeeded in challenging the court andleing challenge in the army, the army amth a pad and also japanese-americans, once thehe camps were a point they would run back to the west coast andkt there would be riding and all sorts of problems. b both to buttress the case and ta prevent problems the army'srsos

leaders most notably assistant secretary of were engaged in trickery.edn it withheld evidence, rewrote ei other evidence to make thede government's case better.make i don't have time to go into the details of this. in the and the supreme court crt decided six to three that the gr government's policy could be split up. the actual removal ofme japanese-americans from the coast could be split up from the consignment that followed. and so the policy of removingg people based on their japanese p at the city was acceptable in the case of a wartime emergencye this was later challenged in the 1980's by researchers who found at hyde park and elsewhere, ress evidence that the government tht have engaged in trickery andpu manipulation. a federal court overturned the conviction. later in the 1990's he was awarded the presidential medal t

of freedom. m .. freedom. >> your fdr book from the' 20s is striking. i'm wondering, since the interment is one of the black clouds over fdr's president circumstance if you -- presidency, how that type of attitude influenced his wartime decision. >> that's a whole book in itself. you could write a book about it. i did. very briefly, what i discovered is fdr had a long history of racial feeling about asians and japan americans in particular, beginning in the teens when he was assistant secretary of the navy and he feared an invasion from japan after california forbade japanese immigrants from buying land or owning property, and through the 1920s. and through the 1920s and apparently in to the 30s and 40s

he was making racial remarks about japanese. this doesn't mean that fdr heated japanese. he was lander liberal by the standards of his time. he admired japanese culture. if you go into the big house you will see all kinds of japanese knickknacks his family brought back from japan. he genuinely appreciated the virtues of japanese but thought that in some important way they couldn't come to america and suddenly be americans. they couldn't undo in one or two generations or four generations there darwinian racial programming. and don't say this meant fdr hated japanese americans. it informed his conduct that in an emergency situation he was

being called on to act against japanese-americans. he didn't consider very much the rights of 100,000 people he didn't think were really american annie hall. it inspired and indifference. he didn't care enough to look into the case for widespread remove land discover how fictitious it was. >> anyone else? [inaudible] >> what are my findings and mrs. roosevelt? excellent question. i have to tell you my next project is exactly on eleanor roosevelt in world war ii. when i started riding that fdr and japanese-americans are planned to have a chapter on eleanor to see what he could have done differently. to see how other peoples of

japanese-americans but she was so important and interesting that she was going to take over the entire book. i decided i had better let her go for the time being. in the meantime, the story of eleanor roosevelt and japanese-americans very briefly is a story of dissidents. a story of eleanor roosevelt trying to find ways to dissuade her husband from removing japanese americans, then to help japanese americans she approve the emergency funds from her account to the american friends services committee for emergency programs to japanese american yvette kiwis. she asked to this a camp and 1942 this was forbidden but in 1943 she visited the he the river can't. i wrote to a number of japanese americans to ask their stories

of mrs. roosevelt's visit. the first thing they say is she was very tall. japanese-americans were not very tall. one told me a story of her entering the mess hall where whites were supposed to be and asking for a glass of buttermilk well japanese-americans were staring at her. this milk is our. the japanese americans say who is going to tell her our milk is always sour? as soon as she got back from the camp she went to los angeles to the belly of the beast and said if we don't get the japanese americans out of the camps we are going to wind up with another indian problem on our hands. we have to integrate people into society. she then wrote an article for collier's magazine on the japanese americans and on their

contributions. so her story is largely a positive one although there was a limit to what she was able to achieve with president roosevelt. >> to other cultural groups support the islanders and mainlanders? did they speak out? >> the question is whether in hawaii other cultural groups like the chinese and koreans speak out on behalf of the japanese americans in hawaii? the answer is yes. part of my research on eleanor roosevelt is her exchanges with a chinese american ymca director named hum wy ching. when she went to hawaii she met with him and was so impressed by him and how he helped the japanese americans to enlist in the army in the 440 second that she invited him to come to the

white house to brief fdr on the problems of the japanese-american soldiers. there were also korean-americans who served in the 440 second. colonel yung kim. doesn't mean it was a paradise of racial harmony but there were groups of people who worked together in civic unity. japanese-americans were 40% of the population. it was possible for all the other people on the island to really know them and experience with them and have lived with them. the japanese americans on the west coast had the misfortune of not being widespread enough to make their internment impossible and to excite public opinion in their favor. enough people on like on the

east coast to inspire hostility, competition and racism. >> have any japanese in the postwar world written articles or books talking about their confinement? >> yes. there is a whole literature of japanese-americans in the postwar years. the book that i edited following her own road deals with the first of these. the first book written about the japanese american wartime experience. a book, a graphic memoir. extraordinary work, citizen one 6330 which was published in 1946 which graphically details the story of the camps. there were a few others in the first years after the war after which a period of silencing obtained but in the 1960s and

70s japanese-americans started organizing a movement for reparations, for apologies and repayment for what they suffered and part of that experience was precisely breaking the silence. people testifying about their experience. and eventually with the help of japanese americans in congress the united states created a wartime commission of wartime relocation to investigate the wartime confinement of japanese americans. many people testified. many speaking for the first time about their experience publicly before the commission and this led eventually to the united states voting the civil-rights restoration act by which congress voted an official apology and $20,000 redress payment to each person who had been removed under executive order 9066.

canada was also inspired by the same redress struggle and there was a movement among japanese canadians. six weeks after the united states voted a redress act canada voted an official apology and $21,000 to each japanese canadian. none of the latin american governments have offered reparations although a few weeks ago president garcia formally apologize to japanese peruvians for the race riots against them and wartime confinement. >> any comments about the american press during this period? >> the question is about the american press. on the west coast in the first weeks after pearl harbor the press turned rather negative.

there were wild stories in the tabloids about japanese espionage and wild stories about japanese planting vegetables in the shape of arrows to indicate the way for bombers to bases or poisoning of vegetables and all sorts of wild stories. wasn't restricted to the united states. the same thing happened in british columbia and the west coast of mexico and elsewhere. there were very few newspapers that opposed mass confinement of japanese-americans, which were disproportionately black american newspapers such as the los angeles tribune and chicago defender. by and large much of the american press did not report a great deal about the japanese americans.

people outside the west coast didn't know or care about japanese-americans until the government moved them and people by and large figured where there is smoke there must be fire. the government knows what it is doing. for the balance of the war years the press was fairly negative until the exploits of japanese-american soldiers of the 440 second in combination with government efforts to present positive image of japanese immigrants and the -- began to change the minds of newspapers. there were lots of important newspapers like the denver post which remained solidly anti-japanese during the entire war period. >> we had no courageous commentators standing up for them? >> not at the outset. the only national figures who really spoke against the executive order 9066 were the

writer pearl s. buck and socialist leader norman thomas. earl warren was instrumental on the supreme court giving so many comments on his actions during this period of time or apologized for what he was done or was instrumental in doing. >> excellent question. they're all excellent questions but that is a particularly excellent question because it brings me again to work on -- i am doing right now. earl warren was a major instigator of the mass removal of japanese americans. he also called for martial law in california and spoke in favor of a court suit to strip japanese-americans of voting rights and citizenship rights during his gubernatorial campaign. that said earl warren was also a

governor who when the army lifted restrictions on japanese americans to allow them to return to the west coast said there civil-rights will be enforced so he made it possible for japanese americans to come back to the coast before the end of the war without major bloodshed. he did not apologize during his lifetime. he made a private apology to japanese-americans activist who pursued him for three or four years in search of an apology and dog his steps and he finally made some sort of private comments but it was only in his posthumous memoirs that he apologized. on the other hand i have tried to give both sides. earl warren was an important contributor to the abolition of the internal security act which japanese-american activists moved to have overturned and

title 2 which allowed the government to intern in concentration camps anybody it considered dangerous without benefit of trial was something the japanese american activists based on their own experience began to oppose and which eventually was overturned in 1971 thanks in large part to endorsement of the repeal by earl warren. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> this event was part of the annual roosevelt freedom festival hosted by the franklin roosevelt presidential library museum in new york. for more information about the library visit fdrlibray.mari fdrlibray.marist.edu. >> send your feedback to

twitter.com/booktv. >> one of the large displays at book expo america 2011 is the perseus group book several different imprints are under the perseus name and what is public affairs. the publisher of public affairs books is susan weinberg who will talk about the new book coming out by public affairs and the future books coming out by publicaffairs. where should we starsoros.

building open societies. horror of economics is one of the most exciting big ideas we had in a while. they are the founders of the mit poverty labs and they have pioneered the idea of let's do some on the ground work experiments, observations to learn what really works in development. where we should put our effort. where we should put our money and today our award winning economist whose work is getting a lot of attention. when i read the proposal i felt this is the most important work on poverty i have read since we published professor eunice on micro finance and social business and we felt we had to

have this book tour. >> does that book include the concept of microlending? >> this does have some about microfinancing and lending and the research on the ground they have done but it has lots of other techniques too. it looks at how poor people really lived and what they will spend their money on when they have money. how they make decisions. and controlled experiments to see what will help in the long run for example what is the best way to protect against malaria. we are asking questions when people who seem to not have enough money for food to get more money why do they buy a tv instead of more nutritious food? so you can help understand that and affect the decision they might make about their lives. >> i want to ask about the cover of that book. >> the idea is under tying the

knot of poverty in the developing world and kind of a good motif. we felt the word on the cover were so strong that we didn't want an illustration to get in the way. is a powerful statement. >> you were excited about a natural selection. >> one of those proposals when i read it, this is what we are here to do. we are here to do these kinds of books. by iraq is a scholarly journalist. she has worked that places like the chronicle of higher education in shanghai. she is going back to beijing to be the editor of science magazine. a lot of people say one child policy in china why so many more boys than girls, we say that is funny but then we move on to another question. she didn't budge. she said what does it mean there are so many missing girls?

how did this happen? what will happen when these boys grow up and there's no one for them to marry? how will they create families? what will society be like? she asked questions about society and what will happen but she also went back and research how did this happen? some of it is what we think we know about one giles policy but some has to do with zero population growth and an enthusiasm for population control that has had great and intended consequences and will surprise people. >> that book is a natural selection. right next to that, two books about some troubled nations. >> dancing in the glory of monsters about the condo leaders and our editorial director got this book from the wonderful journalist who has written about africa and is from the financial

times. she said nobody knows as much about the condo as jasons stearns. jason stearns had a big manuscript but clyde said there is a real book here and we will find it. he and jason went to work together to hone the book. you can't understand anything in the newspaper about the condo if you haven't read this book because the story is that complicated and the news stories are such a tiny piece of the hole and what is really happening. the reviews have borne this out. the new york times book review and financial times, i could go on and on but the reviews of -- and amazing response. we are seeing people not backing away but say i want to know about this story. i want to hear more. >> paul farmer.

>> paul farmer, partners in health, worked so hard to develop health care in places like haiti. he has an interesting medical school kind of organization and practicing medicine on the ground in places like haiti and rwanda. the effect of the earthquake in haiti and the work they have done, he said i want to write about it. i want to write about what is happening. is the response adequate? is the response from world leaders what it should be? is the aid being used in the best way it could be? he uses this as an opportunity to get haitian voices involved in this issue. he gets different people involved in haiti that he has known for many years to write about this too. paul is not only talking about

the experience in haiti but give voice to people in haiti who in all the publicity have not necessarily been heard from. >> susan weinberg the girl the vote on the covers powerful. >> we were looking for something that would convey the mix of the motions when you think about haiti and the earthquake and the recovery. it is such a mixture of hope and maybe despair. grand plans but everyone is so vulnerable. >> we're talking with susan weinberg, publisher of publicaffairs books. on your board i want to talk about sally jacobs's new book the other barack. >> it is coming out in july of this year. this is a book as the subtitle could say better. the bold and reckless life of

president obama's father. sally jacobs is a longtime correspondent at the boston globe. she did a profile of obama and kenya through the phone. not really be enough. she said if he is elected i will pursue this story. she had never done a book before or found a story committed to. she has been to kenya many times and talked to everyone that new barack obama senior. she has put together his life story in a way that is revving, arresting, revealing, and i say if president obama read this book he would learn things about his father that he doesn't know. i think it is an amazing contribution to our knowledge of the president and his family. >> what is it like editing a journal? >> it is an interesting process.

journalists can write very fluidly and they are used to changes and rewrites. they are not hugging their precious pros but sometimes the arc of a book versus a series of feature stories can be different. our editors often find that is the thing they most work on. getting the story line together. the arc of this book is amazing. the focus is where it should be. on barack obama senior. it is his childhood in kenya and his time in the u.s. which includes time and the university of hawaii and time at harvard. it is the story of how harvard and immigration services decided maybe you should leave and what happens when he goes back to kenya. >> three more books we want to preview from publicaffairs starting with peter thompson. >> the war in afghanistan is an

epic book. his knowledge of afghanistan goes very far back. he was very involved through the soviet period, in between the american involvement. he has had roles in afghanistan on the diplomatic level. he speaks russian and past 10. psht pshtun. he had some archives from the soviet period no one used in their research or their work. he brings a passion and a level of detail and spoke to this story that we think is unique. it is quite an effort getting the book like this together but absolutely worth while and we are thrilled it is going to the reading public in july. >> two books in the media that are coming out. deals from hell and inside the

new york times. >> the deal from hell is a story about the chicago tribune and what has happened to media businesses from an insider. he was a longtime reporter at the chicago tribune. he became editor of the new york times so we had groundwork as a reporter and management experience -- in the decisionmaking meetings. it is the full story of what happened to media business in america by focusing on the story of the tribune company. page 1 is a book in conjunction with media like waiting for superman. this is their new film called page 1. inside the new york times. we have done a book with an npr and media reporter that is a collection of essays by many

contributors writing about media, taking this subject beyond the film limitations. the film can't tell you in a visceral way but can't only tell you so much. these essays tell you more fully what is going on with media today especially digital, print and what the future might look like. >> one more to look at. this is the unquiet american by richard holbrooke. >> we are proud to be involved. richard holbrooke's widow came to us and said you would be perfect to put together a book that really captures richard holbrooke's spirit and the work he did. our plan was to publish on the anniversary of his death in

december. samantha power and wonderful contributors writing about different parts of his life and career. vietnam, fa snapped -- bosnia and excerpts from his own work like his wonderful book and his speeches and essays. it gives an incredible portrait in his own words and about reflections on his career by people who knew him. >> we have been talking with susan weinberg, publisher of publicaffairs books. one of the purpose it -- perseus groups in prince. publicaffairs.com is the web site. >> these of the best-selling hardcover nonfiction book according to the new york times. this reflects sales as of august 18th.