the tipping points and thes positive feedback loops, the self-compounding process of runaway climate change could increase to the point where the planet is so hot that it would be like venus, and it wiped out all life somewhere, you know, many, many hundreds of years in the future. so with that kind of possible projection based on pretty sound science, people like him are not, you know, they don't see it as reasonable to wait for a tipple point. because the whole point about a tipple point is that's when you set off self-fueling processes of climate change. so there's, you know, it's essential to prevent that because once that happens, the whole thing could potentially unravel. ..

until the apocalypse and i think that would be highly irresponsible to make the argument and that's also the easier argument to make. it's easier to say you know what, we blew it we are going to go off the edge and it's all over. it's more difficult to say okay women at, despite everything in all these problems are we going to deal after all we are intelligent species we have created a loss of technology there's an enormous amounts of wealth that can be channeled into the transformation. it's not we don't have the money that we want the political will.

corporate america is sitting on more uninvested cash than any time since 1956. it's according to the federal reserve $1.8 trillion. if there was proper government cues and regulation, that money could move into both the climate mitigation and climate adaptation so i think it is highly irresponsible and demoralizing to say we blew it, enjoy your life before the apocalypse. that's why i don't contemplate giving up like that. anyway, think you all for coming out and i will sign books here. from 1998, taylor branch discusses the rough fire the second volume of has america trilogy. pillar of fire is a narrative history of the civil rights era covering the years 1963 to 1965.

the dhaka central martin luther king jr. and his struggle told a non-violent movement together with this weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the i have a dream speech. this program is about an hour long. c-span: taylor branch come author if it were a fire 1963 to 1965, when did you first interested in martin luther king? >> guest: when i was in high school as a young fellow growing up in atlanta georgia high started the photograph of the dogs and the fire hoses in birmingham when i was a junior in high school and asked my first political question how can this be and what is it made of and my parents didn't have an

answer. it became kind of the quest to find out about. it's an enormous power and the direction in my life. c-span: how many years of your life have you spent about these years? >> guest: i started after i got into a book career after magazine journalism i wanted to write about this but had no answer and started in 1981 what was proposed to be the history of the american and it's not in 60 years and i've got to volumes and it's not projected to be a trilogy. it will be a trilogy but i probably have 20 years and that. i'm thankful for the privilege. c-span: the first book, parting the waters, 1,064 pages.

what has been your approach? >> guest: storytelling. to do it and story telling. that's one of the reasons i wanted to do it i knew it had an enormous impact the century before but most of the books i read seemed to me analytical and argumentative, reinventing new labels and i felt they wouldn't have the power to describe what happened at the personal level which is i think what we would learn about the way to cross the division that we have and so i really revolved the lessons out of my experience i wanted to try to keep it at the storytelling level and follow the story is wherever they went. i didn't know there would be so many of them or there would be such broad context with relationship about abraham or something like these are things i had no way of anticipating so

i followed the storytelling but it was more than i count on. c-span: i counted 27 different fbi files that you got in the back that you list. what value have they been to this book and how would they be different, what the book be different? >> guest: i think a good primary material. quite apart from the effort whether it's been done or not and the basic wiretaped is biographical material and there are many files there these are the ones which are the base material and fbi material gathered at the ground level seems to be i think very well if the people that have been wiretapped life gone to who had shown these conversations it would get to the fbi

headquarters and the material starts getting distorted but there's nothing better than a verbatim wiretapped transcript of some fees and higher telephone life. that's very revealing and primary, often quite, showing quite the opposite director of the wider ted is premised on. it would be premised on the fact sufficient this person would be talking and when you get is somebody talking about going to jail in the freedom movement and quite a noble character. c-span: where do you go to get the files and how hard is it to get them? >> guest: not hard to get. they are in the fbi reading room not far from here in the jay edgar hoover building in the basement and to have to read them under supervision and you can't leave even to go to the bathroom without an escort. you can't leave the building without taking and a half hour or more going one way or the other. so after a time, i build up

discipline and planned to go 8:30 in the morning and said no break for lunch or buy from just going through the documents because usually there's a lot of boilerplate in them and a lot of valuable stuff you have to look at the document just long enough to know whether you to copy it or not. c-span: and you can copy it? >> guest: you can copy them, yes. a lot of times on the non-wiretap material believe in oral they have fewer deletions than the more political ones they are trying to make more political use of and i think that is material that is productive and blacked out. some of them are heavily redacted. generally to disguise the political use being made of them. c-span: can you ever listen to them if you want to? >> guest: they don't have any. they have no tapes like that. c-span: they are gone? >> guest: they are gone. they don't exist. sometimes there are police recordings. ralph abernathy's famous duty ki speech that he given sola was recorded by the sola police and then fell into the law enforcement hands, which is actually what they thought at the time -- the people in the

civil rights movement thought it was the police meeting of the intrusions, and they solve the fbi as their friends, which relatively speaking, they were. the fbi agents on the ground. so it's a very complex period. you have a hostile political part of the fbi and eight -- and a relatively friendly, crime fighting part of the fbi coexisting at a time when the movement is under constant danger, the various scattered movements toward the south. c-span: parting the waters, your first book was published in what your? >> guest: rated the end of 1988. c-span: what was the purpose of that you discuss? >> guest: 54 to 63. that is 54 the year of the brown decision the year the supreme court unanimously said in a fact that racial segregation subornation is in conflict with the american constitution, kind of reading the challenge of the -- of the civil war period about slavery in -- being in conflict with the promise of equal citizenship. though that's 54. i'm going to 68 win thus -- when that movement, build on that

premise, largely dissolved. and it's the same year dr. king was killed. c-span: i have a better copy of "parting the waters." this is a paperback version. he won a pulitzer prize for this. how many hardback copies did you sell and how many of these paperbacks at two today? >> guest: i have talked my publisher or my -- it would be a rough estimate of roughly 100,000 hardbacks and 200,000 or maybe 300,000 paperbacks, which is coming you know, it's peanuts for stephen king but it's a lot for -- a big effect history book based on a subject that makes some people uncomfortable. but other people come for me at least, it's a -- it's a great leavening transformation to read about the bravery of these people, the american story. it's -- there are a lot of black heroes and a lot of white heroes, too. it's a cross-cultural. c-span: now, you credit -- i think it is an outfit called lyndhurst of chattanooga -- and mcarthur of chicago and the ford

foundation as places that have given you money over the years; is that right? >> guest: yes, after parting the waters came out, this book has taken nine years, the ford foundation gave me my first and only research i used to hire somebody to transcribe my interviews interesting in the foundation gave me this kind of grant because divided over nine years and i have to be for all my travels for the lbj library in all the scattered places that i have to go to do my research. it is expensive even doing it by myself. c-span: have you made a living off of all of this? i mean, is it possible or did you have to do other things? >> guest: at the end of "parting the waters" i had to get a part-time toll on the side because i didn't have these grants them and i had no standing or reputation. this time i didn't have to do much work on the slide partly because we've had a frustrating effort to try to get "parting

the waters" a gentry film. every once in awhile hollywood would bail me out with some money for an option ultimately didn't pan out. to break my heart again trying to make a film. but i have managed to -- with my wife and i working to keep our kids in school. c-span: what does your wife to? >> guest: she's taken a job as -- for nine years she was a speechwriter to the mayor of baltimore, and just in january, last month, took a job as one of mrs. clinton's speechwriters. so she moved down here right into the eye of the new storm and is written speeches for mrs. clinton. c-span: and you've had a special relationship with the president over the years? >> guest: a very special relationship in the sense that we were roommates and partners in the 1972 presidential campaign in texas. we live together, and he brought his then a new girlfriend, hilary. and so we had a very close association then. and then i didn't see him for 20 years, from 72-92, until he was elected president and called and said congratulations for your

pulitzer in history. i'm -- i would love to talk to you about how to preserve historical materials and when you noticed from the presidential libraries you've worked in. and on that basis, we've talked a good bit while he's been president to renew our acquaintance ship after a 20 year hiatus. c-span: have you had any discussions with him and brought his whole race initiatives? >> guest: absolutely. yes, i have. c-span: what did you recommend to him? >> guest: i think this is a great thing. i personally think -- the work that i've done that our racial dialogue in america, our discourse is far behind hour objective reality and where we are; that if you study this period and you see how parochial cahal limited, how much violence there was, how on a custom a lot of white people work and even to meeting somebody from a different the nomination almost or a different section of the country, there's -- ads in the newspapers were divided not only by race, but by sex. help-wanted, female, and jobs,

you know, or for the women, secretaries and teachers. we've left of the whole new reality, not to minimize the severe problems that are still here. but what, to me, is lacking in our dialogue. kind of -- the scarcity of the universal voices talking about what we have in common in america, speaking across these lines, which is what we have here. and come to me, if these people could be confident and hope during the the civil rights movement facing segregation, and really apartheid in the south and all kinds of narrowness and violence, we need to restore the sense of dialogue now because our problems, relatively speaking, i believe of dialogue now because our problems -- i believe are much less and this movement has lifted american values all around the world, and miracles in south africa and singing we shall overcome when the berlin wall went down and the forming of the model for that cnn and square, the demonstration. we have a lot to be proud of as far as the way we have lifted

our objective relationships, stretched ourselves to do -- to not just be a white protestant country. and -- but our dialogue lags behind. and i think that's what needs to be restored. we've got a lot of plays and against our public purpose. c-span: did you ever meet martin luther king? >> guest: never did. or what the missing count -- that's what i'm -- i am talking about how unconscious i was of this. i grew up in atlanta, the same city he was in. i kind of noticed it. my father had a lot of black employees at the time of the dry cleaning plant. the only time i ever heard it mentioned was he -- one of his favorite employees, he had a bet on the atlanta crackers baseball games every day, and sometimes i that would take me to those games in the 50's. and we would have to separate at the ponce de leon ballpark and all that up because peter had to go sit in the colored section. and that's the only time i ever -- my dad would say i don't like this.

but it wouldn't invite comment because it was like -- was dangerous. there was nothing you could do about it. it was kind of like ominous clouds but you know, you couldn't do anything about the weather. so i grew up in that atmosphere, which was quite common in the south. and model birmingham, really, did it break through and occurred to me that there really could be something done about it on the strength of the courage of these people, many of whom were, you know, in birmingham, they were girls and little kids. the rate, continues old, marching to jail and having the fire hoses turned on them. and that made a very powerful impression on me. but by the time i got called up and interested in it, dr. king was dead. i went to college and he was killed before i finished college. c-span: where did you go to school? >> guest: travel hill, north carolina. c-span: and you're father and mother still lives? >> guest: yes, they are, astelin cleantech. c-span: still in the business? >> guest: comegys retired no -- c-span: and his business, what kind of dry cleaning? >> guest: dry cleaning and laundry, had lots of them across

the atlanta, carriage cleaners. c-span: how about your mom, what did she do? >> guest: she helped -- we'll help in the laundry. this kind of a family business and then she later went into real estate a little bit. c-span: and you live where now? >> guest: in baltimore maryland after living here in washington for a number of years. c-span: if we saw you -- you and your environment where you're putting all this together actually writing a, what it looked like? >> guest: is a little cubbyhole in the rest of a -- a target of an old victorian house with files and spread all the way down through the basement, fireproof files that go all over the place the completed over the 16 years. but where i actually right is right in the top -- would be claustrophobic except to put into skylights that look out and let in a lot of light. c-span: much time you spend there? i mean, obviously the period and many hours you spend to write 1,006 utter pages? >> guest: absolutely none. my book discipline is that if i don't certify o'clock in the morning and do what i call stewing for a while, then days

can get away from me. if i start after a break to take the kids to school, have to get going in the morning and sit for a certain number of hours a day. i can't start at five and go into the evening the way i did when i first started because i'm getting a little older. i don't have quite the same stamina. but i do -- i believe in a routine because to assimilate this, you know, this is a period here in 63, 65, for "pillar of fire" where everything's happening at once. freedom summer in vietnam and malcolm x and all these things are happening at once. and every time i should -- my goal is to allow the reader to experience that smoothly, to go from one world to another. and every time i shift, i have to get out a new batch of research materials that sort of thing. and so i find that i really have to maintain a certain discipline to maintain -- to keep up the concentration level. c-span: what do you write on? >> guest: computer. i started out 20 years ago riding on a legal pad and moved to a typewriter. but to keep those footnotes -- by the way, because several

hundred of the -- my books are long. i don't -- that several hundred of the pages that you're talking about in the length of these books, that includes the notes. and i do -- the computer to me is invaluable not just for editing but for keeping track of the source notes that i think it's vital and a subject like this to provide the readers. c-span: what did you do to get the sense of what it all sounded like? did you watch any film from any -- listen to any audio, anything like that? >> guest: i did. a lot of sermons are preserved. unfortunately, much of the broadcast resources are not there, and that's sad because this, as i said, you know, television footage of birmingham awakened me as a kid. it's hard to find that. you can't go into the library and look up film research from that period because that -- after all, this is the four videotapes. this is back with film. in a lot of that stuff has disintegrated and is gone. occasionally people what it takes of mass meetings, which is a great institution when -- it

kind of -- the engine of the civil rights movement when they have a meeting in a church and they would -- would be part of the religious ceremony, part really, part information part -- because they didn't have newspapers and of their own. occasionally there are tapes of the mass meetings and as i said, some of these surveillance tapes. c-span: let me -- and i'm going to ask you to keep it short of you can't because there's a lot of them. and i just want to get a flavor of who those people are, but just define what those folks are. i'm -- i wrote a whole bunch down. bob moses? >> guest: bob moses was the leader of the southern voting rights of man in mississippi, a gentle philosophical character essentially the father of freedom summer, very moral character come ultimately had a breakdown and then has since in the past ten years revived to a new career. c-span: where? >> guest: all over the country teaching eighth graders how to first year algebra, which uses is the dividing line between whether you have a chance in life or not, much like the right to vote was in the mississippi

in the 60's. c-span: fred shuttlesworth. >> guest: firebrand birmingham preacher who was personalized the duel with bull connor -- he was the -- the lieutenant who invited dr. kissinger birmingham for the climactic showdown in 63. c-span: who was bull connor? >> guest: the police chief of public safety in birmingham who kind of personify the segregation in birmingham, the city that was most like k-town in south africa. c-span: john lewis. >> guest: john lewis, young man grew up stuttering, preaching to chickens in rural alabama, to call the national, -- became a freedom rider on one of the shock troops and the most devoted of king's followers among the students and is now a congressman from -- his my mom and dad's congressman from the fifth district in alabama. c-span: james bevel.

>> guest: james bevel, the john the baptist of the -- friend of john lewis', out of the national movement with his wife, diane nash who was kind of a straw boss of the freedom rides became kids in their early 20s who led the freedom rides, then went on to recommend the use of the children when the birmingham movement was suffocated. and later in the testament to the children who were bombed in birmingham in 1963, they really defies as their response to that bombing what became the sola voting rights movement to win the rights to vote for minorities across the south. c-span: harry wachtel. >> guest: harry wachtel, dr. king's lawyer. one of the early corporate and merger lawyers in new york city whose conscience stirred him because his company owned some of the lunch counter places in the south to come and volunteer his services for dr. king. and he became the only white fellow with his wife who went to the nobel peace prize trip and a

devoted career for the rest of his career kind of a one of those lawyers who served dr. king in the movement. c-span: and you write about the nobel peace prize trip and hopefully we can talk about it before -- this is over. with stanley luvison. >> guest: called harry with wachtel's twin. they were jewish lawyers from new york reserved dr. king. stanley much closer and curly back in the 50's. harry came -- he was really because of allegations about him in 1953 the year of the rosenberg trial and that sort of thing the fbi has evidence or claimed to have evidence that he was a soviet agent. the evidence is still secret almost 50 years later, long after the sources, and luvison had been a soviet agent or a member of the communist party serving the soviet union in 1953, became the premise for the wiretap first on him, and then when they never discovered any

contact with any soviet contact, then the wiretapped advocated wider talks on dr. king and bayard ruston or other lawyers on clarence jones or wachtel. all of the wiretaps that became the informational basis for the persecutions of the civil rights bill were premised on contact with this one fellow, stanley luvison. he's the best case of falling talking about, of having his verbatim conversations refuel the promise of which the wiretaps were based. in other words, it's mostly because of that buttressing the testimony of his friends i'm absolutely confident that he is an ounce on the history of the american experience in the 20th century. c-span: maldon communist ever? >> guest: not a communist. c-span: where is he now? >> guest: he died in -- in the mid 1970's. c-span: clarence jones. >> guest: dr. king's black new york lawyer in many respects the model for guess who's coming to dinner. he grew up the son of chauffeurs and of lippincott family and

married the daughter of w.w. norton in the waldorf astoria, married a white lady in the 1950's, was kind of an entertainment lawyer come a very, very successful -- and then was converted by an early sermon of dr. king and became one of his -- another one of the devoted lawyers working for him. he's the one who sent the letter from birmingham jail piece by piece of toilet paper and brought him around on the margins of newspapers out of the birmingham jail when dr. king was writing it in solitary, clarence visiting him as a lawyer. c-span: is that letter, by the way, stow away somewhere in an archive? >> guest: not that part of it. c-span: the birmingham letter is not? >> guest: no, that part of it. it doesn't exist as far as i know. i think was thrown away. c-span: you mentioned earlier bayard rustin. ilyse? >> guest: bayard rustin was the great troubadour of the

early movement, group -- nv on singing with leadbelly in the 30's. he was a member of the communist party in the 30's. he was also gay at the time when that was not even whispered about and was -- but a great student of nonviolence. it traveled all over the world doing on violence and a gandhian -- he was an early gandhian, but then he become a communist and pacifist and he was really the architect of the march on washington. he is the administrator for it and it made such an impression on the world when it happens that really is a suspect background was all but forgiven. he became a kind of a respectable figure in the media circles toward the end of his career. he is now dead. c-span: james forman. >> guest: james foreman, the executive director of the student nonviolent coordinating committee of which bob moses was the primary operator dan of mississippi. foreman was kind of organizer who kept it together.

and he now lives in washington. later on when the students can contact -- conflict with king, forman to some degree personified the student criticisms of martin luther king and other leaders as being preachers, preoccupied with the leaders and leadership and meeting presidents and that sort of thing. c-span: i could go on but i want to ask you about some -- appear to me as i read through it that you have individuals versus other individuals for instance martin luther king versus ralph abernathy. if you don't look at it quite that way, but what was their relationship? >> guest: very, very close. no secrets from one another. but -- but there was an undercurrent of jealousy from abernathy, because he had been with dr. king all along. he had -- he had an amazing hold over audiences. he was a very comic and gifted teacher, but he presented dr. king's sophistication and he was kind of starved for status, as many black people were during that period, to the point that he made incidents and became a

burden for dr. king to carry. even at the nobel peace prize ceremony, abernathy refused to get in the second limousine according to the protocol, and all of the nobel officials were lined up there and more vitally dr. king but a lot of the people with him. so there were conflicts there. this was a classical kind of ego conflict the ralf abernathy wanted to be as sophisticated as dr. king. so there's -- there's a don quixote-sancho panza quality there. c-span: and when he sat in that chair that might read before he died in this show, they were all angry with him -- of the civil-rights movement. why? >> guest: they were angry the cause he was one of the first people close to dr. king to acknowledge the fact that he had extramarital affairs, which is kind of an object of the model among many of the people around him. since then, there's been lots of others who've acknowledged that. and in fact, a woman even wrote a book about her relationship with dr. king. so the fact that there was

extramarital affairs is no longer as sensitive, but it was seen -- coming from abernathy it was seen as a betrayal. c-span: elijah mohammed versus mulken mix. >> guest: elijah mohammed, the founder of the nation of islam -- or really the first major head of eight calling all of the doctrines of white devil and a sectarian few of islam in a very domineering true believer of which malcolm x was one and seven this period he decided that there were a number of corruption's within it, as malcolm was always remaking himself, studying history, changing, turning himself inside out. and he decided that it was corrupt lonely religiously, that it was not a true version of islam, but financially that it was fleecing its members and violent and using violence and that elijah muhammed was having affairs and producing children by his secretary. so it's correct in every sense that you find in the bible.

and so you have a violent struggle falcon knowing that he's marked for death for trying to reform the nation of islam. and yet at the same time america is awakening only to interest in him as a figure about the races. so to me it is -- it's an astonishing trail to follow. malcolm being shot at and city after city and tracked and trying to -- desperate ploys to save himself and yet come out on stage as, you know, a rock cliff or at a predominantly white college and talk about race relations with his mind spinning not talking about that. most of us, if people were trying to shoot us, that's all we'd be talking about. c-span: who of all the people you write about are still alive that you've got in the closest to? >> guest: well, i'm -- my best friend from this period are people like julian bond, who i've known since the 60's and john lewis. i met vernon jordan back in this period when he was registering

voters back in the 60's, but the one who made the biggest impression on me who is not alive actually is epta mcclark. i dedicated the book to her because she -- c-span: first book. >> guest: the first book because she was just and utterly interregional literacy teacher who invented methods that i think are still being studied around the world for teaching adults literacy. and i guess diane - -- i just saw in early february a few weeks ago in chicago. and she was the leader of the freedom rides, came down from the south, a beauty queen from chicago and an early leader of the going to jail movement that i think basically provided a lot of the backbone to the early student movement right on through the freedom rides and being beaten up their into jail. she had her first baby in jail, almost and then in birmingham with the children with her husband, bevel, who tragically left her. bevel was one of the rascals in the movement. he was a genius. he'd have all these ideas, but

he did abuse diane. and right up to selma, which was their idea, on the night before the -- bevel gave the speech proposing to selma to montgomery march of history this young -- he struck her and their marriage fell apart. so dianas both a carolina and an unsung hero, and to some very eerie, a victim of this great -- this was like going through a war. there were a lot of damage people from it. and i'd say probably she's the one i add my ear and the closest that -- who hasn't gotten hurt you. c-span: jay edgar hoover verses robert f. kennedy. [laughter] >> guest: that's a shakespearean wrestling match. there's no way of simplifying the. hoover was a skilled bureaucratic. he was also come to some degree, a bully in that he would try to get his way, but he was a gossip. and he -- people who really stood up to him could back him off. bobby kennedy never did. and i think this is a young

girl, not mature, bobby kennedy who feels heavily the burden of having to defend his brother, the president, jack kennedy, who was vulnerable because he was having affairs with people in the mafia and even an east german woman that sort of thing. bobby kennedy had to have hoover's help to protect his brother, and compromised him in this three or four we dance he's going to try to protect the kennedy's political position in the south and -- and the alliance, to luther king. it's like riding razors come and ultimately, i believe hoover, without ever saying you've got to do this for that. they're far too skilled bureaucrats for that. they would say okay i will help you over here down the scandal against your brother. but i'm very concerned about martin luther king coming and we need this wiretap. and ultimately robert kennedy's mind that we're taught knowing that he was serving with it and pretense of controlling to get occur over. so it's very, very complex political wrestling match. c-span: how did they use the wiretaps and what did they learn through them about martin luther

king and the rest of the group? >> guest: the use of wiretaps primarily for the advance notice of the king's travel plans. hello i'm flying to chicago i will be in such and such hotel. i'm flying into new york. c-span: and where did they put those taps? >> guest: they put it out on his home. c-span: where? atlanta? >> guest: in atlanta. they put the taps on his offices both in atlanta and new york, and who for being a bureaucrat and put it a very clever phrase in there. permission to mount technical surveillance. that is wiretaps on dr. king's's home office and any home in which he may move. and the interpreted that to mean a hotel room. so anyplace he went, there was a blanket authority. now the use that evidence to knowledge to have agents go in and in a planned microphones in the walls of the hotel. for which bobby kennedy didn't give authority. hoover just assumed he had that authority and one of the

embarrassment's of the american law. and they would use that to intercept not just what he said on the phone but what he would say when he wasn't on the phone or in bed with -- when he's arguing. and they used the intercepts essentially to do anything they could come either to place in people's opinion of dr. king or to present petitions against one another. in other words, he would try to ingratiate himself with president johnson as he heard bobby kennedy something critical of president johnson via king. in other words, there was -- over's job was basically to ingratiate -- ingratiate himself with johnson to punish bobby kennedy, who didn't like it and to punish king whenever, whenever he could. c-span: by the we come to listen to any of the johnson tips? >> guest: yes, that's -- that's a whole -- c-span: see you could hear all those? >> guest: you can hear those. the johnson takes are wonderful. the crowd read a lot of what's in the -- in the classified meetings and on vietnam and in

some of the files, but there's no substitute for actual hearing -- during the tapes. and i quote from a number of them. c-span: where's the trilogy? >> guest: what's the trilogy? c-span: money, loyalty and sex. >> guest: money, loyalty -- that became the shorthand, once bobby -- once dr. king became aware, and as i said, you know, a lot of times they thought these things the were being done to them, the hostile things being done to them by the police were being done by segregationist police force but once they became aware that was the fbi, the had these meetings and -- and once dr. jay edgar hoover called him the most mature yes lawyer in the country and so forth, the had staff meetings. what are our vulnerabilities here? and dr. king said it's not the money. in fact, he -- when he died he was only worth about $200,000. he died intestate. he never had much money. he gave away what he made. he raised an enormous amount of money that gave it away and said it's not communism. i take people for what they are

paying for too spirits -- spiritual to be a communist leader. i reject communism. but i am vulnerable. there may be a few things on women. so of the trilogy, he admitted to this coming and of course some of his staff actually knew this was very well -- but he admitted to harry wachtel for example it was very painful for him to admit to some of the aids that were not privy to his private life that he was vulnerable on the spirit of the trouble he admitted that he was vulnerable to blackmail which is what was on the issue of having extramarital affairs. c-span: if you added up, the women of the problems of elijah muhammed and john kennedy, don't need to go through the whole list, becomes -- there's a lot of it in your book. c-span: >> guest: there's an awful lot of it. c-span: what impact -- what relations with women have on this whole movement during these periods? >> guest: it never became a public issue because martin --

malcolm x felt publicity about elijah muhammed was illegitimate children as hope of salvation that it was going to puncture the respect among the zealots who followed elijah muhammed and got the point of willing to kill for him that he could never get it publicized, partly because people were afraid of the muslims and partly because they were afraid of the libel suit. so it was a private place in coming and it was used mostly for black mail behind-the-scenes. it never became a public issue. you know, hoover's agent offered the material from the king but things all over the place under the condition that the fbi could never be identified as the source and in that day and age nobody wanted to take that to the private lives without saying i've just learned what they told me they had to have a force and nowadays it meant that the political maneuver around these issues were confined for the propaganda.

jay edgar hoover for the university. he was given an honorary doctorate to dr. king. let us was for in your eub reader and a spike that and send them to the vatican to the pope don't see martin luther king. so it was a private kind of -- send them to the hill, trying -- reputations behind the scenes. c-span: what was the story, and at what point was, martin luther king wanted to come meet with lyndon johnson when he was president and then went through this whole song and dance with vice president humphrey? what was that all about? >> guest: that was above the mississippi freedom democratic party in of the summer of 1964. there was a challenge delegation out of mississippi there was mostly black coming essentially saying they don't allow us to vote. we want to vote. and the democratic party in mississippi is endorsing the republican candidate anyway. the town of loyal democrats. we want to be seated. and president johnson -- it's an amazing story, and it's been argued it was the turning point in the movement, whether or not you see fannie lou hamer and the

sharecroppers who were black, as the official democrats of mississippi or whether you see to the regular democrats headed by the governor who were voting for the barry goldwater, and johnson -- was terrible comegys kind of like lincoln in a way. are you for slavery or are you not? because he's trying to keep the border states in line. democrats from kentucky and tennessee and the other border states would walk out and that's what he was pretending that he didn't have anything to do with it. but he is consumed by no other issue and putting that together and his amazing story or chapter. i think in our american history about the sensitivity of the issue at that time. c-span: but when that came up to the white house he didn't have a meeting scheduled with lyndon johnson and he was supposed to meet with and hubert humphrey. >> guest: right. c-span: and what was that all -- there's a lot of maneuvering around. >> guest: well, i'm sorry, brian. you're talking about -- this is not so much. this is -- this is at sali in

february, 1965. dr. king came out of jail in sali and announced and depression that he came out of jail and his aides said you can't just come out of jail. you have to have a purpose for coming out of jail. he said i'm tired, and depressed, i've been in jail. he won the nobel prize and he's still in jail and sell on the right to vote. and the aid simply told dr. king you've got to say that you have a purpose. let's say that you're coming out of jail to meet with the president. and that infuriated lyndon johnson because he said nobody in fights themselves here in the middle to controversy. i'm trying to run the country. and so -- on the other hand, he didn't want to say i won't meet with martin luther king partly because he shared the goal of getting a voting rights bill. but a wave -- with a worked out was the said that dr. king was officially coming up to meet only with the vice president, but they planned to have the president spontaneously call over there and say since you're here why don't you come over and talk to me? so it was a way of dancing around the -- the egos and the political sensitivities on the

race issue in this period. c-span: you also told a story about richard russell and lyndon johnson and the warren commission. >> guest: and the war in -- there were lots of those. no, i have a first photograph there is of president johnson with his knows about this far away from richard russell, right after he becomes president, telling him you know, i love you. i don't know the exact quote, but you're like a father to me but i want to give you warning going to pass this civil rights bill. you're my dearest friend but i will run you down if i have to do it and i just want to let you know that in advance. then heels tricked him into going on the warren commission within just a few days of that because russell did not -- as the premier southerner, did not want to sit on a war in -- on a commission headed by earl warren who was the architect of the brown decision, outlawing segregation in the southcom and johnson just would not take the no for an answer, kind of tricky maneuver and basically said, you know, you are my mama come in

your my daddy, you're everything else, you are darn well going to go on that commission because i'm going to make you and just pleaded and controlled and told him what he was going to do on their. c-span: the suicide package, what was it? >> guest: it was -- it was a sample of the intercepted by gangs of dr. king's private life, together with an extremely hostile and anonymous note saying you are a fraud and you are easily and we will expose you before the world if you don't take a certain act within 35 days in other words, the free essentially four accepted the nobel prize. and there was meant to be dr. king was to kill himself. and it became known at a suicide package because it was warning him that if under the threat of exposure that's when they really did the tapes which were garbled, but you could hear -- you could hear what was going on, they were in different cities. and they knew no police agency would have access to a whole bunch of different cities. they knew it was the fbi and that it was essential your own government telling you to commit suicide which is --

c-span: where the fbi, was the fbi racist? >> guest: absolutely. absolutely. and the higher political regions. see, i think there's a very -- i have some fbi characters in here who are heroes but most -- c-span: like? give me -- >> guest: like joe sullivan. the man who sold several of the case is -- down in st. augustine, florida, which is one of the unsung stories of this purpose. and then he went over to mississippi. he was the model for the inspector earthshine on the long-running fbi serious. and then he was a no-nonsense, and like most of the agents they don't go in there with a ambition to do political work which means listening to your friends and planning propaganda and going around prying into people's lives. the dillinger solve cases. so you have a -- a delicious or a painful conflict running in this era. you have the most spectacular

political misuses of the fbi going on at the same time as the fbi is trying to solve new kinds of crime and confronting the klan down in south at that time when they were almost -- attwell, committing these crimes all the way through 63-65 period. so in the same institution, you have people who are becoming a kind of heroes and old kind of corruption inside the fbi. c-span: tell us more -- or give us a kind of profile on martin luther king. how policy? how old was he during this period? was he married? did he have children? where did he go to school? all those kind of things. >> guest: he is young. he was killed at 39. he never reached his 40th birthday. so in this period, 633 close 65 comegys 34 period 36-years-old, a very, very young man, a boyish looking, well-educated, had his wife, coretta, and four children, the youngest, who were quite young, the youngest boreman 63, born in birmingham. so dexter, the youngest, is just an infant during this period.

this is a perk up when dr. king is most political come in the sense that in their earlier period in parting the waters he's getting drawn into other people's movements because he's an orator, he would go help out. the bus boycott wasn't his idea. the freedom rides and dissidents certainly weren't his idea. he would get called in to these meetings. but by 1963, where he started, frightened that the south is hardened against segregation and that the -- the zeitgeist, the moment in history might fade without in planting something in history that all resist the recession that retrograde trend. and he takes huge risks. he says i am going to have my own movement. i'm going to risk everything first in birmingham, to try to crack segregation, and then later in selma where we end and 65 after the long year of 64, where he is lobbying and submitting to jail in st. augustine to try to keep pressure on, the pass the '64 civil rights act. then he goes straight from there

to selma to take another huge risk from the right to vote, which is a different -- secure you see not just the spiritual or the prophetic side of dr. king as a spokesman for the -- this is a test of american values, but a very consciously political king trying to maneuver with the -- president and maneuver between the parties, use the media, use the press, and deal with a divided movement, his rivals and allies like roy wilkens, with the naacp and elsewhere. so this is -- this is king at the zenith of the movement's political impact of america, when the race issue really has the country -- tuna, the country's full attention. c-span: how that was his womanizing? >> guest: i don't know 100% for sure. he had a number of long-term affairs, people very, very loyal to him hoover a pergola of years on the road, and i know -- c-span: during this time period? >> guest: during this time period. c-span: to the names come into this -- >> guest: not here. it gets more personal later on

and i'm still -- i've talked to a number of those people and of course my main question is how did he reconcile this with his career? russell with it. he preached about it in general, that -- that evil is something very close to you and you can't overcome it by trying to stamp it out, by trying to repress it. you overcome it by dedicating yourself to something higher. he was constantly using the analogy of ulysses and the sirens on cilla and caribdus, that it didn't work to stuff a waxing your years to try to repress evil. you had to sing a sweeter music than you could go, so there was a part of him that was always will reproaching himself for being able to grow up -- give up women, especially ones he knew that -- that it could hurt the movement, the black male who could really severely damage people who really believed in him, that would be disillusioned. and in many respects, his

sermons sound like he's almost punishing himself to do penance by taking greater risks. c-span: >> guest: so i think -- i have never tried to argue that there's no relationship between one's private life and once public life, but as it's really, it's very, very complicated exactly what that relationship is coming and in many respects, there are a lot of signs that he used his private feelings and regarded them as such to drive his public mission. c-span: how did he get a nobel prize? >> guest: he got a nobel peace prize in 1964, largely on the strength of the world recognition for the huge breakthrough in birmingham and that spread that demonstrations across the country, after all the children, the -- what changed me and got the civil rights bill introduced by president kennedy. then he headed the i have a dream speech and i had the political skill working with president johnson to get it passed in 64, and the nobel

prize was essentially in recognition for the -- that series of defense that really changed american politics forever, as for what the legal standard was gonna be for equal citizenship in america. c-span: what happened on that trip to get it? >> guest: more bugs, more behavior this time not by -- by dr. king because he -- coretta was with him if for no rather reason that there was just a lot of ego jockeying and wild partying and chasing women and not for the rooms that made for much merriment inside the fbi. c-span: was the public aware of it? >> guest: no, the public was never aware of it. c-span: are you the first one to write about this? >> guest: know, other people have written about various parts of it. i'm the first person i think to write about the distressing personal ego conflict with ralph abernathy to the degree that it was.

and andrew young told me that he -- that he thought that the estrangement with abernathy over the money that he wanted have the money from the nobel peace prize if we are partners and all this, and it really kind of choked the relationship. andy said that he thought that this was more painful to dr. king than anything jay edgar hoover might do to him. so there's a lot of internal cost to this thing. somebody running elijah muhammed only movement coming out of a time when -- when black people themselves considered themselves damaged. there ruger was a lot of jokes at the expense of other creatures. there was a lot of damaged psyche in here and they would recognize that and yet, they'd still have to try to take responsibility for being leaders to america about what america's own values were. it's a very complex period. c-span: there's a picture in the book of the entire group earlier -- to norway. >> guest: you will see harry

wachtel and his wife at the back and the rest. all of them were there with familiar faces. c-span: and then when they came back after that event over there, there was a dinner that they tried to get together in a land. what happened? >> guest: drew controversy all in atlanta because atlanta's got its first nobel prize winner but it's still not completely sigurd largely segregated and the business communities and the political community is that didn't have much to do with one another, and the mayor of atlanta and ralph mcgill, the publisher of the atlanta constitution wanted to have a dinner honoring as the religious figure, the rabbi and the archbishop wanted to have the dinner honoring dr. king. but that officials of atlanta, what i grew up in, once wrote that effort into's the only place where the leadership figures were, call themselves openly the power structure. they had a hard time embracing this. and there was tremendous conflict because a lot of people didn't want to honor him, the nobel prize or not because he was black. and it finally erupted into publicity in "the new york

times" and shamed atlanta into having this dinner right when dr. king is going to sell one. he comes back from the nobel prize saying this is the great highest international word for peace. but i've got to go to selma and with an -- of the to go back to the valley. there was a tremendous drive from dr. king to go downward and, of course, that's, you know, not to rest on his laurels. and i think, to some degree, that was the guilt that he had. and lots of people wanted him to go to honor a dinners and bask in the nobel peace prize and never to anything else. but within three weeks he set up to the back to the valley. he's in jail in selma. and he went back down to seek the right to vote. as of this -- this strong dr. in him really dominates a lot of part of his life going here in the third volume which ultimately ends of course he was assassinated in the campaign among the garbage workers in memphis. c-span: in the end, by the come helped malcolm x dhaka? what was the scene?

>> guest: malcolm x died simultaneously within the dropping out of bob moses. in february, 65, the beginning of the american ground troops in vietnam and this celebrate true, malcolm x is shot down by members of the elijah muhammed temple and newark. it's an embarrassment to me and the american legal system that two men who hadn't absolutely nothing to do it serve over 20 years. they were convicted elsewhere. only one of the actual killers serve time; four of them never did. they've been identified but never tried, and two people were really pretty clearly not there and i think the legal system knew they were not there were served -- were convicted and served time anyway. c-span: how will that happen? >> guest: it's hard to -- to call back of help marginal the muslims were in this period. they were, like, unspeakable, almost and i think basically legal system just wanted to get somebody in jail and be done with it. and then when evidence surfaced that these people didn't have anything to do with it, nobody wanted to reopen the whole can

of worms. there was all this surveillance evidence. there was evidence that -- that the police and the fbi knew malcolm was being tracked and tried to be killed, and they didn't want any of that to come out. so basically they didn't want to open it up. c-span: what is new in the book and that's never been written before, what areas? >> guest: i think most of this stuff about malcolm's three years, the three years is new. that's why there's more of that in this book than i thought. that, plus the fact that i think malcolm's leader -- islamic america is now very large, and it comes out of malcolm's reform and is occurred -- while most of us are preoccupied with louis farrakhan, who represents about one out of every 200 african-american muslims in this country. most of them are legitimate muslims, sunni muslims. so that -- all of malcolm's last three years of really covered in the autobiography. the ins and outs of what he's

really trying to, trying to stay alive, with the fbi knew, what louis farrakhan knew, but against him. c-span: old was he when he was killed? >> guest: he was killed at 39, just like dr. king. they were both killed of 39. neither one of them live to reach their 40th birthday. c-span: how many copies of his autobiography so? >> guest: it's been translated into 20 languages and i think 15 million. i mean, his autobiography really creative now the max. i put him here because -- is an extraordinary figure and he had a cultural impact. but he didn't have that much historic in pact. first of all, he's a fugitive. he's out of the country for a lot of this purpose. we read a lot backwards into this. lyndon johnson couldn't even pronounces income called him muslim x and didn't know who he was. the autobiography that came out nine months after he was killed toward the end of 1965 really raised the profile dramatically. and then the next year when a black power was pronounced come hee was -- as a new doctrine he

was kind of adopted as the patron saint of the black power and he became more significant and death and then he was in life as a political influence. c-span: how old are you now? >> guest: i'm 51. c-span: when is the next book do? this is 1998. >> guest: will likely to make predictions because many of them are wrong. i don't think this one will take nine years. i think it will take three or four more years to get the third volume of this trilogy which is called at canaans age. it's evoking moses, trying to get up to look over canaans but not allowed to go. not allowed to go in that period to look into the new freedom lifted up i think that you never quite get there. c-span: in all the time that you've been doing this, what has been your biggest reward besides the sale of the? >> guest: meeting the people

and the continuing exposure to people who stretch themselves and are rewarded by what -- finding that this kind of freedom movement across these lines is really the -- at the bottom of what our -- all people are created equal and a lot of our religious doctrines, and just the continuing elijah muhammed and less mining of the treasured people and ideas and new subjects, like rabbi heschel, you know, in this who is in this volume. i never would have known that dr. king would have such a close association with any hassidic orthodox rabbi from warsaw and yet the racket and i then have to try to know more about heschel who i think was one of the great figures of the planet center in his own right and then more about judaism and you are curled back courts. it's just continuing to me and the same amount mix -- a continuing opening of the new doors of education from the

freedom movement period. c-span: who is your favorite civil rights leader? >> guest: dr. ken. c-span: what you think of him? >> guest: i admire him now more than i did when i started coming and what i started with -- and i knew he was part of this movement that had affected me and i kind of admire him, but i thought maybe he was just a baptist preacher who got carried away with turning the other cheek. c-span: who disappoints you after you get to know them more? >> guest: investor.? most of us -- people in congress, barry goldwater's republican party, which turned from the party of lincoln into the party of the white south on a dime and one year in 1964. and i hope it doesn't stay because i know all kind of republicans who like to get the party of lincoln back. southern sheriffs and politicians. c-span: j.b. stoner? >> guest: ghosh, j.b. stoner, yes. if you are talking about

somebody -- somebody who mix religion into an instrument of hatred like j.b. stoner there are plenty of those. they are the top of the list. c-span: you're is the book, the second and three volume series by j.b. stoner, this one called "pillar of fire" america in the teen years 1963-1965. thank you. >> guest: thank you, brian ..

>> you were looking for a venue where you could use it and said it to join the most elite unit i can join, or -- i think that's one -- or maybe you felt that there was the absence of that in your life. you might have been adrift or wondering, you know, am i going the right way? am i headed for jail or a life that's not, you know, not going to really bring out all that's in me, and so you said to yourself, well, i want to go somewhere where this kind of code of honor exists, and where it can be, you know, taught to me, 10 i think -- so i think that's that a reason, certainly that's why i joined, and i think that's what i hope you guys are too. another honorable about making that choice is in america today it really is a choice.

i mean, if we were born in and sent sparta there's no chose. the warrior ethos is all there was. as we talked yesterday, there's 100% of the armed forces these days coming out of 1% of population, and so that's a real choice that everybody made here, particularly if you think about it, the values of civilian society, and i'm not knocking anything here, but they are quite opposite to the warrior ethoso values. to choose it for yourself is an amazing thing. i'll talk about the values for one second. if you think about in civilian life, probably the paramount value is freedom, individual atonmy that a person can be whatever they want to be. they can be a rock star, donald trump, president of the united states, whatever they want to

be, and that's life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and that's rightly so. that's what makes america great, but when you choose the warrior ethos, duty becomes the value, and service so that you can't wear your hair in a ponytail if you choose to and you can't decide i don't feel like deploying for another couple months or at all, so that's one value. a second value that the greater culture at large, you know, holds up really high is money, wealth, the pursuit of, you know, affluence and celebrity so that somebody like a donald trump or something like that is lionized throughout the culture where nobody gets rich in this room for what you doing. what the warrior ethos offers is honor. there's a great story about when -- i'll tell you a few ancient stories today. hope i don't put you to sleep.

when the syracuse in ciliee and the spartans came to air aid. they never sent money or an army. they sent a general to kick them into shape, and so when the general came to syracuse, syracuse was a very wealthy city, and they had really virtually no army. he had to form an army out of these crazy civilians, and when he went to pick the officer corp., he gave these instructions. search for men who care not about wealth or power, but who crave honor, and i would guess that that's pretty much what's -- what is filling 24 room here.

another difference of civilian values and warrior ethos values, in civilian life, people want the creature comforts. they want air-conditioning and an easy life. if you can take a pill to lose 20 pounds, you'll do that, but in the warrior culture, adversity, the willing embrace of adversity is a part of it. the rougher the better. when people tell stories 234 a warrior culture, it's the most hellish stories poll; right? i know, you know, i'm a marine, and when marines talk about their history, they don't really talk about the great victories, but they talk about the worst casualty scenarios like -- adversity, the willing embrace of adversity is one of the great warrior virtues. i'm trying to think of another,

but it's slipping my mind. oh, one other thing about special forces troops in particular. in my opinion i think that you guys are the pinnacle of the warrior ethos because not only are special forces, soldiers possess the military skills, which, you know, we all know how difficult that is and possesses the character skills, but working with indigenous forces and insurgencies and something like that, that, to me, is the highest level because a small group of men go into a completely foreign culture and exercise influence without authority, not able to make people do what you want to do by money or power or anything, but only by really by personal magnetism and personal honor and personal integrity and percent warriorhood. that's as high as it gets, and i

salute everybody for that. let me get into what i think what a warrior ethos is, and i'm going to start with the stories 23r this book. four quick little one minute stories about ancient sparta. i'm talking about the classic, old-time ancient warrior ethos which one of the things i hope when we get into some questions really would love to hear what you guys say about the modern world, the rules of engagement and the dubious gray areas. this is old school we're talking about now. these are four quick stories about the spartan women, the ancient spartan women. it always starts with women. these stories come from plutark, a book called "moralia" and "sayings of the spartan women" and if you have not read it, i

recommend it. here's four stories. a messager returns to spa that from a battle, and the women gather around to find out what happened to their men, and to one mother, the message says, mother, your oldest son was killed facing the enemy. the mother says he is my son. he says 20 her, your younger son is alive and unhurt. he ran away from the enemy. she says, he is not my son. one story. second story -- another message returns from another battle and a mother approaches him and says herald, how fairs our country? herald beerses into tears saying mother, all five of your sons were killed facing the enemy. she says, you fool, i didn't ask about my sons, but my country. he says, we were victorious. she says, i am happy.

she turns around and goes home. the third story, somehow, i don't know how it happened, but two spartan brothers were fleeing from the enemy back towards the city, and they happened -- their mother was coming down the road. she sees them coming, lifts her skirt over her head and says where do you think you two are running two? back here from whence you came? [laughter] the -- we don't know the end of the story, but hopefully they turned and went back the other way. the final spartan mother story is the shortest of all, one of the spartan mother -- excuse me -- who hands her son his shield and sending him off to battle and says come back with this or on it. that, to me, is a really hard core culture. you know when the women, when your own mother's kicking you in the ass that, you know, there's

something to that. [laughter] i'm going to refer back to those stories. there's a reason i told them, not just because i love those stories. the warrior ethos really probably evolved out of the primitive hundred hunting band and the virtues needed for us who were harmed with a couple speers to take on mastadons and stuff like that. it was designed originally, i think, to accomplish two things. one two overcome fear, the god of the battlefield, phobos, and then second to make people work together. since fear is probably the most primal emotion, self-preservation, other things had to be brought in to counter that in a culture way. that's my feeling of where the warrior ethos comes from. there's at least three things recruited to counter fear and

make people work together, and that was honor, shame, and love. now, let's start with shame for a second. people don't think of shame as a positive, but certainly almost every great warrior culture is a shame-based culture whether it's the samuri culture where they have to kill themselves and i would certainly say the marine corp. is a shame-based culture, and certainly sparta was a shame-baseed culture. going back to the stories, the mother whose son was alive, but ran from the enemy, and she says, he is not my son. that's the kind of real, you know, that's at the application of shame to make people go forward into the face of fear.

there's a great story about alexander the great -- excuse me a second -- when his army and he were in india, and they had been on the, you know, fighting for ten years almost. they -- the army was ready to revolt. they were tired. they wanted to go home. they had enough of this stuff, you know? it was a serious moment, so alexander called the whole army together. i don't know if you heard this story, and he stripped naked in front of them, and you could see across his whole body were just one wound after another. he was wounded with arrows, javelins, rocks, boulders crashed, burned, everything possible, and so he said to his men, look at these wounds on my body all got for you and in your service, and you'll notice they are all in the front. there's nothing in the back. he says i will make you a deal if any one of you can stand forth from the army, come up

here, stripe naked beside me, and if your wounds are greater than mine, i'll turn the army around right now and walk home. not a man came forward. instead the army burst into a cheer and begged his forgiveness for their wont of spirit and begged to be led further forward. that's great leadership, but what that really is is the application of shame to make the men, to make the men go forward and kind of summon their spirit. in sparta, they used to have the pretty young girls, had little anthems of shame that they used to, if someone failed in action and came back to the city, there were a number of things that happened to them, but the pretty young gals used to gather around them and sang songs of ridicule, and the next time the guy went out, you could be sure he didn't -- you know, in other words shame is a technique to make the application of shames

worse than fear of the enemy. okay. let's talk about honor for a second, the flip side of shame, the the opposite of shame. as we know from tribal cultures and you know this better than i do. in the pashtun culture, let's say, honor is the most prized possession of a man and much more important than land, money, women, anything. as long as a man has honor, he's okay, but if he doesn't have honor, life is not worth living, so honor is the -- that high level which a person internally will not let himself fall from. there's a famous gunnery sergeant in the marine corp., and he tells his young marines when they complain about the salaries. he says you get a financial salary and