your watch or saying one -- the best example editorially was gerald ford, you know, the debate with jimmy carter when he said eastern europe is not dominated by the soviet union, and his head was handed to him because it was -- and i asked him about that, and he said, well, here's what i meant. i didn't say it right, but here, again, he understood why everybody jumped him, and they jumped him badly, and it hurt him terribly. he was already behind in the polls, and this made it even worse, but it's the -- those examples are the ones that every candidate knows about, and they want to make sure that that thing, that doesn't happen to them, and that makes them very cautious and it makes their consultants cautious. ..

just like everybody else. i don't handle criticism well. , but i've also realized, if i can't handle criticism then i shouldn't be moderating

presidential debates and should maybe be a television. that goes with the territory and public reaction and it's impossible to please everybody. if you start taking about using everybody, then you will please nobody. if i feel i'm so cocky now. hockey is not the word. i've been doing this so long that somebody criticizes me for some pain and i don't think the criticism is just a plan i don't worry about. nobody has to tell me when i screwed up. i know when i screwed. and that comes with doing this a long time. >> host: but about the next debate? >> guest: they're going to be great. i'm not going to participate. i'll be watching them and not be willing to help anybody i can to do anything i can to help them be critical to the election process.

i will be there to help as an observer. >> host: and watching it in front of the tv set will be a little less nerve-racking one would. >> guest: yes, ma'am. >> host: thank you very much, jim lehrer. this is a fabulous book not just because i'm a political junkie, but a lot of interesting things here. "tension city" by jim lehrer. my view from the middle seat. you should've said middle hotseat. thank you, jim. >> guest: thank you, gloria.

>> the second day of the 11th annual national book festival. watch today's coverage no one but tv. >> host: welcome to today's booktv live coverage of the 11th annual national book festival here in washington d.c. we have nearly six hours of live coverage ahead. here is our lineup. it just a minute, we'll go to the history and biography tent down here in the mall, where doug waller will be talking about his 2011 book.

>> c-span basses all sit down here and we are handing out a fax. if you are an area in washington, comment down pick up a book back and say hi. the national book festival is sponsored by the library of congress in president and mrs. obama are the honorary chairs of the national book festival. now we are going to go to the history and biography tent. doug waller is introduced by marie around at the "washington

post." >> is a wonderful son and i think going for two days has been a real experiment for the national book festival that it is so rewarding to see there's actually people out here milling around, ready for another day. thank you very much for coming. my name is marie around that. i am a writer at large for the "washington post." i was the book editor for many, many years and i am now very happy member of the heirs of this festival and the "washington post" is very, very proud to be a charter or of the festival for so many years. as far as i'm concerned, the thinking person amusement park, whether you are four or 24 or 54 or 104, there's something for you here at the book festival.

first in our lineup of great authors today is douglas waller, a veteran magazine correspondent and the author of numerous books about the american military as well as american intelligence operations. in almost two decades as a washington journalist, doug waller has covered the pentagon, congress, state department and from the white house the cia. from 1994 to 2007, he served in "time" magazine's washington hero, first as a correspondent and then as a senior correspondent. he has also served as diplomatic correspondent, traveling throughout europe, asia and the middle east as well as the persian gulf and pursuit of stories. he has carried out extensive coverage of the middle east, peace negotiations in the wars in iraq.

before coming to "time" magazine, douglas a correspondent for "newsweek" for reporting on major military conflict from a cold war to haiti. he was born in norfork, virginia, studied at wake forest university and did graduate work in urban affairs at the university of north carolina at charlotte. before bringing "newsweek" in 1998, he started as a legislative assistant on the staff of senator william proxmire and representative edward markey. and douglas waller is now a defense analyst for bloomberg government. among waller's many, many books, a number of them, bestsellers are the commandos, the inside story of america's secret soldiers, air warriors come inside story printmaking of a navy pilot and big red, the three-month leverage of a trident nuclear submarine.

waller's new book is a biography of an outsize american kerry dared, general william wild bill donovan, founder and director of strategic services, precursor of the modern caa. in this superb biography, at once a cliffhanger and a work of deep scholarship, doug waller tells the story of a man who built a far-flung and telogen's organization out of absolutely nothing in the middle of one of the most brutal wars of our time. an ambitious young lawyer with political aspiration, william donovan had written to president franklin d. roosevelt in 1942 and told him what the country really needed as it hunker down for war was a good spy operation. roosevelt, desperate for information gave him the task. donovan was fearless, even

reckless, always itching to be the center of attention in this story while it tells his follow-up action on the ground and in the corridors of power. as david weiss who has written extensively about the cia wrote on the pages of the "washington post," while built on it then, the name of the book, is the first carefully researched in depth biography of the legendary world war ii spymaster for anyone interested in the history of american intelligence, it is required reading. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome a terrific writer and journalist, douglas strand three. [applause] i'm sorry, before i bring him on -- welcome. i'm sorry, i actually gave him the microphone, i must say we expect you to ask questions after he speaks, but i must warn

you that your image if you come to the microphone, which he hope you will do will be filmed and then carried in the tombs of the library of congress wherever. so be careful. >> tanks, marie. it's great to be here. actually, we are sitting in a very appropriate spot for a discussion about wild will follow them because just a few blocks from here is where his spy agency had its headquarters. it was time maybe he'll buy it next the state department. his staff called it the kremlin, his headquarters. it was then abandoned public health service building. in fact, they've been doing research data and when donovan's men moved into the headquarters, there was still animals in cages on the top floor that they hadn't carted out. joseph carbo's, hitler's propaganda minister had a lot of

fun with that little morsel. in fact, he sent out propaganda broadcasts that dominates the home was for 50 professors, t-tango, 1212 guinea pigs and a sheep, which actually was far from the truth. wild bill donovan really is three stories in one. it's a very compelling biography of a truly heroic figure, not a lot of tragedy in his life. it's also a spy story, excavating pie spy story at the highest levels of washington, which is the part that intrigued me the most because i'm a journalist. i said in some talk that i would've loved to have been a reporter covering wild ill-timed event in the 40s and i probably would have. donovan miked reporters. he liked speaking to the press. yet reporters as propaganda since bias and before he had to do the oss, the office of

strategic services, he would go out overseas on missions for the government or for his own private industry, posing as a correspondent and finally two different news agencies. he wasn't a particularly tall man. he was only about five-foot nine. wanted to say she is,, peggy mcintosh that when he ran the oss he kind of looked pained when shea. in fact, she told him that one time. one of his other operatives come in, near bankrupt suddenly looked like a cupid dog. did anybody ask me what a qb doll looks like, but that's a donovan but lakebed. he slept five hours a night, could speed read at least three books a week. he was an excellent ballroom dancer. he'd love to sing irish songs. in fact, he would go to broadway, pick up the latest sheet music that he could learn the latest musical tunes. he didn't smoke a member of, enjoy fine dining.

he spent lavishly. he had no concept for a dollar. in fact, when it was overseas visiting stations where he was most of time, and aid would always be with him and a bunch of quarters and dollar bears it has donovan was always off of him. he was witty, but never showed were never told a turkey joke, never showed anger. instead he let it boil up inside of him. he was rakishly handsome, particularly as a young man. had bright blue eyes the women, absolutely captivating. his life however had a lot to tragic aspects to it. his daughter died in college in an odd mobile accident. his daughter-in-law died of a drug overdose at one of his granddaughters at four years old died when she actually swallow silver polish. he was born in the irish first word. i gave the book talk during this

and discovered all this time i had been staying donovan's name wrong. if you are from buffalo's irish first word, you provided it pronounce it to event. of course it screwed me up for the rest of the book talk. he thought he might be a priest. everyone assumed one of the sons would become a priest. donovan realized he wasn't cut out to be a man's and went to columbia university was a star quarterback his senior year and to achieve taco from a princeton mind and hobbled him for the rest of the season. he attended columbia law school after columbia university. franklin roosevelt was a law student with him. in fact, roosevelt like to say he and donovan were old pals in my school. he said roosevelt had nothing to do with someone as those social strata's donovan was. he returned to buffalo, set up a lucrative law as married one of

the wealthiest women in buffalo and then world war i comes. he goes off to war, command a battalion in in the famous 69 irish regiment, a famous new york regiment. he was awarded the congressional medal of honor during world war i for some very heroic actions. his priest in the 69th regiment, father francis duffy says donovan was one of the few men he'd ever met who actually enjoyed. and he really did. he would wait to his wife, ruth that going on in combat was like going out trick-or-treating at night. in world war i was where he earned the nickname, wild bill. he was actually a very rigorous and brutal trainer of this man because he realized in this war they were going to be going into a meat grinder, which they were. before they went into action in france, he had them one day running over a hill under bob

dwyer and obstacle courses and finally they all collapse in front of it he stood up and said what the heck is the matter with you. i'm 35 years old kerry missing part and you don't see me out of breath. somewhere in the back of a soldier shouted out. he never figured out who it was, but were not as wild as you are, bill. from that day on, wild bill donovan stuck, he claimed he didn't like that nickname because it ran counter to the cool calm collected by energy he wanted to project. his wife, reeve said he did like to be calling why a bill. he returned to new york a hero, the canes and attorney general and the coolidge administration during the 20 yes. his goal at that point was to be attorney general of the united states and he thought herbert hoover, who succeeded coolidge had made that promise. in fact, hoover had. but the ku klux klan, which is a

very powerful political movement than with open arms over over the idea of an irish catholic becoming attorney general of the united states. donovan who was a prominent republican made his share of enemies in washington and senate democrats vowed to block his administration. so hoover we made on his promise until the day he died, wild bill never forgave herbert hoover for backing out on the attorney general should. he returned to new york city, set up a prominent law firm mayer, the donovan is your law firm, and made millions as a wall street lawyer. then in 1832, he ran for governor of new york on the republican ticket. his goal then was to be the nation's first irish catholic president in new york was the ideal steppingstone for achieving that franklin roosevelt in 1932 was running for his first term as president. donovan ended up running against roosevelt as he did against

lieutenant governor herbert lehman, roosevelt lieutenant governor who is running for governor, said some nasty things about roosevelt on the campaign trail. at one point he accused fdr of being crafty. back then i was fighting words. kind of mail today. another technique is roosevelt is being i park faker because roosevelt on the campaign trip claimed he was just a simple farmer from hyde park and donovan said that was a bunch of bunk. roosevelt for his part took a shot that donovan, his surrogates. he got on the campaign trail and started criticizing him during the election. donovan lost that election. turns out he was a horrible campaigner. if he was here talking to you, he could turn out to irish charm and hewitt have you totally rock into what he was saying. before a large group, he was a wooden stick figure, just

terrible as a campaigner. in fact, lieutenant governor was a guy named charlie davidson thought that donovan should be running for lieutenant governor and he should run for governor because he was so lousy on the staff. the reason i mention all this, kind of the background is it's amazing that roosevelt may donovan his top spymaster and his administration considering all the nasty things these two guys is said about each other in new york. fast-forward to 1940, 41. roosevelt's building the country, building the fence is up, preparing the nation for war. donovan even though he's a conservative republican, he got the new deal was a spy to take over america. nevertheless he was a member of the internationalist wing of the republican party. he too believes the nation needed to build wealth for war in the country needed to prepare for this down the road. in the summer of 1940, roosevelt and donovan and informal

diplomatic mission to england to answer really just one question. can britain survived the war. donovan has given access to enable intelligence, at my side, and i think some of the. he comes back with bags full of classified documents from great britain and with an answer to the question that yes, britain could survive the war, but it would mean a considerable amount of u.s.a. to do so. i can eventually in the form of land police. roosevelt sent donovan on a second trip at the end of 1948 that lasted to the beginning of 1941. this time he went on only to england, but went through the balkans, the middle east and eastern europe. his mission that was not only to collect intelligence about what was going on in that region, but also deliver a private message

to the balkans and middle east leaders, which was that roosevelt did not intend to let great britain is this war. if you're deciding at this point which side you're going to be on and a lot of the balkan leaders are at this point, keep in mind the allies will be the winning side. churchill was delighted with this mission. he cabled roosevelt that donovan had been a british plan to do fly him around the region and in british military escorts with him to open doors and also keep an eye on what he was doing and report back to london. one of his escorts was ian fleming, the novelist who wrote the james bond novel. the state department, however, wasn't too pleased with this mission. here you have an american citizen who had no diplomatic standing in the american government or the practice behind closed doors. the state department investigated whether donovan should be prosecuted for

violating the logan act which makes it a crime for a private citizen to negotiate on the u.s. government. roosevelt however was only too happy to have donovan out there freelancing. keep in mind in 1940, even going up to 41, roosevelt has no foreign intelligence service to speak of. you have the army and navy have small foreign intelligence units. but they were largely dumping grounds for poor performance officers. they making major foreign-policy decisions overseas. how much and not to get blandly say to great britain. how to circumvent congressional controls. these run into wendell wilkie for not present then it present then it present then it in his making decisions overseas largely blind to what lay ahead emmys making decisions overseas largely blind to what lay ahead of him. he worked in so much sometimes he became physically ill. when donovan came back from the

european sham, that's been our spy story begins. in july 1941 before pearl harbor, roosevelt signed an executive order designating donovan, his coordinator of information about a year later chief of the oss come office of strategic services. in the beginning is the coordinator of information. just a one-page document, vaguely written. colonel donovan had been as world war i branko collects information of national importance into other unspecified things. the document was so vague that the other cabinet members and roosevelt administration weekend scratching their head and wondering what in the world is franklin up to a point in this republican wall street lawyer to do all these unusual covert things in his administration. donovan like to say that he began his spy agency the oss, really for minus zero, which was

one guy and that was wild bill donovan. in the beginning, he was kind of like a player and a pickup basketball game, looking for regions and operations anywhere he could find it. for example, the philips lamp company that made them so bland overseas may still be in business. donovan arranged privately to have a salesman when they went on sales calls to report back to him, particularly in occupied countries but they saw and what they heard. the kodak company. in my day to make a brownie cameras, disposable cameras today. that and they had thousands of camera clubs around the united states. donovan arranged for the camera club to send him the photos that tourists had taken of military importance i around the world. another project he hashed with project cigar. good american airways. there is now a new tv series pan

am stewardess or whatever. but, project cigar, donovan arranged privately that the ticket agents for pan am and africa would report to him on the movements of throughout the continent so he could keep track of access agent in africa.ok ups games. he was open to practically any crazy idea for these willing to consider it. his code number, which you see on the oss documents was always one of my, which just happened to be there remember of his office in the kremlin. his secretaries had another codename for him. he used to call because like the resource he was always running around all the time. he kept $2000 in his desk or at all times to pay off resources for information when he went prowling around washington. i don't need to see a cia director keeps two grand in this office now in petty cash.

he had a research and development chief, a guy named stevie lovell who invented all the spy gadgets for him. donovan is to call him professor moriarty after the sherlock holmes character. his family made a slight miniature cameras that spies have to use, pistols with silencers, incendiary devices, pencil like incendiary devices used as explosives. donovan was very theory, dear interested for example and truth drugs, fascinated by the use of truth drugs and interrogation. so he had -- stanley lovell had one of his officers test out the truth drugs on a new york mobster, a guy named little augie. this was a new york city cop who worked for the oss. he is little augie up to his apartment for some smokes and a chaplain david little augie starts puffing away on a secret

which is least with the truth drugs, puffing away, puffing away so he gets a silly grin on his face, starts telling the officer about all the mob hits he has carried out, working for lucky lucchino and all the congressmen he frayed. of course he could never bring him to court order would expose the truth drugs they were testing. other ideas they had come a long time you propose to print and roosevelt did how did but not assessed that he could push at any time in a item and instant communication with every radio in america. so he could warn people in los angeles at the japanese are attacking our people who are attacking him outside. roosevelt ignore that idea, but roosevelt was hoping to everyone of donovan's ideas. roosevelt was a spy. he liked the whole idea of espionage. for example, one time donovan man tested the idea of sitting

back that were going to tie incendiary devices around the bat. the idea was that you would fly over japan, drop the bats out, the bats would flying into the paper and wood houses instead the incendiary devices that would hurt down japanese cities. i am not making us fat. this really happened. terrific idea. eleanor roosevelt had heard about it. she passed on to franklin. franklin said it was kind of cool and gave it to dominate and he had seen go check it out. so they got a plane, loaded up with the punches bass with incendiary devices and flew over somewhere in some desert area and dropped out the bats. you guess what happened to the bats? they all sank like stones. the idea didn't work.

.. >> eventually he bilt his agency, and the support personnel was scattered in stations all over the world. again, a remarkable achievement considering he just started with wild bill don -- donovan. they had a torch campaign in 1941. they had extensive operations in italy. at the balcans they aided the guerrillas in yiewg --

greece. interestly, mack arthur didn't want any part of that force and he was banned from the theater. admiral chester, commander of the northern pacific forces also didn't think anything of don von and would not let him in there. the most extensive operations came in france, northern france and southern france. they had a good bit of research into targets in france and germany, the air force really appreciated it and they parachuteed in commandos during that operation. he liked to go in on landings, the beach landings. he went in on the landings in sicily and italy. it worried their staff because they thought a spy chief with the secrets in the head, the

last place you want him is in the front where he might be captured and become a valuable target. george marshall, the chief of the army, thought he had donovan banned from going to the front lines and so did eisenhower. he talked his way aboard a heavy cruiser and land the second date of the utah beach landing. he had a great time, on a beach in a jeep, and one flies over, sprays the beef, he dives into the sand. marchs inland five miles with an aid, pinned down by a german machine gun, reaches into the pocket of his field jacket to look for a suicide pill because all oss officers carried a pill including donovan, realized he left it at the hotel in london, and he was ology worried, had to radio back because he feared a maid might mistake it for an

aspirin. it took almost two years for him to build up his spy organizations. it seems like a long time during the war, but it took the u.s. army to become a credible force in the war and build up its army, but eventually it was proficient and turned good intelligence. like all intelligence agencies, it suffered from failures too. one of the most striking failures was the vessel case. donovan thought he had a silver bullet agent planted inside the vatican, the code name was vessel, who was supplying him with paper transcripts of private conversations that pope pias was having with foreign leaders, japanese, enjoys, and his own envon #* vois -- envoys with peace initiatives in asia. turns out, he was a pornographer with a talent of writing

dialogue. all of donovan's staff got snookered. this is a story of political intrigue, too. donovan liked to say that his enemies in washington were as pheers as adolf hitler was in yiewmp, and that was -- europe, and that was really the case. he had fights with hoover. hoover thought donovan's organization was the biggest collection of amateurs he'd ever seen, and in the beginning it was a collection of amateurs. hoover had his fbi spy on donovan, collected a lot of information on him, spied on oss officers. he had moles in donovan's organization. donovan spied on hoover, had moles in hoover's organization when i was doing the research for the book. i wondered when they had time to spy on others when they spied on each other so much. the pentagon wanted no part of donovan's offer of strategic services. george marshall thought it was a

plot of donovan to take over army intelligence, which, by the way, is what donovan had in mind had roosevelt let him do it, so marshall eventually comes to accept donovan's oss, but his senior intelligence officers never did, and, in fact, they fought don von's organization throughout the war. at one point in the middle of the war, his military intelligence folks even formed their own secret espionage units behind donovan's back nicknamed the pawn. it was not only to spy behind access of donovan's back, but to spy on donovan and his officers. they even collected information on the wives of oss officers. donovan, i mean, in any war, you're going to have generals on the same side fighting among themselves, and world war ii was no different from any other war. the british and americans senior officers, you know, constant

battles among them. in donovan's case though, the fights were even more intense because the conventional admirals and regimes just didn't know that this guy was all about. he got up there and talked about propaganda and ease espionage operations and bats with devices, and others found that disturbing, not really the american way of war. he also brought a lot of the problems on himself by his operating style. he had a habit of never taking no phenomenon or answer. if a commander in front of him say you can't do this, he made a run to the sue peoria officer to get the decision reversed which doesn't win you friends in the pentagon. he was at a cocktail party in washington chatting with an admiral, and he had his men burglarize the admiral's office, steal documents and bring them

to the party to show the agent what he could do. there's no record of the reaction, but i have a feeling he was not impressed by it. there was a pension of showing up at meetings in the pentagon, usually late, keeping the other admirals and generals waiting. he was eventually made a major general in the army. his uniform would be very carefully tailored by new york, and he would come into the room with only the medal of honor ribbon he won on his uniform as a not so subtle reminder he had the only medal in the room that actually counted. eventually, donovan couldn't overcome his political enemies, okay? he had drafted a plan for a post-war central intelligence agency, a post-war cia, and he wanted to lead it after the war. walter trohan, a reporter for

the "washington times he herald," part of a republican newspaper chain strongly anti-roosevelt. he got leaked to him donovan's, a copy of donovan's secret plan to set up a post-war cia. most likely hoover leaked the document, but it's never been proven. he publishes the article in the paper veer bait m -- veer -- verbatim the secret order including setting up an american gestapo in the united states. if you accused anyone of that, you about killed it politically. he basically shelled the plan. harry truman comes into office,

okay? jay edgar hoover has one of his agents plant a particularly nasty rumor with truman's top military aid that donovan was having an affair with his daughter-in-law, okay? they played hardball then. i had to run the rumor to ground, which was not a fun chore, but it was not true. donovan was very close to his daughter-in-law, but only as a daughter-in-law. even so, donovan had a number of affairs over the years, a number of mistresses. it was common knowledge in buffalo, new york, common knowledge in washington among oss circles, in military intelligence, and it had no problem getting to the fbi and getting passed on to truman. that wasn't really what sunk don van's organization. what probably killed it was a

59-page report, the pawns, the secret espionage unit, they managed to get to truman's desk through an army officer, that 59-page report accused his agency of all manner of misdeed and misphenes and blown -- malfeasance and blown operations. there was even staging of a sex orgy in india, but i found no such thing of that being the case. you had a successful wall street republican lawyer, and on the other hand, there was a failed missourian who was a die hard democrat. there was never going to be good karma. in october 1945, truman shuts down the oss. he was not naive to the threats out there overseas. he knew he was facing, you know, an impending cold war threat and

needed intelligence services, but he just didn't want the oss having any part of it. truman in 1947 formed the cia, the central intelligence agency, patterned after the vision and the idea that donovan had. donovan lobbied through surrogates to try and make himself cia director, but truman was having no part about it especially after hearing the nasty things said about him. eisenhower is in office in 1953, and donovan thinks he'll become cia director. i was a republican, thought a lot about his work in europe, and instead those, eisenhower makes alan dulles cia directly. that disappointed don value. dulles was a station chief in switzerland, done a terrific job. dulles that donovan did a lousy job of running the oss and he

could have run it better. i'll end it there. we can talk about his life afterwards and his legacy and what you see today in modern cia. [applause] >> my name a matt gross. i read quite a few books about oss and donovan, and one thing i never understood, and you didn't bring it up yourself. you know, there was no intelligence oversight committee. i had never known congress' role regarding the oss, and how did they get paid for it? >> good question. on the first one whether there was any congressional oversight of the operation, the short answer is no. in fact, at one point truman sent over requests to get information what the oss was spending its money on.

truman was in charge of that government efficiency committee during the war, and marshall came to him and talked him out of it, and truman backed off. senator harry byrd of virginia at one point tried to find out what the oss officers were getting paid. actually, they got paid high salaries, and he wanted to cut that back. as far as the funding fortunate oss, it came initially out of two accounts. roosevelt in the beginning had a private slush fund, a secret fund that was called unvoucherred money, which was not accountable to congress. he could pay out whatever he wanted. he initially paid donovan's organization out of the private fund. he also had his own secret black intelligence unit run by a washington power by john franklin carter who did other work for him. this was not overseen by congress. eventually, part of donovan's

funds as the budget expanded into the hundreds of millions and more came from appropriated funds from congress, and even then congress was not doing a lot of oversight on what he was doing overseas. he was basically free to operate on his own. >> i wonder if you could say something about the sources that you used for this book. for example, are all the oss archives available? where are they? >> do you think they are complete, or do you think that some of them may have been deleted at some point? >> yeah. the good news is that documents have been declassified. the bad news is practically all the oss documents have been declassified because it runs in the millions and millions of pages. in donovan's own office, and i went through the material, he had something on the order of

170,000 documents there under his control which took me about a year to go through. his personal papers from his law office and other sources and letters to his family are at the army military history institute in pennsylvania and there's over 360 boxes. i had to go to the three presidential libraries, fdr, truman, and eisenhower libraries because a good bit of the oss information are in those libraries. then they are scattered in archives and libraries all over the country are different parts of, you know, the donovan story and the oss story. i also had to go to england to the british archives there because the british spent a good bit of time monitoring donovan's organization. they were integ grat to setting up his organization, but they had officers that were spying on donovan's organization. they knew he was spying on them, so you can go there for the

special operations executive papers which are extensive, some, mi6, the church hill library -- churchill library had some too. it took a little over six years to go through and vacuum up everything. >> thank you. enigma was enormously successful operation. >> yes, uh-huh. >> what i learned is that donovan had no relationship whatsoever with it. was he aware of enigma and have any control whatsoever? >> yeah, actually he did with enigma. this is the code breaking capability the british had for the german diplomatic codes. donovan was actually given access to that code-breaking capability. in fact, he had some of the offers -- officers stationed in the park involved with the code breaking

and was given direct tapes. ironically, donovan was not given direct access to magic, the army navy code breaking ability of other traffic. marshall didn't trust that organization and thought he would leak it out. throughout the war, he actually had a closer relationship with the british code breaking capability than he had with his own american code breaking capability, and he recognized throughout the war that thstles really, you know, the key intelligence find and had the most value, actually more valuable than his own organization did. >> i just finished reading the book last week, and i'd like to say it's one of the best bios i've ever read. it's wonderfully well done. >> oh, thank you. >> i had two questions. >> sure. >> i wonder if you can explain to the audience what the relationship was with

mr. donovan and the law firm because i know some of the early travels was on behalf of the law firm, and then the second question is i just finished reading a book about the cia, and i guess the way i came from the book was this is the gang that couldn't shoot straight, so i wondered how the historical aspect of the oss ties into the fee fiascoes that the cia was involved in. >> right. the donovan leisure law firm was formed after donovan came back from the coolidge administration in the 20s. he formed it then, actually really got it going in the middle of the depression. it was highly successful as i said. donovan, unfortunately, spent a lot of the law firm's money along the way. he had no concept for a dollar, and he used a lot of the law firm account to fund his travels overseas. he later was ambassador so thailand from 1953-54, and he traveled around the region on

the law firm account. he came back, particularly after world war ii to the law firm, and after his ambassadorship to thailand basically broke, and the law firm was not doing well at that point. it, at that point, he became a rainmaker for the firm. he was a good arguer before the supreme court, but he was not really a dry parchment lawyer, and so he was good at drawing in business. as far as the legacy of the oss, and as that carries over to the cia, i mean, the question i get asked is what difference does the oss make in the war? did it win the war for the allies? short answer is no. did it shorten the war for the allies? again, the answer is no too, but you are setting the bar high when you establish that benchmark because there's broader factors at work winning the war for the allies, the fact we can amast more men and machines against the access than

they could ever field against us, and, as i said, signals, intelligence, magic, and enigma were more valuable than the oss was, and donovan realized that. one of the values of the oss, better or worse, i guess, it was the pea tree dish of the future leaders of the cia. a lot of future directors, allen dulles and bill casey were all officers who cut teeth under donovan and became future cia directors. >> [inaudible] >> oh, we don't? oh, okay. sorry. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> and you're watching booktv on c-span2, our live coverage of the 11th annual national book festival. that was doug waller talking on his new book, "wild bill donovan." he's going to join us on our set now, and if you'd like to talk with him, here's the numbers. you can send mr. waller an e-mail at booktv@c-span doirk or tweet twitter.com/booktv, and our handle is @booktv. following the call in, another will be here writing in year's pulitzer prize winning general non-fiction book, "the emperor of al mallties, the biography of

cancer." and then we'll return to the history and biography tent in an hour or so for christie miller who wrote a book on the two wives who served as first lady during the woodrow wilson administration. we'll conclude today from the national book festival with the prize winning author, david mccolluogh taking phone calls and tweets as well. that's the final segment today at five to six o'clock eastern time. national book festival weekend here on booktv, but as we showed you all weekend, it is also charlotte weekend on booktv. he's another look at the literary life of charlotte, north carolina.

>> online, you have online sales? >> yes, we have 88 website. >> okay. what we've been doing if we have stock, we go on twitter and make a notice that you can buy signed stock. >> absolutely, absolutely. >> that way they know what to get them. this is based on what penguin did, and that is my -- >> you are wonderful. >> i have a bunch of those if i can leave them. >> yeah, that was the smartest thing they did. >> i know. i loved it. as soon as i saw that i've been wanting to do something to people can pick it up, but i wanted it through park road because you guys a awesome. >> do you have more? i'll put this buy your book. >> i was a sales house for random house. i've been in the business my entire adult life, just in the different ends this time. i was selling independent bookstores in the beginning, and

i loved it having north carolina, south carolina, and alabama. it was excite pg. at the end, i was selling two large chains, and it was not fun. i could have been selling anything. i like placing a book in a person's hands, b but i felt i was just another cog in the wheel rather than spreading the word about books. >> what do you say about the relationship? >> with some, it's a strong relationship. i know editors, i know publishers, marketing people, i had a rep on the phone before you came asking about the availability of books for young girls dealing with their body and what kind of a market was there for a chapter book in that, so i think we're, you know, we stay in constant communication, phone calls,

e-mails, we see each other at winner institute, book expo, other independent book sellers alliance. very strong, very strong relationship. >> how would that compare to the relationship between a publisher and a larger bookstore? >> well, the larger bookstore, especially if you're a chain, the problem with people and clerks staying at the store for awhile and developing a relationship is really, sometimes possible, but for the most part, there's people just looking for a job, not looking as a career for doing it. everybody that works here at the store has been doing it a long time. we have over 120 years combined experience in book selling. there's not that chance for relationships to i involve in a chain bookstore. for the most part. there's always exceptions to the rules, but it's also with the chain bookstore is when randomhouse sells barnes & noble, they are not talking to the front line book sellers or the people who actually place

the book in somebody's hand. >> it was cute. megan it was? >> yeah. [laughter] >> we have two. >> with the big box stores closing like borders, what's that mean for independents 1234 >> a huge opportunity for us to reestablish ourselves as the front runner of what's going to be new and upcoming in literature and in the book world, and it just -- we don't think that the box store really can survive, the big box store can survive with that square footage. this is an opening up of small stores. there's the american book sellers association, we see a book seller school, you know, a lot of people being interested. they don't want to be everything to everybody, just that little niche bookstore that caters to their needs.

>> and we are back live on the national mall here in washington, d.c. for the 11th annual national book festival. if you've watched today, you just saw doug waller in the history and biography tent talking about "wild bill donovan, the supply master creating the oss and modern american espionage espionage." he joins us here on the set to take your questions by phone, e-mail, or tweet. before we get started, and we'll get the numbers up so the viewers can participate, but how well knownfuls he during the days of accused tifer service? >> actually, in washington, he was well-known, somewhat of a celebrity in washington being a spy master, head of a secret organization that roosevelt had that everybody heard about but nobody knew a lot about. there were comic strips in

washington newspapers about donovan. the gossip pages tracked what he was doing around the city. unfortunately, access espionage agents tracked it and fed it back to berlin as well to plan propaganda there. >> was he famous outside washington? >> to a degree. when donovan came to washington, he was a national celebrity. he had run for governor in new york, was a prom innocent republican, had been mentioned several times as a republican candidate for president, too, so he was certainly on the white house radar screen. in fact, when he came into the white house, a lot of roosevelt's aids said, you know, why bring in this guy serving as a farm team for a future presidential candidate here? he was somewhat a sleb ri. he was a here row in world war i, awarded the congressional med --

medal of honor. >> why was he called wild bill? >> good question. he got the nickname in world war i. he was almost a brutal trainer of his men because he knew the battalion he commanded when it went into world war i would be going into a meat grinder, which it did. in fraps before they saw -- france before they saw action, he was running men through barbed wire obstacles, whatever. they finally collapsed in front of him and said what the heck is the matter with you. i'm 35 years old, and i'm running here not out of breath. a soldier in the back, he never knew who, said, we're not as wild as you are. from that day, wild bill donovan stuck. >> second question tweeted in, what we he think of the last decade of cia intelligence failures? >> he would be disappointed with

them. ..