so it's fairly easy to understand. i don't go to a lot of acronyms and things like most military books do. and the photos are, i hate to say it, but they're very good. and there's about, i think there's 80 or something like that in this book. the first edition which was printed by random house was physical lily poor quality. -- physically poor quality. it was a paperback with three or four bucks, whatever they sell for. this thing is on acid-free paper, and it's larger print for us old guys to read, and that's about it. ..

>> good evening. what a lovely place. the concept that they brought to life here at the bookstore if there is a cafe and a courtyard. thank-you for having me. this is an absolute pleasure to be here in this wonderful and beautiful place. this will not shock you because you don't know me but i started off as a poet's it is the farthest thing that has ever been from my mind. i have never pictured myself

in any way or shape or form interesting guns, i tried to stay away from them for as long as i can. normally when watching tv somebody that draws out a gun i am a first person to reach for the remote control and change the channel. the fact that i ended up writing about the assassination was a complete shocker. and to the way of fell into my lap as mentioned earlier in the introduction, the political assassination that i wrote about took place september 1992 in germany at a restaurant when was the machine gun one with a handgun walked into the restaurant and started

shooting add to the eight guess that had gathered over a dinner party that night. shot them all. for died instantly and the other force arrived. of the four survivors, one ended up being my house guest for several weeks. he was a friend of offend coming through town where i live in new haven connecticut. as i tried to lou cook dinner in the evening keeping him company, trying to be added could pose i would be chopping onions and he would sit across from me trying to help to make conversation. i made the mistake of one's asking so what happened to you in september 1992? the rest was history.

he would tell me a new installment of what had happened. the knights of the murder that too many minds may seem the most interesting or the intriguing part of the story come the but what i found most fabulous and engrossing was the way in which the investigation and everything else unraveled. i would be making my dinner and going about my own thing in the kitchen and he would give me the investigation and by the time he reached the tail end to this story telling i thought i should visit other people. of course, i set this up to

save when you have a writer who started out as a poet and is very squeamish having to do anything with blood, then you get a crime story told in a way that true stories are told that they stole that against everybody's advice, rather than talking about delaying the crime so their readers read this story to get to the gruesome crime, halfway through the book or two-thirds down, i get rid of it and a first five minutes of the book and say let's move on. and i hope if and when this was not lalane day poet's look but also a woman's look

at a very mail dominated macho story the killers were men the people who died were men and all the people getting involved were men. i guess for me to try to look at this intriguing story to say how would i look at this would make it really intriguing from a perfectly new perspective you will tell me if i have achieved to create that perspective. >> that is how it goes broke i get rid of the crime and what i follow through with pretty diligently because after take my trip to berlin the subsequent characters

that i met, one seemed to be more intriguing than the other. that is because any one of these heroes or survivors, investigators were rather that in their in perfection the probability probability, all together contributed to bringing about a very, very historic trial and verdict which by the accounts that i received from several legal historians, happens to be one of the most important triose in europe of the 20th century.

you are probably as surprised as i am why we never heard about it. that is why i decided to write about it. it seemed like an important story gone untold. you know, there eight people sitting in two people walking and in one person stands guard, for people get shot and died immediately. for others survive. the first person in my kitchen talking to me was one of the four survivors his name was parvic. of the first questions that i asked him was, what did you do when you first got home? and may not seem a very smart question too many of you but i was very curious.

what if one of us survived such an atrocious crime the police comely go to the police headquarters to get interrogated and fingerprints, i don't know then it is all over. several hours later at 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. you are all alone and you have to go back to your life. your own space and your own apartment. what is that like? would have been to the next morning when you we're done? i will read a very short passage from the moment that he arrives home and what are

his thoughts and follow through with the other characters. these microphones are wilting. is this okay? >> all he wanted to do is with the perimeter of the of apartment no. paced where the news was on to the balcony for air to the telephone on his bedroom desk to the stove on the kitchen where he was boiling water 40 over and over again. his morning routine had vanished. the thought of eating or going to bet did not enter his mind.

he dialed his secretary. i want to be in today. he told her. when asked why, he broke into assad. were you rod? is your mother dead? is your daughter six came the secretary's frantic questions. all he would say was, turn on the news. he took of shower under the rushing water he had is eyes wide open a the close them the image of the extended arm would plague his mind. not until the streaming water struck his body that he felt the aching in his right cheek and temple and remember the blow when he fell off of his chair. that age of real-time news had not daunt and the reporters are not yet looking for him. all the ordinary morning with the uproar within

him, he returned to his desk and made another call. it was to a friend on the editorial board. hello. this is parvic. hello. softly modifying the last syllable of the name think of paris when you say my eighth name. with the slight mispronunciation was a small sacrifice. he crafted a single sentence to dispel the whole ordeal. i was there at the restaurant where the four men died last night. >> i heard. let's have coffee one of these days to talk it over.

today is insane. taken aback by the lukewarm reply was forming the next sentence when the reporter recused himself in rushed off. the reporters quick dismissal caused a wave of panic. for years he had collect delete -- carefully collected journalist and he found a captive audience. it was a skill he had been perfecting since childhood when he and his friends who could not afford to go to the movies pool the allowance together to buy a single ticket for the emissary to see and recount a 90 minute film so elaborately of the others did get to see it fell short of the description. journalist had always been the most formidable ally of the parvic after his fees

that expired the famous writer had saved her from deportation by writing a piece on good germany repressive integration policy but now to whom could he turnout? as he brooded, the telephone rang the same voice in the receiver wants more. i'm sorry parvic. took me a minute to register what you said. did you say you yourself rat the world at -- restaurant that night? that is what i said. then we must talk instantly. so they get together and he interviews parvic and writes the editorial that runs the very same day in the paper. and what becomes the thrust of the murder in the beginning in september or october or november of 1992

was who done it? on one hand, the exiled iranian to have their own opinion. politicians and journalists who were circulating other possibilities so a slew of ideas that were circulating around. that was the dominant theme of the first three months. however, very quickly thereafter, one of the most important and intriguing characters in the book got assigned to the case, a prosecutor, discovers that the truce, i want to kill the plot line, but he sides with one possibility within a slew of theories that is

swirling around them is a governmental sponsored series of terrorist acts and assassinations. so after his assignment to the case, the story chefs from being a who done it too will they do the right thing? will the people have power? are the people who can and have the ability to bring justice to these victims to what is expected of them? hof -- in to do what is clearly mandated for them to do from the law. so that leads to a trial that happens within one year of the assassinations. nearly four year proceeding very dramatic four year

courtroom proceeding that finally leads to a historic verdict april of 1997. was mentioned during the introduction that there is a confluence of characters in this book that is part of the challenges to put the book together if i fictionalize this i would had eliminated at least 20 of them and stuck to the leading man that would be the prosecutor and investigator and done away with everyone else and in down him with all the great qualities and abilities to save the day. he does but not by himself. however, i think, and i

believe that despite the advice i was receiving rather than simplifying the story, readers are very sophisticated nowadays that they can manage the multi character's story hong and can keep track of characters going in in out and they don't need a singular hero. we have given up our old would never dream three months had understanding the confluence of characters with a great great triumph. i suppose the great character os book is no way becomes its own plot line and the

narrative itself. and what i hope you will find is the unraveling of the events and that is the line of which we follow. when i take my first trip to berlin to see the other angle of this is appealing as the one i had discovered in my own kitchen and, iran into the widow of one of the four men that had died in the restaurant that night. immediately after she opened her door to me, i entered the apartment, asked me where in the united states that i lived. at the time i lived in new york saying it was coming from new york and she said

this is practically the third sentence out of her mouth she wished she was here on 9/11. i said why? because she also lost a loved one on september 17 to about 10 years earlier. she knew exactly what is the widows who have lost their husbands, and the children who lost their fathers we're going through. she wished she had been here. because she thought all of the widows and the people like her, no women comment should come together to create a network of widows who have suffered due to an act of terrorism because it

knew no national boundaries. it is a global problem. that had evicted her and any american end woman here in the states. and in listening to her, i really decided that the value of the story was beyond the parameters of which i was thinking about it initially. that there was something that he was saying that with these particular acts of crime that was sponsored by a radical ideology comment in this case, the governments of buy ran. sponsored the victim's a matter read they came from. it was extremely moving in the moment that gave the

incentive to make me resolute about wanting to write this book. last but not least, i want to introduce her to you. to have you listen to her frustrations because we are just coming out of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and i think much of what she told me in her grieving process that reminded me of this stuff i was hearing being played in radio and television the past few weeks. her name is sohreh. there is a more complicated name but we simplify that. her and her house but-- has

been that had a daughter together named sarah. i refer to sarah and the daughter of parvic and her name is salamain. you will hear about two girls were almost the same age. something very interesting that happen is while parvic the survivor is trying to gather documents, trying to get the courts to see the truth about the case, tried to feed the proper information to the journalist from here or there, in the midst of all of this, and god knows recovering from the trauma, his 10 year-old daughter is having fainting

spells. and nobody for the first few weeks seems to be able to diagnose why she is doing that. he takes her to the doctor and we open up in the doctor's waiting room. >> under the glare of the fluorescent lights in the exam room, parvic waited sometimes kissing sometimes stroking fed hand of his daughter salamain. she looked even more frail in the hospital down. he felt restless on behalf of his aspiring 12 year-old dancer who had been told to remain still until the doctor returned. two fainting spells confounding several pediatricians and internist had forced the father/daughter to see a cardiologists. two fainting spells on her

part and gilts on a father's part. ever since the morning after the murder, parvic had tried to keep her away from the fallout. the first phone call had been to the ex-wife to shield salamain from a news. before picking her up on tuesday, he called through the apartment to hide all signs of the case phone messages, newspaper clippings, but the more he hid the more she wanted to know. how did it happen? how many were there? did anyone hit you? they came. they shot. they left. nothing happened to me. nothing at all. wishing to move on. but the questions continued. did you have blood on you? did you scream? did you cry?

did you cry after? were you scared? are you scared? the death of her curiosity astounded him. once he'll be enough. and she stopped asking, but he knew that she had not stopped thinking. the dream of becoming a dancer turned her into a reluctant the tours so he designed intricate plans for her meals instead of the allow average dinner he lined up tiny appetizers which he paraded before his ballerina at intervals. in the small apartment brimming with music the father surrenders to the daughters of them had agreed to be a dance student and she be the coach of the zero tone deaf and uncoordinated his performances were memorable. what he laughed and talent he compensated for in which. when he failed to remember his steps he fell across the

floor. as he dragged the flight he greeted an imaginary audience. nothing like a bit of vulgarity from the child. what he could not fathom was that it joey was no substitute for safety which he no longer felt in his presence. nor could he imagine her days in school among the classmates who treated her like a sensation. only some of the questions that she asked for her own. the ones where the children mocking her father that they incessantly badgered her while she stared at their faces and fallback the tears.

when the first 15 team spell came over salamain he thought she starved herself but when she fainted awful stomach he blamed himself in his complicated life for his daughter's malady. the cardiologists returned without a definitive diagnosis and advised that he observer closely for few. he had tried hard to keep hurt out of his own world less than the mere idea of the killers robert of a happy childhood now this seems a vacuum was a robbing her of press. on mike salamain, sarah wanted to know nothing. the difference is salamain father had survived but sara's father had died. in november, she had asked sohreh where her father was exactly now and in december she asked if she could buy

him a christmas gifts in leave them under the tree until he returned. in february she asked if her mother intended to marry another man and if so, would he moved in with them? by march, she no longer ast. she heard the name of the restaurant on the radio she would rush to turn it off if she recognized the family faces serve friends on television should walk out of the living-room. to helps her and her mother cope with the husband's loss , sohreh moved in with the two of them for a few weeks. the presence strength and the two of them but to 12 could not tell them that it did. what she had an abundance was fear parents steer their hurt and waited in vain for her to form a sentence.

how did you sleep? it failed herbert joshi rarely felled hunger. she barely tasted the bites that she took to reassure them of her appetite. a government clerk and housewife led three unpredictable lives it was that security and give them the courage to rebel against them to marry a rebellious man but would sarah not have been better off with more ordinary parents for life and extraordinary ones for only a time? all-day she turned of these thoughts over and her mind until they became anger. two hell with every bit of his brilliance. her husband in raged

turnout. stick with me and he will be famous like you deserve to me he had promised her when on the first night they had met, had dustbin of pathe to fame? once again he had abandoned them for growth through her pregnancy and delivery she was a loan. remembering his absence, she would grow more and more furious each day in wondered if it was a warning to prepare her to raise their child a loan. reason had abandoned her and she no longer thought of him, or his absence, as involuntary. he had left them again. the thought came to her when she played the old family movies she spent one night watching reels of film is only to find him wants and only for a few seconds walking with her along the racetrack where sayre ran her first competition. of the footage resembled their life now through them

a the husband has sketched the future. everyone moved, opposed, smiled, foll owing his instruction but the director was invisible. his mission filled the screen but yet he would not be seen just like now. thank you for listening. [applause] i have been told by the wonderful people that are running this establishment that you need to wait for the microphone before asking your question. >> what is the significance of the turquoise palace? i have not read the book gets. >> there is a moment i like

to think it is an exciting moment within a trial that a key witness when it fell the set-- there is a time during the q and a on the witness stand you will know the answer to your mystery. [laughter] >> given your background as say poet, have you ever written non-fiction prior to this? if not, it did you have any thought about fictionalizing it to tell a slightly different story in that

manner? >> this is the work of nonfiction as it stands. my previous work in english was a man more. actually, after i pieced it together i decided this is really what i want to do. least for the foreseeable future. what i love doing is going out and finding these stories that are immensely significant but they have either fallen by the wayside, never made it to the headline of our core shove under the rug. maybe i sound paranoid but but i found i love the notion of the stories and

some of them are so fabulous that you could hardly come up with fiction to out do this. we will find out if i did it just is. but if i have come a you will agree that it is so beautiful and astounding fact justin the way it has unfolded that to have fictionalize this would be to diminish it. i also found that in a great way, there we're irked several dozen of the political assassinations taking place and i only write about one because this have been in a magical way at the end of the five years >> to see significant cooperation but the family of those.

[inaudible] >> a friend of mine who is a writer and journalist read the earlier version of the manuscript and said she was touched and deeply moved of the quality of the interviews and information i have gathered. i could say yes, it they would only open up to me. but, in truth because the story had not been covered actually it had been covered but from a search and a goal , in in peace is because it is a five-year span. one day there was an exciting day at the trial there was an article in this newspaper then two weeks later something else but

never been one big tapestry and all of its glory. the survivors those who have lost loved ones for me to exercise any fantastic skill. and the rest of us is on record the trial had already concluded and there was the archive and fortunately they were all cataloged on shelves.

>> i am a little bit unsure of the german cooperation from the authorities, am i to understand that there was say hesitancy or lack of cooperation in from the authorities for a crime like this in their own country? this unusual considering the western european country and the general attitude of is taking place on their own soil? i can imagine there is business interests that are strong but for something like this that is that dramatic, it sounds to be something unexpected. just from common knowledge. >> based on what one knows

just the standard of practice and completely unacceptable sweden and switzerland greece, italy, the united states i'm sorry? argentina. yes. they were happening and oftentimes what would have been is either if the perpetrators were arrested e there really a good of all because of precisely business interest it would

be a little slower than usual and there is a couple of cases were they did stop away and another assassination in 1989 and one of the perpetrators was apprehended and two weeks later put back on a plane and deported due to run and the authorities said because of our national interest come and we will not prosecute this man. and it is because of that, more crimes are happening and and when the first case occurred when this was issued there was a 17 year lapse, there is a

gathering of mementos precisely because they could get away with it because of the trade interest and business interests and because the united states never longer at -- now there has an embassy and because it was no longer president it was the begin of hope as a place for your obtuse within two and the balance of power to happen so they were a diplomatic interest and by 1992, a trade

relations are at a peak and the iranians are absolutely certain that there is no way the germans would jeopardize those trade relations what makes the story fabulous it is 20 to do what iran had helped i did want to make the case go away but it just would not. the process of how it would not go away in is that to powers come together to cover this up but yet it seems to go on to take a life of its own that makes it would default.

>> how has it changed you? you said the were a poet rating them nemours now you like to do more books of this is chandra so must of had an impact on you kopitar. >> i was thinking about what i want to write the next. i have a couple of ideas and i have planned one that it is harry exciting to me. the only thing it has changed with it me is that i once saw the light to try my hand at fiction but there are so many great stories that if they are discovered an improperly told if they

have proper access our knowledge, i was in a privileged position being iranian clearly read access to a whole slew of things so there are individuals to do certain stories and the two literature to discover the story is. to show what it is about them that keep talking about this is a great story, but in addition to the fact it

is a great story, it is also a very essential story for all of us today that what is going on with iran? software the white house the ordinary americans standing in front and the less we understand. another reason i don't find it enigmatic. but not so much part of it is pete has there are fundamental merit is that we don't know about each other. son -- certain fundamental stories that we need to know. this must me one of them.

it is cast in a new light. it is a dark and light to but the angles change one take on the country but yet to read into a greater understanding but perhaps it has to do with the fact there are really important to narratives that to they're telling the outsiders that may pass on to each other's the exile community and we don't manage to pass it on?

then there are stories that somehow to be interpreted or pastime but those of the stories that we a as a human being this fall on the or become friends are among the the first thing is. where did you grow up? what school did you go to? is their basic information? not the fate -- the facts or the data of the population 10 that fundamental defense that change o our shape the nation. for writers like me who probably lived in the overlapping space between the two cultures and countries to figure them out.

>> we should not wait for a book of poetry about murders? [laughter] there is an idea. [laughter] but i hope that you find some passages are poetic. thank you so much for coming 55. >> we went to war after 9/11 on a credit card. way did not ask and a thing of the rest of us for no

sacrifices o encouraged to go back in go shopping again. we had the enormous boom in housing that was irrational from the beginning. and null 20 year deals with interest on the you could see what would come at the end of the first 15 years and she said we will be more cautious. going to a major construction people what is going on? that people will loan anything fannie mae and freddie mac word driving a lot of that to political institutions jim johnson and others the i.d.'s, and a share for everyone when clearly not everyone was qualified we have a

20 million homes at the moment that are either in foreclosure or stress or in danger of going into foreclosure the means you have 20 million homes not buying new carpeting, appliances, it cannot move to a new job. their stock. they're stuck with the biggest investments that represents a lot of their net worth. until we get the housing thing figured out, it will be a harder job to get the economy rolling back on track in the way that we need to in neither party is talking about that which is striking to me. >> your book is made of poignant questions in one of them this is if jfk were around today let you could do too your country, would you answer?

>> the new york public library. [laughter] [applause] if there is a oxymoron of the humble anchor man it does not exist but i have always cared about the country and the greatest generation rite aid of the book has given me a platform that was completely un anticipated. i thought i ought not to squander that. that i should step up not just as a citizen and a journalist but a father and grandfather and if i see these things i ought to write about them and start the dialogue. about where we need to get to next.

in our family, there's some might grow finance projects going in mulally and a daughter on the board for the habitat and another daughter who spend a lot of time in haiti living in a tent tulane grief counseling and another working as a er physician in san francisco because we were raised by parents and grandparents who just saw that as a part of the natural part of life to give back in some fashion. i have done that but all like to think my larger contribution is to engage people as they make you have passage is in the book precisely about the legacy that is left two you and careful and cautious they were in 50 and never spent

more than they had. like almost everyone else of their age, they were from nature or necessity they did not spend but they did not have and saved something every week. >> almost to a fault. light 10 of a little bit. you can afford this but it is hard to spend the extra dollars her coelho they did everything they wanted to do and i had real resources to help them in ways on trips or help to buy them a retirement place but it never define their relationship. my dad died one week before i started night in a news unfortunately but it had

been announced prior and it was a great thing for our family for me too suddenly have this wonderful job and all of this responsibility and came within a very substantial salary. it got a lot of publicity. my father who never earned i think cashed income more than $9,000 per year in his life, and maybe in the anti-did better the worked as a construction foreman and called me with a wonderful sense of humor and said i read the reports of your salary. is that true? i said i had made good money before that but this had taken me to a different level. i don't know. then one week later "time" magazine did a very detailed reporting one day and peter barbara walters and i was making so my father called

me and he said i am reading "time" magazine. [laughter] i said come on. why? he said i will tell you why. for as long as your mother and i have no new you have run a little short at the end of the year. we need to know how much to set aside. [laughter] a perfect way to deal with this. i tell that story. i took him shopping in california to a high end place. i have the car going through the supermarket and i thought i would show off my a chain if they had fresh squeezed orange juice i said it is very expensive. he reached down into my shopping cart picked up very expensive bottles of california whine i guess the money that you save and oranges will help to pay for

these. [laughter] he had to put into perspective. >> he must have been very broad. >> he was but you cannot ask my mother about me without saying and my son bill runs a restaurant my son mike went into the marines around the corner. they did not play favorites. my father, when i first was a public celebrity, somebody asked him when he was at a gathering at the elks club some pacesetter you related to tom brokaw? he said i think he is a cousin. i am not sure. [laughter] another book of light to talk about this the incredible importance of that attaching what you call

the enlightened form of philanthropy plant there be plays an important role and by that i mean foundations such as the one of the ones i am particularly attached to it is the robin hood foundation. you talk about it been away the model it would do well to expand in many different cities. >> we're very fortunate to have that. i was the bay skeptic they are a bunch of rich guys having a reputation in. they invited me to their breakfast that i have every year. another one is coming up soon. john kennedy, jr. was there at the time and introduce two young men he went to prep school that was running a school in east harlem and it was very moving what they

we're doing and how john was attached to them. when john was lost i thought what could i do? i said i would like to help out for a while. then the robin hood people said to me we could really use you on the board because we're all hedge funds and we make a lot of matt -- money but we don't have much of a political year or don't understand how though world works. three need somebody to give us a reality check. i went on the board and i was astonished of the commitment of these very busy people and the discipline they brought to how they gave away their money. they pay all the overhead for robin hood they have metrics to go out to agencies with a professional staff take the measure that mothers or abused family members in say that will not work or