heros and icons of the century he's pretty impressive. he will soon be teaching at caltech it is a renowned physicist and author of several books including the trigger what how randomness rules our lives he's also a cover it with steven hocking's. the moderator night is shriver you're very lucky to have him here tonight is the chairman and ceo of the special olympics he's a special leader and educator activist, film producer, entrepreneur and i found out he lives one street over from me so we are very connected we will of questions to light from the audience and they will be on

index cards and other roe 7:15 we will have someone pick him up after tonight's talk we will have a reception downstairs that was sponsored by david's family foundation we certainly think him for that dewitt should be interesting moment because the larger interesting things tonight from our guest and we can carry on those conversations downstairs so please join me now in welcoming the gentleman, dr. chopra, mlodinow and tim shriver. thank you very much. [applause] >> good evening. i would like to ask [inaudible]

i have been in many distinguished and fireman's in my life but i have never been as out of my league as i am tonight have any of you read the book? be honest. okay, good. so that means the fact that it took me three times reading it to understand it doesn't make me feel bad because none of you have anything over me at least i have tried. it's actually an extraordinary book and i hope he will all get copies of it tonight or in the near future. it is titled as you all know "war of the worlds" and my only gripe is the word war. and i don't think, frankly i to have a war or at least i hope not.

i think we are going to have an extraordinarily rich discussion with two people who have arguably as good an insight into the scientific and spiritual world as any people in the world. so, you are in for an enormous tree and i very much looking forward to it. one of my credentials to might, and i think i praise a lot of the kids, i pray though i would be the short talk of the boston red sox. if it didn't come through. i also pre-i would win wimbledon but that didn't come through either so i have frustration with religion. [laughter] pathan and i read the book going above the earth and you can't help but remember and drinking a cup of coffee as most of you have done in an airplane on top of the ocean you can't help but be reminded everywhere we go

today of the extraordinary just unbelievable the achievements of science so we stand in the world that seems hungry for the spirit, fascinated by selling its and conflicted about where those two ideas lead us. so without any further talking from me i'm going to turn it over to the experts and i'm going to start this by asking a very broad question which is to pass deepak event leonard first, what's really good about science, deepak, and leonard, what is really good about spirituality? [laughter] >> what's really good about science is life would be impossible [inaudible] we have eliminated a number of

epidemics who are connecting us because in science and technology week of the capacity today to rewire the global arena and really create a planetary civilization for the first time. i could go on and on about what is good for science. but what is really good for science is that it enriches the possibilities and the magnificence and the cosumnes of god. that's really good about that. why? imagine creating the universe in an instant instead of taking 70's to do it.

it wasn't in the relation of space and time because before the big bang there was neither space or time so it appears everywhere and we know that is a cosmic radiation background of all sides. that is omnipresent. imagine taking a dhaka smaller than period at the end of a sentence and stretching it across billions of light years of space and time. even a fraction we wouldn't have the universe. i think we've done got a great injustice by squeezing god into the volume of a body the spin of a lifetime, giving him a male identity and putting him

somewhere in an ethnic background and saying this dog is the creator of the universe. god is much more of some -- awesome. [applause] >> so when you ask what is good about spirituality there are two levels to answer the question. loveless spirituality in general, and i think it's very important in people's lives to be spiritual and you are a scientist it is very importantly hope people realize being a scientist doesn't mean that you are not a spiritual person. the other level of the question is deepak's storage will be coming in by a player his spirituality as it relates to the human condition free yourself from your past, treating other people to respect and he's got me meditating. i like to meditate.

i think it's very good for you. i recommend it and i also agree deepak that i think that spirituality, being a spiritual person and being able to appreciate the human condition in your place in the world wheat science all of more of awesome so there's a great complementarity they're using the term. >> great. having no bias. the scientific method is deeply nothing you can see, touch, measure is real and that that your being a pretty clear that most

distortions and it, moves therefore should want be accepted. >> i talked about selling in says a way of looking to understand the world and when you try to understand the physical world, you should exclude your subject to the, and sciences a way of understanding the world as it is without interference from the way we would like it to be. thousands of years ago people have always had the same questions the have today why is the world the way it is why is there an eclipse, why are there earthquakes and flood, what is the planets, about, what are those lights in the sky and thousands of years ago people would just make up stories of dewolf coming across the sky chasing another and blocking the sun and that is sort of why we developed a philosophy which is the way of approaching the same

question. but the last 200 years we developed selling its which is another method of understanding these issues, and the things that salinas had this test abilities when you have a theory in science you don't just give an opinion but we require your the furious that they make predictions and that they be testable and the progress of understanding where the universe is based on that idea has been enormous. it's much more progress than we have made in the thousands of years before that. but selling it shut be asked all the questions of life. science doesn't explain the meaning of life, and it doesn't explain why you feel loved. science doesn't explain why human beings are here and science shouldn't be required to do that. on the other hand, spirituality which answers those other questions often just deepak -- virtual to the portales religion often gives answers to the

physical questions and those answers often contradict what we observe in science. so in the book i argue about that. why would you believe the creation story in the bible? religion can offer something to people, but when the talk about the physical world they say things that are not right and people tend to wonder. i wonder if everyone here believes literally in the bible the bible says that homosexuals should be killed, children who disrespect their parents should be killed. we would have no one left. [laughter] but people who talk about creationism and td with the bible literally tended to ignore that. i don't how they get around ignoring that, aren't those passages in the bible but then they took the of the parts and talk about the physical universe literally come and i don't understand that you really think that they should replace it in some ways the bible was just outdated and an outdated we of universe. >> so, deepak, when leonard

writes about the mind, the brain, he makes a pretty powerful case that has unlocked secrets that are beyond anybody's imagination even a couple hundred years ago. how the brain functions, how the universe was exploding at this extraordinary case, how we know how it started, we know how it that you can't measure, you can't get a microscope and around, everybody knows it's there but you can't measure it. >> it is very accurate and that is why it is so difficult to actually talk about because consciousness is what is talking right now because if i was not a conscious being i couldn't articulate what i am saying and

you wouldn't be able to listen to the or understand when saying the mistakes but i was making and by the way leonard said toward the end of the book salinas does not explain consciousness but he also abs for now. [laughter] for now. but he has a big problem and this is an accepted problem, a hard problem of consciousness. here is the hard problem and illustrated. the sunset on the ocean. can you all see the picture? >> i can speak a red rose, the face of your mother. if i print inside your brain there is no picture, the

electrochemical activity you are having a subjective experience. why we can see the correlation between the picture and the electromagnetic activity we have no way of explaining how that electrochemical activity creates the subject of experience which is what life is about. there are only so many units being created. [laughter] because love is an experience. color is an experienced. the experience in our consciousness by looking the consciousness is doing the looking. so how do you find something that is always in the object of observation? >> look in the mirror.

that said all scientific validation of consciousness is inspiration. look in the mirror. the only experience of consciousness is self awareness. that's at. consciousness is in the south, they can no itself only by looking at the self. how it so right now as you are listening to me, try this. please i want you to have. as you are listening to me just turn your attention to listening are you listening to me? turn your attention to listening? that awareness that you experience right know, that this experiencing that awareness you were saying what is that disturbance?

or i wish i had gone to the bathroom before this started. that is in your mind but that experience is in your consciousness. this is what all spiritual traditions have said and this is not what david, the scientifically based phyllis versus is a hard problem and leonard and other people accept that. it is a heart problem because we are looking for consciousness there when it is doing the looking. >> wondered, when deepak talks that way, i was thinking -- >> yes, we really burkhart appear. [laughter] i was struck it remembered the one quotation from the early scientist who said the heart has reason that reason doesn't know and i thought to myself that some level aide seems to me is

just saying he was a great scientist, important scientist of his time just saying there is more than one way of knowing the the way in which science knows might be complemented by just a completely different way of knowing. >> that is what i said earlier it is a way of knowing yourself and the way of knowing the physical world. but you have to be careful because sometimes they have an overlap. so deepak believes that the mind [laughter] but there is another realm he can talk about that everything is connected. and i believe that consciousness, what ever it is, that yours is and he reminded the scientists believe it is from the brain and there is a lot of evidence that the sensations and the human line to

come from the rain. you can stimulate parts of the brain to get people to have fought and memories and experiences color coming and we are beginning to learn where the emotions come from and how the brain works. so i'm not saying that by doing that we are learning the meaning of life for we are learning about ourselves. islamic is there a meaningful life in science? >> it doesn't address the meaning of life. science is just issues of the physical world. but science is about is telling us here is the universe, here is the situation. i'm going to tell you what will happen in a second or a minute later and i'm going to tell you how this operates. it doesn't address the question of meaning and i don't know why that should be required of science. if i that the athlete you can come up to me and say yes emineth late i love athletics that cooking is important.

why does it have with x address cooking? it is a separate problem, and i think that what we get into the problems we get into the difficulty is you try to make science something that it's not for i don't know for what end. he says explicitly in the book despite what he says that science cannot explain the consciousness xbox -- >> inside. [laughter] >> no brain science can tell you right now how we have free will in fact in the previous books he has denied with stephen hawking the existence of the free world. i think we all think we have free will. no brain science can tell you the mechanics of creativity or imagination and allows it is correspondent today with a

geneticist and demuro scientist at harvard who is actually a professor who explicitly says today to us all of the mural scientists where and how his memory starts and after a little bit of coming in hollinger they said we don't know. sprigg is that spirituality just finding what science doesn't know? >> no the spirituality is also what is the meaning and focus of the existence. why am i here, do i have a soul, does god exist, if god exists does he or she or eight care about the relationship? >> are there in the right orleans terse? >> i think there's one thing i

want to make clear. selling and has not explained everything yet and it may never. the human mind might want even be capable of understanding everywhere but just think back thousands of years ago people did understand what caused an eclipse and other people came along and said if we don't understand what is it must be rules jumping across the sky and by saying i just because we don't understand consciousness into another aspect of human beings right mel we shouldn't just grab on to any explanation like wolves jumping across the sky. [laughter] selling and leaves blank the understanding of the world but it doesn't mean that we are free to fill in those planks with any answer that we want.

that will never be accessible to us. >> i didn't hear him say that. >> where did this come from? >> science can never answer that. because if you're going to answer that in physics how will you answer where they came from the other laws are principals and you deride those and then use the word to those come from pacs just physics by definition starts with a law we are the principal and the consequences. so the physician should never answer the question where do they come from, who created the law or what created them that is physics. some quite as physics did not acknowledge that there is a first cause? >> first walls of the universe? >> of anything. >> they can explore the laws company and if you to call that got we have no objections to

that. not that it matters if you do. universe. talk about -- >> first cause, first mover, what we are saying is the universe can move the ouija board but that is not quite the same thing as saying the universe that physics can in the creation of the universe. the universe and the lobby of the physics are two sepae things. i don't think that thomas plants was talking about the physics because there weren't. but we can also ask ourselves what do we gain by saying okay that's god, that's fine and where does that get us? >> it gets us into humility and reference. it gets us into the -- >> one of the things that he says -- degette he is a

physicist, right? >> he was humble to the reference of the national the in the universe and first of all you can't measure reference in the energy of a second if it is irrational universe that is comprehensible to us it could have a rational source but yes another objection that i have that does not acknowledge consciousness leonard says that science is based on the root of the theory experimentation and observation. they conceive unconsciousness the experiment designed in consciousness, where is the observation made in consciousness? we have no scientific explanation of consciousness. right there you are a during a white elephant in the room. you are saying that we can have an explanation in the absence of

consciousness when all explanations science needs consciousness to expand anything and consciousness doesn't need science to expand anything of what needs is self awareness. >> if i can correct a couple things one is that he seems to be character is a scientist does not be able to have the wonder of nature even as he was quoting einsteinium what we say that's important for any physicist. who is going to spend their life -- you are a smart guy. you can go to law school, make a ton of money and instead you choose to sit in a dark office working on equations all day and all night with no hope for no promise of any particular success and you do that because you do have awe in the university want to know how it works. spiritual these important for science and just because scientists don't believe that wolves jump across the sky -- [laughter]

[inaudible] there's not one person in this room that believes that will do that. >> to meet you do. >> i do? when did you hear me say that? >> i don't mean that literally. [laughter] >> the other thing deepak said that scientists to my consciousness. i don't know where that comes from. they not only to my consciousness that there are scientists who are studying consciousness. if a scientist admits they don't just -- the can't just say where it comes from, as progressive since most of carefully and scientists will start talking about what it is when they have a good idea what it is but just because they can't explain it doesn't mean that they do not yet. estimate what is the more

agenda to say this. i think his attitude is scientific [inaudible] one thing i can say about leonard is great intellectual integrity. we've spent a lot of time together and i would say he has intellectual integrity but there are those who will make statements like a god delusion and actually have an agenda. science is not supposed to have an agenda. >> but a lot of people from deepak but in fairness, a lot of people would say that the first cause you could make a case that that is justifiable as the definition of god or something but people get uncomfortable

with spirituality and religion because from the idea of the first cause of consciousness religion intend to make it a lot of rules and ideas and plans and programs that strife people. >> [inaudible] speak the spirituality to see that there is a spirit is one thing but to then say this is how you want to live is another, and the claims to people who are spiritually as littered points out in the book are not really verifiable. can we know whether it is better to be peaceful or anxious for koln, whether it is better to and the situation to do this or that of religious and spiritual traditions tend to say this is the right to go. and scientists come along and say how do you know? >> separate religious dogma from the religious experiment because if you are looking at -- >> what i want you to help us answer is how do you defend the

inevitable means that in the spiritual leader has to say things about the world based on your spirituality that will inevitably lead to conflict? >> i site with wells who says that the murder of woody is jealousy. i think that any imposed morality. but religious experiment has given transcendence of you and the consciousness spontaneously brings about what are called platonic qualities. are you your name for what, equities, truth, goodness, duty, evolution, peace, social justice, harmony, love, compassion, this is the religious experience that is a spontaneous expression of transcendence of being connected

if you understand the religious experience, you know, jesus had the religious experience and then of course what's institutionalize it and we call what religion. [laughter] -- and you believe in the devil? >> i believe that everything has its opposite just like particles have antiparticles the universe would be meaningless if it was not one of contrast. so when i say yy think of it metaphorically as a divine [inaudible] [laughter] >> but for those of kosko and leonard refers to this in the book for those of us who've lived through the plate century, one of the great challenges to people who say that god is good, awesome, beautiful, harmonious, etc., is obviously the

experience of the holocaust or the confrontation with evil were released in the sense in which nothing good could allow. >> good is the evolutionary impulse -- >> why would god have such a cause if that being is good and true? >> if you are thinking infinite it contains everything over what is by definition it's not infinite. that is the difference between eastern was some traditions and some of the western traditions. they want us to conform to their ideas of how this should be. when god being infected is all things if there are many faces of the divine and is our job to see whether our free will allows us to loranne or the destructive impulse. but if that consciousness is infinite by definition than it is everything.

>> even the bad? >> we see the data, don't we? it is a stage of development. it is a spiritual stage of development. we have stages of development in psychology. why can't we have stages of development in spirituality? >> making it the better we are calling god? i just don't know why -- >> if you look at the world right now there is less violence today, less racism, less bigotry, less of everything and years ago. we had slavery in this country, you know, a few hundred years ago. women couldn't vote in this century. so we are improving in our evolution, and that is part of the spiritual quest. but what i also have to say in the absence of that we have a

view to praise phrase this very carefully to avoid of spirituality has given us modern capacity force that risks our extinction. it has given us debt, nuclear weapons, global warming, climate chaos. i saw a program the other day where on television people in civilian uniforms have worked line to find jobs the take cigarettes and coffee breaks and they go home at five and play with their children and to go to sleep but they have been moving the mouse on the computer and far away places that have killed

sometimes a few hundred people and they don't have any connection to that or spiritual connection to that. this is biological creativity that is i can say to you the mess extinction of our civilization it would be because of the modern capacity linked to primitive spiritual development. >> so, leonard, doesn't science really -- shouldn't scientists read advanced thinkers like you and other people, shouldn't you be asking for spiritual guidance almost daily? >> if you so and all people should be looking for spiritual guidance daily. he uses this example lot and i'm not quite sure what he's getting that because the scientists like everyone else, like you, like everyone in the audience they shouldn't be doing evil things

but it isn't the question. the question that the issue is how can we get knowledge, what is knowledge of how we attain it, we were to limit it? if you to limit science you can make an argument to stop selling its because there will be evil people with the hour scientist engineers or anybody who just reads the book to commit an atom bomb by a little technology but anyone can read these things once you get the knowledge their people can apply. scientists are the ones seeking of the knowledge, not the ones making films from what we know generally speaking. i don't want to get letters on this. but -- >> so the question is is it dangerous to have knowledge. that is what he's talking about. once the knowledge as their people can do evil things with it. >> but is it uncoupled from the moral and ethical and spiritual? >> knowledge is not the goal. wisdom is the goal. we need wisdom because knowledge

can be diabolical. >> physics should come as you said, seek the guidance of those who understand the human spirit and say let's make a science bill which we have the technology. we have the means today to resurrect some species. we have the technology today to collect global warming. we have the technology today to harness solar energy. why aren't we paying attention to these technologies more than we are paying attention to mechanize that. >> i am a scientist but i agree with you. it is a failure of the people in this town. the key to scientists wake of the morning and say i want to work on weapons today? the government pays companies to

do this kind of research and if we don't like them but just vote them out of office but don't say that it is a that a methodology for understanding the universe because you don't like some of the ways people use it. you seem to be saying that. use of science is to incorporate subjectivity and spirituality. people need to incorporate. >> all of the human experience, you know, the human experience in the documentation of data, the experiences everything that you do including the scientific pursuit is because of the subject of litigation to estimate yet if we are going to measure the properties in the tim dessel places it really doesn't matter if we are in a to work. so signings has to be different. >> it does [inaudible] >> exactly. thank you. saunier ziz trauner to avoid this not likely that deepak agrees with the about that.

-- a couple questions from the audience and this is speaking of the issue to leonard can there be an ultimate right and wrong? [laughter] this is the question. i am a scientist. i am not a theologian. >> but would you allow it? in other words, i was asking my wife what questions do we really want to ask scientists and sometimes it's just like why is science so irritated by religion these days, but mr. deutsch will become the question of right and wrong? i know your not -- on behalf of a lot of people scientists are angry. >> scientists get irritated by some of the uses of religion today. when politicians say god told me to rub or evolution is rahm were global evolution is the theory.

when people look at the hard work of scientists who know a lot and test their theory and come up with results that are verifiable and other people are we think about it all to use it as a political means and dismiss it to get the votes that's what irritates scientists and deepak agrees with me on that. >> but the books that have been recently threatened -- written these are best sellers that captured a level of anger. >> people that are angry at what i just described. they are tapping into that, the other people were tapping into something. they are all tapping into something and are making a dhaka and it's a great. >> i agree on that question of right and wrong. i think everything has a context. was it fair to go into germany

and get rid of the man who caused the holocaust? yes, it was. as we have to take things in context. >> deepak, science and religion, i guess it is for both of you, is often used to justify human superiority, he unconsciousness in the mind, the capacity at root of science and religion placing human beings of the center of the meaning and value. are not both guilty of making humans superior of all other creatures and all other means? >> i guess when you talk about scientists and specifically biologists who would talk about how humans are different -- i don't think in the to talk about humans have reached a level of consciousness or of intellectual

capacity and wonder, curiosity that allows them to reason in a wave of other animals can't do. it suggests -- >> if you compare a human with a spiro we all agree that the reason better. but don't think that scientists tend to feel any kind of strength superiority of other animals that the of greater work. scientists are just studying the brain of the animal, the behavior and with the different species are. >> my response to the human being is we are the only species that can create and kim have that long enough for meaning that have creative arts, science, civilization, so that's

an amazing part. but as i said, the human species is also the pressure on our plan that and risking their own extinction to the biology. if insects disappear from our plan at [inaudible] if human beings disappeared life would flourish inside [inaudible] [laughter] because we are the cancer if you look at it from the cost that perspective they are multiplying and we've caused an unsustainable planet, we are metastasizing into risking our extinction after 14 billion years of creation we can do this in the next 100 years. so that is the price you pay for free will and it is our responsibility to say to what to harness the collective creativity and collective imagination to become the next

evolutionary impulse? >> but is spirituality human only? >> i think every living for a disconnected. how can that not be? in fact animals are much more innocent than we are and large were pure and unconditioned. >> these are all good questions and i think one that i really want to know the answer is for leonard. which episode of star trek did you work on? [laughter] >> i worked on the second season and i was reading episodes that come in but my partner and i wrote an episode ourselves it was called [inaudible] excuse my french and don't have any. it was his first girlfriend, she

was released on one planet to be separated and then she was being transported to her home planet and had never seen another -- was a very spiritual the episode. had never seen another of her species, had never been in love and fell in love with leslie but was supposed to fall in love with someone of another species certainly it happened to be guided in eisel shape shifter so it got hints for a while and that was my scientific spiritual the pursuit of star trek the next generation. >> a couple of questions that came from the "washington post" which we were obliged to share and you both to tickets vignette these but the first with for those of us that said science what constructive responses can remake of the statements by those without scientific training who attack scientific findings?

for example, how should we respond to the hurricanes to the wrath of god? >> through education -- >> religious people do this all the time. god just made the school incidents have and i just ran into my old friend must have been dodd's work. >> its never true god didn't put us here together? >> no, i wouldn't say that. i think that we have a choice to do what we want and natural disasters have causes we can't explain it earthquakes but some natural disasters like hurricanes we know that humans have a lot to do with it with changing the weather patterns so you have to examine each case carefully. i would say that a lot of the weather disturbances we are

definitely responsible for them but i wouldn't blame god for them. >> so, leonard, what would make a more effective political leader? a person of science or a person of faith? >> a person of faith meaning a person who believes in what? kit a scientist the person of faith is in that exclusive? >> a scientist or spiritual -- >> if you can have attorneys as politicians should be able to have citizens. [laughter] >> i think you need a spiritual person, a person who believes in the human spirit who cares about people who cares about the community and helping other people and would be good to have an understanding in science as well once in awhile and we go for the gold and try to get a gold. >> can i see something that

politicians understand very well intuitively? people pretend to be intellectual but nobody ever makes a decision based on rationality? to make emotional decisions and politicians understand that if there is a biological reason for that. 100 million years of evolution in many ways it is wiser and older and people respond to that and intuitively know so it's not a politician is saying but what they feel when the politician is saying what they are saying. >> maybe we should get ready to close. i thought it might be worth remembering steve jobs today his contributions are obviously enormous in many ways. his wollman stand for commencement speech among the

things he says was. def is very likely the single best invention of life. it is life's change agent. so i guess the question is did life invent def? to the 2-cd -- to the first mover invent death? to make every part of your body is dalia right now. your cells are dying. in biology we have a term which means when the cell for gets to buy it becomes cancerous. the cancer cell is one that doesn't know how to die. the universe recreates through the mechanism of death, so steve lives on. every time i use any hand-held

device on my computer steve's consciousness is in my body right now and that is how we survive in each other's consciousness and that is where we are right now in each other's consciousness. >> you think steve lives on? >> i think that he lives on in the body of people who loved him and he touched but also agreed with deepak that without death the earth would be overrun by old fogies like us. def is a necessary part of life and we if you were going to reproduce and we all like to do that, right. [laughter] >> well, i think i started by saying all the things i prefer that i didn't get. >> can i add the chicago cubs maybe not when the world series but getting it.

>> you have to pray a little harder on that one. but i feel we are enormously grateful that the two of you have taken and have put so much effort into helping the average reader understand the world view of physics and the emerging world view of a new kind of spirituality deepak is a champion. it's a very different one than the kind of spirituality that we think of when we think of religious institutions, but we also remember the great call of israel's hero of our god is one the way the prior begins which it because the spoken many times from this place. the unity that comes from the ancient traditions. i think the only thing that these guys agree on is how much they don't like the catholic church. the only institution that really gets the lead in this book is the catholic church. [laughter] >> i wrote a book called the

third jesus. >> i know you like jesus. [laughter] -- he says jesus was a scientist. >> i feel we really ought to think you. >> thank you for tolerating us. [applause] >> we are all invited to a reception downstairs, and i think both leonard and deepak are willing to stay and continue the conversation, so we invite you all to come downstairs and enjoy refreshments. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

uncompromised is the name of the book. the rise, fall and redemption of the american patriot in memphis cia. first of all, nada how and why did you serve in the cia? >> i started working for the fbi as a special agent in by worked with them for less than five years and i transferred from the fbi and worked with fbi agents starting in 2003.

i worked a number of high-profile cases for the fbi such as the uss call, the bombing in riyadh, the bombing, the assassination and murder of the u.s. diplomat in 2002, and i was exposed to working with the offices overseas and i -- devalued the culture and linguistic abilities and i transferred from the fbi to the cia and i was dispatched immediately to work in baghdad. sali was involved with saddam hussein obviously that was a successful operation but id to a lot of other cases that i worked for for the cia. >> how long were you for the cia? >> a little less than five years. a little less than ten years of total government service. >> the subtitle of your new book, uncompromised, is the rise, fall and redemption; why in that order? >> because my career had skyrocketed. i had cases that seasoned agents

with experience and then thinking i was given a lot of missions i needed to accomplish that were extremely hard missions and they are detailed in the book but then after i returned from baghdad and was falsely accused i should say of being a supporter of terrorism. eventually i was exonerated and i'm here today telling my story. >> tell us very quickly about that accusation. >> welcome it involves the terrorist group hezbollah and the fbi thought of that i looked into documents relating to hezbollah and the past intelligence of hezbollah. obviously that wasn't true. the evidence against me was labeled secret and the evidence was not shared with me. but the cia conducted an investigation and a federal judge and they both legs on repeated the. >> were you arrested? >> i was not. i pled guilty for the charges

because i was threatened. basically a death threat the government said that they were going to deport the to lebanon and announced the lebanese government worked for the fbi and the cia and that is basically a death threat so why pled guilty to these false charges. >> do you detail that all and uncompromised? >> i describe a number of the fbi cases and i was involved in their renditions for the fbi, and i describe the circumstances around the false accusations and finally the exhilaration. >> nada prouty, as aaron american woman in the cia, did you face situations that may be a white male or not? >> given my language skills, given my cultural background, i was given michigan to get out of the green zone and collect intelligence. i was disguised with my weapons

and i was able to collect intelligence that others may not have been able to, but i -- again, i discuss these cases in the market i hope they get a chance to read it. >> did the cia have to get your book? >> yes i had to submit my manuscript at the cia and they have to approve it. >> why did you leave the cia? >> was a part of the plea deal unfortunately. when people ask me all the time would you ever go back to government service and i tell them the same thing. i am living proof that the justice system works because the truth was told in the end, happy to have served my country and i will serve my country again at the drop of a diana -- dime. i was accused of horrendous charges i would have been executed. only in america do you get the chance to tell your story and know that justice prevails in the end and no truth always

comes out. >> this is booktv on c-span2. we've been talking with nada prouty former cia agent and author of this book uncompromised the rise, fall and redemption of an arab-american patriot and the cia. next on book tv catherine mcgar recalls the career of robert strauss. mr. strauss an attorney in the washington law firm was well connected inside the beltway and served as the chairman of the democratic national committee from 1972 to 1977. ambassador to the soviet union in 1971 and as an advisor to several presidents who did this is a little wonder in our. >> for staying tight and thank

you for especially coming out and braving the electrical storms thunderstorms, tornado warnings and everything else. i am with my husband, brad graham, one of the new owners of politics and prose, and on behalf of our fantastic stuff, we welcome you all here tonight. this is one of about 475 author even as we do at the store every year and we believe it is part of our mission as a great independent bookstore to do these events and bring authors to our community and to them and really to provide not just great books for people to read but also a place and ase space for public discourse. before we get started with me also thank c-span for bringing this event to a wider audience. we are glad you're here and let me give you a few rules of the road if you haven't been to of our evin thank you. our guests will speak and after that, she will take questions. if you can go to i guess we only

have one microphone to might write your. please see your name as a courtesy and after questions, she will answer questions for about 20 minutes or half an hour or so -- after that, she will sign books. you can come up here and she will sign going in this direction. we also ask you to favors. one, full of your shares at the end and stack them on the bookshelf. that will make life easier for our staff and also come if you have a cell phone all in malkoff if you wouldn't mind silencing it that would be very much appreciated. >> introducing our speaker tonight, katherine mcgar in her book, the speaker to let me begin by saying not many people have great uncles and many have a great uncles and don't decide to write books about them but she has done just that chronicling the life of, well i'm not really sure how i suppose to