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tv   Tonight From Washington  CSPAN  April 3, 2012 8:00pm-11:00pm EDT

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first, although this on his book >> thank you all for coming and supporting independent bookstores around the world. we have a very special guest here for you today. he is a professor at williams university. his writings have been published in the nation, usa today, and the boston globe. he's here today to discuss his book. please welcome mr. carl t. bogus. >> thank you very much. good evening. it's a pleasure to talk to you today about william at ugly. maybe most speakers don't begin by telling you there political affiliation, but i think that is important and necessary. i happened to be a liberal.
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i know i am speaking about a conservative icon and a figure who is beloved to millions of people. i think it is important that i confessed my beliefs first. i happen to admire buckley in many ways. but i also disagree with many of his ideas. i wanted to be up front with you about that. historians debate whether history is made by individuals or structural forces. if george washington happened to have lived, or james madison, or abraham lincoln, with the united states exists? if it did exist, would be the same country that we know it to be? would other people have come forth and fill their shoes and
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done what they did, or would things be markedly different. for our purposes, tonight the question is if william f. up legionnaire would not have lived, would conservative conservatism be what it is today? if there had been a movement, would it have achieved the same success? i'm going to put that question aside for the moment and try to circle back to it later. let's start with who was buckley? well, he had six different careers. he did things that would have been -- that would have filled
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cruise for six people and made them all successful. let's start with the fact that he was a syndicated columnist. he wrote for many years, up until he died, a column called on the right. it was published three times a week and 350 newspapers. he was one of the most widely read columnist in the country. he produced, in the course of his life, 5600 columns. if you just took his newspaper columns and you published them in book form, they would fill 28 volumes this size. he did this extraordinarily well. he won the best columnist award in 1967. i suggest if he had just been a syndicated columnist, he would've been enormously successful and influential. but he also wrote 56 books. six of those books have adobe
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magazine articles and speeches, most were on politics, but he also wrote about all kinds of other things or if he wrote a very successful spy series. he wrote about the oceans. in addition to these books, many of which were national bestsellers, he published countless magazine articles. not only in his own magazine, national review, but in magazines that publish themselves as the best magazines, the new yorker, and esquire. he won an award for the best history in paperback one year. he won the lowell thomas travel journalist award. if he had just done that, it
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would've made a very successful career. he was a public speaker. he was probably the most sought after in the united states. at his height, he delivered and averaged 70 talks a year. he did this in large part to raise extra revenue to help support his magazine, national review. he was the television host of "firing line." he does this from 1967 until 1999 and he still holds the record of being the show -- "firing line" is the longest show with a single host in history. he did this extremely well. he won an emmy award for outstanding achievement for his television show. if he just had done the television show, it would have
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been an honest congressman -- an honest accomplishment. he founded national review in 1955. he edited it until 1990. he maintained control until 1999. probably many of you know national review biweekly or bimonthly conservative opinion is the most influential opinion journal on the left or the right in the united states. yet, it was a vehicle for redefining conservatism in the 50s, 60s and creating a conservative movement. it is still an enormously influential magazine.
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buckley was a man of extraordinary wit and charm. for those of you who remember him probably remember this. he had to gnash, he had charisma. he did things no one else thought of doing. let me take you back to 1965 when he happened to fit in among all of these other things, running for mayor of new york could he ran for mayor on the conservative party ticket. he did it for two reasons. the first was to communicate conservative ideas to a wider audience, not just intellectuals who read opinion magazines and watch highbrow shows. but to a wider audience. he also did it to extinguish the political career of a rising liberal republican, john lindsay. he believed that lindsay was a
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dashing, handsome rising star in the republican party. he was a liberal. and he had not endorsed the republican standard barry goldwater in 1964. there was a battle raging for the heart of the republican party. but we hope that by running on a conservative party line he would drain an up republican party votes to defeat him. let me take you back to his first press conference. we will use some excerpts from his press conference. understand that the conservative party has persuaded buckley to run for mayor. they are introducing him to the public for the first time. this is how the press conference proceeds. portions of it.
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reporter, do you want to be mayor, sir? >> buckley, i have never considered it. >> now, you can imagine the conservative party officials standing there aghast. this is their candidate. what is he doing? do you think that is something a -- at present should be considered? what is important is that certain points of view should prevail. whether you or i present those points, assuming you're a good reporter. >> but you are asking people to vote for you. if you win, will you serve? buckley pauses as if he is considering the question for the first time. if elected, i will serve. reporter, do you think you have a chance at winning? buckley. no.
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reporter, how many folks you expect to get conservatively speaking. >> buckley, conservatively speaking, one. a week later another reporter asked him what would you do if you did when? and he said demand a recount. >> now, the conservative party officials may have been horrified, but from that first moment, buckley galvanized the attention of many people, especially young people. it is almost an oxymoron, he was in the honest politician -- he was an honest politician. he spelled that expressing ideas was more important than winning. >> let me take you further back
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in time to 1951. i picked 1951 because that is when buckley became famous. a 26-year-old recent graduate of yale university. he wrote a book called trim five. the book was all about the economics and religion departments at keio university and what yells professors were teaching in various classrooms and what textbooks they were using. who would predict that this would become a bestseller? it did become a bestseller. in 1951 he writes "god and man at yale." in 1955 he founded national review. conservatism had been given up as dead and buried by lots of
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people. the liberal candidate or president -- the liberal candidate captured the republican nomination. in the past four presidential cycles. thomas dewey in 1944 and 1948, thomas eisenhower -- dwight eisenhower described himself in 1952 as a modern republican and also as a liberal republican. many people thought that conservatism was irrelevant. it had been vanquished. everyone was liberal. what was conservatism then? personified by robert taft, who had been the conservative standard for the nomination. it was characterized by
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prudence, caution, before world war ii isolation and skepticism of military force, and buckley changed it. he transformed it. buckley was not a political philosopher. his ideas -- they were not his own. many were inherited from his bother and borrowed from other thinkers. but buckley was a brilliant polemicist. he was also an extremely gifted leader. as gifted leaders know, building a movement is not about personal glory. it is about creating an army.
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you can think of buckley as a conductor of an orchestra. he didn't write the music, he did not play the instruments, but he decided what was going to be played, he decided who was going to play it, he decided who to invite into the office and who not to invite him. he decided who to expel from the orchestra. he made all these strategic decisions and was extremely good at it. now, what did he create? i will tell you what he created, but it will not surprise you. it is what we have come to associate with conservatism. we have become used to it. we tend to think that conservatism was always this way. buckley created it this way. it is really a three-legged stool sitting on libertarianism, what we call neoconservatism and religious or social
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conservatism. we can think of it as a coalition of these three different philosophies, three different groups, if you will. but we happened to embrace all three within his breast. he may not have been the purest of the pure and anyone word of the phrase. there were many inconsistencies and incompatibilities among these three schools of thought, but he was largely all three of these things. by libertarianism, i mean the philosophy that says the right to live your life -- we all have a right to live our lives as we choose, as long as we do not infringe on the equal rights of others. his idea of not being coerced, particularly by government, but not being coerced by anybody,
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this leads many libertarians to a purist, absolutist, lays off air glossary. lossy fare. in fact, very little government. the musician who buckley -- speaking metaphorically, the recruiter of the national review was frank maier, and he believed that government just has to legitimate functions. one is to protect citizens against violent assaults, whether it is invasion from abroad or criminals and domestically. and to adjudicate conference. to have a court system.
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particularly to adjudicate commercial complex. that way the economy can keep coming along. government should be very small and weak. on neoconservatism, that term did not exist back in 1985, that ideas that we have come to call neoconservatism were starting up. what i mean by that, well, years later ernie crystal davis the famous description. he gave us the famous description. a neoconservatism is a liberal that has been mugged by conservatism. what he meant was the world is a hard place. there are bad people and bad countries. you cannot be naïve. you cannot coddle -- domestically cannot coddle people or criminals. you cannot coddle the poor.
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they have to have tough love, make them stand on their feet. the musician that buckley invited in national review was the first neoconservatism. throughout the cold war, american strategic doctrine, articulated by all presidents, democratic and republican, was containment. boehm said that is too timid, too weak. he advocated rollback. we have to rollback communism through clandestine operations and subversion and stimulating revolutions within the communist bloc and more.
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we have to not shirk from confronting them militarily. the third stool is religious conservatism or social conservatism. what i mean by that is finding religion very central towards political views. not nearly as a source of inspiration, but perhaps in guidance or policy. let me read you two sentences that buckley wrote in "god and man at yale" when he was 26 years old. in 1951. he said, i myself believe that the duel between christianity and atheism is the most important in the world. i further believe that the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same
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struggle we produced on another level. so what he is saying here that there is the struggle, this cosmic struggle, between good and evil, between christianity and atheism. whether it is on the international stage between the west and communism, socialist systems, collectivist systems, or whether it is even domestic. between the individualist viewpoint and the collectivist viewpoint, the socialist viewpoint. that itself is tied up with the struggle between good and evil. that good, christianity and good, is on the side of a particular political philosophy.
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now, it is a complicated story as to how buckley got these particular views together and how he got them to try him. -- how he got them to triumph. i believe that he wasn't a conscious, strategic thinker. i believe that he was intuitive, but brilliant in his intuition as to what to do. i just have a few minutes left. i want to suggest one of the competing philosophies that he prevailed over. back in the 1950s, there were other people saying conservatism was going another direction.
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it was not his buckley saying this is the path to follow. there was competition. one of the most interesting alternative approaches is being authored by a group called -- at least for particular individuals, they were called the new conservatives. they were burnt beans. they were followers of edmund burke. the great 18th century statesman, who argued that we should honor traditions and institutions, and we should honor them because they have developed for particular evolutionary reasons. it was almost a darwinistic view of society. we have institutions, we have traditions. they are very important to our society. they have come to be the way they are because they have come to work. we don't always understand exactly what they do and how they do it and how they work,
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but wisdom is the product of experience, and wisdom has been impressed into these institutions. mr. burke as someone who has been misunderstood in the status quo. mr. burke argued peridot we we required change. i could go on and talk about the philosophy, suffice to say, it was entirely incompatible with buckley. libertarians are individualists. they believe in individualism. they disagree about liberty. as i have already alluded to, libertarians believe that liberty is about being free from
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coercion burkians believes they require certain opportunities that you cannot have in society -- freedom to pursue your dreams. unless you have certain opportunities in education and other things. wholesome communities. libertarians believe that government is necessary for liberty. -- the check on consolidated power is structural. it is separation of powers. federalism. other things. it is not small and weak government, which burkians considers to be dangerous. there were four major
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fermentable thinkers who are advocating the approach. he wrote a book called conservatism revisited in 1949. the book stood for what he believes. in seeking community. there was a political scientist named clinton rossiter. you could read any of these three books today and find them provocative, compelling writers. they were great writers and great thinkers. in my opinion, rossiter and
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nisbett. most important was a fellow named russell kirk. russell kirk was in many ways like buckley and in many ways not like buckley. he was like buckley because at a very early age, 35 years old, assistant professor of michigan state, he wrote a book that became a sensation. it was really a doctoral thesis. it was unlikely that the book would become a sensation, but a copy attention of certain editors of time magazine. they published it in a very special edition in 1953. the book took off. kirk argued that burke is the true school of thought. burke argued that libertarians were too realistic and what
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counted was the permanent things -- religion, tradition, community, art, literature. he argued that -- one of his races was everything isn't about getting another piece of pie and another pat of butter. society and what we are about is about more important things than just economic growth. he was very opposed to libertarians, and he was attacked by buckley and libertarians quite passionately, quite personally. then buckley realized, i'm founding a magazine, and this fella is a potential major competitor. he decided to [inaudible] from
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the magazine. russell kirk did a rash thing. he quit his day job. he decided he was going to be an independent public intellectual. he had tough going. he was scraping by. buckley made a pilgrimage up to the costa, michigan, a tiny little place. that was with kirk. he said to kirk, i would like to join that national review. buckley, being a -- and handsome and charming guy, kirk's being
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awkward, he shows in his library. buckley says, this is a wonderful library. they reappear at a local tavern. buckley says this is a great tavern. he convinces them to write for the national review. buckley says i would like you to write a column on educational policy. educational policy is a subject dear to russell kirk's heart. but i suggest to you that the battle for conservatism was not going to be decided over educational path we -- educational policy. there was frank maier and the libertarians, and he picks up the phone and calls buckley and was outraged. he said take me off the masthead. buckley does taste -- taken off.
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he writes this column for the academy. he wrote it for 25 years. for 25 years he silenced his criticism of libertarianism. after he quit "national review" in 1980, the following year he resumed his slashing critique of libertarianism. the battle had been over many years before that. for other reasons, rossiter and derek left the field of battle as well. they fell into criticizing each other. they never cohered. they decided that if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. they were bashed by conservatives. one went on to retreat to
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poetry. rossiter went back to being an academic. robert nisbett, who did continue to write for many years, also took a very long hiatus. he went into university ministration for 10 years. now, here's the irony on this. the burkians never acted together. buckley was an individualist. he formed a community, "national review." that community became a very vibrant community. it was just not a community of thinkers and writers, but readers who look forward to getting this magazine. they felt a part of something. part of something new, something
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dynamic. they looked up to buckley. they looked up to the people that buckley promoted and the people in the magazine, and it is my belief that had there been no william f. buckley junior, conservatism would not be the way we think of it today i cannot tell you what i think it would be, and nobody can do alternative history, but i do believe that conservatism became what we consider it to be today because buckley took it that way, and he was a person many people, particularly young people, admired and wanted to follow. thank you [applause] >> i will take questions. yes, sir.
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>> [inaudible question] >> several things. but here's one. it is my sense that we are entering the new era of biological redefinition. this may go on for some time. partly because of their successes, liberalism and conservatism have both kind of run out of gas to a certain extent. they are in distress or other reasons. i think there is a lot of searching going on, i think that the occupied movement and tea parties are symptoms of this, and because that is my sense, i wanted to take a look at the last time one of these great ideologists went through a process of redefinition. >> do you explore new book what shapes the mentality of the [inaudible]? >> yes, i do a great link. i believe that it was his
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father. strangely enough, i think it was his father's experiences in mexico during the mexican revolution were his bother when not to make his fortune in the oil business, his mother developed a particular worldview, particular philosophy and transmitted that to buckley and his siblings. >> [inaudible question] did you serve in world war ii? >> buckley did serve in the army, and he did serve in the army, but not overseas. >> did he see people blown up in the war? >> he did not personally see people blown up in the war. >> guesser.
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>> is a self identified liberal, you did a fair job on william f. buckley. i want to ask you about the distinction between berkeley is -- buckley and burkian. on the right, they see it mainly as a power to government. not something that is anti-family, anti-religion, anti-groups. but something that is deeply suspicious of government -- governments going beyond what would be their legitimate role. i don't see that much of a battle between libertarianism in that sense. and more traditional conservatism. >> i hear you. but i think most libertarian thinkers would agree with what
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i've read from frank maier. the government has very small and narrow responsibilities, and they believe that that is essential to preserve freedom. i wrote quite a lot about this in the book, and also if you look at the cato institute, for example, they have libertarian think tanks. i'm not saying you are right or wrong, but i think lots of libertarians feel that way. probably ron paul, being among them, -- >> don't you think the libertarians are mostly opposed to big government? that is not necessarily a burkian idea. except in the extent that it enforces even the things you talked about. the rule of law and protection
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of private property and individual safety. where specifically -- >> they disagree on many things. what the functions of government is, and even on taxes. this idea that taxes are bad and we should do everything to lower taxes, i think it is a bit of a libertarian view. it has to do with shrinking government and shrinking it down to size. >> yes. could you speak to the situation today with the tea party. is this the inheritor where the next position of the conservative movement based on your observations? >> i don't know. it is a lot easier to look in the rearview mirror than out the windshield. i think that actually nobody can look with confidence of the
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windshield, but i think that we do learn an awful lot by studying history. it may not tell us exactly where we are going, but it does tell us what some of the possibilities are. i have no idea what the future is for the tea party, or whether that will be the trajectory that continues. >> there seems to be the difference between reality and ideology. even though a lot of the seniors -- about medicare. the government is saying that we have to cut these things and if there is waste. how come people will suffer for ideology and vote for somebody who really might undermine their
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survival? there are a lot of people now in this country who are hurting. many people who are middle class, who are unemployed. and yet rather than voting the reality of their survival were their ability to continue functioning, they vote for ideology that may sabotage that. >> well, i believe there are two types of people. there are those who believe that their two types of people and those who don't. in much the same, i suggest that there are two types of people. there are people who admit they have an ideology. there are people who have an ideology, but do not admitted or are not aware of it. i think that we all do have an ideology. it is a worldview we would not be able to walk around politically and have ideas without it.
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the issue is when confronted with facts, will facts trump predispositions. that is a separate question. william f. buckley would have said that for him that they did. the burkians would have said that for them that it does, because they would have said that we are about learning from experience and studying facts and making a pragmatic decision. certainly, robert taft did do that. he did have inclinations, but when he sat down and studied data, he would go against his inclinations when the data led him that way. i think that is the real question. it is not whether we have an ideology, it is whether we are aware of it and can consider --
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be open to and consider -- inconvenient facts and we reconsider our stance. >> i think the elephant in the room is religion and the libertarians that want less government or were just want rule of law, but yet passing laws that restrict other people's rights, women's rights, other things. in all of this, seems to be religion. all the politics -- and they also speak to why they may vote against economic self interest. >> i think that religion is an elephant in the room. i think that maybe elephants war hippopotamuses are here as well. i think for a william f. buckley
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junior, his catholicism was that nothing was more influential to him than that. that affected his -- >> he was a white male. a lot of these questions he would never be affected by in reality. and in society. >> yes, ma'am. >> my question is for the election year, who is the candidate you're pushing for? >> i'm not pushing for a candidate in my book. >> in my first awareness of buckley, i thought he was kind of a contrarian who delighted in taking an opposite point of view no matter what the topic was. and then sort of intellectually bully people on television. i wonder if in tracing the evolution of the conservative movement back to him, we can also trace back to him this kind
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of poisonous atmosphere that evolved about his wit and style in the way that these things were accomplished. >> that is an excellent and very important question. buckley was a very sharp debater. and he gave no quarter. he could lacerate an opponent pre-effectively. on the other hand, he counted among his closest friends ardent liberals, john kenneth galbraith, howard lowenstein, people whose ideas were endeared to him. they were dear friends of his. he gave no quarter in debate, but he wasn't mean-spirited.
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he did know where the line was between being very tough and very passionate on an issue. and being personally mean. many people who profess to admire him, even emulate him, rush limbaugh, for example, says that other than his own father, liam f. buckley junior was the greatest influence in his life. i wish they would learn from him about that line. >> anything else? >> thank you very much. i enjoyed talking to you. [applause] >> the u.s. senate continues its recess, we are featuring some of the tb's programs in primetime.
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this saturday at noon eastern on c-span two booktv, join our live call-in program with distinguished former navy seal chris keil, as he talks about his life from professional rodeo rider to becoming the most lethal sniper in u.s. military history. at 10:00 p.m. on afterwards
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. >> are programming continues. in a little more than an hour, author winston groom talks about ronald reagan, our 40th president. after that come at a forum on
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investigative journalism in the digital age. speakers include bob woodward and carl bernstein. leaders, we will re- air the remarks on the book about william f. buckley junior. now, a look at the life and times of pat buchanan. author timothy stanley writes about mr. buchanan's shattered in the. his work in the nixon and reagan administrations, and his own presidential campaign. this is a little more than an
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hour. >> thank you very much for coming. i suspect you are not here to see me. and i am okay with that. big part of my marketing strategy is to be with someone who i knew would do something controversial. all i have to say is that msnbc's loss is my gain. [applause] >> the first question that people usually ask me about this book is why i wrote it, because i'm english, and i'm not american. so why would i be drawn to write about an american, but especially pat buchanan. the part about american debt is fairly simple. i am in love with america. it is a country that is still rolling on after 300 years. it has a few problems, lately, but i think it is still strong.
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wait i phrase it is that britain is my trusty old wife, and america is my sexy mistress. [laughter] >> reason why i wanted to write the book about pat is because a lot of people of my generation, i spend about heard of my day on youtube. while i was going through the videos of frolicking monkeys, by republican national convention. moral force of that speech in which pat declared that america
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was in the grip of a culture war, a religious war, and it was important to the future of america. with that speech, i would argue that pat buchanan defines the politics from 1990 and in many ways, in much the age of buchanan as it is of bill clinton. i saw that and i was fascinated. i wanted to know more about him. so i applied for some money to come to america and travel around and do some interviews. i'm terrified of flying, so it was actually quite an extraordinary experience. i flew out to los angeles and ran into some crazy libertarians. i took a train to kansas and met people there. i took a train to detroit and then i took a train to new hampshire and went to the south and interviewed some sons of confederate veterans. maybe some of them are still
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living. [laughter] >> then i came out to washington dc, and i was fortunate to find the heart and soul of the book. in the course of writing this, i have reached two conclusions about pat buchanan. the first one is that his life is really a biography of the conservative movement. he was born in the greatest of great ages, perhaps the last great age the west will ever see. he was born in 1938 to an anonymous family, six brothers and two sisters. a mitt romney sized family. he was a roman catholic at a time when it was pretty cool to be a catholic. this is when the rosary crusade got together and prayed for the conversion of russia. he grew up in the shadow of the
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communist issue, and pack her up in washington dc right at the very heart. he was even a caddy to a young richard nixon when he was young. he met nixon. nixon took them on, pat was by his side when nixon reinvented him self. he was with him in 1968 when nixon won the close election to go on to become president. pat was there at the heart of the administration that a time of cultural conflict with america came closest to civil war for a hundred years. a remarkable time. he's one of the very few people who emerged out of the nixon administration and out of watergate with a clean reputation. tom braden once remarked that pat buchanan is the only former member of the nixon administration who didn't require a letter from his parole
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officer to go on tv. pat went on to become one of the nations first tv pioneers, which radically change the way that people appear on the media. in times past, he appeared to be very much like william f. buckley. sophisticated, polite, i don't want to say that pat is not intellectual, but dealing with that high realm of ideals, you can almost imagine buckley in ancient greece. pat buchanan brought the ordinary style of rough-and-tumble politics. it is from that that comes the legacy by ann coulter, and others. he was the director of relations
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during the ironic scandal. he became a great columnist, and in 1990, he ran three times for the president. during that time, he became the face of the conservative base within the republican party and conservative middle america. buchanan's life, if you want to do a history of the conservative movement in america, you would do very well to read pat buchanan's life. it is a very good primer. the second conclusion i reached was that buchanan was as much a social force as it was ideology. the kind of people who were drawn in the 1990s to campaign for pat buchanan were as much a reflection, although a particular time and democracy, as they were a set of ideas. in 1996 when pat buchanan one new hampshire, that was the high
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point of his presidential career. his voters were the poor, the the most likely to be independent, and crucially, the most likely to have been previously registered as a democrat. pat buchanan spoke was exactly the kind of vote was exactly democrats nowadays. i think that if you grasp that, if you understand the historical importance of buchanan, then you better understand where the tea party comes from and where the politics of today come from. if you read literature at the moment, history books tend to stop that the reagan revolution. that is not true. it is in the 1990s the south seriously turns republican at a congressional level.
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buchanan is all about that. if you want to understand the tea party, you have to understand the roots that were laid down in the 1990s. as a result of these travels, conclusions, in retrospect, i realize why it was i was drawn to write about pat buchanan. the answer is that many of the issues that have motivated him are global and international. i grew up in a family that is very much that middle american demographic. it just happened to be in the southeast of england. we are what people call c-2. it is a skilled worker, a man who lay cable in the ground. all the dramatic changes of the last 30 years, they affected him. growing up, i experienced two years of joblessness in my
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household. i understand the kind of people who buchanan reached out to. i understand that those people, and i suspect those people, in their heart of hearts, are quite often not democrat, they are rather conservative. the place they grew up in, the job, disability, -- the stability. that is something that buchanan got in the 1990s, including the president today does not entirely get. i will finish briefly by saying that regardless of what you think of pat buchanan's views or ideology, i think he is highly motivated by duty and love. there are very few politicians you can say that about. thank you. [applause]
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[laughter] >> i want to start back in 1990. where the tea party comes from, where modern conservatism comes from. i wonder if you can explain your transition in the late 1980s as a solid orthodox reagan conservative, the changes in your view and what those changes were and how they affected thep2 way you saw the republican party and politics? >> i left the white house inp2p8
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1987, i was a friend of georgep: h. w.p2p2 bush.p2ú2pr i have ap2 story.prprprp: when i came out of the nixon white house and watergate, i was out of a jobúr completely.ú2prp2 my wife, who was a receptionist at the west wing, she quit top2: come home and work with me. we had just bought a house.ú2p2r is mitt romney said, i knowp2p22 unemployment. so the two of us were there atp2 the house i bought, leaving everything and, wondering where we are going to get the money to pay for the mortgage we had.p:pr ..p:prp2p2p2pvp2 prp2p2p8p2prp2pr@2p:p2p:p2p2p2ú2
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and i followed up my life and i2 saw the manufacturing jobs in the country and these are a lot of the folks whose jobs are not pleased. a mother came from the valley up in pennsylvania. my uncle's rest in a way as free trade when it was killing on these jobs. sir took a look at that again to a different point of view. the second thing was the end of the cold war. it was the cold war that inspired me to go into journalism and politics and government in the white house
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because it was my beliefs in 1960 and 61 that this was theú22 great cause of our time and i went to be involved in this cause in my life. and i did as an editorial writer and going to work for nixon.p2 what happened was that 198019 i2 1990 and had money to berlinp2p2 wall falls come eastern europe is free, the baltic republics are free.p2p2 it disintegrates into 15p2p2p2p2 countries. i said hey, we won the war. it is over. as bloodless and george bush and i have to hand handled theú2p2 endgame that consistently andú22 ronald reagan we had done it.@22 and so i said now it's time toú: bring the troops home.p2@2ú2 they were in, grenada, somaliap2 and were allowed to go into new world order. and i said it's not what iú2ú2 signed on for.ú2p2p2
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the third thing was we had theú2 bottle of clarence thomas and you're back in the battle on his side getting clarence thomas and on the person turned around and sign two quoted though on small businesses to prove they weren't picketed with the labor force they had. and so that brought me into the night to 92 challenge of george bush and they came off a talkshow host before the primary and we got 37% of the vote to george w. bush, george w. bush 51% and they and they beat him in the the city of manchester,
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working-class city. so that's how we got in. it's a long story but that's how we got an.pm0m0mpm0m0m0m >> ,.0m0m0m0-0m0mpm0m0m finally got the vote when you'rm 55 years - old.0m0m0m0mpmpm0m d.c.pm >> or richard vickery tells me a story that an 88 you are driving around the two of you and you saw a big sign come to a0m0m0m0m barbecue even if they paid me im would never do0m that.pm0m0m0m >> that's a true story.0m0mpmpm and newton northwest over over by0m the hospital and the most0m over to mclean and one of the0mm reasons as i0m thought maybe one day i might want to run for them senate. and this story before the degrem story, shelly and i were0m0m0m m down -- i was getting one of0m0m these names0m highly paid jobs m greenbriar, which is tough dutym they entice you up, you have a0-
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great time. so i was0m driving down and it0m said senator harry byrd today im going to -- no said we are0m0mpm pmving the famous pony ride from one town to another to0m0m m mmmemorate the pony ride 2000mm years ago.0m0m0mpm0mpm0m0- at the end of that senator harry byrd is going to deliver a0m0m0m speech.0- and i said there is no way i'm doing that.0m0m0m0mpm that was basically it.0m0m0mpmpm there were too many things about running for the senate and beinm a senator that i didn't want tom do. let me tell you another quick story on0m that.0m0m0m0m0m nelson needs to come on crossfire with another senator cannot ask them what it is that like being in the senate? he said you know me, i love the environment. he said, but i spent 70% of my time doing things i didn't want to do. i said well, i spent 100% of my
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time doing what i want to do. >> which you've turned into a natural campaigner, which surprises people because they hadn't see you doing it. are there any kinds of thingsó from the new hampshire campaign trail when he touched got to really connect with individuals? the way he went out to see some people? >> it's hard for me to tell the story without getting emotional. >> i think it's very important if you don't mind. >> you know, the issue of trade and its effect upon jobs had really affected me so when it just a very came back for christmas at the 23rd of december and then it to this that jury, this paper plant, papermill way up in the north country, berlin and those little teeny town to her almost to canada. so we ran into the plant and we let go her and paul erickson said these fallacies dinning
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over there in the line and paul erickson to go over and shake hands with them. they looked over there in the late kind of angry and likely much like me. and so i said are you sure are quick and so then i found that they'd all been laid off. they would be giving turkeys for christmas. and so, i went over to this line and started shaking and in one guy looked at me, about my size, my age. he said cesar jobs. -- cesar jobs. return to manchester manchester the next morning and the next impact was financing a new?kvw papermill.?kz??? i think what are we doing to?[v people.çv? >> this is very critical because people have to understand that. in 96 we went to john deere and
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make him and a very tough guys coming in now. i like the guys i grew up with. one of them came out to me and said i haven't been laid off. he knows the guy out with his doing? he's done in mexico doing country and training his replacement to do his job and this is all over the country. i argued that in 92 and he said you go wto and bring chinese than in the loose every manufacturing job in the country. you know in the last decade, 202,010 this country last 55,005 trees. gone. one of every three manufacturing jobs are gone. but what are we doing to the middle class, the working class in this country when we're taking away all their jobs? my view is that they can be made in the united states, it should
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be made in the united states. in hamilton, you go to those old republicans. they believe parceled republicans who built this economy. hamilton, henry clay, lincoln, mckinley, tr. i wrote about,, the great betrayal. they disparage to the free trade. they believe are going to beat the bridge were free trade because we are going to dump our good fare for free of charge and charge tariffs on their good they are and will have a level playing field anymore than this on friday with. they were about winning. >> a lot of will would agree with you. i remember the one story they told me were summoned him to interview you and she was really worried. she had very long hair and he said i think he might be gay. he said mr. buchanan and i just want to tell you we and not against corporate power and
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national politics. >> he said many times. i think was in iowa. the fellow came along and i think he was sunday. he had an earring. most of the guys i grew up with didn't have hearings, but he was in the car with me and he was driving along at any question and he was clearly left wing and finally said, you know, my whole life i've been looking for is someone would really take on corporate america. and when you find them at turns out to be pat buchanan. [laughter] >> but i do want to mention very briefly the failure between the present purposes on this issue because he didn't try in 2000 with reform. i thought there might be a moment that the tea party and occupy what that might happen again. it never works. >> let me tell you what reason. ralph nader and i -- he's a friend of mine. we did used to be spent in a
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strangers think it's consumer protection agency, which i did, though we became friends of this issue we both went to the battle of seattle a there and world bank and imf about the boy mayor, clinton was there during this president the computer making our case and that the teamsters were with us in everything. and what happens is they, from oregon. instantly there's a great picture of me standing on the street corner talking to two sea turtles were six feet high. they've got outclassed teams. a puzzled look on my face. they went out there and they0m0m were in0m our case and they gotm their burials and rolled to mak- the 0÷con0-stantly firebombs bos at0m the cops and so they got a÷ the attention. then he0m - got it looks like mm are conservative since you0-0m0m mentioned it but she certainly not in a thinking hey, this is chicago 68. you know, these are0-0m0m0m0m0mm
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anti-american.0m0m0m0m0m0-0- they are anarchists. seek at the hard-core people wh- agree with you on the trad0me0mm issue.p-0m0m0m0m0-0m0m0- they start leaving aside the coalition broke apart. and i knew this was going to mp- break apart because as soon as0m these fellows0- went down to0mp- pearson square committee raised the issue, why should these bankers be0m bailed out?0m0mpm0- is sitting at a poker game is in billions of dollar chips may lose them all and move to unclem samif they get the taxpayers to replace thei0mr chips.0- and we did.0m0m0m0m0m0m0- replace the chips andp- middle americans replace.0-0m0m so they had an0m0m excellent idm and then you start fighting the- cops pretty soon pretty soon and back and forth on0- that.pm0m0mm and so they lose all the peoplem that might have been able to pum somethin0mg together.0-0m0- i think james0m burnham, the0m0- geo-strategists said you could never put together a left rightm coalition. it is simply inherently unstable and will break apart.0m0m0m0m0-m it's got to be center-right or0m centerleft.0-0m0m0m >> is that the cultural revolution of the 60s. >> that's0m0m0m the end of the0÷
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mystical trilling social issues- 0mre just so far0- apart.0m0-0mm you know, you sit down with them and were talking about some issues, but she moved to others and work on. >> okay, i do want to ask because it's kind of a big issue at the moment. what is it that you're worried0m about? 0÷ race or culture?0m0-0m0-0m >> what i am worried about is the title of the0m new book0m0mm 0-arles murray coming apart.0m0m i think america is coming apart in every way you can0m imagine.m charles murray book focuses only on the white community and it0-m 0mcuses on0m class.pm0m and it's really interesting.0m0- i was a little kid in georgetowm for his soul.0m0m0m0m0m0m0m moved down on utah avenue and0mm the move.0-0-0m0÷0m loser basically middle-class mpm folks. people work for the 0mgovernmen- of things. a wonderful community.0m0mpm0m but0m now, murray says these arm
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supers at those for couples or0- both of them have been topm0m0mm college and 0mtheir incomes arem high in their intellect, allpm0m these iqs to matter how high it is and how to force air for0m the rest of the0m0- country.0m0- but he tells his class, james0mm bishop committee picks hurd saym 0mlitically the number of0m m0-m counties that are landslide counties,0m which means windows and 76, ford and carter was about 27% of the counties with 20 points or more chewing at the other. they were living together by their politics. by bush in 2004. 50% of the counties in the country had 20% or more for one candidate or the other. in other words, people are separating. my larger issue which is controversial in which they write about my separation. is this. the social, moral and
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ideological revolution has said time deep roots. when i was with nixon in 72 i gave you coalition that crashed them. 49 states. we get it with 49 states in 84 and even push one top 40 states. the what is happening now as i think you have no common faith in the country now. it's partly secular partly religious and therefore with each other. you have no common moral consensus or code or ethical code. we are losing that we had carina over here i will send you two can talk. we studied the same american literature in the same religion and same history and all the rest of it. all of these things that held us together are now disintegrating at the same time the core no national core of the country, which is western european 90% is
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disintegrating into a minority and none of these things keep us together. so what i'm saying is we are risking a balkanization and a breakup of this country along every line you can imagine. and i don't think it can be turned around. the superb art of the super powder. it's almost 18,000 to 19,000 were still in the sun 35 or 45,000 countries how they break apart in terms of religious quarrels, sunni, shia, christian, muslim and how they break apart ethnically. evil when you go to europe, their country. scotland wants to get out. the lake of noorda wants to get out of italy a break apart. brussels is almost always about to break apart. we've got these down and hungry but my friend down there. look at the rise of all of these teen anti-immigrant populist
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parties. and this i think is the future. even the chinese are not oblivious. look at the way they do battle with the uighurs, and see game to to that. the tibetan religion and at that identity is challenging the breakup of china and that was fun -- they want to break away china and establish each turkestan and the chinese are terrified of this. they saw the russian and things fell apart. it ain't going to happen to us and they keep moving chinese saying. i'm like, people say we can't talk about that. we won't be talking about what it is that can kill us. >> i will be committed to catch on. first of all in britain were quite happy for scotland to leave. [laughter] that not going to worry us.
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but since the beginning i've lived for six in los angeles. and i think hispanics are pretty good job of integrating. i think they share a lot of. they're very religious, very focused on their families. is not a way to end this might change, but there's a melting pot operations. >> the problem with the hispanic -- you're right. heather macdonald did an excellent piece. i just saw a long piece she did and she is terrific on this. but of course it's the same true of the way working-class. illegitimacy rate is to be 2% or 3% in 1960 among the white working class and lower middle class. it's over 40% hispanic and all of these illegitimacy rate is 51% and the african-american community is that 71%. in other words you got no families. the family has broken out in collapsed completely. i saw a statistic that many
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hispanic kids 19 times as likely to join again to get identity card to get family time to get way kid and african-americans are like 10 times an enormous amount. but even asian kid join these gangs. all of these things are occurring and breaking downçwkw? society. look what happened to your country last summer. few had riots.? the immigrant folks in the northern industrial area as you had racial troubles in france. but if youkw had in france quicw came under the ban list and ears 10,000 wells. look, it's not pat buchanan.çwçw angela merkel said last summerç? that multiculturalism has faile the kurds in berlin were firingw off celebrating 9/11.çwç?? they're not fully integratedçvç? all.çs and then sarkozy says the same
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thing in kamman said the same thing. it's not me that says diversity can work as long as we can get a higher ground to make up by 1960, robert grandkids about the people in eastern europe and the catholic and polish kid, italian, irish, jewish, greek, all the other is rusty in american medicine overall americans. we go through the water at the same radio, seen tv, same literature, studied same history. all that is going out the window. and these are the things that hold the country together. lee hamilton said the centrifugal force in this country are growing stronger than the centrifugal forces that hold us together. and i think that is true. >> well, i've run away from written. we've got a lot of you guys over
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here. i think we need to open a.now if you want to ask questions. i think you need to go to the microphone. >> infrasonic linux i want to ask you a quick political question as far as newt gingrich goes the centaur writing to encourage. [inaudible] >> i was going to ask you a suffering strategy question. but given that, is mika brzezinski decent backstage for for is what you see you get? >> i probably shouldn't talk about msnbc.úmúmúmúmúm but i did get a nice out today.ñ i enjoyed working with her and m enjoy frank lee "morning joe."pm it's a great program.úlp÷ú÷úmúmm there's a bunch of guys thatúmúm grew up togetherpl and used to ñ
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in a lot of fights and thingsúñm but now theyúmúñ get older and m doing their best to be nice toúm eachú÷ other and make their pois in a nice way.úñú÷úñúlpmú÷ it is núñot crossfire, but iúmúm enjoyed my time on msnbc. >> i'll never forget what the same. >> did you happen to hear chris mathews comes? >> were very, very kind. >> well, that's very nice. look, i enjoyed -- maybe i should say this. they ask you what it's like >> number quick question.
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>> well, i certainly probably shire. go back very somebody said after is i'd been beaten in everything. i went to california because it promises to god is into a voice voice to their issues. they said please get someone to control this border. if they'd done it then we would talking about it now. but it may we were down -- shelly and i were down at this shopping center and a poll came out showing prospero 40%. i think bush was at 33 and clinton was winning on the arkansas. so in other words, after i had done all the damage i done,
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which was still far ahead of clinton. and so, look, it didn't help by running against him. but i think by the time you got to the convention, the fact that ross perot dropped out just as clinton and gore were on a trajectory, i think those votes i went ahead. i think it's fair to say take a look at what bush did. at 4% in 19 -- yeah 54% in 1888 the vote and 37% in 1992. added 17 points, right? how many points did perot get? and so i think it is more perot. but i think the bushes think i deserve a lot of credit. i think he on bush and the older
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the night you get the culture credited that made them look jumped nine points in the pool. it was an amazing leap and was the trash job done afterwards by local media that brought that back down. >> let me talk to that because i gave that speech on that night and it's exactly right, i spoke first and spoke great after men all these commentators and tremendous beginnings rose 10 points. bush came out of that go into the convention in some post 25 down and he was only two down coming out of it. another receipt classic that should. the problem was of course the media came after culture they've escaped death of the social culture issues. but the fact is that the media are afraid to offend, those are your issues because media don't want us to win.
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you know, i sent a memo to baker and when he said now what is he going to win on quick 60% of people think george bush did a good job on the economy. other and says he's a good foreign policy president, but nobody thinks that matters now. so what you have left and clinton? this guy is wide open on the cultural social issues as we found out later. if we've gone after these, i think they would have one. but the truth is, you cannot tell a candidate to do some thing that is not america because they will mess it up and they will run away from it. i remember the window for discerning and 96 or 76. i redid the agnew speeches then we attacked the media and really clobbered them. nixon won 49 states. disabled really getting you to.
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i said i think so. and then i sit no. because it didn't end there. someone will give your speech, read and then they start pounding and stuff like that. i don't really believe it. do you run away from it. and that is what they did with the culture war speech. >> my turn? my brother was split dairy at the hampton center 1962. would you talk about young americans for freedom in the new card in your roadmap? >> the answer to the second
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conservative movement more than new card and the rest. gain. so they sorted into ascetic journey out of the office i felt good so that by good luck to you by. >> speaking of countries coming apart, quite a number of years ago when you run the mclaughlin report, you need the remarks were discussing israel and palestine but as far as israel goes, it was a foregone conclusion, a matter demographics. not too many years after that there was a cia report that estimated there 20 years ago. i wonder if you still feel the same way and what your
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timeliness. >> i'll tell you i will advertise my book. i have a chat during their college demographic winter and it's about the demographic winter of the entire western civilization. intimidate you with, for example, brescia, which has lost 10 million teeple since liberation if he will in 1889. 10 million russians were scheduled to lose 25 million more by 2050. what has gone on is what the moderns: hyper mortality. it's kind of enormous reprint determines is 8 million to 10 million. each new italian generation is one third smaller than the one before it. it's got a fertility rate of 1.41. the japanese will lose 25 he people. and in that chat right did something on israel. now israel is more complex
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because you have the ultra-orthodox they are loved or 3.2 canons and the families that grew up with. there's nine of the neighbor has a lesson. and out of the 50s and everything. so what you have in israel is about 6 million jewish citizens than 1.5 million house indians. about a 2.45 million on the west bank. if you include east jerusalem and then you start about an alien five dossett. so the point and 20 for team for the populations are west of the jordan are balanced. the 60% of jordan population is palestinian. and by 2050 if they figured, if if you take jordan and israel palestine proper, you've got three to one almost any over israelis.
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and i do not think that is a survivable situation. if i can tell you a little story, people say, on the buchanan report, we interview a flood of guys who were very extreme and i used to interview america honey. he would come in and he was a very witty, smart guy. eventually murdered on the bridge at the new york paper he told me, mr. buchanan, you've got to realize israel is going to either be democratic or it is going to be jewish and we are not going to be both. who is arguing frankly for pushing palestinians off the west bank and the jordan because he says demographically they will overwhelm us. as i said the ultra-orthodox have become more and more prominent in israeli politics and more and more prominent in government and the rest of it because the other part, the european ashkenazi diminishing that the low birthrate.
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and that's one of the reasons i was talking about birth rates at cdl and oxman attacked me as anti-semitic. but i don't think it's anti-semitic to discuss what is happening demographically to western civilization, which is physically dying. there's not one western country that has the birthrate that will enable it to survive in its present form to the end of the century. and you know, britain are talking 2066. 1000th anniversary of the conquest when the native population of britain would be less than half of the country. the whole sprit and together we saw would have been a summer. so the idea of everything will be fine in the melting pot is always words. we don't believe it anymore. it's cultural genocide. so it seems to me if you're not going to discuss these things, until you come to the israelis are discussing this.
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they know the proper problem they are and this is by argued that we've got to get rid of the west bank. have our own country and they've got their country. this is the two state solution. got a one state solution? even now you have -- if he took over the west bank and all of gaza in the next day, almost 50/50. so anyhow, that's what got me in trouble. [laughter] >> talk about u.s. factory jobs. how do you create u.s. factory jobs with the rates so low in china and india and without creating a trade war? how does one do that? and by the way, did you read the article about affluence? >> heidi do that? >> how did we do it? >> in the past we did have a trade war. >> how did we do for the fourth?
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>> civil war to world war i united states went from house production in great written to twice production of great britain. as a matter of fact or more than britain, germany, france; twisted-pair we produce 42% of all the world's goods. during world war ii we produced half of all the goods used on both sides. america had general motors for every show that a fair test, her. and here's what happened. greatest irony besides bridges report on manufacturing. what he said was we won the war friendships defending us. written. if are going to be politically invented was to be economically. the tax system had no taxes on american workers, but we are going to tax imports, tariffs
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that when used they took the money from the products in great britain, took the tariff revenue, both of course, built the roads, the internal improvements in the united states at the cost of these things high, americans said wait a minute, we can produce that for less here. so the american industry built up in a nsa say in the civil war you have a tariff policy that meant the united states was charging money on all the products coming in, low taxes, no taxes, no revolutions are producers there is that we simply shift into the british market and exported 80% of all we use them in portability 40%. tea, coffee, things like that. [inaudible] >> clinically about the chinese. except now they can move from southeast asia.
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don't tell chinese are going to value your currency. just say keep your currency rarities. we figured it out. the advantage of that is equivalent of a 50 tariff. we put a 50% tariff of all goods in the united states and all the money will be taken to eliminate taxes on manufacturers in the united states. okay? did anyone see the trade figures from last year? whistle of an hundred billion dollars of goods in china and they sold 400 billion times. they had a trade surplus of the billion dollars. what is going on in this country there talking that we might do this to china, do that. they did it address the manufacturing. and frankly republicans are worse responsible than anyone else. they believe in free trade and every time you mention about the
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creeper trail. i got it from another scholar or from a scholar. i don't know how. he said you know, we had smoot-hawley was passed. 4% of american consumption was imported. two thirds came in free. that means 1.3% came in not free, with duties on it. so we raise the tariff and that caused not only the great depression. it's nonsense. these kids are taught up there at ivy league schools in the case that came out of the schools responsible for the deindustrialization of america. [inaudible] >> what if they get their? they get them done at wal-mart. last night luck, of course his mid-nineties or some they know what to buy one of these big-screen tvs i said look i know the japanese make great stuff, but i said i want the best american tv because other
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than a car this is the biggest investment you make. he says there are no american tvs. they were two months of telcos and admirals and all the rest of it. >> mr. buchanan, and it's good to finally meet you in person. i've been yelling at you on the tv for 30 years. [laughter] >> it's easier in radio. >> it's not easy doing this and i do want to be respectful. i'm very liberal. i think we can disagree respectfully. i field this evening is that telling whole story. i feel you go beyond being just a conservative. frankly some of what you say and stand for scares me when you talk about demographics and too many of these people. all you didn't say that, but france was happening there and
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written comments like the death of white america or the death of christian america. that's in your new book. i'm jewish and i wonder where the one in the christian america because i was that it was my country, too. i'm wondering if the authors are both of you could address that. you've been criticized for your comments about inside the. >> sure. we'll take the end of christian america. column by a jon meacham and "newsweek" which was titled the end of christian america and it america. let me tell you when the revolution is here, we 99% of the country was protestant, 1% catholic and one 10th in 1% jewish. we have been made redundantly
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christian country all the way i think up to 1960 get 95% of that produces them at night, moral consensus, not only religious, the ethical consensus and everything. it's one of the things that hold us together. and the jewish community came out of europe, came on a predominately christian western country. that is what we were. these are the things that really helped hold us all together. that in our history. what do world war ii, the depression. by this century that said we were segregated d.c. but the african-american kids studied american history. that same christmas, easter holidays, listened the same radio, rooted for the same team, rick had the same newspaper.
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culturally, there is american as apple pie as i was. what i am saying and this is the final point is the culture comes from the cold had been the faith dies, culture dies, civilization dies and the people began to die. and that is what i've tried to prove that there's happening. we are in the indian summer of western civilization. all peoples are good, but the idea you can mix up all peoples into one country and call it a nation is to me you took you not to. we are risking the greatest republic on earth and i don't know why we are doing it. [applause] >> i think we are doing it because that is what america's about. is diversity and respecting people at different. >> we've mentioned diversity. a look at not me.
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theodore roosevelt and wilson were terrified about diversity. it worked. the melting pot worked. that's considered sase cultural genocide if you demand kids read american literature, what holds us together? >> i live in a country that welcomes people of different types. with all due respect. >> i want to say on the spot of the book, one of the tragedies of the culture wars people who are well-intentioned are getting greater. and i think that matters. you live in a democracy is being compassionate and considering feelings of others. but i came to read this book, and understand how controversial mr. buchanan was the most issues i try to read it an objective way to allow him to speak to himself. i do want to add that personally and this is in a get out clause. i want to bet that i personally
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disagree and i agree with your vision of america far more. i come from britain. i think britain is more vibrant and more civilized than it was 30 years ago. and i also want to say that some thing about i'm a catholic, i'm a conservative guy, religious guy. whatever people may think of them, they're very religious, have strong families and share many of my values in any or more british than british people because british people are pretty trashing nowadays. many of the british people -- i think one of the tragedies of the culture war is people cause harm. look at one brief example of that. when andrew sullivan came out as having a come apart with a letter to him to say that pat's brother had died and he understood what he was going through and he was there for him in praying for him. and someone was very surprised because of the things you say
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about homosexuality and needs. it speaks to the fact that you can disagree on the level of policy and principles, but there's still still a human concern and endeavor. >> i'm sure you're familiar with human rights campaign. but that is one of the groups that had to be taken off of the air because buchanans thursday in keeping check among the statement to create injury to people of the world. i just don't believe. what i said on diane reid show. i said i believe the practice of homosexuality basically is unnatural and immoral and that is my view. that that is the view of the catholic church, the viewers raised with come into and a few i believe and there's no question about it. when you say that i'm sure it is her oldest son people. but what is the alternative that we should be silent.
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this is why these divisions that come out of the 50s -- i mean, 60s are irreconcilable and you can't -- i mean, i have to either give up any views and say folks like me are not going to so what happens, what i see as this whole social cultural evolution, which is succeeding, there's no doubt about it. irving kristol said i regret to tell pat buchanan the culture war is over. we lost. there's a case that could be made for that. but at a highly people come back together when there's disagreements. i've got a list of 20 or 30 tremendous split among people and we disagree on all of them. do.q% some 1960, eisenhower kennedy, napier were golden years in a lot of ways come up over so much united before the 60s and i don't think we're ever going to
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get that back again. and frankly if you read theq% book, there's a lot of people iw there besides me who reallyqw apart. question. and don't be so hard in the breads. they did give us the beatles.qw [inaudible] >> hello. i'm a palestinian and i am catholic. our family is part of the diversity in the country and i think we contribute a little bit. anyway, our family loves you. we enjoy seeing you again and the same speed. i don't know why we don't see you anymore. i agree that public with all of your points of view. my daughter is from the buchanan brigade. she e-mails me every day articles by you.
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i wonder if you want to comment on the arab spring, which jimmy turned into the winter of our just contact. >> i was in israel 67 withú=úñú= mr. nixon after the six-day wor÷ and 82úñ and 83.ú÷ú÷ú÷ú=ú=úñ who was that nice mayor inú=úñúñ bethlehem, a nice little mayor.÷ back in the 80s.tñ i've forgotten his nametñ now.tm >> i'm from ramallah.tmtmpñ >> the christians of cosmic stañ at the thread the militants them chrtñistian population between egyptñt and iran, only 17 milliñ christians left in their going througdñh a hellish situation.tñ this is the religioustñt÷t÷tñtññ differences. you take what happeneddñ intñtññ nigeria,tñ ethiopia, egypt, andñ others. this is what is going on in thiñ world.tñ what is yourtñ affair --tñd÷t÷tñ
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>> i was wondering about the arab spring.t-tñ >> i think the people that were÷ you know, i mean, richard nixonñ nixon -- walked in with the speech, read it except for god sakes, get some lifting your speech, some positive, you know. and i was just not that kind ofñ speechwritet=r. grim in everything. at÷ lot of them were verytñtñtñ÷ enthusiastic and as nervous froñ beginning because i have not÷tm÷ brief for mupñbarak and his rege and ensure their little aboutt÷ñ the rest like so many othert÷tñ÷ people what to look over there.ñ when you move those things awayñ get rid oftñ bizarre, it is notñ necessarily the facebook twitter folks who come up and build atm÷ tñciety.tñtñtñpñdñtñtñtñ bananas over there and 83, 84 wñ
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were going to these pyramidstñtñ down there, not the big.pñpmtñpñ tñ. p. we went down therepñpñtññ looking in this cab driver climbed up on a hill and he wasñ praying to mecca.úñtñt÷ he didn't have anyt÷dñpñp-pñt÷ embarrassment. t÷d he stayed there andpñ i sai- these people are serious.pñtñtñ and i think the muslim brotherhood and i think for theñ immediate future of their timetñ has come and i think islam isdm÷ worldwide. they see the west in decline.pññ i think that the largest religion in the world has lungsñ p÷surpassed catholicism.pñtñpñpñ i think they are rising and they will probably define the futureñ my view is because of thetñpmplñ mistakes made in countries made and its policies and i disagree with the policy of israel. i don't think it's good for israel and i don't get it for
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us. i think will be thrown out of that part of the world, the americans are and i don't think it's a very positive future. >> what do you think of it to use the revolution? >> again, i forget who was talking to today, but it is a town it came down. i met in 1967 i went over to israel 10 days after the six-day war and i met diane, david venturi and and nixon are down in the basement and we met general matheny and rabin had an eastern european accent and diane was this gigantic worldwide star with an eye patch. i told president -- vice president nixon of all the people we met on this tour, rabin is the most impressive man and he was a very tough and even
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brutal palestinian. but he came up and i think he came to the lead to realize that we needed two state solution. because he had a reputation of a tough soldier, he might've been able to drive it through. the second chance they had -- they murdered him and the second chance was with iraq in 2000. i thought maybe they will go for now and they didn't. i think maybe the horse is out of the barn. maybe it's going to continue until it is settled that peacefully. that is what i fear. >> thank you. >> hello. i am a liberal. i'm one of the benighted proles in america would hire you and learn from you. i am wondering, what happened to buchanan is some in the sense
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when i look at the tea party, for instance, what you think maybe the tea party contains some former buchanan voters. all of the candidates that appeal to the tea party -- will on foreign policy, ron paul has views that are akin to yours. on all of the other issues -- like s. on social issues there are candidates could line up with you. on the other issues having to do with economics, having to do with trade, industry, having to do with immigration, too. i don't hear any of your views being considered by the people would vote for you. >> let me talk to that.dldldldñ i think that my views ondmdmdñdl manufacturing are all talking
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aboudmt it because they see whal is happening.dmdldl but you're right.dld÷ they don't know what to do aboum it because they're fundamentally free traders. it's adm religious belief.d-dldl on the border security, thedñd>m border defense, newt gingrich said when i said we need admd-d, border fence, how dared,dñdldlúm california along the imperialdññ beachúldñ about 11 miles in whi÷ the bill.dñdñdñdmdmdld>d÷dl hedñ said david duke.dmd>dl so no new sound like patú-dñd,dm decanted. they're all going to build the fence now. it's a little late,dmd. fellas.m but on foreign policy, rond-dmdl paul -- i'm not as libertarian as ron paul, but he is sayingdmm the right things.d,dmd- the cold war isdl over.dmdmd,d>m why do we benefit? pickupdm for wars geared desert= storm, iraq,dldm afghanistan, ll now they want a d.c. area afterm that i ran.ú,ú-ú
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the pilot's statement that a lo, of my conservative friend quote. [inaudible] >> you're not noticias. he got in trouble for his rivers to flood statement on immigration. he quoted this wonderful that quote and he said i see the river tigris flowing with much blood. and he was talking about immigration use a shadow defense ministry was fired endeavor's and again. he was a brilliant fellow. it's because kinds of languages, was a great soldier. he said all political lives and failure. i think there is some truth to that. you know, we've won some of the issues, but it's awfully late in the day and we didn't succeed. we got beat twice and the last time as we took the reform party, i don't even want to
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discuss. so, thanks. >> hello, pat. i just want to rescue. i.t. professors, one in florida atlanta eight and one at george washington who corrected me when i used the term isolationism and they told me to forever use the word noninterventionist in the future. thanks. i agree with them now, too. one of the things i wanted to ask you have to do with the fact that your at the american conservative. you're the fellow named interface at which that contributes to your magazine. i'd like to find out, do you see any future for non-interventionism? you think it's for real this week approaching the future? since you politically are different in other aspects, do you see any possibility of adding a movement towards noninterventionist and, maybe even sees the u.s. money and doing so?pñplpñpñpñ
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>> welcome the basic pitch is añ terrific writer and he's a goodñ man and he opposed the iraq warñ he's a very honorable soldier. he lost a son in iraq.úñpmúñúñ i believe that is correct.pñ and he's very bitter -- ipñúmúm shouldn't say that because i don't know him that well, buúñtñ was with real passion and fire the neoconservatives who get us into these wars.úmpmúñúñ now, neoconservatives who wouldñ then in battles with for a longñ long time are better than thosel of us in terms of networking inñ recruiting and moving peopleúmpñ pmto theúñ organizations.pñ whereto individualistic and we don't do that well.pmpñ i think i am irish americanúñúññ úmople do not want to fightúñúñ other countries worse.úñúñúmpñ did you not have to pay other countries bills.pmúñúm they filmed their mouths fromúññ what's happening in afghanistanñ and iraq and we haven't gotten together yet, but i fear thatúññ
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úñive tours intervention inpñúmñ western syria and iran and iúñúñ think there's a real drive for war with iran, which could beúññ just --úm there's no doubt win, but it would just be devastatinl and i just don't see as general petraeus said when he wasúñpñpññ marching up to baghdad, justúñú÷ tell me one thing. how is this going to add?pñúñúññ and i try to figure out why weúñ fail.úm because we have the country witñ us.pmúmpñ we were moving it with us against the iraq war. but up to youpñ this.pñúlpñpñ as soon as the first bombs starñ falling, 90% of the countryp÷ supports the president andpmpñúm denounceúñ us.úlúmpmpmúmpm andúm i do see us on the road wñ the sars thing should, israelisñ pushing hard, condorúmpñúñúñpñ assassination back with theúñúmm iranian scientists trained to killúñ israeli diplomat.pñpñúmúñ
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and i don't think iranians want war. iúñ don't think the president w÷ wars are the joint chiefs wantúm it.pñpñpñ pmcan unúñderstand why israelism wanted. they want americanúñúñ powerúñpñ constrict it into smashed asú=úñ their greatestúñ enemy.úñúñ and i think that is what they want done.úmúñú-úñpñ netanyahupm and liebermann and m others and iraq than all of thel úñd i can understand it.pñpñpm great britain wanted to get usúñ into world war ii desperately because they knew if american powerúm can send, they win the r in the west.pmúmúmúñpñpñ the mac would it take two years toúm do that.úmplpñpmpmpñúm last night mike sorry, forgot we had a break here. >> i want to go very quickly which sums up politics of pat buchanan i was in new york in manhattan i was in the shop and asked americans to do he started speaking to me, which is very
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unnerving and he asked her what it's doing. i said i'm here to write a story of pat buchanan. he was actually quite young. he so right-wing. he's appalling. i hate him. i hate everything about them. this guys would us out america. he said you know what the worst thing about pat buchanan? i said what. he said my dad voted for him. last night [applause] ..
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>> are special programming continues with "ronald reagan: our 40th president." in 40 minutes, a forum on the digital age. speakers include bob woodward and carl bernstein. after that, carl bogus on his book on liam f. buckley junior. later, we will air the book on "the crusader: the life and times of pat buchanan."
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onto aclu staff attorney david shapiro on this weeks decision on strip searching a suspect on minor crimes, such as a traffic ticket. "washington journal" is live on c-span every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> c-span's 2012 cities tour takes booktv on the road each month. this past week featured little rock, arkansas.
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american history tv look at life in a japanese internment camp. >> she talks a lot about how the arts and crafts or how they kept their sanity. it gave them something to do, and about how depression was so bad. a lot of the camps dealt with a high incidence of suicide. we support you and we care about you. our cities to her -- tour
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continues in oklahoma city on c-span two. >> more now on the life and political career of our 40th president, ronald reagan. over the next 40 minutes, winston groom talks about his acting career and his past is governor of california and president of the united states. >> i surely appreciate all of the people coming out to see me on this dark and stormy night. the weather is just horrible. there is a full moon here in fairhope, alabama. i'm glad to be here. someone should give me $100 for that commercial. [laughter] >> i will tell you, you are guinea pigs. this is the first speech i have
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given on ronald reagan. i have four books out right now at the same time. it is about to drive me crazy. i can't remember one day to the next ones must be doing. i made some notes on ronald reagan in case i opened my mouth and nothing comes out. at least i have something here you the reason i wrote this book, reason i accepted the inquiry is because i realize -- about two or three years ago, my daughter was 10 or 11 at the time. no one is teaching modern presidents and contemporary politics in any schools. yet, i realize that politics is all around us. every day these kids are getting a big dose of politics, and they
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don't have the tools to look up presidents. nobody looks up a young adult book about ronald reagan. there are a few but some of the other presidents. i thought, well, i will start trend. i selected reagan because i think he was the most interesting of those contemporary presidents going back to john kennedy. because of his childhood and -- he was a movie star, for heavens sake. i have met every president since kennedy. i did not meet kennedy. since then i was a reporter in washington for 10 years. i met johnson and nixon and ford. i met nixon when he was in the
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house. i had a place out in the hamptons. they came in on sunday night. they stopped at the restaurant and had dinner. i stopped off and sat at the family table, which is for divorcees and bachelors and wayward husbands. elaine came over and said that [inaudible] is in the back of the room and wants to talk to. she said no, he really wants to talk to you. i went back there and that was where woody allen's that bid -- woody allen sat down. the guy had on a jimmy carter mask. it was actually jimmy carter. it turned out that the man was a publisher at doubleday.
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i knew the force george bush. i played tennis with him many years ago. i knew young george when he worked for red back in the early 1970s. in any case, this guy came out of nowhere. he came from a little poor midwestern town. he was so poor he didn't even know he was for until he got to college. his father was a drunk, his mother took in laundry, and they got by. the first instance of his determination that i detected in all of the things that i read about him, was when he decided he was going to play high school football.
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he weighed 90 pounds. he was crushed, and he continued, and then he was eliminated from the scrub team. the next year he went back at it, and back at it again, until finally he became the captain of the team. that tells you something. now, all football captains do not wind up being presidents, but it tells you something about the personality and drive. he got to college and a little college called eureka college in illinois. he was playing football, waiting on tables, and he got through the school with pretty good grades. he majored in economics. instead of politics, he was chairman of the -- president of
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the student government association. he enjoyed acting. he acted in all the players. he graduated in 1932 just in time for the worst part of the great depression. you think this last thing in 2008 was bad, this was really serious. his father had sobered up long enough that they had a possibility of a job at montgomery ward. that is a big chicago store. it turned out that he did not do the job. and it turned out that he didn't get the job and he thanked his lucky stars ever since. so up at eureka, he is trying to figure out what he wants to be. he wants to be an actor, that there is no way to do that. so he finds a job at a radio
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station as a sportscaster. the way he got the job was -- mr. scotsmen said okay, reagan, i want you to give me like you were talking to the radio audience. i remember the last five minutes of the game that eureka played that we won. so he broadcasted that. he did wonderful. he got the job. then he wound up being the voice of the chicago cubs, of all things. he was very well known and famous in the midwest as a sportscaster. one of the great stories was at one point he was broadcasting again. and they were extremely cheap during the depression.
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they wanted to send broadcasters out of trouble with the teams at all the different things. what they did was a guy would go to the games and telegraph all the radio stations what was going on with the game, so reagan would actually do the play-by-play is as though he was there. this ought to work very well until one day -- one afternoon they were playing the cincinnati reds and the telegraph went dead. and it is the ninth inning. does he beat is the pitcher. -- so reagan calls a foul ball.
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the foul ball goes into the stands, so he describes the fight. he goes on for seven minutes. it was in ripley's believe it or not. [laughter] >> that was the kind of wit that the man had. he seemed blessed with some sort of star that shines bright upon him. the guy that owned the chicago cubs was wrigley, the chewing gum man. they took the cubs team to spring training.
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he remembers this girl from eureka at spring training, and she has a job as a dancer or something in the movies. he asked her about it. how do i get into movies? she directs him to an agent. he goes to see the agent. there he went, i think to mgm, and he's in a movie. there he was. they wanted to change his name, but he says, look, i don't know what you know about me, but i am pretty well-known throughout the midwest. people make fun of reagan. i watched a movie -- it was a very good comic, but it makes the man look like a fool.
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when you watch things that were a movies, this guy was a very good actor. william holden and william powell and john wayne. all these guys. walter pigeon, edward g. robbins. he was well in the movie business until world war ii breaks out. but what he did was, he never had the money to ride horses when he was in college and all that. so they had the program that is rotc. he became a lieutenant in the calgary of the united states. he got to write the best horses in the world for free. for one weekend a month.
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the calgary became the armor. it looked like he was going overseas, but his [inaudible] was so bad that they said you can't leave the united states. he figured out who he was, they put him in the motion picture division. he sat there in san francisco and collected all of these technical guys in all these studios. they would build replicas of tokyo or cities in japan that they were going to bomb -- exact replicas of the cities that were as big as this room -- he did well at this. he went back into the movie business in 1945 when the war was over. and it had changed a lot. the studio system was starting to break up.
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they told the director what shows you're going to do. this is beginning to change. it did not work as well for ronald reagan because a lot of these other guys stayed, and they had not gone to war. they became the new movie stars. but reagan did become the head of the screen actors guild. every class known to man as a union in the movie business. the people who put in [inaudible]. that was about the time when the communists were trying to infiltrate hollywood because they thought it would be great propaganda. the acting class had always been a little bit to the left.
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but it became big time to the left in the 1920s and 1930s because -- and i hope i'm not getting too far -- in new york, they sent a lot of these actors over to moscow to be trained because it was free. why they were training, they were also training to be communists. when they came back, they were also communists are they migrated from manhattan now into the movie business in hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s, and by the time reagan became president of the screen actors guild, it was just about taken over by communists. some were well-known actors and directors. what they did was -- the big
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time actors -- they just paid their dues. they neglected this screen actors guild. anyway, this was about the time that the congressional -- there you go. the american activities committee was holding its hearing. so there was a great day blowout. what reagan did was get rid of -- he testified that we don't need to outline it we are not outlawing he got time actors. they came in and voted the communists out.
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that was, i think, the beginning of his conversion from being a democrat to becoming a republican, because reagan had been raised as a democrat all his life. his father was an irishman who was in poverty, but as close as he came to any respectability was working for the government and the administration. reagan had been raised as a democrat. he became employed by general electric. they got reagan to go around and make speeches to all of the factories -- it was a huge corporation. then he acted in the commercials. he spoke against communism. he suddenly realized that there was a great force out there that was against him. it was not necessarily for
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communism, but he was a conservative and they were liberals, and tension grew. one day, he was at a lecture hall delivering a speech, and a woman said to him from the back of the room, mr. reagan, when are you going to become a republican? >> and he said, well, i think i probably ought to. i have just never gotten around to it. she said i'm a register. all register you right now. so there he was. his famous statement was that i did not leave the democratic party. the democratic party left me. so his acting career and speaking career morphed into a political career.
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he was approached -- there were always people who approached him -- the approached him and asked if they wanted him to run for governor. he said, you're crazy. so reagan said all right, i will run for governor. he had a tendency to wear a lot of makeup. this is the only reason he was good on tv. the first day he got to hollywood, and put makeup on, and made them look funny. he had good skin to start with. there he was. he reads all these comments in the newspapers about him wearing makeup. everybody, including the integer -- interviewers -- i don't have any makeup on, what are you talking about?
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this is a huge political coup. he did well, i think, as a governor. he spent too much money. he was not one of these guys that play along to go along. you have to do that in politics if you want to do things. what he wanted to do was ease the state debt. while he didn't succeed in that, he did a lot of other good things. one of the stories that is told about him -- he got into office in 1967, which is the year i got back from vietnam. there were all these demonstrations going on at berkeley. he was the governor, and the governor supports the university system out there in california. he went to berkeley to meet with some of these people because he thought well, maybe that will settle them down.
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they yelled and hollered and so on. finally, after they settle down enough where one guy started to speak he said, governor, we don't think you're going to understand us at all. you didn't grow up with what we did. we are growing up in an age of jet planes and space travel and instant communication. you don't understand what were talking about. and reagan said well, that may be so am i. but let me tell you something. my generation is the one that invented those things. [laughter] >> he left the governor's office and then, of course, the big question popped. would he be interested in running for president to again, he thought they were insane.
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nixon had made -- he disgraced himself and president ford was a bright man, but he did not establish himself in office. ronald reagan ville advisedly ran in the primary against [inaudible] and he lost. but jimmy carter did get elected. but the country was fairly miserable after one year. inflation was so bad -- i was living in new york then. there was a big supermarket. i go to steve's to buy groceries, and there weren't any prices on anything. you had to go up to the checkout counter where they had a list. prices were going up so fast.
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they were going up 10 cents every hour. you could get 19% interest in a money market fund, which is a bad if you have a lot of money. but most people did not. it was killing the country. it was the same time that the russians were stirring up a lot of trouble. there were some very serious nuclear problems that had not been resolved. jimmy carter had left the military in a terrible state. they did not have enough money to buy fuel for aircraft. anyway, ronald reagan ran against jimmy carter and he won. he had the famous, there you go again, lien on the debates.
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he was the chairman to try what was then called [inaudible] economics. it trickled down -- what it is is to get the regulations of everybody's back. it did take a while. of course, when he got in, he got a lot of flak from the mainstream media and from the democrats, liberals, and i knew pretty well -- there was a gentleman who called reagan an amiable dunce. i work with jimmy breslin. ruslan called him senile and monumentally stupid or something like that.
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just kind of a field day -- everything he did, it was criticized. he liked to eat jelly beans. he always kept a jar of jelly beans. they got a psychologist to see what color of jelly beans he was eating to see what was going on his mind. he didn't care. it bounced right off him. he would say, remember sam donaldson? he would make like he couldn't hear. it would drive donelson crazy. he was a man of good cheer. but he was determined when he got in that office to do some things that he thought were both important and necessary.
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the economy took care of itself read when he left office, the interest rates were back to normal. unemployment had gone back to normal -- whatever it is. but i think his biggest success was in his foreign policy. i'm not going to get into the caribbean stuff, but with the soviet -- he faced them down. there were some serious situations. they had 3600 warhead missiles pointing at this country. we would have been destroyed. from the cold war days after world war ii -- there was a policy of probably a decade of what they called containment.
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were we are trying to contain the soviet expansion. vietnam was part of that. vietnam was part of that in various other places. that sort of morphed over with henry kissinger to coexistence. we were going to try to be friends with the communist. reagan thought that they treated the people like barnyard animals. people who live under communism live like slaves. he made a moral judgment that you're not supposed to make, but he made it. here was his initial problem. all these old guys, they all
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died. finally he got mikael gorbachev. he was well educated. curse you, he wasn't educated. gorbachev was an educated man. it did not start off well, and reagan got a lot of flak when he came back from iceland where he was supposed to have a big arms talk to get rid of these missiles. gorbachev flat would not do it. but reagan had from the beginning of his presidency, he went off in may to visit the first year -- he went to visit someplace in idaho or colorado
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-- and he asked his guide, the colonel general, what are our defenses against this? he says, we don't have any. we can't do it. he said what do you mean? if the soviets decide on a first strike, they would not hit -- the first strike was going to hit everybody. reagan went back to berkeley where he had good connections for being governor, and he said that we have to get something going here. it could have worked. it terrified the russians and the soviets because they did not have the money to do that. this was an anonymously expensive proposition to set up all these huge space stations
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and satellite when they entered space. this was in the norma's tool that reagan had. every time they would have a meeting, he would say we need to do away with this number of missiles or that. but you have to do away with the star wars thing. he said, i'll give to you. once we get it finished, i'll give it to you so that nobody can shoot missiles at anyone else. they're not? >> no, they didn't want that. as a result, the soviets stewed and grieved and grumbled. then reagan went over in 1985 where there was the berlin wall. he made a great speech. and he had made friends with
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gorbachev. he still was determined -- he wanted to get that down. he said this in his speech, the state department was horrified that he said such a thing. mr. gorbachev, if you want peace, bring down this wall. the germans were thinking that mr. gorbachev lives on the other side of the wall, and reagan is going to be gone tomorrow. everybody was stunned. suddenly, the german people picked it up on both sides of the wall. gorbachev knew that he was having problems. first of all, he had a terrible economic start -- the people took power and you saw the whole eastern bloc of the soviet union began to crumble.
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reagan was out of office at this point by a dear, -- by a year. if you could think of one single point that brought down soviet communism in the east, he actually -- satellite countries such as czechoslovakia, poland, hungary -- he went to visit moscow and gorbachev. gorbachev was happy about it. reagan made a speech in moscow. he talk to these guys. they never heard anyone talk about democracy and freedom. it was against the law. he was cheered, and so he left. that was his legacy. his legacy is that he was a lot
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smarter than anyone gave him credit for. one of the things that i found -- presidents always have speech writers. but reagan wrote his own speeches. i have the books with his own handwriting in them. he kept a diary. reagan kept a diary, which is extremely articulate. he wrote letters, and they are collected in places. i was fascinated by the turn of this guy's mind. he was so clear. he was so smart. he was a meat and potatoes guy. he had a branch ranch you love to go to in the mountains outside of santa monica. -- excuse me, santa barbara.
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santa somebody. [laughter] >> one of the things he did, the press would always go with telescopic cameras -- they paid $10,000 for the lens -- they would wait all day long to see what would happen. one day he [inaudible] -- [laughter] >> suddenly the reporters go crazy. then he smiled. [laughter] >> what i thought i do here, i hate reading things, if you want to read something, i will let you read it.
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the last couple of pages of this book that i wrote sums up, i think, what reagan was and what he did. it is only by page and a half in the book. he passed away of alzheimer's disease. he wrote a lovely note -- i didn't include it here, but he explained what was going to happen to them and he knew and he basically had a good time and thanked everyone for their kindness. he even thanked sam donaldson. on june 3, 2005, ronald reagan passed away at his home in bel air. he was 93 years old. on june 9, his body was flown to washington dc to lie in state in
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the rotunda of the u.s. capitol. where 1000 -- 104,000 mourners viewed it on june 11. the funeral service was held at the national cathedral, attended by many of the world's greatest leaders, including his old adversary, mikael gorbachev. he was buried in california at the reagan -- ronald reagan presidential library. on his gravestone were inscribed words from the speech of the dedication of the library. i know in my heart that man is dead. that what is right will eventually try him if there is purpose and worth to each and every life.
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during his political career, -- today they are still those who belittle his career and the ultimate failure of soviet communism. but there are many others who remember reagan fondly and greatly, mainly from his record of 34 television network addresses to the american people. what these people were called him and no matter what their politics or his, was a man of great means. of straight talk. good humor and good will. he was a [cheers] president no matter what came his way. there were times he could be angry.
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reagan had a clear sense of right and wrong, which infuriated many of the leading academics and established journalists. most of whom still remain convinced that applying such moral convictions to politics can be dangerous. in contrast, reagan believed he knew what was right and wrong as he saw it. above all else, reagan was an american original. he had his heart rates and times and lived an important life and guide his own hat. he had come along way. a poor boy from illinois. he knew he was poor, a
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sportscaster, movie star, president of the screen actors guild award, governor, and president of the united states. and it was all because he did not get a job at montgomery ward in 1932. that was the way he's done. if you ever visit the reagan library you will notice that there is a concrete slab monolith. on the side that faces west, it is painted in colorful graffiti of butterflies and flowers. but the site reminds gray. that is an actual 338-pound chunk of the berlin wall sent by the citizens of grateful germany as a symbol of reagan's tear
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down the wall speech. the monolith, reagan said let our children and grandchildren come here and see this wall and reflect on what it meant to history. let let them understand. each year they come, by the tens of thousands, the schoolchildren will read the words and look out over the valley ridge. just a little to the right and most fittingly, also facing west. you arty know the end of the book. you have been a great group of guinea pigs, and i hope i have not taken up too much of your time on this night. thank you all for coming so
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much, and we can sign some books if you like. [applause] >> while the u.s. senate continues its recess, we are featuring book tvs programming on prime time
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in a few moments, a foreign of investigation in the digital age. speakers include carl woodward and carl bernstein
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>> now, a discussion of investigative journalism in the digital age. bob woodward and carl bernstein. this is one hour and a half. >> hi, i am david, m.d. incoming vice president and executive of "the new york times." >> as professor at columbia puts
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it, the coverage of watergate alter the map of political journalism and led to the renewal and reinvigoration. indeed, there had been investigating reporting in the earlier part of the 20th century but it had largely gone dormant for some decades. that all changed beginning in june of 1972, as two young reporters, one coming a clean-cut christian educated midwesterner just two years out of the navy, the other, a long-haired chain-smoking college dropout from silver spring, maryland, again with a fairly routine story and turned it into the higher watermark of american journalism. i'm confident in saying that this single piece of reporting is responsible for many of us in this room for choosing a profession that we love someone -- a profession that we love so
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much. this day, we are looking at how journalism has changed in the decades since. what would happen if tomorrow morning a young reporter sought police at a break-in into national democratic party headquarters. what might happen after her initial tweet? in today, are the matrix of digital information to rebelling? we have a panel here to ponder those questions, and it is my honor to introduce them. moderating the discussion will be alicia shepard. she writes on media issues and is the former ombudsman for national public radio. she is the author of the critically claimed the book, woodward and bernstein, life in watergate.
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she's the investigator and editor for bloomberg news. she is a pulitzer prize winner as a reporter and an editor and a former chair of the pulitzer board. she's the author of six books. on the far right is jeff, he's the editor in charge of investigations at the "washington post." a position he has held since 2003. he joined a post in 1997 after 15 years at the miami herald. as a reporter and editor, he has worked on investigations that have been honored with seven pulitzer prizes. second from the right is josh marshall, who is the editor and writer of talking points. a journalism website. in 2000 and eight, he wrote about the politically motivated dismissal by the bush and
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administration. our two special guests, the two most influential journalists of our time, our charles darwin, our john paul ringo, mr. bernstein. from that week in june 1972, he has had a career of distinguished work. i want to recognize one other special guests here in the front row. we have the editor ben bradlee, former editor and current vice president of the "washington post." now for the fun. >> thank you. it is a real privilege being here. i wrote my book because i wanted to answer one question. how do you live the rest of your
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life when by age 30 you have achieved fame, success, wealth, and professional respect most of us hope to have by the time you die? writing a book about people is a very odd experience. i kind of feel like a stalker. you know so much about them, you probably know things they have long forgotten. reading everything, combing through the archives, grilling their friends, their enemies, and all the while they are right there, not at all dead, but still not talking to you. [laughter] >> but we are friends now. a story was driven by two "washington post" reporters who stumbled into the biggest story of the 20th century that happened to involve the president of the united states and led to his resignation. unthinkable at the time, the
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president of the united states could be a crook. today, as our default. at the time of the break-in, began in june, 171972, there was a completely different journalistic ecosystem. there is no cable, no talk radio. there was not -- the "washington post" was not even the biggest newspaper in town. stories did not necessarily filter out to the rest of the country, and there certainly was no internet. first, i want you all to look at a two minute clip that sends you back to that moment. we will spend some time paying tribute to this landmark peak -- piece of journalism. >> now known collectively as watergate, this and related crimes might never have become
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known had it not been for the american press. leading the efforts to get at the truth about watergate were too young reporters from the "washington post." i'll woodward -- bob woodward and carl bernstein. intrigued by the dramatic possibilities of two unknown newspapers reporters taking on the president of the united states, robert redford decided to approach woodward and bernstein based about their experiences in a movie. >> i was immensely impressed with redford's approach. even before he had sold it to warner. he wanted to make a serious movie about the newspaper business. he seemed excited about it in the sense that it would -- that we would -- but our rear ends were out online for so long. they lived somewhat and unstructured life in a very unstructured town.
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they weren't on anyone's list, that impressed me. they were outsiders and at the bottom of the rung, so to speak. woodward, at the time, was covering red robin restaurant. bernstein was having trouble staying awake. finally redford decided to go ahead with woodward and bernstein's look. >> we want to hear from the real folks. >> carl, what comes to mind after watching that? >> what comes to mind is that the book and the movie is about the process of reporting getting
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the best obtainable version of the truth. what you see in the movie and what we tried to depict in the book is a methodology that gets you there. we were young we worked at night, which was a great advantage in darkness. woodward often says that the light comes out in darkness. that is what we found. the methodology, if it worked, and 40 years later, what was dismissed is a third rate burglary, we know now was a massive, unprecedented, unconstitutional campaign lyrical espionage and sabotage that defined the president of the united states and his presidency, and we can go on from there. >> bob, how about you? what do you think or feel when
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you watch that? >> somebody used the words stumble into the story. that is about 90% right. we worked in an environment in which the editors were always saying, where is the next watergate story? what are you going to do? they were encouraging and supportive. the white house was denouncing this regularly, but in a sense, carl and i were in a bubble and protected. it is nice to work when you are protected and encouraged to get to the bottom of the story. the publisher was the backbone of the institution. as we have often said, when she asked when we going to get --
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when will we know the whole story of watergate -- this was an in early 1973 when the stories we had written were not believed -- when we answered that this is a big cover up, a massive terminal conspiracy, people are being paid for their silence -- our answer was never. she said a very memorable don't tell me never. >> to bring us back, can you talk about that a? dear member it well? june 17, 1973. can you tell us about that day -- each of you? >> sure. i was one of the two cheap reporters. i came into the office working on a profile that weekend. lieutenant governor henry hall was running for governor. i heard commotion around the
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city desk that there had been a break-in. at the democratic headquarters at the watergate. it seemed like they were more interested in that story than the one i was working on at the moment. [laughter] >> and i said, can i make some phone calls? i started making phone calls. you could tell right away it was an unusual story and the city editor and metropolitan editor were both in an unusual state of excitement. >> in contrast to carl's self assignment, i was asleep. as the editor woke me up and asked me to come in and do the story, it was probably one of the most beautiful days in washington -- june 17, 1972. the editors met and said who would be dumb enough to come in and work on a day like this?
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and my name came to the list of many. i was sent to the courthouse. it was mysterious, and, in fact, the local headquarters, the national headquarters, then there were these burglars, as carl said, carl had worked in journalism since age four. you just never see burglars in businesses. there they were, and the judge asked that the head burglar, james mccord, where did you were? and mccord -- where did you were? he worked in a room.

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