>> this week in our local content vehicles explore the history and literary culture of oklahoma city. including the works of galileo]? at the history of science collection at oklahoma university. >> the most important part was the notion. when this book was published in 1632, the pope was angry that calvin had broken his promise to treat it hypothetically. galileo's enemies join together and the result was his trial. this also is a copy that contains his own handwriting. this is like being able to look over his shoulder in the months leading up to his trial. >> all next week in the local content vehicles in oklahoma city on c-span2's booktv. ..

this morning we are going to be hearing from buried tons more. and like many of you, i think that we know that there was another era of news testing in this country that does back several decades. we received all of our television news from just three networks. and it was more less the same. everyone has his or her particular favorite, but we all appreciated acres in those news programs which tested in result in the reporting, a large serving types.

peter jennings, harry kiwi's there, harry k. smith, excuse me. she's become a harry reasoner and howard k. smith with abc. walter cronkite this cbs. we also respected greatly the correspondence with those programs, the likes of the brothers marvin and brick house. sam donaldson. or of the best, barry does more. as ted koppel says in his foreword, we gave american television viewers a week of the need to know, not necessarily what they would have selected for themselves that there is was a gun. we have sources of news today, but they've largely billowing provide a common starting point for our national dialogue.

very fortunate to have barry dunsmoore here with us today. he has an illustrious and long background. i have provided his background for you to be read. i would think you want to hear him rather than me, but let me just say that he covered foreign affairs for abc news for 30 years of reporting from washington and abroad of the policies of seven u.s. presidents from lyndon johnson to bill clinton. he traveled with the mall overseas and was a regular on planes and their secretaries of state for 96 -- to 95, more than 100 countries are virtually every major international event from worst to seventh to have some instead diplomatic shuttles. as i said to him on the phone call to international affairs jerky up with very envious of the people he

is best or is he has covered and witnessed . after i -- again, i will let you talk about would like to add that after his retirement in 1995 abcasix -- barry dunsmoore became a fellow at john f. kennedy school of government at harvard. in addition to lecturing on the roles of news media in shaping public policy barry dunsmoore conducted a potential study of the consequences of live television coverage of war. the next was published by harvard in 1996. team of harvard kennedy school and a favorite of mine describe his work as a check for the kind of balanced, that full, and a proper analysis of which the school can be proud . one other awards, but let me conclude with a comet. former secretary of state henry kissinger, his newest book that some of you have copies of it he

will be discussing this morning. this compilation of essays dating from the weeks when he accompanied the of the many shuttles in the early 1870's to his commentaries on the air swearing will mark kimberly as one of the significant journalists of our era. so it is a great pleasure for me to welcome. i want to take him for the service he has a guitar kutcher in some news reporting. mr. vermont is commentaries. thank you for coming. [applause] >> they key very much. now that i ever a retiree i don't usually give up this early. this is an opporunity or is presented as an uppity for me to talk about my book.

pretty hard to talk about because it is about almost everything. it is a compilation of columns will covered cherries, book reviews, as beaches, and other such things, all of which i have written in might retirement years and which i am pretty proud. in in making a speech about my book is tied it difficult. i am focusing today on the section which is a subsection of the book which is on the the news media about which i know a little bit. when i retired one of the things that i absolutely promised myself that anyone who would listen is that i would not fall victim to that horrible affliction that in facts so many people of my age. it is diagnosed as old fart ibis

. and that is the belief that everything that happened in my time was wonderful and everything that is happening now is no good. but i have to be honest. sometimes it is hard to fulfill that promise to myself. as i look at the media landscape today there are certainly things that are troublesome, or is that i find troublesome. i ever going to talk today about the golden age of network television news and the news media. those of you who are experts in the subject, and i know that when i am speaking here for the next few days there are always more experts listening that area of. ago the days, whether they be of age a decrease or renaissance italy or broadway musicals,

there are large the a function in the creation of a unique setf circumstances. those golden ages id windows special circumstances are so tough but with chased. so before it by talking about the demise as one person lucky enough to have been part of that, i would like to talk a little bit about it. the golden age of network television news runs roughly speaking from the middle of the 1950's to the middle of the 80's. ed in those days there were basically three television networks, abc, nbc, and cbs. there with the windows of the world for the great majority of americans. he sacked more than 50 billion people would be watching the news.

to to give you a basis for comparison, but nowadays there are fewer that 20 million people who watch the evening news. i have to say that virtually all of them are of security. the other people don't watch the evening news. the newscast to evolve into a kind of town meeting therapy session which people could use to ponder these momentous events of the world, their nation, and there ever had. those were, indeed, the will but this does for all of us. the cold war was at its height. in the aftermath of the cuban missile crisis is a very real possibility that we can have nuclear war. by 1965 the vietnam war was raging. and by 1990 -- of zurich will by

1968 antiwar protests were everywhere the country. also in the 1960's, the president, his brother, the coaches most prominent black leader were assassinated it, two of them in the same year, 1968. now, but the disservice several ongoing yet interlocking social revolutions over race to of feminism, the new technologies to read sexual freedom. at such a moment the newly found power of television could have become an instrument for extra resonance division, but it did not. more by accident than design that is broadcast of that era were voices of moderation amid the chaos. they reflected middle-class values and the essentially centrist politics really because those who produced the were

middle-class and moderate, sometimes a bit to the left, sometimes a little to the right, but never very far from the center. the assassination of president john kennedy was a watershed for television news. at the time of his death he was certainly a much beloved president. television and three day about some coverage of the aftermath of the events with a very long way in calling a people that of the barges were almost paranoid about what happened to. even though the coverage did involve the murder of kennedy's assassin to lee harvey oswald, the population generally did receive a call big influence by the networks. it was important to this type of history that this time of high anxiety, that the works conduct themselves responsibly.

after all, just the year before the united states and the soviet union had come right to the brink of nuclear war. and oswald had connections with both russia and cuba. so at the time there were big question is raging around the country. was the soviet union is involved in the assassination? if so, should the united states staged a pre-emptive attack against the russians? well, it was very light into this that the networks firmly said bell to both questions. the rushes toward up behind the assassination and therefore no pre-emptive strikes or -- they were off the table. the kutcher began to read a great sigh of relief. one can almost hear the reckless tons of the of cable news network's if something like a presidential assassination

should happen today. it could be said that the networks behaved with great seriousness and dignity, a doing so achieve the levels of respect in the eyes of most americans. there were many people involved, but three men became the personification. walter cronkite at cbs news, david brinkley of nbc to read later of abc. howard k. smith who left cbs to acre abc. when you were watching them on television you were getting an authentic person, that the creation of focus groups, make up artists, and publicity people . these were genuine journalists. i can promise you that the way they came across was very much the way that a word person. the personality of each man was subtly different. this dough possible there were intensive background and

journalistic philosophy. remarkable, all worse others. the southern background turned out to be very important to how they approached probably the most important story of their times at hours, the civil-rights movement of the 1860's. as yet been done of these three had been inactive list for racial equality . carcanet actually confessed that as the event he had not had the courage to challenge his teenage friends with a made racist remarks. but all of these men had seen enough racism itself to know that it was morally wrong to perpetuate a system that plainly failed to enforce equal treatment and protection under the law. this proposition would eventually be accepted by the nation as a whole thanks in large measure to the extensive news coverage of the civil rights movement by the network television news broadcast. and so with the civil rights act

of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965 were all passed, it could be said that this was their finest hour. it is golden age of television or in its golden days television network news had greatest influence mainly because it rejected extremas a red hat as is symbols and questions journalistic integrity and absolute and in so doing contrary to peace and stability in both foreign and domestic news. the daily arguments in the news service or not partisan, nor were they about what start would be most interested or titillating him or music. the debates were about the most intensively aboard the leg that had happened that day that the people needed to know to make them better citizens. but as the sage of cbs news put

it, it's not my job to tell people what to think. it is to suggest what they might think about. the image of network news has to of course of a greatly diminished. in most polling these days the news media it generally ranks among bill least respected and trusted institutions of the kutcher, although i might note that while they are down now tell most single digits in this regard they still usually come out a little ahead of the united states congress. so what happened to back well, as i said at the outset to the golden age is paid with the unique circumstances which created that are fundamentally changed. in the case of the news media he changes care about because of the new technologies. these changes the business models for both print and broadcast media companies.

i am sure that many of you here know much more about the new technologies that i do. please give army had allowed me to talk a bit about the changes that did take place during the 30 years i was a correspondent. my first foreign assignment was paris. originally i was supposed to go to saigon, but the vice-president was killed in a commercial plane crash. there were a number of personnel changes. with the dust settled instead of going to say, was sent to paris as the roving correspondent. what that really meant was that in those days unless it was the vietnam almost any other place of the world and probably the least. but even in paris communications said or almost like the dark ages compared to today. most of mike into changes were with the telegrams to read these to take from trough to 24 hours for an exchange. and there were some tense a

valid phone calls, but there were the radio type. had to be booked many hours in advance. very unreliable. as a matter of fact that could cost as much as $100 for regular call. then when i was working in the middle east in the 1860's to be cases are even more primitive than that. it we used all the telegrams which reveal that america because there were no long distance calls. solyndra satellites. that situation would actually shape my first big scoop and historic story. during the 1967 middle east war i get to the suez canal with israeli troops who had spent the week fighting across the sinai desert and pushing the egyptians back across the suez canal. this was a news -- an historic event and that happened on friday.

that night the black-and-white film that we had collected for the week was given to a dispatch rider who made his way across the sinai desert televisa. the next morning the fell was put on a commercial plane. robin had to be shipped to pay them or twa played. when it got to do york the fell had to be alerted to a ticket to the headquarters, processed and it ended. so my big scoop of friday appeared of the abc news said that. by that time it was a cease-fire in the least. instead of a big scoop it is really just a feature story. compare that to the five years later during the first gulf war when i was able to do live reports from the roof of my hotel of it coming missiles.

in those intervening 25 years cameras had gone from black-and-white film to color fell to color videotape. cameras became smaller and smaller said that they could be comfortably have held. satellites made correct distance dialing possible and what's, what's cheaper. there were enough satellites it operations so that these could be used almost anyplace in the world. and so even by the time of the october 1873 work which really wasn't that long and was able to give a reports of air raid that by watching the satellite facilities located in suburban tel aviv. just as the telegraph revolutionized per reported during the civil war to with a communication satellite totally changed the nature of 20 century were reported. gone were the days of the 2n3 day time lag between the average

overseas and it actually appeared on television in america. it computers and digitalization ultimately made it possible for two people to carry enough equipment by head to transmit live seven pictures from virtually anywhere in the world. as i concluded after doing a study, it meant that the next work live was probably inevitable. it was also decidedly mixed blessing, but that genie is really and truly out of the bottle, and we simply just have to learn to live with the. these new technologies give us the capacity to make that is more immediate, vital, and competitive. meantime, cable television which had been around for quite a long time of new ways to wire cities, and millions of people began to get access to cable. as that happens to begin to

challenge the big three networks , seriously cutting into their ad revenues and ultimately the all news 247 cable stations would eventually eliminate the big three monopoly on news as well. however, all of these changes really pale in comparison to the newest of new information technologies that have to revolutionized the mainstream media cover the internet to bind with the personal computer and self honor, facebook and twitter and youtube in the personal blog have begun to refine and redefine what constitutes news and what actually is a reporter. now no one would argue that citizen reporters using a cellphone amidst the revolutions of the errors bring in egypt and libya and nl syria have been anything other than give for freedom and democracy. but i also believe that

professional, knowledgeable, untrustworthy reporters must continue to play an important role in our news media. this might be a good time to make a general statement about the new technologies. in my view basically our game changes in many respects. they are inherently neither good nor bad. like all their revolutionary predecessors from movable type to the telegraph, they are is it's a neutral estimates, whether they serve society are it subverted to depends very much on how they are used into what end. those of the fundamental to a colossal changes that brought about the demise of the golden age of television. the other significant change concern the business model. directly related. when i joined abc news nearly

five decades ago no network television news did not function for the purpose of making money. according to the sec rules of the data networks were obligated to carry news is of public affairs as a condition for their licenses. bill paley who owns cbs news was a businessman, not a journalist, but you very much enjoyed the prestige that cbs brought. he did not expect the news division to its original or the stockholders. neither did abc or nbc. in 1965 the eighth annual budget for abc news is about $5 million. it lost money. now, what that meant was that the revenue that it made in commercials which read of the evening news did not add up to

the amount of money being spent. when i left 30 years later because there were so many more news programs made possible by satellites and it will be a transition and so on their annual this budget ballooned from 5 million to 500 million. commercial revenue but only cover that but added another 200 million more to the network's profits. their role and the same situation. and number of years here live happy to see the accords this race, and network divisions have done for lost leaders to cash cows. among other things profits began to attract wall street. by the 90's all three networks have been taken over by corporate conglomerates with no connection to the news.

gm disney, adjusted and one thing and one thing only, the bottom line. the result of this change is that the number one preoccupation became ratings because the amount of money in the network could turn was based entirely unknown people were watching. so began what is now usually described as the diving down of their work news this would attract more viewers. so doctors are brought end of focus groups for applied to come up with more interesting items for the broadcast. ultimately this but us less for a news and more celebrity stories. you're serious subjects in more news in use. even as the newscasts became softer they continue to lose viewers and revenues and an ever

faster rate to. by the late 1990's cable is a huge ridge were taking a huge bite out of both the viewers in the revenues. one step to cope with this losing trend was to make big cuts in news coverage itself. now worse use the end of the cold war as an excuse to reduce the eventual @booktv ritually closing most foreign bureaus. those cutbacks were that's simply cosmetic. in 1964 -- of surrey, in 1984i was transferred to the abc news bureau in london as a senior foreign correspondent in those days abc's overseas headquarters was london. we have our own building to our own studio education right in central london to the bbc.

almost exactly 200 employees at the time. today abc rent's two rooms it ever office near heathrow airport. yet what these cuts did was to eliminate some of the previous strengths of the evening news broadcast, the stories that made in different and better the table. and so the ratings continue to. newspapers and of the privy it chose the internet and social the works, they have stolen much of the. even worse, website such as craigslist and ages list have siphoned off most of the classified advertising which since the early days of newspapers has been their bread-and-butter. even today major newspapers like the "washington post" did not have nearly the staffa coverage that they once had, especially

in the border area. and domestically they have been given early-retirement. the new york times as saying upheld a of a $250 million loan. various ways to charge for its on-line versions which seems to me is perfectly proper. people are accustomed to do was to the things for nothing. apparently they are still resisting. no one yet seems to have found the formula for making these papers the big money makers that there was word. the game now seems to be survival. in the case of credit few papers their stealing it back. a once powerful weekly newsmagazine faced the same site in the rubble. they are only shadows of their former selves. time is in survival mode.

u.s. these is basically folded. these week sold recently for dollar. you can telly at these magazines as olvera that they're no longet they once did. daudet's you're seeing quite a few almost exclusively opinion polls in these zero magazines. some of the columnists are quite good. maybe some of them also are working at discount prices so that they can get their material published. that means they will have a better chance of being picked up as guest commentators by the cable news channels. publishing and all of its old forms is still a startling. e-books published by amazon may be our future. i noticed that they once revered encyclopedia britannica.

going to be available in book form 2010, the last book edition. in the future it too will only be available on-line. i assume there will be going head-to-head with would appeal. as with the pd does not pay for most of its writers or does not charge its readers it may well win that dell. so that pretty much priced to attend the demise of the news media over mazes white is this matter? there are people in this room who believe that it really doesn't. they would say that the news media of the internet to social networks, personal blocks represent liberation from an old top-down management control by large corporations. a system that has no real place

of the real i t h they dug the professional journalism to tell them with separate. if i were a lot your approach to feel that way myself. while cases of the surly equate to wisdom it does give you some perspective. what i see is that in spite of all of the platforms available to provide an dispenser permission to whether stage will evans that the basis is a remarkably well informed. people read, listened to, and watch only those who share their prejudices. it wants the bothered with diverse opinions. so through the internet we have more and more people with passionate partisans opinions

that are almost entirely factory . we are constantly being arranged by people who claim that president obama is a muslim, a socialist, communist when nancy. the president is none of the above. very few of these critics could roughly define what any of those words actually mean. in my day we would try to set the record straight when politicians did nothing but blue smoke. we were discouraged from expressing a personal opinions of our reporting. we are expected to challenge public figures who distorted the truth are flat line. nowadays facts and lie still seem to matter. those reporting especially and cable this involves taking two of the most extreme people on

either side in having the ability to other. it seems to me that the viewers learn nothing from the see the debates. i know that i am far from being the only what he thinks this. as it turns out an acquaintance of mine and now a professor at harvard kiddy school and commentator on cnn, a law degree , served in the u.s. navy in the pacific. he was a u.s. news columnist and later editor. most notably for many years he served in the white house as an adviser to presidents nixon, ford, reagan, and clinton. when he was working with plants and he approached me about becoming a white house spokesman of foreign affairs. with that in the workout he suggested that i could become the spokesman for the pentagon. especially with the cold war ending it did not some very interesting.

i really dunstable it. had i taken that job and stake in the -- taken of forbid, when the money to lewinsky scandal erupted end linda trip was involved both those two ladies would have been working for me. i dunstable it. that is a digression. in a recent interview he talked about concerns. his son against sharing journalists, as of another night. in his words you want young writers who have -- who are reay bright. understeer in the world today does require you spend enough time doing that. continued peter jennings new district to be rude . if a thing was happening in the middle east i turn out peter

jennings because i knew he had paid his dues, been there, work their command he knows it. it really comes down to this. the reason for the demise of the news media did not matter. if we do not have a reasonably informed electorate the very nature of democracy is threatened. citizens need to have a basic understanding of the issues the country faces and all political parties or candidates have done or promised to do in the future. the evidence is building the even with all the new technologies we do not have a better informed electorate. actually, there is evidence that the opposite may be true. in a decrease the democracy was born, but there are two political

and social class is that right for power. the oligarchs wanted to establish a state in which only zero risk of substantial amounts of property could vote and hold public office. the democrats insisted that all wheel -- male citizens have the same rights and for a century or more they usually prevailed the great philosophers were not big fans of democracy. according to plato of early ordinary people were too easily swayed by the emotional and deceptive rhetoric of an ambitious politician. it was the demos who were the majority of the people at the time her time and again but to support the campaigns of the pulp he's in war which was the 27 year struggle between athens and sparta which effectively ended the golden age increase.

a special in your because it was the dose that were ultimately responsible. in places of work the republic he opted for another oligarchy or democracy. people know that he defined it created the idea of community. the one society that would possess a perfect sociopolitical legal system. is the one that came to be known as utopia. as your local we are all looking for that one. about two dozen years later european philosophers john locke and john john do so were the eight social contract between rulers and the people that would replace the absolute power of the marquise . the new concept that political rule or government should be based on the consent of the governed. thomas jefferson, a carefully

studied job lock integrated this idea of consent of the governed directly into the american declaration of independence. his many biographers everett @booktv evelyn -- inevitably.but qualifications. as he once said, whenever people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government. he also said if a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects what never was and never will be. jefferson's concern about the ignorance and his belief that the people must be informed drove him to become the great proponent that he was for public education. his other projects vacation, free of the press was directly related. giffords areas dollars explain that he saw the press as an essential element in providing

services the objective of information they needed to make a sound political judgment. those two ideas are tied together, and most journalists favorite jeffersonian. the basis of our government, the very first object should be to keep that right. that left to me to sign of the we should have a government without the press are without newspapers where newspapers without a government, should not hesitate a moment. here again jefferson and the qualification. i should be that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them. well, more than two centuries later one of this country's respected political minds remains pretty worried that to date americans and not just fill in forms but woefully ignorant.

jimmy carter's national security adviser. he has continued to be one of the bastard. ♪ thinkers. the latest book is called strategic vision. america and the crisis of global power. concerning the strategic decline, six critical dimensions that stand as america's major an increasingly threatening liability. one of those yet to devise as a public that is highly geared about the world, the uncomfortable truth is that the u.s. its public has an alarmingly and limited knowledge of basic local geography, current events, and even political moments. even as thousands of u.s. troops were being killed in the middle east area 63 percent of young american adults could not find

the rock of the map, and 88 percent could not find afghanistan. more than half of college seniors did not know that nato was formed against soviet expansionism. 30 percent of american adults cannot name to countries that americans fought in world war ii he plans this are a deficient public education system end of the news media which except for a few major newspapers were held in low regard. then continued in his latest book to argue forcefully why this matters. in his words the cumulative effect of such widespread ignorance makes the public more susceptible to demagogic lead stimulated fear, especially when aroused by a terrorist attack. that increases the pau ability of self-destructive for policy initiatives.

in general public ignorance creates an american political environment more hospitable to extremist simplifications. in an interview about this on cbs what he had in mind were the worst in iraq in afghanistan and the alarming drumbeat for war in a run. as he summed it up in that conversation he seemed to be channeling his jefferson and plato by saying we can't have an intelligent foreign policy unless we have an intelligent people. well, i totally agree. i would like to repeat that the demise of the news media have been discussing has to do with the loss of respect that once held with the american people which has certainly diminished their importance. and the failure of their business model which has left them with ever weakening financial base so that there are no less able to do the job of informing the public than they once were able to do.

that said i would like to close on a more positive note. in the often denigrated mainstream media it needs to be stressed many reporters willing to risk their lives so that we all could be better informed. when they get less time on the air or newspaper space, there are simply fewer of them. we are fortunate to still have excellent reporters up their doing their best, sometimes under frightful conditions. i could name many, but i would like to close by mentioning to. for more talent, right in the middle of what is now the syrian civil war.

distinctive for the ipads that she wore to cover the i lost in the 1990's when she was shot reporting is roca. this was her last message sent by a long before she and a french photographer were apparently targeted and killed by a rocket fired by the syrian army. she wrote to i think the reports of my survival may be exaggerated. the neighborhood which was the focal point of resistance to the syrian regime. it's people being subjected to the attacks by artillery and tanks. a sickening, canada and the stand and how the world to stand by. i should be heartened by no. watch the baby died today. shrapnel. his soul to allegis he did

heaved until he stopped. feeling helpless as well as cold , we will keep trying to get out the information. when to pull surprises for initial reporting. born in oklahoma his family had is rich in lebanon. he became fluent only after it very hard work as an adult. in deceptively a greater advantage over most of his gun to parts because he could easily pass as a local. even better in depicting the basic humanity of people. able to change the perceptions of many people in this country.

the your grandkids. continually rest his life in baghdad, a shot in the arm will reporting from the west bank. close to executed. spend much time in egypt covering revolutions. meantime. the pleiades taking internet of syria to see and hear from could suffer of the ebb and flow of the efforts to unseat the dictator. last month he alerted the authorities in the interval would be his last trip to syria he died from a major as an attack. he was 43 years old, 0-2 children. the news media is much poorer

for the loss of the likes of. they knew there were taking risks but persisted in their very dangerous way of life. no, i am often asked what makes people want to cover worse. helical the answer that question . in the past decade have lost lives. we go to remote war zones to report what is happening. the public has a right to know what our government erin forces are doing. in age of 247 we are either constant call. wherever we are where is it to the same. someone must go there.

you can get that information without going to places or people being shot at and others are shooting you. a real difficulty in having enough faith in humanity to believe that enough people to lobby the government, military, or a man on the street, actually care where your files reads the printed page, the website for the tv screen. we do because we believe we do make a difference. and so this file. if we truly care about what is happening in el world there are people in this media who we can put just and to whom licking your support, the best way to do this is to pay to some to what their rights to broadcast had to tear up a spurious, sizes, and those who would divide this.

if enough of us to do that america will be better informed. is democracy may be saved. [applause] >> five minutes for questions. they do so much for of his dozen the importance of the news media >> what do we do? >> the absolute formula then i would be selling it to facebook our $4 billion. well i think to follow when said , individually we can do is to pages in to people that we've

dealt are not misogynist or not racist, not shutting in ways to the virus. there are significant numbers of good reporters dealing with foreign affairs and certainly in the new york times in russian post, the magazine's, like the new yorker to some of the great books of the middle east, contemporary middle east. there are a few good ones on television. and i think if we -- if we reject the idea that the president -- present situation, the agenda is set by an election , we can only do this on an individual basis. i am hopeful that our younger people will have an opportunity,

and i think they do because although on the one hand it is a tough nut to crack today on the other hand the options are wide open because there are so many ways that you can publish or broadcast or whenever which certainly did not exist in my day. and i can't say that i have total confidence that this is going to happen, but i hope that it will, that there will be some new business model that will take us beyond where we are no and that we will still have a flourishing and effective news media because in the absence of that we are in very serious trouble. >> our education system educating more of our youth that this would not be happening. do you believe that perhaps our

educational system is lacking? >> well, i will lay it off. the answer would be absolutely yes. it is -- we here an awful lot about how it is failing to teach the sciences and a method. at the is demonstrably true in terms of the scores that are talked up by american students. but i think it's equally true that in the social sciences, whether they be english or history or geography that they are very much wanted. as it happens, i have a -- despite my advanced years, had a 20 year-old daughter in college nyu. is interesting that she learned an enormous amount in a school in vermont. she had and a peak of teacher

who was absolutely brilliant, and she learned more about the government of the estate's and the system and have worked. i know many college students that i have talked you ever learned. i taught a course. and some senior students who were very, very good who knew nothing about the japanese internment of world war ii. it did not come in there almost 16 years of education. so at the debt is a major factor in a level of dare i say in ignorance that is up there. >> teachers are also deficient. >> i don't want to condemn the teachers. illicitly had some in my lifetime. so i would not make that a blanket condemnation.

those system is demonstrably not working as well as it should. we will come to you next. >> my children are in their 20's now, but intelligent, college graduates. they don't read the paper, watch the news. we did newsweek. they don't like it. i am just wondering -- they get most of their information, you know, on line in the internet. most of their friends, the same situation. >> john stuart. >> you put your finger on it. it was still in business.

that is a program which follows some which really does deal with some issues that are out there and does so in a way that young people find largest amusing but tailored. i don't think we can hear hats on that, but nevertheless it is a positive factor out there. there is good information on pbs every night. no one is watching his every help. i promise if you had said defeat ability to do so how would you rectify the way the internet would affect our newscast how would you tastiest? >> i would not go near the

internet with a 10-foot pole. i think all attest to regulate or shape or its insert or anything else is altman is self-defeating. organically emerged in a positive way as a result of market forces. we will have to see how that ultimately shapes which would be better if the internet was not used for spreading from a summit that? >> absolutely not. it is a troublesome service because so much of the information is totally bogus. that is the troubling thing. people have to learn to be able to select what is and what isn't i think that a lot of people are very wanting in that regard.

people don't want to go to a website. and vice versa. there is information that may not even be wrong, but it is so often he was the college and is not provide some kind of balance thought. i don't know how to deal with that. i really and truly did not. it is absolutely true that people know watch, listen to or read to only those people his prejudices a share. that is another good thing. >> at the social media is a fascination that has taken over argues. they're free time is just taken up by the social media leaving no time for educating themselves

watching or listening to anything that serious. >> no doubt that a great deal of time is spent dealing with the social media. i find that twitter seems to be the choice of many people. what other limitations? 140 characters. that says quite a bit about the attention span of people right now. ameritrade what it says is that very good. >> i had an account of one of the social media forums for three days because i was curious i opened an account. i got so many messages that were just nonsense. it just blew my mind as that how these people have time to sit

around and talk about nothing. three days in a close the account. >> i think maybe it is can evolve. this will evolve. there is a certain fascination with it now. many people getting into it for the first time. they're fascinated. again, i hope that this will be the case, that it will lose some of its power to enthrall and people will look objectively as they wait a minute. why am i spending all this time. as i said, i hope that. i am not predicting it. >> power generation, can still remember, god and country to a pledge allegiance to the flag, persia schools, things of this nature. the last contents of mr. chair because we remember back when we

could leave our doors open in our community, we in this community life and everything. today the children are -- have lost the ability because they're all working, don't have time. they don't have the time to sit and talk around the family table and all of those wonderful things that we have as i was going up. my father was a hard-working individual pages texas and donated to the church and did all those wonderful things that were expected of him. only to become less cut today. we speak and half truths. everybody is worried about weather next dollars going to come from so that they can support a lifestyle which they have become accustomed to. that lifestyle might be declining in our children's children may not ever see it, but the use of believe that our generation probably is the last generation and is really the

conscience of this country of what it was founded on and that is deteriorated and going away? .. >> i heard winston churchill make speeches, and i heard fdr make speeches, and hitler make speeches. these people were products of the dust bowl and depression and

so on that they cared. my father used to take my to the legislature to listen to debate. that doesn't happen anymore. i think it's possible we do change, and a colleague of mine who is here to speak to you later, and we were discussing this last night, and he said, you know, when people talk about how divided we are, his book is on gettysberg, sounds excellent, and i look forward to reading it. he notes, and we think about these new numbers that we're talking 800,000 killed and seriously wounded in that war over four years. how much more di divisive can one be at that particular time? it's taken a long time to

recover from the civil war, and one of the things that really surprised me when i came back finally to no longer being on the road, was how much of the impact of the civil war was still with us in certain parts of the country particularly, and that's troubling, but nevertheless, the level of violence and divisiveness, is not, i would argue, not as great today. i think we can change. i don't think that there's some that we're doomed. again, i'm using the phrase i devoutly hope we're not, and i probably won't be around to see how it works out. i think we're finished. [applause]

>> i'm going to tell you a personal story today, and it's something that i normally don't do, but this story that i'm going to tell you is in large part what motivated me to write this second book, "what it is like to go to war," and one of the things i talk about in that second book is that our culture has basically got in some kind of an agreement, sort of the code of silence, about what really goes on in combat. what really goes on when our nation asks our kids to go out and kill some other kids. i think that we tend to sort of not want to think about it very much, and, you know, my family's the same as all families.

i was 50 years old when i found out my father fought in the battle of the bulge. well, dad, wasn't that a big deal? you never asked me. i got all kinds of stories about when they got drunk at normandy and that sort of stuff, but what it is is that, you know, our culture is good is on you don't whine and you don't drag. any combat veteran tells you it's 95% of the things to whine about and 4% of things to brag about. that doesn't leave you much to talk about in this culture. what i was hoping to do with this book was start breaking that down a little bit. a little personal history so you know. i grew up in a very small town in oregon, a logging town in east side oregon, and back when i grew up, i think virtually all

the fathers had been in world war ii, and we called it the service back then. that's when your uncle was in the service. our culture is making a change. i don't hear the service anymore, but i hear it called the military. i think that's an interesting switch in language that's happening, that we should think about, and i got a scholarship to yale, and i joined the marines because, you know, that was sort of the thing to do in my high school football team is join the marines, i wanted to be like them, go down there, and i joined the plc program. it's sort of like a marine r02tc, but they don't pay you. you run through boot camp in the summer, and those who survive go to college as reservists. you're not paid, but you're a marine. i thought that was a good deal. we didn't wear uniforms or march around during college, and then

i got a road scholarship, and i thought i wouldn't be able to go, but i wrote a letter to the marine corp., and they said, that's fine, take it. i was there about six weeks, and i started to feel really guilty because guys i served with and trained with and kids from my high school were there and lost five boys from my high school in vietnam, and there i am drinking beer, having a wonderful time with the english girls, and i sort of felt like i was hiding. i went to the war, third marine division, fourth marine, and we were stationed in the jungle in the mountains way up where the dmz meets the ocean border, and i was an infantry platoon commander, and the executive officer of the company, and then finally, after i got shot a couple times, the corp. figured he's too stupid, rash, or unlucky, so we have to pull him out. they put me in a spotter plane, and that's where the air medals

came from. how did you get air medals, you were in the infantry. i wrote this book, "whatitwhat it is like to go to war," for several reasons. the audience is young people considering making the military a career. i wanted to reach them. i don't want romantics, you know, joinings the united states military or armed forces, but i want people to join it with clear heads and clear eyes about they are really getting into it. i wrote it also for veterans because i struggled with a lot of things. if i struggled with it and can give clarity, someone reading it might be helped by it. i wanted to write it for the general public and policymakers, and as i get into the speech, it's very important to understand that we are involved very deeply in our wars. we tend to think we're not. i open the book with a quote

from bismarck, one of my favorite quotes, and he said, "any fool can learn from their own mistakes. i prefer to learn from other people's mistakes." i thought, well, if i can put down mistakes i learned the hard way, maybe someone else would do it. here's where i launched into the story. there was an assault, and going into various detail, and by this time, it broke into chaos. you have plans, but as soon as the first shot is fired, the plan goes open. the way it is really done is individual 18 and 19-year-old marines know the objective, and they figure out how to get there, and that's how it really works. two hand grenades came flying from the hill, explodes, and i was knocked unconscious. when i came too, you know, i was a mess, but still functioning, but we threw two grenades back,

and boom, boom. two more came flying out from the hole up above us, and we were scrambling uphill to get under them. they were below us. we were only going to have two grenades left. this is not smart. i pulled the two guys with me, i said, next time you through the grenades, i'm going to be around the side, and i'm going up to the hill in a position to shoot them when they stand up to throw grenades at us. i worked around the side of the hill, and i could see one of the soldiers was already dead, and the other one was, you know, just like us. he was a kid. you know, late teens, and he rose to throw the grenade, and our eyes locked. this is a very unusual thing in combat. you generally don't lock eyes with people you're about to kill.

he was no further away from me than the third or fourth row here. i waited for him. i whispered wishing i could speak vietnamese. if you don't throw it, i won't pull the trigger. he snarled, threw it, and i pulled the trigger. at that moment, i didn't feel a thing. in fact, i remember being slightly chagrined because i anticipated the recoil on the rifle, and drill sergeant kick you in the here end for bucking the shot, but i hit the dirt in front of the guy after he threw it, and, of course, the battle is still going on. years later, probably about ten years later, one of these california sort of groups that they had. you remember all the sort of california stuff about getting in touch with your feelings, and

nobody heard of ptsd. we were totally unaware of it. you know, people were dying, and i was there trying to get in touch with my families. my wife brought me there. you know, finally, the leader turns on me and says, well, you know, i understand you were in the vietnam war. she said, well, how do you feel about that? i said, well, you know, typical answer, and so she said, well, why don't we talk about it? she asked me to apologize to the kid i shot. i'm game. okay, i'll do that. i started to think about that kid, and that kid had a mother and a sister or whatever, and i started to cry, and i started to bawl. i mean, i started crying so hard that my ribs ached. i couldn't stop for three dayings. it was literally three days i

couldn't stop crying. i we want to work, sucked it up, and i had to leave, go outside and walk around. i managed to shove that down again. i had to deal with it. i got five kids to raise. at that time, i only had a couple, and fine, everything's cool again, you know. about 1990, i'm driving down i-5 at two in the morning, and this is a wonderful thing, all by yourself, a little dash board in front of you, country music on the radio, and nobody can touch you. you're doing something, trying to get somewhere, and two eyes appeared on the windshield in front of me, and i knew, i'm not crazy, but it was like, karl, you're going to have to deal with this. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> next, from the 2012 military writer symposium held anny