rooney, homer bigger and hall boyle. he speaks with chip cronkite, and tim win dell, and the associate editor of the washington post next on book tv. >> good evening and welcome to the national press club. i'm the aarp bull continues executive editor for state muss, former president of the national press club. our book tonight is "assignment to hell. the war against indiana si germany with war correspondences walter cronkite, andy rooney, aj lib ling, homer bigart, and hall boyle." and i just finished reading andy rooney's book. let me negligence some upcoming book wraps here at the national press club.

june 14th, liz win stead, comedian and coe crater of the daily show with discuss her book , "liz free or die." june 28th, the commander officer of the uss coll at the time of the attack will discuss his book about the attack on the uss coll. on july 12, his excellence si, john mow mam had, the vice president of the'm of ghana will discuss his book, my first cue -- coup d'etat. >> and on july 24, the renegades, and on september 19, jeffrey tubein, legal analyst for cnn and the new yorker, will discuss his book, the oath, the obama white house, and the supreme court. if you would like to receive an e-mail about up coming book wraps there's a list outside so

please sign up and we'll keep you in touch on upcoming book wraps. >> all of our book wraps here benefit the national press club journalism institute which is why we restrict outside books. copies of tim's book may be purchased if you haven't done so already, outside in the hallway. >> please do, thank you. >> joining tim on the panel this evening is chip cronkite, a producer, editor and filmmaker and the son of walter cronkite. chip was last here as a teenager in 1973 when his father received the first fourth estate award from the national press club and chip, glad to have you back and don't wait so long before coming back again. >> next to chip is david mariness. now associate editor at the washington post, co-author of two books and author of the book, president barack obama,

the story. and next to david is tim wendelly, author of nine books, including his most recent, summer of 68, the season when baseball in america changed forever. tonight's author, tim gay, is a former press secretary for senator jay rock feller and former congressmon, now senator, tomorrow carpin. he had unparalleled access to the papers and families of the five profiles in the book. he is current lay senior vice president at a washington government and public affairs firm. this is his third book. also the author of true speaker, the rough and tumble life of a baseball legend, and a saga about interracial baseball. the speakers will discuss the book and then we'll take questions from the audience for 20 minutes and then tim will

sign copies of the book and i'll turn the panel over to tim. >> thank you. >> thank you, larry. much appreciated. it does this irish heart good to see so many old pals in the audience and at the table. just a wonderful thing. can't tell you how much it means to me. as you can tell, impeached a little awkwardly here. i managed to tear up a knee a few weeks ago. i wish i could tell you i got wounded while storming a nazi stronghold in normandie, but the truth is, the truth is i tripped heading toward a poolside bar in search of a strawberry margurite attempt it's pathetic, i know. somewhere ernest hemingway just puked. >> show them where. >> there's sensitive legal matter is cannot disclose. it was at a well-known family resort in florida.

wink, wink. >> anyhow, it really would have made ernest hemingway, who hosted on christmas day, 1944, at the hotel. cravat in luxembourg city, very liquid criminal bash for fellow correspondents. hemingway wrote for tigers magazine, all the other correspond yeps following a little thing called the battle of the bulge were invited to papa's party that day, including a 28-year-old united press correspondent who happens to be chip's dad. oh to have been a fly on the wall at that gathering with ss assassination squads and tiger tanks working on the countryside, papa managed to score two bottles of booze despite the egg nog. and the whole thing went wild beyond midnight. the only one who did not get

pretty pie-eyed -- that's a direct quote from mr. cronkite -- what cronkite. a wire service correspondent, had deadlines to make so could not get as pie-eyed as everybody else. >> i remember that pie. [laughter] >> that's what he told your mom in a letter, and iminclined to believe him. hemingway makes several cameo appearances and assignment to hell. none of them particularly flattering. as andy rooney said you should never meet one of your literary heroes because all of your illusions get shattered. i promise this is going to be a lot of fun. a lot of back and forth stuff going here in just a bit. we have a great panel, and i just want you to know how honored i've been to have spent the last three years and how lucky i am to be paid to write something i care about as passionately as world war ii

journalism and to follow these five great correspondents, this journalistic band of brothers. walter cronkite of up. an amazing guy, we're fortunate toave chip with us tonight but which is lucky to be here at all. his old man flew on bombing missions over nazi germany. tracked uboats in those reconnaissance rattle traps that flew at such low altitude. he was the only american correspondent fly in a bomber over d-day. on august 16, 1944, he was sitting in a c-47 on a runway in britain, set to become one of only two correspondents to witness what have been the incredible, dramatic, parachute drop liberate paris but at the last second eisenhower cancelled

the mission because the first and third army were advancing across northern france rapidly. one month later, cronkite got to fulfill his wish. he went into market garden, into holland in a glider, carrying the top command of the 101st, including general anthony mcauliffe, who a couple of months later would become famous for saying "nuts" to the germans when they demanded surrender. so that's just a brief snapshot of cronkite. homer bigart, cronkite0s great friend, was like cronkite, trained by the eighth army air force, to fly on combat missions. like cronkite, homer covered the 303rd bomb group, and after that, he moved to the mediterranean theater. homer bigart went on two

cocommando raids behind enemy lines, one in sicily, one in the south of france. the first is the celebrated incident in the movie, patton, i'm sure you're familiar with it,y george c. scott, playing patton, lectures his underling, and says, courage, always courage, quoting frederick the great. a very controversial moment in world war ii history. the reason patton wanted the raid to move forward is he had reporters ready to go and he didn't want to be embarrassed and pull back. that's why there was the great tug of war. later, covered the great push up the boot of italy. he was on the beachhead at answerow for two months, and then covered the liberation of rome.

andy rooney of stars and e & stripes earned an air medal for going on five combat raids over the reich. ladder earned bronze star he never told anybody about for his coverage of the siege in normandie after d date, and he stood shoulder to shoulder, all covers the first army in that amazing battle. he was among the first into paris. sadly he didn't get his story out because 7-eleven wait circumstances bute was the first journalist on then scene until the bridge fell. among the first american correspondents to visit the awful death camp and the awful labor camp. an amazing world war ii career for kit, just 23-24 years old.

fourth guy is a. j. liebling, who got to -- he was a great -- got to cover the liberation of his beloved paris, and he also earlier in the war covered north africa, just brilliantly. hall boyle of the "associated press," cronkite's great rival, great wire service adversaries, hall boyle probably wrote more word about the european theater of conflict than any reporter. he was at operation torch from literally the first day. stayed in the european theater all the way through, was the first american newspaper man on the scene when the awful massacre of the unarmed guys, the prisoners, was discovered, and just an amazing series of

guys, and i say that they were ajournallistic band of brothers. and i'm barely scratching the surface. i'm leaving out hundreds of stirring moments. it takes a village to write a book like this, and i'm indebted to the guys at this table who helped me at every team. tim wendell writes beautifully on everything, especially baseball and world war ii, his stuff is in a great tradition of hall boyle. tim is a great teller of tales. boyle won a pull later in '44 for his brilliant coverage of italy and then post-norm unanimous di. homer bigart, the great pal of betsy weight who waithe, told me when home are was introduced as a pulitzer winner, he would say,

two times. two time pulitzer winner, spoofing the pretentiousnessf all but reminding people, yeah, he won the award twice and we're honored that one of the very few other people in our -- in the history of our journalism is with us tonight, david. and used to be that -- well, let me say this. it seems to me that david's stuff, his newspaper stuff, very few people can write with the bite and the breath of homer bigart, but in david's newspaper stuff he can. and in longer form stuff, magazine pieces, books, very few writers can write with the style and pen natch of the great joe liebling and david can. most frightening words in america uses to be, michael moore is in the lobby.

now it's maraniss is interviewing your ex-girlfriend. >> and to now to chip. it's not easy being the child of a famous person, especially when your real dad is everybody else's surrogate dad. chip did not know me from adam when the process started three years ago. i called him just a few weeks after his dad died. which could not have been an easy time for him. could not have been more helpful, more gracious, a better gentleman. went into the family archives, dug out a bunch of stuff that nobody had seen before. went through his dad's personal papers, dug up a bunch of stuff, and after his dad's long lost wartime correspondence was discovered, chip made absolutely sure that i had full access to everything. i'm delighted that chip's son, walter iv, who is working at

cbs, with held from his former hamilton college professor, will be bringing out a book of the definitive wartime letters of walter cronkite. it will be out in a year and could not be more pleased. in fact i defy anyone to read the letter that walter cronkite wrote to his wife, betsy on, christmas eve 1943 and not tear up. chip's sister, kathy, and i were looking at it in a restaurant and we both started blubbering. that's okay because chip0s old man was a blubberer, too. >> early on, chip and i were exchanging e-mail notes over some of the classic cbs news videos that his dad had been part of. these historical recreation films. this one happened to be a dramatic recreation of the recents of december 7, 1941. nathan could you run a little --

>> located in the cbs news room here in new york. the regularly scheduled news program, the world today, is now on the air. it's now a few second past 2:30 p.m. >> a soviet spokesman commented -- . >> lookedded a this thing and thought, that's the guy who used to be on "i dream of jeanie." so i immediately e-mailed chip to that effect, and as soon as i hit send, regretted it. he's a cronkite. he went to duke. he's going to think i'm a no-cultured dweeb and i just shot my credibility with this guy, and the program wasn't even on cbs. i think it was nbc. so, i was sitting there, really upset with myself, and two seconds later my computer beeped.

it was chip. and it read, the actor's name was hayden oreck. i was thrilled to deliver a script to him once in hollywood. we loved "i dream of jeanie" in the cronkite household. exclamation point. so, simpatico, having boned over barbara eden, we were friends for life. there are dozens of things we can explore here but i boiled down to three, and especially how the three themes affected two great correspondentends, two great friends who stayed inseparable friend for the rest of their lives, walter cronkite and homer bigart, both credentials to covered the 303rd bomb group, which that's they did brilliantly month after monthin' 1943. the first thing is how these five correspondents rose to the

challenge despite being so wet behind the ears. there was nothing about their backgrounds to suggest that they could cover a global conflict. not to put too fine a point on it but we're talking about boyle and cronkite, and bigart. they were gum shoe journalists. cronkite basically was a fuzz and was guy when he worked at kansas city and u.p. broyle specialized in covering street crime there was very little about their backgrounds to suggest they were ready for this type of challenge. let me read something to you quickly. >> this is from chapter 3. bigart, too lived a parochial existence. harrison, the future new york timessed disfor -- portrait of the early war bigart as a journeyman with know foreign language, no foreign experience

forks more knowledge of war or foreign affairs, than he could glean from the headlines, accurately described the other three as. we just as world war ii brought out the best in general eisenhower and bradly. it stirred something within cronkite, ronee, broyle, and bigart, they may not have known they head. >> the second theme i'd like to kick around tonight is the physical and mental courage it took for these guys to cover dead and wounded soldiers, day after day. there are no shortage of incredibly harrowing and heard-renting stories, and third is the leg gay they left to us. i don't know if you saw robert mcneill's review of my book in sunday's post but i was so honored a journalist of mr. mcneill's stature would reviewed. but he challenged my premise at the end of the book that niece guys came back home after the war and created the greatest era

of press independence and integrity in american history. and we've got a very distinguished panel and a lot of great people in the audience to kick that around. so, with that, a second ago we were laughing about the historical recreation stuff that cbs was part of in the '50s, and chip's dad was such an instrumental part of. instead of me describing it to those of you in a younger generation who weren't around, nathan could we run the clip here? italy as well as japan followed the attack. the damage battledship, the nevada, west virginia, maryland, california, tennessee and pennsylvania, performed valiantly as the war rolled on. with pearl harbor, began the

long, hard, heroic road to victory through the canal and ended on the battleship missouri with the surrender of the japanese. equally hard the road, eannually heroic the men who fought on the hot sand of africa, and beaches or normandie. fight fog freedom and equality. what sortf day was it? a day like all days. and you were there. >> quick show there. who else misses that guy? that's what i figure. here's our first kind of question. what is it that we miss about that guy? and the world war ii? i'm sorry. what is it that we miss about mr. cronkite and this generation of journalists?

why does it stir the soul to see stuff like that? so i'm just going to open it up to you guys. >> well, i should recuse myself, i think. because i was there. the question is meant to be historical, not personal, and i can only -- i'm an opt miss -- optimist, and i think so many journalist today, there are plenty like him. that's my counterargument, that -- >> oh i wish that were true. >> my first reaction is not to your question but to the thought that i was about 12 years old when those shows were running, and i remember them vividly.

but the thought that struck me is, that was maybe 12-14 years after world war ii, but world war ii seemed ancient. and it just completely out of the realm of our -- the baby-boomers' world, and yet go back 12 or 14 years from now and where are you? in the middle of the clinton administration which seems like yesterday. i mean, literally. and so just a difference of that era. everything changing from after world war ii so dramatically that it seemed like it was from a different time and place completely. i think that's part of the romance of this, that the world changed so dramatically. >> did at the korean war wash people's memories of the heroic -- >> the korean war is the forgotten war.

>> wasn't forgotten medley. >> i'm sure it wasn't at the moment, but i think -- the other thing, you mentioned, chip, that probably -- might be journalists like that now, but there's such an overwhelming amount of information and misinformation and different forms of -- platforms of information. they were so simple then it gave it much more power. >> i think these guys certainly were under deadlines, amazing deadlines and such, but i think there was more pauses than -- we're in this 24/7 and you write for the blog and the internet and you write for whatever running and your story and whatever it mate be. what i love about that voice, even today, is it has the authority and also has that pause or hashat look back but it has an element of i think

empathy, and compassion, and that's something that is very difficult to find these days simply because the generalles are running -- jerry jury gerbiless are running fast on the treadmill. >> the question is, were these guys prepared? the beauty is they sort of completely were emblematic of the g.i.s. these were drafted guys. these weren't like professional soldiers and they were up for the task. and so the fact that the press had to go through the same thing is sort of -- echos that. >> when i see cronkite, i see glow. i see somebody who held us together. he is aned a he'ssive and so many anchors or television personalities, they're abrasive. it's all polarizing now. seems to me he represented the absolute best in trying to pull things together. i think that's why we have such nostalgia.

>> i even wonder if we're allowed to pull things together these diz. the ones that tends to dish don't know -- get the bigger shows or ratings, are the ones that are the most polarizing and, therefore, are simply catering to the audience. >> the other thing that strikes me, guys, if it's true that somewhere around 40% of graduating american high school seniors believe we fought russian russia in world war ii, maybe it's time to recycle the old "you are there" stuff. >> talk about teacher -- >> looked a little dweeby in black and white but there has to be something to do to reach kids. >> i don't think human nature changes. i think the culture changes around it. so there are as many people who had problems with fdr and -- had mccormick. what would those people be like if they had the power of the

technology of today then? how would it be split? >> well, continuing the same theme, anyway that, if you would show -- nathan, if you would show that still picture, which is indecipherable, but i'll explain it in a second. >> there it is. that's one of my absolute all-time favorite photographs. chip dug thought out of his old man's personal papers. >> about one by two. >> which is why it's so tough and blurry. that's thereat walter cronkite and the great homer bigart, standing in front of the barracks at the 303rd bomb group, and if you didn't know better, wouldn't you sayre it was peter graves and william holden from stalag 17? and that's the good guys.

that's how the good guys left. imagine how barren it was to be in a german stalag. anyhow, i know from my research in the correspondence his mom that photograph was taken on february 19, 1943, exactly one week before the assignment to hell raid. these two guys had been trained by the mighty eighth, the eighth u.s. army air force, on combat raid. they were right in the middle of the training when that photograph was taken. they were supposed to be covering that day's mission, but because of bad weather, that day's mission had been scrubbed. so they borrowed a couple of binges, pedaled round at the country side and visited the tavern not once but twice. so i don't mow how many pitchers of beer went down. you can see mr. cronkite holding up a signing unbeknownst to

homer, the whole idea was to surprise homer with this. the sign read "keep off the grass." there was no grass to keep off of, of course. this was an air drone base and was just absolute muck. but it's absolutely amazing to think that on february 19, 1943, they were both anonymous grunts. had done very little to distinguish themselves in their wartime correspondence. all of that changed one week hence when they went on an amazing bombing run. we had been bombing the third reich since july of 1942 but we had only bombed germ my proper three times at that -- germany proper three times. here it is 14 months after pearl harbor and the only real action to speak of in the european

theater are these amazingly brave bomber boys who risk life and limb to take the fight directly to adolph hitler, and yet it's taken all this time to get the manpower, the materiale, everything required to mount a meaningful bombing campaign against hitler. so that day, on february 26th, 1943, the riding 69th, they called themselves, they also calleds. thes the flying type writers, and after a few beers, the legion of the doomed. ...

we call that strategic bombing, precision bombing. this was very early. there were no fighter escorts. after 100 miles the british spitfires would turn around, returned to their bases and these guys would fly completely exposed over the north sea. absolutely remarkable stuff. so the whole idea behind it was they were going to go on constant missions. let me give you just a little flavor of what they're training was like. and it also will give you some sense of how brilliant a writer

he was. we didn't realize until the top lawyers in the eighth cleared the -- that we have to tend gunnery school for week. we are going to go on a bomber battle. we were told we better know how to shoot a gun in case we got in trouble. at buffington on our instructional base the entourage was instructed in oxygen. first aid, aircraft identification and ditching out, which meant abandoning a plane by parachute. tigard explained to readers in the "herald tribune" on debris. it was stirring the tenet alex hogan's ditching out lectures that some of us that like hopping the next train back to london's paddington station. the lieutenant is a pleasant lead from starkville mississippi, but his discourse was a bit grim. what would happen a reporter asked if they ditched into the north the unit enemy plane swooped down to investigate?

in that event hogan replied, waiting for the raf and wave them on. lieutenant hogan wasn't alone. other trainers gave them equally unsettling counseling. one medical officer bigert officer bigert wrote painted an unforgettable picture of what might happen to her fingers if we took f our gloves at 30,000 feet. another urge them could constantly yawn and swallow after takeoff to relieve pressure on the eardrums. this next line is in honor of my 19-year-old son and if it offends anyone i apologize in advance. since flatulance in a ra fight altitude could be painful and hazardous, he also prescribed avoiding gas and food such as beans, chips and red cabbage and to treat beer bigert roach like the plague. what else are we supposed to eat?

[laughter] bear aircraft recognition was yorkshire named bernard bene hall. the raf search and was an expert teacher having flown some four dozen combat missions, a fourth of them over it germany that his yorkshire accent was baffling at worst bigert wrote. he kept talking about positions until some of us began drawing outlines of the spherical dutch cheese with rennet. later it developed he was referring to aircraft approaching. cronkite -- conk comp right remembered halls during it barely intelligible tribute to hawker hurricane fighter. this year the raf man said while displaying a silhouette of the domed ceiling is the -- a mighty nice aircraft. it helped her troops when rommel had them on the run. i protected the boys getting out

of greece and it was a big help in getting out of norway. the hurricane as a matter fact was essential in all our defeats. [laughter] anyhow, they get back from wilhelm in one piece. the three planes, the only one that hit by a german fighter or with flak is rooney's b-17. cronkite survives. bigert survives an old soldier that he knows that old soldier. and they get back to molesworth by design and the meet they meet up with harrison salisbury and the top public relations officers of the air force and they get the very bad news. robert perins' post to have been an original fraternity member, reporter from "the new york times," his be 24 had been shot down.

they had seen to perish two pair shots, but the bee 24 and sadly he was not one of them. us ended very abrupt way they're writing th. there had been big plans for them to go on constant bombing missions but as soon as people realized just how perilous it was, that was all canceled. now rooney ended up going on for more missions over at the third reich, earning his air medal. cronkite went on an incredible mission with be 26's lower altitude sort of medium bombers in february of 1944, five months before d-day. cronkite went on and attack over the pot a callway and do you know he was attacked in? the v1 rocket launch sites and of course he gets back to england and he cannot say in his article that it was 51 long side. he is to use euphemisms like

super weapons. chips dad got into some hot water from his bosses for that mission and chips dad produced a 2-month-old memo saying, see, you guys told me i could go on this trip. [laughter] >> they weren't legally supposed to have weapons training, where they? >> no, they sure weren't. no, but it is fascinating. chips dad, conscience free, hammered away at .50 caliber on the wilhelm mission on the plastic nose of his b-17. homer at bigert was the waste gun of his b-17 hammering away and interesting bernie grenada stars & stripes guy was regular army, chose not to use the machine gun. cronkite said it was impossible to try to keep track of these german fighters.

the bombers were going to the north sea had 300 miles an hour. the mashers mets were coming at them at 500 miles an hour. there would be at tiny speck on the horizon all this showed and shooting past them and here's cronkite who is never really shot one of these things before except trying to hammer away and if you think about this, all the other b-17s were in a formation with them. poor bigert was tormented the rest of his life that he had shot down robert perkins plane. it would have been impossible. they weren't closeinformation but bigert was tormented by all of that. >> and they all had to -- how many of them wrote opus across that same day when they got back wax. >> yeah well, right. the amazing story that chips dad would have been up for about two days and then up writing what became the famous assignment to hell lead, the moment the completely transformed his

reputation. it was then, and it's interesting that night, february 27th come the day after composing his story cbs calls and a guy named john charles daly. anybody else remember him? man, you've got to be over this. what did he host? anybody remember? >> what the my line. >> there you go. they used to wear a black tie on what's my line in the 50s. john charles daly was one of the guys in london and interview chips dad that night to get his impressions of the wilhelm rate. it was the first time your father ever appeared on pbs. so just looking at these two guys and looking at this great picture, knowing what they meant to the future of journalism what is your assessment? when you think about bigert and cronkite together at that point

in their lives? >> well as i said earlier vigor to as a figure of my childhood and adolescence. i'm sorry, cronkite. almost the voice of god. for a family uncle, somewhere in between. and complete authority. and trustworthiness. bigert, because i am a writer, and i really didn't know about cronkite's writing as a kid or even later really, bigert later became one of my heroes and he was -- most journalists who knew of his writing because of his clarity, its sensibility and sense of humor and just everything about it seemed absolutely perfect.

so, i mean i think one is the voice of god and the other is the voice i wish i could have as a writer. >> tim? >> i think what strikes me often with these guys too is the fact that being together, something spurred them on. we were talking earlier about how green they were and how it's very -- inexperience in a lot of ways they mirrored the servicemen in the military guys over there but on the other hand, you know they grew up in a hurry and they grow up in a hurry large because the company kept. i think anybody who has been in the business knows you get better when you kind of emulate or somebody kind of pushes you along that maybe you are even -- have a computer with a laptop right next to you. they are setting the bar kind of high and then you have to set a kind of high and i think these guys, that is one of great things about this book that tim has done, is taken some names

that are somewhat commonplace and then some other names may be that we haven't heard as much about and you realize a synergy in the kinship between all of them and how in a sense they elevated all their games in part because of the company they kept. >> bigert was an incredible influence on his generation beginning with andy rooney who hero worships him because bigert always asked, always asked the obvious question that nobody else would ask. huai? and why are we doing this? okay, explain that again. i'm sorry, explain it one more time please. and it seems to me that often that is the persistence missing in today's journalism. i think larry is giving me the high signs anything can we skip ahead to the last couple of things here? thanks to chip we were able to pull out of cbs news a copy of d-day plus 20, which is the

classic 1964 cbs news documentary. i see some heads nodding. that mr. cronkite did with the great late eisenhower. if we could show to quick clips. guys you may want to stand up see this because it's a wonderful moment. very early on in the shooting, this happened. >> you can see from back here walter, this was where the battle took place and it was the natural thing to do because you knew you could blow out roads if necessary. that is what we were trying to get through. there of course is the battle finally developed, everything went fine. e first day was really a tough one. here comes another nunn. how do you do, sister?

how do you do? how do you do, sister? i must say this has been the most interesting thing to look at. if the gis of 20 years of go could have seen that, that would have been something. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> thanks. that is why we liked it. wonderful moment sister, how do you do, sister? right. i think we are kind of running out of time so if it's okay could we skip ahead to the final thing? it's really important that we close on the snow. my book begins in the most sacred place in the world,

normandy cemetery above omaha beach, and this wonderful documentary concludes inhat same sacred place, with two great iconic figures. >> 86th battalion, the 90th division, arizona. josephs flow-back, the 29th division. that was the woodward of the 29th, terry ramsey new jersey, watered klaus, 82nd airborne. kentucky. i think there are some 9000 toys who fly here. i guess most of the casualties from d-day are here. >> all of those except that were taken home. about 60% of them are taken home. the identifiable.

>> be id. it -- the unidentified, there are some here and there at the names of the missing of horse on the monument. 1500 missing, never were found. >> and the names are all on the walls. >> this cemetery includes all the d-day casualties, most of us those back into the normandy fighting. >> that has been -- they were gathered by the battle monuments, up as far as -- [inaudible] >> and of course this is just one of the cemeteries that stretch from, well from here around the world really.

spiel walter, d-day has a very special meaning for me. i am not referring barely to the anxieties of the day. the anxieties that were a natural part of sending in and the invasion where you knew that many, hundreds of boys were going to give their lives or be maimed forever. but my mind goes back so often to this fact. on d-day, my son graduated from west point and after his training, he came over with the 71st division and it was sometime after this. on the very day he was graduating, these men came here, british and our other allies in america to storm the speeches for one purpose only, not to

gain anything for ourselves, not to fulfill any ambitions that america had for conquest, but just to preserve freedom, systems of self-government in the world. many thousands of men have died for ideals such as these. here again, in the 20th century, for the second time in america, along with the rest of the people, americans had to come across the ocean to defend those same values. now my own son has been very fortunate. he has had a very full life. he is the father of four lovely children that are very priceless to my wife and me. but these young boys, so many of

them, wondering and contemplating about their sacrifices, they were cut off in their prime. they had families the grief them but they never knew the great experiences of going through life like my son. i hope we will never again have to see such scenes as these. i hope and pray that the humanity -- [inaudible] but these people gave us a chance, and they bought time for us so that we could do better than we have before. so every time i come back to these beaches, or any day when i think about that day 20 years ago, i say once more, we must

find some way to work toward peace and to gain eternal peace for this world. >> thank you. now you see why i was honored to write this book and why am honored to be part of this discussion. we are happy to answer any questions you might have. yes, sir? >> what do you think the common gis said in a time of combat, philosophically, why is he over there and what is his cause? i mean, what motivates him and what makes him wish to get home alive? >> i think there are two things. i think stephen ambrose brought it out beautifully in citizen soldiers in abu ghraib looks

that he wrote. it was really about company camaraderie. it was about looking out for your friends. great statements about idealism and all the rest did not work when it came to bat actual combat on the ground and there was his great desire to get home. yes, sir? >> he told me once he said i'm not a brave man, not a military man. i just didn't want to make exses the rest of my life. >> it was incredible to me and i didn't get a chance to read this, one of my favorite post of mr. cronkite is a great admiration he had for flyboys which i think later translated into great admiration or astronauts. but at one point in 43 in early 44, your chances of hitting back in those combat missions were no better than one in six or seven. imagine that.

imagine having to cover those kids. you would see them at breakfast and they would fly off in at least 10%, maybe 20%, wouldn't come home. somewhere even more catastrophic than that and let me say that i'm not the only person who rolls their eyes in this room when politicians say, you know they want a government as good as the people of the united states or how inspired they are by the people of the united states because i think we have all seen people with maybe less than inspiring moments. when walter cronkite and homer pickard and all the rest saw americans at their absolute best. maam. who hopped and hopped and hopped pacific? i knew bob so i'm sort of curious and some of the extort -- stories were quite extraordinary. had there have been a similar book on reporters like bob who covered the pacific the way you have on this story? >> no, but there is a guy i know

who is thinking about doing that but. [laughter] would you mind if i do a? >> is a fascinating story in itself. >> yeah it is and i think the pacific too often gets overlooked especially tarzan all the rest were phenomenal reporters and of course homer was there for the last year. homer won his pulitzer covering the pacific, so i would love to do it one more time. yes sir? >> talk a little bit about how this book came about. howard, i mean, how did you get into doing it and just tell us a little bit about the genesis of the book. >> my buddies from georgetown university, federal -- fellow history buffs and when mr. cronkite passed away i was struck a two things. one has come instead of the usual jaded e-mails that we exchange when people leave us,

it was pure reference andthat was the depth and the respect of mr. cronkite and gendered on so many of us and that i was struck when chips dad died so few of the obituaries mentioned his world war ii legacy. it was like an afterthought. as tim said a second ago, the sort of baby boomer obsession. everything was -- all the issues we associate mr. cronkite within the 60's and seventies in vietnam and the kennedy assassination and watergate and all the rest. those things are important, don't get me wrong but i think if mr. cronkite were with us, he would say world war ii where we defined him and chip i will defer to you if you want to -- >> all these guys, few of them went to vietnam, and they asked why and too again i don't

remember who was asking why in korea. but, the general who took over for westmoreland was associated, a friend of my dads from dad's from the battle of the bulge, creighton abrams with whom he had dinner before he left on his fact-finding trip or mood finding trip in february of 1968. >> the tet offensive. >> after the tet offensive he goes to, to check it out for himself and has dinner with his old. abrams who apparently is saying the same thing, that my dad and subsaying a few days later, that this is all fouled up and there is no good way out and there are

other people saying it, but because there were was so little other internet noise, he was left with the responsibility to, my dad, to say it out loud that this war didn't seem justified any more. which wasn't radical so much as commonsensical. >> in an enormous moment that is replicated today. >> it was only four years after the beach there. >> that is exactly correct and i think many of you know the great story of lg baked -- lbj watched mr. cronkite turned the television off and turned to his aides and said well if i have lost cronkite, i've lost america. just very quickly, chip mentioned that homer pickard was

in korea and he won another pulitzer in korea and partnership with the great marguerite higgins. marguerite was every bit as tough and ornery as homer and homer was no misogynist. marguerite would give homer greek and homer would return it just as good as he caught it got it and when word came down and forgive me -- you know what's coming. ms. higgins was expecting. homer said, really? who is the mother? [laughter] then when the baby came into being, homer inquired, if marguerite had eaten its? [laughter] m. betsy, his great protége, once worked up the courage to say to homer, you know whom or which of those stories is true homer said, yes. [laughter] any other questions? yes maam.

>> how this affected and as a noncombatant i have always wondered how people live their lives after going through these things. my uncle was john hirsi, both japan and europe and he never talked about. i never ask questions and then i wished i had. but he was another of these gentlemen who got through this. he was the same age. >> just brilliant and he was in europe as well as the pacific. >> everybody has their own war. presumably. i've never been a combatant either. i guess it's, not to bring the blood and guts stories home, to instead bring the funnier stories home to the dinner table. so i don't know. >> yes, sir.

>> from a -- mindset. if lbj said that if cronkite weren't with us, if i lost cronkite i had lost america and this understanding that the vietnam war was not worth it, was not worth pursuing something valuable. i'm just wondering especially if chip could answer this. was the value of world war ii in your father's mind one of the things that let him to see that, maybe thinking this war, world war ii should've should have been the last four and when we look at vietnam and korea, those wars can't measure up. >> well, no border measures up to world war ii. it was unquestionably right

against wrong. it was also a lot shorter from our point of view, a lot more intense but it was over quicker. people got home quicker. this war today that we are in, the tenth year of, has a much different impact on all of us because it only impacts a very small number of us. and those so greatly so o of balance, and these folks were told to go over there and stay or if they get to come back, they are told to go right back. it's not the question, but it's

another question. >> well i would like to ask a question of all of you and it goes back to what i mentioned a couple of minutes ago about mr. mcneil suggesting i had exaggerated the view that these guys to come back from the war and created something that it never really been before. they may journalism an honorable profession. they made it an absolutely essential part of american democracy which in many ways it had not been before. and they created in my view, the greatest era of independence and integrity in history. and i would like to throw it out and get give people's reaction. yes maam. >> i would like to react to the last speaker. my dad trained pilots from world war ii and flew b-29's and korea, 94 missions over korea, first navigator and he told me

he had a great admiration for walter cronkite because my dad was working on shuttle systems. he was out there with the guys with no gravity things and everybody thought that was a fun thing to do. but i asked my dad, did he ever think about the people on the ground when he was dropping bombs over korea? he said he don't think about that. you just think about the mission. and as soon as they bombed the bridges they would be rebuilt in a very fast turnaround time, but he also said the press were helpful in keeping their numbers straight because all of the time the commanding officer -- often time one would account for and from account six and they would be on the same piece of turf but it was the reporter and the journalist that was the arbiter on what the actual numbers might be and they kept their redundancies and exaggerations to a minimum. but i would also like to say something about korea.

when we declared war that was certainly was a hell of a fight. kos be my dad and the other guys all pointed out that although they went up in two or three missions, they chose whether to go off or not. your dad went up 96 more times. >> they often didn't talk about it. they kept secrets back then because they had to. >> a question about whether the total guerrilla war that was the second world war and its consequence, which was this equally heroic journalism that came about thereafter is the same question about whether the heroic and total board that was the revolutionary war and the heroic politics that came afterwards isn't sort of the same question that a row at times has this effect on us as

individuals and as a society and there is nothing else like it. we haven't had something like it so we don't have that sort of thing. via think that is a very perceptive point, john and anyone else care to comment on it? >> the odds against you and the support we had to have from france and how we almost lost. >> as they say, yeah? >> not a golden age in journalism though. [laughter] >> well, come on. >> can i say one thing? i think we did have some incredible combat journalism which lasted through vietnam, and then changed again because of the depression of the government essentially. >> yeah. i wish we could've gotten censorship because it's a fascinating issue here. yes sir. >> george c. marshall of force

course in the marshall plan, there is a story about him. generals were telling reporters what to write for the stars and stripes and he came down on them real hard. he said look them right what they are destined to right. see supported them 100%. >> oh yeah. eisenhower, the last thing he wanted was cheerleading from stars & stripes. and that they were running these -- he told them to cut it out. he wanted real journalism and andy bernie was part of that. >> the baby boom generation grew up with many world war ii movements and we so correspondence character about how they were viewed by the g.i. an airman in the navy and your research and your experience with your dad, what did you learn about how the correspondent felt that the gis and soldiers and airmen fell about -- felt about that in their role? >> well i think, they were see

mates and they appreciated -- like marshall, they appreciated having the story told. they appreciated having their old stories told and appreciated the fact-checking and i have heard from vietnam vets that they appreciated the -- the question of why to the big questions. [inaudible] >> i see one of the things the g.i.'s admired about these five correspondents and about the likes is that they were with him in the trenches. they were taking the same risks. not to the extreme, but they were there. the reason ernie pyle became so wildly popular at the beginning of the war is that press guys felt comfortable around him, opened up to him and he began writing these wonderful

profiles. we don't have time to ginti into boyle. boyle called himself the poor man's pile. he said i'd write for the people who read -- i'm sorry. i write for the people who read ernie pyle over the shoulder people reading ernie pyle. imagine, i screwed it up. [laughter] just an amazing, hal boyle wasn't an amazing guy. ap insisted on calling him harold bee boyle. it's tough to compete with that. if you want to have a couple of years, harold p. boyle sounds like you are an accounting professional. >> they didn't have the same kind of notoriety among them. what was the difference and david may be able to --

between the experience in iraq and the experience of these correspondents in world war ii? >> david? >> well i think the difference is, aside from the technological differences, there is sort of a cultural difference builds up over those 50 years of the relationship between the press and the military. and so, i just don't think -- as i has listed the beginning, the fact that most of the soldiers in world war ii were just thrown in, it enlistees, and so were the writers, there is a much closer parallel. and the press and the military now are unfortunately to separate culture so there isn't the same -- i mean people can overcome it. good journalist can do it and they can also write the truth

but there's just a lot more obstacles to overcome. >> and they were embedded in just one unit. they were not allowed to -- >> yeah, they sought from one narrow perspective and some knew how to do it in the larger perspective and some got lost and became the cheerleaders that eisenhower didn't want. >> in italy things went sideways very quickly and it ended up just being a miserable place that really had the feel of world war i church warfare. boyle and bigert will both there literally every day and both especially bigert very pointed reporting. bigert in the effort guys covering the miserable stalemate that took place in both places. they printed the truth and sure they had to go through sensors

and all the rest but you have to give them a lot of credit. larry. >> we will take one more question. >> make this brief, william? >> now we have lots of film and lots of tweaks and lots of things to do but we don't have letters the way these two. is that going to make a big difference in the future cracks? >> absolutely. [laughter] >> it every historian is worried about that. >> is a little scary. if you could only read -- just think if he was tweeting it would be reduced to 140 characters. when he wrote her of the letter on the airplane as he was scheduled to fly into paris to parachute into paris for the first allied airborne, i mean he went on for two and half pages of sweet nothings because he

again. just extraordinary stuff. well guys, thank you so much. >> thank you. [applause] >> known as fsg in the book publishing world, sarita varma is one of the oldest book publishers in the united states and joining us here at oak expo america in new york city is sarita varma who was the director of publicity for fsg. we wanted to talk with her about some of the new books coming out right this publisher in the fall of 2012. sarita varma i want to start with william chase' new book, bill and hillary. >> bill and hillary is written by william chase. he is a specialist in race and gender studies and he gives us a

fascinating portrait of their relationship and how hillary supports a bill during his various personal crises actually afforded her the opportunity to increase her platform publicly and become a prominent politician and intern the same thing happened with bill. in a way to look at this new partnership in a modern presidential relationship between the president and the first lady. a really fascinating insider. >> is the market annie in public, is there a market for more clinton books? >> you know, i think there is just from the initial sort of release of the very early editions of the book. people cannot put it down. it's just fascinating the insight you get about their family history, their personal stories and their extensive interviews with stephanopoulos and rubin and many power players that are still out in the public sphere today. if it will change the way we look at the relationships between presidents and their first partners going forward.

>> is a coming out before the election? >> it's coming out december fourth, just-in-time. >> patrick thailand has a new book out. "the new york times" reporter, correct? >> has been a correspondent from the "new york post" and he wrote a book on the middle east before this. the hook is really looking at the history of israel and making the argument that the military has always been a large part of the strategy for the country and a very essential part and they basically need to come to terms with their military history and the role of the military in the government in order to achieve peace. is a complicated situation and he just looks at it through a new lens. spain finally i wanted to ask you about e book on the 1958 chinese -- famine. >> the great famine. the book tombstone is really quite a fascinating look at the great famine.

he is a member of the communist party and had unprecedented access to archives and also had a personal connection with a victim of the famine so he goes back and looks at the statistics in the and the records and re-creates how public policy has led to the so-called natural disaster. in fact the famine really could have been avoided or happen to a much lesser extent of policies would have allowed people to migrate and find food. so it is just a fascinating look at an unknown story. >> sarita varma what book are you excited about that fsu is coming out with? >> there are many but i think for the c-span audience another book we haven't touched on is robert sullivan's line american revolution which is kind of the fascinating matchup of looking at the american revolution and reclaiming it for new jersey and new york and kind of revisiting that history but also through the modern-day lens of bri and