it creates rising incomes. in the cyclical setting, how do you ask how do we manage to get out of our current problems? that is a tough one because we have got this horrible european environment of recession that is going to be a drag on us and then howard and i disagree on how rapidly we should take the cure. i am very fearful if we have a 4% of gdp, and we are talking about the fiscal cliff equal to 4% of our total outlay. for took that out and left without which is what would happen forever, we would have not a recession, not a great recession. we would have been even greater recession than we have now. europe has try that experiment. they have cut their spending by 1.5% of gdp and it has brought them into a situation. >> let me give governor dean a chance.

>> there are other panels with economic backgrounds. i rest my case on the fiscal cliff. i think at one point, 3% consecutive drop in gdp for two quarters is not great but we have to deal with the deficit and washington is certainly not going to do it so i would stick to my guns on the fiscal cliff. i think there are two things that we have not talked about. one comment i think one is good. in in the long run but it is very painful and that is free trade. my friends in the labor hate free trade in the truth is free trade is good for the world. geopolitically it stabilizes people's behavior. george w. bush was first elected, people have forgotten us, a short time after he was elected one of the fighter planes was spying on the chinese coast in the chinese claim that it was in its airspace. one of their hotshot fighters crashed its fighter into our plane.

our plane was disabled and their plane went down and he was killed. in 10 days, not just the crew came home but the plane was dismantled and sent home back to the united states of america. that never would have happened 20 years earlier. why did that happen? is the chinese are doing so much business with us that they can afford to provoke a major international incident and they will be much more careful than they would have been before. so i think international trade is a very good thing but it spread -- been very painful to manufacturing the manufacturing countries of the world. the adjustment will continue. i think we are beginning to see that you can get through that and develop different kinds of jobs in high-end jobs and i totally agree that education and so forth will be part of that. so i do think that is a permanent structural change in the american economy. we will have to make adjustments in continue to make adjustments to make it tougher. the other thing is i believe our capital systems are not working and i think it is because of the

size of banks. you can do visitors and better so big that they can't take risks. he has talked about the punishment of excesses of capitalism and failure. he can't fail you can imagine the kind of mistakes and that is what is going on to this day. the banks are too big and they are big enough that they we need to bail them out than they are too big. why do i say that's? is not just their bad behavior investing in credit default swaps and all this that doesn't do much. 85% of credit default swaps are just gambling chips were 15% is reasonable hedges. why is this a problem other than turning wall street into a gambling -- because i used to work for the biotech industry and you can't get people to invest in biotech. they can make a hell of a lot more money feeling around with credit default swaps and collateralized mortgage. and u2's change the tax code.

i'm the only democrat in america who believes we have to give get right of all taxes on all capital gains in the next five or 10 years and have no capital gains whatsoever for investments of the same people will start thinking about investing their money long-term as opposed to investing in these for is financial instruments that don't do anything but create a few jobs on wall street for kids who want to drink a lot of liquor and smoke cigars. this does remind me of the 1920s and we can do better. [applause] >> okay, i am anxious to start taking questions from the audience so again the rules are that if you can, if you are comfortable please stand back in any case identify yourselves and keep your questions short and don't direct them all to governor dean. [laughter] >> my name is marcia reed and i live in new hampshire. i'm a state legislator.

and i constantly hear the term entitlement programs, and social security is one i like to take an example of. it's not entitlement. uyghur and it. we paid into it. all our working lives, and so did our employers. everybody is worried about the future of social security for our children and our grandchildren. where's the stupid cap? why doesn't anybody ever consider just lifting the cap on it? >> a good question. roger do you want to have a quick shot at it? >> there are two answers. one is, not you personally that you the american public did not pay enough to afford the benefits on an actuarial basis. there are sequential pieces of legislation passed by congress who grossly increase them and

promised more than the tax revenues could ever justify. finally in 1987 there was a greenspan commission, bipartisan, that reduced and postpone the retirement their retirement ages but it still couldn't do enough so the next questions raised were why not just raise the cap? social security is uniquely among plans partially designed so will what you as an individual put in has relevance to what he was an individual will take out and it is true that the lower income groups get a positive rate of return on that and the higher income groups get a negative rate of return on that. so what you're proposing by raising the cap would just be having a tax on higher income groups to provide some other benefit. let's face it, it is just a tax to finance something that we never paid for.

it is a tax. >> well, why not? our fair share of taxes. >> let me move on in the speakers will be here for a while longer but let me take another question from this gentleman here. >> i am from the government department and want to thank the panel is. i think it's been a terrific presentation and i would make one comment with reference to something that are faster slaughter said that was very important which is the role of technology. one of the huge drivers of economic growth is technology. i want to know how many members of the panel know that every automobile maker in europe is introducing hydrogen powered cars? hydrogen has no pollution. no co2. you make it by splitting water

and it's in the united states that we developed the technology up using solar panels and a cobalt catalyst to split water, so use solar energy to split water, restore the energy in the hydrogen you'll sell to drive the car. that can be done anywhere so it's no huge cost of shipping oil all over the place and we are not spending a quarter of our fuel to buy gasoline or oil from people who hate us. which is sort of a stupid thing to do. so mad, we are using so much gas in washington we don't have any left which is obviously not the right answer but go ahead. [laughter] >> no, so that innovation is, few would have said tommy which which evicted technologies would

create 20 million jobs in the united states in that last 10 years, my honest answer is i have no idea. the anecdote i will give is, think the story is true that a lot of microsoft officials when netscape was created in doing a special offering did a lot of thinking internally on this thing called the inch and it. do we think this will fundamentally change what do at microsoft and their initial answer was no we don't think it does. my point is humility as i am not smart enough and i dare say most of us won't be able to predict what will be the next technology. when i hear governor dean, one of the many wise things we have heard on all accounts things that matter for growth in ways that are difficult to quantify and predictor things like can we set up a tax and capital markets system so there's a lot of risk-taking in biotech, clean tech moguls, solar and wind and industries that i don't even know will exist tomorrow. i feel a lot better about the prospects for the future if i saw a lot of things have been

washington and other states in america to support that kind of dynamism. roger statistics are great at my friendly amendment amendment is there is no love physics that says the growth in u.s. -- and a great education matters. i was born in 1969. to high school graduation rate in america during my lifetime has not budged at all. in sharp contrast to the 20 century where the high school graduation rate in 1900 was about 5% and today we are still at about 75% so is the subtle things that collectively i call called humility that matters if we are trying to create those opportunities. [inaudible] >> can we wait for the mic? >> it is a happening now.

be that may be and i'm happy to talk to it after the panel will let take another question in the back please. the gentleman and then the lady right after that. [laughter] >> not for long. better enjoy it for now. >> the gentleman's point on hydrogen is one of the things i have thought about years and years. i'd forgotten how old that technology is good half of my lifetime is how long it's been around. >> could you please identify yourself? >> my name is orrin and i live in vermont. probably 20 years ago or 25 years ago i asked a stock record to get me some stock in maybe one or two of the companies here that were doing the search on that. his reply was oh hell you don't want to bother with that. there is nothing there for years and years. i wish our stock workers were little more industrious and a little more reputable and a

little more farther seeing. it's not just the laboratory that where the money comes from. >> is there a question there? been no. i am not one for questions. >> is their question here? the gentleman right here. >> is as it might turn. >> indeed with my apologies. >> that's okay. >> we need to get to questions very quickly. >> cannot just say one anecdotal thing to matt? you have mod -- matt tiabbi to blame for -- have you ever read him in "rolling stone" about correlating these financial industry to the bloodsucking squared or whatever. anyway, okay. my question is, i am the mother of two boys in their 20s. one just graduated from college

at the atlantic and is working in farm and wilderness in vermont. both of them have no interest in voting or getting involved in the political system. i live in vermont, bedford. i have many dartmouth students, what's going on, are you going to vote? i am getting blank responses. so my question is, what would you tell the youth of america because everywhere i go i find them conspicuously absent in the concert halls, here come everywhere and my goal is is to reinvent the youth of america. i am an educator. i was educated in new jersey, excellent high school. i am fluent in spanish. i see an incredible decline. >> my question is what would you tell young people? in this coming election what would you say?

what are the reasons for voting and four getting involved in the political system because they see a complete lack of -- disassociation people at have already commented that washington -- >> got it. i'm going to give in to governor dean. >> i actually have high hopes for this generation. they are renting -- reinventing america schools and they are redesigning the way everything is done. molly katchpole's -- [inaudible] the attack on verizon to pay their bill on line. they elected obama and the only time in my lifetime and election in this country where people under 35 turned out to both. i'm not worried about young people but i do think they ought to vote and i tell them politicians may not help you much but they can hurt you so it does matter who wins. you at least ought to vote and that is part of the price of

being a citizen is voting. paying taxes and voting as oliver wendell holmes said the price you pay. but i wouldn't give a little bit long song and dance. it's repulsive what's going on in washington and i don't believe -- lame people for being disgusted and as winston churchill once said democracy is the worst form of government except for every other and i wouldn't want to try some of the others. i think they have got to vote in its part of their duty but i think they will make their mark in america doing things outside the political and reorganize the whole lot of things that need to be reorganized and won't have to worry about institutional failures of wall street and politicians because they can create. they can get on the net and find printer people to agree with them without it lyrical front. >> i agree with everything governor said.

tuck students at dartmouth foist a lot of concern and that sense. the economists respond it's kind of a mess but the opportunity for you to make a difference could be greater because the world is desperate for leaders both in the private and public are still a few your aspiration to become a person that can change the world frankly being in this impairment offers a tremendous opportunity. it's hard but a tremendous opportunity. >> and by the way i asked them to recall counting -- counting chads. remember that in florida? a couple of votes may have made a difference. see my name is many. i don't live in vermont but i eat a lot of fine organic vermont cheese. [applause] i have a question for everyone. my question really relates to the fiscal policy in the u.s. and when i think about it the saying which comes to mind is

it's not enough they succeed, your friends must fail as well. it seems that our her situation could be much worse were it not for the crisis in europe and we are the only safe haven. if you project a few years forward where people continue to see slowing down, people who buy treasuries a lot of those folks plan. how would you think of the fiscal situation of the u.s. in that context especially because i believe a lot of metrics used to judge how the middle class is faring are somewhat flawed. it doesn't take a lot of key ingredients into account. i don't have to look at cpi, can look at the price of education board here at murphy's or the price of organic cheese in vermont which has gone up fairly in excess of cpi so i would love to get all of your takes on this one. >> why do you rephrase the question. are we benefiting from europe's problems and are we able to float our treasury cheaper than we otherwise would be?

they used to be useful for people to live in vermont or new hampshire because you probably heard the story about two people who met a bear in the woods and they said this is horrible because they cannot outrun the bear. the person said i don't have to outrun the bear, just have to outrun you. [laughter] we have what is known as an exorbitant privilege because the dollar is the world reserve currency. we are the only country i dare say hesitant to say this but in the history of the financial crisis who have a financial crisis and the dollar appreciates. people buy more currency. ugoda latin america asia europe if you have a financial crisis people want to sell your currency so we are living to greenland in terms of fiscal policy and we can get away with these deficits in and many countries could not. now how to deal with that. i think that does not change overnight because once again it

will take another currency to be the dollar and people don't trust the euro any more. the japanese yen doesn't seem to be used around the world. the chinese r&d most people don't trust china in terms of their capital market and investment so we are going to an situation where i think we can afford to pay for it an dead if you will and a fairly low interest rate. that is why i was interested in hearing governor dean say we need this fiscal cliff sort of as a wake-up call and i think then the role is if we do have this fiscal contraction, the burden is on the federal reserve. monetary policy keeps economy going and that is a whole separate issue. >> let me just ask you, it is now 6:36 and we are going to finish at 6:30 but i would like to go to 6:45. is that okay for take a few moments? in the interest of time let's take a couple of questions and bind them together, select you have a question from here and

perhaps a question from back there. if that is okay with the panel. >> you just brought up part of my question which is we have been talking about this cliff and the large amount of debt that this country has and how bad it is. but what happens if congress doesn't do anything? what if we don't try to shut that off a cliff in don't try to slash the budget? what's the worst thing that happens it at that level stays as it is? as you said this that has been a problem since paul tsongas was in the senate than that was some time ago. what happens if we keep -- >> a a point of order, congress does nothing you go off the cliff. >> so if congress does just enough to not go off the cliff but not enough to slash at down? >> okay, so let's take another question from back there. >> i have the health insurance question. it frustrates me when i see

that, i don't think business has taken the opportunity under the affordable care act. and the state for don't want to put up these insurance exchanges which would then go to the federal government but it would seem to me that business in general has missed a great opportunity for hasn't forced themselves to say we want to be out of the health insurance business. is it efficient for business to decide what type of health insurance at some plays are going to have? it would appear to me with the heart -- start of the health insurance exchange while it may not be as efficient as a single-payer system which isn't going to occur it appears that the health insurance exchange would be a great way for business to say basically taking a defined contribution, giving employees the dollars for what they're currently paying and get themselves out of business a good well-run health insurance exchange would allow the ability, portability and it would he i think if business thought about it they would be

pushing parts of our political system to really back this type of approach. >> professor irvin -- irwin cannot ask you to handle the first one, going over a cliff or anything like that and governor dean if i could have you handled that insurance question. >> the fiscal cliff, world war i and world war ii where we had to cut back on federal expenditures and predictions of economists in 1945 and 46. in fact there was a mild recession and once again because there was so much pent-up consumer demand the recession was mild to once again a forget the underlying fundamentals of getting our economy going -- a major recession. >> there was rationing and people couldn't buy cars and so that was all this pent-up demand. that doesn't exist today and we

would be raising taxes by about 3% of income because you would lose the 2% payroll tax cut in half to 2% increase in average income taxes so you are going to walk 4% out of after-tax income from the household and you are going to cut government spending so there is no consumer to take up the slack like there was. normally, the federal reserve could step in and cut interest rates, simulate housing, have interest rates of zero. 1.52% has run out of ammunition to offer the fiscal cliff. >> you sound like a very good keynesian economist. also i would say the federal reserve is absolute and not out of ammunition by any stretch of imagination. >> that leads to a whole different dollar. i want to go to the insurance

exchange question. >> actually what you describe is exactly what's going to happen. i believe the mckinsey report was right and democrats want to say that because it will increase federal expenses on health care. was going to happen is exactly what you describe are go small businesses wholesale will leave for for the health insurance market because small business has no business being in health care. the employment connected system in those countries a mistake. it's a historical accident and makes her businesses uncompetitive notches with india or china over labor costs but with the germans and canadians. their health care system goes up at the same percentage as ours does which is two to three times the rate of inflation. every time the germans spend 3.5% more in health care that gets spread over the entire economy and when we do it he gets mostly spread over the business community. this is not a way to keep our businesses competitive. what is going to happen his small businesses always struggled with this question, health care plus whatever else they do as they is they are

going to pay a fine which isn't very big and they will probably give insurance -- employees insurance and guess what? if you are a restaurant and you happen to be giving health insurance which not many do they book on exchange and get a nice subsidy from the federal government to help toward insurance in they will be out of the individual market on these exchanges. .. the >> should we take a couple more questions and then start? one here, the gentleman right here in the blue sweater. >> first come second, third row. let me ask this question then come to you. >> my name is jim churchill a

former practitioner of international corporate finance - question is how much concerned you have about possible resurgence protectionism against the background of theg international lglobal economic difficulties? >> greider this lady in the i al thirdy will. >> i actually worked. mine is a follow-up question to governor deane's remarks about rewardingmark about the reporting wellness. dartmouth helps connecting the system that president can set up before you ask. i was wondering if you knew anything about it, and if you do a fast server system you're talking about. not a fee-for-service come a patient basis done. >> i unfortunately don't know anything about it. >> let's get a fair question. anyone waiting for a question right there in the center.

hold on, hold on, hold on. thank you. >> white river junction, vermont. a day to come back to the original comparison between obama and coolidge. i'm reminded of jean hughley to decimate outcome of the close of the presidency, which claimed the american people what two contradictory things. one, they have been increasingly the opinion of the actual performance of their presidents and other national leaders, but two, they want to give those national leaders more and more things to do. and that seems to me to be a fundamental difference between coolidge. this comes back to that spotters point about humility. my question is, how do you return to a state of affairs in which there's more responsibility for their own affairs and have less responsibility to the federal government in washington?

>> so let's start with the resurgence of protectionism. anyone want to take a shot at that? >> i had a couple thoughts. >> for some outcome of "the wall street journal" op-ed two weeks ago was exactly on that issue. while i was not worried about it for many quarters that the financial crisis, there were worrisome signs others are beginning to intervene. the problem is that affects our exports. one of the bright parts of the u.s. economy during the financial crisis in there after his export keep the economy going. we always hear about imports and trade deficit, but experts have been very good at creating a lot of jobs. to the extent other countries restrict trade, they restrict export and matches with a further tent in the u.s. economy. so it's something we have to as a country address. >> i'm very worried about the rest of protectionism in part because few countries make up one morning and say i would love

to start a trade war. so what i worry about is we don't have enough leaders telling americans that a lot of that will hopefully get out of the economic trouble we're in right now is by building more jobs in america are connected to the world. part of it is imports, exports, firms growing and responding to demand and the rest of the world, assuming that demand. if you flip over your iphone, nearly everyone in the room has an iphone. there's a great symbol of globalization going on around the world because this was designed by apple in california, assembled in china. it's a lot of industries that supports the dynamism that we talked about could be realized moving in the other direction. we talk to the clean tech earlier. by my eyes, the united states and china and other countries all over each other to do more

to protect their tariff barriers and subsidies clean tech innovation. i am not smart enough to figure out what is clean technologies. i let the force of international trade and investment help our country's figure that out. but we're moving in precisely the opposite direction. >> anything on the wellness? >> i can't do the wellness because i'm not familiar, but i do have thoughts about people taking responsibility. my experience of our children's generation is that's what they're doing. they want to have a political system and they go down a mark for teach for america or teach for india or teach for china. it's an incredible generation. are they all doing a? of course not. a huge percentage of kids going over the world. one of my students they teach at yale, pardon the expression here, one of my students from duke started a company based on

solar solar chargers for cell phones for companies with no electricity and the next is they'll sell chargers so they can charge away so the kids can read. it's unbelievable. a 22-year-old woman coming-out woman. she graduates from the university of vermont, mr. romagna ancestor project which is much better than the united states because she asked that the villagers while before she sends the $3000 and they get the plane in take responsibility. the skits are unbelievable. aggregate these are not ever single tape, but it's not just people from gale and dartmouth. it's people from all over the place. it's an extraordinary thing. they're determined to remake the world of matter what politicians do. >> one additional thought on bad is it does make sense to have

people pay a fraction, a co-pay that supports a little bit of the guardian. it's good to have a health provider decided holistically. but if we have undifferentiated premiums that don't reflect whether you're engaged in risky behavior in terms of eating, drinking, smoking, you name it, we are not doing enough to prevent the oscars. so they have learned that when they put incentives with large or positive health behavior, better behavior happens in total costs are down. so is the set up these exchanges, we need to differentiate premium based on personal behaviors. >> i was once told a good moderator never offers an opinion, but i will break that rule and offer an opinion. i think we've had an extraordinary panel and i would

think if you would please join me in thanking. [applause] and we have a small gift for each of you. douglas irwin, power dean, roger brinner, slaughter, thank

>> on wednesday, 2008 cochair of the obama presidential camp again, artur davis told a press conference had run a scam team headquarters. the congressman now a republican descended paul ryan's budget prosal and said that president about ms. health care lies being financed with cuts to medicare. earlier today the rnc announced that artur davis played address the upcoming presidential convention. >> good afternoon. welcome to the number one battleground state in the country, virginia.

not north carolina. [applause] you know, yesterday i spent today in west virginia and i had every anticipation of providing the republican policy response to vice president biden, whatever statement you admit that day. never in a million years did i think that i would have to address the kind of disappointing language and bio that came out of him yesterday. let's remind you, it's 2012. who talks like that? what decent person, let alone sitting vice president of the united states speaks like that? you know, i find it very ironic that four years ago candidate obama spoke about how he didn't want to make a big collection about small thing.

he promised millions of americans and hundreds of thousands of virginians open change. he promised to be able to change the tone and tenor of the way we conduct our government in the united states of america. and a lot of people believed in god. a lot of people took a chance. four years later we have the most hateful, partisan focused rhetoric coming out of the other side that i have ever seen. let's just level set for a moment. the past three weeks, president obama, vice president biden and their allies have first and foremost accused their political opponents of being felons, as being part of a murder. and lastly and despicably trying

to put large swaths of america back in quote, unquote change. it's despicable and unfortunately the beat goes on because the obama campaign out of chicago is focused like a laser beam on train to hear down and personally attack congressman o'bryan on the budget and the high-minded forward leaning policies. there's only one candidate in this race who has made it a plan and part of actual law to cut medicaid, to cut medicaid pay over $700 billion. and that is president obama and vice president by.

and together little bit more precise on exactly what the president has been up to and talk in depth about medicaid, i want it handed over to someone who knows candidate obama and president obama very, very well. someone who served as a cochair of obama for america in 2008 by someone who also served alongside of congressman paul ryan with great pleasure in nature is virginia's own congressmen artur davis. [applause] >> it is a gentleman, thank you. mitch. i am so unaccustomed to clapping at a press conference i think i'm lost. last night thank you so much for your comments for those who happen not to know two people back in the virginia campaign or the lady standing in the back

issue of h. and the gentleman who spoke before me and were so thankful for what they do. pete, i want to expander observations for putting this conversation about medicare to recess. anytime you become a candidate for office, a semi-organized the campaign, ladies and gentlemen, you have a fundamental choice to make at the outside about how you discuss the issues and how you discuss your opponent. you can aim high at our aspirations or you can aim low and are furious. you can choose to create either hope or cynicism in case you think what i said unfamiliar to you, like it should, all i am saying is something that

president barack obama said in austin 2004 when he came on the scene. all i am doing is more or less repeating the way senator barack obama talks about politics all over america in the course of 2008. cynicism or hope? for powerful insight if only it had survived senator obama becoming president obama. i'll give you examples in the context of medicare. when the obama campaign clean through his surrogates and messaging that seniors will have their medicare and for some of you coming your medicare breaks away from you, how many times have we heard that in this campaign from the obama crowd to the seniors in the room that they are going to take medicare away from you?

when the obama campaign and they know full well that the ryan plan does not affect anyone in america on medicare right now for anyone under 54. when they spread the message of the kind they spread they breed cynicism and not hope. when the obama campaign savages the congressman knew i served with for eight years and governor romney and said that they are the ones who will weaken medicare with cuts and reductions and they know full well that they finance their health care law 70% of the way with cuts in medicare, 70% of how obamacare is paid for his cuts in medicare that affect those of you in this room who

are seniors today. not in the future, not at some point in the racing, but right now. when the obama campaign says that the romney ryan ticket will debilitate medicare and they know how they paid for their program, they are breeding cynicism and not hope. let me be blunt, with the obama campaign acts as if we can sustain medicare the way it is about changes and they know full well that every mutual expert in this country says a train wreck is coming with respect to medicare, if we don't act now, the obama campaign is breeding cynicism and not hope. and the cynicism as far as congressman ryan goes to start this week. you may think it started with a moment be what this stage and more folk, join the ticket on saturday in our state.

started in the spring of 2011 when president obama went to one of our leading universities in washington d.c. and appear to do congressman randy gesture of courtesy by inviting him to come and even sent him on the front row. for those of you who have been to a baptist church, the further they speak. and then, in the front row they implicitly say to them, jamie so we can talk about how to build bridges together, the president turned gestures towards them, looks at them in lectures and that he, congressman ryan, was not being a good american and that his plan fell short of an american values. in this pete snyder alluded to in the cynicism can stay with medicare. you side and a shameless ad that sought to make political profit

off a woman's death and massive shameless that a democratic former senator named evan bayh, who was nearly selected as barack obama's running mate four years ago has announced instead democrats are to distance themselves from it. and as pete snyder found it yesterday in virginia, cynicism this week just won't stop. you've all seen the tape. the vice president of our country, standing in front of a crowd that was at least 50% african-american, looking at them and turning them and saying, they're going to put you back in chains if i can be direct, i've spoken to a few african a few african-american

advances in my day. every african-american in that audience knew who the was that every african-american in that audience knew what buttons he was trying to push. an interesting -- you know, politicians are funny when they get caught. when vice president biden's call them on it, it has been backpedaled the for the last so many hours. they say when he was talking about chain, you just meant economic times. politicians talk about change over time. ladies and gentlemen, they're adding an insult to our intelligence to the insulting me to civil discourse.

i will say this, is to the credit that if you actually watch the tape come you don't hear a lot of applause in wright made his comments. you appear white to appear to be some boos and some shot. it is to the credit of the people they are that they understood him very well and rejected what they heard. so as i bring her last gas, jane gandee, forward, 200 days. chicago does not plan to stop the cynicism. the white house doesn't plan to stop the cynicism. you know why? because they think it will work. and you kind of get them. you know, if you ran four years

ago and told conservative voters of virginia and carolina you're going to cut the deficit and happy new submitted for $1 trillion euro deficit budget, if you promise unemployment was a 7.5% if a pastor stimulus package and unemployment has been over a percent for three consecutive months now, he promised to bring the country together is more divided. if everything you promise turned upside down can you would do dividing, too if you are is a politician. how many of us believe four years ago that barack obama was not just a politician? how many americans invested their hope that he was more in his presidency would mean more? we may not have the power to stop it.

the obama campaign the way they want. the american people have the power to punish it. and they can punish it by saying quote the president not this time. thank you call. [applause] >> good afternoon. my name is jane gandee and i am a small businessperson in northern virginia, but i am not your today's businessperson because i have come forth a sort of medicare. a few weeks ago i brought my sister who is 65 years old from west virginia appear so i could hope with care. i didn't pay a lot of attention to medicare, but now i pay a lot of attention. she 65, brilliant high school teacher paid into the system and

the rest of her years will depend on medicare is hope because of her bipolar, heart disease and also now for early dementia she needs a lot of medicine and she needs good care. and she does just fine. now that i'm paying attention to obamacare and to the affordable care act in some of things happening and reading and the affordable care act worries me because she needs this care. i understand from the rhine proposal that she is 65 and me will not be affected by this proposal, that people 55 and over will continue to get what they paid into. this is very important to me, very important hud, very important to her family and all of us out there who have already

moved into that over 60 crowd. and pay attention. i didn't until i was forced into it a year and a half ago. i hope everyone will pay attention to the differences between the affordable care act, the cuts will cost to medicare. thank you for your time and now we will take questions. [applause] >> questions? >> how was he working to treat medicare when medicare one, doesn't pay their bills, too, will be less able when obamacare is it doing to the system. >> you ask a very important

question. i say that not to flatter you, but she put your finger on something that most people massed about the affordable care act two years ago. the affordable care act is kind of writer found a trillion dollars cost. 70% of it, maybe upper 60s, but upper 60s, 70% of it is paid for by cutting medicare. let me say that again. they paid for and not the most of the american people didn't want and that most seniors didn't want by taking money out of today's medicare pot and every doctor who services the medicare population knows that and to your point, that are scum at the doctors over northern virginia, a look the state in this country are no longer participating in the medicare program because this is something amiss sometimes.

how do they cut medicare? the administration said two years ago that were making changes. we're instituting some savings in cost cutting provisions. while that sounds well and good. this even in cost cutting provision and the goes to doctors. i remember people at my old party, democratic party would say with a strained face, we are not cutting medicare. we are cutting money going to those rich doctors. what do you think happens when you cut fees to doctors to stop providing services? [inaudible] >> ambition to doctors, he made that decision because guess what? every doctor is a small businessperson. one other point here, this commission that was appointed, that the democrats didn't want to talk about didn't pull those

two years ago. they just don't have public meanings of the industry shouldn't left to brag about transparency. that's up at this commission on c-span because the commission gets to sit down and decide or seizure by a procedure work are thought to have been with congress having no say, with you having no say come at the grassroots communities in doctors having no say. so what is bad business for the country. it's incredibly difficult business for.yours. do pope what your finger on what a lot of people at best. make this the last question. [inaudible] 's >> what are their chances of turning around? 's >> we are in virginia, so we're not in washington d.c., which

means the air is better here and everything. when you get around that here in washington d.c., you hear over and over again presidents can't get anything done. it's tough being president. when you're president, people start being mean to you and me try to block your proposals. you would almost think that the separation of powers is a partisan trick and that four years ago just to mess with barack obama. the way this system works is the leaders do matter if leaders can summon the country to follow them and if they're able to frankly work with the other side. now isn't this the first president who seemed among ladies and gentlemen, in our lifetimes who hasn't one time on one issue figured out how to

work with the other side? of all of these legislative or puzzles that passed, not one time did he figure out how to bring any republicans into his tent. kennedy and clinton and carter and bush and bush and reagan all figured it out. it's hard, but it can't be that hard if everyone of them them figured it out. so i think they can fix it. i did say with them for eight years on two committees. congressman ryan at the time he spent in public life has accomplished more in terms of productivity and much as it is than anybody else for a generation. and yes, no offense intended to our president, president obama was in public life for roughly 12 years before he became

president. paul ryan, public way for 14 years before it makes the national ticket. barak obama wrote two books. paul ryan is so happens crafted a documented that has become the signature document of budget production in this country. he is not a chairman. he does have a special status. the fairly junior member of congress. the leadership record shows me that a leader with talent and commitment to getting things done and not just talking to make things happening. if you can run massachusetts in your public can come you prove you can run anything. [applause] >> thank you very much. tanks for coming out. [inaudible conversations]

>> earlier today, the rnc announced its headliners for the upcoming political convention. among them, artur davis. also in the list, kelley ayotte and louisiana governor, bobby jindal. but the names included connie mack, virginia governor, bob mcdonnell in ohio senator, rob portman. the gop convention kicks off monday, august 27 to 5 gavel to gavel coverage on c-span. the week after and what carolina. the first-ever latino keynote speaker. 37 euros san antonio mayor who had come the caster. watch every minute of both conventions live on c-span, c-span radio streamed live and archived on c-span.org.

last week, the independence institute hosted their 10th annual alcohol, tobacco and firearms party in colorado. speakers discussed the governments regulation of those products. what some call it the nanny state, including new york city's band on trans fats. >> happiness, psychiatrists will cause this is official to brain chemistry some of the best drugs they can give out. even better than the healthy foods are first lady pushes. it's true. so where did all this nanny state command-and-control stuff come from? it came from the modern public health adoption. the public health movement. and more often than not i think the public health movement is a complete menace an obstacle. originally the public health was all about caring and stopping. that's what it was an institute for. a hundred years later, you know,

clear and eradicate polio, measles, mumps, whooping cough, measles, it killed tens and hundreds of people. so in the public health establishment you've got to reinvent yourself to stay relevant because there are millions of government grant dollars the state. if you price yourself out of the market by being irrelevant, the money dries up. go find something else to do. you know, they're so fond of the establishments and that's fine. that's what it should be. it's good. the public how can become antisocial fund instead of a hard fund and that's a problem. see that a lot of academics who can't cut it at the laboratory. instead of doing hard time, they're shrinking our dessert portions because that's all they know how to do. so i used to represent an organization, a nonprofit advocacy group, a lot of

creative messaging and they tell me now there's a professor at you see same as cisco, of course it was cisco who was on tv claiming that shirker, sugar, stuff that a spoonful makes the medicine go down, sugar is so dangerous and toxic that the government should regulate it like alcohol. @jay group to not get approval like user sees some great wisdom like demand on the mount and. sugar for crying out loud. we've seen people airbrushing cigarettes out of movies. i can't wait for the next remake of willy wonka. we'll all be eating broccoli. >> watch the entire event hosted by the independence institute tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern over on c-span. >> speaking at the national press club last year, jim kant tori predicted more weather records broken in 2011.

mr. cantore shared his experiences of 25 years covering severe weather including hurricane katrina and a rain for the weather channel. this is just under an hour. >> good afternoon and welcome to the national press club. i'm mark hamrick, journalists bocs to price than 100 for it presented the national national press club. for the world's leading professional organization for journalists committed to the profession's future for programming of event such as this as well as working to foster free press worldwide. for more information at the national press club, we invite you to visit our website at www.press.org and donate to programs offered to the press club or a national press club journalism institute you can

find information on the website there as well. so we would like to thank her speaker for appearing here today as well as all of you for attending. our head table includes guest of the speaker as well as working journalists were club members. this is let's say the warning i have to give for events during an election season when they have political events. i think less so for a guest speaker today, but what he sees with members of the public and the audience, so if you hear applause, we note it is not a working journalist, so it's not always evidence of a lack of journalistic object dvd. i'd also like to up and c-span public radio audiences. luncheons featured in our weekly podcast and the national press club available for free download on itunes. follow the action on twitter using the hash tag and pc lunch. after her leisure clues we will have q&a and alaska's many questions as time permits. it's time to introduce her head

table guests in our political season and a presence they had table does not imply or signify an endorsement of the speaker. i ask each of you at the head table to stand up recently is your name is announced. from your break, can molesting a is on the air. u.s. awa channel nine. leslie sage commits senior editor physical sciences for nature, also membership committee chair. thank you for your work this past year. anymore is come executive editor and anchor the federal driver at a news radio, member of our speakers committee. don larrabee. i'm so glad don could join us today. the former president of the national press club from 1973 and winner of the cosgrove award this year and a great friend of all of us members of the press club. don, thank you are a match. [applause] and applauses actually welcome for that.

dressed in his christmas season finery. sophie icann is a reporter for bloomberg news. welcome, sophia. david blumenthal, director for corporate communications for the weather channel and he told me today a former intern for c-span can do so apparently that program works out just okay. we will skip over the podium for a moment. angela grantmaking reporter for bloomberg news has filled emissaries chaired to a role she had sold for several years in the past and angela is also nearly elected vice president for 2012, so congratulations, angela. will skip our guest speaker. jennifer schomburg or is a writer for personal finance and organize a today's luncheon. she's done a phenomenal job in the speakers committee including this event. thank you, jennifer. shirley powell come executive vice president for medications at the weather channel and guess that the speaker. chat williams, the men are from

the press club, founding editor of the "usa today" weather page. remember when that came on the scene and was all the rage and may still be quite so no such exciting information to the gathering? he was the man ahead of the curve and also science writer specializing in weather, climate and polar regions and also chair of our committee, said he wears many hats. thank you for that, jack. mark heller for the watertown daily times and last but not least commend bill greenwood is a retired white house correspondent for abc news and a former vice president of the club from 1975. bill, welcome. please give them a warm round of applause. if you see our guest speaker today on a beach sometime between june and november, he's probably not there on vacation. and chances are a big storm is

not too far behind. whether his battle in the high winds from a hurricane or withstanding countless theater style, this on camera meteorologist for the weather channel has built a reputation reporting on the biggest arms, make in him one of the most recognizable reporters on television. his broadcast appearances reach 100 million homes. at last count i guess that nearly 86,000 followers on twitter. i think they work it with content from cookies here today, weather-related cookies. just 25,000 or more like sunday's vote. afterward he goes to the women ask for autographs, men want to buy him beers and restaurants sending free pizza. [laughter] his main producer for seven years since of our guest, he is mr. hurricane. as the weather channel ceo, mike kelley, viewers find them endearing because it is obvious concern for their safety and intense passion for what he does. he's always in the thick of a show in the story the weather.

if you cover the weather at the same passion, intensity and purpose is to be speaker. cloaked in a baseball cap, t-shirt windbreaker he travels costly to cover storms around the nation come off the shifts of 18 hours a day and i can imagine is that if he is a lasted more than that. other that she seems terms, whether it's a passion that competes with a small period of 18 he aspired to be a baseball star like new york yankees great roger jackson. so if you had to guess, his eventual career, would not have been hard to forecast. as a youngster, he would ask his mother to be the bar in my dominant snow was in the forecast so he could watch the first snowflakes go to families vermont farm. other kids would ask him whether the weather because the cancellation in school the following day. if you have any doubt whether he is just as passionate about weather, check out youtube and search for jim cantore along with the worst thunder snow.

after encouragement from his father to pursue his tremendous entrance and note whether companies that is studies or lyndon state college in vermont. in 1986 and did a job at the weather channel where he has enjoyed a great career. the semi-celebrated 25 years of tracking storms for that enterprise. best known for his life filled coverage of major storms come our guest host is a series of a channel called sub six-story sympathetic travelers to the most extreme planets in the world to talk with vocals about the weather that they personally experienced. now he appears as a frequent quest on nbc's nightly news that ryan williams and the today show and msnbc. he's a member of the nightly weather association and holds the ams television seal of approval and a order for weather forecasting excellence in broadcast. please give our guests, jim cantore a warm national press club welcome.

climatic >> all right. well, now you know my life history. i'll just put that page away. thank you for having me here today. it's really a tremendous honor. i really didn't know much about this to be honest with you when i got asked to do it. just walking -- first of all comments in the press club on the outside of the building wal into the building and seeing the kind of people that have a chance to speak before me, i was like wow, this is a pretty big deal. so i really appreciate that. it's been 25 years. i was very fortunate to get a job at the weather channel bread out of college. and the biggest change in 25 years is the fact that when i started i had a full head of hair. as you can see, each follicle taken out with each weather event i've covered and there's been plenty of those.

i'm going to start off by talking about 2011. because out of all my 25 years, i had never seen a hero in weather like we just had. if you just take the forest defense, where you have tornadoes, snowstorms and you have hurricanes, every possible ingredient that comes together to make a big event came together each one of those seasons. and so, we had over 3000 weather records broken in 2011. and these are just record highs and lows. for example, philadelphia typically gets 40 inches of rain annually. their 65 inches. so these are germanic rackers under extreme records and that's got to raise your alert. i don't care how long we've been on this earth that does just a huge deal.

$12 billion disasters, maybe 14. they haven't finished snow toe burqa which meant if you got a chance to shovel before you got a chance to use your week this year, which is just amazing your taxes, some areas under three feet down the water. and our major snowfall that we had in the northern rockies also alerted folks down the river and the missouri river valley to flood was the summer came along and that melted. two major rivers for the up and up spillways to relieve the kind of pressure here. everywhere you both come to extremes not only because of the different seasons, but also extremes adult son extremes. we didn't have the stone iraqis can wouldn't have had the missouri river flood. the biggest changes i've seen a 25 years have to go back to weather dissemination. i mean, how would you weather -- when i started to miss the

morning news. sometimes the noon show and six and 11. then comes the weather channel in 1882 where you could anytime you want. if you disaster that every eight minutes. and now, if it takes you eight seconds to get your weather, you're slow for. i mean, that is how quick. a seven day forecast is probably as good as the five day was about 20 years ago. five day as good as a three day. one thing that we see now is extreme weather events. burwell forecasted of seven days. and when you're thinking about preparing the city for a whole coastline, that is huge. that's huge. when i started at twc and 86, we were 26 million homes. now weren't over 100 million our cell phone app and internet have tremendous reach and popularity at us and agree to be able to be

alongside that brand. the good news about weather is no political agenda. weather, forecasts. we just want to do what we do to get people out of harm's way. that's the core of our business. social media is one of the biggest since the last two years to come along. i know what when i was covering i've been an battery in new york city, when i saw a dash in between my shots had come back and can look at my desk and are starting state of the vermont flow story unfold. being a vermonter and watching the bridge almost underwater and knowing how high they must've gotten to look at that. i was mind-boggling to me. in the meantime you have

potential for disaster therefore rivers with fireflies for disaster. the state of vermont i was just awful, but there's a lot of rows back. even that wasn't the prettiest it's nice to be out there this weekend. i covered about 75 tropical depressions. andrew was my first one. i got a chance to go to baton rouge and so that storm. never got to that strength again for louisiana, but it stalled over the bayou and completed our coverage that night. so i would not to get laid because we had to get up the next morning and about 4:00 a.m.

come and be in the old units that are used for air conditioners, my air conditioner unit blue when. it blew right in. and i looked out the window you obviously have us like what the heck is going on here? transformers all over the place. so i woke up all my producers. we got it all lies. this thing is coming in. we proceeded down the air about 5:00 a.m. that morning. now it's regular. we can do at any time during the weather storm. i don't know how many of you remember john hope. if you're an old weather channel watcher, john was my mentor. he was like everybody's father. he needs a tropics. we talked about the topics he is such compassion in his voice and it was genuine. hasid man, i'm going to emulate that guy. that is the guy you want to be.

i would say about 1988 or so, actually 87 he grabs me after one of my tropical updates, which we do at 50 past the hour and says cantore, your tropical updates are terrible. it was brutal. you don't know grenada from grand came in. you need to learn a tropics. you need to get an idea of what these tropical storms do. back in 1992, hurricane and storm andrew developed east of miami. i thought okay, i'm watching this thing. all the models take you must impact denver three day forecast going now. and i said all right, if this

thing keeps going it's going to come in somewhere between north carolina and south florida. i thought why not share that information with everybody potentially. so now i'm going out five days, which is unheard of. but here's the kicker. i get off the air after saying not and i walked outside and the gentleman who caused the radar, please have to call the raiders back then. because hey jim, the director of the hurricane centers on the phone, bob sheets. because you are right and kept on walking. i seriously can't use on the phone wants to talk to you. i'm like mr. sheets, this is jim cantore. yeah, jim, did you set up another three-day forecast to three day forecast for andrew? i said yeah, it keeps going the direction it's heading it will go between the outer banks in south florida. because we'll don't ever do that again. i decided for emergency manager from cape hatteras to south florida call me.

sorry, sir. i will not do that again. after i hung up the phone is that i think i learned a little something about the tropics. and i learned fact you've got to go with your gut sometimes. sometimes it's wrong, but in retrospect, the storm moves faster and we all know the rest of the story. katrina was severally the worst storm ever went in. with us about information about a place to set up at how high they were above sea level. we lost four vehicles. i eat many wheezes cream cheese on them for two days, slept in the car and fun stuff or beaten the field. but of course i did matter. it was the hardship of seeing people's lives torn from them just like that. the whole mississippi gulf coast changed overnight. that was the hard part. want to spend 10, 14 days in a

storm, you become such a part of it is hard to leave. he was heartily katrina. i felt like i was leaving that we and, so to speak. but it's the best thing to do is get back to my family, recoup them go to follow up stories later on. anyway, one thing that katrina did bring into light was in my opinion the new age of volunteerism. as so many e-mails and letters saying, jim, what we do? we don't just want to give money. we want to take a wrong hands and help these people back on their feet. to me was easier to write a check in the days before. but now people just started showing up at people started rebuilding the mississippi coast. after talking to several mayors down there, they will swear by the fact that mississippi would not be where it is today at the wasn't for volunteers. so now the effort, which you get

a sense of well helping coordinate that with the red cross and you can't just show up there. church organizations and everything our court needed. they've really done a nice job of getting people to want to volunteer at the wrong hands and no means an. katrina really was the first time i is a matter to which volunteerism come into play. tornadoes, growing up in new england i didn't see a lot of those as you can imagine, even though they've had them before and they've certainly been very memorable, they didn't happen in my lifetime. so i saw my first one out in harper county, kansas. a quarter wheatfield underselling stovepipe tornado comes down, not bothering anyone. you couldn't even hear anything. it was probably to come at three miles away at the most and there is this huge tornado and you couldn't hear it being.

but as we know, tornadoes don't always drop down, cornfields or refills. if you look at the $12 billion sashes on the table right now, six of them are from tornado and severe weather episodes from this year, which is really impressive. it's a testament to how incredibly strong and multi-day events the square. 552 people out of a thousand people who lost their lives where because of tornadoes. third worst in america. so you say holy cow, what do we do wrong. as 9% of the people who died were in a tornado warning. it's not like they're not listening. it's not like there and not what's going on because especially a bamboo is advertised is before it had been. so, this is a testament to how incredibly strong the strano

square. i mean, you really had to be underground. plus, people's understanding of a tornado. this is a stovepipe tornado or rope tornado. these were so big. he was just really dark. and all of a sudden everything went haywire. it was just really dark, but that was a tornado. this is literally the whole thunderstorm dropping on the ground. what do we do about it? there's been a lot of talk lately, especially germans started yesterday with a project called weather riding nation to hide we change these warnings? should they be more tornado emergencies? to the need to the need to tell back a little bit on the tornado warnings, especially in situations that are like joplin? where you go with that? so that is something we have to do. we have to improve our warning system better. again, the takeaways for of forecasters did a great job. 99% all had warnings on them.

but the testament to the storms and how severe they were was to take away. when you look at tornadoes as a whole, there's a small percentage of the average of 1300 a-year tornadoes that are in that scale of the es threeef four, efi. these are two and 50 miles an hour to get tours ef five. and wow, we just had way too many of those. on average, one every year. we've had five or six this year just to get a good idea of a were talking about. i got to approach climate because that's been something in the last 25 years and he continues to, here it and here is where and not the case. i got a chance to visit the athabasca glacier in canada. everybody nor thaddeus? beautiful place in canadian rockies. just to see how far that glacier has retreated and resent past was a little bit eye-opening to

me. i said okay, melting going on here. if you look at glaciers, only one in the whole world being added to. so is warming. go back and look at statistics. these are facts. perceivable has risen seven inches in the beginning of the 20th century and the forecast is by the beginning of 2100 we will see the sea come up one day to feed. a mother that is true or not, i would be preparing for it. even if it is half that because when the sea level rises, all the waves, all a storm surge from everything else that comes on the water is on top of that. that adds a whole new parameter to everybody who wants a beachcomber certainly there's been a barrier island. that is something i would keep an eye on. if you have a rise in global temperature. i know that's only 30 years and you think along the earth has been around, but let's keep an

eye on the trend. every year seems to be more record highs and record lows. so my issue is i think we are seeing a warming world, we see ice melt. whether we've had anything to do or not, i can't tell you. i'm a meteorologist. a focus on 10 days or less. i don't focus on 300,000 years or 30 days or 60 days. but i can tell you is something that interests me because it's going to affect all of us somewhere down the road. at the end of the day, who can argue with cleaner air, cleaner water and cleaner energy? seriously. the problem of the conferences like the one that had intervened in south africa is when you talk about changing your whole economy and your country and asking people to cut corners or spend our money, not everybody wants to play. it's like when the kids get together and we decide what game to play and no one can decide

and pretty soon the hour of playtime is gone. it's kind of what's happening. everyone is kicking the can around and not doing things. but it's not like people are doing anything about it, but maybe we're just not doing it fast enough. it is certainly something we need to look at them pay attention to in the next 25 years because after 25 years is over, we need to know where. we'll have a much better idea as models get veteran things like that. speaking of modeling, and it will probably be able to -- it is not inconceivable that we can't model out a whole hurricane season. that may not be in 25 years, but it may be in my lifetime reading yours. so that would be really neat. with accuracy. forecasts will improve. i think 10 to 15 days out. we'll see a lot better forecast. when you are at it again or an emergency planner comics you should know what's going on.

warning systems will get better, one of the main agenda straight now. also hurricane intensity. hurricane intensity tracking has gotten great. but by the time we figured out the intensity wasn't going to play out, there is no time to say okay, maybe we should have evacuated their. you know, you should have because you're playing with one category of several hundred thousand people here. so you have to make the call early on. this term is not high. that's exactly how should've played out. mitigation is a big theme. we have to think about a city like new york that definitely had a a ton of floodgate. this guy named jeff masters who works for weather underground.

not only does he read about what's happening in current weather, but as a forward thinker. he wrote this great blog about what different floodgates that would really help out. not only in hurricane, but nor'easter if we ever have another one back in december 92, which flooded new york. things like that has to be thought about. that's a big deal i think for us 25 years down the road. there's no reason why we should build homes that have rooms that can withstand 100 miles an hour. we shouldn't blow off a 70-mile an hour winds. karen chores shouldn't cave men. we have to have some protection of our people and when you're talking about a 13 minute average sleep time, which is pretty good come the structure that goes to has pulled. it's not going to be with every tornado. the air force and fis with wins over 200 miles an hour comedic our communities safer.

but if we protect you from the f2, we won't see another year like we just had with 500 or two to do. i've been doing weather for 25 years, mainly because i like teaching people about it, talking on the air and i like saving lives. i think being on the beach, being on the coast, even though you guys think i'm getting the got economy and actually out there because people expect you to be out there. ..

and i think this sort of newsy part of the questioning that seem to come amid climate change and also how you kind of lets say partition your own view of that relative to what your own expertise is as you describe it. so first of all how relevant is the issue of climate change for your day-to-day duties? does it change the business of forecasting on a short-term basis? does it change the assumptions? how does it change the work aside from the experiences of extreme weather that you just described? >> again i am a meteorologist and we deal with 10 days or

less. in some cases getting a 24-hour forecast right can be difficult. bout what i know is if you look at today's dollars, go back to the 1980s we averaged about 1 billion-dollar disaster a year. in the 2000's we have averaged almost five, and the last two years we have averaged $7.5 billion disasters per year. so we have seen more extremes and we are going to continue to see more extremes so what i know is it's really a very intricate one. the sun heats things differently to the equator than it does the polls, so the earth tries its best to keep it in equilibrium and keep the status quo unless it's interrupted and then it tries to fiercely get back where it was. how that is going to deal with, interrupt or meet with my everyday whether aspects are simply this.

at i go for it there's going to be more extreme weather events. that is what he can expect her kho co and not just here. go back and look at russia's heatwave. go back and look at russia's heatwave. go back and look at the pakistan floods and in those kind of issues. and being a guy who stands out in the rain all the time, it is raining harder out there and that is really where it is scientific but when i'm out there and it seems to be raining a lot harder. more water means more rainfall. >> someone asked is climate change or global warming, are they really the right terms and you make the point rising water, bigger snowstorms and hurricanes wooden climate disruption be a better term? >> it would eat if we had that basis on which to so if you look at the last 30 years of we average a half a degree rise in the global temperature, so should that trend continue,

climate change will definitely climate disruption so no matter what you call it, it is something i think everybody has to pay attention to. like i said guys who can never argue with cleaner air or cleaner energy and cleaner water, seriously? the population is not going down. it's going up. everybody has to get along and if you ever been around napa valley or even in death valley you have seen a beautiful sunrise or sunset. i kind of like that. i kind of like seeing those. if you ever bend to steamboat springs colorado, after two feet of fresh know -- fresh know i kind of like that and i don't really want that to change so maybe i'm being selfish. >> someone asked on the specifics is our nation growing more vulnerable to hurricanes as they get their energy from warm water and global warming is a reality in the longer-term and

is the pick up we have seen in storm activity likely here to stay? >> according to the ipcc report, you know, a we are going to see more intense hurricanes. not necessarily more of them but all it takes is one quite frankly. i think in andrew or katrina is plenty for everybody. imagine if we had two of those this year in addition to what we had. the real worry is seeing the rise in sea level. if we go up another six inches, a foot again, all the action that creates the damage storm surge wave action is on top of the sea surface so if you come up sixes jen is all that action will be six inches higher and that may not mean a lot when you think about it. if your house is sitting in that zone, then it's going to be a lot. >> maybe you can describe to those of us who aren't looking

at this kind of data on a day-to-day basis what is the take on the meteorological community on this issue of climate change to the extent that you can be expelled and for them? are they acknowledge and global warming and climate change by and large? >> well i mean, i think there are clearly two sides to this. there are people that are saying it's getting colder or it's getting warmer or it's not really changing out much. here it has been around for a long time. we all know about the ice age and this warning is a continuation coming out of the ice age, maybe. i can't be sure but i think it's a little bit more than that. but what i what i i know it's a meteorologist as a guy who has been in this for 25 years the weather is definitely getting more extreme and you know, in this day and age if you're going to lose 552 people because of tornadoes that are more severe than they have been in u.s.

history, i just can't chalk that up to, that's just kind of an odd year. i think there is more to it than that. so i hope that answers the question. >> someone is asking is there a risk we are facing another dust bowl if the weather purse -- weather conditions persist in the southwest? >> some parts of texas are three feet down in the water table is hard to make up for that with one season of a little bit above average rainfall. that drought absolutely has the potential to expand. it could also go way. it's just something we haven't dealt with. we have not dealt with the drought of that magnitude. you can say it's happened before, it's going to happen again. that's true, that's true but i think the kind of conditions we see right now at least in texas and oklahoma don't lead me to believe the drought is going to end anytime soon l. and it could

expand. >> i will ask one more on the topic and then we will move on but i did get a lot of questions on it. in a geological timeframe i.e. millions of years, would you have a guess on how long this trend could last before it would no longer persists or is that just guesswork at this point? >> and this is where you know the climate model, the modelers come in. like you said to you guys i wouldn't be surprised someday to actually see a whole is hurricane season modeled out with some at or see. modeling out hundreds of years, you know i don't know. i'm not a modeler. i wish i could see these but as computers get better and his information data gets better as we understand not only the size of the atmosphere and the horizontal but also the vertical. you have to understand the whole thing works in a vertical.

there so many different players out there or you don't know who is going to come out with three for three every night. you don't know who is going to be the big hitter or the big slugger that night. last winter he was la niña. la niña is still around but he is only batting 200 this year, 250 as opposed to pretty much carrying the team if that makes sense. we had a negative what we call north atlantic oscillation which was combining. this was your best three for tandem out there and that was keeping us cold and snowy in the east. this year, the nao got traded, so it's not around. i am trying to take this as simple as possible without getting into meteorology but that is a player that was just having a bad year. a good year as far as we are concerned but a bad year in terms of snowfall.

>> i was thinking about the fact that we have talked about this which seems like it's completely a different subject but it has to do with the risk in their acceptance of that risk and it occurs to me that there is an impatience among consumers of information to accept a certain level of risk and inherent in act or say whether it's forecasting something which is difficult to do as terrorism as well as weather so that gives to the question of someone both here and you acknowledge this in your prepared remarks and there was controversy with hurricane irene in the forecasting with one and where exactly that storm would land and then here's the kicker, which is asking you all to be for the. why can't predictions be more accurate with all the advancements in technology? to you get a lot of grief from viewers who are upset that you you're not perfect.

>> i have never gotten a thank you letter for nailing the forecast. [laughter] they only remember when you are wrong. like i said track the forecast of a hurricane. it's been extraordinary in the last two years. intensity not so much. there are a lot of different players going on within the forecast and i have not come up with a good way of measuring that yet. like i said regarding new york, by the time the decision was made to evacuate the city, the storm was for forecast in new york city which was without question the right thing to do. people would have drowned if they had not evacuate the city. there was still a four-foot storm surge at the battery in new york. granted it was not nine feet but

it was for and that is because the storm stayed weak and didn't intensify but when you are playing with 24 to 40 hours of trying to get 400 -- 48,000 people out while shutting down transportation you have to make our hard decisions and imagine what would happen if it was a cat to end a game into new york. and you didn't evacuate everybody. >> having said that, i know here in the washington area as well as having lived elsewhere across the country there does seem to be on the occasion on the local level a certain amount of panic that sets in certainly in washington where some local media seem to believe that we are all incapable of surviving a five-inch snowstorm. [laughter] so i'm wondering whether as someone who is a great practitioner of journalism relating to whether, what you see when you are in the local markets or you see some people doing a live shot that might be 10 feet away from you? what is the level of competency

on the reporting about whether where people are also trying to drive audience by the way? >> there are more motives that play than just trying to be accurate. what have you experienced out there in the field, maybe the good and the bad, and what is the appropriate level of traumatizing the coming storm? how how do he make that adjustment obviously you have accumulated 25 years of experience to figure out what is supposed to be right. >> i just want to ask you how many notecards did they use for that question? i'm sorry, no i'm just getting. [laughter] >> here is the deal. being in the weather for 25 years no one has ever ever asked me about the weather which speaks for itself and that came from my friends john friend john hope and many great urologists that work with me and work for

me, so with the weather, believe me it's its own, its own ever ending journey and he keeps going and you really don't have to hide it because even in a situation where it doesn't pan out the way you want it to, as a meteorologist there are a lot of things to explain and talk about why it didn't work out that way. but if you look back last year at the groundhog day lizard in chicago, there was no doubt that snow, that intensity was coming north. how they handle that as a city you know, really wasn't that great. you know, people just kind of went about their normal business. they needed to be a point where they said look we need to get mass transportation off the road because one said us went sideways on lakeshore drive that said, nobody is going anywhere because you are snowing at two inches an hour.

it was a disaster within disaster and you have to avoid that so that is going to take emergency managers and local officials trusting in us and not afraid of being wrong. speak you have a situation here where five inches came in about two hours and that shut down. who spent the night in the george washington pkwy.? anybody? unfortunately, even days they made the decision to let everybody out early but you could see it on the radar. there was no question, so maybe the thing to do is just as kind of keep everybody in place especially for a short-lived hard-hitting offense, let the road crews get out there and plow and maybe shut down mass transportation for for a while. the level of forecasting ability has gotten so much better. we can get a few times. we can give you what's going to happen within the hour, what's going to happen within a two-hour period and you know what it's not always going to be right but in a situation like that i'd rather not have people

on the roads and to have people on the roads. >> how does there exist but -- disaster response boat from a charitable level when you have been around to see europe as a responder? what do you see out there? i know it's a partnership between government and sharing. >> one of the biggest improvements that is come along in the last 10 years is the collaboration between emergency managers, local officials, meteorologist, fema. if 2011 happened in 2005, i don't even want to think about it. craig fugate is probably one of the best things to happen to fema. i mean he understands after going through situations in florida in 2004 with four hurricanes straight how you have to pay plan in how you have to make sure people are taking the storm seriously. he is a big proponent of instead of becoming the victim becoming a part of the solution.

in other words, do your part. not only in preparing but also in helping others and i certainly think in the last five years, 10 years we have gotten a lot better at collaborating efforts, maximizing especially pre-positioning supplies for storms that come on. like i said i don't think if we had 2011 back in 2005 we would not have done very well. >> who are some of the unsung heroes out there in terms of organizations that are helping once the disaster hits? >> i mean you have got fema and their pre-positioning of supplies. you have the red cross and the salvation army. they are all in collaboration. they are on everything but it is kind of nice when i go out among the beach and everybody else has evacuated in the red cross will come out and tell us how many shelters they have opened and what they are doing and what

they will be ready for once the storm passes. it's kind of like your friend out there in a storm. i think there are oftentimes unsung heroes. >> do you ever get grief from people who are out there when you guys are saying don't come out unless you absolutely have to and they are like, well, you are here? >> yes, all the time. somebody nailed me today without. >> how does that conversation go? >> here is what i say. i can't argue with that and they are absolutely is risk involved in being out in the storm especially when i am doing night hurricanes. a -- moving at 50 miles and hours of very dangerous weapon and i can't tell you that is not going to happen and something is not going to happen but it's my job. if you ask somebody in the military why did they do what they do? it's their job. they have a mission. i think i make a difference when i'm out there and people expect to see me out there to get them

through the storm and that is exactly what i do. >> in 1973, larry asked a question about the old farmers almanac. he said it was a very cold winter for this area. how do you rate their job and having produced these kinds of forecast for many many years? >> well, i used to get the farmers almanac as a kid because i wanted to see what the winter was going to be like and then i became a scientist. [laughter] so i learned it wasn't that easy to just go on and what has happened in the past. they basically his climatology and kind of average of the year and a few other things. but you know how cold has it been in the east this here? yeah it's not been that cold. so like i said that player, the nao has not showed up this year to play. he is holding out for more money. either way, we don't use the farmers almanac.

but they do send us a copy and we appreciate that. [laughter] >> so a lot obviously has changed in terms of technology since i started than one of the biggest change we have seen across the industry is the appearance of social media and obviously the weather channel is playing a big role there and as you mentioned in the intro you are very popular a very popular person on twitter. how does that change the way you do your job if at all and there's ultimately the question of user-generated content. obviously someone sees -- before somebody else that is a version of reporting. how has the social media piece changed? >> if you look at cell phones and social media, and you combined them, it's almost hard to miss any weather disaster. in a flood come in a big hailstorm, any big snowstorm and like i said that is how social media is how i learned about what was going on.

so the kind of flooding that went on there, clearly out in the woods. i couldn't believe what i was seeing on you to. it has changed the industry or cleanse it of waiting for information and confirmation now you can see it. i think, i don't think people have a lot of malice intent when they send those things out and i think they want to get people help as best as they can and i think that alerts people to how bad it was. when i saw that i actually texted craig. i said craig we have big problems in vermont just because i know that by living next to that near queen chi gorge, how the river is that high, that has to be up 25 feet. i've never seen that in my life so that just gave me kind of a hint as to what kind of the disaster was going on out there. and so what that is going to result in his faster response times. and maybe and oh my -- we don't

have enough to cover this. this is going to be a much bigger deal than what we actually planned for as was the case. >> how do you decide when to tweak? >> well instead of that 20 hour a day is begun in 24 -- 24 hours a day now. you feel responsible that you have to tweak. why are you talking about the tornado warning or the severe thunderstorm warning? i was having dinner with my kids but that doesn't really matter. so that is the drawback as people expect, but for me i get up in the morning and i look at the weather and i will see things and instead of waiting until 7:00 at night when i go on the air to share it with you i'm just going to share it with a tweet. that is really how it changes. you get an idea of what i'm thinking about and looking at long-term both that day and what will be coming down the rad. [inaudible] >> we shot something on that

actually. i have a whole process dedicated to field clothes so i have my winter stuff and i have my summer stuff. i have a backpack that i always carry with all the weather channel jackets and things like that so should my winter bag not show up which is happened before by the way, i will have everything you might backpack and it fits perfectly in the overhead by the way. if you want to know which one i will let you know later on off-line. i have an idea of how long i'm going to be out there so i try and pack will. >> how do you handle the logistics? obviously the powers out and you don't have access to a grocery grocery store how do you get prepared to be there for a while and may be a while before somebody shows up? >> well, there are a lot of health bars out there these days. lots of choices. you can add peanut butter or you can have double chocolate. we have come a long way since the cheese whiz in the frosted mini-wheats. so we do stock up and that is a

key part of logistics is when you get out there before everything shuts down. make sure that you have supplies. you shouldn't be there for three or four days without anyplace that is open or where i am usually, with no power. >> somebody asked have you ever literally been blown over by the wind or a hurricane? how were your most adversely affected by the went? >> katrina was rough. first of all i have never been in a 100-mile an hour when. not many people i know could stand up to a 100-mile an hour wind and not the kill. i would say the strong swim-and is anywhere between 65 and 85 miles an hour where i was nearly blown over. you get this kind of stance where you you're bracing your legs, what i call the cantore lean. and i mean once you start seeing flying debris flying around like was the case with katrina. this big sheet of plywood which was obviously at one point over

somebody's window and the wind blew it off but it was flying around in the air. i said do you know what? i need to move closer to the building. that's probably a good idea in mother nature did case what you do. wins over hundred miles an hour unless you have a separate satellite dish in the corner for recall flyway, the it's pretty hard to broadcast. is pretty hard -- see someone asked how do you handle a personal tragedy that goes along with covering disasters and you try to focus on the -- rather than the people were kind of regime do you have when you're in an area such as katrina and i know when one of her colleagues got very emotional with joplin and what it happened there. it's a challenge, isn't it? how do you handle that? >> i mean it's not easy. katrina was the worst. i will never forget this little kid came up to me and he said,

and he was crying and he said jim i am going to be okay but i'm really worried about my dad. he had lost everything, the house. that just crushed me. and i think, you try and think of others when you are out there. i don't care how tired you are and i don't care what you eat or are not being. you are out there to get the message out. we need help here. mississippi especially, all the attention went to new orleans because of the levees and mississippi was sitting there as they say as the forgotten coast. that is not to say don't pay attention to new orleans because they needed help too. but you just try to stay on mission, and you realize you have a crew that is counting on you and you have people that are counting on you to get that message out and it's not easy because you go home and sometimes the images don't come

back to you for a couple of weeks. katrina was the worst without a doubt. when i went to tuscaloosa i thought oh my -- this is the worst tornado damage i've ever seen in my life and then i went to joplin. when you start seeing steel beams twisted around two or three times likely korisha, it just boggles the mind but it all goes back to the personal stories and we have had a horrible year. way too much heartache. i am really happy with his quiet fall and winter. >> 11-year-old macon over here in the corner asks, as we wrap up, what made you want to do meteorology and who inspired you? >> well growing up in vermont, it was the blizzard of 78 and that was my big party. we had a big snow year. we had 30 inches of snow with a blizzard and by the time they finish getting the snow off the roads it was like when i was

standing out by the road was like being in a tunnel ended as a 12-year-old kid that was totally cool. i have to be honest with you that was really cool but here's the deal. when i'm sitting around thinking about what i'm going to do for the rest of my life my dad who was justetter factor in everything he said, he said hey going to do for the rest of your life? i'm going to be an electrician or try to play baseball or whatever. he said why don't you study the weather? you're kind of a freak when it snows. you leave the light on in the warrant and you stay up all night. you have to wake up for the next 50 years of your life every day and you had better love what you do. and he was a man of very few words but those were some good ones. >> that is great jim jim and if you don't mind, i want to have a couple of housekeeping matters to take care of before we get to the last question. i would like to remind our audience about the upcoming luncheon speakers but we have in the president of the club taking office in january and she will

have the opportunity to host danica patrick, the nascar drivers who will be here at prepper 21st. that is living another kind of extreme and we have a number of wonderful traditions here at the national press club. as our way of thinking our guest speakers here and we actually kind of broadened it out a little bit today just because of the special nature of your job. so we will begin with a different take on -- typically we give you the national press club coffee mug but we figured when do you get to sit at a desk so we wanted to present you with a national press club new travel mug. [laughter] >> there you go. thank you. >> that is number one. we know you have the trademark baseball cap, the national press club baseball cap. [applause] >> there you go. spare last question is and this only came to me because of all your baseball analogies and your passion for the sport. we know that some athletes like to dress a certain way before they go out on the field. maybe there could -- they put

their left sock on first and the the right sock on second. they have their lucky t-shirt so to speak, so do you have any dare we say superstitions or are any regimens that hey this is the big time, this is the big storm? anything like that but you go through to just give you a little bit of bad luck when you are staring danger right in the face? >> superstitions? no, i don't. when people were out in the field and covering whether i was like, why is that dude in a suit? it was like, so i mean i was just like look i'm going to go out of my job is not to look like i just came out of an office but to tell you about the weather so i'm always in -- i'm a hat guy and a t-shirt guy at the end of the day and i say i'm just want to take that up there with me. everything i'm on is going to be a disaster so how do i

differentiate that? if you don't see me in a black t-shirt, which is what i call my afternoon t-shirt, it's usually not going to be that bad. [laughter] so the black t-shirt means i am expecting the worst. a little side note for you there. >> how about a round of applause for guest speaker tonight. [applause] >> thank you. >> thank you so much for coming today mr. cantore and i would like to thank our national press club staff including our journalism institute in our broadcast center for helping to organize today's event as well as well as her executive director vilma karen and pamela ross. finally here is a reminder about how you can find out more information about the national press club. please visit our web site at www.press.org. thank you and we are adjourned. [applause] ..

so where did all this control comes from?

it came from the modern public health establishment. the public health movement. and do more often than not the public health movement is a complete man is an obstacle. originally, the public health field was about sharing academics. that is what it was an institute for. a hundred years later, we cured at eradicating measles, months, tuberculosis, is used to kill hundreds of people. so if you're in the public health establishment come you have to reinvent yourself to stay relevant because there's millions of government grant dollars at stake. if you price yourself out of the market by being irrelevant, the money train set. so you have to find something else to do. it's about aids and cancer and that's fine. that's what it should do. but the public has mostly become a social sign. and that's the problem.

so you've got a lot of cause i academics who can't cut it in the laboratory. instead of hard science, they are shrinking or dessert portions because that's all they know how to do. so why use to represent an organization called the center for consumer freedom, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. and they tell me now that there's a professor at you see san francisco, of course aimed at cisco, on tv claiming that sugar, the stuff that a spoonful makes such medicine go down to the government should break up it up like alcohol. and on cnn, cng group to nods in deep approval like he received deep on the mountain. i can't wait for the next remake of willy wonka. they'll all be eating broccoli.

>> there's a whole series of things you have to do to make sure you've got an election with integrity and everyone is confident as the person that got the most votes is declared the winner.

>> to speak on "q&a," noted historian, anthony beevor discusses his new web-based historical narrative titled train five. -- "the second world war" c-span: anthony beevor, author of "the second world war." when you first started this book, what was your objective? desk out it was almost embarrassing away. the sterling grad commode ruling from a d-day, it's worth. fabulous they just did not understand enough about the whole conflict fitted together. it's terribly important to acknowledge and therefore understand the duty of the historian to understand and try to convey that. and the way the war in the pacific affect to the war in

europe or the way in western europe was affected by the fighting under soviet friend, one does need to understand this global aspect of the conflict. c-span: what kind of military experience have you had? >> guest: i was a regular. i went quite a long time ago. i was in the calvary regiment, which meant we had tank in germany during the cold war. patrolling the east german frontier and all that sort of stuff. so it was a good preparation. i'm not trying to save a military historian has to serve in the forces, but i do think it is an portion that one understands the mentality here at so many things in anatomy is is a cold mechanical organization. i think one needs to do that. there are some women who have been brilliant in that they produce, but that's because they put themselves into the boots of

soldiers rather than coming to impose serious organization. ha c-span: what if sandhurst? >> guest: but quite often did joint exercise is with cadets from west point. c-span: and the beginning of your book, you say 60 million people died in world war ii. can you break that down? >> guest: many people say it's more than 60. when i comes to china, a conservative figure for china is 20 million. but there are some historians now arguing it should be 40 million. when you look at the soviet union, 26 million is the generally accepted figure. of those 9 million military, 17 million civilian. it was one of the first wars in history, with the civilian casualties completely outstrips the military casualty. c-span: how does she start a

story? wended world to -- more to start a mess? >> guest: to have their own views, which is shaped by their experience and memories. the united states will begin in december 1941. begin in june 1941 at the german invasion of the soviet union. for most europeans come you think of september 1939 the german invasion of poland in star. for the chinese got started in 1937 with the japanese war. so there's many different versions. the important thing to understand is that it wasn't just a conglomeration of conflicts. the state-owned stake, the great paths fighting each other. but also, there was an element of international civil war and it was largely this international civil war that put

throughout the world almost between fascism and communism, which led to the civil wars after the second world war, the greek civil war, chinese civil war and ultimately the career and the known. c-span: for me show you video. this is just to give us a sense of people. >> the pagan pageantry from all over germany, personal allegiance to him, had ties as they were members of the master lease. this is fact one for world power, the most fantastic plane in all recorded history. pickler had seen here grab off nigeria and other territories in the chinese.

in march miscellany giveaway with the rate of ethiopia, you see the democratic world looked away while these aggressions were going on. and he smiled. for collective action to enforce peace, the only weapon he had to veer had broken down. it was time now for the nazis to cross borders. time for hitler to action. c-span: i'm going to jump to the end. he screamed and yelled and theory during the midday situation conference had collapsed, we've been in a chair. a little bit different adolf hitler that we saw there. what happened at the end? >> guest: hitler had into finding a reality. he was in denial. there was a moment when i think he realized the 1944, 1945 war was going to end in berlin.

but at this particular stage, when he burst into tears, i think he realizes that what he has done is bring the whole of germany to distraction. any sort of social darwinian obsession, that somehow it is right for the strong to win. he even said the german people have not proven themselves strong enough. the power now belongs to the soviets because in fact they approve stronger to nazi germany. he brought people down with him in him in a series i because he was determined himself to do. c-span: where was he at the end? >> guest: this is in berlin in april as the russians actually advanced in on the having surrounded in 1945.

>> guest: by what the circumstances and is like the last couple of days? >> guest: is a strong element. there was hitler come is still order armies to come to berlin to save him. in fact, they were trying to escape to the america my said they would not be sent into labor counts in siberia. and he was still sort of ranting and screaming about the jews and the war upon the world. there was this complete reversal of cause and effect, which was characteristic of hitler and the chairman extreme right. and he, in those sort of last -- that very last day he barreled eva braun finally, partly because she insisted on dying with him insane to die within. this is in no way her reward. but he also saw -- he was

fascinated by movies, by the cinema. you see in some ways he saw himself as a worldwide film director, directing the script. he didn't want to fly to berlin to die in his alpine retreat. because for him, the downfall should come in berlin. that would make a more dramatic and to his whole life. c-span: how long had he been with ava braun and when did they get married? >> guest: they were married in the bunker underneath the right chancellery and are lynn. one may feel slightly sorry for the official who was striped and from his bookstore, which was the battalion defending the city in order to come into mary hitler, had to ask them if they were free of diseases and worthy of aryan birth, which was

slightly intimidating asking hitler of that, but it was a budding term. and they have this sort of strange little reception. but the chancellor was seen as sort of a frankly a drunken and all the rest of it and complete anticipation. c-span: but has been done without bunker today? >> guest: the russians tried to blow it up because he was in the soviet occupied zone. with five meters of concrete covering the roof, a part of it collapsed, covered it over. after the collapse of the berlin wall in 1989, the west german government felt they should do something with that area and that excavate and suddenly realize the bunker would still run under the ground. they were terrified he would become a shrine to the

neo-nazis, so what was covered over again and is now sort of camouflaged as a part. i remember climbing up palisade to have a look at that particular moment when it was briefly exposed. that was a little bit of concrete and so forth. c-span: you didn't see inside? >> guest: i have watered one or two people claimed they got in a bunker from a tunnel through one of the canals that was an escape tunnel. but i'm dubious about the stories. c-span: united at the time. in the end was coming when people lived in berlin. he was heading towards the city at the end there in 1845? >> guest: in 1945 in the west you have basically in the north to canadians in the north. after several in all the way down the river you have the american army. and that was when eisenhower had

the russians, the russian friends and ukrainian friends in a massive operation, and profane. the interesting thing about that, which we discovered in the archives was that the reason by stalin was so insistent and surrounded berlin first was he was terrified the americans with breakthrough. he would get the nuclear material in berlin at that time because he wanted them for operation boarded the know, the soviet attempt to create nuclear weapons because the unit the manhattan project and the atomic bombs that is going ahead here in the united states. c-span: go back to the moment that adolf hitler was getting near the end. who was in the bunker with him and that was his plan?

>> guest: hitler by then had virtually no plan. when he realized these armies of remnants of armies were not coming to his aid or trying to escape really to the west, that is when he collapsed, when he realized finally it had come to an end and it has been a question of suicide carried his main object is simply not to be captured alive by the russians. he was afraid of being paraded through moscow in the cage and ridiculed. so he was determined to die. if lebron was determined to die within. and the bunker, and i've spoken in interviews some of those in the bunker with him. and there were various generals and others. some were allowed to escape in some certainly did escape. others had to wait until hitler himself killed himself and then also had to rate until the minister, the propaganda minister had killed his children

and wife in a suicide, and as suicide. and when they try to escape through the russia mind. there were captured. c-span: who were you who were you there that you were able to talk to? >> guest: they was the chief of staff to general cripps, the commander-in-chief and general staff. this is i must say his account also generally maceo who is in fact visiting frequently. i also interviewed and asked us to left mass and it was an extraordinary experience in his parlor in berlin, drinking tea as he showed the photograph albums, which were photographs you take themselves, all hitler playing with the shepherd dog, german shepherd, blondie, and

things like that. and he was showing they so proudly. but when hitler's body was carried past, was set on fire in the cardinal on the body of ava brown. at one of the ss guards who'd been getting the transcripts dares him a drink at the last of the alcohol before the russians arrived and the staggered down the stairs inside the sheets achieve fire committee went to come have a look? to me is summed up this grotesque ending of such an appalling regime. c-span: specifically, how did he kill himself and how did she die? >> guest: hitler, she took poison. they had the cyanide capsules and hitler also had a small pistol and basically he crunched the cyanide capsule and shot himself as well to make double

sure. c-span: why didn't she shoots herself? >> guest: she didn't want to disfigure herself come even in death. she was rather vain. c-span: i know it's been done before cumbrous first time time ever seen her refer to as ava hitler. did you do it on purpose? >> guest: no, she insisted. forgetting about the wedding ceremony, she corrected them, no, hitler. it was quite interesting when she saw -- when she signed the marriage register, you can actually see the way she signed a fat b., started with ron and then heard any hitler. c-span: is there anything new in the book? >> guest: i think there's quite a bit new. c-span: give us the things he discovered as he went on. >> guest: one of the major elements, this is material passed onto me out of my book on

stalingrad what happens is you finish a book and lots of interesting material arrives. the second world war historians association boss out asked me a lot of material from the kgb archives for the end tbd. about stalingrad, but also material came out about operation mars. they had these huge diversions to tie down german forces. but became clear is the six soviet armies into the attack because of the artillery support to tighten down. they betrayed the plans in advance. this is one of the most cynical, appalling, worthless acts of the whole history of warfare. 215,000 casualties, as many as the allies had in normandy and d-day combined. and stalin was referred to

sacrifice that, just to make sure the stalingrad operation worked. in the far east, one of the things that shocked me the most was discovering the japanese had used cannibalism as an actual strategy. the killing of prisoners some locals are prisoners of war as well. and using them as human capital, soaking them one by one for me. this is actually a strategy when they were ordered to adapt self-sufficiency, when they've been cut off by the u.s. navy they didn't have any further supplies. it was also happening in china as well. in 1945 during the investigation and he is war crimes commission and american authorities discovered this was the case. they decided to suppress it and stay suppressed for a very long time for very good reason that those families had a relative who died in japanese

imprisonment for being psychologically traumatized by wondering whether their relatives were being killed. c-span: is this the same incident referred to in general macarthur's -- either the prosecution as somebody after the war? >> guest: yes, he suppress the prosecution of the officers involved in the biological and chemical warfare development site admin sharia. and the point lies that in exchange for all the information about for you very dubious to the end of the war, whether with german rocket scientists or with japanese scientists involved in these appalling experiments on prisoners. then they escape prosecution in some of them were actually brought to the united states and use for their knowledge.

c-span: this is an 850 page book. there's an enormous round of battles and names in here. how did you do this? >> guest: shall we say with a good deal of panic in the early stage. reiko when did it start? >> guest: in a way and accumulation for quite a long period of time. it started about three, three and a half years ago. it was a very difficult one. the vital thing was structuring on the marshaling of material. once it started to fall in place, my panic started to subside. up until that point he was worried whether he taken on too much. it was simply overloaded, overwhelmed chow mein on this material of detail. c-span: 50 chapters. by j-juliett at the out the way you did and how jesus christ the way you did. >> guest: i believed in a narrative history because one

needs to have the chronological order rather than a thematic construction over you might have paused in a book about the pacific war in europe or something like that. i do believe that he needs to be in chronological order as a narrative nudges from the point of view that it's easier to understand that the story, but also that is the way you can show the effects of one's theater upon another at a critical moment and really major changes in the course of the war. but i've been coming narrative history come to think that an anglo-saxon going back to the 18th century about the rest of it, totally different to the german first in history commotions always been much more better idea as scientific. history can only be a branch that cannot be tested in the laboratory. i did not faintest notion of scientific history. >> guest: c-span: came in the atmosphere

we would find u.n., give us a set at. were you write and how he would go about putting all this information on paper? >> guest: is having huge up again as usual from my colleagues and work with for many, many years. i am now way for 17 years, she knew the material i was looking for in the russian archives. she was looking at material for that direction in germany. so when that material would arrive, obviously they would all be in different files and then i could copy it across to the skeleton chapters. aiming to begin with, nearly 60 skeleton chapters. so i could use them down or whatever. you're never going to know how it's going to work out. sometimes it is so much material from the archives. or a member of the berlin book, one chapter at 110 pictures of

those for one chapter from the archives alone. so this is where you have to do your triage of information that material in mushy dropout and put into it in a reserve chap here. and then you can go back later and check if there's anything important you have removed and you should have go back in at a better time. when you think of the old days and someone had to work with a card index system and typing about an electric typewriter and copying of all the rest of it, thank god for the computer. i don't think a book like that -- it would've taken two years, perhaps longer. c-span: were you physically located? >> guest: in england, in canterbury. i had a bar and which i converted into a library and there's books on the way around. the important piece of equipment as the ping-pong table because spreading out the maps and also for the piles of copies of all

the different archives because otherwise it would have descended into chaos. c-span: what time of day to you right in on what? >> guest: on a laptop and i'll start as soon as i can, usually 8:30 or 9:00 and i'll carry on. there will be a break during the day come i walk or something. you can't sit there all the time. and not carry-ons till about 7:30, quarter of 8:00 in the evening. c-span: do your research and write or do you as you go? >> guest: ideally, yes. i think hemingway argued you should spend several months on the first paragraph and then the whole book will right themselves. i'm not suggesting that's necessarily the case here. it was felt very strongly shouldn't start to write and say you finish your research. i realize i missed the cut and

overwhelmed by the material, i need to change by method and start writing as an earlier stage. and you know, once he gets going, it is vital to establish, i think, but your voice coming here with him and everything in that sort of early part. you don't get the early part of the book way. i don't think you're ever really going to get it right. you can go back and keep rewriting the start, but she won't get everything in the voice that she made. c-span: will go back to the beginning of a moment. this is a piece of video and i went your assessment on how important is think up happiness. >> tax mobilize and close their borders. france and britain striving to avoid war. ..

[applause] we regard the agreement signed last night and the anglo-german ankle -- agreement to the desire of our two peoples never to go

to war with one another ever again. c-span: how many people at that time during your research did not believe what chamberlain was telling them? >> guest: i'm afraid the vast majority did believe it and that was true of france as well. what we must remember is that both countries and particularly france which had such grievous losses in the first world war couldn't really believe that any other country would want to repeat the horrors of the first world war. they completely misunderstood hitler and had the determination of many german people to correct the mistake of 1918 of the german defeat and the attitude of the germans. they had not really been defeated and it was handed really by a trick. one of the common elements between if you like 1938 into day is that the populations of western europe were severely misinformed by the leaders and

either press on with the real threat was. and that is true today. i think leaders in europe can actually -- tell them quite how desperate things were but otherwise the dangers, the acceleration of the panic would be worse. the one difference between the two was the threat of war tends to unify nation and becomes that much more divisive but in 1938, what i think is significant is a minority of there was church l., eden, cooper and various others who were warning very clearly what the threat was and they were treated as cassandra's or war mongers even and it could not come to power until after the war started and in fact he didn't arrive in power until may 10, 1940 which would happen to be the very day the germans launched their invasion of the

countries of holland, belgium and also france. c-span: sudeten lantis where? >> guest: sudeten land is the most western part of the czechoslovakia and in fact people refer to it as the sigar stuck in in the mountain of germany. and a large sort of german population there. one has to remember how many germans there were spread around different parts of europe and who had been there under the sword of empires, the german empire but also the hungarian empire. and hitler's argument at the time of course was that i want to bring the germans back within the reich and many people thought will you know he said he tried to get the germans back. and they had a certain sympathy or at least they weren't prepared necessarily to fight him for that and it seemed to be

a small price to pay for world peace. that was one of the reasons but in fact very soon afterwards when hitler defies the rest rest of czechoslovakia and the following march of 1939, he was not just interested in just getting the germans back. he was actually interested in seizing the territory of other countries. c-span: think chamberlain thought he was going to live up to the signature on that piece of paper? >> guest: as well as cooper said of chamberlain as lord of birmingham which it then has previous edition nobody had ever broken their word and mr. chamberlain, he could not imagine hitler breaking his word. he bears very made in a particular way. he was a very good chance or the exchequer, but he was if you like the edwardian mustache and umbrella. the gleaming ruthlessness of the

nazi regime. c-span: by the way if you had to pick one human being out of this book that you can write a book about who would it be? >> guest: . [inaudible] c-span: who would be your first choice? >> guest: too many people have already written about churchill and therefore it would i would not have attempted to do that and in many ways also a didn't see myself necessarily as a biographer of that. not. i have been fascinated by eisenhower by his qualities and one or two of his weaknesses as well. patton is a fascinating character and obviously that together is a huge temptation but one sees these various limitations on the leaders of that particular time. i have always been rather struck by the way that many of these commanders particularly on the allied side, not in the armies or the totalitarian regimes but the allied commander has spent most of their military life in

complete isolation. suddenly they became -- stars with journalists and camera is unable to report any of the military details because of security and secrecy. they could really only focus and make some personality counts and most of them -- who are in fact remarkable commanders were particularly unfazed by that but certainly macarthur and to some degree patton and i'm afraid above all montgomery almost existed as some sort of presidential candidate. and this sort of new world was -- c-span: one small question. you say that montgomery actually had photographs of himself when he -- who wanted them? >> guest: unfortunately a lot of people did. one has to remember that britain

was short of military heroes at that particular time. the general ship in the early part of the war had been distinctly unimpressive so as soon as montgomery had won the battle of à la me, largely through very good preparation rather than through tactical brilliance during the battle, he did become a hero and we were desperate for said -- that sort of hero at the time. montgomery actually became infatuated the way he was carried away by his self-image at the time. c-span: you have a little bit of that scene in the book where you compare montgomery with mark clark, our general with your general. i have never seen him before and i didn't realize montgomery was that short and that clark was that tall. what was their relationship class? >> guest: clark was absolutely obsessed with the idea of capturing -- before the british in fact really rather dubious

about his obsession. in fact he refers to the way he made sure that his imperial profile was on the right side for the correspondence. and he was intensely distrustful of montgomery. i think actually in this particular case unnecessary and anyway montgomery went back to britain for the preparation for d-day and clark he came even more possessed and even threatened and in fact he claimed in the same memoirs that he threatened the british that if they got there first to actually fire on them. i mean i'm afraid sometimes and i think this is one of the few cases in the second world war that sort of the charisma of leadership can way unbalanced people. c-span: how many books would you say you would have had to have

read in order to write this book lacks. >> guest: of code deere. i mean one is listed in the bibliography but in terms of the other ones, a huge number. there are probably several thousand. but you could go on reading all your life or searching all your life and you would never finish. c-span: let's go back to the end. for some reason or other you picked one human being to lead your book off. a picture of a man who died in illinois, but he had quite a history. who was he, and what is the story? >> guest: well, he was a young korean. at the age of 18 he was grabbed by the japanese and forced into their army in manchuria because korea at that stage was a japanese colony and his name was yongchon john. he was with the japanese army when there was the major clash with the russians with the red

army in august of 1939. i've in fact used that for me the start of the "the second world war" because the battle on this manchurian front was one of the most influential battles of the war. it wasn't that large. we are really talking about 60,000 men on one side in comparison to the huge conflicts later on. it was pretty small but it was very influential in the way that it persuaded the japanese not to try to fight the soviet union and to attack the south which later led to pearl harbor and the invasion of -- and so forth. he was captured by the ruffin russians at this particular battle and put into a labor camp along with thousands of other prisoners of japanese army. but then later in the crisis of 1942 the russians grabbed him and thousands of other prisoners and forced him into a red army uniform to fight the germans. he was then captured by the germans in 43, and then the

germans later on put him -- them in uniform and along with other russian prisoners. he was forced to serve in what was called -- and eastern battalion. in normandy to defend the atlantic world. the sixth or seventh of june with a man -- landing of the american paratroopers on the peninsula. he was captured by me by the americans and taken back to england where he was put in a prison camp and transferred to a prison camp in the united states. said having been all the way around the world, he actually been settled in the united states after he was released at the end of the war and died in illinois in 1992. but the point of the story is not just that he emphasizes the global aspect of the war. it shows how for most people they had no control over their own fate. c-span: where did you find it

so? and when did you decide to open your book with that? >> guest: when i saw the photograph and i came across the county and tried try to doublecheck it as far as i could. the reason why it grabbed my imagination so much was my father was in fact in charge and in fact commanded special operations in italy which was our equivalent of oss. and he had always told me and i remember the story as a child, how a german soldier in fact of asian origin or looks have been captured and then he could find out where he came from because he couldn't, they couldn't find what language he spoke. finally there was an english priest to who it then attached to one of the divisions who had been a missionary in india andy's bent -- in tibetan and this man collapsed in tears. it was the first time he'd heard his language in three years and apparently he had been picked up

by a soviet border patrol on the edge of tibet and grabbed and pushed into a red army so having heard that story as a child and when i came across this particular story it had a huge resonance for me. c-span: a couple of quick things. where did most of the fighting -- divided up between the east in the west, where did the most people get killed? >> without any doubt on the eastern front particularly the borderlands of poland, ella russia, the bordering states and the ukraine. there is no doubt that is where the bulk were killed up in the prison camps, the death camps but also prisoners starved to death who it been captured by the germans. when you are talking about the sort of huge numbers and figures there is no doubt that the battle is actually was actually broken on the eastern front. the west made major contributions in terms of a vast

contribution if you like but there is no doubt that in fact they lost the soviet union. c-span: where did the americans lose the most people? in the pacific or over in the atlantic? >> guest: on the whole, the casualties in the final year started to mount up in a pretty large way in europe but i mean the casualties in the pacific on the whole were heavier. c-span: you are british. tell the american people from your perspective how did the americans do in world war ii? >> guest: the americans make a huge contribution not just in the question of the human sacrifice, the far east with the marines and the army there and particularly in north africa and above all in the day and in the fighting in northwest europe,

but the industrial contribution was simply staggering. one of my favorite clips that i've put in the book is an american general who said the u.s. army does not solve its problems. it overwhelms them and i thought the way that illustrated this sort of cornucopia of tanks, aircraft, liberty ships all running off production lines. it was one of the most astonishing achievements in human history and there is no doubt about it, the reason why the russians got to berlin before the americans was quite simply the fact that it was american dodge, studebaker, chevrolet and all the trucks that have been given to the soviet union had made their advances in 43 and especially in 44 possible. they would would have never gotn anywhere near it. that is not very popular when you tell russian historians. c-span: where were we weak? >> guest: i think that the weakness was only right in the beginning if you like.

inevitably like every army entering the war it's a civilian army basically which had been -- one has to remember the size of the american army going from a little more than 100,000 up to 8 million. that was one of the astonishing achievements under general martial. and of course there is going to be a weakness in the beginning until you actually are bloodied in battle and all the rest of it but where i think the british were very arrogant in referring to the americans as green troops and so forth but in fact my god the americans learned their lessons very quickly. churchill used to make a joke saying the american size to the writhing in the end having tried everything else beforehand which i think is really unfair. the americans as i say learned very fast and learned more quick a the on-the-job and the british did. c-span: this is again out of context but it's near the end and it jumped out. this is nothing new for us to hear but i think it's rather

precise. roosevelt, looking old and frail with his mouth hanging open most of the time. sometimes he did not appear to follow what was going on. talking about yeltsin. how serious was said and did he make a mistake or did we as a country make a mistake? >> guest: well the whole state was kept completely secret. and it was very hard for roosevelt's associates and companions basically to say mr. president are you sure you're up to it? he was desperately -- he was desperate because his greater possession was to leave a legacy of peace in the post-war war and he thought he could do a deal and could charm stalin into supporting his projects at the united nations and that was the thing dearest to his heart. anyway i think the huge mistake was he completely underestimated the ruthlessness of stalin and

stalin's total contempt for any democratic idea or ideal and especially over poland. this is where churchill became horrified. the fact that roosevelt announced he was going to withdraw american troops in europe was of course absolute music to stalin's ears and infects churchill was at one stage contemplating the idea that somehow we should push the russians back to -- over poland what was called operation unthinkable but i think it was one of the -- the main failing of roosevelt was a belief and excessive belief in his own charm and ability to win stalin around to his way of thinking. style and was not going to be won over by anybody. c-span: i don't know if this is an irrelevant question but who was worst? stalin or hitler? let me ask it this way.

stalin and hitler -- >> guest: one of the marching remarks was by the great physicist and dissident and he said although this was in reference to stalin and hitler, although stalin killed more people than hitler, hitler still had to be defeated first and i think that is absolutely true because if hitler had won in the soviet union, the deaths, the hunger plan alone, 30,000 russians dying up salvation and would have even dwarf the holocaust. again and take question of figures. c-span: this is after the war. >> guest: this is after the war obviously especially during the cultural revolution and so forth. it was the madness of the most terrifying form but you know how

does one calculate the sorts of figures o deaths through famine or disease as a result of malnutrition and? you know it's very hard to start sort of defining these figures. c-span: i'm trying to find the quote and of course i can but it was a "in here that people might be surprised about and them that would be where you quote teddy white who was such a prominent figure in this country in the 60's when he wrote about the elections. as opposed to chiang kai-shek is being a better deal. >> guest: i think that certainly more and more historians now are accepting that in fact chiang kai-shek has had rather a bad deal in history. he had an impossible situation. yes there was a lot of corruption within his organization but when you see what mao did later, the witch

hunts of any opponent, the killings, the humiliation and destruction of almost anybody who might be slightly dubious to oppose mao's personal command, i mean it was not anti-communist. unless you absolutely bowed down to mao as a god you were regarded as an enemy. and this was madness frankly but it was terrifying that so many people were able to buy the -- that they were the ones fighting the japanese and the nationals were doing nothing. mao was giving orders the whole time to his troops and did take on the japanese. we need to keep our weapons and ammunition may be to destroy the civil war that will follow inevitably which will follow the second world war. c-span: i want to show you some video of a the man in the know and ask you about him.

we have gotten to know him a little bit here. this is back in 2003. >> i see hitler's real mistake, if he wanted to win, was not to have organized, planned and organized his scientific program better than he did. germany was enormously successful in the development of critical military technology between well, 1936 and 1944. by 1944 the germans had the following technological achievements to their credit. they had built and flown the first helicopter. they had built and flown the first jets, aircraft and they had built and flown the first cruise missile and they had built and flown the first extra

atmospheric missile. but all these weapons worried either not fully developed or came too late into production. c-span: what impact did sir john keegan have on your life? >> guest: a great deal. i studied under him at sandhurst where he was a wonderful influence in the way that he was provocative in the sense that he made us think of things from a different angle, whether an officer or future officer and all the rest of it. but every military historian has drawn a huge debt really on his first major, his first book, his important book. this was the first time in military history had been looked at rather and the collective

version in the past. staff officers tried to impose an order which it never existed on the battlefield and made it sound as if military commanders were chess grandmaster's. john turned that upside down and said as a result we have been in his debt. c-span: where is he two-day? >> guest: he is at home. he is not well i'm afraid. he is bed ridden in fact. and, incredibly brave. he has always suffered. brad -- badly all of his life but it has been particularly cruel in recent years. c-span: you can tell by looking at but he had a terrible candy hap with one of his legs as i remember. was that polio? >> guest: it was from childhood yes, and in a way that was always what i think -- he had been fascinated as a small boy at the time of d-day and when he saw the troops assembling and the rest of it

and he knew he would never be able to go with them and although he could have never served in the army, he was fascinated by the problems of the military and his sympathy for soldiers and anybody involved in warfare came through really his imagination. c-span: so if you had a roomful of young students who wanted to do what you have done, what would you start to tell them? >> as i said the first row of a historian is to understand. it is not to make moral judgments. that should be left to the reader. he don't go into an archive or if you go into an archive with fixed ideas the best thing that can happen to you is to find the basic idea is particularly wrong so it means you're actually discovering something new or something interesting. as i said i am very opposed to the german idea that he should have a --

and supported with material. that means you are selecting immaterial to support your own prejudice or your particular argument. the vital thing is to -- your mind. you will never get it entirely right. no book is ever definitive and there's always going to be moments in the future. but i think you have just got to make the best work in the best effort you possibly can. c-span: what was the first thing you ever successfully rode? >> guest: >> guest: depends on the degree of success but i suppose the one that really broke out in a way was stalingrad. there were two books before which it done fairly well but stalingrad was one the sort of went international and translated into 30 languages are more. c-span: what year? >> guest: that was in 1998. c-span: what intrigued you about stalingrad to make a book out of its? >> guest: well the reason really was that the russian

archives had just opened and i had worked there on another book. and, the whole point of stalingrad was that we knew the military story, the strategic, tactical story. had very little idea of what it was really like for the soldiers on the ground at the time and the civilians essentially trapped. the children even living as orphans really almost like animals off of roots and plants to survive. i couldn't believe that 1000 of them were still alive after five months of battle. but it was the ability or the potential or the possibility of getting those archives and the military defense archives and that was really where the vital material was. c-span: i've are those archives close now? >> guest: i'm afraid so but it was not my fault. c-span: what i have heard a

number of american historians say the same thing. why did they close it? >> guest: it was quite interesting. it was open before it was minister of the archives. they were never happy about the archives and they were very uneasy because they had never dealt with foreign historians before and it was a mixture of paranoia and naïveté in dealing with those archives. at the time i remember the colonel in charge, the general staff and the minister of defense in moscow saying to me we have a simple rule in our archive. you will tell us the subject and we choose the files. there was no point in trying to say let's go to other archives. one had to do one's best and your in fact very lucky. the closing down in fact was before my berlin book came out. it was soon after we finish the research and in fact by that stage the fsb and the old kgb -- make kgb was taken on the

material by foreign historians and were beginning to get a little paranoid. just after 2000 they closed to foreign researchers. c-span: your former teacher has an opinion of what could have happened in world war ii. i want to run that and see what you think. >> had he developed a nuclear weapon and had either the cruise missile, the fee one or the rocket, the thief to -- v. two, he would have him bartered london and bombarded the invasion ports. d-day could not have taken place. he would have destroyed the american armies in britain. and having done so, he could have dictated his own terms eventually i suppose. the americans