industiziofinnnati. son w wllywood, which focused s the subtitle said, silent film and the shaping of class in america. and his latest book is, hollywood left and right: how movie stars shaped american politics. " and it received a film scholar0s award from the academy of motion picture arts and sciences, and here's that book. then, finally, we have richard schickel, who you might know as the long-time film critic for time magazine and the author of i think more books than everyone else at the festival of books put together. several does...

y are suppose remember the cold war and what exactly are we supposed to remember? >> what's our time frame? -- the memorial for the cold war

i found almost two dozen but the preliminary question is what are we supposed to remember about the cold war and there is kind of an official story the democrats and republicans have agreed on and that is the cold war was a good for her like world war to a battle between freedom and totalitarianism. this is more a republican idea van dak had but democrats were equal participants in the cold war and george bush articulated this in his first inaugural address in this analogy between will want to and the cold war. the history of the 20th century is the history of two great struggles first the struggle of freedom versus nazi fascism and that was led by fdr against hitler and the second was the

struggle of freedom against the stalin totalitarianism that was ended of course by ronald reagan who famously went to the brigade and said mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall and they did tear down wall. so the notion that he won the cold war is often announced if you google bald reagan won the cold war i did that this morning in a thing about 140,000 hits. and the major center in america for celebrating the cold war is in the semi valley. how many people here have been in the library xbox excellent. of course they have a beautiful display of the berlin wall on top of the mountain with the sunset behind it. but if you go to the valley today after the book festival,

you will find the exhibit is not about the berlin wall. it's not about the gate saying mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall, it is at the theme that won the cold war. the exhibit is the life of walty the largest exhibit ever assembled of the memorabilia has been on display a the library and closes on april 30 yes. it is a temporary doubles house that the library. it's organized not by the national archives which operate at the library. it's organized by the official will disney fan club and it seems like the original sketch for cinderella, for sleeping beauty, steamboat willie, the disney live-action films to be a

i went out and i have one question. why? what does wall disney have to do with ronald reagan or the presidency? i have to say richard wrote a wonderful book that sort of set the standard for what it means sn enomenon.ous o they seem to have learned more from that. it's more to do with disney that the answer is almost nothing but they did appear to gather once. there was one occasion that was especially historically significant. the was the first day of the hearings 1947 to investigate the communist infiltration of the film industry. the first day is what we call

friendly witnesses and ronald reagan and will disney speaking on behalf of producers both testified communism was a big problem in hollywood and they thanked the house committee for bringing its investigation t l.a.. in subsequendays next ten wiesses refed to name the names of friends, colleagues, former comrades of theirs that had been in the communist party the hollywood blacklist began. so disney and ronald reagan were both present at the birth of the hollywood blacklist. but if you went to a sunny valley today instead you see all of this fannin stuff which is fun to see if you are a disney fan.

i also wondered be exhibits about the end of the cold war need object to display and the berlin wall segments are a rft object to display and over 40 places in the united states display pieces of the berlin wall. several of them are in l.a. and several of you have seen places across the street in places like that. i traveled around the united states to see how the berlin wall exhibits and other places and explain what the significance of the berlin wall is and whether they articulate the official view that ralf reagan won the cold war and went to the gate and said mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall, and they did. incredible variety. at the end of the spectrum of cultural capital as the section of the berlin wall and the

microsoft art collection in redmond washington. microsoft has over 5,000 works of art in its collections. one of thema piece. it's brought an end by ronald reagan and what they say is is this art? it's covered with graffiti of course. lots of people regard graffiti as urban blight and crime. it's a richly colored energetic tightly composed obstruction come a collage of urban graphic gestures, therefore it is ours and therefore it belongs in an art collection and that's why they are displaying it. they don't mention it is totalitarianism and they don't mention ronald reagan.

here at the other end of the spectrum of the capitol, there is a section of the berlin wall in las vegas at the main street station putative has anybody year into the main street casino and what is it? its not on the strip. it has a historic theme and what we politely called the budget area of washington, d.c. did you see there section of the wall and where was at? it is in the men's room. thank you very much. [laughter] >> it's great to have history buffs in the audience. the men's room of the station casino displays a section of the berlin wall above the urinals. by the travel channel it's been

featured in troubled leisure magazine as one of the top ten sites of las vegas and women have complained they are deprived of the opportunity to see the berlin wall segment if you ask one of the security guards at the 5-dollar blackjack tables which are kind of adjacent to the men's room they make sure the coast is clear and then they let you see the berlin wall. but says nothing about ronald reagan and nothing about the symbol of soviet totalitarianism on the basis of this brief survey of this journey across america that most americans do not seem to be interested in hearing the official story of how america won the cold war. that's why the library is now

displaying disney artifacts and why the micas of art collection claims its section of the berlin wall is a work of art and whatever is going on at the main street casino is going on. thank you very much. [applause] your book one of the things that's interesting to the crowd and los angeles in particular is the truism is the political left dominates hollywood coming and what your book talks about about this that if in fact conservatives have made as much or more out of their connection with hollywood is a tell us a little bit about that now he was the key to that and if you can somehow tie this back in. >> you'll get a bonus credit for doing that. >> and also the other day the two men were together which is the opening of disneyland. ronald reagan was one of the

hosts. but my book hollywood left and right profiles ten hollywood activists, five on the left and five on the right and for the only time in my career i try to put my own politics aside and take a look at ten people who were willing to sacrifice a great claim by being openly politico indigos to charlie chaplin to arnold schwarzenegger. one of the things i discovered is there are two myths of hollywood and politics. the first is hollywood has always been the bastion of liberalism and the second is the hollywood left has always been far more prominent than the hollywood for right. both conservatives have a longer history in hollywood than liberals do and second even though the hollywood left has been more numerous than visible. the hollywood right has had a

greater impact on american political life. you might say how was that possible. i would say if you look at american politics writ large. the second was the effort to dismantle. if you take a look over the course of the 20th century has generally preferred to focus their energy on the causes and issues. the hollywood right had a really focused on political power and on controlling the very nature of the american government of

shaping a. so my story starts even though we begin with charlie chaplin the politico story begins in the late 20's. he fashions the first permanent relationship between a party and a studio. he terms mgm into a publicity lange and training a breeding ground for the republican party to read this was in the late 1920's. he made sure the photographers cannot and took pictures sui detectors, for example i have one in the book of president coolidge next to marry. he made sure they would be photographed and those photographs were then sent out

to every press agency in the country given that somebody was running for office and given a candidate a patina of glamour that the democrati counterpart lacked. now the conservatives with the liberals on the left. george murphy many of you probably vaguely remember don't remember all george murphy was considered a actor song and dance man said he became a protege. he was the one not only to use the radio that he had taught dwight eisenhower.

son 1948 for example he tried to talk to tom dewey wh wnning e governor of new york totally arrogant it's the election everybody predicted he would win a landslide you have the famous photo of truman holding up the paper headline at the election that says he wins. no one likes you. they think you are a smarty pants and he said the next time you go on and you are photographed do that with your words, get your words wrong, get mustard and make sure you stay in your tie with mustard.

more importantly, murphy, who was also an officerd aothprhis . everything that he did that we know about whether it's the democrats, his use of the media everything he did he learn from george murphy but he did a much better. they took the media even a step further showing that you could use 247 entertainment media which most people pushed aside as insignificant and he said was really important is people that are bored with politics which are more than 50% of the electorate and presidential elections and something like 60 to 70% of the gubernatorial elections don't care about

politics but if i go on these entertainment shows and the reason they don'tare about politics according to the league of women voters to try to serve the people who don't vote and find out why don't you vote? most of them are women and the number one reason they say they don't vote is they don't understand the issues. welcome schwarzenegger went on during the recall in 2003 he went on entertainment tonight and access hollywood, larry king they would give as much time as they wanted and he was able to lay out what he wanted to do along with this shtick of the curly men in office. i want to tell legislators who are not doing their job, but more to the point he could actually lay out his ideas without anybody ever questioning him.

the turnout for the recall election and vote in the gubernatorial and voted 18 months earlier in the regular election but gray davis had one to go back, john has i want to gently correct them they made the mistake that many historians including myself had is the lump him in unproblematically as a friendly witness when in fact he didn't welcome congress. if you read the testimony carefully it's very interesting because when the war ended, ronald reagan when he writes in his autobiography was a bleeding heart liberal. 1947 he slowly moved from liberal democrat to liberal anti-communist, and by the early 50's he became a conservative anti-communist. but what was interesting about the hearings when they brought in the so-called friendly

witnesses disney was a very friendly and also very paranoid. but ronald reagan actually said to the congress i hate communists. i wish you would in fact out all the communist party. but until then you are asking us to do the dirty work the congress should do. you want us to blacklist communists but the problem is if we do that, te soviets have won because we have a thing called the bill of rights and the first amendment and free speech and as long as the communist party is legal, they have a right to say and do what they want and i really would like to -- i don't want to over dramatize this to be he is saying i want you to get rid of those communists but it's up to you, it's not up to less. you have to follow the constitution in order to deutsch. the last contribution i would say that ronald reagan and murphy made are the two men who really understood better than i would argue any politician of

their generation how to use media for the political winds that most people wanted to be entertained that politics is entertainment, politics as drama and melodrama would succeed more than the straightforward political speeches and the two of them are together created what has been the mantra of the republican party fro td war hi very day and think about this, fury and reassurance many enemies out there but domestic and foreign and in the case of reagan and murphy in the 40's and 50, they were communism abroad and creeping socialism, big government at home, but be reassured people like us, hard-core republican conservatives can feed all those enemies. and in the meantime if you take a look at what the democrats are

saying from the late 40's, 50's and onward, they were using the mantra of hope and guilt, hope of america could be and the guilt that we haven't done enough to get that. fear and a reassurance is continuing with the exception of 2008 trump tol guilt. [applause] >> straighten us out here. we are learning that in hollywood, republicans and conservatives have had more power. they have done more with it than the democrats' bill liberals have. >> tell us if you believe there's been more power coming out of hollywood on the conservative side and the liberal side, and also before that, john talked a little bit about the blacklist and i know

you had to address this many times and he was wronged in the whole discussion of the blacklist and his part in testifying to it i don't necessarily think he was wrong. he had a positn thio most people dis with. it's a really tricky subject because he is a man of impeccable liberal credentials and that is to say he was a liberal to the day that he died he just happened to be a communist liberal which got him in a lot of trouble with all

kinds of people. i am a prejudiced witness and i knew him quite well. i liked him he enormously as a person of considerable honor and integrity but there is no question. he was a communist very briefly in the 1930's. he fairly quickly set that aside he campaigned in impeccable liberal but they're came a time when. there is something slightly tragic because he did not, he

did not really -- let me start again. he was in a position i tk his life not even all not lead in his life he was in a difficult bind and he didn't become a person many people liked or trusted in net period. i liked him and i trusted him and i think that his -- he had english anguish in his position. so i find -- and that's why i like this book about as well as anything i'vewritten.

i like the ambiguity. i like the problems he confronted, the difficulties of sorting out a posiion and making it stick withpeople who were not necessarily supporters of his or anything like that. i faced at the end of his life and obviously my acquaintance with him i faced real ambivalence not about him as a man or a person, but a difficulty in sorting out where he stood and i think it was

never an easy process for him to sort out who he was, what he was, what he stood for and he remained in an ambivalent condition all the time and of course those are the most fascinating characters that make you want to write about them and make you want to try to understand them and all that. so for me, which is selfishly speaking, he was a great subject and i never-- liking him as i did, i still never came to a

firm conclusion except in that i liked him. just a simple thing. some people you write about and you don't really like them. will disney would be such a character. [laughter] but the thing was one of our w going on with him, he was engaged and difficult and it became -- i think the book is by standards a very good book but i don't pretend that it's the final answer about him and the to me that is sad about characters like him is that it

remains an open question of who he was, what he was, what kind of stuff he was up to but he was also a wonderful man. i was preparing for this slowing through the book the better day and i just, of all the characters that i've written about, griffith or disney, time and time again to the ambivalences and finally just the joy he was wonderful to have a conversation with trying to figure out, said he was my great

subject and that's really all i have to say. i have a lot more to say obviously, but for me as a writer and as a biographer, he's a great subject. maybe we can answer the question rt suggle of the lastu century, the cold war and communism and the soviet empire but now we have a new struggle with islamist extremism and occupies more of our political time with what has happened recently in the news. it's the forefront of our mind so is that part of the difficulty in getting people to address this whole history of the cold war? >> i have only a few brief lots of that. i thought about how what partly because rar memorable book

about him. he may have felt ambivalent. but unfortunately for him and for his former comrades, he didn't tell the read in the violence, he had a script the famous question is are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party. if you chose to answer truthfully, and everyone they subpoenaed already was or had been -- many people in their youth, many were willing to answer the question truthfully be this some thought it wasn't their business and they didn't want to talk about anything but if you did want to answer that question, if you didn't answer that question you would be blacklisted if you plug the fifth. if you did answer the question you are required to answer the second coming and much more difficult and potentiallyg gi uf

other people that you know who were members of the communist party and if you didn't answer that question truly and you will be blacklisted and so all the other couple hundred people who were subpoenaed had to decide whether they would name their former comrades come their friends and in some cases college roommates, people had been in the group theater with and then those people would be subjected to the same procnghame famostion andhese p question and of a too would have to decide whether to betrayed their friends in order to keep their jobs and this is what made him such a hated figure among the hollywood left. they said to preserve his own career in hollywood he ruined the career of the people that he

named. >>s not csrily true. >> in what sense is it not nessarily true? >> he did not -- he could not -- here's what i think. it's a very complicated question, more than people allow it to be in today's world. i think -- this is difficult to say. i think in a certain sense he did the right him, that is to say he dn't righteously

name names, and you know, so he's kind of left twisting in the wind it seems to me. >> i want to get steve back in here but what i read in your book too you felt there was some naivete and called on the people who were in the communist party that they refused to acknowledge there was a problem on that end. >> what me address that. >> may be -- you write present-day celebrities and their hesitance to get involved in politics does it have anything to do with this? >> it has to do with michael jordan -- how much money does anyone need and he was once asked why don't you ever come

out for any kind of causes and his answer was republicans by nike's. >> and this started in 19,181st quota that i could find was from chinese theater and told the actors because he was the major exhibitor in town. he said never talk about politics, it's bad for the box office because the moment you open your mouth you alienate half of your audience but there's a context to go back because some of you that don't know the cold war history might wonder. we have a myth about the good war and really became solidified probably during the vietnam war which wasn't such a good war and was ambivalent that somehow unlike the vietnam this seems fraught with who was on the right side world war ii we could feel good about because we stood

up and oppose hitler. it's a myth in november 1936 going to the gallup poll 95% of americans wanted nothing to do with what was going on in europe. you could still say that's early. okay, july 1941, we are now two years into the war 79% of americans wanted nothing to do with that war. the only group in america that was vocal the antifascist, and i'm not see from the early 30's on was the communist party. the reason many people either join and/or hovered around the party up to 1939 was because they were resolutely antifascist, an antinot see. if they saw what hitler, mussolini were doing in europe. they knew they would not stop and the only group that was speakiut was the communist

party and consequently all these in hollywood became the centers for the antinot see in the antifascism. for any of you that have ever been in any kind of a voluntary group in the e-mail days when you had to actually go and stuff , if you got conservatives,ng liberals, but communist party was willing to do all this work. that's why they took control of the groups say you had hollywood liberals who would deny he knew anything about the participation of course i know there are communists there but i wouldn't have asked to but i would have joined with foley rulers were communists said they were against hitler and mussolini. so you had a group that had become known as fellow travelers were the most oddly titled

expression early, premature antifascists. [laughter] now this is where many people leave coming either leaving the party were leaving the various what became known as popular front groups were amalgam in the summer of 1939 when hitler and stalin signed a mutual pack and that was the moment those who warn of hard-core believers in communism said we understand why he's doing it, he's stalling for time that if he is joining with hitler in the pack we are out of here. even the lead changed its name and the communist party lost a great deal of its membership. so, for someone it was anyone who stayed in the party after that was a full and would only be leader that we discovered that in fact first there were

only 300 that even the most conservative there were 300 communist parties in hollywood and at its peak, these people felt they were doing the right thing but we discovered in subsequent years that in fact people like john harold wilson who is accretive guild were getting their orders from moscow but nobody knew that and that's why i think he is ambivalent if the reason you joined us to oppose hitler because nobody would speak out that the work toward or tenet or whatever you want to call that it does raise a question. >> do you want to talk about why -- you talked about the reblanruion being

the one that won the cold war. your book makes the point pretty quickly that this did not take, the public doesn'tpt it. is that constrtion the right one? >> i don't agree with that. if you go to the eastern part of germany today or poland or any of those places and ask them why the berlin wall came down, they are puzzled and stunned at the idea they were following ronald reagan's instructions when they were doing this. they thought of as their own space movements that led to the liberation of eastern europe from soviet control and i think most historians today think that the soviet union collapsed partly from what we used to call internal contradictions. its economic failures, military adventures and also gorbachev

the soviet union could have kept going for a long time. he was determined to democratize the economy and politics ad bring a private initiative to the economy and ronald reagan realized you don't find out much about this at the library but he met with gorbachev and the almost agreed to nuclear disarmament. in the defense did redmon they were horrified by this and put a stop to it but he didn't go all the way when he had a chance to end the cold war especially the nuclear threat so you do find it's a hard core beliefs today if you remember the republican primaries of 2012 it was sent but long ago there were these

republican candidates for the debate at the library and everyone said he sets the example of how america can be strong and use its power to defeat its enemies he did it with the soviet union and we should do it today in iran and we were right to try it in iraq. america should use its power to destroy its enemies. it worked in the cold war and will work in the middle east. you have about 29% of the american people that agree today. >> richard, did you want to say something? you're leaning forward. [laughter] >> we want to take questions from the audience and i think there is a microphone someone is going to bring up. why don't we start right up here

>> it's obviously had an impact on politicians and individuals in hollywood and certain business areas. what was the impact on the common american citizens, the average person? >> i can't understand -- >> the impact of the red scare. the reason i ask is because that a certain point when i was 20 or 21, im mentioned mccarthy to my mother and she can from a basic farming stock and she had no idea mccarthy was. >> she was not from wisconsin? >> i can across a letter being a former gossip columnist and also conduit to the fbi they are the

gossip columnist and hollywoodian hoover fed a great deal of information. you seeheter york and elbert decker and had come under suspicion for the hearings. can't remember if he was blacklisted door ed gray. his wife is running for office in the local pta. this is around 55. and i want to know do you think it's a good idea? i know know why it should be tarred with her husband's politics but is it a good idea to vote for her? he said i agree with you a wife shouldn't be a responsible for the husband but if it was my child in a school or my ,

would neverte for somebody that is that for on the left so it gets to the local pta and it created crime. many teachers come anyone who had been part of this antifascist groups in the thirties fighting hitler, fighting the good war before it became the good war. >> one other thing we shouldn't forget about the impact of the red scare, the military-industrial complex is the direct result of the fear of the attack. southern california is what it is today because of the aerospace industry. we are all here because of. which he warned against in his 1961 but made ctry thatuary of

product. the university of california. a product of the cold war because we needed an educated public if we were going to defend soviet totalitarianism. they don't have the same thing for paying taxes for the education of its college students today. one of the kingpins of hollywood mourned behind the scenes he seemed to lend solace time -- what were his lanning as? was he left, right, what were

his politics? he was eventually a man devoted to the welfare of universal pictures. that's what he did, that's how he definedit seems t me thatase. so long as work to the benefit his studio and enterprise and was a vast enterprise but it reached full maturity. i don't think he was an evil man

is no my mind a guy tending toy he was the leading entrepreneur of hollywood and he was the man people went to to settle disputes and problems and he was notoriously fairly honest broker he's a fascinating man and there's a tendency with people of great power and motion picture business there is a tendency to kind of step back and kind of fear, but i think in

the largest sense he was an honest broker and there are not that many of them in the industry ever so i don't think we will know the full extent what he was doing, what he was not doing, that is to me >> it's interesting because there are some books about him, they're needs to be and i don't think there will be of the full accounting of what he stood for within the industry. it's a fascinating story. >> sounds like another book for

richard. it would be number 40. anybody else? right there. yes. >> [inaudible] >> why don't you project. >> do you have a microphone? yes let's get a microphone. >> this is one of the most nuanced discussion site seen in this period and i attended a few of these and often they are far more heated than. i come from a family there was deeply impacted by the blacklist and the mccarthy era and still is in some ways especially financially i appreciate that. do you think we have come to the time we can talk to the this more rationally because all the

history tend to be from the left or from the right and doesn't it seem odd that if we have come to that time we can have a balanced discussion of this period we seen all the more divided between left and right and contemporary politics. am i missing something or is there a link between the two? >> the same stuff plays itself felt right now. just remember at the beginning of the iraq war map. jim asked me does this still hold true today? to movie stars need to be afraid to speak out and i would say yes. the lesson is if you care about your pocketbook come if you want to speak and be pro patriotic and defend america right or wrong you'll never get in trouble but if you want to be critical of foreign policy because you believe as a citizen we have a thing called the constitution.

all men are created equal. everyone from the beginning white, male. since then we've expanded. i'm not being sarcastic because in terms of the world to have any white male who is sovereign, the american people declared it rather than a king or queen. you couldn't of a king or queen taking your land away because they had given it to use your sovereign rights of everyone has a right to say what they should or should not do in our government we should expect that and yet at the beginning of the iraq war map when they spoke out against the war they had their invitation to talk to the baseball hall of fame and right after that i had a crew from fox news come to my house to interview me because i don't come to the studio anymore. if they want me they can come to my house. the first question the reporter

susan sarandon onu think tim traders'. i turned to her and i said when did i stop beating my life. we want to let you know how this plays out we went on the air and i tried to explain how every citizen has an obligation to say what they believe so we tied the segment which never got shown up on fox and she says to me okay we are off the air now but don't you really believe they were traders? [laughter] i said to her okay you or a producer. when you have your weekly meetings and hitch a story, what is the story fox hasn't covered the you believe it should? she said i'm a military brat and they've done nothing about the families left behind, nothing about the lives or the children of the soldiers who've been sent to iraq.

i said let me ask you something with it to youotk a every week and every week he would get more insistent that this is a major story they are not covering and you are getting angrier and angrier? she said after a while they would -- [laughter] i said i don't know how much you make but i bet it is a lot less than susan sarandon or tim robbins said they are willing to risk millions of dollars to stand for their beliefs and you are not willing to stand for anything so who's the patriot and who is the cow word and that was at. [applause] appear in the front. >> [inaudible] >> why don't you do it for the tv purposes? it's your big chance. >> i'm not going to ask now. [laughter] you ki oakeh

same point back. it seems from our perspective now the issue is why were it not the press, the academics, the artists saying every american has the right to be a constitutionalist, whatever he wants and you have no right to interfere in that. it seems that was the issue and it's not the issue that seems to getscuss >> some people did say that they lost their jobs. "the nork times" fired them. this wasn't a popular view. should there have been a mass movement? that is an idea. steve said it should be banned. his leaders were arrested and charged with conspiracy.

this was a hard time to organize a mass >> a a climate of fear people are afraid so what you say makes sense now but what if the brothers had been caught and is played out much longer we would have a crime and fear in our country right now and we would see this belief that would come down the road. the first question to ask is if he was really afraid of the soviet threat, if that was their number one fear, why didn't they start by interview and nuclear physicists and other than hollywood movie stars? >> i think we have time for one more right here in the yellow shirt. >> [inaudible]>>- 62 come 63.

i was constantly battling the german argument aren't the americans pretty unsophisticated when it comes to internationalps them eating room in the public school and attended and west berlin. i was in the town hall square when kennedy gave his speech to 400,000 screen in germans. every german i knew knew they should cannot and honor kennedy during his six hour visit because he had confronted the soviets over the cuban missile crisis. would you agree with the germans that the american people continue as a superpower to be pretty unsophisticated when it comes to international threats? >> that's all i have to say. teresting thing i

know that kennedy and berlin is they were worried there would be a nuclear confn. l better than thenedy w welcome a solution to the crisis. >> we might have time for one more in the back. >> i wanted to follow up on the woman that was impacted by the mccarthy era as well as mine. i belong to a labor union that the 20% that don't want to go don't get to stand there and say they feel ambiguous and it's a nuanced vote on whether the cross the picket line to destroy your job. i helped organize and organize a

protest. but i felt interesting that hit the defense is he didn't make a decision. he was too confused and ambiguous to make a decision you go up there and answer yes or no. you do face consequences the make a decision to inform with people that your friends with and ruin their careers. i really want to know if people up there really do think people that informed against unionists' primarily and fellow communists or fellow travelers did it because they felt they were stupid fools or were they making a decision to protect their own bets? >> richard, did you hear that question? [laughter] >> the essence is whether -- why people were in forming and i think one of the most poignant cases. some maybe you can talk about how there is more subtlety than

the way that it's been detected as sort of black-and-white. this connection said was saving his own but. >> no he wasn't saving his own but. it was a much more nuanced response than it has been portrayedgen the pressand sewhere. i don't know how much of his testimony and so forth at the time was self-serving and how much was principal.

if soldiers did a raid or an operation where they basically were turned into cia officers in an instant you could just be designated under caa authority very quickly. we saw this dramatically and most famously in 2011 in may when teams of navy seals went

to a bottom-up pakistan and to kill osama bin laden. that entire operation was under cia control. >> host: rick is in maryland. >> caller: how are you? what type of clandestine operation did the cia undertake in benghazi that may precipitated the attack on the consulate? tried to its a good question. we are still trying to learn more about excite what the cia was doing in libya. i don't know about precipitating the attacks. there's a lot of rumors that have floated around about that. the cia certainly was operating out of that base in benghazi. they were trying to get some weapons off the street in libya. and the attack happened and, you know, what actually precipitated

it, obviously as a source a lot of discussion, a lot of controversy, but the extent of the cia's operation in libya at the time i think is still unknown, sethi they're still working -- worthy kin down into. there was an official report on the benghazi attack, ma and it was, it didn't really handle this aspect or some of it is classified. so what the agency operations were pinned in gaza before the attack is something that would still be worth knowing more about. >> host: when he referred to the way of the night, to what are you referring? >> guest: it's our reference to a speech that john brennan gave, who is now set a director, he was formally the advisory he was taught by the wars outside the war zone. early on the obama administration. and he said in contrast to the wars in iraq and afghanistan where the united states has used a hammer, he said we, the obama

administration, can use a scalpel. it was an idea i had that scalpel certainly applied a sos free. surgery without obligations. but we see that's not the case in a lot of places. so i thought i would take his analogy and make it a nice because nice fights are a lot messier. >> host: steve, california, you're on with mark mazzetti from "the new york times." >> caller: this. the united states has not declared war in over 70 years. the wars we thought, korea, vietnam, iraq, afghanistan have all been basically unconstitutional. we seem to have given up any a semblance of pretending to declare war, congress seems to have no stomach to declaring war but obviously no problem fighting them. i'm wondering whether or not you think that the militarization of

the cia, potential conflict between the different agencies and the defense department might in fact said whether that we return to the brute basic principle that congress declares war, to notntis the executive department -- [inaudible]. do you think there's any political will to that, any operational will, or do you think the american people just don't care? >> guest: well, if you question about whether people care or not, basically this day has been running this war on the basis of a presidential finding that was signed shortly after the september 11 attacks. it was so brought it gave them this authorization to carry out. the cia, that's where the duties covert actions historically. they rely on the president press tenure authorized to go do this.

and as you said for the military to operate, congress at one point you to declare war. in the case of the authorization for the military after 9/11 congress to begin a very broad authority to go find, o take the war to a return of the 9/11 attacks. mething called the authorization for use of military force. there's some discussion about whether congress needs to go back, revisit that. because it talked about al qaeda and affiliates. what is al qaeda no? al qaeda existed on 9/11 is a shadow of itself. are these military operations in yemen which are carried out by an affiliate of al qaeda, or military operations elsewhere, are they covered under that broad congressional justification? and so that is a question now. one could argue that was a declaration of war by congress,

but it was so broad and so sweeping, and in many ways in many people's views of unending, that the people feel like we've got to go back to sort of again set the parameters for the next decade of this. >> host: michael in north carolina. your question, please. >> caller: yes. i wawa to know if the guest was money with gary webb and his reporting on the cia and the cocaine drug wars in south america? and the second question -- >> host: and why are you -- michael, why are you interested in that topic? >> caller: i'm very interested in covert wars around the world, and here in the age this seems like a very, very big topic that wasn't covered very much. >> host: okay, and your second question? >> caller: my second question, as far as the drones, we know that this lack budget exists

within the pentagon budget. i was wanting to know if we have any idea how big this budget is, and how many companies ethics inside the united states? thank you very much. >> guest: so first of all, gary webb, i'm familiar whis work and h stories, and i don't know too much about the details of what he uncovered beyond what you describe. i did get a little bit in my book into the sea a latin american operation of the '80s, counter-narcotics operations. there's a way to talk about how some of the operations officers who are doing cia work in latin america, end up in the counterterrorism wars of post 9/11. it was sort of interesting, a lot of people in the latin

american world for some reason there's a confluence of reasons, into doing counterterrorism missions. regards to the black budget, we could have -- the pentagon now is required, i mean, did the total budget, but what part of it is black, how much of these what they call special aspect programs, what are the budgets for those can what do they do, they are all highly classified. how many companies are getting these black contracts, it's a work, it's reporting that still needs to be done. there's some that has been done but i mean, i think even when you're sitting shrinking budgets for the pentagon to buy big things like tanks and aircraft carriers and that's a good thing, the budgets for intelligence missions, intelligence operations which are smaller, it's a lot cheaper to hire people for intelligence gathering than to build an

aircraft carrier, these budgets are going to continue. >> host: any idea how may people in pakistan are on the pentagon's payroll, or the cia's payroll, or are working with the cia? >> guest: no. it would be a wild guess. i mean, t has shrunk sinc in the 2010, early 2011 peri of time. after raymond davis, after the bin laden raid, pakistan's government basically shut down a number of not only cia operations but there was a special operation that so declared u.s. special operations training mission in the tribal areas of pakistan. those guys get kicked out of the country. so it's also, the perceived threat from pakistan inside the obama administration has receded. so people have been moved to yemen, and so after that 2011 timeframe, which really was the

sort of the deer of the relationship, the numbers of americans undercover officers i think has gone down significantly. >> host: how many of those paramilitary groups that you spoke of earlier are in pakistan? how are they funded? how significant are they? >> guest: the americans -- >> host: theakstan side. >> gu thiis another subject of dispute. the pakistani government has, you know, denies it has any support for lash car. i think there is concerned that while there was once support for these groups that were used as a proxy force to india, have started to carry out attacks inside pakistan. and so whether the the pakistani taliban which is different than the afghan taliban which operates, which is what come only known as the taliban which is the u.s. fight in pakistan. -- afghanistan.

there is this fear among pakistani security officials that this monster has been created that has to some degree come back on its creator and hurt, nina, and killed thousands and thousands of pakistan is excellent terms of the nurs, again, israe is real speculatiot the interesting thing about ka which is a techcally banned troop has a public front which is a political party that operates openly. they deny any involvement in terrorist attacks. but there is an affiliation between the militant arm and the political wing of the group. >> host: what's the learning curve on learning all the different players and groups and ties within pakistan alone? >> guest: its deep and i would

even claim to be an expert on, i'm a, i would like, i traveled there several times. my colleague to you to cover pakistan for years, i consider him an expert but he would probably consider himself far from an expert. it's a complicated country as i say in the book in a sort talk a officers expensive pakistan. the role w each day less than he did it before and by the time your tour is up you know nothing. it makes it a fascinating country to try to cover. >> host: jamie, saint augustine florida, good afternoon to you. >> caller: big fan of the book. i wonder your thoughts, talk about drones all the earlier. i wonder what your thoughts on drones being used as kind of a preventative measure domestically to prevent terrorism. do you see us getting closer anymore?

>> guest: i think you're already starting to see a movement of surveillance of drones being used by police forces. you know, it's used along the border by customs and border patrol. you know, that's already here. and i think that it's only, that's going to increase. i think te real rop minds, specn rates fmestic use of arms drones, will the be armed drones used against a manhunt for the recent bombings in boston, could you have seen a drone instead of police forces try to hunt these people down? i mean, i wouldn't rule it out for the future. the obama administration a few months ago was asked point-blank will you use the drones domestically, armed drones. and the answer was, we see no, we envision a scenario way that is the case, which most people point it was not a flat no.

we will see what happens but i think certainly advocate for or even less, it's a certain possible that police forces, the fbi might use them in some instances. >> host: would it have been legal to use a drone in boston today? >> guest: it's a good question and i'm not a lawyer, but an income if one were to sort of say, what if a drone is a type of weapon, right, that is coming if you're the authority to kill someone, does it matter how they are killed? so for instance, if a sniper, a police sniper can shoot someone who is hiding in a house who is believed to be a threat, is that snyder has the authority to do that, is there a difference between that and an armed drone sending a missile into a house? and i don't know the answer but i think many people would say there is no difference. not that that means it is going to open the door for this, but this is where can't i enter the

way i did, that i certainly see that with the technology going the way it is and with drone technology advancing a drone to small and smaller, they're not going to be the giant, the big predators that are flying over pakistan. they will be little small drones that could be armed with things. this is not science fiction here in terms of, this is actually happening. >> host: booktv is a location on the campus of the university of southern california at the al late-onset to our books. we are talking with mark mazzetti, security correspondent and author of this book, "the way of the knife." jim, you're the next caller. >> caller: good afternoon, gentlemen. i to question. i've already posted to one of the largest providers of service to the cia and also the war department in afghanistan. and i asked him howe a fghans

was going. and i quote him in this remark right now. he says that is basically a total failure. and then went into details about that aspect of what basic means. what do you think the result is basically in afghanistan? >> guest: well, yeah, it's a question a lot of people's minds right now. the obama administration says by next summer they will be drawn troops down. and i think that there's no dispute that optimistic assessment come here, years ago of what could be possible in afghanistan, stability and peace and a strong central government, that's not going to be the case and i think most people admit that. the question is whether a year from now whether there will be security forces that have been built up to the extent that when the united states talese, you

know, what would be the strength of the taliban, what will be the strength and what will be the te government of karzai? there's divisions side the goment ikabul. i think a lot of people certainly do for good reason ask was this worth it, and was a success or failure? i think it's too early to declare it a success or failure, but i mean, as i said, certainly the concept of what is possible there has changed a lot from where we were maybe 2002-2003? >> guest:2002-2003. >> host: how many countries are we fighting inside this war? >> guest: again, unclear. where the military has sent special operation to make them aware the cia is caring -- i think you could probably, i side in the book that there is one order that they basically new authority for about a dozen countries. so i would say, i would say the

shadow war is sort of defined come you're looking at probably upwards of 2000 countries worry of covert operations, military clandestine operations, intelligence gathering, legal action. doesn't mean that there's hunting and killing going on in all these countries but there certainly clandestine intelligence gathering with the idea of waging this kind of work. >> host: what policy changes are not changes have not been made between the bush and obama administration? >> guest: the first think in one of the first things president obama did was very publicly ended the cia's detention and interrogation program. basically said, cia is out of the detention business. no more of these quoted interrogation techniques we were used to the military rules, i'm income effectively the program was, the jails were mostly empty and there were very few people

being detained and interrogated. but that was symbolic. besides that though, using far more continuity than change in a counterterrorism policy of the obama administration from the bush administration. you seem guantánamo bay still exist,ven the president obama said hwould try to shut it. you see more drone strikes under the obama administration than you did under the bush administration accusing drone strikes in different places. there was one drone strike in yemen under the bush administration. there have been not only drone strikes but a lot of missiles, of the missile strikes in yemen since 2009. in many ways, president obama said during his second inaugural address that the wars, the decade of war is coming to an end. what i believe is he was referring to a decade of public war, the decade of the wars that we acknowledge.

certainly iraq is over, afghanistan over what these shadow wars, these wars that are carried out in secret. there's not really evidence. >> host: the subtitled is "the way of the knife: the cia, a secret army, and a war at the end of the earth," and mario is calling from bridgeport, connecticut,. >> caller: high, mr. mistake in how you doing? i have two questions. two quick questions. first question, is there any truth to george bush senior having funded terrorists through the bank in the early years of the war against russia to the taliban? and my second question, how do you feel about the cia hiring literature students to come up with potential new center terrorist attacks against the united states? thank you. >> guest: i'm sorry, i did knew the second question. hiring what? >> host: litter very students to come up with various

scenarios. >> guest: i have to confess in both cases i don't know much about it. second question, i know that was a movie and, it might be true as well. but i'm not informed on either subject. >> host: daniel, hartsdale new york good afternoon to you. >> caller: i was wondering what prevented india from attacking pakistan after the attack from al qaeda? >> guest: it's a good question. there's been a number of attacks on indian so that have been traced to lashkar e taiba and other militant groups that have historically, there's evidence to suggest it was nurtured by the state pakistan. the mumbai attacks is the most prominent one. there was a great deal of high level diplomacy that went on to prevent an indian response, at least in indian public response.

and sort of keep, basically keep a war which because the two states have nuclear weapons that could escalate to nuclear war. i remember traveling with defense secretary dona decemberh heightened tension betweentes india and pakistan after one of these attacks. so you've looked over a decade at a number of times where it looked like the tension between these two parts was going to escalate. doesn't mean who's going to be a nuclear war but it did look like it could've been a real live major series of battles. the indians have kept from knee-jerk response to some of these attacks. the pakistanis think the indians are bring in other ways, that they're trying to do clandestine operations in an instant, that they're trying to exert their

influence in afghanistan in order to encircle pakistan to those who question the indians are asked -- acted in afghanistan. there are other ways of curing out response in a very public shooting war. >> host: what's the role of our embassy inis shadow war and diplomacy? stwell, the embassy, the role of the ambassador is at various times either powerful or not, depending on what that person's position is somewhat the cia is up to. the cia really does hold a lot of control inside pakistan. so and patterson was the ambassador for a number of years -- >> host: under the bush of administration. >> guest: under the bush administration, and carried into the obama administration, she was someone who came to see the necessity of a drone program,

was seen as someone who was very close to the cia and permissive with the cia wanted to do. her successor was a man named cameron munter who was not against the drone program but came to be skeptical of the long-term value of some of these drone strikes. so he found himself at odds with the cia station chief. he came in shortly before the raymond davis episode, so did the new cia station chief. i spent time in two chapters were talking about the fight, the concerned that this guy had, cameron munter. he found himself very much at odds with what the cia was doing in their strategy. and he pushed to get more power over drone activities in pakistan, and it went all the way up the chain of command and the obama administration. hillary clinton went to bat for him and/or his tents most

between hillary clinton and leon panetta inside the national city council meeting where they were, they weren't fighting but there was tension, tense exchange where she was to get up for her guy and a natty was sticking up for the cia. they kind of brokered a deal but ultimately the cia still maintained a degree of authority over what it did in pakistan. >> host: and you report in "the way of the knife" is a whole wing that is locked off from the rest of the embassy. >> guest: right. so the embassy itself has grown dramatically. you look at you go there, there's construction at this secure site. so all lot of, as the cia presence has expanded, the cia station has expanded. and that winning the ncaa operations. when you look at it and you wonder, this building is going on, it's sort of seems like there's going to be this long-term american presence. large american presence in pakistan but i really would

after 2014 after the drawdown whether we have built these buildings for this presence that's not going to be there after 2014. >> host: charles in lawton oklahoma good afternoon. please go ahead. >> caller: goo aftoon. this is very interesting stuff. i've done targeting and the military. but one thing that came out just recently which i find disturbing is that we are using templates in order to authorize drone strikes. if you could talk to use of templates. >> guest: so, i'm not sure what you mean by templates, but i know that they are trying, and i'm not sure this directly answer your question but they're trying to work it basically the rules for, i make him it's interesting that it's so late in the gam game we're still kind wk of exact rules of who can be

had, when they can be hit and where they can be hit, but this is sort of rules that have been described as a playbook that the obama administration is working out where it sets the rules more in stone than they currently are about how president can wage war, to e strikes countries around the world. my colleague did a very good story last fall about how the obama administration, it seems like governor romney might win the election, that he was, that they were frantically in the last days before the election working to finish this in order to set these rules in stone if obama were to lose and romney were to come in, like those would be the rules that were set. we all know president obama won, so that effort lagged to get those was in place. but it's still ongoing. >> host: dennis in pompano beach, florida, you are the last call for mark mazzetti. dennis, are you with us?

>> caller: yes. life. my question is about -- [inaudible] in the face of terror we must have counterterror. what is your response to tht ms. ede? >> guest: we've seen a lot of counterterror and the book is basically about a response to the attacks of 9/11 and how it changed the u.s. government. and how it has sort change the way we fight wars and changed institutions, and there's been successes and there's been failures and the think a lot of this is going to continue for a long time, nomadic and as i said even though the al qaeda as we know has changed, the way of war has also changed. >> host: and has mark mazzetti said, "the way of the knife" details a lot of u.s. policy

since 9/11, et cetera. a lot of new information in this book. here again is the cover, "the way of the knife: the cia, a secret army, and a war at the end of the earth." national security correspondent for "the new york times," pulitz prize winner mark mazzetti has been our guest. thks forng ws. >> guest: thanks for having the. >> host: that wraps up our coverage from the "l.a. times" festival of books issue. is a the 18th annual, about 150,000 people were expected to be here on the campus of usc, and we have been here two days, six and half hours each day of live broadcast. we appreciate your being with us, and, of course, we will be back again next year. hope to see them. want to let you know that booktv has also started a new feature, and that is our booktv online book club. we started it last month and what we are doing is we're trying to have our viewers and interested people read a book a month with us and then we'll

talk about on the last tuesday of that month and we'll [talking over each other] about online. on twitter and on facebook. last month we read michelle alexander's the new jim crow. with a vy interesting discussion then on the last esr chbo this month given hat is going on in congress and the and, at around the country the policy discussion about immigration and this month we are reading jeb bush, "immigration wars." if you would like to pick this book up, if you've already read it over would like to purchase that in a conversation on the last tuesday of the month, 9 p.m. eastern time, 6 p.m. after in the pacific coast we're going to be discussing "immigration wars" online on her facebook page and on our twitter feed. so you can get the details, you see the details there. go to twitter.com/booktv, go to facebook.com/booktv. go to our website booktv.org.

thanks for being with us. from l.a. this is booktv on c-span2. >> now on your screen is a for my face for those of you who watch cable news stations and c-span and its american university history professor allan lichtman who has just completed another book, this one is entitled "fdr and the jews." professor lichtman, when did a policy discussion about european jews begin in the united states? >> guest: one could argue it begins as early as the woodrow wilson administration. because of great britain issued of course it's famous now for declaration act in 1917. it said his majesty's government will do whatever it can to provide a homeland