>> good afternoon. welcome to the library of congress. i am john cole, the director of the center for the book in the library of congress which is the reading and book promotion arm of the library. we are very pleased to be cosponsoring this program with the libraries photographs division. it was created to help the library of congress we are private public partnership with the library of congress but indeed we have raised private funding from the beginning to help support our array of programs and projects. the center for the books are in every state and i know we have a broad audience today and i challenge you to look up and learn about the center for the

book that promotes reading and libraries. here at the library of congress, one of our major projects is the national book festival which i hope many of you know about, the library of congress project involved in many parts of the library and it's in its 14th year coming up in and this year or be held on the national mall, september 21 and the 22nd. the center for the book also is the administrator of the first young reader center in the library of congress which is located now in the jefferson building. it's the only place that focuses on the reading interest of young readers. 16 and under as long as they are accompanied by nidal. last year we had 40,000 visitors in the reader center so you can tell we are working hard not only to raise young readers but to celebrate reading in all

ways. one of the ways we celebrate is through talks such as this. our books and beyond authors series is a collaborative effort with other divisions of the library to show off new books that have been published based on the resources of the project of a library of congress and it's a as a special treat to be working once again with the princeton photographs division. i would also like to hold up for everyone to see a book that have come from the collection of the library of congress in ways that you will learn about in today's program. today our program is being found not only by the library of congress for our web site but also by c-span and we are very pleased to be able to share this program with the entire country both through c-span and the library of congress' web site which now hosts more than 250 of

these books and beyond programs. thus, with the filming i ask you to turn off all things electronic. we will progress from panel discussion too, if we have time, a question and answer session and conclude with a book signing out in the foyer of this -- so you will have a chance and if you don't have a chance for a discussion in in the question and answer. mackey certainly will have that opportunity at the end. there also will be a congressional display in the prints and photographs division of these photos between 1:00 and 2:00 so we have to move along so we can get to all of the event features. to get a start i want to introduce the mastermind of today's event, verna curtis. verne is i learn today one of four carriers of photographer --

photography. it is my pleasure to turn the program over to verna curtis. let's give her a hand. [applause] >> thank you very much, john. i have to say that we are all in this together. i'm not the mastermind. today, we have bridgitte freed who is the widow of different about for -- photographer whose work is featured in the book "this is the day" the march on washington which we are celebrating and we have the distinguished dr. michael eric dyson and we have paul farber. all of them are here with us for a special kind of conversation which is how we built it. i will tell you a little bit about each individual quickly because time is of the essence and i would like to tell you

that bridgitte freed was formerly bridgitte fluke and she met leonard reid in 1956. they married a year later in amsterdam where they lived, deciding to leave for life in the united states in 1963 just two months before what would eventually occur as the march on washington and i don't think they knew it was about to happen when they came to the states at that time. bridgitte developed and printed leonard's photographs for over 20 years, including those in photo book black and white america and made in germany and the internationally acclaimed exhibition concern photographer. in addition she has had independent careers in clothing design and a real estate broker. she now lives in garretson new york in the hudson valley and works full-time on leonard's prince and his legacy. bridgitte was born in germany

and after living in the united states for over 40 years, she recently became an american citizen. [applause] dr. dyson is one of the nations most influential and renowned public intellectuals. he is an essay contributor to the book. he published over 18 works of scholarly and cultural influence, including race rules, navigating the color line from 1996. i may not get there with you, the true martin luther king, jr. in the year 2000, debating race in 2007 and april 4, 1968 martin luther king's death and how it changed america in 2008. dyson's pioneering scholarship has had a profound effect on

american ideas. dr. dyson is professor of sociology at georgetown university and cited as one of the 150 most powerful african-americans by "ebony" magazine. dr. dyson has been called the ideal public intellectual of our time by writer naomi wolf and a streetfighter in suit and tie by author nathan mccaul. pretty good names i should say. you may know him by sight from his many guest appearances on "msnbc," as i do. it has been my pleasure to work with both bridgitte and paul farber over the last several years to bring leonard's photographs into the library's collection. paul m. farber was professor dyson student at the university of pennsylvania and later his

research -- currently farber is a lecturer in urban studies at the university of pennsylvania and a ph.d. candidate having just completed his dissertation in american culture at the university of michigan. farber's work on culture has appeared in the journal criticism and other outlets by blander as well as on npr. he was named to the inaugural inspire 100 list as a world changer for his use of technology in empowering social change. he is working on a biography. let us welcome these distinguished guests and learn how leonard's images of the historic march in august 1963 change the ongoing worldwide struggle for civil rights. [applause]

"this is the day." how did this book get started? it was president president obama in his first term. he said, i am here because you are all -- in america 50 years ago what did i think america was? it was all things to me. my husband's home country, my new jewish family, robin and benjamin. leonard's cousins and lots of americans. we came here from amsterdam to

photograph people. i have no photo of myself and of our seven-month stay in america but sweet pictures of our 4-year-old daughter, her grandparents and cousins. leonard was very frugal. he needed all film for his projects. nothing got wasted. he said i wished i had a picture of myself and of leonard at the march on washington. i only had my eyes. and these eyes looked and looked, i would say all these faces and then leonard asked me how i liked the day? i would say all these faces. the march was america for me and then the speech of dr. martin

came, "i have a dream." the speech moved like a wave over the heads of all those people. the voice was strong. a preacher's voice. it reached everyone. i had never heard anything like this and i know i never will. [applause] >> what a powerful testimony to the multiple means by which people contribute. there is no picture of bridgitte and leonard freed because they sacrificed every moment on film

for the betterment of this nation. that is more than an annex. that is part and parcel of the very fabric of american conscience that king wove a golden thread into. his majestic oratory as ms. freed has indicated, is powerful and luminous testimony to the ability of words to move us, of speech to redeem us and of rhetoric to call up the higher purposes, these done in the name of ideals for which we are willing to sacrifice. how appropriate ben that bridgitte freed testifies about

the magnanimity of spirit of her former husband, whose shutterbug, whose eyes, whose aesthetic glory have given us a visual testimony to the majestic sweep of the human soul when it seeks to be free, freed from its constraints, freed from the narrow application of hatred, freed to see. leonard freed, even hidden his name, gives us the powerful emblem of freedom that we all seek at the end of the day. i am honored to be here with ms. freed and of course my students, paul farber who called me in to this project because when he was my assistant, he was my boss.

[laughter] and he is one of the most thoroughly organized young people i have ever met, and i am as proud as a papa to have my jewish son. [laughter] right here. [applause] and he has sprung from not only the lines of his family but from the powerful collective imagination of people whose love and dedication marked his life as well. the reverend dyson, my wife, his mother is here rhetorically and symbolically his mother. [laughter] i don't want to get into no baby mama drama. here today. these photographs are not only the emblem of the calm dignity and the quiet beauty of life

people and their allies who are in quest for the basic fundamental dignity of voting or existing without the artificial constraints of segregation. that day when we listen, when they listen to the majestic words of martin luther king jr., echoing from that mighty mall in washington d.c., who knew that a scant five years later he would lose his life in memphis, that on that day this soon-to-be martyr at the summit of hope and expectation, with conjure the norms, ideals and beliefs which are the foundation of american democracy. he was reminding america of what it should be. he gave america a blueprint of what it could be and he called

it into vision. the sweet and powerful romance that the american people have always had were the ideals that nurture us, but which we have not always perfectly obtained. and so leonard freed offers graphic testimony to these people's dignity, to their quest for decency. they were dressed in their sunday go to meeting -- in 1963 and a nation that frowned upon their lack of humanity, that quarreled with them as to the legitimacy of their claims to be fully human. these noble souls march 2 washington d.c., to tell the nation that despite their repudiation of their fundamental dignity, that they were indeed dignified, that they were blessed with the beauty of

purpose that could never be exhausted by the infernal and hateful resistance of connor, clark in alabama, those in georgia, those across the nation, who did not understand that what these people possessed was mightier than money, and was deeper than the rivers that flowed beneath this nation and its founding. they have an eternal spirit of vigilant resistance in the name of spirit and of faith and of family and of the quiet dignity of the american dream. martin luther king jr. that dream powerfully that day. his sweet cadence gave voice to a people who knew that at our best week the long shoulder-to-shoulder with the great figures in american

society, that despite the refusal to acknowledge who we are and indeed then were as people, that our rhetoric would appeal to the nation, even a president soon dead, another rising from the heated center of the south to become our advocate because the president was not in control of providence. but there was a god who spoke from washington d.c.. now for all the blather of our christian experience, for all of the rhetoric of our religious roots when we rejected every bit of that evidence by our own behavior, that shame demagogue that we to be our own. these people remind us that ultimately the cosmic central purpose into which they task

would be enough to bring us forward to force political social and economic transformation and leonard freed both in 63 and in 83 has captured that resistance, that relentless spirit, that edifying power that could never be if you will, put out by the forces of men and women who fail to see the light. i'm proud to be associated with this project and i'm proud to be with bridgitte freed and paul farber to remind us of leonard freed, who freed us from this memory and who has now documented the glory, the beautiful calm dignity and the wise purpose of human beings when they are in search of freedom. [applause]

[applause] >> it is as much of a challenge to be on a stage with people who you deeply respect, who have been your teachers in one form or another, and to be here is just in itself a very honor and also sets up a challenge to how do you follow freed and dyson? i think about the march on washington and 63 when rabbi of the jewish congress is getting up to speak and he was following the great folks center -- folk singer who sang the oh freedom. he starts before his written remarks and he says quite simply, i wish i could sing. so i summoned him here and i say thank you deeply. good day and i want to share

some perspectives on leonard freed's work and a bit about the history and memory of the march, as we are now in the 50th anniversary here of this great gathering. before i do i want to make sure to send deep gratitude to a few individuals here, to verna curtis who has been a great supporter of this project here at the library of congress as well as her colleagues at the center for the book and the curators and thank you so much. diana berland who is the editor of this book and had such a creative and brilliant hand in shaping this on i want to make sure to name her and greg britton who was there and lead the project and set us on our way so deep thank yous and certainly to bridgitte freed. you have shared so much with me in terms of your wisdom, allowing me to try to do my part

and carry forward leonard's legacy and i thank you deeply for this opportunity. leonard freed's 1963 march on washington photographs are among his most eloquent and animated of a large body of civil rights era photography, which fueled 67, 68 photo of black-and-white america. his work as a whole captures the prevalence of racial division in america the decades following the 1964 legal mandate and segregation, leading up to and through the landmark civil rights legislation in the mid-60's. four of the photographs from the march on washington were included in the book including this one from the slide. but the march was just one story or specific photo shoot amongst dozens of others that included

protests, parades, beauty pageants. to understand the underpinnings and the drive of this work is to re-explore some of its greater content. i want to draw our attention to several anchoring images, to see this march for freed and not just as an isolated event. instead we live through freed to understand what led them to the march and what ways have brought him forward in his work. freed was born in 1929 in brooklyn to russian jewish immigrants. by 1960, you been living in europe on and off for a decade and it was there he honed his craft as a documented photographer and wrestled with his identity as an ex-patriot american jewish. during the time freed was working on a book of photographs , on a book of photographs focused on living in germany and the traumas of the

holocaust, he ventured to berlin in august of 1961 to check out the scene where there was word that awol was cutting through the middle of the city. with citizens of both sides fearing the brink of world war iii, freed wandered close to the boundary of the divided city. neither on assignment nor with a predetermined vision who ended up finding and seeing the most of his camera were american g.i.s. here at the ball freed snapped a photograph of an unnamed black soldier standing at the edge of the american set. freed's contact sheets from this trip confirmed that this image was powerfully a single shot taken at the middle distance black-and-white. freed stance with the subject between a set of trolley tracks that culminate in the imposed boundary of the wall behind him. this encounter haunted freed and

sent him off course and beckoned his return from exile to come back to america to confront segregation and racism. this image would end up being the first photograph of black and white america and as an annotation in this book freed to set this out as a point of departure. he writes, he and i, two americans, we meet silently and we parked silently. impeccable and deadly as the wall behind them is another while. it's there on the trolley tracks along the cobblestones across the frontiers and oceans reaching back home, back into our lives and deep into our hearts dividing us were ever be made. i am white and he is black. setting out from this point freed aim to represent and encroach upon america's racial buffers. it's after this opening image with its multiple boundaries

freed would bury his own perspective, perspective being that measure distance between a typographer and his subject, to approach an acknowledged their humanity and their shared existence. he photographed many african-american subjects in his project and whites too embedded in an interconnected system of race. he does so by capturing and representing his subjects vision, what they see, how they see each other, to make visible the terms and conditions of the segregated color line society. in the summer of 63, freed and his family ventured back to america. he photographed in the boroughs of their city and when he looked back to the con pack sheet of this period the traces of the march began to emerge in d.c. the handshaking closely as the march of headquarters were centered in new york.

leonard and bridgitte freed marked off several days for the event on august 27. they drove down the camps outside the city. on august 28, they arrived in washington d.c. at dawn. freed began his day on the periphery of the national mall, capturing scenes on his handheld but the camera walking from the base of the washington monument to the boundaries outside of the white house and to the streets surrounding forbes theatre. several blocks from the epicenter of the marc freed captured some of the first photographs of the day under a sign that read, house where lincoln died. freed made photographs of passersby as they crossed one another's pass. he envisioned foot traffic at the prelude of the later gathering at the lincoln memorial. it was on that day freed was having deeper currents of historical memory per on the spot and jimmer personal geometry and geography.

freed sought images in which he could bring the marchers and the layers of their social landscape and architecture to be shared frame. to see this day from panoramic perspective was also the ability to pay attention to a crowd of individuals with faces and really walk alongside and amongst them. it offered freed a spectacle not to marvel from afar or at a distance but to explore the march at a ground-level. freed meandered through multitudes on the mall and the resulting images attests to his thoughtful photographic eye as well as his active footwork throughout the day. but if we returned to thinking about the role of lincoln and how freed invoked him 100 years after the emancipation proclamation, we see one of the

only shots of the statue of the former president included in this work. it happened to be the same frame, which is the only photograph of the speaker dr. martin luther king. much of the march on washington iconography features came either up close at the podium or with a faceless crowd behind him. but here, the leader and the former president from afar at a distance atmospheric and collective shot. as king speaks, freed at this capturing front and back shots of the crowd, the thousands of marchers separating freed and king with lincoln behind him. this image serves as a complex and collective portrait of the march on washington at the lincoln memorial.

within a year freed crosses paths with king and he photographed the leader of the baltimore street parade on october 31, 1964. freed had gone back to europe and returned again and king himself had just gotten back from europe. on this trip it was announced he would receive the nobel peace prize and this was one of the first public gatherings in his honor. freed devoted a full day photographing king of baltimore including a parade honoring him and his speech at a local synagogue. this photograph from the parade is included in black and white america and is taken on prominent status in and of itself across version of kings hand with the parade goers nearby under the cover of taylor branch's pillars of fire. king is definitely the centerpiece of this photograph but we need to think about how freed accounts for the crowd around the mass and again freed's potential link within

this crowd. we can consider where freed withstanding. was he close enough to reach out and touch the card for touch came or as you see an arm reaching around king and another frame he is pictured to kings left. but when we consider the deliberate inclusion of the blurred face on the right-hand side of this image, we have to take a step back and really consider whether leonard was close to what his perspective was and if we think of him as part of the scene or being -- way. this was deliberate of course. freed fully believe that printing and accounting for photographs all the way to the frame. unlike the black soldier in berlin this is not a single shot but shows several frames and perspectives. freed is part of it in a way. he reminds us of the photographs

power in marked social distances between freed and king, between king and the collectives around him but to represent these divisions, to challenge them and to remind us of the choice of power. there is more to say about freed's approach to photographing king in 1965 into alabama and especially after his assassination. we can think about king as an ongoing subject of freed's work and this is a shot included of the commemorative anniversary march. here we get a sense of the call to galvanize around king's image that we also have his absence truly marked again. as dr. dyson has her lately and powerfully written how april 4, 1968 truly changed america we get a sense of that date cascading forward and freed reminds us to think about king

and his collectives. as we close, i want to think about and put forward some of my hopes for "this is the day" and to do a small part to carry forward the history and memory of the march on washington. some significant names we want resident here with us. while kings dreamed is extensively excerpted and echoed and envisioned improperly so, it serves as the iconic memory of the march but i also hope leonard freed's photographs remind us of the full message that king put forward and to seek out more of the stories, the 250,000 plus marchers, these veterans of the civil rights movement and all those in their hometowns they impacted on all those inspired from that point, to fully understand the march on

washington is the greatest gathering toward democracy on american soil and to understand it as a noble blueprint of social change that we still have with us. in other words, to seize the day on the march of washington, august 28, 1968 as a living archive and to see this book of one of the many potential tools of thought. there are many names to name, more a hope as we approach the 50th anniversary this august but i offer a few now. carol corson by first and second grade teacher in philadelphia who attended the march on washington. ms. corson was a quaker woman and she shared stories with us about her time there and what she put forth to all of us had to do with understanding what your convictions are, not just being present with them but in present with other people and sharing them.

of course we say the name dr. martin luther king our american genius and profit whose words and actions deserve ongoing critical exploration and complex consideration. a young leader and participant in the march who carried forward the spirit of his gathering and brought forward the mantle of the civil rights movement along lines of race class gender sexual orientation and the moral compass for us. this day was triumphant but there remains a reality of systematic forms of racial hatred and violence so this year as we happily marked the 50th anniversary of the march a month later we will also mourn the brutal bombing of the baptist church in birmingham where children at a may columns gerald robertson and denise mcnair were murdered. they too deserve our

commemorative consideration this year. and our hearts are still happy with the loss last month of medea pendleton another young woman of color from chicago who was gunned down as another victim in today's epidemic of violence just days after returning from marching here in d.c. for an inaugural parade for the inaugeration of barack obama. we bring idf forward because even at the national mall, the symbolic justice granted for those of us who go to it can only be guaranteed further with greater forms of action beyond the maps, beyond the malls downed trees. to carry us forward through tragedy and transformation and the names of dr. eric maisel -- michael eric dyson and marcio dyson. they have taught me and so many others so much about intellectual inquiry that flows

from the head to the heart always between people. to the tune of 50,000 plus detainees of the march whose names we don't know well enough we hope to know more of you. we want to hear your stories and we want to be able to both record them and seek them out ourselves. it will nourish both are history as well as our pathways forward. finally, leonard freed whose photographs on the march on washington confirmed the profound beauty and historical significance of the gathering. as they frame collective action and democratic transformation. in leonard's memory his photographs glimpsing the past and informing our futures we say his name, leonard freed and express our gratitude for all of his contributions. this is the day. thank you.

[applause] [applause] >> of course i want to express our gratitude to our three speakers. this has been a terrific program and they have made it such. we are going to continue gathering in the foyer for a bookselling and reception. first i just want to say another word about the book which will be on sale and you can get an autograph in the back. it not only was produced by the museum but it does have and paul spoke of julian bond who is producing the forward and dr. dyson has an essay in it and taken by itself it's really a

wonderful commemoration and defend by itself moving it forward as paul did at the end of his talk. it's truly an example of how a book can both be a catalyst, something beautiful in itself and if you will and call to action to get the spirit of the event and the spirit of the best kind of collaborative publishing, publication event and is burned us that this was a wonderful collaborative event on the part of many people at the library of congress and in the publishing world. so, before i call you out to get your book, get it signed, meet each other and go down to the photograph division between 1:00 and 2:00 and this wonderful gift to the library of congress. let's give our speakers and for

not another round of applause. [applause]

>> john borling is a highly decorated air force major general who has served worldwide in high-level command and staff positions. fighter pilot who graduate from the air force academy and national war college and was a white house fellow here during

the vietnam war he was shot down by ground fire seriously injured and captured while trying to innovate and spent six and a half years in a p.o.w. in hanoi and you will hear more about the set tonight. after a longer in air force he occupies leadership positions in business organizations including symphonic and expressioexpressio n. his been spin the president ceo of chicago's united way and also the founder of s.o.s. america service oversell for a patriotic organization advocating military service for america's young men. the motivational motivational political philosophy in business. >> your use in demand across the nation so we are lucky to have him here tonight with us to speak on his latest book, "taps on the walls" poems from the hanoi hilton. please give a warm seattle welcome to mr. john borling. [applause] >> that was a pretty good introduction.

are you squirming around in your chairs yet wondering is this guy going to be good or not? we are going to do something different and thank you all so much for coming. you had a flag line issue and those were the patriot riders of washington who make sure that we don't forget. and so a new tradition for town hall. it's my honor to ask you to stand as we present the colors. posts the colors. if you will join me in the pledge of allegiance to the

flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. retire the colors. and thank you very much. please sit down. i was commenting on the introduction where was gracious enough to offer when people start doing the recitation of credentials, it tends, those verbal thunderbolts tend to leave me speechless, almost. so tonight we are going to explore together some subjects that i think are riveting to me and we will find out if they are of any importance at all to you.

i think i i will begin with a washington story. we have former white house fellows in the crowd ,-com,-com ma steve hill and others that i may have missed and i have also got some guys i flew with in the crowd, mike schoenfeld a classmate from the academy from 1963 and i haven't seen mike for a while and others who may have stories that they want to tell that i'm not going to let them, including some people from high school that on the south side of chicago who grew up around me. it's fun to be back in the crowd of some folks who have known you and also been intimidating actually. i much prefer strangers because then you can -- but starting with a washington story, it's attributed to bob dole and he had had a falling out with his speechwriter. and had a major speech shortly

thereafter. so we walked to the podium and there is the folders as it always is and he starts to open it up and told the crowd that tonight he was going to be pleased to offer solutions to the staggering economy. he was going to be offering as well considerations as to how we can really have affordable effective and universal health care. he was going to talk about refurbishing the militaries equipment to create an operational context that could be affordable and would be able to protect there and just on a worldwide tases. he was going to talk about how he was going to cure the endemic problem of racism in the united states and bring us together truly in terms of shared values and one people. at this point he kept turning his pages on every page. he finally turned to the last page and for those of you who are familiar with the story he says as soap -- okay you as so

be your own. the nice thing tonight i'm not on my own given the recitation of the people who are here who know me but i'm trying to divide you opt because in the end this is going to be in contract is kind of thing. is that fair enough? we will do its air force wives and we will cut you down the middle. this will be a flight over here. you are always the rowdy bunch. b flight, you are cerebral, okay? shawnee is over there. he is cerebral. a flight and b flight and we will switch you down here and this will be, what do you think we are going to call you guys? charlie flight. you have to be a little quicker on that. maybe because you're all presbyterian on this site. or there are unitarians. do do you know why unitarians are such bad singers by the way?

it's because they are always reading a stanza i had to see if they agree. [laughter] marks all who is a great standup guy when i was growing up in the bed -- south side of chicago on rush treat said free association can be abusive. you will have to ride with me on these mental excursions as we go down tributaries of the mind that may or may not have anything to do with the book we are here to discuss. by the way my wife myrna, 50 years this june,. [applause] i'm glad you recognize my contributions to the. it was not for me? you're absolutely right, shouldn't be for me. myrna when i talk to her, she is down and phoenix and we live outside of chicago in rockford now but in kind of paradise. eat your hearts out. if you like treason frozen ground, perfect.

she said remember, talk about the book. so we will get there. this is charlie flight over here and that if those guys were rowdy and these guys were cerebral you are intensely feeling. as we come up with questions later that reflect this. delta flight, i look at the characters who i know most of whom are over here. is there something about the hard right or stage left and i'm not sure it's political circumstances here but in any event dogfight is going to be -- delta flight to want to count on with charlie and bravo let you down so you guys are up for that. when i thought about the things i would really like to talk about tonight, i stumbled

because doing this book, "taps on the walls," was not something we ever thought we would do and i'm talking about myrna and me. the genesis we are going to go into but the difficulty of course is i have to go back to a time that was frankly an unhappy time. i build huge walls over the years to make sure that i didn't have to go back and be a professional p.o.w.. i did a lot of speaking around the country but i rarely delve down as deeply into the the subject as they should and for those who have known me for a whole bunch of years and in fact the vice president of the senior class of hirsch high school is here, judy, how are you dear? i haven't seen you forever. if you notice she is war wanted

here. she was so taken up with the fact that i came to town that she round down for a triple decaffeinated or caffeinated latte or whatever they sell in the coffee capital of the world i managed to take a tumble. she is injured and on my behalf i am sure. but she sent her husband to the dinner last night which i thought, and he got away with it. we will see you afterwards. so having to go back and having to delve down has been a chore that has not been pleasant. on the other hand we have had tremendous conversations with people whose sense is that period were the periods of the nation's conflict continue to be important to us because they are pivotal in how the nation continues to advance or decline. i would suggest to you that is really bad shorthand.

have any of you read thomas cahill's stuff? why the greeks matter, how the irish saved civilization and his suggestion that we really hinged history on something more than economic pluses and minuses in something more than warfare occurrences. it's the individual who springs forward at a particular time in history that has created the pathway for the human condition. in truth it's probably a meld of the two, thinking again it's only the human critter who is willing to fight and die for an idea. one of the things that you come down to is plato was right ,-com,-com ma that only the dead unfortunately have seen the end of war. i was at nelson's house if an item we were talking about that very subject.

just thinking about the nature of war for a second, it was pat who suggested to consider how every other human endeavor shrinks to insignificance before it and god how i love it was the finish line. it would be dishonest of any person who has been in combat not to at least own up a little bit, that the thrill and the core somehow intermix in an unlikely stew that has both a repellent factor to it and an attractive factor to it but as i mentioned in the book, once you have been there you never really leave it. it's a lifelong thing. and so i will be coming back to

that. but to finish up just the general characterization of warfare itself, mr. jack keegan died recently, probably the military historian of the last 75 years who has been the most effective, the most insightful british sandhurst fellow. keegan was quick to suggest that anyone who has had to have their hair especially done for the evening as i have stands up on the stage and purports to talk about such things probably falls under the category of being a bullfrog. i'm going to try to avoid being a bullfrog and pedantic or any of those other words that come from trying to achieve lofty circumstance and lofty construct with respect to the thinking that we are going to advance tonight and to get it down to the operational level, get down

to business as honestly and genuine as i can with your help and if i don't leave a piece of my soul up here tonight i will not have done my job and if your questions don't provoke that then you will not have done yours. to lead us off before we turn to "taps on the walls" is the central theme of the evening, and that is why in fact people, states and nations go to war. and it is meant to be instructional especially for some of the younger people in the crowd. i would suggest that we do so because of interests first perceived or real and we do so because of fear. fear is a powerful motivator and wheat do so because of hate. and the start clinical reality is you really have to do all

three if you are going to put the nation in an extended period of conflict and help -- hope to have any public support. and yet it is those tough words that make it very tough for nations to in fact do what i think constitutionally is required and that is to declare it. it's important enough to risk letting treasure than one should do so in accordance with our laws other than the war powers act which i think is important enough to be able to respond on a presidential level. so, with that kind of back row consideration of the invention of warfare, let me talk to the invention of "taps on the walls." as a number of you know i had

flown 97 combat missions and actually i have done a few more. i quit counting in order to be able to volunteer for a second tour. that sounds awfully brave. i called mernit back in the states and i said hey i the chance to fly another 100 missions and she said well you have that to do that. this goes back to the tenant wanting to stay in it and why young men are so untrustworthy when it comes to the prosecution of conflict. you need a much longer lens and a few gray hairs i think that you do thrust your young men and now young women into the law and they go there for this conflicting series of reasons. i was in train to fly a second set of missions and i was a first lieutenant in the air force. i flew both seats, the frenzied in the backseat in that first tour and then had the prospect of more to come.

on the first of june, 1966 i left the states in december of 65. i had a 3-month-old baby and they went to the south side of chicago. that girl with the seven and a half when i walked back in the door. she is more like me today and the daughter we had after the war is more like her mother so go figure the chance. anyway on this mission north of hanoi, we knew it, no rescue possible if he went down and in fact we got hit by ground fire and got out for the pilots and the crowd, going through 480 knots. i got out and they would shoot

pops. if they would have gotten a swing we would have been dead but rolled down a long steep furloughed hill with a broken back and sprains because when you roll down a hill at a couple hundred miles an hour bouncing like some kind a jumping bean, you tend to sustain momentum and it's surprising i wasn't in worse condition. .. >> which was i passed out. out of fear and shock. and then after waking up after a period of time, i had moved out

of this long he'll probably a half-mile hill. it was extensive agriculture circumstance. and i had highway one. i was almost to the back of the auditorium here, the room. trucks were running up and down so i got the staff and managed, just couldn't walk, and thatge c kindau of crawled and got this staff to give me along and got my sixgun out, carry in my pocket. oua they said i would break my leg if i ever got it out. i didn't. showedy them. it. got into the middle of the road to make a short story of this law, and my plan was to hijack e truck and make them take me to the coast at which point i would they pla stealnn a boat.ote what was the option? d optaion was to surrender. surren. they had to give it a shot.

the first truck passed me by, didn't see me. i got in the middle of the road. this is in the book. instead the guy down and that done that. i've hijacked a truck full of north vietnamese troops. [laughter] a management decision i've reviewed a time or two. [laughter] i think john wayne could have pulled it off. the movie about john being saying he's going to have -- does everybody know that john wayne story? nobody knows that john wayne story. john wayne is going to read down to a city shawnee, john wayne is going to get hammered. there's going to be heroes and guns. he says not going to happen. not john wayne. i said i'll bet you a buck. so sure that john wayne went

down and got hammered with indian scenarios than just rarely makes it. after the movie aeration in my pocket and say here, here's about the ou. is that i can't take it. i've seen the movie before. [laughter] is that actually comes so if i appeared i just couldn't believe john is going to do it that way again. i'm not sure i would done anything different. i would have done it that way again. i'm not good at parables i've decided all of a sudden, but will try. they stripped me new. i had a rain on my dogtags and that was a rain that alcohol had given me and he wore it in world war ii and of his colleagues get the homering because only the four guys who have those one of

the officers and they made this spring and only the four guys with the wolves said frank got out of the airplane. everyone else was killed. all four guys were captured in all four guys spent 22 months in a prison camp and came home. so the kid brother to my dad gave me this spring. percentages to go to the air force academy. there have lane in the road. can everyone see that? does anybody want to see that? cleared the beach. i still have my boots on, so it's not total, you know -- i do that just to be accurate. they refused out takes off with the ring on it. it said that if they get me shot down ring. i never saw it again. after the war.

by the navigator has the crest on it. he gave it to me. there is a time going back to the motives that i was tapping on the walls, communicating. we were in the early years alone in isolation most of the time. later after four years or so past, conditions changed a slightly larger groups and then really large groups and ebbed and flowed. geneva conventions for never expected. you have to bear this out, too. you could make a general case that conditions up there kind of after the 69th, maybe 70 asante or that the camp trying to liberate an intelligence

failure. the camp was empty. brave men went in and put themselves at risk for us. but i think the conditions started to generally improve. it's a gross statement for certain guys it never did right up until the end. would you agree? where are you? kind of an upward slope? that's where i got ill and if they hadn't had a better diet and stuff, probably wouldn't be standing here on the stage tonight. in any event, the point i want to make as i'm typing the wall and this tap code in the book is done in a number of books, but it's still fascinating to read how to do it. tapped on the walt.

tapped on the wall. who're you? he came back and said that current. reuse is nickname pop current because this guy was really old, but 57, 58 even. hard to believe. and he came back and tap and i said no, it's john. he said no, i was with you south camp in world war ii. this guy had lived with my uncle in world war ii and was a two-time visitor. pop is dead now and a number of the guys are passing out of me. our last big reunion, in fact the only big reason we've ever had would be this may in newport, where the reprise of the nixon welcome home party was going to take place and we are all going to go up there. there's going to be an

accounting. the countenance what if we time to pay back over time the gratitude of the nation, the gratitude we feel to the nation? because we all kind of took a vow that we would continue to march. we try to do something with our lives that would enable better days ahead. there is no organization and reports. it is just an individual circumstance and we look forward to hearing how people come and just having them share their stories because we all thought that kind of commitment. i should comment after the party in 1973, or nixon open up the whole white house, in the residential portion of the white house was hoping. fruit of the loom. keep going around in the lincoln bedroom a little pain it bathroom thing where churchill

used to say. the interesting thing was six months -- not six months, nine months after the party at the white house, 50 children were born about one of whom was my daughter. specific details we will leave to your imagination. however, the other aspect of the party was a white house fellow, rick skelton, the oceanic comments that it was a wonderful party because nobody stolen it. they have a problem with the various official functions at the white house with the eight out there are very diplomatic, ensuring no one is making off with the dolly madison silver. so in our case is a great time and we are going to do that again. this is all kind of precursor stuff leading up to this book. in the end, the early years were

really hard, very tough, brutal times. but something that never did go away with you had to make time an ally. gant icon set that there was no bridge across forever and you had to keep going forever. so we have to strive to return with honor, to take care of our buddies, even though you've maybe never seen them, but she talked to them through the wall. in my case, having had the benefit of the classical education from the university of chicago, although i got on a train eyepieces -- this was to be a very funny story. actually i had a buddy before it went to the air force economy. i live liberal arts are more important than us math and science binge we seem to be on.

the math and science people find themselves on a myers-briggs profiling go do that. some great percentage no doubt. but a functioning democracy is to people who were schooled in the great patterns have emerged over the many generations, hundreds, even thousands of years. i was rad dating a school boy of hers. have some appreciation for that. and found i was one of the ways i could make time, that i can fill the unforgiving minute with the essence of the human condition. i could create. the greeks said there were four wonderful things that make up a good man, city, state, nation again and lousy sense of justice

and restraint, quest for wisdom encourage and it's not so much the battlefield courage they were talking about is just the courage to do the right thing in life. well, the greeks were well short of the mark. so i added the fact you are to have a really developed sense of humor and try to find some thing funny and everything. try to in fact have a faith-based circumstance in your life. it may be a quest that goes on forever, but i think you need to have some appreciation of things that are bigger or greater then you, however you may choose to define it or follow. the third thing is the essence of the human condition, which is creation. i wanted to be a jazz pianist. i was playing jesus loves me. you know the song?

than the bass and drums kicked in. this font in the front row heckled me so badly that chicago raspberry. i never played publicly again, became a fighter pilot. married the blonde. [laughter] still like to of it -- tinker, not. [laughter] that's what she would suggest. and then of course the other thing is the last of the eighth-grade element is the ability to laugh. i've had good fortune to these small units and large units and be a part of them and have done so imperfectly, but i've always tried to impart a notion that his genuine love for the organization and what we were trying to do. when you do that, i think you

get a lot of leeway in the mistakes you make, the failure that will come your way of your own construct are those that happened to the guys, guys and gals would give you some leeway if they think you really care about them, if you really have a sense of what they're about. the sense of what i was about is what i've described to you. i needed to create to stay alive. we had this return with honor fixation. we really cared about returning with our heads held high wake up eaten to the point we had two bad, then repent and try to give them as little as we could do would be useful in that comeback and we would cry about it. do a tap on the walls and tell her fellow, g, i have to say i regret it if i did anything that would hurt the vietnamese people

or some other path that frankly in the greater scheme of things meant nothing, but in our scheme of things meant everything, that somehow we weren't as strong, as tough as we had to be. or worse or do the best you can. make that hurts you, don't give them anything for nothing. then we would make sure we shared that. and we shared stuff we created. we typed language through the walls. i speak enough words in enough language to get in trouble had six or seven bars in languages i suspect, but not much more -- actually about work. there is serious about learning languages for the walls. people are building houses, other people composing banks in their line, but in my case with all these words, i just wanted to have legacy in case i didn't make it.

so i tapped it through the walls. if they have a section called strapping on a tailpipe. and then a section which is the dark and bitter staff, the pows after the holidays, christmas things if you type something through particularly poignant, they would tap back thank you very much. and then you'd have a long epic poem going for 50 or 60 pages that tries to deal with all the societal staff as talking to at the front end and offer observation of that. a lot of that is the numbers of the 10 sonnet fashion and a lot of it and all that good stuff and if you're a student of the literary sonnet you can get an either little bit besides the immediate level just like a

photograph for a picture and you know what they like it or not. and if you look little more acus or some item that is the artist trying it would be in here and you would find that. so the yoke is easy, the burden is hard. i can see the clock back there. who's got a watch on that? 8:08. i'm going through to couple things on opec to questions. is that okay? talking to a something, talking with is more important. then they take one excerpt from each section and that will whet your whistle hopefully. i don't do it in any special order other than there is a lot that is new in this book, by the way.

all those poems are memorized over all those years. but his new introduction to john mccain of course favored me with overly general words on the introduction. and i wrote this standard and then i didn't think it is worth a darn. so i changed it. in the process of bringing forth the pritzker military library backhand big-time. the business of telling the stories and sharing it to visit the citizen soldier and colonel pritzker, the founder and president has invested an enormous amount of his own resources and this is the first imprint of the military library sunday on a daily do that with a bunch of corporate sponsors who have helped us as well. but this was the thing when the

muse inspired me and i said first and always to my wife and then these words. the sunset leather went into your dawn. eight to shine. thanks, honey. and thanks to her daughter's who served their country in special growing up ways. dad says, thanks for that. i wanted to share that with you. when y'all get thrown in the slammer, you can talk to the guy next door, already? i think there's precious little wary of that. in the strapping on a tailpipe, i write a sonnet consistent with the formation of a and it talks dawn slate and i'll just give

you the best of it and you can make your own judgments. pale golden talents stir the eastern sky. another fledgling day departs the hills take the air as thermal falcons fly cascading light as carefree first flight grills. and who attends this noble birth from a greater role in plain men marveled from the vantage point on earth, but missed so much out of this guys domain. but i am not at the earth. at altitude i greet the day with engines so. that's done unless morning bool and merry band and urging me along. it's here, unfettered brother men in world to first flight

flight, the one judge best of all. so for utah mothers out there, get the altitude. [laughter] i'm going to use in other sonnet and this is the dark and other staff. it is called sonet for 4543. i would, on that for us. it starts out that the world without, within our weather dwelled remote like useless windows, tall and barred hermann sidney ayres ran quickly down the halls. but the empty days, hired. and it gets more and hence from there until you get to the right

couplet at the end, where it says i am told that steel is formed and forged by heavy. if only men were steel. but then, who knows. so that is part of the dark and utter stuff that comes to the pow section of it. everyone expect good the christmas poem of one kind or another. and as i say, some of them were designed that we all read carhartt satterfield terrible, which is kind of a normal christmas feeling anyway or holiday feeling at one point anyway. i thought we would have more fun if we did something to start out way. so is called a part of christmas pierpoint jet thrusters are assembled and smith ate me, wondering where fly and you come

my purple evergreen and something that thing you know what it is all part of christmas. snow tires crunch, the queen street corner crash and family rushed through downtown wonderland were both are wrong and carroll's song is all a part of christmas. it goes and talks about family enjoying basically christmas in chicago, going to church at the folks, having dinner, going home. and then, it starts talking about being allowed and have a closet full of presents and a husband who's missing and not knowing if he's alive. she talks to me. the moment struggled memories. if only he were here, they need

to rate this is newsnight and feel a little meaner, lonely wife's a half a life. i miss the part of christmas. so she writes the letter you can read them here and i come out at the end and say it is the crying part of christmas. somewhere there is no, a beacon blow just a window life. the little spark that raised dark calls this home tonight. the world away. return someday and be a part of christmas. i tell people you can cry in this book. if you die then and i vow company should read read the front part in about part in a poem i wrote just for you and they are called "taps on the walls." i wrote it for you and all of us, kind of a universal thing. in the end, you can laugh and

there's lots to laugh about. in fact, much like al gore invented the internet, i invented rap. [laughter] way down south in the texas upper pickle pair as to what occurs for something to thought. i know one name about to what tucker is going out to pick up some california red was and this one is for the birds and has that syncopation and ryan scheme. or put a package in his throat, he worked at watching fighter pilot who pity the slicker, leather, lean. he was outbound and it tells about this adventuresome plate going backward everything happens to the airplane. it's coming apart and he keeps promising that good lord hewitt give up things like smoking and

drinking and gambling and rubbing thigh. stay vernacular with putting and i expect. the airplane keeps coming back. finally, his over home station, with go away. he has a great, which pitches out to land and its wonderful weather all the way to the mid. he punches the button and since cancel out the wind. i think we are downwind with respect to the remarks i wanted to make tonight. the book is a piece of my soul. imperfect though it may be, and most certainly is an honest evening and something that helped not only meet, but my fellows get through some tough times. so now all of these years later

to let you go the main around inside the brain box and not cold war of men who not only were there in the north in other areas in southeast asia, but with the covert of men who have had and have put the memory and the reality of experiencing the only perfect place and not the sky. there is another poem in here with that guy grows old and talks about how he grows old, but he was a pilot and he said that till last storm, how weak the banshee cry come around quick to look. his heart is still in the cry.

it's time for the banshee not a cry. a, b., c. and the u.k. should go to the microphones and post to other questions questions you are brave enough to ask. it's easy if you don't have any because then i'll ask you questions and it'll be fine. sit thank you very much for your attention. you are most gracious. [applause] modest enthusiasm. if you want to do that later on, we can work on it. i did have some high kicking cheerleaders, but i guess townhall has put. we're filming mass and i'm sure it will be a documentary that will captivate the 2:00 in the morning audience. yes, ma'am. just shouted out.

>> hi, i was a nurse in the army during vietnam, station where they brought all the perfect guns. >> tough duty. i have a question about resilience. i found some guys who are going to be dead. i thought they'll never walk again, go home and their wives or girlfriends of the event if they got there. and then that nothing could kill them. the spirit was so strong. how can they build resilience in short children, our young men and cells? >> i spent the afternoon on the course site, but on the lewis i. if i come away with an impression for the afternoon, i

was signing books there. it is the number of men who came in with halting step son came and think it looks and eyes and the nature of our medical treatment now is so adapt at saving people that we find ourselves living with poor souls frankly who wears severely, physically or mentally injured were in previous conflicts he would have died. and when you talk about the resilience factor in that demand factor, it is a very individual thing. but it comes down to my judgment of the three principal rustics.

if you've had a pretty good growing up experience, families, churches, schools, friends, that is step on. the standards are your own and you expect higher within that many organizations would impress upon you save one. small unit organization you belong to and in the civilian world. it's us against the world. in the military, and is taking care of your buddy whether he's in the foxhole, a squadron or flight, really important. then while walking -- and women to walk into hellacious fire as they did, take the double award i'm unarmed because they would rather die than somehow be watching and supporting their

buddy, even in the face of what he orders which are bound in warfare. so that they present. third reason in terms of resilience. no vocals. it's somehow your allied with things that are bigger than yourself coming of commitment outside of south. use that as a staff to lean on. use that as this and are, bp can animate to walk to. big deal. if you put it together gets resilience, but i still think we're missing some thing. we've gotten so comfortable as a society that we needed research and, a rebirth of the citizen soldier was taught to the pritzker military contact. a website called sos america.org

. sometime between 17 and 26 and young women who might choose to volunteer, but the young men that have pickier than it in the military, which hints at 30s to find company 700 augment all the services and have a bunch left over for civilian tasks. mike foley knows this so mobilized for persons or organizations to fight forest fires every year. wouldn't it be nice to get a couple hundred thousand people you could move almost overnight into natural disasters? unit to karcher borders? got the power to do it and it's affordable. we passed legislation that congress three times. it's died in committee and our out to build, starting this year

again we had to build a base a they could march back and say this is something that would be good for the nation can make better husbands, fathers, citizens and the national polling is so incredibly supportive. if anybody of 50 things that and 85% correlation for people in the childbearing years, about a 50% correlation. you want to hear the cohort itself thinks? the young men 17 to 26 in the young women would have to volunteer anyone here if they had say? to the test. you guys ready over here? what do the women -- what the young man to? 17 to 20 about this program? are they for or against it? just shouted out. [inaudible] do not young men, for or against

it? the young men in the age group want to do four things. i don't think any to sell them out. they want to get drunk, get -- play sports and make money. now let's take the men who are 20 to 26. do they think this is a good program? are they for it or against it? [inaudible] say it again. what a focus group you wouldn't be. now, therefore it. this is something that would be better. we are mixing age groups, mixing geography, mixing socioeconomic and educational levels, they geography. someone from seattle but some of from chicago, from memphis and they are all in this platoon with a couple real sergeant,

company grade officers. by the way coming younger boys could really use this. 17-year-old, 8-year-old lot different than tony, 23. charlie flake, you ready? now we'll talk about the girls. which of the young ladies think were 17, 18, 19, 20 about giving the men away? are they for it or against it? let me see hands. how many accounts? i really glad you guys are not the focus group. a matchmaker with onstar knows, touchiness comes stuff hanging in her quote was taken yesterday and make them out of them. exact quote. that was down and hide park in chicago. he went to the northwestern campus and had college women off

the street. i think we talked about this last night a little bit. we asked them the same question. what did the win in 20 plus think about this program? were they for american state? will see the floor a guns? the reality is don't you take any of his horseflesh off the ranch. so what we see as biology talking. but in the goes back to resilience. u.k. has to share question. we still got a couple of minutes. are we having fun? is it okay? is that there's room for a while. go. >> men are the problem of the society. >> men are the problem of the society. >> will quit, can we repeat the question? >> come to the microphone.

>> the question is why not draft the women, to? the men are the problem in the society? everybody knows that, right? the cohort would go from 1.5 million a year to 3 million a year in the portability all of a sudden a suspect. i can make a case for $20 billion, the cost of the program look at a 40 or $50 billion return. but i just don't have the absorption capacity to absorb 3 million their different medical concerns. young women have a hair embassy in needs. the ama said they would be willing to do sick call pro bono if we give them releases that they need something, they go to the military system.

this is kind of a weak argument because women can take as much as they can. will be out in better conditions. when you mix the is, what should be a requirement. we couldn't keep them segregated. what happens is you mix the sexes. so that's the re so that's the reason. if we had to do it unless they came up, it would be so good for the resiliency of the nation to have a program like this. any nations have that, by the way? shot at a nation that has it. south africa. another on israel. i heard israel. switzerland? any others? norway.

now? already. norway, denmark, sweden, italy, germany jested away with it. france doesn't want it bad. the french don't care as long as they pronounce it correctly if you've ever seen that. they've got to show on grammar and pronunciation and a bunch of eastern european countries. the germans argue this is for the civilization. i sainted irish mother i can get away with ethnically. irish? half german, half irish. this is another tributary king. he noted call them classics he said they are a nation -- we are a nation of carnivorous sheep. [laughter] which means they need to have some kind of military structure

for the civilization of the germans. so that gives you some stuff. other questions? i'm going to hang around tonight by the way. the books have advised them before -- it's a marketing ploy. we are cheney and the is now, but it's just a marketing technique. >> first of all, i agree with your concept. a quick question for you. did they allow you to write at all barrio that attacked your mates around the corner? is that we had to do tapping because they wouldn't allow it? >> it was forbidden. in the early years, you would be hurt physically and psychologically. so you couldn't communicate. they tried to break down her structure as a kind of larger groups and try to maintain the distance between the structures, but we always beat the dealer within the sending we would find

ourselves. advancers on other questions. that's the other questions? >> you could talk if you had a roommate. in truth, the isolation. last evening except when they would come through encourages for about four or five years and then we got into larger groups. in fact, some things approximate and more humane treatment. we got a few books and they take them away for something for diversion of time. it never can approximate the conventions. my

>> it only took them about six months to figure that out. [laughter] so the short answer, and then toward the end we all got to write six-line letters, but that'd probably be in the last 18 months, two years. they fattened us up, anticipatory of the war ending. that doesn't -- what i'm trying to do is just be factual and not make any value judgments. i've been back, by the way. in 2002, i went back with the white house fellows delegation, and in the book you'll see i say we lost the war, but we won thet war to do. i sat down with the end of delegation, went out in the

hall, spoke with him in french.a he knew me well. took my hand and into we walked to this briefing room. and he was holding veterans from the photo op. it was the anniversary.t and at the end when the questioning got tough, he'd jusn pick up my hand and pat my handc and i put a line in the book. you never really leave combat, but you feel different about tht enemy. and in vietnam you find out we won the war too. they love americans. how many have been back to vietnam? it's an amazing country. the people are beautiful. the kids are more literate inar english somee suggest than our own kids, and the americands culture's swept through. now, it's still a communist country, still centrally controlled, but the taste ofed freedom is there. once you get that taste of freedom, boy, it's hard to get et out of the palate.

am i about out of time, mirandam >> one more question. >> one more question. i'll hang around anybody who wants to chat about things, we can do that. besides, the bar's going to be open, isn't it? okay. yeah, go ahead. ask your question, please. >> thank you, general. i'd like to say thanks for your time tonight and also for creating what you did under those circumstances and for coming anda sharing that with uh so three things --d >> oh, thank you. [applause] i'm one of many, so i, you know, i wish the lights were not soe i garish, because it should shine on so many. >> um, at the beginning of tonight you asked us to consider the question, why do we go to war. >> yeah.u.s. three reasons. >> you listed -- [inaudible] fear and hate. >> uh-huh. >> but you spoke so much of love tonight. and i'm wondering, is there a place nor love in motivating ae country or people to go to war

in. >> probably love of the idea. or overfixation with the idea. but love is such an empowering emotion, and it's supposed, it's not all sweetness and life. it can be rough around the edges. but i have a hard time creating a construct probably because i'm just not intellectually sharp enough. you, obviously, maybe can do that. but i can't figure out why a country would love somebody else so much that they'd want to gour kill 'em. because in the end curt lemay probably summed up the essence u of warfare as much as anybody. and it's something if we as a people wish to prevail over timp and beat history and not go into some extended decline notwithstanding all our resources and our great neighbors the pacific ande atlantic ocean ought to remember, and that is when youre go to war, the purpose is to kill people.and and you kill enough of them, and they quit fighting. in fact, i can make a case that

we are neglecting our air power. i see no sense in having an 18-year-old kid go into kandahar and kick down a door with a rifle when we could take a squa of b-52s and make kandahar a bunch of bricks and then sendk the 18-year-old kid into do it.f the question is, are we as ao people willing, willing ab sented the factors i -- absent the factors i mentioned and absent constitutional declaration to stand for theal d level of carnage that would be required. i'll further state that if we were, surprise, surprise, the level of damage to both sides would be less than these long, extended conflicts, and it would cost a hell of a lot less. we can argue about that. all right.s. i think i've evinced the -- yes, sir. >> [inaudible] >> you know, i used to plan the nuclear war plan of the country.

and then after all those years in fighters, i went to sack with general chain, and i had executional responsibilities. what worries me about nuclear weapons is that we are approaching levels -- we can be if policies are carried out --, where you can make an operational case where the use of nuclear force makes sense.h that level is it's still classified, but as you drivec down certain level, you make the world safe more nuclear war.a and i do not think nuclear war's thehe end of the world. it's not, but it would really be a kick in the ass, i'll tell you, and would set back whole portions of continents into barren, desolate wastelands.to so there was never any construct to use nuclear weapons. there was a plan, i wrote it in the book as i was part of the planning team, in 1966 to use force to such a level, air force

in such a level round the clock, hit everything worth hitting in north vietnam and just do the lemay thing, basically, back to the stone age with respect to their total infrastructure. there were targets we couldn't hit, i understand, even as late as 1972 that we finally had to hit in linebacker that caused the peace accords that weret concluded and which resulted in my release in '73 and the release of my colleagues -- >> [inaudible] >> that wase the christmas bombing of 1972 where they took1 b-52s and took 'em downtown, took them down to hanoi withdown some predictable losses associated with it. but that's what broke the will. and we could have done that and we can do that if we have robust air power. h the firstav thing you need is ar supremacy or air superiority. and no american soldier has evee been killed by enemy air since world war ii.ince we're perilously thin with force

structure now, and i worry about that in the future. yes, sir, in the back. >> we actually need to finish up the questions, and if you have do -- do you want to take one more question? >> you guys can cut off the tape, and you can just go. anybody who needs to leave -- >> actually, if you'd like to w take questions when you're her signing them. >> take questions where? okay. i'll take one more from thet back. got the hook, all right? [laughter] >> thank you for taking my question. so you mentioned that we could end war faster, more effectivelo by changing the strategy and superiority with air power. >> i'll go further tan that, wei can win wars. and we have. with just air power. >> what are your thoughts on the military industrial complex's influence on postponing wars or prolonging wars? >> hell, i don't know. it's a crap -- you can make a

case either side. if you do the thing a the paranoids are after us over here or the paranoids are after us over there, you can go back to eisenhower, insure there's this ebb and this flow.wer, i'll tell you what i do favor be it a national security policy,d and we have an expert in the room in nelson dong, nationalt security policy or health care policy or any of those policies we were talking about, if we demanded the public policyt constructs of our nation would be three or our things. they would -- or four things. they would be understandable, they would be affordable, they would be execute bl in terms of the desired outcomes had a fair shot of happening, and lastly that everyone that had significant spending associatedp with it would have a sunset clause.n i think we'd be money ahead in all domains not just in the military industrial world., no

if we could do one thing in the military industrial world to addressri your problem that youe posed or i think you pose, itr would be to do away with thehink fares. you know what a far is? >> [inaudible] >> it's a federal acquisitions regulation. they are so screwed up that that's why you get your $10,000e toilet seats. no, you really don't, but -- to deal with it, we have created because of the age of ouro country, we just have heaped procedure and process on top ofc the thing until it's so pick nobody understands it. i used to be able to order things in the air force supply system. if i needed a pencil, i could ge down and make a requisition, and sure enough we'd get a bottle of water. i came out one morning i came out one morning and the other two squadrons are facing us. as the 27th in the 71st.

the original squadrons of world war i. the other two commanders stand out there scratching our heads because they have three palette worth of had the eight by eight seasoned oak, timbers. and they are looking on it. i walked over, your wood has arrived. the problem was you couldn't turn it back in. and you know this, without having your account at it. so you have to pay for it. if you turn the thing you have to pay for a cab, which is when the supply system is working in this case. so you know it happened to it. it disappeared. there's a lot of sawdust around, but it disappeared. look, you guys have been great.

the idea is to have a little fun. if you want one little piece of humor -- i'll leave you with a serious one and not the scariest thing. after 30 days without scraping drug around, they took me to a place where i could sit against the wall that water trip on me. it was the first time that had water on me. a place with a time of buckets and i laid there and i can still feel the water today. and what's happening is the demon you had to be where i was. there is writing on the beam is a rhetorically asked, what is that? you don't know. it is in red pencil him in a clash. feeling pretty bad it got to tell you, but i look up their innocent smile, you are on candid camera.

[laughter] and i think tonight i hope that i'm a little candid with my remarks in you guys can be equally and more candid as we continue to pursue the evening here. thank you again so very much. [app >> today on c-span2 the heritage foundation hosts a discussion on the defense budget and the future of military readiness in security. you can see it live starting at 11 a.m. eastern. at 1:30 p.m. eastern, goldman sachs' ceo lloyd blankfein is the featured speaker at the investment company institute. we'll bring you his remarks on the global economic outlook live here on c-span2. >> the intelligentsia is driven by this certainty that religion and reason are in different

boxes, that science and religion are in different boxes, and the two actually are at war with each other. they are inimical to each other. someone who is rational is not religious, someone who is religious is not rational. science is the antidote to religion. science is rational, it is the antidote to religious irrationality. now, this itself is the ultimate irrational idea, because the belief that religion is inimical to science and reason in the west is completely untrue. religion underpinned science and region. >> author, columnist and winner of the orwell prize for journalism, melanie pill lips, takes your calls, facebook comments and tweets "in depth" three hours live sunday at noon eastern on booktv on c-span2. >> next, a discussion on robert bork's last book, "saving

justice," with frank easterbrook, chief judge of the u.s. court of appeals' 7th district. this is 50oo minutes. >> thank you. we're gathered to discuss robert bork's final book, "saving justice." and i'm here because i worked as one of bob's assistants for two and a half year, and we were friends between 1974 and his death last fall. but i need to open with a confession. i can't say very much about the book. i'll talk instead about bob bork, the man and the solicitor general. the reason i can't say much about the book is that its principal focus is his first six months on the job. when he wrote the brief that persuaded spiro agnew to plead guilty and resign as vice president, when he persuaded the

supreme court to stop justice douglas' crusade to end the from prosecuting the vietnam war,h when he fired arkansas. bald cox as the watergate special prosecutor and appointed leon jaworski to replace him and when he served as acting attorney general for three months between the time elliott richardson resigned and william sax by was appointed. res not bad for one's first six months on the job. the title, "saving justice," comes from bob's decision not to resign after the saturday night massacre which, by the way, he thinks should have been called the saturday night involuntarycl manslaughter. [laughter] involuntary manslaughter. [laughter] because nixon didn't plan it, but just wandered into it. bob believes the president has the authority to control everyone in the executive branch and firing subordinate

personnel. cox had proclaimed his insubordination on national tv. when the president is wise to exercise that authority is for history to decide. attorney general richardson had promised the senate he would retain a special prosecutor and he thought therefore he had to resign when nixon asked him to fire cox. .. >> richardson and william rubbing lshouse, the deputy thorne general, talked him out of resignation. there was no line of succession in the department of justice after the solicitor general. so if bonn -- if bob had walked the plank, the department of

justice would have been leaderless. no one knew who the president might install. richardson, rug lshouse and bork all figured it would be a political shill leaving the assistants attorney general and much of the department's senior leadership to resign and crippling the department. so bob bork saved justice by saying. had he quit in protest, he probably would have been treated as a national hero and confirmed to the supreme court in 1987.ng perhaps he would have beenha appointed by president ford in 1976 to the seat that went to john paul stevens. he was on the list that edwardn levy sent to president ford of possibilities. but had he quit, the nation as a whole would have suffered. so he stayed in office in the sg's office. he was so determined not to s benefit, thato he turned down an opportunity to be appointed aso attorney general, he turned down the chance to work from then

attorney general's more elegant office, he avoided the attorneyn general's private dining room, and he even turned down the attorney general's chauffer and limousine during the time he was acting attorney general. . everything that he ay ins >> richardson, he can leshouse and the people who worked him most cleesely then tell the same story. and bork's narration in the book is entirely consistent with the man i knew for 40 years;y intellectual, consideringe ma consequences before acting andns absolutely honest. he's also the funniest man i ever met. that didn't come through in hisl 1987 hearings, but the book is

full of his wit. [laughter] met. merits briefs, oral arguments, and the solicitor general also decides when the government will >> the they have authority to participate in the supreme court. it is a broad portfolio and requires a large base of knowledge plus the ability to learn fast. the solicitor general does not start the process within the justice department.

to make recommendations, which go to the assistance, sometimes there is an internal conflict. the department of justice includes the criminal division and those people always want to defend wardens and guards. somebody has to resolve those sites. or an assistant to the solicitor general me think that this statutory prosecutions weak the solicitor general has resolve those issues personally but also to hear presentations by private counsel. it is one of the officers traditions.

as he said in the book, he tried to advance their positions to the i never saw him favor his own posn and never saw him misunderstand an argument. he displayed knowledge, v understanding and intellectual integrity. i plan to tell you the stories behind three of these cases, but first i want to mention the lasr of thest solicitor general'se tasks, oral argument. bob bork was the best oraler advocate of his generation asas any of the justices would tell you, and he argued a lot. twice every session or 14 times every term of the supreme court. his successors as solicitor general have tended to argue between five and ten cases at year. not bob.togue he loved the give and take and was great on his feet. often the main task of an and

advocate for the united states is to find a few argument to replace the bad one that lost the case in the court of appeals. [laughter] sometimes the task of an oral advocate is to patch up the holes in an argument already presented in the brief, trying to do either is chancy. the justices are apt to say something like, well, you didn't make this argument earlier, did you in -- did you? why don't you just move along. [laughter] it takes gravitas to get theong. justices to listen. the fist -- the first time i saw bob in action, he had to paper over a very bad argument. congress had taken over the. bankrupt eastern railroadsrup merging them to form con really and am strack. f the railroad sued -- amtrak. the lead argument in the briefol filed by the united states, a brief that welcome bob, alas, ht vetted carefully because there

hadn't been any conflict within the goth before it was filed, was the congress and the interstate commerce commission fiddled so often in the operation of railroads that the railroads just had no rights at all that they were entitled tos rely on. the the problem with this argument is that if it were to prevail, congress could pass a statute abolishing the taking clause by claiming a right to do anything it pleased anytime it wanted with anyone and their property. no more takings. the justices weren't about to buy that. well, justice douglas perhaps. [laughter]er but no serious justice. solicitor general bork took the oral argument himself and scuttled the main position in the brief. he withdrew it on his feet and advanced a different position, that the tucker act would provide any compensation due so the statutes could not be enjoined. all the takings clause does,

after all, is provide money after the fact. that argument went well. the sponsor of the legislation in the house, brock adams, had been given time to argue his amicus curiae. he was there to defend the government's original argument that congress had for so long behaved whimsically in the railroad business that it had acquired an easement across the takings clause. but once adams got to his feet, all the justices cared about was bob bork's argument about the tucker act. representative adams tried to free himself from that theme by telling the justices that the house and senate between themy had not thought a moment about compensation. so they should just forget about the tucker act. what a blunder. the tucker act applies unless repealed.es m adams had just told the supreme court that thee tucker act, far

from being repealed, hadn't even come up in the discussion. it didn't take the court long to issue a unanimous decision deciding the case bob bork's way for bob bork's reasons. here's another example. the year after he left the solicitor general's office, bob bork represented a credit card issuer in a suit about usury. the credit card carried a rate of interest that was legal in the state where the bank had itt headquarters, but illegal in l some states where customers used the card. the issuing bank was sued by a rival bank in a low interest state, and this rival contended that the issuer was using its location to do injury to the rival by stealing customers. the rival got the first argument, and for 30 minutes everything seemed to be going its way. the rival's lawyer got one softball question after another. then bob bork stood up.

he opened not with a legal argument, but with an observation about economics. if the issuing bank really was charging excessive interest, interest high or than the rival bank was allowed to charge, it was doing a favor for the rivals. consumers should flock to the rivals and pay less. now, maybe the issuing bank was charging higher interest because it was taking on riskier customers, customers who were less likely to repay. but in that event, everybodys could gain.cu customers with poor credit would go to the high interest bank, customers with good credit would go to the low interest bank. everybody would have some business, and everybody would be better off. it would be almost as if there were an invisible hand. and then he produced this line, and i quote: mar death, the rival, needed an advertisingquet agency. instead it hired a lawyer. you should send it to the right specialist. [laughter]

and after that bob bork had the justices eating out of his hand. it didn't take the court long to issue a unanimous opinion in hi favor.ng o i've never seen a case turned around so neatly by an appellate advocate. let me come now to the three case studies about solicitor com general bork's role in formulating the government's position. the first of these is one that the supreme court never decided, the boston school desegregation dispute. in "saving justice," bob bork says he first came to the nixon administration's attention after writing an article con tendingca that court -- contending that courts had overused bus transportation in school desegregation cases. the book contained a description about a meeting at the whiteo house where bob's discussione fo impressed nixon, and that led to bork's effort to draft legislation in cooperation withe professor charles alan wright.

and what followed, a shocking story from today's perspective, is that the president himself redrafted the bill before it was sent to congress. when bob bork became solicitor general, many school cases were pressing for attention. chief justice berger had issued a careless opinion that muddied the principles followed by another that provedief inflammatory. bob wanted i to set things straight. the fundamental divide at therya time was between people who equated all racial balance with segregation and wanted courts to order racial balance and people who thought that the constitutioning limits government use of race except a a remedy for racial violations.c if private choice led to imbalance, there was nola violation. litigation in boston presented an ideal opportunity for this contrast to reach the supreme court.

the district judge and the court of appeals had held explicitly that racial imbalance in the schools was itself a constitutional wrong and that the appropriate remedy was, therefore, to order that every class, everywhere in the schoolt system, have the same ratio of black and white students. each class had black and white student same ratio. but the real issue was the goal and not the means. many groups asked the solicitor general to support the school board until the supreme court to grant this in reverse not to undo the consequences of private choice. bob held the customary meetings. the attorney general took an

interest. here is the problem. the school board had engaged in contempt of court by defining some aspects of the injunction. many residents have lost being engaged in violence. what should the united states do? it was a serious intellectual problem. with bob bork asking them to indicate his legal position, you might as well in a way that would appear to give support to defiance and violence. the pragmatic reading was held in eternal -- attorney general levy's office. they were ready to go the attorney general began recalling his lifelong support of the civil rights movement.

he also founded the brief was legally correct. the assistant attorney general for civil rights argued strenuously. they talk about what legal standard is contained and it was profoundly misguided and would damage the cause of civil rights. there was no need to file the brief. he did not understand that one of these points could only view be right, although all three could have been wrong. my recommendation is not to file. i had written a brief, and i agreed with myself. i thought that no comfort should

be given. solicitor general bork also recommended not filing. that cost him a lot. he knew this was his last chance to be care deeply about. but he thought that defines two judicial orders was more important. the attorney general agreed with the solicitor general. the briefs were sent to the shredder, this one, in my hands, maybe the only copy. though perhaps bob bork and edward leavy retained copies for their files as well. i am sure that earlier drafts have been photocopied by the civil rights division for the benefit of the press and plaintiff lawyers in that group of lawyers need it watertight. the supreme court adopted the standard of the boston three. history tells us that pottinger was wrong on all three points.

the bob did not play a part in that. he deserves great credit. if you read his brief, you'll notice -- excuse me come if you read his book, you'll notice that the book does not mention the boston case. to use the book to get the last word on the subject that was kept out of the supreme court at the time, and that emphasizes integrity. my second vignette concerns the challenge to the election campaign act, brought to the supreme court by james buckley with the assistance ralph winter, a friend from yale law school. it sent contribution and expenditure limits for office and it also made the federal elections commission independent of the president.

shifting away from the president and challenges. the solicitor general assembled his s.w.a.t. team or politically sensitive cases. they ran off any, we went to work on a brief that should stand as one of history's curiosities. the brief filed, and i quote, for the attorney general and for the united states. goes to great length to it talk about violating the first amendment and how much "the new york times" could charge for a paper or pay its reporters, and why, therefore, there were serious problems with the contribution and expenditure limits in the statute. next time somebody tells you

that an expenditure limit is just about money, and money is not speech, you should reply that "the new york times" again sullivan was just a case about money for tort damages that naacp had a case about economic injury to businesses and that the alien and sedition acts were just lies about imprisonment. no privately that "the new york times" is a corporation, and therefore, according to its own editorial policy, they were on the wrong side again sullivan and has no rights under the first amendment. it also exists in corporations. but the brief did not say the final line and elected to the justices to draw their own conclusions, that is always a very risky step. why this failure to go the limit on a subject about which bob bork had such strong views.

well, the list of signatures on the brief tells the story. the brief i discussed was signed by attorney general leavy, deputy solicitor general ran off and a guy without a title. me. on the same day, leavy, bork, and general freedom and then another guy without a title defended the statute's constitutionality. it is a curious caveat. if you think that buckley is of odd opinion, sustaining some sections that are indistinguishable and held invalid, saying that the law is okay because it is so narrow.

it had an odd genesis as well. it seemed to preclude straight talk framers of the constitution knew that political speech and activity needed protection from legislation and legislators. when members of the executive and i am sad to say, judges, come to it, they are inflicted by justice that disables analysis. if you want to see a real discussion of analysis, and take a look at the brief that the solicitor general bork assigned. this one about the events leading to the immigration and naturalization service, the one house veto case, which didn't reach the supreme court until after bob and i had left the government, but which he participated in setting up, the

department of justice, attorney general leavy, solicitor general bork and justice scalia concluded with all of the predecessors in the 20th century. edward leavy set out to obtain a judicial decision. the solicitor general's office was involved from the start. but anyway, no one would have dreamed taking a position without consulting robert bork and he always thought of his staff. you may remember these statutes. they read something like

sometimes two houses of congress, sometimes one committee, it disapproves within several days. it includes a senate and house of representatives. and then there are two components in article one, section seven, clauses two and three. one says every bill which shall have passed the house and senate will be presented to the senate and the other cause says the vote shall be presented in a particular way. to sum this up, and i will won't be because without you, congress asks by agreements of the houses, the legislative veto

statute refers to the proposition by allowing the president or his agencies to adopt some law. those bits of elderly texts are the real constitution. they created something of a problem and bob bork had lunch with his assistant, almost every day. the department of justice was trying to set up a case that reached the supreme court. the conversations went like this, and i will reprise my own role. the constitution requires the concurrence of two houses of congress and the president if the present proposals a rule or even a chairman committee doesn't go along and concurrence

is lacking. why doesn't this consensus beta test of the constitution, even if not the exact form, given the origination. that is not what the constitution says. the administrative state is not only constitutionally questionable, but stifles free enterprise and rains in the agencies. should we welcome this development which promotes constitutional values by enlarging the role. the only way is the right vague statutes and it makes a general

delegation possible. this conversation occurred on the supreme court as well. the by taking bork's part. if this assures us that things will work better this time than it did for special prosecutors in the past it would create an unacceptable conflict of

interest. prosecutors usually are disinterested. it preserves the role of the president even if the president and senate have been excluded in the appointment process that is not what the constitution says. well, it wasn't our troubled history with special prosecutors. they changed my mind to the justice scalia perspective. it was a recognition that the constitution is formed but it

includes about the structure that we had. that is part of today's view. leavy, bork and justice scalia can be credited with changing our jurisprudence. i cannot close out without one final vignette without one post-solicitor general yours. your member he was mocked for saying during his 1987 hearings that he wanted to be on the supreme court because it would be an intellectual feast. [inaudible] i would like to leave a reputation as a judge that understood constitutional government and contributed his bed to maintaining it in ways that i have described this

committee. our constitutional structure is a must for any legislation passed, and i would like to maintain it and be remembered for it. then it wraps up at the end of nixon's presidency. without a soldier in the streets, we managed to transfer power that would shatter many nations. yet without the intellectual feast of law, i'm not sure i would've had the ability to make the correct decision that october night. whether in a role as a judge or advocate, my two answers are flip sides of the same coin. life in the long without a sense of this and without this, it slips into idolatry. without duty, inquiry descends

into naval gazing. he does so, he did the country proud and we will miss him. [applause] >> i'm happy to take any questions at this talk brings up that anyone else brings up about this. the solicitor general bork, professor bork, even advocate since he was prior to the legal academy. >> is hold on a second there. >> i'm wondering if you could comment on the proposition that we already missed him by the fact that he -- what might have

happened had he been on the supreme court. >> well, it is easily quite impossible to speculate about what might have happened had he been on the supreme court. what precisely are the differences and those of justice kennedy as i said in the talk, he was a man of great intellect and great integrity. he would have done well as a justice. the justices tend to surprise people who appointed them. if you look at judge bork's decisions during the four years on the dc circuit that he was there with justice scalia, there were many cases where they were on opposite sides of the same issues. how one works out particular

details is actually very difficult to predict all nine justices took original positions and not case. but they were divided by to four. he had the ability and the right framework about how to go about doing it. >> the constitution versus today's society that was not contemplated by the authors. can you share with us about the

society? >> well, the problem with the word activist is that people use it -- they attempted to judges behaving badly. i'm going to fill in what badly as. so the left accuses the right in the right accuses the left and it is a term with no meaning other than the idiosyncratic meaning of the speaker which would therefore be abolished. what you really want to discuss is not who is active in his non-is that the alternative activism or pessimism. presumably pacifism is judges who don't care what is in the constitutional statute and the people rule over them. the only thing that needs to be discussed is whether the judge is right or wrong or whether they have a defensible philosophy of judging. the originalist approach is

really founded by john marshall and his what is the basis of this and it supposes that the reason why judges have power to override the views of the legislature of the presidency is that the constitution is a lot like any other. but there is a hierarchy in a conflict of law principles and constitutional law will be federal law and treaties will be federal law and real hierarchy created by the constitution. judges have the authority to articulate it. when there is not a rule of law to be found in the constitution, one of the great clashes in

modern jurisprudence is the people who really believe in the rationale, that the constitution is definitive law and the people who think well, now that we have this review, we can make things up as we go along. which i think is fundamentally wrong. when we have to make things up as we go along. there is very little that is decided in the constitution. most what happens in life, the living have to make up as we go along. this is the fight has nothing to do with activism. >> we just had a cia director sworn in and that created a

difference between the 1789 constitution in 1791 constitution after finishes homework. and i wonder if the topic, versus the 1791 version ever arose in your conversations with him and what that was observed to be. >> that was the date of the last amendment of the last constitution, which was, by the way, the final ratification in 19921 of the 12 amendments that the house had proposed in 1790.

it completely override the states and it combines them at once. sixteenth amendment, which changed how the senators are elected, used to be elected by state representatives and now elected by the people. that fundamentally changes the structure because congress no longer contained within a formal representatives of the states as entities. of course ,-com,-com ma the civil war amendments, if anything changes the structure of government, it was the civil war and the post-civil war amendments. well, one of the things at first kept coming up in this office was what is the meaning of section two of the 13th

amendment these clauses by appropriate legislation. many expand national power especially one of those enforcement clauses. the most common in section five of the 14th amendment. i mentioned in my talk that the professor, the first time he was at a meeting -- nixon commented that he never thought to here

from any professor of law, the case was of morgan. with morgan the supreme court had said that with section five of the 14th amendment means is it is a ratchet, and congress never contract rights. where is that language and 14th amendment? well, and second, what it meant with them is that congress could decide what is necessary with the 14th amendment he was completely right that there is no ratchet and not language.

this is relative to the supreme court. your thinking is to enforce this. which was said to be constitutional and congress had then tried to get rid of it by legislation. bork felt it was wrong. i thought then and now that i think it was right. because section five gives congress the power to do something by appropriate legislation and the power to do

something, the power to interpret the underlying documents. if you go back to the rationale, we are not supposed to have a judge centric view. we go and see what is unambiguously decided and that is binding. everything else has to be decided by the political branches. i think the civil war amendments are in that mold, they are not pro-judiciary statutes. remember, the judiciary at the time of those would produce this, this is not a set of constitutional amendments. it was a set of constitutional amendments to empower congress at at the expense of the

judiciary and states and the local branches that congress and the president when you have extra powers. as i say, we talked about that all the time. i thought then and i still think that bork was right about the ratchet and wrong about the relative roles of congress and the judiciary in dealing with section five legislation. it does not diminish my admiration. he thought that i was wrong as well. i'm curious if you can shed light, both as a human being and what his philosophy was. >> when he was nominated, i was already a judge.

the managers in this process, a close friend and later to be a judge of the dc circuit and steve gillis, one of his former law clerks, they helped shepherd him through this process. but my review of the process was not very well either. i think that they and he made a terrible strategic mistake. to strategic mistakes. first, they made a strategic mistake in believing that these hearings had any intellectual content. so in the senators asking questions, they were taken seriously. but they were not. they have no intellectual content. they were political theater in

the correct way to proceed was as political theater. this is something that the hearings taught offense. the second error that he committed is related to the first great since he took this as an intellectual exchange, as if the senators really were interested in this, he responded with the utmost gravity and not with levity. as i have said, the only person that came close was marty -- justice ginsburg's husband.

and only to deceive the members of congress could have followed up. at the answer is that they could not because of a reading from scripts. if you want an example of that, i will just tell an example about the confirmation hearing that i went through and my colleague went through. not nearly as publicly visible. and he said later that if he had never done anything in his life, he would be a failure. well, when he was nominated, he discovered this. when i was nominated, one of the questions i was asked, do you think the constitution says what he means and means what it says? having been told that this

question was coming, i said yes. and we went on to the next question and in his script, he asked the same question as the professor that even once. and then he began to catalog some of the interpretive disputes, about how language changes meaning over the century and although i wasn't there, i am told about it. and at the end, there is no follow-up question. nobody could believe. the hearing was in 1981, nobody told him that this was political

theater and you are not expected to have the answers like that. well, since the judge like judge bork had thought about exchanges and views, he had gone there just by himself. and you want to go with friends and family but his wife charlene was not there the professor had published an article saying that the world would be better off if there were more options. and now someone would say a notice that neither of your children are here. when did you seldom? [laughter]

we learn how to manage confirmation. >> and thank you all for being >> coming up this morning on c-span2, supreme court justice clarence thomas talks about his life and career. then bloomberg hosts a discussion on corporate taxes and regulations. later fly from the heritage foundation a look at the future of the u.s. military. >> mrs. grant was also interesting. they had this extraordinary existence. for most of their lives you list