the basis of our policies, and i think we're doing it again with islam seeing the same pattern over and over again. you are talking about communism in infiltration. it's the same story. >> right. is it possible today with so many tools in the hands of fbi and other agencies to read people's e-mails, to listen to people form, is it possible for these proponents of radical islam or any other ideology to be in the u.s. government or -- >> guest: oh, they are there. they are on the inside. look at muslim outreach, and there's muslim brotherhood fronts creating policy that prevented the fbi, the justice department, and the military from training, being educated on islamic jihad. that was the fact, that's why we had the boston bombing with fbi

agents unable to recognize a jihadist, so, yes, it's happening, again. >> host: something to ponder today. diana west, thank you very much. >> guest: thank you. >> john recalls the failed japanese mission to attack new york city city and washington,

d.c. after pearl harbor. this is about 45 minutes. >> i'm author of "operation storm," and i'd like to start this evening's presentation with a question. does anybody in the audience know who this is? >> [inaudible] >> say that again? that's correct. that's the commander in chief of the imperial japanese navy's combined fleet, and the admiral was a fascinating guy for those of you who don't know him. he lived in the united states twice during his naval career. he spoke pretty good english. he attended harvard university briefly -- >> could you elevate the microphone slightly because it's uneven what's coming through. >> sure. is that better? >> no. >> this way? >> up. >> up.

how's that? >> yep. >> that better? okay. so, as i said, attenned harvard briefly. he even read "life" magazine, so he had a pretty good understanding of america. he knew what japan was getting into when she declared war against the united states. as he told prime minister at the time, he said, i can guarantee a tough fight for the first six months, but i have no confidence as to what will happen after that. it's important to understand that he was a gambler. he loved to play games of chance playing billiards, roulette, bridge, mah jong, didn't matter, as long as there was a gambling component. in fact, he threatened to resign from the navy to be a fumeood h.

i don't think they took the threats seriously. it's important to understand that his love of gambling affected his military strategy and influenced the military strategic thinking, and that's why he has a mixed record as a naval tactician. he was a fascinating character, nonetheless, though. when he was a young one serving aboard japan's naval flag ship in the japanese-russian war, the deck gun blew up, and he was severely injured by the explosion. in fact, if you look at this photograph here, you can see the scars peppering his face from the shrapnel. now, he was pretty self-conscious about the facial scars, one reason why they were often air brushed out of the official photographs. he also lost two fingers on the left happen in the explosion.

he lost his index finger and the middle finger. now, the price of a manicure in jay pap at the time was a hundred sen, but the geisha he loved to hang out teasingly nicknamed him 80 sen because they felt that a man whoa on had eight fingers didn't deserve to pay full price for a manicure. he thought this was very funny, which is actually something i liked about him because you don't usual lo associate humor with the commander in chief with the imperial commander of the japanese navy, but as you know, he's most famous for being the architect of the surprise attack on pearl harry hopkins -- harbor. the attack was hugely innovative for its day, which many people don't realize. the dominant strategy at the time was the philosophy of the decisive naval battle. you were supposed to go out,

find the enemy's fleet far out at sea, and destroy them. he turned that thinking completely on its head with the attack on the u.s. pacific fleet. it was the first time in naval history that so many aircraft had ever been launched from the sea to attack a navy's fleet in the own home port. it was the attack on pearl harbor shows, he could be a very daring and unconventional thinker. he had a problem after pearl harbor. he had no second act, and that's why in january 1942, he gathered his senior naval officers on the own naval flag ship to discuss what could the imperial japanese navy do as a follow-up to pearl harbor? he needed to do something as equally bold as pearl harbor that would somehow convince the u.s. to sue for an early peace, allowing japan to keep the

recently conquered territories. now, his follow-up punch to pearl harbor was characteristically audacious. you know, as i said, he was a daring and unconventional thinker. he knew he'd never slip another task force past the americans, so what he did was decided to build 18 huge submarines specifically designedded to attack the united states. now, i'm not talking about another attack against hawaii or midway or guam, but i'm talking about app attack against mainland america. now, that's something that had not occurred since the british bombarded new orleans in the war of 1812. these e400 class of subs, as they were called, this is a picture of one, they were a markble achievement for their day, bigger than any other built up until then, and, in fact, they were so big we initially

mistook them for surface ships. to give you idea how big they were, that's the e401 there at the top. that's the squaw drop's flag ship, and it was over400 feet long. that's a longer than a football d. it's conning towers, sail structure, which was this section here on top was three stories tall. the sub, itself, carried 204 officers and crew. now, if you compared that to a u.s. combat sub, they carried less than 80 men. that gives you idea how huge the e4 # 00 class subs were. as you can see here, the e401 submarine is comparable in size to a fletcher class destroyer. that's a surface ship intended to hunt submarines. given the e401 was 26 feet longer than a fletcher class destroyer, it's not clear who is

hunting who. the e400 subs were so huge they could travel one and a half times around the world without refueling. something no other sub in the 1940s could come close to doing. they also incorporated some of the earliest stealth technologies. the conning tower sail structure was painted a huge radar signature normally so they indidn'ted three feet at the base to reflect the waves back into the sea. each one of the subs was painted with a special stealth coding, not only designed to dampen noise, but to absorb waves as well. the truly amazing thing about the e400 subs was that they were underwater aircraft carriers. each sub carried three ihem attack lanes and a water tight deck hanger they launched by pneumatic catapult after the bow. the sub could surface, assemble

three of the plane, and launch them in under 30 minutes. now, the japanese were not the first to experiment with airplane carrying sub ma yens. germany, great britain, the united states, france, and even italy all experimented with plane carrying subs with mixed results, but japan was the only nation to ever perfect plane carrying submarines and deployed widely in the navy. in fact, there were 11 plane carrying submarines surrounding hawaii in 1941, and the navy had three times that number in the construction pipeline, so this was a technology, a strategic weapon they very much believed in. this is the only known photograph of the sub, and if you look carefully, it's -- you obviously, it's surfaced, two planes here on the bow getting ready to be launched.

now, historians often dismiss these plane carrying subs as white elephant technology. japan had a logical reason for deploying these subs. they extended the ability of the sixth fleet to scout out our navy. submarines, as ewe may or may not know sit low in the water. they can only see six or seven miles towards the horizon. that limits their scouting ability, particularly in the days before they had radar. when the subs were conceived, there was no radar. a sub with an airplane can easily extend its range, its field of view by 200 to 300 miles means the further away japan could discover our fleet, the better and sooner they could destroy our fleet before it reached japan. the incredible thing about the e. 400 subs was not the size, and really not the fact they were underwater aircraft

carriers, but the audacious mission dreamed up for them. he built the e400 subs because wt to change the course of world war ii. the way he intended to do that was to send these subs, more than halfway around the world, surface them off the east coast of america, and launch their planes in a surprise attack against new york city and washington, d.c.. now, clearly, he was thinking big, which you would expect of a daring and unconventional thinker, but he knew the 44 aircraft that he intended the subs to carry wouldn't be enough to destroy two of the america's biggest cities. however, he did believe that the psychological blow of the attack would be enough to force the u.s. to negotiate and to sue for early peace. now, remember, doolittle only fielded 16 bombers over tokyo.

he was talking about 44 bombers. it's a magnitude greater. okay. one of the remarkable things about the subs is that they marked the first time any submarine had been designed to launch an attack against an enemy city. up until 1945, subs were used for either scouting, to sink capital or mother chapter ships, nobody dreamed it could be used to attack a city. that's why they were revolutionary, and it's also why they are still relevant today. aside from being an amazing story, the e400 subs are the his tore yal predecessor of the u.s. regular missile carry your subs from the 1950s, shown here. they surfaced, launched a

missile out of the deck hanger, similar in configuration to the subs. in other words, our regular missile carrying subs are the direct asen dents of the e400 subs. there's no denying the subs foreshadowed today's ballistic missile submarines, and the mission was the same. the they were overcoming obstacles to have, and this is the plane, one of the planes that the e400 subs launched off the bow, and as i mentioned before, there was an attack plane, and it was one of the

most technologically sophisticated aircraft built, during world war ii, and they were nicknamed that translates from the japanese as storm from a clear sky. that's how they were to appear over new york city and washington, d.c.. the planes were designed to be versatile, torpedo bombers, dive bombers, drop conventional bombs, but one of the most versatile qualities they had was that their wings and their horizontal and vertical tail stabilizers could fold up so the plane made a small enough package to pit in a deck hanger that was only 11 feet, six inches in diameter. this is not a small plane. if a man was standing next to the plane in the photograph, his head would just about reach the top of that bottom pontoon. they were large aircraft.

the most shocking aspect of these aircraft was that they were painted to look like u.s. military aircraft. this was done to make it easier to slip past u.s. air defses. the japanese believed by disguising the plaps, they could buy time to reach targets before they were discovered. all in all, it's a pretty hollywood type mission, not something you'd actually expect somebody to dream up in the course of a war. >> [inaudible] >> pardon me? >> [inaudible] that's the deck hanger. >> until >> right. the plane could fold its wings and tail to slide in there, and they all sat on traillies that were lowered so that the plane backed in, and when it came out, they raised the trollly so the nose of the plane was lifted.

okay, this gentleman is a commander. he was the squadron commander of the e400 subs and their aircrafts. he was from the samurai, a naval family, attended japan's naval academy, which is just like our annapolis, and he also attended japan's elite naval war college. he spent his entire clear involved with submarines. there's a staff officer or line officer. he was a patriot. he was a warrior. he subscribed to the code. he was certainly a hard core mill -- military, as hard core as nay came. he was a nasty piece of work. he was the brains behind the midget sub attack at pearl harbor as well as some of the worst atrocities committed by japan's sixth fleet submarines during the war. you can't tell from the photograph, but he had straight

hair, link straight hair, a tiny mustache, and skin that more than one person described as being oily, saying he had an oily sheen. i came across that several times. he's definitely the villain of the peace. he was a martinette, and a heavy, heavy drinker, which is really saying something. he didn't hesitate to discipline the men by slapping or kicking them, and, in fact, the crew, his flag ship, called him gangster because of his ruthlessness, and they used the term "gangsta" in japanese pronapsed similar to our word. they knew what a gangster was. he believed that to die on behalf of the emperor was glorious. the crew of the e40 # 1 knew he would not hesitate to sacrifice them op behalf of the cause. surrender was not in his

vocabulary. in other words, this guy was the boss from hell. now, this is lieutenant commander, he was captain of the flag ship. in other words, he was in a reporting relationship to the squadron commander, who was also he different from the bs. first of all, he was over six feet tall, and he was rail thin. he was so handsome, his crew usedded to gossip that he looked like a particular famous japanese movie star. as you'll see in the photograph, he's got quite a full mustache, which was considered very stylish in the day. now, the crew trusted him. they knew that he had their best interest at heart. whereas the other tended to command respect through fear and

intimidation, he really eared the men's respect. i can see what his crew liked about him. i interviewed him several times for operation storm, and he's still alive today. he's, i think, 101 rat ash -- at this point. he's charming and internationally minded, and 70 years after the fact, a number of the former officers and crew sought me out to tell me they felt they owed their lives to the way the conducted himself at the end of the war. the other amazing thing was he was one of the few sub captains to survive the war in the japanese navy, and that's remarkable considering that he served aboard a submarine in pearl harbor, told me how he looked through the scope waiting for a u.s. capital ship to escape the attack to sink them. he was the exec tifer officer aboard the e17, which was the submarine that shelled the

elwood storage facility noter of santa barbara in february 1942. this guy really got around. i think he was in the war for something, like, 1800 days. that's a long time. it's a miracle he survived the war begin the casualty rate of the 6th fleet, the submarine force, and it's a miracle he survived the war given the fact where he served. okay. so what you may not know was that the e400 subs were on their way to complete the mission when the war ended. when emperor accepted the allies' surrender terms on august 15th, 1945 #, he was so outraged that he refused to tell the crew of the surrender, and, in fact, he refused to surrender, and, instead, he decided to go rogue and continue with the mission. now, this was an unprecedented

situation, of course. nothing prepared him for defeat or surrender. the situation aboard the e401 was about to get very, very bad. these guys, u.s. combat sub, the uss segundo was breathing down their neck. the segundo was having command and control problems, though for different reasons, and we'll get into that when i do a section of reading from the book, but the end counter between the e401 and the segundo is the scene that i'd like to read to you now from my book, "operation storm," and after i'm done, if there's time left, i'll take a few questions. everybody still with me? [laughter] okay. okay. this is chapter 1, "face off." i promise not to read you the whole chapter. [laughter]

okay. the uss segundo was five days out of midway heading towards japan when the crew received news that the jeep these government accepted peace terms. as the submarine's executive officer, lieu tenth john noted in the boat's fifth war patrol report heard the good word of the surrender and in 11 languages too. he was second in command of the class sub, one the newest u.s. fleet boats nicknamed silent joe for the manner, ballson was responsible for ensuring that the captain's orders were carried out in a correct and timely manner. he'd been with the segundo since before her commissioning and served in all five of the war patrols. 28 years old and already balding, ballson was a man of sly whit and few words. his all-cap entry was an uncharacteristic display of emotion for the normally

flagmatic officer, then, again, the war with japan was finally over. the segundo had been patrolling the curl islands when the cease fire was announced. she had not seen much activity other than a few russian vessels. now it was august 24 #th, 1945. the segwas ordered to tokyo bay to represent the u.s. submarine force at the upcoming surrender ceremony. the invitation was an honor for the segundo's crew, but they were not ready to relax just yet. they were still in enemy territory, and though the cease fire agreement specified the japanese military to lay down arms, some units had not gotten the message. it was two weeks since the japanese emperor asked subjects to endure the unendurable, and they headed to tokyo to mop up remnants of the worse formidable japanese fleet. not much was left, and what was,

was not expected this far north. there was isolated resistance, though, so the segundo continued down a wartime footing. the segundo had been an aggressive boat,te the diminishing number of enemy taets. the first skipper, commander james d. fobbing, jr., assigned to the sub while under construction at the ports smith navy yard in new hampshire. he had a stamp on the boat's crew while commander her first four war patrols. during that time, he'd sunk two japanese warships, eight merchants, and seven san pans, and earned the segundo a total of four battle stars. these results were not surprising begin the fact that folk was an experienced sub captain, tall, athletic, and matinee idol hand smit, had the confidence the men had come to respect. he was 34, which was old for a sub captain andur q

that only contributed to his command presence. folk prosecuted the war with just the right balance of aggressiveness and caution. his crew knew he was somebody they could count on to sink a combatant ship and get home safely. though he could be remote, that was not up push for a co. it was better for folk to be distant than overly familiar since the crews' lives depended on his objectivity. in other words, the segundo's first skipper had everything a crew likedded in a sub captain. he was mature, steady, and reliable. all this changedded, however, before the segundo departed on the fifth and final war patrol. the sub mid way undergoing refit when he was trarns ferred to pearl harbor. he was due for rotation. folk built the segundo into a

fighting machine, and if it's true that a combat submarine operates like a family, then folk's departure was like depriving the crew of their father. unfortunately, the boat's new skipper, lieutenant commander steven johnson, was a different breed of captain. he was younger than folk and brash with a cockiness that put the crew op edge. the first time seaman first class brinkley saw him at midway, the new skipper was shooting dice with the men. to him, johnson didn't make a good impression. hinghe acted more like a crew mr than an officer, not the kind of captain he was used to serving under. lieutenant victor horgan had concerns about the new co. he overheard the tall lanky johnson tell the officers, when we get off the patrol, they'll be throwing medals down our

hatch. was this the kind of guy you could respect? horgan was not sure. in fact, the more the crew saw of johnson, the more they worried he was a hollywood skipper. e he may have had other exaibls, but he was noticeably lacking in fobbing's graff tas. it seemed like the segundo was the 29-year-old johnson's first command. it was not. it was his third. if the officers had known that, it would have worried them all the more. lieutenant ballson remainedded as the segundo's executive officer after folk left. he recognized the new captain was different. upson was a smooth talker, polishes, well-dressed, and the nickname was slick, it was not always a compliment. ballson knew a change in command was nothing to worry about seeing a share of sub captains and no two alike. given time, most adjusted to a new skipper. if not, the u.s. sub force was 1

# # -- 100% volunteer. you could ask off the boat. the biggest issue captain johnson faced, though, was the segundo's tight knight crew. most had been aboard since the commissioner 15 months earlier, and they were shaped by folk's command style. importantly, folk got them out of pretty tight spots with their new skipper as talented? of course, captain johnson's presumed impeach woesty was less an issue now that the war was over. the one thing the men didn't want to see, though, was for something stupid to happen. they are superstitious, and with the cease fire in place, they department any last minute screwups sending them to the bottom. home was the preferred direction. in the meantime, anything could happen. it was 15 minutes before midnight on august 28th, 1945

when lieutenant rod johnson, no relation to captain johnson, relieved lieutenant mclaugh lin as officer of the deck. the segundo was on the surface about a hundred miles headed south towards tokyo. it was the 14th day of the cease fire, and not one enemy warship had been sighted since the patrol gun. it was a cold night, and visibility was poor, ocean calm, but johnson decided to take advantage of what little moonlight there was to scan the horrified rye -- horizon. when he spotted the object south of the sub, johnson thought his eyes played tricks op him, but the more he looked, the more certain he became something was out this. meanwhile, alex snoopy leech was sipping coffee with a blip on the screen. he was surprised how large the

object was. something that size should have been picked up at 15,000 yards, yet it had not appeared until it was within a third of the distance. leaving the few steps to get under the hatch, leech shouted, radar contact, 5500 yards. ..

>> has johnson scrambled his neck in the japanese went into the night at flank speed. in the control room plotting the enemy's course as the chase ensued and he new fighting was still going on in the pacific but he could not understand why the submarine would runaway. after all the war had been over 14 days. nevertheless the situation seemed dangerous as hell. as a chase extended into the early morning hours, ed johnson pushed it at 20 knots very time he tried to drive near the japanese have pulled away and johnson did not trust the enemy not to fire so he settled at a distance of 4,000 yards in to make sure the torpedo

tubes were loaded and ready if the japs tried anything but he would sink them. the first one hour past that another has the pursue drag on the crew began to worry but as dawn approached something unusual happened. johnson wasn't sure what she was up to but the enemy sub suddenly began to slow. maybe she was ready to surrender or into firing position. shortly after 4:00 in the morning of august august 29, johnson called quartermaster third class to the bridge. it was his first work patrol a tough kid from the bronx whose accent was like a punch in the face, looking for a hot spot on the japanese sub and was wide awake now as he forced the cast-iron signal lamp onto the bridge and flickering of shutters he pounded up the international code for

stock. the enemy sub failed to it knowledge the message even though it was impossible to miss understand the meaning. it may have slowed but it showed no signs of stopping. finally after a few minutes he received the affirmative reply, to minutes later in the enemy sub lay dead in the water. as dawn slowly eliminated the japanese bow to johnson and his men were in for a big surprise. they were facing a typical submarine, it was in fact, the largest submarine the crew had never seen. they thought she was used at least twice as big as there's a and others were convinced to three times

act. >> he did not show it.

you could never underestimate the veracity of the japanese military even in defeat. if johnson misjudged the situation even slightly to the segundo was in for trouble. to ensure that didn't happen he brought his bout torpedo tubes out it ordered the helmsman to slowly closed the distance. by all rights the japanese sub should surrender but her decision to flee and the reluctance to stop especially after being chased suggested they did not intend to give up easily. after all, she still flew the ensign with the red and white rays of the rising sun. but one thing for sure nobody in the united states navy had ever seen a sub like this. it was galba e401 the most

powerful built during world war two's so secretive u.s. military didn't know anything about it recognition that the architect of the attack on pearl harbor had planned himself so audacious that the imperial japanese navy saw it as a way to change the course of the war in their favor. a captain john's -- johnson did eppley shoe is how reluctant it was to surrender not only was it part of the top-secret squadron of underwater aircraft carriers it was the flag ships that carried the squadron commander. the commander is to me was in development from the beginning and it would not surrender without a fight and in fact, surrendered to

the enemy would be more than an acceptable it would be an embarrassment and a disgrace to commander arazumi it went against all his years of training as a loyal subject of the emperor and a commander in the imperial japanese navy. and so much to their surprise the men of the uss segundo rubout to learn world war ii was not over just yet because along with the unproven skipper, the crew found themselves in what was promised to be the last great shooting match of the pacific war. >> okay. [applause] you are too kind. before we open the floor to questions i wanted to it knowledge that one of that segundo plant owners of a

who has served on all of the war patrols so what i just read you had five war patrols in the family of one plane coulter who is alive in the chief petty officer on board act shall be three generations of that family and want to thank you for coming tonight and in particular for your father support in the research of my book. if you have any questions we ask that you come up to the microphone right behind the projector otherwise he will not get on c-span tv that is building this and i cannot hear you because i am deaf as opposed. please take into the microphone. >> do not be shy. excellent. here we go.

>> i read the first quarter of the book and it is a great book. i cannot wait to get through the entire thing but i wanted to comment to ask you to share with the audience i found it fascinating for those of us on the pacific coast, the west coast, your elaborate and detailed chronology of exactly how people responded to the very limited and highly effective attacks of the japanese submarines of the west coast , the reaction seems to belief the projection that perhaps this attack might have had the psychological impact it might have resulted in what he anticipated and hoped for and so the evidence that you

put in the first half of the book that how we reacted on the coast went to validate the theory. >> you're absolutely right few people realize that the west coast was lousy with japanese submarines between seven -- 41 through september 42 they were sinking coastal shipping shipping, and they actually did launch the first attack on the mainland united states since the war of 1812 and there was a tremendous invasion people didn't understand but they were dealing with. in retrospect that is ridiculous it was not an invasion but that part of the strategy was quite effected for the first six months up until june 1942. there are a number of merchant ships sunk off the coast of california from

vancouver down through san diego and and it was described to me what it was like in february 42 to surface of the waters of the san diego it would be so close they could hear people talking on shore. initially when i interviewed him for the book, just to understand what was going on with the e401 i said he would tell me about the trip he made to the new york city and i said in passing that is interesting was that your first visit? he said no. i have been before and i said when was the first time? and he said pearl harbor. [laughter] >> and i have not read the book but did you include the

filing that occurred in oregon? the plane that took off from the submarine and i am not sure if it was brookings? >> right. in fact, i do have a chapter about that and he bombed or again in northern california with two flights and this is another one of those things that when it started to do research why would the japanese want to bomb the redwood forest? it sounded crazy but of course, all the western accounts of that dismiss it but when i start to interview the japanese didn't listen to the logic logic, they had a clever idea that debut in september the forest is usually tinder dry so they expected the weather to be a force

multiplier for the baum said they dropped in the intensive -- anticipated said did on fire a good part of further california and southern oregon. lucky for us it was the most of unseasonably rainy september in 100 years so when they dropped the incendiaries dave went off but did that have the fact that the japanese intended so we dismiss that that was it's crazy plan but the truth is they were of mckee and we were tremendously lucky. >> there was a show one year or two ago and that is the first heard of that but i think he mentioned yamamoto was a proponent of this and after he was killed in the war of 1942. >> i think it is 43. >> with the development of the busload -- of the subs

slowed and then they didn't have a chance to do much. >> you are talking about the documentary of the japanese super sub that was on pbs and i was the producer and technical writer on that show based on an article i had written. when yamamoto was killed like any other bureaucracy, when he succeeded, first of all, as far as pearl harbor goes the japanese imperial navy did not want to do pearl harbor they thought it was the craziest thing they wanted to stop it dead yamamoto was a commander in chief and told the naval general staff if you don't accept this plan will resign so he forced them but when it succeeded as far as the japanese were concerned it succeeded tremendously, he was of god and could do whatever you wanted so when he came up with the idea of

18 gigantic under water aircraft carriers nobody would stand in his way at that point* but there were factions who did not want the plan and did not think there were very conservative to think this was a bridge too far. so once he died they came out of the of woodworking and almost killed the plan and they had it scaled back and then they got it back so is at tug-of-war with no bureaucracy but they stayed with the plan right through the war even though there were so many men involved. it was like the number of men to 3,000 people involved not a small operation. and at great cost the face of that building the subs even though they had no skill and were committed up to the end.

>> i would like your confirmation or correction but yamamoto and doolite had something in common for the date that his plane bombed tokyo 1842 andy yamamoto was shot down on the same date. correct? >> yes. >> thank you. >> this is slightly tangential but for a lot of us the most recent exposure of that war was the movie emperor and i wonder from the premier perspective and are you -- it is claimed to be more less accurate. >> i don't understand the question. >> in terms of the portrayal

of the personalities. >> what was the title? >> emperor. >> i haven't seen that movie >> it was recently released in the last month or two. >> i have not seen that it is on my list. [laughter] it is funny the way american history was taught during world war ii that the japanese were one-dimensional, monolithic and i got a different perspective and i went over there and got a chance to interview the imperial navy japanese officers. one was the squadron leader i said he was ready to come back and finish but the others were logical and rational and it is the queen of you i never in a million years encountered and was fascinated to hear their reasoning and why did they think it was a just war?

and i kept finding out the crazy incidents like bombing or begin they made more sense than what i was taught. i think if you read the book you will find part of it is the wes submarine experience in the other part talks about what the war was like from their point* of keogh -- point* of view it is getting late and did you for coming out and i'll be over here signing books for anybody who wants me to sign. thank you. [applause]

>> buying power comes from a term used by one of the groups that i looked at with the league of women shoppers the slogan was use your buying power for justice and the idea was americans consume all lots of goods and that consumption is a powerful way to make a moral statement. in my book i try to extend the idea into what existed in the '30's and '40's to argue americans have consistently and used there buying power for political and moral and ethical purposes. commentary educators describe it as an act to and that is oftenth

considered as an individual but americans have had another side of fuming consumption as connecting bus with other people and those who make the goods that we buy and connecting as to those who buy or don't buy a hand in my book i try to show that americans have been deeply concerned about the moral impact of their shopping. >> that consumer activism is as old as the nation and with the run-up of the american revolution of the 17 sixties whether or not the importation movement began led by colonist particularly to get merchants and one of the ways americans first define themselves as a nation rather than british colonial

subjects was in the process to boycott british goods to try to buy goods that were domestically produced. this was a radical new political movement and was one of the things that led to the formation of the american nation probably the most important and famous event of this was the boston tea party when it was dumped overboard by the colonists who were trying to get other colonists not to buy british goods as it way to weaken british colonial power by and having that annuities. >> i find it historians do about the american revolution but oftentimes what they think about is consumer activism and next turn to the montgomery bus boycott. it is a discontinuous history that we have turned to to politics consistently

through the entire 19th century through the present and one of the movements of a cat is by to the movement and the idea was that people who opposed slavery needed to not buy goods that were made by slaves and so the argument was that purchasing is lave made goods is the santa matt to hire the slavers also what they tried to do to say there is no moral difference between being a slave owner and a consumer because essentially you support the slave owner and the system of slavery. this was a movement that was never large but had a big social impact and the other thing this group did set up st for what they sold

free produce made by free labor and the idea is that more and more americans bought goods from produce stores and they had the incentive to switch over to hire and richest human beings for their employment. the movement never succeeded there were not economically successful but i argue that they set the important precedent not only of the boycott going back to the american revolution ball so well recall to not only punish those who were doing things you jawlike but to reward those who were doing things that you do like and the free produce stores where the first in human history that i discovered. for consumer activists there was no difference between buying power and political pol por.ey argued it was a

but they argued in a society where americans and not making goods for themselves from the early 19th century therefore when you purchase you were establishing relations and were invisible because you don't see the farmer who grew the wheat who grew the week for the bread or the technology that more americans are buying even the you don't see them you have a very real and direct connection and more responsible for the conditions in which they work. and this was repeated again and again into the 20th century and the idea was if you define politics broadly and the ethical systems that

are important to us that the buying power was a form of political power the in the 20th century consumer activists began to talk explicitly about the role of the government of protecting consumer rights and promoting the interests of consumers as a group in society but before that consumer activism was deeply political and in my book i call it an american political tradition largely unknown you see this is one of the most consistent threats of our political activity. and to have two fundamental ideas one is economic and the other is political and these are often related. about one aspect is to economically harmed those with the boycott would see as something wrong or immoral -- a moral with the abolitionist boycott it was

to harm slave owners but not to harm the economy as a whole because they believe in the free market ideas that if you give people incentive to do other things the incentive to hire other kinds of labor they will do it and if you give consumers the incentive they will do it and therefore this law harms the economy because there are more wage earners those in turn with so forth so the idea is a particular segment of the economy but that will ultimately in the long run be good as a whole and even in most cases the goal is not to drive the business out into bankruptcy but not to get the business to change its practicead

so as they often try to do is that there is the extreme example where there is personal animus they want to harm a business or corporation that by and large that if it changes their view it is a matter of ethics and with the of the side of the boycott is to raise consciousness of an issue and many other boycotts the goal is to have the economic impasse but also to let americans know they have a connection to a moral issue and an example could be farm workers beginning in the late '60s through the '70s for many decades thereafter and in 1971 the estimated 70 million americans are

acting in solidarity with the boycott. i think the idea was not so much to harm those but to raise awareness that my gran laborers were conditions the healthy conditions to get them to be concerned about something that most people that the grapes or a the lettuce is beautiful you don't think of the connection that pesticides and the whole idea of the boycott to get americans to think about that. and with the political level more than the economic level and one thing the internet has done it is making it much easier for people to get together across distances to organize boycotts and other forms of consumer groups.

and every year there is a boycott that captures the american imagination sometimes for a brief period or a longer period and it is a way that americans continue to express their political views. >>