>> and the press was, the media were full of themselves. of course, we were full of ourselves.

and, you know, dragon slayers and feeling very good and very aggressive. and the political system was reconsidering because of watergate, 40 years of cold war history, all at once, looking back at things that have been held secret for decades. and probably would have been, if they hadn't been secret decades before, it would've been possible for them not to even secret, would have been supported by a vast majority of the public during those 40 years. edward used to say it's like reliving 40 years of history without remembering what made us afraid. and so all of that stuff had come out, and for reasons, because of the way the watergate situation developed, involving

cia things and so forth. it all got conflated together. and so part of the challenge for edward and for gerald ford, president ford recognize why to broaden was to do two things. one is to change the environment and restore people's sense, first within the institution and then in the larger population, restore confidence that justice was on the square and that important values would be considered, taken seriously. but the other was to reform the institutions that were under siege so that they could function, because they had the function. it was really important for the fbi to be able to be involved in

counterintelligence activity, because the cold war was still with us and to really work spies out there. and it was important the cia hasn't rethought itself, not become completely stymied and so forth. so it was this interesting moment in which, on the one hand, he was leading a process which i was deeply involved in to rethink the way these institutions, not just the fbi, but particularly the fbi, did their work, but at the same time trying to protect it and strengthen it, and strengthen the public confidence in it so we could move forward. that's the kind of moment that it was, john. >> john, when you're attorney general, shortly after he became attorney general you faced a different kind of crisis but one that shook the nation with 9/11. and i wonder to what extent in addressing the issues and the

challenges that you faced, you drew upon the legacy of edward levi as attorney general, were conscious of that legacy and a model in trying to address the problems that you confronted? >> well, in many ways the challenges were different. the challenge faced by attorney general levi related to a distortion of a responsibility of the department based on politics. we didn't faced. we faced the foreign foe, international in scope, that killed more people in a single day than was killed at pearl harbor, and did in the heart of america's commerce, in a state, not just the territory. i don't mean to belittle why but at the time of pearl harbor it was not a state and it was a military station. so we are facing a different kind of challenge. but it was clear we would have to reform and improve our

performance. i think of business schools most often cite the maximum that your system is perfectly designed to give you what you are getting. if you don't like what you're getting you should change what you're doing. einstein said, what was, ignorance is defined as doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. might immigrant grandfather put it this way. i saw this board off four times, john, and it's still too short. [laughter] we had to improve what we're doing, and so we needed to change but we needed to do it in a framework of the rule of law and of the constitution, the maximum of which i developed, we've got to think outside the box but never outside the constitution. and the patriot act, which was developed in, probably three

days, the customary tuesday attack in by saturday we had stuff before congress, was mainly assembling authorities that have been tested in other arenas but it never been applied to terrorism. and i think that's one of the reasons that, over time, there hasn't been any really destruction of implementation of the act. but it was changing the way we addressed the terrorists question, and to do so in the context of the rule of law. and the rule of law is essential to the maintenance of freedom. whenever the law is uncertain, people have to retreat from some of their activities not knowing whether they can do them or not. and i don't mean by the rule of law, the rule of lawyers. i mean the rule of law. sometimes it's -- if we would just have lawyers making all the decisions, do it, not so.

so we made a number of adjustments, and i think the war on terror or response to the terrorist war on us, is going to be a dynamic response. but whenever we change what we are doing, we need to do it outside the box perhaps, never outside the constitution. >> so, jack, one of the challenges that edward levi faced had to do with how the government would read just itself so as to avoid some of those abuses. readjust itself. could you talk about how came to life and how attorney general levi responded to that situation? >> so, it was an fbi program, counterintelligence program.

it was, the product, the basis for it was supposedly that by taking steps of action one could prevent violations of the law. what it had really done was a program which they were directed against foreign agents, but the ones, those are typically not the ones that were controversi controversial. the ones that were very controversial rant against political organizations, and they were civil rights organizations and antiwar organizations and so forth. and they became in the language of the post-watergate period or the watergate ready get --

rhetoric, they were dirty tricks kind of things. edward said that those that were not foolish were outrageous. and so part of the response was to say that, to reveal and actually some of the things that had already been revealed not because of the justice department but because some documents were discovered in a burglary that have taken place in pennsylvania. you know this history better than i do i think, but then a second wave came to light and we revealed those, immediately, as soon as we could get the information straight. edward said a group in a motion called the fbi guidelines going to write new rules for that give

these of the fbi. and there are lots of different areas in which the process of rethinking the way the fbi operator took place, but the ones that were most significant in terms of restoring confidence had to do with the investigation of domestic political groups, and some extent for an counterintelligence activity. it was one of those things. we went back and forth on the subject of weather would be ever -- other circumstances. we went back and forth on whether it would be a provision within the guidelines that said here are the circumstances and the procedures under which the fbi can take affirmative steps into a situation to disrupt an organization or a group or a conspiracy that is about to do something. there were some of us, myself

included, we thought it was better to have a rule and the procedure that was strong, and because we would probably do this in certain circumstances in which. and then report back and forth and in the end decided not to include any provision of that sort of guideline. so the guidelines did not include any. i'm not sure, i'm not speaking for edward but i think i understood the reasoning of this and the reasoning was really not that there would never be an occasion in which this would be appropriate, but rather the occasion probably ought to be one in which it was a special unique event rather than something that was in addition. so they came to an end, as did a lot of the domestic political, huge proportion of the domestic

political investigations that have gone on. it came to an end under the guideline, as the guidelines operator because they required the fbi to show that there was, had been or was about to be a reasonable suspicion that had been or was about to be a violation of federal law. and if you couldn't show that after a certain amount of time you had to stop the investigation. a lot of these cases, socialist workers, they been investigated for 40 years and never found any violation of law. the voluminous files, -- so that was a major, major change. you have to remember when he came in, the bureau was still run by people appointed by j. edgar hoover. it was still j. edgar hoover's bureau, and so there was a new

director, wonderful man, but below him, below him, the institution had not changed. so huge come in addition to the writing of rules and so forth, huge cultural change had to take place. >> one of the fundamental change about those guidelines is that they were not required i law. that is, this was a self restraint on the part of the department of justice. so the question of whether the government could infiltrate, for example, organizations by using an informative but more about them was not at that time seen as a violation of the estates constitution, not seen as a violation of any statutory law, and so one of the things edward did with those guidelines is basically said even though we have the legal authority to do this, we're not going to do it. that was a really important part of the way he changed to

exercise authority as attorney general. john, did you run up, in the world of post-9/11, did you run up against levi guidelines? whether circumstances where they pose difficulty even was released during that period first of all -- during that period. >> guidelines, care over a series of years under both from republican and democrat administrations. and, obviously, some of them were guidelines which became very troublesome and it's arguably inhibited substantially our ability to prevent or default the 9/11 attacks. i wanted to take over a set of guidelines that prohibited the exchange of information between the intelligence side of the department and the law enforcement side of the department, since the guidelines for gathering information were

different for things that could be used for intelligence purposes, then they would be for admissibility as evidence in court. you had these different, and it was thought that it was improper. oddly enough about two weeks before the assault on the twin towers, on 9/11, one fbi agent had commented about this set of rules in the department that prohibited this kind of exchange of information, saying that the only person that's going to benefit from this is osama bin laden, and we will lose american lives in the process. we discovered that memo after 9/11. but that memo basically reflected this id in the department that because there were different standards for use of evidence in court, in article iii court proceedings, that intelligence data couldn't be shared with law enforcement officials.

that became a part of something that was addressed in the patriot act. and oddly enough, through a litigation finally the challenge the ruling of the foreign intelligence surveillance act, we had the one i believe a public case for the court in a sealed case, where the court indicated there was no legal requirement that there could not be an exchange of this information. in the meantime we had negotiated the patriot act and without we were negotiating the wall between intelligence and law enforcement down. it turns out we agreed to a loerwald so the fact is that the patriot act really created what while there is legally, while we thought we were lowering the barrier which would allow for the exchange of information. so there are times when, in the enthusiasm that we have for protecting certain rights, that

we have tied the hands of people who would be able otherwise to default or protect against very serious problems. one of the virtues i think of our system which provides the president with generalized power for protecting the country is that it gives him a kind of flexibility. now, that gives some people a great deal of indigestion or heartburn, but there is, in my judgment and ability to call presidents to account, and it's done by the american people. i don't mean to minimize the abuses that took place that you referenced in the j. edgar hoover time, but i think it's important when you make guidelines that you understand that the responsibility of the government at its core is to defend the liberty of the american people and we need to be careful to provide a basis for doing that and not provide a

stumbling block which would impair our ability so did you. >> one interesting facet about these into the guidelines is they could be changed by subsequent attorney general. they are not binding on the apartment itself. one issue i think edward levi begin to think about was the issue of foreign surveillance. culminating in enactment of the foreign intelligence agreement act which was impacted in 1977. do want to talk about the problem that was about and how edward levi came to conceive of those problems? >> yeah, i would be glad to. this was another area which was remarkably uncomfortable. there was no statute that provided for getting warrants to do electronic surveillance,

including break-ins to plant microphones and other kinds of surveillance. spy versus spy kind of cases, or in cases involving positive foreign intelligence. that is, you're trying to find a what an adversary is doing, not just doing against you, not just doing him an intelligence activity, and that you are may be about to do. there was no provision, but there was a lot of activity. this was still, there was still the soviet union at that time. and it was an awful lot of espionage activity going on. and the watergate period had thoroughly discredited the idea that national security could provide a justification for much of anything.

the courts, the circlin serpentt had never spoken on whether there was the and power on the part of the president to authorize whether electronic surveillance in these kind of cases, lower courts were beginning to get very restless. the supreme court had said there is no power that it is unconstitutional to do these warrantless surveillance is against domestic political groups. and that happened before we got there. but did not spoken on the question of foreign courts. one point, the d.c. circuit, had a case in which they said a plurality of the judges on the court said that they thought it was all unconstitutional by the finding was not that. the funding was narrower and did not touch it to you couldn't appeal to so then the question

is what does the president do, what does the attorney general to? do you just stop doing all this electronic surveillance and permit the soviet agents to do whatever they want without impunity? or do you continue to do warrantless surveillance is under strict rules? edward established and president ford established a very strict procedure and a set of rules governing this, and continued to do the surveillance is. i reviewed every one of them, made a recommendation, which led to a lot of dark humor between edward and i about how i'm closed cases we would have a long time a joining cells to discuss -- [laughter] how we have made the wrong judgments of facts in the case.

but it was against that setting and the movement of the court and the congress against this that edward had to act. the first thing he did was he began talking about this subject in a very, very complete way. there were things he couldn't say that were secret. but there was much that you could say that hadn't been said, and he gave this incredible piece of testimony which is in the book before the senate select committee on intelligence looking into top intelligence abuses. and enormously 50 page testimony that he read to the committee. most of the kind wasn't there for the whole thing, but he insisted on delivering it orally as well as -- and in that testimony he talked about all

the values, not just the valley, not just the importance of our ability to investigate soviet agents and other enemy agents, but also the values of privacy and security and the things that were undermined when the people in the country feel that there's something secret going on, and how you, it was against that that the justice department, edward levi's league, began pushing for an act to provide a warrant in these cases, which didn't occur. all of this activity during his years went on under, without warrant. i'll tell you, just as a little anecdote, very short anecdote. to give you a sense of what the environment was like. there was a program going which

a couple of us were privy to in the justice department and were approving and so forth, in which the fbi had established a listening post in a private club that sat right next to the soviet embassy, the old charles adams building. and that listening post was monitoring the soviets monitoring of american microwave transmissions, mainly between the pentagon and langley, cia, and other places. but it was just a big funnel in the air taking of any microwave it could get. and the fbi's was monitoring what they were getting so we knew what they knew. this of course like everything else at the time, this became

public, became a story. and it was huge outrage. the outrage was at the fbi, because it was assumed that the fbi was really not trying to monitor these soviets to see what the soviets were up to. they were obviously doing this as a subterfuge to listen to private conversations of americans between one american and another. that's the kind of environment we were in, and against which all of this activity takes pla place. >> zoe grace a special process that had to be followed to get foreign intelligence warrants, which hadn't existed before. and the foreign intelligence surveillance court was great, special court of justices who have been selected and be given special glasses to be able to evaluate but otherwise will be national security classified information to decide whether a

warrant would be permissible. john, that became controversial during the post-9/11 period, particularly with the advent of the surveillance program. how did that connect in your experience? that is, the advent of the national security surveillance program, many commentators said this violated fisa. how did you do with that? >> i would like to put some things in context. president in times of national security difficulty, war, had been involved in surveillance is that were substantial for a long time to george washington steamed open the envelopes, before we had a country. and woodrow wilson in the first

world war monitored all i believe communications from the united states to foreign settings. and the second world war, roosevelt i believe on december the eighth, started a very aggressive program. and so the idea that the work inherent powers in the presidency that relate to the defense of the country i think was a pretty robust idea in our culture for a long time, and there are individuals to believe that the president has inherent powers to the question i think that's worth the of his consideration is if the president does have inherent powers to defend the country for national security reasons is that power and mental if it's a constitutional power by a new statute? or can a statute only enhance what's in the constitution rather than limit the power of the president? the suggestion in an unsigned

opinion which i think we know the members of the court, were unanimous in their approaches, that the powers of the president constitution could not be limited by the fisa enactment because whatever powers that were were constitutional that they could be enhanced. i believe that fisa is a wonderful thing because if, and to set that aside, give the president a safe haven and a set of checks and balance is in which to operate so that the people come to the president and say, why were you doing this? he said, i could do it under the supervision of foreign intelligence surveillance court, under the framework established in the foreign intelligence surveillance act, and that's a great comfort to a president. if he has powers constitutionally and he seems to abuses, the people can pretty --

judicial remedies take some time and it's a maxim of forgers before you can remedy what's wrong with the president. sometimes the courts act as if there's no check on the president if there is no judicial check on the president spent is a part of the difficulty fact a lot of this has been secret? one of the problems with relying upon the people is they don't know what's going on. >> well, i suppose that's an argument -- [laughter] but how bad is this secret that nobody knows about? what if i've been harmed and i don't know what? i understand that there are of fronts to dignity and the like, and that there is what we referred to as a right to privacy, and that's recognized in the law and established before the griswold v.

connecticut. but the point, i think it's fair to say that presidents have been considered to have an exercise properly authority under the constitution. and i don't know, i just raised the question, i'm not stating the conclusion. i'm suggesting the case suggested that authority is not amenable by statute is constitutional. now, you're the scholar. can you amend the constitution with a statute? >> you know the answer to that. [laughter] >> i think you can in some cases. if, for instance, your both the congress and the president according responsibility related to war, and the president has authority to do things and the congress has not sought to do anything in that arena, then it's a constitutional power of the president.

at a these are overlapping authorities, then the congress decides to assert itself their so the get a conflict between two branches, both authorized by the constitution, you may have an ability to sort of adjudicate that in the court. and now the courts are inserting themselves more and an assessment of the circumstances relating to conflict. sometimes the court wants to make decisions, which have been previously reserved. chief justice rehnquist had a marvelous little book about this called all the laws but one, and he talked about the fact that if there is a presidential authority that is constitutional, that might collide with the congressional authority that's constitutional and congress has done nothing about it, the president is pretty capable pixel i think these are tough questions. i just don't want to look, therefore i don't think it's fair not to state what has been

the clear way in which presidents have responded, at least during the 20th century, the exercise at appropriate times of national security their power to defend the country. and that included surveillance power. and whether or not that's a just about the foreign intelligence surveillance act i think has yet to be, has yet to be litigated. i'm just, i'm not willing to leap to the conclusion. i think, i think it would be, it's important, i like fisa because we use it extensively, and in defense of the country. it's not a laughing matter. as far as i'm concerned to use it extensively, and it was important to it was supervised by the court and it certainly is an arena which gives the president sort of safe -- if you will, even a safe political haven. the way congress has told him,

not what he has decided he has the authority to do by looking at the constitution in that he had legal scholars think you have the authority to do this, you might prefer to orient for her 35 congressmen and 65 senators to blame with you. >> for those of you who are thinking of questions would like to ask them, we want people to line up, where? okay, line up right over there and i'll ask one more question here, but those of you would like to ask questions please do line up and we will take questions from the audience. >> just an interesting sideline on this very discussion. a couple points. first of all, edward actually played even, that there was an hour and he makes that argument in this, in a piece of testimony which he was endorsing the legislation, for the very reason that you can't imagine, you can't, you can't imagine in

advance all of the things that you might have to do with. second of all, he did not believe that, if i can use a metaphor, that the right metaphor is that there's a machine and it operates in a certain way. that is, the machine has the president and the president as the skiers on the congress has the features and the constitution has these gears and it's going to operate, grind away in a particular way. he thought it was more organic. that is, the president's power was greatest when congress gave him power. the president's power was least when the congress tried to withdraw the power. even if it couldn't completely withdraw it, the presence power was, in fact, recognizably, moreover, even more fundamentally, he believed, that one of the reasons for the fisa court and many other things that he did, he believed that unless

the public generally believed that what was being done was being done appropriately, and was being done for the right reason and was being done to protect interest that the public believed in, that eventually bad things are going to happen. and we were living through one of those bad things at that time to so it was pretty easy to see develop a case. so it was an organism that we were dealing with more than a machine. >> questions? [inaudible] >> well, i'm glad you asked the

question about guantánamo bay, because it raises the question about what you do with people that are detained on the battlefield. and i think all of us know that they're very limited options what you can do. you can take them into custody and detained them. you can take no prisoners, which generally has been in history with more often than not the situation where you kill them on the battlefield. or third, you could release them so that they could rejoin the battle and say, oh, you missed me the first time but take another shot. i don't think this takes intellect. even a person is in the middle of the class in which chicago law school, like i was -- [laughter] can come to the conclusion that we want to take those people and detained them, and remove them on the stream of the conflict. and i think you should remove them from the stream of the conflict so long as the conflict is an active conflict. now, there are real questions

about, i'm willing to discuss if you want to do that, this is really understood not just in the united states but among nations generally. this is the law of war that you, instead of take no prisoners, that you take prisoners and you detained them. and you, i think as a policy matter you should detained and in secure environments. we now have a prison in afghanistan, the only place that the courts have said we won't interfere with your present if it's in afghanistan, but keeping prisoners there was an innocent of the conflict subject to maybe being released in the prison is overrun and conditions that are not favorable. the fundamental thing is that what they do with people you detained on the battlefield and you remove them from the stream of the conflict, and you do so until the conflict is over.

a normal were setting to usually rely on a nationstate that somehow yields and says okay, it's over, and we will be responsible for keeping our people out of the conflict. and it may be difficult someday to know whether the war on terror is over him but because he cannot ascertain that something has been concluded does not mean that it's never possible to ascertain that it's still going on. especially if individuals or at the core center of it or involved in it purport that it is still going on. and maybe hearken back to some of my university of chicago economics training, i ask myself who should do the rest either of a premature -- or a prolonged detention? and i think any setting like we're in, the people have chosen a war that doesn't have clear boundaries and have decided to

benefit from not wearing uniforms and have decided to benefit from the absence of compliance with international law should not necessarily be relieved of the consequences of that and able to impose the risk of premature release on society generally. so i think antonin scalia and one of his decisions, he pointed out that one of the individuals so released because we saw to release people every moment we could, there's no interest in keeping people at federal government expense who are not threats, are not part of the threat against the united states, one of the individuals, for example, insid is side and e supreme court decision was responsible for going out and involved in mass killing. now, i don't have a problem with detaining people after he handed

in the war, and whether they are force fed or allowed to starve themselves, presents a question that i will call on some effort to get involved on that, but the point is it is, i believe we should t you detain people and detained them pending determination of the conflict. and to reinsert them into is unwise if not sheer idiocy. my son was two terms in the navy, to ensure that oil terminals were finally. i certainly, when my son was in jeopardy when i want to say well, you missed me the first time, sharpen your vision, maybe you'll get me the second. wouldn't get me, august, something that is very close to me.

>> part of the dilemma, you mentiomentioned in passing themt wearing uniforms. is typically wartime under the laws of war the combatants were uniforms but one of the reasons is so you know who they are. and so you know if you capture them they should be treated according to the laws of war to take a detained as prisoners of war as long as the conflict continues to be difficult here of course is that the enemy doesn't wear uniforms. and, therefore, many of the people in guantánam guantánamo n and there was maintain that they're not combatants, that they were picked up in a fog of war. they were, in fact, innocent and they want a procedure. they think we're going to detained them for 11 years now, that at some point there is a responsibility to have a procedure to you mentioned earlier that you delete not only to the judicial process but other forms of due process as well. so what would you do? this is one of the dilemmas spent the court has proved they are entitled to a procedure of

determination. the course i believe, they did not specify the procedure but they said that it had to meet certain standards and the people are able to challenge. and this is a quasi judicial procedure without the complete article iii structures, but, and there is a regular review process in addition to -- there contest was the traditional plea was that i was a social worker and i was not caring a gun. i was helping in the agriculture of the area. and if i did carry a gun is only when we learned the americans were coming and they gave me the rifle to shoot it. this is not, this is actually the form of a response, and,

frankly, there are methods which were devised and implemented by our armed forces for assessing this. it seems a little tougher than you pointed out, and i think we ought to say that, the united states of america offered a bounty the individuals or groups operating in the area to deliver members of the enemy to us. and so there was, the argument is maybe people delivered people they just swept up in order to get the money. i think that makes the case more difficult. but, frankly, in every, virtually every wartime situation we have been entering my lifetime, which is not forever but it's substantial, we've had allies and we've taken their word for it and then made her own assessments about whether a person should be maintained as a detainee.

there is only one way to make sure that you never detain an innocent person. that's never to detain anyone. but that is true of article iii courts as it is of military processes. >> i would just say this. for people who give their lives in defense of freedom, and a truly what i think our armed forces are credited to doing, i find it a bit offensive that some would say to them, they are the least likely to rights of free people or respect for human dignity around the world. those who put their lives on the line to defend human dignity and freedom, at least deserve some respect from us and not just suspicion. suspicion. >> i think we have time for one more question, maybe, but then

david axelrod will close the proceedings. [inaudible] [inaudible] did not create any legal complications? >> well, the answer to the

question of whether enormous crises were threatening large numbers of people that the government is responsible for protecting creates a dynamic in which executive power increases, the answer is yes. the question of whether the power can persist after the crisis passes in an unexamined way, the answer is yes, which is why periodically you have to ask the question. the hard question right now is, has the problem past? and in some ways we know that, in some ways we are sure that it hasn't. >> we had a pretty short memories to think that it hasn't. you know, we have 180 or so named people in boston and several people dead.

now, it may not be related, too, and i would simply hasten to disavow a suggestion, not to say that it couldn't be but i don't say that there is linkage, but i certainly think it would be important to try to figure out. i think the real political risk, if i understood the question, is there political motivation for either maintain or not maintaining the war on terror, i think the political risk would be to say that the war on terror is over, there's a reason to do any of this, and then next week if somebody blown up. so then the politician would be sitting with the sort of idea, well, you invited additional disaster in the american public by saying the war was over, including it wasn't. so i think there is a sense, maybe you have to look at it this way, pragmatically, inevitably if someone ever says the war is over, it will either be too early or it will be too

late. nobody's going to get it the right second. now, do you want your government to protect you a little more aggressively even after the risk is gone? which is to be too late. or do you want your government to abandon its protection before the risk is gone and the injured? which is too early. it's a little bit like the question whether, there's only two times to go to war, too early or too late. the second world war, churchill wanted to get us off the dime more quickly. we didn't. 50 million people later in terms of death, we concluded the war. did we go to late? you go to the war memorial in washington with u.s., 400,000 people died in the second world war, u.s. citizens. when i walked through their i'm thinking, maybe it's better to go all little early and go to

late. these are tough questions, and it's easy to sit in either academic or other community in a catbird seat and look at the president of the united states, what are you thinking wa? i think in terms of risk on the war on terror it would be a very substantial political risk to say that it's over, if it's not. and i'm going to have to trust my government at some level when it comes to protecting, and i hope it doesn't abandon its protection of in one day, one month or one week too early that results in cities to this country and my family or my community. >> before we turn is over today, i want to put in a plug. if you want to get a set of this man's mind, in the sense of his integrity and his effort to

grapple with the competing pressures on trying to maintain an effective government, and at the same time to create, we create a principal government with real integrity, it's a great read. >> may i just second that? i think there's a unique virtue that was displayed in the life of edward levi and that was his confidence in the transparency of his deliberations. and if you read these things, and i'm not a scholar, you can tell that other what i've spoken, i'm no scholar, but he really believed in line this, even a complex difficult decisions out before the american people, and that confidence in the wisdom of the american people and the willingness to share with them the nuances of this

decision-making, these are not, this is not easy reading the this is not the classic comic books, the stories that the butler did it in hand with a knife. he literally goes, and is to be commended and ugly this conference in american people resulted in a justice department that is a far better servant to the u.s. people. >> echoing that, i want to read, so much of this book which i think is worth quoting the one passage struck me from a speech he gave in 1976 about this notion of his responsibility and are responsibly by transparency. edward wrote i seek to emphasize the kind of government the public and society would hope that we could be. hours is the a comment move by reason. our goal was not to make a public debate which would lighten it. if one believes in a government by reason, the victory comes when there is understanding. the problems we face are not easily solved at the beginning

is made when they are understood. this is of course much to ask but has a great deal to do with the role of our country if it is to contribute the best hope of government for mankind. activities like this program, and those sponsored by politics are very much in the spirit of what edward levi believed about this nation. >> i just want to say that what this program reinforces is, democracy, the rule of law, these are not easy things. [inaudible] to take these conjugate issues at a perilous time of our country and russell within, with

great -- [inaudible] and we're lucky to have such extreme scholars and non-scholars -- [laughter] and practitioners, and we understand, general ashcroft, we cherish practitioners. thanks to all of you are joining us. i hope you come back again and again to these programs and we will have continuing, stimulating discussions. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> there is no word the process of industry hates more than the a word, addiction. and i do try to use this

sparingly because they can rather convincingly argued that the our some differences between food cravings and narcotic ratings, certain technical threshold. however, when they talk about the other of the food comp again their language can be so revealing. they use words like craveable, snackable. spent our online book club meets tonight and if you haven't read 'salt sugar fat," you can still watch a video of michael moss at booktv.org, plus read what others have said on twitter at hashtag btvbookclub and on her facebook page. join the live moderated discussion online tonight at 9 p.m. eastern. the more i got to look into his message the more i realize how right it was and that's why i voted. they are not going to debate policy. they're not going debate what is

the best way to solve the nation's problems but then not going to provide evidence bigger going to label us morally deficient human beings unwitting of debate. we see in virtually every arena of american life. in the last week alone we saw from colin powell, brian williams and from president obama himself. colin powell went on the sunday shows and talked about the so-called dark think of intelligence that was running for the republican party. what evidence they provide for that assertion? that we are not left wing. that we don't believe in climate change or that we don't believe that they should be reduced vision of what we don't live in obamacare don't live in obamacare. it would just look to the left suddenly that would make is not racist. colin kahl above all should know how not raises our party is concerned someone in our party were considering supporting him despite his liberalism in 1996 for a presidential ring. he was secretary of state under president bush obviously. this is someone who was treated very well by the republican party but that didn't stop him because now colin powell is on the left and that means that we are the bad guys.

president obama did it in his inaugural address just last week also. he said is a peculiar line in his speech where he said that absolutism is not principal and he said that name-calling is not discussion but he then proceeded to spend the rest of his speech name-calling and avoiding principle and being an absolutist. he suggested that a censure if you disagree with them you want people in their twilight years to live in poverty, you want parents of disabled kids to have no recourse. you want the poor to suffer, black people to stand in line to vote, a people betrayed unequally into a women to be paid less than men. he said all of those things and that was close the undertone of his speech. diane feinstein gets up and she leads off our whatever it was, her press conference, she leads off with a pastor sink if you're a good christian you have two be for gun control because otherwise you don't get the kids are getting killed all around the country in schools and churches and places like standing up for this is what the

left now stands for. they are several different kinds of the bullies worth pointing out that i'm going to divided into two sections are going to discuss what it is we say and the other part of it is how we fight this. it is an overwhelming attempt by the left to silence the debate, to shut us out and to cow people into being quiet because it's much issue to go about your daily business not being called a racist sexist bigot homophobe who hate every minority. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> look, i don't mean to put you on the spot but representative tom cole, what's on your summer reading list? >> i'm reading as a good crinoline the hopkins touched. about halfway through that now which is on harry hopkins, legendary aid for fdr and the cornell graduate. we probably don't have the same politics and it's a compelling life. probably next up for me, i

haven't a chance to read the guys above, act of congress but the reviews have been pretty compelling. i think that's going to be an interesting case study. when you know all the characters, you know barney frank and senator dodd, some of legislators, it's interesting to get the perspective and some of the staffers. and then there's a book that i just ordered on james burns who was legendary south carolinian politics to jonathan martin of political, reported with the summer greater and said you're going to love this book. it is a guy who very nearly was vice president instead of truman and 44, and continued to play an extraordinary role in politics and became one of the architects of nixon's success in the south and 68 and 72. and is actually interesting, pop-up working with harry hopkins on the 1940, and his book i'm reading on the 1940 nomination of fdr, the third

term which was pretty neat political work. and so look, i like to read about the process and i like to study history. to read more policy unless history but i just seem to learn better in history. >> you've been watching booktv, 48 hours of programming beginning saturday morning at eight eastern through monday morning at eight eastern. nonfiction books all weekend every weekend right here on c-span2. >> what are you reading this summer? booktv wants to know.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> let us know what you are reading this summer. tweet us at the booktv. posted on our facebook page or send us an anyone at booktv@c-span.org. >> you've been watching booktv, 48 hours of book programming beginning saturday morning at eight eastern through monday morning at eight eastern. ..

>> global war is a clash of systems. it's which system can produce the wherewithal to project power in the atlantic, the pacific, the indian ocean, southeast asia which system can produce the civilian leadership to create the transportation systems,