sentence? what jeff said is absolutely true. the kind of ironic a diocese has a public relations firm to convince the public they are doing what they should be doing which is to be christ-like, that they are a pr firm. another little factoid for you that public relations firm that the los angeles archdiocese has retained to help them clean the image up is the same one that enron uses. [laughter] the media, you know, what jeff said is true. they have -- they spend massive amounts of money on public relations trying to convince everyone this is -- look at what we have done, made it go away, behind us now, and i was upset about that myself but i don't anymore because i know it's not going away, and inevitably, something will happen, an explosion, eruption somewhere that will destroy that myth, and we'll be back again, will be in the news, be prominent, and people will see that it's still

a major problem, and it will continue to be one as long as the system that causes it to be is still the way it is. >> thanks, tom. >> here's a question jeff relates to the issue a little bit. what do you think will be the result of the deposition? >> well, the deposition of dolan was taken recently, under seal to be released soon, and the depositions of dolan will reveal a long standing pattern by him, predecessor, and the automobile- the bishop that demonstrates the pattern that is and is placed across the country and across the globe is that he and every one of his predecessors and colleagues at the top are required to make choices every day, and they are required to

choose to protect the institution and the brand and reputation of the hierarchy, what they call the church, and because of that, that requires him and others like him to lie, to conceal, to cover up, to deceive, to mislead, and to choose to protect their reputations at the peril of the innocence, both now and in the future. >> thanks, jeff. richard, a question for you. can you comment on the expression "institutional blackmail"? >> yes. celibacy is not practiced. i made the statement public in 1990, and i got a lot of boos

and ohs, and awes, and i said at any one time no more than 50% of priests and bishops were practicing celibacy. in 1993, we went, and there was the church putting on an international conference on celibacy, and the cardinals, jose sanchez, head of the congregation of the clear gi was posed the question by the bbc reporter, what do you say, cardinal, about the figures that 45-50% of priests at any one time are not practicing celibacy? he said, i have no reason to doubt the accuracy of those figures. those figures are low. this is how it works. if a priest is having sex with somebody, a priest who publicly

is presented as sexually safe whether it's a man, woman, fellow seminary, and so on, that's registered in what i call the cloud of secrecy, comes to confession, comes to telling your buddies, comes to other people knowing, and that is the fund of knowledge that is there and exists within the church. clerics know about the sexual lives of other clerics, and so it's especially true as they move up in the hierarchy, and that's where the sexual blake mail is. i've seen this written out in the diocese that one of the arch bishops came into a place that came to put the screws on

interdisplain their things. there was a group of priests that got together and said, you know, we know this, this, and this about you, and you put pressure on us, and we're going to do this. i've had the word "blake mail" used by the bishop in tucson that the priest said, look, you got these -- if you bees these boys, he said, i know, he says go to treatment. he said, i won't go to treatment, and he said if you try to force me, i will make public to the arizona press that bishop james is having sexual relations with young boys, and the bishop wrote this to the vatican embassy.

there is a -- when you think of the fund of knowledge in the church, it comes through what i call the crime of confession. cop fecial is a good thing so i mean, it can be very good for us to share. i think one of the most, the greatest institutions that exemplify this is the 12-step movements where people get up and say, look, this is me. this is some of the stuff i've done. no pretense. no excuses. they said, and they are all one, okay, so you have that mistake, that mistake, and but in the catholic church, that's not true. the priests all come in, and they say, i am sexually up touched. i am virginal, you know? mind, body, and everything. it's not true, it's a myth. because this knowledge is there

on a high level, and i could literally give you more than two dozen cases off the top of my head where this is so, so it is the claim they have on each other. i know this about you. i was with you. after and this is one of the things people put me down for. that's find. i'll never win this case. , after it went public, a case against cardinal bernard, before the press, got up and said i am 65 years old, and i've always lived a chased and celibacy life, and you who were brought up catholic and gone to school, you know what that means if you say that. a priest from atlanta flew up to

baltimore for no other reason. just, he said i want you to know that he was sexually active because i've been with him when he was sexually active with seminarians. okay. that's a fact. nobody in the hierarchy -- well, it's not that they don't believe me, but slap me down for saying that, but that's part of the truth in the cloud, and it is about other cardinals. we know this. i had five priests from newark in new jersey tell me about sex. when i was a seminary professor, students came to me, had over 500 students in the years i taught at st. mary's seminary, they call up, come to me, and they say, you know, ifer a problem -- i have a problem, i belong to a diocese, and the bishop, you

know, invites us out to the summer home op the jersey coast, and he wants somebody to sleep with inviting maybe five people, and every night somebody has to sleep with him, you know, and they say this makes me uncomfortable. you know? okay. i know that. i'm not sevant, but the point is i paid attention since 1960 what people said about the practice of celibacy, and i will say this tonight. it's -- jeff really made the point, but that mandatory celibacy within the catholic system is part of the root cause of sexual abuse of minors. i know sexual abuse, you know, is an all straight up society, and within the cot lick culture,

within the society that mandatory celibacy is one of the main causes. why? because of the secret life, because of the compromising and that does not make a difference whether the bishop is having sexual relationship with the woman or a man, the gardener, or somebody else. in a sense, that truth is there, and there will be a certain number of people in the culture and in that population when they have to make or when they feel they have to make a compromise with the sexual urges. we'll do it with minors, and that's part of the culture. >> you know, we're -- we kept you here a long time. one more question. i want to remind folks if they fill out contact information, i know that snap would like to be in touch with anyone who would like to be in touch with them,

and so if you have a card for your e-mail address and anyone who wants to donate to snap, they would receive our secular blessings for that. there's an announcement at the end of the program, and the last question, jeff, is for you, and it's what can we do now? >> here's the answer. every single one of us can do something today to make sure we protect the kids in the future and do something to help those who are wounded, and it is contact your state lawmaker, demand and request in writing and by phone that the statute of

limitations be removed when it comes to holy institutions and offenders legally responsible because it is the statute of limitations in most every state across the u.s. that the roman catholic bishop have leadershipped against reform, and it is that statute of limitations, that public policy that prevents many, if not most of survivors' access to the courts, access to the truth, access to the documents, and access to the chance to reveal the history of the past so it doesn't repeat in the future, and you can, by writing your representative and senator and calling your representative and your senator in your district and tell them the child vick

trim's act and statute of limitations must be removed for the sake of those that have been wounded, and, importantly, for the sake of those yet to be because until it is, our children are not safe in americaings and that's what america must do to protect our kids. [applause] >> thanks, everyone for coming out tonight. i want to thank the lady and the gentleman, they supported me and supported this book, and they've given us a civil rights movement for our time. thank you. please, there's an announcement to be made after we're done here. it's related to the statute of limitations issue. again, thank you, everyone for coming. [applause] for more information, visit the author's website, michael

michaeldantonio.net. >> thank you very much for coming out on a weeknight in fresno in the summer. i know it's been hot here, and i appreciate it. i'd like to talk just for about 30 minutes on the theme of the book, the generals, and i'd like to have questions from you for 15-20 minutes if that's okay. you know, there's a whole genera of generals, leadership, and in terms of what succeeds and fails. thrg a -- there's a 19th century captain by a man named dodge, the battles of the world, and we were to learn across time and space, hanibal, wellington had particular characteristics.

they were audacious or calm under fire or they were especially schooled in military history. some magic ingredient they shared with like kindred souls across the century. there was the other genera, anatomy of air, folly, all of the losers of history, mark clark in italy, west morilin in vietnam, marshall nay at waterloo, and we had to learn whatnot to do. they were not just biographies, but also models of leadership, very popular in the 19th century. ..

we probably would have found someone like maven eddy that could have assumed that role of leadership because there were other factors, hitler's stupidity, the gaea's of george marshall on the allies' side, the role of the of russians that would have made the victory still possible. so i try to look across history and say, what happens when the war was lost? not only lost tactically, strategically, politically, but the people mostly in a consensual society but sometimes authoritarian governments give up as well. then the war was not lost. who came in at the 11th hour and why and what can we learn from them? it turned out there are dozens of people. curtis vermeil took over the b29 program and said it would not work. the rest is history, what he did to japan.

again, i was looking for generals where there was no hope, and if you took an individual out of the battle equation it was clear to me that would have lost. and i tried to look at the personal characteristics or the command style or the level of erudition or experience they had. so i took themostocles of athens, and that will give you a little 5-2 summary of each one and then go back and talk about what the trades were that were common to all of the. remember, for a zero and september there was no -- it had been burned to the ground. the largest invasion and tell d-day. they swept from anatolia all the way. there was no grease left. it was just the peloponnesus and about 17 city states. athens was the demarcation line, the great city state of this part of wanted everybody to retreat across the isthmus and give up. one man said, no, we cannot.

in fact, if you leave us by ourselves we will sail away, and they had a large fleet of about 200 ships. the allies together have about 370. there were outnumbered, depending upon whose figures you believe, seven to one. one man decided to make that stand, and he could make that stand because for the last ten years, while everybody had been advocating with the marathon model of intrigue, one man said, no, we have to invest in ships, sailors, the pork and other radical democracy. he was not just a savior of athens at salamis, but the architect of what would become the athenian empire. everything before themostocles was a defeat, and everything after themostocles, the next year was a victory. he single-handedly by his genius saved athens, greece, and in some sense saved western civilization. he was a maverick.

he was iconoclastic. he was a contrarian. he was obnoxious. he lied. he was in a typical politician. he demigod's the people. he slanted his enemies. he was an absolute genius. what was wrong with persia? everybody says you cannot stop kinzer xi's and this armada. he said, wait a minute. it is getting late in the year. it is now september. we are at home. we know the current. they don't. 700 miles from their supplies. we are here. they just burned the city that was supposed to house them. by any empirical and logical, but not emotionally oculist they're in trouble. that seemed absurd, and yet he was able to a suede vest barnes and current against this will -- stay with him and they went on. that was probably the greatest -- i should said the most lethal sea battle in history.

80,000 settled -- sailors were killed. the second person that i looked at, if you fast forward almost 1,000 years, we don't really know much about him anymore. i say flavius belisarius. maybe some of you have read the great novel count flavius belisarius, but we don't know who he was. a very obscure guy. the byzantine century, and that 525-545 was on the ropes. rome had, for a century, lost the west. vandals had overrun italy, occupy north africa. they had cut the empire into. the greek segment, the greek-speaking roman empire had collapsed around constantinople and areas of anatolia. they were sworn under frontiers, mostly by what we would call assassins of the persians. and this is before, right before the rise of islam, and it looks

pretty bleak. the iconoclastic king justinian had a wild idea of 100 years after the fall of much of the western empire to retake it. and he entrusted this 20-something man named flavius belisarius. he sent in east, and he began to win. he defeated the persians. he went all the way to a iraq. the fortified border between byzantium and persia. he fortified what we call now the holy land, the middle east, and then most spectacular of all he sent an armada with only about 18,000 men. about 800 miles all the way to go where what we would call to uneasy and libya and parts of morocco which have been overrun by vandals for 100 years. some of you were fans of st. augusta. and being trapped with the vandals of or in north africa. there was the first in row that

marked the end of roman civilization. very tragic to read, and yet in a matter of 90 days flavius belisarius took back north africa and reclaimed it for christian, greek-speaking byzantium. plenty united the west, and did not stop there. he went to sicily and did the same thing and then he went to italy. just as themostocles was a renegade, so was flavius belisarius. and the nation of great speakers he was a latin speaker, which would not work well. he was young. unlike most young byzantine commanders, he was not corrupt. he had to maintenance. the byzantinists, as you know, were always outnumbered. they relied on discipline and technology and mercenaries. he said that he had to be a fish that swim in a local pond. he enforced strict discipline on his soldier. they did not lewd or steel.

the first sign of counterinsurgency strategy, he incorporated local populations to help them, and he used to light and quick tactics. he avoided a pitched battle, and he was able over 25 years to reclaim, at least for two generations, byzantine power in the west. when flavius belisarius started the byzantine empire it was about 40 percent of the former roman empire, and when he finished it was 80%. some of the say, well, justinian died. there was a great plague that wiped out a million byzantium's. flavius belisarius ended up in poverty and blind. a lot of that land was either lost to these as coughs, the lombards, or the rise of islam. but what it did, it provided a critical question around byzantium because lo and behold where most people thought that the greek speakers in the west would fall of around 600 a.d.,

they lasted 900 more years and did not fall to that black tuesday, 1453, all because of the efforts of, i think, one man, flavius belisarius. the heyday of byzantium. when the great church was built by justinian. there was the great blues and greens, rivalries in the hippodrome. he was a man of his time. the third, i thought, was a modern kind of counterpart, and that did not want to write about people i have before, but in one case i made an exception, and that was william tecumseh sherman in the civil war. most of your member gettysburg and vicksburg, july 4th 2 1/5, and six of 1863. we all say, well, that is where lincoln gave his gettysburg address. earlier he had done the emancipation proclamation a year before. the union juggernaut of manpower, technology, greater resources, industrialization had just won down the south.

grant had been the hero in march of 1864, given his spectacular victories in the west. for donaldson, fort henry, shiloh and the hero of vicksburg. when kentucky would plow right into richmond. as they laughed in may he turned over the army of the west to william -- william tecumseh sherman na had a very interesting exchange. qaeda summarize both their letters and impressions of people at the time, grant was supposed to take richmond which

was only 70 miles away. the other great confederate city was atlanta which was over 200 miles. northern virginia was settled, the corridor between washington and richmond, as you see today, is only about 75 miles. from tennessee, north tennessee to atlanta was wild. sherman had to take an army not just to atlanta to take that city but had to navigate through saw -- swanson dirt trails. they both faced 70,000 men and led by joe johnson and the west and robert e. lee in the east. what happened? well, within 90 days mary todd lincoln said that ulysses s. grant was a butcher. horace greeley said, the question is not whether lincoln shall be elected in the fall. we shall not nominate him in june. on his left-wing john c. fremont said he has abandoned the cause for emancipation and is not promoting the interests of blacks.

he is and ignoring his. on his right george mcclellan, seven democrats -- democrat was saying, i will have a negotiated peace. we have lost 250, 300,000 people for what? we will have a status of -- we will go back to the status before the war, let the south either join the union with slavery or be autonomous on its own. and it looked like it was almost impossible. if you were to look at the newspapers of the time, new york, chicago, you could not find hardly anyone who supported lincoln. horace greeley, as i said, became his -- at one point had become his greatest supporter and intended to his greatest critic. when grant said, i intend to fight it out here all summer people said, oh, my god, he really means it in the sense that he was destroying the army of the potomac. they both went out in may. grant slowly wound down his own army and did not get close to

richmond. get close in the sense of ten or 12 miles. he could not take the city. sherman started to outflank joe johnson. everybody in the east was covering the war in virginia. nobody knew was going on in tennessee and georgia. the communications report. sherman said problems with the rail lines. sherman began to develop a philosophy. he said we can have -- basically , when grant, but not too. we can lose the army, but the public will not stand me losing this army. deliberately outflanked joe johnson and made a wide circle around atlanta. and while at first people criticize him because grant was going directly toward richmond, greece and you can to appreciate what sherman was doing. when the south became so exasperated because there were

on their home ground, knew the terrain, and yet there were losing more men trying to fight in head-on fashion against german who was outflanking and avoiding direct confrontation. then made a fateful error and switched commands and brought and the reckless, in some ways audacious john bell hood, and he began to fight head on against sherman. sherman won every battle and lost -- only, but the 30,000 casualties versus 100,000 in the west. on september 2nd sherman walked into atlanta. that telegram to atlanta from iran lincoln. atlanta is ours and surely one. it was almost amazing, the national reaction. you could not find one person in the united states who was ever against lincoln. can't grant. he is a butcher. and suddenly he said, no. he was doing something very necessary, grabbing about really

by the ankles while i came around the rear. this was come to marry. this was a symphony. you know what would happen next? sherman would take off through georgia, do the same thing as he headed to the way to atlanta. pause for christmas, send another telegram. i give you savannah as a christmas present, mr. president, and then go into the carolinas and come up behind lee in virginia. the civil war was not won by a grant this plane -- destroying his army. it was because sherman came in behind him. the army of the west was mostly 200 some resonance, michigan, iowa, illinois, indiana, ohio. these are not people from new york or massachusetts. there were growing up on farms. they like to camp out. germans tactics of rapid mobility, camping out, avoiding direct confrontation, they liked it. they got bigger and better, the more that he went into the deep south. in some ways sherman had there

not been a sherman lincoln may be would not have been nominated. he would not have won the election. he was 60 percent of the popular vote. george mcclellan had a lot of momentum in september. he was writing letters to sherman and others as if he expected to become the president of the united states. suddenly, sherman took atlanta and for one week he did not say a word. was he supposed to do? he was a union officer. he -- i am angry. if you praise sherman, show that this strategy was right all along. as you would say austin, they went into one hole and i don't know where he is now, but he came up another. all is good. william tecumseh sherman save the unit -- union effort. i can't think of anyone at the time it could have done that. probably the best that the union

army half. i want to skip to the fourth person and go to the most recent and controversial and get back to matthew ridgway. that is david petraes. when david petraes, after the disastrous election for george bush in 2006, the resignation of donald rumsfeld, the idea that something had gone wrong in iraq, and there had to be a new strategy. the study group had basically been ambiguous. we have to do something different. maybe we should send troops. there was a small group of scholars. seminarian gains in the military. around all of this group of scholars and soldiers, one name kept popping up, david petraes. i knew counterinsurgency strategy. what bush dare to gamble and surge. 28 percent of the american people supported the iraq war,

the low point in the beginning of 2007. if you think that is normal, 73 percent supported it when the statue fell in april 2003. the national move could be best summed up as my brilliant three we take down of some is now your terrible five your occupation. whenever you think about the war i do have some admiration for people on the left to say it is a bad idea. they looked very smart as the war go worse. a lot of admiration for people to sit we have to go when their engines the middle east. the majorities of we have to go and, and now it is somebody else's fault, the soldiers were left hanging. that was the situation -- situation nationally when david petraes, the momentum started to build to make david petraes the new commander. he was appointed at the end of 2006, and he went into iraq but

with about 130 to 140 to 150 casualties a month. when he was done, september, no americans killed in iraq. what happens? ostensibly he had a more troops and chain's strategies, build and hold. he tried to win the hearts and minds. like the idea of flavius belisarius. if you want to win the war you have to consider the population fish that live in a pond and you have to feed them. and so he encourage electrical development, social our reach, constitution. been doing that. there had to be something else. here is where the controversy is today. for six of seven criteria, they know worked. we have been conflicting enormous casualties on the

insurgents. that started to turn the tide. people getting killed. the two times i went to iraq i will see people with tattoos, the old baptist tattoos. it would come up and it would say, my son was killed here. my son was with the insurgents. and you get the impression that they were getting very tired of this. another possible reason is that everybody thought we were leaving, sort of like afghanistan. when bush surge, he said we're not going to leave until we went. tommy francs earlier had said that we don't look at this as a victory. there is a neat -- an idea that we better deal with the americans. killing more soldiers. a political dilemma. you remember the body bags in vietnam.

patraeus said he was not interested body counts but building bridges. at the same time the boy standing across alaska law officers protecting enormously lethal pull on enemies. barack obama, i really don't like the bush particles, the anti-terrorism, increased the drone tally by ten that he would not be criticized in the way that bush was. in the same manner, david petraes realized the more he count -- talked up counterinsurgency the more lethal his troops could be in the shadows. finally there was the awakening for popular tribal leaders step and said, we are sick of al qaeda, they are thugs and criminals and not representative of islam. something coalesced and momentum builds. david petraes saved -- nsa saved. whenever iraq will become a will be something, but it will not be

anything had not conducted a search eliminated. my favorite chapter of all five of the greatest man -- american military practice is matthew ridgeway. some of your like when the hell is matthew ridgeway. when he died in 93 : poll gave a very eloquent, every american soldier as this man. he was a very unlikely, just like all of these people were very unlikely. fifty-two years old. at the heart attack. if you know it world war ii history, the three most seminal battle in the western front. the normandy invasion. the bridge too far. the battle of the bulls. matthew ridgway was that all three of them as an airborne commander. even though he was in his late '40's at the time. a 2-star general all the things

he did in sicily. a genuine hero among many of the time. it did not know it -- perceive the notoriety or famine glory of george patton or dwight eisenhower. he was the reason why the united states won world war two. he became pro council and had a heart attack. he thought his career was over. they shipped him back to a desk job, deputy chief of staff to the army. he should have ended up in two years. that should be it. you might remember from history what happened. people were -- 13 military americans were in the military. we ended the war but dropping to atomic bombs. the air force cannot and said this is a new way of war. nuclear command a clear, and it clear. airforce jets, strategic air command's, submarines, old-fashioned assets like the

army and especially the marine corps. what is the use. it is going to go nuclear. louis johnson wanted to slash conventional forces. he was acting as if the clerk named matthew ridgway was writing brilliant memos saying young mothers stand. conventional war will be more likely because no one will go to war with the clear weapons. we have to build up the conventional forces, but in a bright and sophisticated manner. it always escalate. the big visionary. people did not pay attention. if you remember, we were in this dilemma. after world war ii we had the thankless task of reforming the fascist japanese, and italians, germans, and turning them into good democrats. meanwhile, our so-called allies had gone communist. russia had gone communist. they had the infield -- enviable

task of selling to the world. we are here to liberate you. we lost 20 million in russia can tell us 10 million in russia. this is the fault line throughout europe and asia. at a time when we have dismantling or forces. and one of the flashpoints was in june 25th in korea when the north korean army went across the 30th parallel, quickly overran the very few americans that were there. they forget this, but in a week's all that america was was in a small perimeter. a big fight. the beginnings of the macarthur time. suppose a communist. curtis was talking about the survivability of the nuclear war. a very dark time an american military and political history.

the great douglas macarthur, remember in world war to a specific commander, -- as pacific commander he had this wonderful reputation of being caught blind and his analysis assets and then making enormous recoveries. the same thing happened here. blindsided. in tokyo, 70 years old. completely surprised and came up with a brilliant idea of landing american troops hastily deployed and put them in. stop the assault in a brilliant september landing. america suddenly said, we can still win this. then he made a fateful decision. after cutting off north koreans he said, now is the time to finish for good. they went across the 38 parallel to muffle speed up to the chinese border and announced that americans of the home for thanksgiving, destroyed the north korean communist for all

practical purposes. a man had warned the and the states, if you get close to the river we will invade. truman was scared. he talks to macarthur. people like eisenhower, they had won a macarthur. he should go north. if you look at the korean peninsula, it gets wider and wider. you are further from american bases and closer to chinese. it is getting cold, not october. no matter if macarthur brushed it off. people also want him that the jets were superior to the fet and achieving air superiority. mostly manning the megs all hell broke loose and leftover 500,000 people republic of china soldiers burst across the border

. the u.n., remember, had supported the war and thought there would be peacekeeping forces. 88 percent of the manpower was supplied by the united states. to make a long story short, what ensued from october to the end of december was the longest military retreat in u.s. military history. over 400 miles. we had a world -- a word in the 50's called bugout. the first time people have used it in a military context, the great bugout work americans threw down their weapons in some case, and ran back to the 308th parallel hochheimer. aggregate forces a 500,000 people. all of these great names in american history. 15,000 americans were killed. over three times what was lost engineers and afghanistan. more importantly in one day in november 790 americans were

killed. a complete disaster. there was utter panic in washington. macarthur look like a fool after being declared a genius. joint chiefs that give macarthur a green light suddenly said week to untalented do that. wrong war, wrong place, wrong time. nobody believed that stalin had given the green light to the chinese. macarthur completely surprised, suddenly said it did not give the tools. and the 25 bombs, and i want to bomb manchuria, use the be twitter.com/booktv and expand the war. the reason i can't is because i have communist in the state department. this was the beginning of who lost china and korea. although he had been a very good core commander, he was completely out of his legal and died in a tragic jeep accident.

so now you have this senior commander did, everyone fleeing across the 38 parallel, the navy ready to pick them up at the very tip of south korea and forget the whole thing. you can imagine the consequences on everything from taiwan the berlin with his communist victory. no one really wants to go to korea. people read, well, there was always this bridgeway guy. he is a moralist, been married three times. he is kind of weird and thinks he can win a conventional war. the guy had never been to korea or japan. he flew in the dead of night. did not even have a chance to tell his wife. he lands in japan and sees the great macarthur. his initial shock and says, the eighth army is yours. q. would you need to do. he lands in korea. he needs the generals. and he says, what is the plan.

the plan is a retreat. bridgeway basically says, i will stay here until i find one person who wants to win. where is the attack? this set, you can't attack. you can't attack because you're not giving them male. 50 miles behind the lines. you immediately -- they immediately called him all the high-end chip. a grenade on one breast and a medical kit on the other. he sometimes flew a cessna. that famous time magazine. from the old school. i guess you with that -- : like classical liberal. he believed in integrating the troops. i guess this is what we call talking points, but he put the cards out for all the soldiers who realized why someone from cincinnati or fresno was stuck in another place like a career which was called a police action

he said, you are here because the united nations authorized it. it is legal. you're here because we're stopping communism, which is a successor to fascism. we are here because we gave our word to south korea that we would give them a chance, however dictatorial to evolve. and we told people why we were fighting. and then he did something else in the fashion of david petraes and flavius belisarius. when everyone thought the war was over and lost he got his commanders together and said, let me get this straight. we went 450 miles all the way to the river and could barely support the troops. it was cold. and they are doing the same thing. unlike us, they do not have air superiority. they're just coming in. we're going to have the twitter.com/booktv flying daylight missions. our soldiers have proper logistical support. they don't. suffering from typhoid.

if it was too dangerous for us to the 500 miles from our support of what to the chinese think they were doing all the way down here? nobody thought that was possible because the chinese at night shined lights, blew horns, had whistles, have propaganda, megaphone recordings. everyone said, these are the new communist supermen. we have never fought any ideological wars. truman called it tamerlane returned. matthew ridgeway said, nope. they're just people. too far from hope. we are going to backpedal, not retreat. we're going to backpedal to fortified lines of barbwire and artillery. we may lose sole, and he did with in the first two weeks, but that is it. when we get to the farthest point from their own bases port we're going to attacks like you won't believe. it will never know what hit

them. they're not used american artillery, american a palm. i will give you a series of offensive @booktv he called them operation round up the operation killer where the chinese very poorly organized, unexpectedly ran into a fleeing enemy that had stopped cold, a hundred 50 mm. u.n. troops were in better spirits. and a series of brilliant counter offenses, he took of fretful casualty. the sheer number of north koreans and chinese communist soldiers. we keep thinking it was so bad for a source of curious. one of the reasons that china never invaded during the vietnam war to help north vietnam as their correspondence reveal as there were still terrified of american artillery and air power

is used by matthew ridgeway, and 100 days matthew ridgeway had retaken the city and gotten back over the 38 parallel. then he did something quite unusual, he stopped. everybody who had turned on him and said the war was lost, macarthur's an idiot said, the war is won, you have to go all the way back to china. and he said, not this time. you guys aren't up to it. that was a very controversial decision because for the next two years it would be trench warfare. as a 100 days. douglas macarthur mouth of one to many times. he did not do that. he sacked him. macarthur left to washington in his failed presidential ambitions, and matthew ridgway became the field commander, and there was an it general but in his position. the law in the story of it saved the american military and the

geostrategic strategy of the united states of very, very impressive figure. i will say in the case of the flavius belisarius and themostocles, he was not well liked. he had a propensity for speaking the truth without fear of any consequence is with it -- which is lethal. where it was very unpopular to integrate the troops, matthew ridgeway insisted upon it. and yet in his retirement people not -- naturally went and said, now we want women in the military. you are the obvious spokesman in the 60's. he said no. it will never work. i'm against it. -- dwight eisenhower said, don't you think we need to get in vietnam and dual we did in korea. he said, what do we do interior? keep out of vietnam. jfk, keep out. lbj did not listen to him.

america's in the same panic it was in the 1950's. they call bridgeway back to -- matthew ridgeway back. the only thing worse than fighting in the old war is losing with the geostrategic power. when reagan made a terrible political mistake of public relations disaster he agreed to speak their s cemetery in germany where there were soldiers buried, and he needed some cover. he did he bring out of retirement? ninety-three year-old matthew ridgeway. his basic attitude was, it might have been stupid to go there, but i will see him shake his hand. we give him the medal of freedom and 95. this year is the 60th anniversary. let me just some of. what to these people have in common? of -- obviously these people were mavericks.

at best, you could say that there were contrarians, at worst narcissists. they had an idea that due to their experience nobody was more experience than flavius belisarius or themostocles who fought the battle at marathon. david -- david petraes was very well connected, but nobody understood counter insurgency and wrote the book on it literally. there were more experienced and more schooled in what was wrong with the ongoing more than anybody. they felt that the reason they had not reached a position of responsibility and our may have been for reasons other than our own or because i'm not winning is not my fault. this is your center -- the savior. this is that while everyone is panicking everyone is usually wrong. what most people do is usually wrong. there were sizing them up and

waiting their moment. they didn't care whether people like them or not. one of the things that reminds me is this greek idea. they could try to do something that we can't. he could do something that you can't to such a degree that it makes us uneasy. the whole essence of the great genre of the western. if you think of high noon and marshall will king. no one is going to stop these three people. he throws his badge and says, don't want any part of this. if you think the shane, he comes out of nowhere and saves everybody. there are certain elements that make people uneasy, and it is better that he writes off. the same thing. any movie, the searchers. ethan edwards, john wayne, very dangerous people.

they don't want us around. they'll sure that. and by that, they'll end up badly. this is kind of ironic and, perhaps, controversial, but themostocles 25 years after battle of salamis committed suicide most likely ended in persia in service to the persian king. all of his ideas had one fruition, the idea of a modern navy was his legacy. this cecile politic economic idea of having the athenian style empire wises and he did not get credit for it. he created democracy in the sense of elevating the poor people. plato said he wished that he had lost the battle other than power. he did not give credit for it. he was exiled and ended up killing himself. if c-span2 has seen a great painting by the viet,

flavius belisarius as the beggar on the streets of constantinople, blind , impoverished. the man who saved justinian was put on trial for his life. it is a dangerous thing if you are justinian, the empire, and everyone likes your favorite channel more -- general more than you. whatever the particular reason, it would take to evening lectures to explain the odyssey of flavius belisarius. he ended up in his late fifties discredited, recalled and carry out of retirement one time to save a constantinople when all of its armies were brought and there was a rapid attack. who was there, flavius belisarius and 400 nights. he stopped the attack and was then put on trial again. sherman did not have a political career. if nominated and will not run. if elected will not serve. he spent most of his time in the 1870's and early 1883 fighting

the civil war. people on his right said that he had been a terrorist. for some reason the idea that you go through georgia, from atlanta to savannah and only lose 100 of your own soldiers and killed 600 of the others makes you a terrorist karl in the army of the potomac, 30,000 people who don't of slaves in the south of being killed. lee and grant are not terrorists . he attacked the plantations of the very wealthy and conducted a psychological warfare, but he was not a happy person when he died. of all american generals he was the most gifted in some ways. matthew ridgeway, as i said, at first people recognized it. he went on to the senior nato commander. obviously you should have been chairman of the joint chiefs. he get on the wrong side of the eisenhower because for 20 years there was no more influential

military political leader. eisenhower let him go from 60 to 62 and then he forcibly retired matthew ridgeway. eisenhower disliked him so much that if you read eisenhowers more he says -- he actually says this. in march of 1951 general van fleet retook sold, not matthew ridgeway. he was not even in the theater, correa, so much was his dislike of matthew ridgeway both because of his advice about vietnam, is complete insistence that eisenhower was weakening the conventional military in the future of america was not a nuclear war. he was not well liked by omar bradley but was praised when he was popular. although he had a long life, it was not a happy one. his first two children ceased speaking to him from his first marriage. his third marriage was alone.

he had an 18 year-old son who was his pride and joy. he was killed as a boy scout troop leader. he was walking along the railroad in a slower-moving train happens to come and make to the canoe someone was carrying and it hit him in the head. it was one of the great tragedies of his life. by the time he died 97 he was forgotten. it every american soldier was this man a debt of gratitude. when i finish the book, in conclusion, one of the editors said to me in a comment, i guess david petraes nullifies joe greuel that everyone in supplely because this was in november before the election. i thought, well, yeah, i guess so. he is now the head of the cia. despite all of the david petraes ads and the demagoguery used against him, he ended up as a senior statesman and those problems, the paul a broad

welfare, the resignation from the cia and as we speak all of these things are caught up in the partisan fight and all of these issues. it will not be resolved. i would not be surprised if someone as gifted and visionary has the david petraes will find that the epic moment of his career was the surge somewhere in september of 2008 when for one moment david petraes saved the reputation of the american military in iraq and probably the reputation of america in the middle east is no one else could. everything else after that in the case of themostocles or flavius belisarius is likewise downhill. final comment, one thing it did not point up because we have limited time. these are not just save your generals and a sense of how to win the battle with the war at the moment. there were political visionaries . themostocles did not just want to win the battle of salamis.

he wanted to create a maritime cosmopolitan democracy as part of that. and he did. and flavius belisarius did not just want to secure the borders of byzantium and expand, but live his fellow latin speaking cain emperor justinian recreate the western empire. somebody would give him a ship and go all the way to north africa and fight the vandals in those barbaric and a savage people. he really believed in rome and the idea that the roman west was better than the alternative. and if we look at matthew ridgeway, he was a profit, a profit at a time when people said i the the night is to -- united states must demilitarized or it can rest of kind of fortress of nuclear weapons. he said, no. we have global responsibilities. the vacuum of the erosion of the british empire and the rise of soviet hegemony. we will have to fight

conventional wars, build up our conventional forces and fight smart. he created an idea. david petraes wrote the book on counterinsurgency. everyone argues whether counterinsurgency was the real catalyst for their victory. i don't think anyone would doubt that david petraes understood the hearts and minds of people in the middle east as he had in the balkan. you really has now fashioned the doctrine that when american soldiers hit the ground in an intervention we're not just going to rush in and kill somebody. they understand that gm, strategic command political consequences of being deployed by the united states that a damned if you do and damned if you don't. thank you very much, and i will be happy to answer any questions. [applause] yes? [inaudible question] >> i was going to ask. two reasons. one, i wanted to have an

accessible of about 120,000 words. the other was that i did not want to overload antiquity too much because i had themostocles and a person from the roman era, so the speak. the second punic war fought, as you know, the second half restoration, little hard to know whether he alone established the strategy that he did. he ended up winning the war. he is a likely candidate. when you select five pocket biographies, the first thing that arises as you ponder which five is one of the next 25. 2500 years. cortez was wiped out, and yet somehow he salvaged the reconquest of aztec. the duke of marlborough, i don't know how he ever did what he did. there are a lot of people that

follow. and the finding is they follow the same maverick line, that they are not the establishment types and thinking contemporary terms. >> general patton and actually having seen the movie i could not understand his motivation for starting a war with the russians at the end of world war ii. what did he know? that motivated him. >> our road in long biography of patent as part of a book about 15 years ago. that is why he is not in here. he really did what they said, after the collapse of the american effort in north africa, the general and the kaiser. he was the architect of the american performance in sicily had he not slabs to soldiers and then some other things.

given command of italy. i don't think that he would have made those mistakes and we would have been passed the line and all the way up into northern italy by the end of 1944. that was tragic. he came in late. you saw the movie. was not patton's friend. omar bradley was, in some ways to make a matter. and so we came in late and get in just august, july and august 2 when all the way to the line. it was a brilliant performance. we will appreciate that more and more now because of the establishment of bradley, eisenhower, hodges are dead. it advocates are not as influential. every biography it comes out now about patton tunes out the maniacal statements that he said and looked at exactly what he did. great historians have really

shown that. but your question is, why did you want to write -- fight the russians? key and czechoslovakia and quickly insisted there have been an agreement between stalin, roosevelt, and churchill that there were be more lines. it would be divided. and while they thought -- maybe not churchill, but the russians are now our allies. patton was a committed anti-communist and the these are people that killed 20 million of their own in the 30's. why we are dividing germany up because there would not allow elections to be taking place in eastern europe or eastern germany, said he did not trust them. a think he said something to the effect that we really fight world war ii because they totalitarian had the door and eastern europe, many heather, only to defeat him and handed over to another totalitarian. that was at a time when the status quo of the estate's at the end of the roosevelt and beginning of the german a ministration had been -- this

sordid past is now behind them. there will work with us to rebuild europe together. they're not what we think they are. patton was relieved of command and put into a nominal role as an archival general. and then, of course, the mysterious death. i think it was just an accident, but that story of the conspiracy theory, that he was somehow killed. anyway, questions? >> the increased use of drones in warfare, how is it likely to affect our willingness to still be able to use conventional warfare or politically want to use conventional warfare? >> we had this new strategy. the technology evolves so rapidly that we are able now to put the drone in the year from 2448 hours. they have heavier weaponry and are far more accurate. and in as much as george bush

probably killed 2150 people, maybe 350, we don't of the accurate number, we have killed over 3,500. we cannot figure out, the morality of it. for some reason it is considered immoral to capture somebody and torture three confessed terrorists then to be judge, jury, executioner, and blow up suspected terrorists. i don't think the american people find that logical. you can see why it appeals to a society distracted for more when a drone is out of sight, out of mind. you don't see the carnage. you don't see the burned flesh, the grandson that just happened to walk in the door with the terrorists killed. the telegram planned the scene of the attack as if there were people there. we are dealing with that any moral, legal, and political way.

i think the president realizes now that as a very fierce critic of the bush team anti-terrorism recall that his preference for an drone is not sustainable. i am not saying it did not have military efficacy. it surely did. it to the terrorists, you may be able to do something, but we can put a hellfire missile inside your living room anytime we want . that handsome featuring effect, but i don't think an american way of work is a sustainable policy unless it is articulate and explained to the american people, and it had not been. i think it will be either dropped or explained. yes. >> after the 90's as started my ph.d. program in santa barbara. if i ever wanted to ride, needed to ride like you. it can be a curse. >> you should read my mail. >> used to say, the first thing that, the introduction.

you said basically to understand, to be handsome. understand history. i have a question. you called matthew ridgeway eight the city is ted the general. >> well was that? >> what do i mean? i guess that is a pretentious term. all it means is that the historian had a basic idea that human nature was constant. it was constant. so whether shooting a flintlock corps and in 16, why you were shooting it, the fear you encounter, the strategy, aid is going to be the same. and that is articulated. he said, history will be of some use to people in the future unless the nature of man changes. what he meant but -- what i meant by that, when matthew ridgeway was in korea and people

were saying, war has completely changed with nuclear weapons. it is a force multiplier. it is like nothing we've ever encountered. you don't understand these new asian hordes. this very racist idea but asians. this man said, human nature has not changed. people get cold. they get too far from supply bases. people react emotionally. if everyone in the ad states is abandoning as it is because we're not winning. start winning and they will be for us again, and i was a reassuring idea. in no way david petraes had done that. i have a grandfather was a farmer. the once said something i never forgot. i would go out and irrigate with him. and he pushed a button. we had the oiler. a 15-horsepower pumps came on and the water came out, about a thousand gallons per minute. we were talking about farming. i was about 16.

out in the yard, i do this with a hand pump. you think the water is any different? and what he was trying to tell me is that he may have been using mules or horses, but the essence is the same. agriculture, the science of growing food. the hopes and dreams has not changed. it's just more baffling. so human nature is like water. technology is like a pop. it baffles and confuses, but we should not confuse the two. we can communicate much faster. does not mean that we will say anything. we still have to be educated. [inaudible question] >> how much more intense? well, i am a little worried about the terrorist threat because, let's be honest, 90 percent of the recent incidents are people who are

what they would call themselves radical islamists. we have used euphemisms. workplace violence. it worried about the attack, that it threatened the diversity program. janet napolitano called it and power disaster, contingency operation. as said it was a holy struggle. we were told -- i could go on and on. i don't want to get partisan. the point is, people saw the last administration overreacted and unfairly had singled out islamists. we are going to use that and people in the world would be so relieved that there would say, don't do that. don't put a target on the back. i have not seen that happen yet, and i am worried that the fbi or the cia had interrogated these

men, interrogating the person who shot the military recruiter. i think it was in arkansas. dad had interrogated the people. yet for political or ideological reasons we have not rounded them up because we thought that that would be counterproductive. i understand there is the therapeutic and tragic view of terrorism, but you have to combine it, reach out to deal severely and make them know that you are unpredictable, a little crazy, and if you are not really worried whether they like your not command i am afraid that we are only the therapeutic. yes. >> i was just wondering. we have so many things competing with us and the media. the war is clearly something we need to focus on. have we compete with something like twitter or facebook? we are so distracted so easily. how do we focus the people into

prioritizing what is right and get? >> that is a good question. i think there is something like 200 peace studies programs in the united states and five military histories. it's based on the principle that war can break out by accident or diplomacy can prevent wars. military history is based on the idea that wars caused some times for tangible reasons, but often over a matter of perceived interest, pride, fear. the great novelists said of the falklands, to baldheaded men are fighting over a clone. ..