mitch weiss and kevin maurer on next they talk about the hunting down and the killing of che guevara in bolivia, one of the first successful u.s. special forces operations. the success of the mission provided a blueprint for similar missions in afghanistan and iraq. this is a little under an hour. >> first i would like to say thank you very much for inviting us to read this is an honor and pleasure to be here. it's truly wonderful store. thank you for having us. when kevin and i first started this book, i will be honest, i really didn't know much about che guevara today i knew the image on the t-shirts growing up in new york city in the late

1970's. a lot of people more che guevara t-shirts and his famous speech and all over new york city with the expression che lives and kind of a handsome figure with a scraggly beard and piercing eyes and the black beret tilted a little bit and the star on the beret. he looked like a revolutionary coming in his message seemed to be to somebody who just looked at the t-shirts and looked the sayings. somebody who was coming you know, for the people, power for the people of anyone remembers that expression from the 70's. fast forward to 2010. kevin and i have become friends because we both worked at the associated press and kevin and i both have a love for military affairs and military stories and we reported extensively and have written about the military and one day he said to me you know,

there was a mission back in 1967 in which the green berets went down to bolivia to train them to go hunt che guevara. and i said okay but who is he again? is he relevant? i was being held little sarcastic. but he said no, really, why don't we just take a look at it and do our due diligence to see what has been written about it because over the years there has been so many rumors about what happened to che, who you was, how he died, and we decided that let's look at what has been written about the role in the mission in 1967 and bolivia. so we started doing our due diligence which is reading books, going on-line and just

seeing what had been written. and what we found is that there had been dozens and dozens of books written about che and about castro and about politics. but every time the mission was mentioned, the green berets or maybe it heretofore to in every book. and there had been tremendous books written about che and putting john anderson's book about a whole host of others. but again it's always been a kind of footnote in those books. we decided at that point let's at least look at the army records, going to the archives and see what exactly was the role because with of the rumors there were some people who believed that they actually went in there and killed them. they believed the cia was in bolivia and they actually went into the jungles and so let's

separate fact from fiction and that is what we do best as journalists exposing wrongdoing. so at that plant we went in and we looked at all the documents and records and started talking to some of those that were in the mission in 1967 and we quickly discovered they played pivotal but not like most people thought. they went down to bolivia a small team and they took these reformers and peasants and many of whom had never even held a gun before and they actually trained them and turned them into this fighting and at that went into the jungles and hunted che and eventually captured him and at that point we realized we had a story, one that hadn't

been told. as you know being in this store, historical figures there are dozens of books about historical figures. how many books come out every year about lincoln and washington and teddy roosevelt and military leaders? but one thing you want to do as a journalist and as a writer is advance that story, take it in a different direction, take that small piece and show them what really happened in a given time period and that is what we decided to do with this. we decided that we were going to drop the readers in bolivia in 1967. we weren't going to start the story with che on his motorcycle trip in latin america where he discovers her thick poverty and changes his course from being a doctor to a revolutionary. we weren't going to take you into the mountains where he's fighting alongside castro to

overthrow batista. we wanted to drop in bolivia in 1967, show you what bolivia was light, with the end states policy was like and when we fear him so much at that particular point. i think that you can fill us in from here. [applause] one thing before he starts is any time anybody has a question please feel free to enter not. don't wait for the end. just questions. >> we initially started as we were going to look at him as a point of view character. we thought it might be an interesting way we were picking of people to drive the story and we thought he obviously has to be one and there was a struggle because there is so much written about him. the reading i had about him was all 15 books. they were on the green berets and the intelligence was three

come two or three. essentially what we did and my wife i have to give her credit for this she said why don't you just leave him out and focus on a tree but he also and will reach realize is the story was about those forgotten about bye history and their forgotten in the narrative they've been written and also in bolivia. it's the trail when you go to bolivia. che guevara kim to overthrow the government and its his trail. none of them get to many credits. obviously the green berets are not a part of it but said that struck us initially maybe he isn't plantain you character because if you know mission and i hope you read the book as you learn more about the mission, it didn't go so well. he really wasn't with the legend had him, the coverage if you read the news clippings at the time really had built them into

a super guerrilla with a 500 man army plays to take over all of bolivia and it just really wasn't the case. we found the more we focus on the legend in 1967 what people believe he was giving them a less about what he was doing, the better it became and showed the urgency that a lot of the main characters more intimate. you could understand why when they get to bolivia they are legitimately scared about what he's going to try to do and really what made him such a threat to american policy makers at that time on his charisma and i think it is undeniable that he had a certain charisma about him. the fact urban outfitters has posters to this day that people still buy and i have a t-shirt today a buddy of mine bought. he said you know anything about che and i knew very little about

him but who he was and he said no he just looks cool. it's undeniable that there is a certain says no to him, but what he was trying to do was pretty simple. he wanted to create a thousand vietnams. at the time the united states was involved in the vietnam war mike and his goal was okay you can do it in southeast asia and we can sure do it in latin america as well and we are grant started in bolivia because it is in the middle of the neighborhood and then we are going to exploit this once it works out and that is when he showed up in the bolivia that is what he was trying to do. what we attempted to do is to happen to that because as far as the cia was concerned and policy makers, surely the president of bolivia was not only going to do that but do it well and was going to be a big problem. you have to take the assumption that only is he going to do

this, but he's also doing a good job of it. we understand what it's like and how many times you hear things and things come out. i'm sure all of you followed the boston bombings, right? that was a textbook modern story. you still have this idea of a lot of misinformation. and so we are going to talk a little bit about this major who leads the green berets but when he gets a mention in panel and they say we are sending you down with a training team. i'm getting towards the end here and i have to take on this guy that we may or may not be che because che guevara and he has how many? so that sort of what he was facing. [applause]

kevin raises a great point, a couple things. one is that this is the untold story of some of these people who were involved in this mission who haven't gotten any credit in history and one of our characters is shelton, the leader of the green beret unit that went down in bolivia to train the soldiers and they had to do this over a 19 week period. imagine you go down there and you are dealing with mostly people who cannot read or write, have been handled a gun and you are trying to teach them the intricacies of the war and counter insurgency. it was a very difficult mission. but he was up for it. this was a guy that was born in mississippi, grew up on a farm, picked cotton, did a lot of different jobs in his life.

he joined the military when he was 18-years-old, he joined as a private and went to korea. he was wounded three times. he came back and he decided i love the military. i'm going to make this my career. the only time he left the military was back just before he got married to the he decided he was going to try farming again and the military had a policy that you could lead the military for 90 days and if you return for 90 days he would get the previous rank but you would go back to being a private in that time he was the sergeant. the 87th day he returned because farming in mississippi was just too hard and he loved the army life and he missed it. so he decided he was going to make it a career and he was going to do more. he wanted to learn more than he

possibly could and so at 28-years-old the cut off age he applied for the officer candidate school and he was accepted and most of the people in his class were early 20s and he was the old man so to speak and that's how he got his nickname, pappy. from there he worked his way up come he's the commission, second lieutenant but that isn't enough. he wants to join the green berets and he does and it supports allow in 1962 he comes back and still wants to stay in the military although his wife, he has five kids now and they want him to go back to tennessee and leave the military life behind. he decides if i'm going to stay in the military will but wallgren going to learn to speak spanish, which he did and he went into this intense training and learn how to speak spanish fluently and was deployed in the dominican republic and then

leader this was his last question. when he was in panel at the fort he gets called into the office and his commander. they've been taken prisoner we need to do something because we are afraid that this is going to spread and bolivia was in danger of being overthrown but here was the catch. he could go down there and train them but he was ordered not to go in that field and that was critical because there was an area of operations where they were operating yet he was told you cannot go there. you have to stay out. we do not want americans being held there. we don't want to be sucked into

the war in our own hemisphere. we just want you to train them coming and for pappy he understood that. it was tough because he had seen the combat and he knew what his men could do that the handcuffs on paper only to go there and training and not fight. >> so now you are stuck. you are training the bolivian spin you want to get somebody out to actually find out what is going on. so the cia cooks up this idea the are going to hire to cubans to go down and represent the cia said they send them down there and the one we focus on a lot is a gentleman and telex to the co phillips rodriquez.

when you learned pretty quickly is it takes a gorilla to catch a guerrilla said he had spent a lot of time on the opposite side. he was one of the advanced teams after that, he was part of all the other things going on in and out of miami here. what i found was interesting is he had this intimate knowledge of what it took to be a guerrilla and the stereotypical things. when he gets to the levee at his very good at making friends and he ends up getting in with them and reuse their intelligence and he is able to put together a profile of all of those and he finds out there is a particular one who he is identified because

he was a student told by the communist party we will send you to school in havana or moscow and when you get to the camp they had him a gun and they are like okay you are a guerrilla now. so he decides if we catch this guy i think i can turn him at least. i'm not going to give away the whole book but when he finally surfaces, he looks pretty much goes all in to make sure he doesn't get executed which he does and he ends up being a very important player. he's a sort of bottom feeder in the mystery and he is a foot chemnick memory said he knows everything and can remember everything. he lays out the soap opera that's been going on in these camps and house che has had trouble with the bill of the and communists and the other gorillas and how some of them

are deserving. but mostly he put together exactly how the move. so the next time there is an ambush and they catch him they are able to figure out exactly where che is coming and that leaves them to when the implement the rangers. after 19 months they are ready and now they know where he is. this gentleman here talking about the officer who was leading this company, he is -- they arrive on sugar trucks and they interviewed him >> you wrote a pretty large confession. so obviously the process went and cannot very useful. >> are you talking about the confession for paco?

yes he sang like a canary. >> the and then previously in africa and che had been in africa. obviously he wasn't able to run away. >> felix wasn't in africa but the other cia agent down there was in africa and they were chasing che. part of the problem is the intelligence to be we think of the cia and the way that our intelligence works now. we know everyone is moving and we can monitor people by tapping into their phones. we know where everybody is at any moment which is why it took a long time to track bin laden but that is one of the ways.

back then our intelligence especially when it came to che was pretty poor. we just didn't have the context. so 1965 when you talk about che we find out he's in the republic of congo we know that in hindsight that 1965 we were not sure that he was actually there. some of the documents we looked at that the cia would write these reports once a week they basically said he was dead that he died in the dominican republic in 1965 with the uprising. so they thought he was dead somewhere in the dominican republic. they were not sure and the was a part of the failure of our intelligence that time we just didn't have that network going but you are right. we thought he was in the congo which it turns out he was and we were tracking him.

>> [inaudible] transported to the republic of congo river operation was going on. >> absolutely that they were up 100% sure. they believed che was there and later the pictures surfaced of che in the congo that that particular time they were not 100% sure and there was a part of the failure of the intelligence of the time 71967 when we believed che might be in bolivia and alive there was disagreement between the cia and the state department. they produce reports that said is che still alive and the answer was br not sure. that is in the book. so the united states was very concerned about che because he went from being someone who

publicized and preach revolution to somebody who was exporting revolution and that was the danger in 1965 in the congo and later in bolivia he was taking action on his theories, but one theory been you could take a small group of men and place them in a volatile area and you can overthrow and establish a government if you just have the focus to do it and that was one of his theories. but getting back to gary, you're absolutely right and he is one of the characters in the book and he was the one of the leaders of a ranger company. we focused on garrey that led the company because he actually captured che and so we told the story of the bolivian military through his eyes and he came from a long history of military people and the family can if his father was i believe a major

general. he was a diplomat and garrey wanted to end press his father and that is why he went into the military in the calgary and when the first attacks happened when the soldiers were ambushed and they had no idea who was behind them, he volunteered that there was a dinner for the president of bolivia and he goes to the dinner because in the lafayette time there were 200 families that basically all knew each other and they ran the country. said he was at dinner with the president and he actually had some training in counterinsurgency. at the dinner they start discussing the ambush, the soldiers that had been killed. he was really angry. he believed at the time that the tactics of the oblivion's were using just wouldn't work. they were using conventional

tactics. they needed to be trained in counterinsurgency and not in traditional military tactics where you have a front-line and you are battling think world war ii you have the front lines. this is different, this is a guerrilla war said at the dinner party he approaches the subject and says look what we are doing is wrong. he slams his fist on the table and says we need to train our men in counterinsurgency and, you know, i want to be part of it. and even though he knew the president, it would be like going to dinner with of the head of your company and you slam your fists no, mr. president, you are doing this wrong. it just wasn't heard of said he thought his career was over but few days later he heard he was part of this new range of the battalion was being created.

going back to the training there was 19 weeks of training, things that our soldiers would do in boot camp but our soldiers have the strength and they didn't have that. they didn't even have the body strength to perform some of the basic functions because of the food. so when they go down there they have to change their diet and the sanitary habits, so it's not just about learning how to shoot guns it's about learning how to be a soldier. what he does for the book as he shows you. he is really and untold story in the chapter because anything written, well maybe he played a role in che's death or she barely played any role at all. looking at the documents and talking to the team, we wanted to bring his role to light because he is a truly

fascinating character. >> it's a good story. that alone is that enough? why are doing and this is part of the pitch that i mentioned in the beginning when i brought this up. why does it matter now? why should we care? arguably it is one of the first successes of the green beret. you have to remember when he was in bolivia they were fairly new. they were not a branch. you didn't join the military to be a green beret. he went in and get a little bit but they were mostly trying to get out because they couldn't advance to be the staeben to long to get back to the regular army. the fact that this is the green berets and what they did in

bolivia is what they've done in colombia l.f. ford brad what they've done in iraq and afghanistan and what they've done in the philippines to read so in some ways we are getting to see them do exactly what they do best what they were by, with and through the indigenous cultures in this case i iraqis and afghans. let me be blunt, to carry out american policies. succumb to me being someone who spent a lot of time covering them and working with them and writing about them i was fascinated by this aspect of the mission and there are statutes around fort bragg and some friends and this green beret guy he wrote the afterward in the book. an afghan war veteran. and he said look we look at all these statutes are around fort bragg and it is a shame that you are not there because they look

at this mission as one of their first pick touch points that they look back and say this is success, this is a buzzword in the military, foreign and internal defense. this is what it is supposed to look like. so it has a legacy to it, but honestly is a pretty good story, too. we try to write it like a thriller so if you're looking for an analysis on politics and a really good look at the government and what he did wrong in policy you want a peace center that gets you into bolivia 1967 and runs you through it in a kind of a fast-paced life and you will like this. so if there are any questions now, thank you all for coming out we appreciate you coming. let's get some questions now. i like the discussion. [applause]

the >> i read the book after he spent 30 years with castro that there were three people castro feared. one of them disappeared in a plane trip that never in that anywhere the second one the arrested because castro didn't have the guts to do it himself and then the third one was che guevara who was out of control, and from what i am dressed in the book he was very clear in saying that he basically turned them over and sent him to bolivia to his death actually tipping off the american cia that, you know, basically where he was and what he was doing. have you run across any of that to confirm what he wrote? >> let me give you a little background. right now i'm looking at another book that will be published next

year and it's about william morgan, an american who went to cuba and fought with the second front. so the research i've had to do for not only che but also for this new book that's coming out about william morgan, which really touches on the relationship with castro and che and morgan and the leaders of the second round at the conflict with the 26th of july movement. ..

you have to wait for conditions to be right before you wage revolution. che was more, you don't wait for conditions to be right. there is injustice you go ahead and make that revolution. i really, from my perspective, from my opinion i don't think castro's intend to bolivia. i think he had castros busing when he went to bolivia and he was exporting a cuban style revolution to that country which

she hoped would spread to bolivia's neighbors. >> the local population have an understanding of the government, some of them did not even know what country they belong to really. the level of education and isolation to this area that you chose, are very suspicious of strangers. they gave him virtually no support. you know, it just fell on deaf ears to a great extent. >> your absolutely right. there are a lot of good points there. one, you pick the wrong area of the country. this was an isolated area with indians who spoke a different dialect. so when he was there trying to recruit, remember, you have a haven in rural areas.

he would just go to town to give speeches. there would be silenced because they did not understand a word he said. and seriously he spoke a different dialect altogether. also, it was a sparsely populated area. if he had picked another part of the country near the copper and tin mines were there were unions and students, there was unrest in bolivia in 1967, but he picked it area. i'm trying to think of the united states. it was just isolated. there were people there. there were suspicious. he miscalculated. he went to bolivia in part because it neighborhood other countries. he thought that he could spread revolution to those countries. he also went to bolivia because it up to have the weakest military. they did.

receptive to the revolutionary as diaz. the problem was that bolivia underwent a revolution in 1972 cut which gave rights to indians they also expanded the military. it's as if they just ignored what happened in bolivia. from the very beginning che was more of a fugitive and a guerrilla because everywhere you went the people he was trying to help, they tracked him down. so was like being on an episode of america's most wanted. truly, i mean, wherever he went into a village -- and even notes that in his diaries. he was a prolific writer. he has a very clear, concise, almost a hemingwayesque style. so he says -- is being

sarcastic. we went into the village. so every -- so while he was great at promoting revolution, writing books and revolution, when you look at his record as a military leader, as a tactician, my conclusion is he was a total failure. [inaudible conversations] >> a survivor. he now lives in paraguay and is written a lot about this. he seems to agree. he really wanted to dump che. there are reasons to believe that could have been the case. i'm not an authority like you are. but that could have been the case.

travel around the world. he head visited the chinese. castro was more to the soviet union than the other communists. and when he returned, you know, he was lost. if nothing else. >> well, he was like the pain in the as kid brother to castro. he really was. cheapest of the soviet union. i mean, one of the last speeches he makes is in algeria, public speeches where he accuses the soviet union of being no better than the dogs of the united states. those areas words. and yet. i mean, che was a loose cannon, a celebrity, an icon. but castro was behind the

mission and gave his blessing to the condemnation and to bolivia. in fact a mother were photos. if you go online you can see them. photos into bolivia he could not tell when. he went in as a businessman. he shaved part of the said committee and a lot of weight, wearing a suit and tie. and there was a photo of them, his passport photo to get into bolivia. you look at him. he looks kind of like a middle-aged businessman, but there is another photo wish i wish we would have had in the book where castro's seascape to dress like that and they're laughing and smoking cigars. i think if castro was really worried and was not behind this i don't think -- sometimes a vote of system thousand words. >> go ahead.

>> is to interview anybody from the cia? did you in a -- do any research on the testimony and what relevance their interrogation played? >> well, the second question. important mostly because -- and particularly the way that he was captured. he was a french philosopher, a communist philosopher. he wanted to be a gorilla, put up with che, lived out in the field little bit and decided he did not want to be a guerrilla any more and walked into a village in got arrested. when they arrested them he flipped fast and he -- i think he had interrogated. at first declined that the cia saved them. i think he has backed off of that a little bit, but at some

point to make a long story short the president of france gets involved. france gets involved. they all write letters to set any to release some. and it was a big embarrassment. a lot of headaches. i think that leads to the end game with che to some extent. oblivion's when they capture shaken if you think you have a bad, you have che now. how do you handle that? and the other problem, we talked about this. there was not a prison in bolivia. they had them, but they did not have a prison that could hold che. so there was also a fear that the cubans are going to take him. so i think that testimony and that arrest i think we see later to the way that che is treated. >> well, they help.

they were part of the cachet that felix immediately latches on to it. when he gets there and is able to piece it together. and i know they can talk but this in the second. i haven't seen it yet. as for others, we had a lot of documentation. as of trying to track them, like us said, we really tried to keep it a soda straw view. and so we branstad as much as we could or as much as we need. really the focus was on what felix and gustavo were seeing. [inaudible question] >> we did not give into it. >> yeah. after 45 years he broke his silence and wrote his memoirs. and in their e, you know, downplays that is of us said

anything to do with, you know, the capture. clearly those photos were pretty good. i mean, those drawings that he made. once they had them the bolivian soldiers were able to distribute them of throughout the country. they had a better idea of who was in. help the lot. they told them slowly. because they did not want to give it away. there was a part they did not want to give away everything. but they told generally with the house was, where there were hiding documents. it came on slowly over a few months. >> between april and may. >> well, little bit longer than that because they don't start distributing this photos until august of '67. that is when they start handing them out. >> no concept of public

relations. >> exactly. and it is not like -- we have to remember, today you have cnn and everything is instant. it is -- what you did have or a lot of newspapers and international journalists. and there were reporting every development. newspapers from all of the world. became a nightmare for the libyans. he made the point, did not have the death penalty in bolivia. and they also, the prisons were more like home arrests. there really did not have the structure. after they saw the nightmare the decision was made quickly.

>> when they finally captured, the decision they made, that was kind of piggybacking on my question. what was the hearing, was doing in the final hours. did he have any operational control? >> well, he stuck to the mission . they played a role. they were back training different oblivion's. he did not know anything about weather ranges were. he knew there were out there hunting for che, but that decision about what to do, was strictly, the oblivion's and the cia officers who were there. they knew what was going on. he did not play any role.

[inaudible question] >> we did not find anything then the case that. of further was a navy frogman and shot him. i have heard it -- at this point no one has ever told me. i will definitely check it more. ever the same things. in some respect we follow the text book, but when you talk to guys on the ground, they gave no indication about that. and we're talking 1957.

yeah. >> the current bolivian government. have they made any comments? did they see things differently? >> i wish they would. that would be great. no, i have not heard anything from them. >> in the end they're in charge. >> yeah, they are. like we said, it's a lot of the history now that is really been focused on che and if you go with it took him after they captured him, there is a museum form. an interesting history. he failed. >> they don't export revolution the military's. they're not.

you know, doctor. >> is desert doing it to. >> the strategy. i mean, the whole counterinsurgency five can be fought on the steve france. i don't think were going to see any world war two's any time soon. we are looking at 67. they're going to see another ten years because special forces, they are not -- 2014 may be the end of the afghanistan war, but not.

they will be -- they are busy now. they put together a clinic. after the earthquake. i mean, you're right. the fight now in some way is going to be, we can bring you this stuff if you want to be friends. it is also, we can train your guys to fight us, guys that we both don't like. that will be a big part of the fight the future, especially for special forces unit. because now how much to a guy that -- now he has to go down. >> that's what i heard.

million-dollar missiles. >> you can't kill your way. right. >> unusual that on the heels of the commitment that cuba made with russia into africa, that they would go almost like a -- a keystone cop approach going into bolivia and south america which was a greater price, a prize, less of a cost. >> could you rephrase that a bit and ask that question one more time? >> in other words, they committed into africa where logistically and monetarily it was not as much of a game from of logistic standpoint. don't you find it unusual that castro sans nt is not -- he sends his right hand person,

let's say, as far as exporting revolution to the middle of south america almost like there were a bunch of amateurs going in. in other words, it was not much of a commitment. don't you find that unusual that it would make such a blatant mistake and a miscalculation of all places in south america? >> you have to realize that at that point che was a celebrity. you are talking about hubris. like everything he had gone through, you know, both during the cuban revolution and then later in africa. he felt that he was untouchable at that point, that he was not going to die. he felt, i really believe, that che felt that he could succeed. his theory was right. his theory was pretty simple. a small group going into of rural area could bring down an established government. you know, that is what he did in both africa it was proved wrong

and bolivia. a number of different reasons. so the point that caster center into the congo in bolivia to fail, i don't think. i think he went to the congo and went to bolivia to succeed. i think he truly believed that he was going to win, that history was going to take cold. you know, start, you know, 110 said, you know, many vietnam in the region. >> to what extent was there logistical failure in bolivia is castro himself or castro's support of che on the logistical sites? >> that is a good question. clearly they believe that this was the right area to go into in bolivia. one of the mistakes that che

made talking about logistics' and where to go west, he had alienated the bolivian communist party. bolivian communist party was telling him, you're going into -- we should be leading the revolution, not you, bolivia should. number two, you really need to be up where the mines are. and che, again, did not think he was wrong. he said, no. we know better. my theory. you're going to follow me. if you don't, goodbye. that was part of the problem. he had no support from oblivion communist party. so really the planning for the bolivian mission was all cuban. it really did not consult the bolivian communist party who basically was giving advice on where to go logistics' lies. and they had an number of setbacks from the very beginning, almost from the moment they got there to this old farmhouse in this remote area.

he was discovered. they were doing, you know, troop movements. they were sending guys into rural villages with a ton of money to buy supplies. and, again, the people that were out there were turning the man, going straight to the military. so i think it was mostly che, you know, doing the planning. [inaudible question] >> argentina. any other questions? >> one more. >> would either of you care to fast forward that to where we are today? where we need to go what we need to think about based on what you've seen and understood?

>> in general. >> let's go back to this idea. obviously from a military standpoint in the next ten years i think you're going to see all branches of military have to rethink the way that the fight. i think that you are seeing now lots of -- they call them remote. we call them drones. the guys who actually operate them call them remotely piloted vehicles because they get angry with the drone term. that is not going anywhere. think you're going to see not only in the air force but the navy it is going to increase. the navy just once at john off of an aircraft carrier that is far better than what the company's human. but it is always going to go back to the people. even though we're going to automate everything. in ten years from now we have

learned from this, the hardest one for last god give you that. what do you think? >> the military is going to do with the military is going to do because they know what they're doing most of the time based upon the current trend. i'm thinking, are you willing to project what the policies need to be? >> symbol policy terms. civilian leaders for the military. >> they tell them to do something. they better be really clear about what they wanted to do. >> change objectives depending on the general. i'm not even going to touch the policy. some good try. could try.

but i think you are going to see -- i mean, we have lots of questions. i am going -- i am going -- we were joking. a presidential press conference. going to dodge this question. [laughter] watch how we got it. ready? i'm going to say this. i think as the american people we have to ask ourselves tough questions about whether constitution looks like going for into modern times. we as a people need to figure that answer out. there you go. [applause] >> you're watching book tv, nonfiction authors and books every weekend on c-span2. >> is a look at some books being published this week. "the butler", will haygood

recounts the life of bubbler eugene allen. over her countless policy discussions. former chief economist of the world bank reflects on the causes of the financial collapse and offers his thoughts on how to reach a global economic stability in against the consensus, reflections on the great recession. in a wrong turn america's deadly embrace of counter insurgency, army colonel presents u.s. military strategy in afghanistan . william jones history professor at the university of wisconsin recounts the march on washington on august 281963 in the march on washington, jobs, freedom, and the forgotten history of civil-rights. look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for the others in the near future on book tv and on the booktv.org.

>> you're watching a c-span2, politics and public affairs wheaties featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights what's the public policy events. every weekend, the lead is nonfiction authors and books on booktv.org. you can see past programs and festivals of their website, and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> this summer book tv has been gnashing teeth of asking what you are reading. here is with some of you have to say. on facebook, the boys in the boat by daniel james brown, an inspiring read about the university of washington crews when at the 1936 olympics in berlin. fantastic. book tv recently covered in a van but daniel james brown, and you can watch it on line. the great deformation. informative and chilling. on april 4th book tv attended a book party. that is also available to watch.

and gloria olson posted, i am reading masters of the planet, the search for human origins, a fascinating and would you rendering of what we know or think that we know about the evolution of homo sapiens. the american museum of national history. what are you reading this summer? post on our facebook wall, tweet us, or send us an e-mail. you can visit all of our social media sites to see what others are reading and we might even share your posts here on book tv. >> interestingly that the korean war in essence sort of help the south koreans. when the communists came down they were brutal. a lot of the south koreans

turned against. that sort of solidified, i think, their sense of national cohesion and identity. but i think they miscalculated. having waited, it's very possible that the south probably would have -- it's possible that it would have disintegrated on its own. >> sixty years after north korean troops crossed the 30th parallel they never really ended tonight at 9:00 on after words, part of book tv this weekend on c-span2. >> first amendment ploy abrams represented the new york times and the pentagon papers case recounts his career and presents a spot on current first amendment debate. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> delighted to have one of the greatest lawyers, present living

lawyers and one of the greatest lawyers of the nation by the name of floyd abrams who has just released a wonderful book by critics are raving about call a friend of the court on the front lines with the first amendment. and what we will be doing is a 40 minute conversation interview he has kindly agreed to open it up to audience questions said that many people have a chance have a chance to question one of the greatest lawyers. so he took kickstart it, could you please tell us out this very interesting book is receiving these critical and reviews came about. >> first, i got a call from a professor at the university of washington law school. he told me he was interested in doing a book about my views about