programs online at booktv.org. >> you're watching booktv. next, george morgan tells the story of his mother, mary sherman morgan, the first female rocket scientist in the united states and inventer of the propellant that boosted america's first satellite into orbit. the program mary morgan worked on was highly secret, so her family had very little idea of her accomplishments until after her death. this is about 45 minutes. [applause] enter thank you very much. i'd like to thank fro match's bookstore for inviting us here this evening. i have a few prepared remarks which will include reading a few passages from the book. and these remarks will basically tell you a little bit about my mother and how her story and the book came to be. ..

many years later, long nap during that you family plan, my father writing the attend the airshow. while there he began into an old friend from work. the man looked at me and said i work next to your dad at the desk for 15 years. i said hey, you're the guy i've been looking for.

i want to know, what did my father do every morning when he went to work each day? he got very quiet, thoughtful and then he said, a little of this, a little. that's the day i discovered my father had been doing more than just holy all those years. he'd been repeating the party line that all engineers with secret clearances had been taught by their employer. but if the knowledge of my fathers daily vocation was meager, it was even less with my mother. i've been told that my parents had worked together for a while at rocketdyne, although different departments. i know shortly after my younger brother stephen is born, another retired to become a full-time wife and mother. over the years i heard between friends and coworkers small

briefly worded clues about important project she'd been working on in the 40s and 50s. whenever a probe for details, the listers but stopping the speakers with the spurs. whenever asked my mother what she did in the aerospace business, i couldn't even get a little of this, a little of that. whatever she did there, she didn't want to talk about and eventually insisted that i stop that. then they need to make clear there was this, we never talked much in the market household growing up about anything. my mother, for example, not only refuse to talk about her life in the aerospace business, she refused to talk about almost in half at different ways. she was secretive about every game and place high value on personal privacy, even within her family. i'm sure some of you have

parents who chose written histories from their use. not my mom. nothing about walking to school barefoot in the snow uphill both ways, none of those great stories. for my brother and two sisters, our mothers life is a steel safe, locked in chad. and like to read from the dopamine -- the opening paragraph of the book. this is a story about a mother never taught your children. this is a story about a wife who rarely talks to her husband, that they were married for 53 years. this is a story about a woman who desperately wanted happiness, but could never summon the strength to reach for them. this is a story the woman who had a family that loved her, but his struggle in return. this is a story about a woman who people admired but could never get close to.

this is a story of a woman who harbored many secret and lived in daily fear that those secrets of what he be revealed. this is the story of a woman who took the secret to her grave. this is a story about america's first in a rocket scientist. this is the story about my mother. in january of 2004 i received a call from my sister karen. our mother had passed away, a victim of emphysema, too many cigarettes over too many years. i called my father and asked what i could do. two things he said. give the eulogy at her mother's funeral and write the obituary for the newspaper. the dilemma i faced was how deeply the eulogy or read an obituary about someone, even your other, who has kept everything about themselves bottled up in the great their entire life? the time had come for people to stop acting coy.

the time had come for people to start talking about mary sherman morgan. so i turned to my fathers house and spent several hours interviewing him. prying open the steel safe. he told me a few things, some of which rarity was aware of. she was born on a small farm in north dakota. she was the youngest of eight children. she refused to send her to school, wanted to work on the farm. eventually the state of north dakota intervened and forced her father to allow her to attend school. they even gave her -- the state of north dakota gave her a horse or she can kiss safely across the river that separated their home from the schoolhouse. when she finally enrolled, she was three years behind your peers, even though she managed to keep up past everyone, graduating in 1940 as her high school's class valedictorian. as soon as the graduation

ceremony was over, however, her father said she returned to work on the farm full-time. instead, she packed her bags and ran away from home in the middle of the night and headed for ohio, where she enrolled in the south college near toledo, ohio, which doesn't exist anymore. during my interview with my father, he also gave me one other important piece of information. he said that in the 1950s my mother had worked on a secret program that was instrumental in america launching its first satellite, explorer one. they said your mother was america's first female rocket scientist. did you know that? i said no doubt, no one ever talks in the morgan family. and mom would never talk to me about anything. our father said don't feel that. your mother never taught me much either. he then gave me a list of a few of my mother's former coworkers and suggested i interview them

as well. which i did. if they conducted this interview slowly, ever so slowly the onion layers of my mother's decree life began to peel away. one of those former coworkers was eating generic. i assume many of you recognize that name. in the 1950s, irving chimeric was an engineer at north american aviation. after losing his job in 1960, he studied law and became a defense attorney in los angeles. his most famous client, charles manson. instead bugliosi would when they refer to irving as the toscanini of tdm. but his first career was in aerospace engineering and the north american yorick at the desk right to my mother. today i was foreign, future attorney came to the hospital to give me my very first birthday present, a baseball bat. i was one day old and i have a baseball bat.

after a few days they completed interviews with coworkers had some itinerant person, others over the phone. i thought they had enough information to complete the two tasks my father giving me. i sent it to the "los angeles times." i figured out that about first female rocket scientist to be slim dunk, it would want a lot of space, perhaps even half a page. i wrote the eulogy in a day later stood at a podium and deliver it to a family on trent river family, friends or coworkers. we had a small luncheon. i served a plate and went to sit at a table filled with my mother's -- some of my mother's coworkers. to tell you what happened next week in the bottom of page 13. no more than two minutes went by before i felt a stern tap tapping on my right hand. i turned to see the face of the very elderly gentleman sitting across the table. the face wrinkled and folded

like those canines that when the ugliest contest. he sat tapping the hand come using the own index finger to point straight up my nose. he spoke, you need to listen to me, young man. i was 50 years old. he was calling the young man. yes, sir i said. my name is walter unterberg peered into your mother. i worked with her. going to say something about who you probably don't know. listen carefully. i'm listening. he looked left and right as if checking for fbi surveillance. then stare through my body which was made made of glass. in 1957, your mother single-handedly saved america's base program he said and nobody knows about it, but a handful of old men. you need to tell her stories that you do need to let people know the truth. don't let her die nameless.

in the 1950s, the scientific community at the world's largest and most powerful countries held a meeting during which they decided to set aside political differences and work together to achieve a list of common scientific objectives. they called this project the international geophysical year run from july 1st, 1957 through december 31st 1958. the most significant of their cause was for both the united states and the soviet union to place the world's first artificial satellite into orbit. the site did not consider this to be a competition of any sort, but in no time at all that's exactly what it became. unofficially defaulted assertively test as to who's political system is better, american democracy or soviet communism. by today's standards commit this kind of face that he thought quaint, but that and people take it very seriously. america's entrance into the space race was a rocket program

called project vanguard. live television news reporting has come of age. people could watch the news and real-time. what a concept what they did. as one american thinker rocketed after the other up on the launch pad for some other malfunction, it was a black eye of american science that bears for the american people in humiliation for the government. in the middle, worst of the leaking of the soviet union is close to making its first orbital attempt. the sad irony to all of this was america had that it's just boastful of the very finest rocket scientist in the world, dr. warren von brown and overt engineers who tend in the united states and her secret postwar program called project paperclip. vanguard rocket program used out of these men. the federal government pocketed them away from a remote outpost in texas called for close. the government was naturally

concerned about the embarrassment of having former chairman were machined scientist working to close the un-american projects. towards the end of 1957 from the two events occurred that changed everything. the soviets successfully launched sputnik and another vanguard rocket book on the launch pad. under intense public pressure the government approached impractically picked him for help. von braun had a problem of his own. he had a rocket that could theoretically be sure below with his performance could be boosted by 7%. a significant amount of work engineering business. von braun and his engineers needed a more powerful feel, but despite their education and expertise, they were unable to come up with one. none of the proponents that then existed would provide that require performance enhancement. von braun worked under the u.s. army. the army decided to her to contract north american

aviation, o come up with this nonexistent propeller. the generals who awarded the contract gave the following instructions to the administrators at north american. both countries depends on openness with the other problem. make sure you put your best man on it. whatever you choose doesn't know yet, but he's about to become the most important person in america. at the department of research development gave this reply. general, be glad to get this project to my best man, but i have to warn you when it comes to new and exotic repellents are very best man is a woman. what he neglected to tell the general was that this woman is a farm girl from north dakota with only a high school diploma on her education resume. so my mother found herself at the center of a political and logical maelstrom. she arrived in north america after having spent worriers as a

chemist. remember i said in 1940 she ran away to continue her education. no sooner had she got to a higher than a year than she was recruited by local weapons that are each. perhaps you heard a plump ordinance, the large number of munitions for the government, for the military during world war ii. for four years, mary worked as some of the most volatile dangerous chemicals designing explosive. i fill up the wartime jobs and return to her son home, my mother applied for jobs around the country, finally landing with its american aviation. i should mention however even though she was given the same work assignment as the engineers, she was forced to

carry the title of analysts and she did not have a college degree. her job description this theoretical performance specialist. as a responsibility to mathematically calculate how to rocket propellant for theoretically perform when mixed and burned. this is far cheaper than having to actually go out and test them. it is a specialty that position hurts to be put in charge of von braun's contract when it arrived at north american aviation seven years later. and so it was a farm girl from north dakota with only a high school diploma was given the task of succeeding, where experience, education ingenious at all failed. after five months of work, very cheap if i'm wrong in his engineers have failed to do. she created a rocket propellant that wasn't satisfied on braun 7% requirement. the rocket at the time used

liquid oxygen, which is abbreviated by rocket engineer says fox. when the army official at its, she put that in writing and sent to the army the u.s. army however did not share her sense of humor and insight audit iodine. when it was launched in next door one, it was the one and only time i died would ever be used in american rocket. this brings me back now to "the los angeles times" obituary. after he sent the article, i watched the newspaper every day. the obituary was important in my family because we finally get my mother the notoriety she deserved but never received during life. for another week went by and i hadn't seen a published i called the newspaper's obit department. i was referred to it lady named barbara. i asked her if she received from

mary sherman morgan. she received it but decided not to print it. >> they were unable to print tickets they could not independently verify in the obituary article. under the next three weeks that many conversations than in her notes and copies of interviews, signed affidavits from coworkers. in the end, it wasn't enough. my mother's lifelong assistance on privacy had intentionally or unintentionally written to her out of the historical record. there is nothing in the historical record of her accomplishments. when they opened up the "los angeles times" and i read a half each obituary about the man who invented the oscar mayer whistle. for me, that was the last straw. i called the barbara.

the description of what happens is on page 15. the final phone conversation with the editor of "the los angeles times" department heated as she continued to refuse to publish their mother's. an argument reached a red-faced crescendo and she continued to be obstinate, i tried to take some kind of action. she replied, what are you going to do, mr. morgan? suis? now i'm going to do something much worth the sue you. going to write a play. i immediately opened my laptop. through the magic of theater in my own mother had refused to do. i would write a play with the accomplishments in the light of day. this assignment turned into a journey that would take me to

many places as they play detective, tracking down a small number of former coworkers who was alive. we are tired, semper decade. i told them they were unanimous in their desire to hope. in november 2008, the play rocket girl open a celtic's hundred seat auditorium playing to large enthusiastic audiences. at the end of each performance, mothers and daughters come tell me how inspiring the play had been for them. a few years after the play closed account type, i received a strange e-mail from a woman i ever heard of. this is what it said. based in the media attention merry has been getting lately. i think the time has come for you to know something. you have about her sister you've never been told about.

i should point out that the immediate attention was the result of celtic produced replying. i assumed it was the electronic equivalent of a crank call, so i deleted it. over the next few days it started to hug me. when they went went into my e-mail and i deleted it. kind of makes you wonder if the internet is really like the law of conservation of energy. nothing can ever really be destroyed. i sent a reply, who are you and where did you get this information? she replied, call this number and provided a phone number. her name is ruth victor. she is the information you need. one evening i called the phone number and a very groggy ruth answered that sounded like i had woken her up. i told her about the e-mails. do you know what this is all about i asked? do i really have a sister that no one is ever told me about? yes, she said. i have a sister.

we talked a little and she explained how my mother got pregnant from a fellow student at the college many years euphoric and had given her up for adoption before her first birthday. it was a story written from a lifetime of the pier but i still wasn't convinced. i called my father and said, are you aware mom gave birth to a daughter before you guys minimus given up for adoption? my father said yes, but how did you find out? one less thing the book. filled with boxes stuffed with reference books, history books, nope, photographs and video cards with talking heads. i stare at them, realizing that constitute almost 10 years of my life. all those interviews, all that research in a subtle though much my mother. she was a genius at everything she did, but if nothing else was

she more scope than a prank yourself the campaign of personal sofie richeson. her efforts of living a full life on one hand while plotting extension of her name from history on the other required a level of mental perspicacity far beyond the average. fortunately, her intent to make her so well regarded in life but anonymous in death ultimately failed ashy touch too many people. i began this evening by asking a question, how many of you -- how much do you really know about your parents? for those of you who are parents, how much do your children know about you? when we go from the start of our legacy will go with us. if we had not taken the time to write down the history of our lives. to record both their failures and accomplishment, joys and sorrows, dreams and disappointments, whether they be big or small. there are people who are going

to want to know about you some day. to quote one of mozart's friends from the stage play, write it down, we'll see. thank you very much. [applause] we are going to have a q&a. paul, is it okay if we do this sitting down or do you need the money click idea back >> well, i noticed her eyes sparkled when you talk about the play. and i wondered what your reaction was in that.

>> yeah, let me come to the short one. how do we not remember this because we hadn't met at the time. i was one of those people who came up intact to him. i did go to the premiere of the play. being a woman, an engineer, it really touched me. i grew up as part of the generation that has experience a lot of gender prejudice. i bought into a meeting and then has to get coffee. that can be tremendously for us trading for us. but watching that play really helped me put everything in it because while we still have a ways to go, we have come so far. i never had to worry about going to school or going to get a technical degree at the university or at least with enough or being accepted by my colleagues. and so i have the luxury to complain about the little things thanks to people like mary

sherman. i've spent a large part of my professional career trying to advise young girls and remind them what is important and to not let the little things get to them so that they can succeed. like mary did, just do their work and do it well and do it right and let it be. >> if you have a theory as to why there are more men than women in stem, a if you have one, what is there? >> i do have a theory. i want to point out in the job they do work in a worse rovers, both of the currently have working right now, opportunity and curiosity, the project is 50% women. so we've come a long way. i think it's largely cultural.

i think that for whatever reason we haven't given girls or boys are really good female technical role model. more and more kids are growing up developing their ideas of who they can be from the media. and so, in example i like to give a solid a wonderful show and very entertaining, nobody watches the big bang theory that wants to grow up to be shelved in. so we need to teach people that we are not shelled and others a lot worse to offer. i don't ever want to hear again and i still hear it all the time that girls can't do math and the boys won't like me offense by her. so we have to not just encouraged the girls, we have to encourage the boys. i do think it's lack of a good cultural image of who technical people are. >> i would like to add some to

that. my mother was the only female engineer at 900 engineers when she first started working there. one out of 900. pastor went, i made an offhand comment. he said he probably had a lot of deep while you are working there, didn't you? she said no. i think she had that same problem, like the guys didn't want to date her because she was so smart or some day. that's my guess, but i don't really know. she would never tell me. >> i'll tell you how many cute guys to change the subject or started talking to my friend and i told them i was a physicist. [laughter] >> yes, two-part question. has your plate and publish so it can be produced elsewhere across the country? and two, has there been any movie interests? >> the play is not published with a professional theatrical

publishing come any extend your friend. i do have a website at music box international, which is a small little royalties come to me. i found it about eight years ago that people can go on to music box.com and click on a few links to get the royalty rates to produce the play. so far it has only been produced twice as 2008. i would really like to get it through samuel french or get a lot more exposure. second question, when the play came out, i received no questions at all about a movie, but the manuscript after he sent the manuscript, we were still two months away from publication

before prometheus started getting calls from film producers interested in knowing if the rates are available. nobody is actually approached us with an offer to make the movie. they just keep calling what about the rates are available and we keep saying yes, still available. so nothing has happened yet, but there isn't he being generated. >> what has been the reaction of your sister -- is your father still alive? >> years. >> what is their reaction to this investigation and what you found out? >> you know, that's a very good question. i have a brother and now three sisters. i've got to get in the habit of seeing three sisters, not two sisters. it's taken me a lot of pain to get used to that. one of my sisters, her name is monica. she's younger than me.

she's the baby of the family. she was very upset when she found out i was writing a play and she became more upset when she found out i was writing a book because she knew that the sherman family would not be very well portrayed in either the player that will, which they are now. the reason they are not well portrayed is because they didn't deserve to be well-prepared. i mean, any father who refuse to send his kids to school is not going to get a fair shake and anything i write. i'll tell you that for sure. this is a man who refused to send my mother to school for three years and only did so a to the state of north dakota for senate brought a sheriff under the press. he. so monica knew what was coming. she knew i would not be per train the sherman family in a good light and she's very friendly with a lot of fishermen side of the family. so she's not even speaking to me right now.

the counterpoint to that as everybody else in the sherman family loves the book. [laughter] family, what can you do? [inaudible] >> she always knew about us. so this knowledge did was a one-way street. growing up, my mother would exchange christmas cards with her, send her letters, kept the dialogue with her for many, many years without ever telling a california kid sister existed. so when i found out about her, i of course mentioned i had the phone conversation with her. i called him a siblings and said we've got to get together with her. we got to meet this person. she lives in detroit. she works for the catholic

church in directory as a secretary for a priest. i said, we have to meet this person. so we decided we would pull all of our resources and buy her ticket and fly her out here. i called her and said we pulled money were going to buy her a plane ticket and send her out here. she said i know, my husband passed away a few years ago i'd heard a lot of money. i could buy my own ticket. so she bought a ticket and she came out for christmas vacation and we did office of the california intellectual stuff because that's what she wanted to do. we took her to the pacific ocean, which she had never seen an unimpressed or more than the getty center in everything else put together. >> was it high time only once? can you elaborate on that? >> high time as a stopgap measure just to get some into

orbit, just to get as yes we are in space now. but at the same time that all this work was going on. other new rocket engines would be in fine with ever more powerful propellants. by the time to explore what went into space, technology has surpassed. it's kind of like my dad once said something which is kind of apropos. he said, hi dad was like the apple ii computer. it was state-of-the-art for four weeks. [laughter] >> or any of your mother sibling in science classics >> no. she was the youngest. she was the second on s. and all the sherman kids have passed away now.

the husband of her sister, aileen, were on the apollo program and helped design the apollo command module. and when that terrible fire occurred at l.a. for three astronauts, his department was in charge of making certain electrical devices for the appellate command actual. they had to redesign one of their parts to make it fire safe. when they rebuilt this part, he personally flew at cape canaveral and was told he had to hand deliver to the person in charge and stand there and watch them install it. his name is tony sofia. tony was very involved in the space program, but none of my other mother is, brothers and sisters were involved in anything remotely take over for tech illogical.

>> are you still working on trying to collaborate accomplishments or have you stopped? >> you mean am i still promoting -- [inaudible] >> tried to collaborate the truth about your mom and her accomplishments. >> well, that's what i've tried to do with the book, to help get information out. i have collaborated in the senate that i am coming to places like this and talking about her doing everything i can to promote the book. it's not exactly a collaboration, but it's more promotion that collaboration. [inaudible] zero cooperate. that's a very good question.

if you read the book, you discover a lot of information on this. every company stonewalled me. there's no companies involved in this because north american aviation, which became branched off in all sorts of corporate entities which followed each other, purchased each other, sort them out. i've got entities like boeing, pratt and which and half a dozen other aerospace companies that all have records somewhere in the bowels of their computer system about what my mother did in the 40s and 50s. every time i called these people, they would have the same answer. call our attorney. he would not give me one piece of information at all, even after she passed away due to give me nothing. the only hope they dallas rocketdyne provided me with two photographs which we published

the book. as far as information, i guess i have to go with the freedom of information act because they won't give me anything. it is still a big secret. [inaudible] >> should we call ourselves that they would need to do it? >> they still have published the obituary. my dad asked me that a few months ago. he said he think "the l.a. times" editor publisher bob's obituary? i said dad, i'm hoping now they don't publish it because it's such a great story to tell. [laughter] [inaudible] >> actually, i would like to point out "the los angeles times" is the only major newspaper that is not yet printed a review of the book.

[inaudible] >> the trilogy -- for those of you, the tuner direct a row at caltech comedian i've been playing for a long time to be trilogy of science themed plays, original plays. "rocket girl" was the first, the one we're working on now we do not have an opening date yet. we are working on a play about stanley pons fleshman, the coldfusion guys. i'm sure many of you in the her that big science debacle. so there's a lot of human drama in the stories. we are working on that now, but i have no idea what that's going to come to this stage. thank you for allowing me to vote. >> is your mother ever continue her education at all?

>> after all of us kids were grown up and moved away, she went back to community college to pearce college in woodland hills and she got an associates degree from pearce college. [inaudible] >> in something that has to do with energy conservation. she became an expert. she had a second career. she became an expert in energy audits for the s. when a business is spending $100 billion on its electrical bill, it would come to her and she would help them reduce the electrical energy bills. she got really good at it and became big in demand for about 10 years. [inaudible] >> no. [laughter] you know, my dad was really a great dad.

he would take us to baseball games and he would angola since ford and take us on field trips to science museums of all sorts of places. my dad was a really great dad, but my mother never wanted to come along. she was kind of a home body. she wanted to stay at home and a coffee and read the newspaper. she really just didn't like getting out of the house. she could have been a core for that because she liked camping. >> are you going to bring your book to some of the girl schools around the area to help promote science education? >> they still have girl schools? >> yes, yes. >> i'd love to. do you have any connections? hook me up.

i am looking for any and every sort of way to promote the book that i can. that is certainly a good idea. >> we have time for one more. >> maybe tomorrow. you can go first. >> so i'm coming from shomron high school, which is where you went to high school. >> go eagles. [applause] >> there's a lot of interest actually women's engineering fair. is there knew he could possibly come back? a lot of people would be interested in the book. >> absolutely. i would love to. i have a warm place in my heart for shomron high school. i don't know how many students are there now, but when i went there was only 300 students there.

>> do we have a bunch of shomron tear? raise your hand. for those who don't know, shomron is a small private high school college preparatory woodland hills -- woodland park. i had to remember because they changed the name. now i have to think about it. okay, one last question. >> last question is for the one of valencia. she could be your pearce is that a of business. so she sent me from long beach. her question is for the toxicity levels at the santa susanna field laboratory a concern to you during your visit or did you fire a hazmat suit? >> they actually have public tourism field laboratory and nobody raised hazmat outfits. from what i understand, there's no chemical hazard teacher there at all. there's some stuff in the news

about how there might be some radiation hazard and one or two per at the college for 800 acres is a big piece of property. they also did subnuclear workfare for a couple of decades. there is some concern about some nuclear contamination there. i'm not clarey and i still feel okay. they didn't have a spare any protect his outfit. i think you were smart enough to keep us away from a dangerous stuff. i wanted to climb but they wouldn't let me. ra. thank you very much. [applause]

>> when the united states invaded russia, the name of the book by carl richart. professor richard, when did it and date? >> guest: the germans were closing in. is it as though the allies are going to lose the war. they were bob harding big bertha was sent to the path. the french got more packing up their papers and so the question was what can we do? the immediate answer was re-create the russian front is the bolsheviks had taken over russia in november 1917. they pulled russia out of the war and said we need to take german troops away from france. that's basically why woodrow wilson decided to spend about 8500 americans to siberia. the idea was they will protect part of the trans-siberian railroad so we can get a to the anti-bolsheviks said they can

overthrow the bolsheviks come the soviet government and re-create the russian front. >> host: whose idea was that? >> guest: well, the allies were pressuring wilson for six to nine months to do this because they were scared it was going to fall. >> host: said they were specifically asking the wilson government to go to russia? >> guest: right. there is a difference in philosophy because they were thinking of some massive invasion of russia and using especially japanese troops because japan was the only ally, official ally that was engaged on the western front. on this japanese troops could go up to transfiguring railway to russia i started new class. he said wait a minute. that's just going to push the russians are going to rise up against that, especially in japan because they fought a war against japan about 14 years

earlier. japanese had one, humiliated the russians. the last thing they wanted some foreign army going in there to throw them into the hands of germany. so his idea was a little bit different and that was he one of these troops to keep a low profile not dick armey and the russians themselves come in the anti-bolsheviks should be the ones to do it, that's a big foreign army. that's why it's only 8500 troops. his idea is they're going to provide some railways so we can send aid. but we don't want a big invasion because i look at the russians over on the german side. >> host: challah or the troops in siberia? >> guest: the interesting thing is even though they went in to get the russians, what happened was, by the way, wilson made this decision on july 6,

1918. american soldiers started arriving in august, said denver, 1918. they had actually collapsed and sign an armistice. it turns out it was not needed at all. since then, the question is why did they come home? they actually stayed another year and a half after the army. this is what today they called mission creep. you start out with one nation and end up with another. the reason they state the year and a half after the armistice is that wilson again to see the bolsheviks. he was focused on the german as it occurs and then collapsed and then he looks around at the postwar world, especially europe and said you've got all these hungry people collapse, you know, the collapse government, collapsed a shame. this is a perfect rating down for bolsheviks. the office of the bolshevik menace became the chief minute

and he said you know, maybe we should bring those troops back home. maybe we should leave them there and still try to overthrow the soviet government as an end to itself rather than a means to re-creating. >> host: first of all, was taken into account that the front with the nation away from siberia? >> guest: well yes. that is one reason why you'd never believe and its allied version of a second firmware they have to go all the way to european russia. he didn't think that was practical. but he said if we send a few thousand soldiers to patrol the eastern part of the transfiguring railway, very unobtrusively, then we can send on to say because the united states, we don't know for sure, but at least $50 million, which in those days was nothing. that was a lot of money for the government back then. in addition to some of the got for the anti-bolsheviks and the

british gave even more. something like 100 million pounds which would be like $200 million. so there's a lot of aid being sent to the anti-bolsheviks and they went through that railway as the only way to get it to them. there was no transportation except for that one railway. so wilson's idea was if we just control part of that and give all this aid to the bolsheviks had what then re-create russia. >> host: professor richart, did those troops -- to that strategy have an effect on the bolsheviks? >> guest: it blew up in our faces as their interventions often do. it reminds me of the philosopher who said we learn from history that we do not learn from his duty because the same thing happens a lot in american intervention. it blew up in our faces. if you think about the foreign armies coming into russia, even

though ours is very well, the japanese who had agreed to send most as well, since 72,000 soldiers. their idea was they couldn't care less about the bolsheviks. they reduce to control the eastern siberia. this is exactly what wilson didn't want because you get the russians would react violently. the store and imperialist coming in our country, supporting anti-bolshevik government of israeli czarist government, that the russian people would react to that and they didn't. they went over to the bolsheviks because they didn't like these foreigners coming in and supporting the czarist regime. if you look at the elections in russia can i find this interesting. anyone can say the russian people believe this or that. but there was an election, which

in 1917, our constituent assemblies, democratic elections, which the bolsheviks cancel, but we do have those returns and what we found was the bolsheviks was less and actually only 110% of the vote in siberia. february was the least bolshevik part of the country because there was no tradition of feudalism there. there is land owners, a lot of small land owners and they were particularly bolsheviks. i'll be darned if we didn't turn them into bolsheviks. >> host: do you think that this venture perpetuated communists on? >> guest: i think it did. we have testimony from other political parties. for instance, the mensheviks under socialist revolutionary for these big left wing of their

party's and they told our ambassadors and i want to get out of here. this is a big mistake coming are killing us. we cannot oppose bolsheviks you heard enough and the opposition of forcing us into their camp. >> host: carl richard, how about was this at the time in 1917? >> guest: at the time of the intervention, people do we have troops there and nobody knew why. wilson did put out a statement which is very confusing statement before the armistice. so he's talking about all kinds of things. alleged german war prisoners running loose in siberia. very improving state then he put out. all these people know we have soldiers, but they don't know

why there were these senators, republican isolationist senators who are making speeches, saying what are we doing there, mr. president? of course they took poetical advantage. there are also they are thinking, you know, we have no reason to be there. that actually forced wilson to come up with some innovative financing because congress did not allocate money. >> host: how did he do a quick >> guest: he had a wartime granted to him. but the war coming to an end he had money in it. also, we have lent a lot of money to the russian government before the bolsheviks took over. the provisional government, a pro-democratic government still have this money, even though they had been overthrown, there is still a russian in c. none of the bolsheviks, but that

previous government in washington and they told the russian embassy, you can go ahead and send that money to the anti-bolsheviks. so he found a lot of clever ways of getting money to the anti-bolsheviks. an interesting day when we first got there, it was a pro-democratic government in siberia. this same month as the armistice with the central powers, germany and austria's so on, the same month, the hatboro overthrew this per democratic government and we still continue to send is actually the whole shack that's been there for a long time. this was a very un- popular irish government and it became more popular because they did things like forcibly draft people into their army that would go into villages and take all the young men and transcend.

if the young men hate, they would torture even some of the women had he been burned down like some team from ivan the terrible. >> host: professor richart, why is this not orwell noted today, this tidbit of history? >> guest: that's a good question. there were only 8500 troops involved. it was a huge intervention. you know, it wasn't some people were very fond of. just like vietnam is not something people are very fond of. we spend hundreds of troops there. this is sent in people would rather forget about, but the soviet didn't forget about it. they used it not only to take over, but in the years after racist propaganda. they learned about watching the cherry tree. they learned about nasty american imperialists who came here to try to impose a czarist

government and especially after world war ii and the cold war period. >> host: when you have an interest in that? >> guest: well, i was fascinated back in the 80s i spent a lot of time doing other things. i first got involved in the aedes when i was a masters student. there was a period that came out called america with a k. about a fictional soviet invasion and that was interesting. i had professors telling me that they never abated fast, but we want to date them. i was interesting because i'd never heard of that, so i started doing research on that and did a master thesis article on it. then i did something totally different than the last two

years or so, late 2000 she became interested in a counter insurgency. her wherever iberia and even though they claimed we were natural, we were guarding this railway for 80 and have massively. that involved trying to assuage the population so that they did not afford bolsheviks. kind of the counterinsurgency. we were not involved in iraq and afghanistan and these interventions that also involved counterinsurgency when you send troops to a country and you are trying to make it democratic, how do you go about doing that? is it even possible? and so i found it very interesting. were not trained to do the same thing. or try to create the democratic

government and their refilled dastardly. did we learn anything? to be addressed are tagged aches or anything like that? i went back and export more in the news sources. >> host: we've been talking with carl richard, professor of history at the university of louisiana lafayette. here's the cover of the book published by roman littlefield, "when the united states invaded russia: woodrow wilson's siberian disaster." you're watching booktv on c-span 2.

.. >> host: and shy away from i