green beret. , force that was essentially fighting early wars in vietnam. he by the end of third term in office, had ordered withdrawal. they were starting to pull american troops out. it strikes me that kennedy was seeing that the american effort to try and create a government that would have the kind of values that america could support, have a bought in vietnam that could perform the kind of military and leadership capabilities to make a new south korea, which was talked about, south vietnam being like south korea, they just didn't have it. kennedy approved the overthrow of president ziem in 1963. the cia helped engineer that and

of course president kennedy himself unfortunately was to be assassinated three weeks later. so therefore you have, you know, i think historically an opportunity that early to maybe prevent the tremendous loss of, not only american life but of vietnamese life that followed the administration of president johnson and then of president nixon. bearing in mind that as many americans died under the administration of president nixon as did under president johnson. so, you know, early on, david had per stamp, my colleague, wrote in the best and the brightest, this was the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time and i didn't necessarily agree with him then but i agree with him now and i doubt that even an extended,

continued american effort could have forestalled an ultimate nationalist victory and a nationalist victory in vietnam would have met supremacy of major force in vietnam and today which is the communist party. best i can do in the allotted time. >> peter, not bad. >> thank you, peter. he so i think we'll wrap it up. i want to thank you y'all for coming this evening. we'll be hanging around for a little while to have a chat if anybody wants to talk informally. >> thank you all. [applause] >> thank you. i need a second coffee.

>> with a few weeks left in 2013, many publications are putting out there year-end list of notable books. these titles were included in "publishers weekly"'s best books of 2013. in salt, sugar fat,. michael moss investigates the world of processed foods. carla kaplan, professor of american literature at northeastern university, profiles white women who participated in the harlem renaissance in, "miss anne in harlem, the white women of the black renaissance." pulitzer prize winning journalist david finkel reports on soldiers from the 216 infantry battalion in, "thank you for your service." the end of union, intimate life of american foster care, chris

beam examines what life is like for children in the foster care system. mary roache explains the science behind the human digest sieve system. "gulp." adventures on the al ministry canal. in, quote dirt wars." jeremy scahill national correspondent for "the nation" magazine reports on america's covert operations. for an extended list and links to 2013 notable book selections. visit booktv's website. booktv.org. >> we're here at the national press club talking with m.j. o'brien, about his new book, "we shall not be moved." tell us how you got into this project. >> i got into this project when i saw this photograph at the martin luther king center in atlanta in 1992 and realized that this photograph was an iconic representation of the sit-in movement and i knew the

woman at the center of that photograph. i had met her through her children 20 years before in arlington, virginia, when i was a playground director and her kids came to the playground. and i knew at that moment when i saw the photograph in the context of all the iconic civil rights paraphernalia at the king center that this is a story that needed to be told and hadn't been really amplified. so i decided at that moment to go home and start interviewing my friend joan mulholland and find out more about it. >> so did you recognize her in the picture when you first saw it or had she already talked to you about this experience of sit-ins? >> i recognized her in the photo because her children would pull the photo out on occasion and say, my mom is in a famous photograph. i really didn't understand how significant that photo was until i saw it in context at the king center. >> and, what had you, what did you learn from her about the civil rights movement that you

hadn't known before? >> well, what's interesting about joan's story is that she's a southern white woman who really risked it all to, you know, her family disowned her. for her involvement in the civil rights movement. i, she taught me so much and her story taught me so much about courage and about perseverance through the most difficult circumstances. and through her i got really interested in the entire story of jackson movement. so i'm able to weave her story into a much broader story including unfortunately the assassination of medgar evers which is also part of this project. >> mrs. mulholland, can you tell me what inspired you to get into the civil rights movement in 1963. >> i had been involved since 1960 but what really brute me to the movement and going to sunday school and singing about jesus loves the little children, red,

yellow, black and white and memorizing the bible verses, do unto others as you could have them do unto you and judge not that you be judged. then in high school we had the declaration of independence. we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. we had to memorize the whole thing. i felt like we were a bunch of hypocrites but as a white southerner i felt when i had a chance to do something to make the south the best it could be i seized moment and came with the student movement in 60. >> how old were you when you were participating in the sit-ins? >> 18. college freshman. >> did you have to join a group to be trained to join the sit-ins or did you just walk in one day and sit down with them? >> well the college presbyterian chaplain told as you group of students from north carolina college in durham who were doing sit-ins and pickets were going

to come to our next meeting and explain what it was all about to us. and they did. and then they invited to us join them. so a few of us did. >> and how many did you participate in? was this, did you, were you involved for a long time? >> oh, yeah. lots of things. arrested twice in durham. joined the howard group with sit-ins in arlington across the river. i wasn't sitting in there but being, i could buy tickets for the ride so i did that and handed them off. we world travel, in south carolina in sympathy with the jail-in there and came to freedom rides and one thing led to the next. jackson sit-ins. >> so how, where are you from originally? are you from jackson? >> i was born in washington,

d.c. my home but after the riots with charlene hunter and hamilton homes in georgia, my family is from georgia. that really touched me the pictures and i felt that integration of the colleges could not just be two by two, these black students undergoing this horrendous thing that if integration was real it had to be a two-way street. so i would apply to some black colleges. people at college accepted me. so the freedom ride were my ticket to mississippi and free room and board for the sum every and there i was. >> and did you incorporate the stories of other freedom riders in the book. >> yes, absolutely. there were nine demonstrators in jackson that day. i was able to interview all of them. and there was one additional freedom rider. unfortunately he had died before i got involved in the project.

i was able to talk to his family and to a number of his, you know, he was part of the core group in new orleans. i was able to talk to his comrades as well. not just demonstrators but the media that were covering the sit-ins. some of the policemen who were there. i was able to get the fbi records. i was able to talk to people pictured in the crowd. i was able to identify them and talk to them as well. it is a comprehensive story of what happened that day and impact of that day. >> what was it like talking to some of the crowd members? what was it like today? >> it was a very unusual situation. i think the fact that i was white helped me to draw out their stories as well. unfortunately some of them are still segregationist. and continued to believe the races should not mix. i think the most