we looked at tried to go on to the new grass, kind of late in the year, and the cost of the elites in immediate estimates we had seemed prohibitive. we had to make some decisions around january of the weather we would be having vicious book festival and we decided to move indoors and se so kind of fun we could have with that. >> tell us. we are here at the washington to consider downtown washington in case you're in the area and want to stop by. but how many authors will be your? how many people do expect? do you expect? >> one hundred authors. we are expecting a decent crowd considering it's labor day weekend. we're in a new location and a new day. so tens of thousands of people as they always do. we have a great deal of new material to offer people because we have three new pavilions. science, picture books and culinary arts. will have live cooking demonstrations they with five different shifts. we're also going to be having

evening activities for the very first time. the hours today are from 10 to 10. there may be people with their shot at this who change their days plans and come on down to the evening stuff. we are going to have a session called great books to great moody's were authors will talk about how their books made into those and what they thought about it. a graphic novel supersession with five very stellar grab novel us tonight. that star trek six but will have a poetry slam at 6:00 and a session with three dialogue about three stellar major literary figures in mexico you're celebrating their centennial this year. >> well, booktv will be live again in right now until 7 p.m. eastern time tonight. we are in the history and biography room. some of authors that you see in there, doris kearns goodwin, and a just a minute or so to

political writers are going to talk about the book that they came out with, hrc, about hillary clinton. this came out earlier in the year. it didn't get the attention that her autobiography did when it came out, but i think you be interested in hearing what these two authors from political and he'll have to say. will be going live to that in just a minute. if you're in the area and want to come down and pick up a booktv bookbag, you can see it is limegreen this year. a lot of people have collected these over the 14 years that we've been covering the national book festival. this years back is lime green so come on down. we are up on the third quarter is for our set is a to our activities on every floor and there's a convention floor as well as? >> that's correct. the whole building is tied up with the national book festival. we have pavilions in the front portion of building and we have yet to be people remember children like let's read america on the stage for. >> come on down, say hi, join us

here for our coverage all day long. we will take you to the history and biography pavilion now which is right over here. amie parnes and jonathan allen are going to be talking about their book "hrc," some of the upcoming events after this author presentation including interview with cokie roberts, kai bird, and the granddaughter of nikita khrushchev will be talking about her book. our name is nina tricshelle the ashes the lost khrushchev. that's the name of her book. this is live coverage on booktv on c-span2. now if you don't feel like watching history and biography today, you can turn to c-span. we are covering the science pavilion all day long on c-span as well. so you have two channels from the national book festival this year. thanks for joining us.

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♪ ♪ ♪ >> good morning. good morning. it's great to see you all this morning. we are very, very excited to be here at the national book festival. my name is mike riser and i had

opportunity to the indication for wells fargo and a very proud to say that this is her fourth consecutive year for sponsoring this wonderful event. [applause] >> thank you. literacy and education are very important to wells fargo. in fact, in 1997, we found -- without an initiative called reading first, and in that employers at our company going to classrooms, they take a book, they recent -- they we did to the class and the leader behind to help supply the school library. ..

it is the very diverse group of books, we are quite proud of that program. the other thing that is very important to was as one of the largest banks in the world is financial literacy. we know it is very important for people in our community to be able to navigate the world and they need basic understanding of budgeting and checking and how to get ahead and is important for them and important to our economy and one of the main tools we have for that is something called hands on banking, a free online service, it is not finish anyone can use it and we have it tailored to children, folks in the military, small-business people, and they can go in and learn the jargon and learn the basics so that they can financially be successful in the world. all of these things are only

successful because of the 265,000 team members we have across the country who give of their time and talent to many nonprofits. last year wells fargo employees gave over 1.5 million hours of volunteer time to nonprofits. i am proud to say as a company we donated $275 million to 20,000 non-profits including the national book festival. we are connected in our communities by this giving. it helps us to empower and connect with our communities. we are proud to be here today, we are extremely excited about today and particularly this session so to get us going on want to turn it over to marty barrett, executive editor at the washington post. marty? >> good morning, everyone.

first thing i need to do, i was instructed to make an announcement, that is that we want to make sure you have your cellphones office, so that we don't have any unusual disruptions for this program. we appreciate that. c-span is filming this as well by the way. i am proud to say the post has been a charter sponsor of the national book festival since its inception in 2001. we are enormously proud of our support for this, we are proud to be associated with the library of congress which is keeper of what it likely calls the world's most comprehensive record of human creativity and knowledge. the library of congress is more than a collector of treasured works. with this festival it seeks to nurture and celebrate remarkable achievements of our time and in

this pavilion today the history and biography. there can be no better way to launch this program than by introducing the authors of it, an examination of a central political figure of our time, hillary clinton. she could be our next president. or a clinton campaign could flock. it did happen once before. is out of the ashes of that previous campaign that two skilled political reporters, jonathan allen and amy bonds picked up hillary clinton's story. these are the storytellers you want, experienced, sourced, astute. jonathan is former white house bureau chief for politico and currently washington bureau chief for bloomberg news and amy is white house correspondent for the hill. their book, "hrc: state secrets and the rebirth of hillary clinton," is the story of her phoenix like rebirth out of the ashes of her stunning defeat in

the 2008 democratic primary some members of ambition still burned. who would have guessed? as you might have surmised with the clintons there were some scores to settle too. her younger rival had a job to offer her and it is possible her performance in that job as secretary of state will make or break a campaign. washington post review of "hrc: state secrets and the rebirth of hillary clinton" called it deeply reported and ably written. for free layers of intrigue develop when a celebrity politician who is married to another celebrity politician loses to another celebrity politician and goes on to serve the politician who defeated her. and jonathan and amie parnes gained extraordinary access to this typically guarded hillary clinton. it give an in-depth interview with her and 200 hours.

and confidents, critics and enemies. there is a pleasure to see the floor to jonathan and amie parnes and let them tell you what i learned about a woman who has been at the center of american political life for while more than two decades. thank you. [applause] >> thank you all for coming. >> thank you to wells fargo and to marty for the kind introduction. as son of a former professor, i would like to thank you. could you wave? hillary clinton became boring and uninteresting to news people

over the last 20 years. i am kidding about that. every time i look at my iphone there's a new story about hillary clinton often avoid of news and i think we have to get used to that. i suggest humbly if you read the book, you can stop paying attention to news reports about her for a year-and-a-half. these pick up when you get into the primary. the general election season. >> i think the biggest thing we both came in to this with certain goals. my personal goal was i wanted to find out how this woman who was succeeded by this guy who came out of nowhere, how she came back and how she was able to go work for him. even as i was covering this champagne i thought how could

you do this? how could you lose this primary and go on and be a team player. inspiring as a human being and i wanted to know more about that story line. >> the motivating factor for us was we looked at the time period hillary clinton was at the state department where she was covered by diplomatic reporters, not really political reporters and this is a very political person for a very political family with a real interest in potentially running for president. i wanted to put it in the context of what if she is running for president in 2016. when we decided to do this in summer of 2012 a lot of people thought she would do that, not as many people as currently do, we thought was important to tell that story. the decisions that she made, the

people who are around her, all these things for particularly those of us who live in washington, and why those elements are important, the people around you are important for the way you make decisions -- we thought that was an important tale to tell. and i will let amie parnes talk about low fun part which is the campaign politics we are trying to get at. >> as john said, she is a very political figure even when she tries to remain out of politics so we looked at this as this is a woman who could run for president. the theory became more and more true to us as we report the book. we interviewed 200 people for this book, some people were

fierce and amused, some -- we tried to tell and accurate picture of where she was at this point in time. >> i would add to that a couple things. one is the way we approach this once we had done a lot of the interviews was this is somebody who has been running for president for a very long time and the question is whether she runs for president in 2016, whether she stops running for president in 2016, we don't see a period in the last six years where she was not laying the groundwork for presidential campaign, up 16,000 thank you and notes in the 2008 election, and these are what -- you probably heard of this anecdote, but to end including her husband going out on a primary campaign

trail, attorney general races and helping people who endorsed hillary clinton in 2008 in democratic primaries against people who helped barack obama in 2008. she was still punishing barack obama's friends for opposing her through bill clinton. that is one of the strains that goes through this book, how the two of them work together, expanding the political network, to build the family's operation all the way if through the 2008 election, the 2010 election, the 2012 election, and so that is the fun stuff. that is fundamental foreign policy as well. and we need to read one of our favorite excerpts from the book especially one that is good here in d.c. about a time there was a

clash between the obama and clinton camps, one of the hottest and heaviest in the eerily days of 2009 so you get a little -- these guys are not going on vacation at martha's vineyard, they're living in separate houses, the obamas and the clintons but at the same time the shotgun wedding of the political forces in the united states, ended of being profitable for both of them and we will see if that continues going forward but up to this point they held that together. for the most part. >> this is an excerpt from part 2 and it is chapter 5 and it is called bloom where you are planted and we love this particular quote, it is one of

hillary clinton's favorite quotes. it is basically you have to succeed where you are, no matter if you are unhappy or happy, she believes this is a philosophy she really believes in. bloom where you are planted. in the spring of 2009 obama's team gathered as it often did in white house counsel greg craig, would corner office on the second floor of the west wing. in lunchtime session's low small set of senior aides typically shuffled through paperwork, as many as 15 job candidates. on this day one name conjured such searing memories from the campaign trail that its that out from the others to push on marshall. the west wing group considered marshallese staunch hillary loyalists, to be an enemy combatants. like many of the women who surround hillary marshall is grateful, disciplined and a

brunette with a short hair cut and highlights, have croatian and have mexican marshall who favors rigorous workouts when swayback with the clintons. marshall had been one of hillary's closest confidants in washington since becoming the youngest white house secretary in memory following bill's 1992 campaign. when hillary was in june 2008, she entrusted marshall with running her political action committee at a time when some democrats fear hillary might make a final play for the nomination at the convention. back then the animosity between the two camps had run so deep that hillary was a bulletin board material in the obama scheduling office. they had these unflattering pictures of her said one source who saw the display kind of like a locker room mind set. even after the primary, marshall

had been inside of the project, counting elegance from the texas primary convention to make sure hillary won her fair share. no single marshall stood out in the minds of obama's aids so much as a general view that she embodied that heated hillary. the president's team had acquiesced when hillary shows cheryl miller as a chief of staff and with even greater hesitancy, his senior adviser, as there were members of hillary's personal past and that is entirely within her domain. every picked marshall to be the nation's chief protocol officer. deposition that carried with it the coveted seat of an ambassador's ring and a reserved seat on air force one any time the president traveled abroad. not only would hillary have a lot of base time with obama but she would be taking up high-profile spots on the

administration, a friend of the president. there was another red flag on her nomination, generally betting issues, and those charges and occasionally embarrassing associations. one nominee had been photographed with lisa and, the porn film actress who played the title in a hustler produced video called noon is nailing pailin. marshall's problem was less lascivious the troubling all the same. she had filed a tax return in 2005 or 2006. she rectified the admission in the fall of 2008 around the time it became clear hillary might take a job in the administration. as it turned back marshall was entitled to refundss from those years but still tax issues had the sense of obama nominees including treasury secretary timothy geithner air and tom daschle and the white house had opportunity for another tax

story. >> having an attorney from the justice department read a three page memo on march aloud, white house deputy chief of staff jim messina and deputy communications director dan pfeiffer were visually advocated -- agitated in their chairs as another obama campaign veterans around the room. by all rights this jobless aplomb that should be going to and obama loyalists, not to marshall and not a fit man defending yet another nominee against questions of improper tax filings. it was going to be a press problem at the time when we had been through a lot of confirmation issues with tom daschle and timothy geithner. i will pause for a moment. if you have small children you might cut their ears. this is a parental advisory. i will back up the second. a lot of confirmation issues with tom daschle in timothy geithner. they reacted viscerally, fuck no

she was a complete bit during the campaign and worse. marshall at experience with white house level social planning and her closeness to the hillary clinton made a natural. obama's aides didn't see it that way. no one in a room spoke up to defend her, not legislative affairs specialist sean kennedy had to get marshall confirmed for the senate if she was nominated, not personnel director nick see hogan, not greg craig who along with senator richard blumenthal had been a study of bill clinton and hillary rodham when bill cook up his mother's fried chicken to serve guests in the vietnam war. and alignment with obama had been a major be trail during the campaign. it was less than they were against marshall than they wanted one of their infested people in the profile role. we should have our person said one senior white house aide familiar with discussions on

marshall, it would have been the equivalent of the roles being reversed if hillary was president and as cutting a deal, and when you think of it that way, one of us traveling with them. the process worked in such a way that by the time a job candidate reached the team he or she was on was the only immediate consideration. if obama rejected her another candidate would be lined up in the same way, a process that could take weeks or months. hopefully obama and clinton could take a primary behind them. and the only personal effect was robert kennedy poster on the wall. the two sides didn't understand each other. they didn't trust each other, the president's aides didn't have another candidate in mind to cast their votes.

they are certain they did not want marshall. the thumb pointing down. a strawberry blonde in montana takes the edge off of his often profane vocabulary delivered bad news to the team. they are clearly and h r c pick and needs to be raised with the president. typically skirmishs hr lower-level aides were resolved with cheryl mills, hillary clinton's chief of staff for obama's aides backed down rather than kicking the command jane. obama's team tried to draw a line in the scene, one of the rare occasions a personal fight ended up in obama's store. this is a, quote, test case and, quote, watershed moment in a brittle monthlong fight between the white house and state over hillary's power to pick her team. marshall had a secret weapon in valerie jarrett, who had worked

as a special assistant for president in the clinton white house, lobbied jarrett on marshall's the have describing his strengths and skills and encouraging her -- >> to bat for marshall too. the white house didn't fully appreciate the role she was protocol officer and what went into it. it wasn't a glorified advanced after or donor with little experience in washington. there is nobody better to do this job, hillary told obama. she has the experience from the social office, a great touch and helping organize people, she will be fabulous. hillary have also gone rounds with the president, saying i am telling you this is the best person, she had said. you will know i am right after you have worked with her for a month and have a renews she held the trump card. the president told me i could kick the people in the state department and this is my pick, she said. so let's move forward. there is a lot going on there, we think, in terms of that

battle between obama and clinton. and from the outside people wouldn't -- protocol officer most people couldn't figure out who that is but these people worked together very closely and if you have a pretty tightly held staff you don't want -- sorry about that. i didn't listen to the admonition earlier. i think that might be rudy guiliani. i don't know why that is having trouble. i am turning it completely off. >> but i think -- i think -- is this part was interesting to report because of all the tension. you have obama's side fighting clinton's sides of what we tried to do as two reporters, political reporters, we talk to as many people as possible. you would think we talked to one side to get their take but in

reality we talked to white house aides, a lot of clinton people and they all agree that this is what happened and they all had their own thing. this is why we would want our person but they all agreed this was a very tense moment for both sides. >> one of the things, we will read another short bit in a minute but one of the things you find in this story is this intense loyalty hillary clinton feels toward people in her inner circle. that is for better and worse. we all think of loyalty as a positive. you want to be loyal to your friends, loyal to the people who are good to you but sometimes it can be a real crimp, or a real inhibitor to good decisionmaking that brings a lot of people in and we work on both sides of

that to show the loyalties seem, probably the trade the clintons value more in other people and themselves than anything else and to a fault, sometimes. we think this is one of the stories, and a lot of them that at that in the book, something to think about going forward in terms of presidential campaign in 2016, her 2008 campaign staff was very insular. they made a lot of bad decisions. right now you are seeing the same people around her, some faces exchanged for others. they made a lot of the same mistake she made in 2016. in 2008. there are a lot of refreshed thinking. she is aware of that up here but not internally internalized it. we will see. i want to read one more small

piece. kind of short. we will take some questions, we like interactions. we like listening to people talk, not the other way around. and the reason, there is the tension point between two interesting characters. the first term kentucky republican from the russell senate office killing sweet to the hearing, rachel beauvoir, legislative aide for 4 relations matters at his side. it would be the libertarian leanings tea party favorites in the senate floor and relations committee, met with his staff the day before to go over the benghazi time line. as paul made his way to the hard building, he briefed them on

hillary's prepared testimony which was sent over the night before. the rest of the ten minute walk and behind the hearing room, the grass of the timeline, the cables and security between tripoli and washington before the attack, why hillary would have been apprised of those interactions given what wouldn't have -- why hillary wouldn't have been given the high profile level and state department officials have been placed on leave or move to other jobs rather than being fired, and paul laid out his understanding of the essential elements, give him a chance to collect if necessary. if you plan to go hard, he didn't share his strategy or the specifics of his questions ahead of time. paul was one of two republicans on the committee widely considered to be interested in running for president in 2016. the other, marco rubio, 40-year-old cuban-american from florida had been falling benghazi for months as a member

of the intelligence and foreign relations committees. the mic paul, marco rubio leaned heavily on his national security edge to generate questions for the hearing. he had been president for both public and clothes classified hearings in benghazi and was determined to use his time to ask questions he had been asking of the state department's. he was eager to plug gaps in what he had gotten in the state department and to get to the bottom of answers he didn't think made sense. hillary's and preparation for the hearing included reading transcripts of summaries for 37 capitol hill briefings over the florida months since the attack. both sessions in which she participated and those in which other administration officials appeared without her. she suspected she would be asked questions for what other departments and agencies had done. even if they had nothing to do with a role of secretary of state. she met behind closed doors with top aides in the days before the hearing to go over questions that make up for various

senators. distaff expected they would take shots at her. they went over the talking points used on sunday shows and it becomes a focal point for republican critics of the administration. because the fbi interviewed survivors of the attack, republicans were convinced the white house should have known definitively that there had been no protests outside the gates of the consulate before the attack. the state department's response waited to talk to survivors because they didn't want to create the appearance of interfering with the fbi's invested over tory interviews and the fbi hadn't disseminated information about other agencies until after sunday's show appearances. hillary expressed frustration when republicans focus on a talking points and the question of whether the administration started calling it a terrorist attack. she called terrorism in the senate briefings after benghazi

determining motivation of the attackers was secondary in her mind to finding them and bring them to justice. i don't understand she told her aides. why don't they get it? everyone who was briefed or testified has wanted to stand up and scream what the hell difference does it make? unwittingly planting the seed. wait in 2012, james clapper, the director of intelligence had become so i read with questions along that line from the house intelligence committee that when one lawmaker asked what he got from benghazi lost his temper. it will be a cold day in hell before we get talking points to you again. one republican getting worked up over attacking points was ron johnson, first term wisconsin's senator who would be interrogating hillary in his first hearing in the committee. johnson came from a business background from a world of politics and public policy, requiring them to get up to speed on most of the issues.

rather than coming with preprinted notes on what to ask. no one save ron johnson was prepared for him to create the most memorable highlight of the hearing and after that we write about what is going on at the hearing. some of you may have seen something on video. i imagine we will see that again. what difference does it make online. we have questions. yes, you. >> in the black shirt. >> a microphone here. we planted her in the audience. >> i apologize if you addressed this earlier. i got in late. i wonder if the administration

vigorous prosecution got more difficult to get sources to speak to you, or is the machine that is more difficulty in getting -- >> why don't i answer the first part and you answer the second part? the question is about whether the administration, and the second is whether it was harder because the clinton people don't want anyone talking to. on the first part we don't know entirely what people held back because of fear of retribution, and most of it isn't classified material. there were some things, i don't know what we should admit to. i did not encounter anyone say and i'm worried the administration will come in and prosecute me for talking, and when it is played down, the

office it's perfect happens, people get tired of information not getting out. if ed snowden brings out this whole trove of information that he is still mining, the blessed a mining in a really irresponsible way and one wonders if he had an opportunity to make the case better for releasing it in a normal way whether that would be better for national security or whether the information would have gotten out or the administration would have talked a little more about it, there are a lot of people who think they should but for the question about the book we did not find that. i don't have anything to report on it. >> the second answer is a little touchier because the clinton people i think -- most reporters would say they are pretty --

they are tough people to deal with and have a reputation around town. they like knowing temples guiding this woman who is a value and i think the clintons both values that in their staff so we danced a very delicate dance to see this. we have to deal with them, we came to them with this idea, we would like your cooperation and this is what we want to do and slowly over time they sort of started seeing where we were going and helping us more and really valuable in telling the story. i don't think we could have told the story without them. >> you have to look at it in separate tracks, the clinton people said this is what we want to do and people we want to talk

to and every once in awhile we send e-mails to people who have not set us up with and we have a few more people set up on the calendar so there would be a response we directly contacted before. we talked to a fair number of people, a lot was valuable information. the book came from people who did not feel the same loyalty as political aides that had been there forever and win political aides tell you a story they think is beneficial to them that turns out it is not and sometimes when they try to hide things because they're worried they are going to hurt the person they're protecting it turns out those stories are pretty helpful. one of our approaches was the interior clinton strategy of working hard to set up interviews and the exterior we talked to who has that access but also doesn't necessarily care for and even some people who talk to us in the second category, part of the inner

circle, under what requirements versus those to talk to us. their names will remain quiet. >> thank you very much. sensitive very interesting read. three quick things. the big criticism with hillary is she comes across as so calculating. in fact we all know six years ago when she went away in new hampshire and this biggest success. i am wondering if she realized or been able to internalized and tried to act more naturally and what really happened in the meeting between obama and clinton and his rahm emanuel play any role since he traveled the world, was he able to play a role in bringing clinton and obama together? >> to answer your first question that is a problem for her.

she is a little too cautious and guarded, and we have always been aware of that and the state department at the state department she started letting her care down a little more and we saw her drinking beer and dancing in south africana and they were very supportive of the tax from hillary enough that they invited these two creators into the state department to meet her so they are very aware of letting the public sees this personal side of her. they are very cautious of letting that side show a little more especially in 2008 where you had people devising her to not play the woman candidate role so i think we're going to see a different sort of hillary clinton 2016 should she run. i think it would expose her a

little more. they want her to do the daily show. when she did the daily show recently, one of her best interviews where she was sort of a little more candid. they wanted to come out of little more. >> as far as rahm emanuel goes i think rahm emanuel is helpful in bringing the two sides together, rahm emanuel eventually ran out of rope that the white house itself. he was somebody who was a go-between getting hillary clinton to exit the job as secretary of state and somebody to try to bring clinton people into the obama administration and keep others out and figure out which ones should be in what jobs, we have a thing here about how jack lew was going to be deputy treasury secretary until rahm emanuel decided it wasn't the idea to bring somebody in from citigroup in the middle of a financial crisis to be that the treasury secretary which is how he was at the state department so that is true of

rahm emanuel and i pose an open question, is it better to be calculated or have no strategy. you get criticized for either of those things. with president obama obviously you intend that to come out differently than it did. i think that is one of those double edged trades and a fun thing about a book like this from a riding perspective and this is true, journalists who do any sort of long-term journalism is the same traits are good and bad. she is a calculator and not as natural and she works hard but not necessarily the most creative person in the room but picking up other people's ideas, all these things are true and people like her and don't like her and see the same things and like -- half of like the trade and half of them don't like it.

it is a fun revelation for us. when you are writing about people, just trying to get to what the truth is and the truth can be seen from different perspectives. >> i came into this thinking she was the character you portrayed, this very stiff woman but everyone had a funny story about her and i didn't believe it at first, she is not really funny, is she? slowly descended hearing these hilarious stories, one of them is actually the story we looked to tell, at a party, got photographs, cutting a cardboard cutout of her with the beer in one hand and cupping her breast in the other hand and freaked out because this comes out right as the president-elect obama is coming into office and is scared he is going to lose his job and

suddenly is trying to work out a way to apologize to her and checked his voice mail and has a message from her, and she says i haven't seen the photo but my hair looks great. the kind of hillary clinton the public doesn't see very often that they need to show a little more. >> let that be a lesson to you young people out there about facebook and social media and also as i read more stories, let that be a lesson to you, older folks using social media and what pictures you put out there. >> everytime i see hillary she seems intelligent, articulate, sense of humor, really confident but she keeps being described as the wicked witch of the west.

is she the wicked witch of the west or is a bad case of sexism? >> i always thought there was a little bit of sex is an involved and i think john is tired of me as a woman talking about that but i got offended personally, there is a cover photo of her on people magazine. she was holding a one share and it was a walker. that would never happen. i think there is a little bit of sex is a mixed in and i have been vocal about that. we need to judge these candidates for who they are and not based on their sex. >> or lack thereof.

as far as the question of sexism goes i think there is a lot of stuff played against her that has a sexist tone to it. to some extent it worked fine but we are seeing a real revolution in the way we treat tolerance and intolerance as a public in general, as a voting public. even what is going on with kingston july brand who basically said fellow senators fat shamed her. don't get porky. a point out there wait, even if that wasn't the case, you see the backlash, who thinks it is okay to do that? what we have seen, a

>> in gay marriage and tolerance of gays and lesbians and people of the other orientations and identifications in our culture and a function of that, it is worse to be the haters and the hated these days. those who take a sexists approach had better calibrate it to such a point that it can't be seen as that or talked about on television or they will find themselves with a pretty big backlash that that is part of the narrative. >> one last question. >> in what you learned about hillary clinton at what point do you think principle would trump ambition and at what point did principle from the ambition in her service as secretary of state? >> in 2008 is arguable and easily arguable that she lost the democratic primary nomination because she voted for the war in iraq, she declined to apologize for that vote for many years and i think what you saw

when she was secretary of state in barack obama's administration she continued along the same lines of what would be considered a hawk in the democratic party or a pragmatist in the republican party. somebody who wanted more troops than the president puts into iraq, put together the coalition in libya, someone who wanted to on the moderates in syria, someone who went to the president and cast her vote for the osama bin laden raid and put in that direction as fast as possible at the behest of leon panetta who understood the president's acted quickly on things. i think if she were looking at ambition over principal. and pull back from those hawkish views and that view of the world and that as a result of that, i don't know what was in her heart

and any moment but this is the physician she held, and was pretty formal. the basket of foreign policy options, something every democrat is comfortable. vice president joe biden or john kerry, they will seek to make the distinction. >> thank you. [applause] ♪

♪ ♪ >> you have been watching jonathan allen and amie parnes talking about their book that came out earlier this year "hrc: state secrets and the rebirth of hillary clinton". if you would like to have a reaction to that book we are live at the national book festival. you can call the number and your screen, 585-389 zero in the east

and central time zones, 585-3891 in the mountain or pacific time zones, coming a few minutes, kai bird in the history and biography room talking about his book "the good spy: the life and death of robert ames". after that, the granddaughter of nikita khrushchev, a journey to the new life of the russian mind. she will also be speaking. we have a couple of calling opportunities throughout the day. michio kaku will talk about his recent book and psychiatrist and psychologist who is now speaking, about to begin speaking in the science room at the national book festival and if you are interested you can turn over to the c-span. we are covering the science room all day long live on c-span beginning her speech in just a

few minutes. we are set up on the third floor of the washington convention center's this year, the national book festival has been for many years. we are set up outside the history and biography pavilion interviewing sandra day o'connor about her most recent book, the fifth book she has been called out of florida. it is all the little bit of the insider's look at the supreme court. in just a few minutes we will be back live after this break. >> on this labor day weekend booktv brings you three days of nonfiction authors and books on c-span2. we are live from the fourteenth annual national full--book festival. check on line for complete television schedule. >> here's a look at the best-selling nonfiction books according to the chicago tribune

that the top of the list is america which questions the future stability of the united states. retired neurosurgeon ben carson is second with his take on several issues base in the country and one nation. by the way you can go to our web site booktv.org to watch dr. carson discuss his book with nbc news's chuck todd on after words. up next hannah heart with my drunk kitchen. the first family detail by ronald kessler comes in fourth. it looks at the lives of u.s. presidents for information provided by their secret service agents. hampton sides wraps up the list within the kingdom of ice, a recount of the 1879 u.s. naval expedition to the north pole. you can watch his discussion on his book from his recent talk at politics and prose bookstore in washington d.c. this weekend. that is a list of nonfiction bestsellers according to the chicago tribune. >> booktv asks what i you reading this summer? >> before i answer your question

i would like to give you background that for the last ten years i have concentrated most of my reading on the early constitutional history of our country and early presidents of our country and i suppose i studies that stuff 50 years ago or more but it is dud to go back to it. thomas jefferson, john adams, john quincy adams so let me tell you my main interest this summer will be a book with a long title. the great debate:edmund burke, thomas paine, and the birth of the right and left. the reason i am very interested in that is i have quoted edmund burke so much during my political career, never really studied his background and this gives me an opportunity, i read a short synopsis of this book,

gives me an opportunity to find out what a conservative that things you ought to have an incremental change versus the other rider that thinks you ought to do it by revolution and make change fairly quickly so it is a difference between what i would call edmund burke conservative, i would even call thomas paine a conservative. people might disagree with my analysis of thomas paine but they seem to be people, how they want to change, more than exactly that they disagree on what ought to be done. since i quoted these people so much during my political career, i want to study them in depth and i have never done that. >> what are you reading this summer? tell us what is on your summer reading list, tweet us at booktv, post it to our face book

page or send us an e-mail, booktv@c-span.org. >> some books being published this week, gail sheehy in daring:my passes. eisenhower:a life, paul johnson examines the 34th president's child in kansas and eight years in the oval office. former marine corps sergeant recount his unit's offensives against the taliban into thousand 9 in level zero heroes, story of u.s. marine special operations in afghanistan. karen middleton recounts the exploits of four win on the front lines of the civil war. british iranian foreign affairs journalists looks at the capitol city of iran in city of life, love, sex, death and the search for truth in teheran. christian o'keefe remembers the life of 1970 medical innovator

and reconstructive plastic surgeon thomas voter in dr. motor's marvel. look for these in bookstores this weekend watch for the authors in the near future on booktv and on booktv.org. >> that is flood dome of the capital, taken from the washington convention center which is in downtown washington. it is this year's site at the national book festival. the national book festival, begun in 2001 by first lady laura bush and continues many years. between the washington monument and the capital, this year we are inside at the convention center, having issues with the national park service and the library of congress and reseeding grass etc. etc.. is that a full day of coverage on booktv from the national book festival coming up in a minute. well-known author talking about

his book, the life and death -- "the good spy: the life and death of robert ames" and then the granddaughter of nikita khrushchev will be talking about her book. and a couple caller is coming. michio kaku will be talking to us followed by sally who will talk about what those two authors, advances and limitations in neuroscience. richard mole will talk about fdr, we will talk with sandra day o'connor and the daughter of malcolm x throughout the day and finally doris kerns goodwin. in the history and biography room at the end of the day, she will be talking about the bully pulpit, no ordinary times, and we will be doing a call in with historian doris kerns goodwin right here on booktv so you will have a chance to talk with her as well. that is an update on our general schedule. if you want the first scheduled go to booktv.org.

you will see the national book festival listed there and you will be able to look at the full schedule of the day so you can get exact times and we will be sending updates throughout the day, twitter.com/booktv and facebook.com/booktv, follow-up to like a son those platforms, you get scheduled updates and behind-the-scenes photos as well throughout the day so that is just a quick look at what we have coming up and if you happen to be on the area grab a booktv bag. i don't have one in my hand. if someone could hand me one, you can come down and grab a booktv bag and i am bringing one of her. thank you. there it is. you can't miss it. right now we are going to go into the history and biography 10, jonathan yardley is

representing kai bird. >> don't know how many boy scout we have in the room that you all deserve badges for finding a way to this room in this dreadful building. has anybody missed the mall as much as i did? kai bird is a friend of mine. we live the mile from each other for each of the past three years in lima, peru. we have a good view of the pacific ocean, kai bird had a better one. it has been our remarkable good fortune this year to have two exceptionally good books published about spies. ben mcintyre's a spy among friends is the story of kim philby, the british citizen who betrayed not merely his country but the entire western alliance to the soviet union. kim philby was a bad spy. the good spy was robert ames

which is the kind of extraordinary book that tells the story of -- what was made familiar to a number of leaders by washington post colleague david ignatius and agents of innocence. kai bird has found out so much more about the extraordinary story of robert ames than david himself was ever able to learn. i leave you in the very capable hands of kai bird. [applause] >> thank you. it is great to be here and to see john. tomorrow he promises to make me a good peruvian piece goes sour. and yes. my new book is called "the good

spy: the life and death of robert ames". he is not to be confused with aldrich ames who was combat spy. he is a completely unknown character. he joined the cia in 1960 and was a clandestine officer, a man who recruited agents. he was of very good therapist. he had hopes in beirut, hayden, tehran, kuwait. unlike many cia officers and stereotypes when the agency was created in 1948 it was largely populated by blue bloods from yale and harvard and members of

skull and bones, secret societies at yale but robert ames came from a simple working-class background, her father was a steelworker in philadelphia and he was a basketball star, stall, 6 foot 3, handsome guy, he had none of that sort of sophisticated aristocratic background. he was very much a jimmy stewart kind of all american character and i know this because he was my next-door neighbor when i was 11, 12, 13 years old in saudi arabia. where my father was a foreign service officer and ames was posted as the surf posting a broad as a clandestine cia officer. at the age of 13 i had no idea he was a spy. my father who should be here in the room some place, now 89 and

at one point he confessed to me that bob is a cia officer. and to he had an extraordinary career. inside the cia he is a legend. ..

who i see us sitting here in the audience who had 19 broken bones and numerous surgeries. it was a terrible event. usually a talk more about the whole blog and so give you a synopsis of it, but today i'd like to sort describe what it's like to try to write a spy book. initially i was not intending, i didn't think i could write a real biography of a clandestine cia officer. it was going to talk to me? where were the sources? everything seemed to be classified.

so initially i stumbled upon this idea, well, i'll do a book about the embassy bombing which is largely forgot. people sort of remember the beirut marine barracks attack or a truck bomb killed 241 marines, but that took place in october 1983, and embassy a bombing occurred six but before that in april. it's been largely forgotten -- six months before that in april. i started out with this book on a whim. i googled robert ames name, and up came a court case referencing a 2003 civil suit filed by and tomorrow and the fun ends, the widow of robert ames in federal district court here in d.c. and on my computer screen

sitting in lima, peru, where i was living at the time, came this court record, very detailed testimony by her and her six children. very moving documentation of what happened that widow in -- that day in beirut, how all these people lost their lives. and i thought well, this is very vivid material. if i can't do a blogge poverty t robert ames, i can sort of do a history of the bombing and focus on him as one of the chief characters. so the first thing i did after deciding to engage on this book was to fly up here to langley virginia to the cia headquarte headquarters. and explained what i wanted to do. write a biography of one of their great heroes. i walked into the lobby their where there's a wall of stars, one of whom represented robert

ames. each star represents a fallen cia officer. and they checked me through security. i had to surrender my cell phone. and then i went up to see george little, then the public affairs officer for the cia. and i explained to them, you know, i was a biographer. he sort of knew i was, but i wanted to do this biography but really history of the embassy bombing. and all i asked for was a chance anto me sit down with an in houe historian and go over, check my facts and chronology and get the right job titles that things had during his career and things like that. and george said oh, this sounds like a plausible thing. maybe we can arrange to do this. and then on my way out i said, you know, to try to emphasize

how much research i was already involved in, ma i reached into my backpack and pulled out a knife had. said here, let me show you pictures i found already. and george kind of glanced. apparently i have broken cia security by bringing in an ipad. but he nevertheless allowed me to show him a few of the pictures that i had already found of bob ames it and, indeed, by that time i had found the widow and i've flown down to a small town in north carolina where she lives in very simple circumstances, in an old farmhouse to i spent a day and half with her interviewing her, seeing her family albums. she gave me some of these photographs and we had a great interview. she remembered me from when i was 13 but we hadn't seen each other since then our days in

arabia. and in the course of the interview she mentioned at one point that she thought maybe there were some letters that bob had written to her over the years. she didn't know where they were anymore, but maybe in a suit case someplace in the attic where her daughter lived nearby. and i said womack, you know, that might be something worth looking for. you know, this is a biographer's best dream and worst nightmare, that there are letters out there that would allow you to write in an authentic way about your subject. and the nightmare is that you never find them. so i spent six months thereafter sort of gently sending e-mails to her encouraging her to find those letters. and eventually after six months

she did indeed find them in an attic, and a proverbial trunk. and never 150 pages of handwritten letters that bob had sent to murdering his various postings abroad when he was sort on short-term duty and she was still living in virginia. and the letters were sometimes mundane, family letters, reading queries about their six children. but he also wrote about his work. and he did so in a really personal way describing his daily routine. sometimes how much, you know, he complained about how much she had to write. so you sort of learn that an intelligence officer, every time he has a meeting he has to record what was said by everyone in great detail. this takes a lot of time.

aims described some of his meetings with agents in beirut. he described his dinners every other night when he was in beirut. you know, he was, the old saying in intelligence is if you slept with the devil you should use a very long spoon. well, ames is the kind of empathetic character who know how to listen, you have to make people feel comfortable and he slept with the devil with a very short spoon. he very got close. he had dinner with them. he got to know his wife and his kids and when ames learned in the 1976 that hassan salameh was thinking of taking on as a muslim a second wife, he was squiring around beirut nightclubs a beautiful young woman who just happened to be

ms. universe of 1971, a gorgeous woman, lebanese maronite, and yet fall in love with her. and bob ames disapproved and then one of his literacy writes, i don't understand what he sees in that woman. [laughter] anyway, it was great material in these letters and it made me, i knew then that i could actually write a biography. and i then proceeded to try to find, you know, i had asked for cooperation from the cia and i hadn't heard from them. they never set up a meeting with one of their in house historians at -- as i had requested. i wrote personal e-mails to the director, and i never heard

back. they never answered. i never got any cooperation from the agency to write this book about one of their hero's. but i gradually found retired cia intelligence officers who, one by one agreed to see me initially off the record. i wasn't allowed to use their name. and they would talk to me and then refer me to other friends. and eventually i interviewed over 40 retired cia officers. and all of these guys had signed a secrecy oath's, and they all wanted desperately to tell me their secrets. there were 30, 40 year-old secrets, nothing that was going to harm national security, and they wanted to talk about their good friend, bob ames.

betty, you finally made it. [applause] >> so this is the man who confirmed for me in the first instance of bob ames was actually a spy and not a forum service officer. but as i was saying, the cia officers were eager to tell me their stories. and yes, they were divulging secrets, but they were all 30 and 40 year-old secrets and they wanted to tell me the secrets for very honorable reasons. they wanted you as citizens to know the story, to know the history. anyway, it was great but it was a lot of fun talking to these old spooks. and at one point, at one point i

was told, of course jonathan yardley mentioned that one of his colleagues at the "washington post," david ignatius, had written, published a book, a novel called agents of innocence in 1987. and so of course, in the book, everyone told me, was based on the robert ames story. but it was a novel. but when it started out i went to see david ignatius. and i wanted to feel him out and get his opinion about whether he thought this biography was feasible or not. and i knew we had sources in the cia and retired sources, but also active intelligence officers who might have known games. nt, i'm very grateful. he encouraged me to do this. he said yes, it's possible and

the a great story. he wanted to tell the story as nonfiction, as a reporter, but in the 1980s he thought it was too early and no one would talk to him and everything was too sensitive. and he very graciously gave me some names and helped to get me started on finding some of these retired spooks. and he also told me, well, you know, a key source is a young lebanese businessman that ames and that in 1969. he said i don't know where he is now, but if you're going to tell the bob ames story you really have to find him. but he's kind of elusive and he's a difficult personality, and i don't know if i could find a i don't know if i would go to see him today.

it was sort of a warning. but i nevertheless come every time i had interview with one of my cia sources i would say hey, have you ever heard of mustafa zein? is he still alive? at one point i get when he was in florida. i got his address. and i got one of my retired spooks who live in florida to go and knock on the door. and it turned out to be he had moved on. it was the wrong address, a dead end. many months later at a point where i had a chili, i was close to having a full draft of my, first draft of my book. i got a message from another spook who said, here's the number that i'm told is mustafa zein's cell phone. you can try calling it.

so we i am sitting in lima, peru, and i get on my computer and i do a cold call on skype to a cell phone in, somewhere in the middle east. and the phone rings and it's picked up, and it's mustafa zein. and i explained what i'm doing, but i'm trying to write a biography of robert ames. and the first question mustafa zein has is how did you get this number? [laughter] only certain people have this number. and i explained, welcome i can't tell you who gave me this number but it's a mutual friend. and so he then said well, i've been waiting for 30 years for you to call. he gave me his e-mail, and for the next week we e-mailed each

other furiously back and forth, and he had lots of stories. he was eager to tell. a few months later i flew out to the middle east, went to amman, and i spent eight days, 10 hours a day listening to mustafa. it was like i sort of like to think of it as a debriefing in an intelligent fashion. i took notes. i didn't record it because i thought that would make him nervous. but i filled notebook after notebook. and he turned out to be one of those great sources, because he was then 71, but he had a great memory and he was a good storyteller. at times such a good storyteller that i sort of wondered, well easy embellishing things? and i knew i had to be careful with some of this.

when i got back i had to check every story with my other cia sources, and you know, it turned out trying once stories all checked out. he also had letters -- trend once stories all checked out. he also had letters that bob ames turned out -- sent to me. some of the dramatic letters about crucial moments in his relationship with ali, where the relationship had broken down in the wake of the terrible massacre at the munich olympics, carried out by like september -- black september, a wing of -- bob ames thought maybe ali hassan salameh had been involved in the munich operation in which 11 israeli athletes were tragically murdered.

so the letters, you know, they give you a window into sort of id and how intelligence officer thinks and operates, and if you read the book you will get, you get an understanding that the cia officers are not james bond. and bob ames was no james bond. he did occasionally have to carry a gun, but he hated guns. he never killed anyone. in one of his letters to yvonne, his wife, he was in aden at the time of -- operate in the midst of this aborted before getting assassinated in the streets, and his cia station chief told him he had to take his pistol. and he just disobeyed the order and wrote to yvonne, you know, if i'm going to be shot, i'm going to be shot from behind.

i will never see the boat coming, there will never be an opportunity to use this so the pistol anyway so i am not carrying it around. anyway, he was a very empathetic man, and that is why he was a good spot, why he was good at his work. i don't want to go on too long. anyway, after seeing mustafa zein in amman, i didn't have to spend about 10 days, two weeks in israel trying to track down some officers who may have known bob ames. and, indeed, i found 4, and they remembered him. they knew exactly who he was. they knew that he was a back channel. he had created this very secret back channel to the plo through ali hassan salameh, and that was

a disturbing revelation to them in the 1970s. because henry kissinger had promised the israelis that we wouldn't have any dealings with this terrorist organization. but, of course, i learned from my cia officers that this is exactly what intelligence officers are supposed to do. they go where foreign service officers can't. and they go to dangerous neighborhoods and talk to bad guys. bad guys like ali hassan salameh, who, choose your level. he was a terrorist. he was a professional revolutionary. he was a freedom fighter for the palestinian cause, but he was someone that no u.s. diplomat could talk to. but things could and he created this back channel that actually inside the agency today everyone gives him credit for starting the oslo peace process, starting

to get americans talking to the palestinians, getting americans to try to persuade, actually rather successfully, to think about achieving palestinian aspirations without the gun, with a compromise, a two-state solution. and, of course, the tragedy is that we are this many years later, 31 years after bob ames was killed in beirut, the peace process is still at a stalemate. writing this book, researching it was a lot of fun, but when i announced to my wife, susan, i had to fly off to the middle east for a month to the research, she was a little worried. and i assured her that, you know, no problem, it would be a piece of cake, and indeed when i

get to the root were i had a whole series of interviews -- got to beirut, schedule some time for myself and some of the newspaper archives of leaving beirut newspapers, i landed around noon and checked into the mayflower hotel which is the hotel that bob ames himself checked into and spent his last night before he was killed on april 18, 1983. it's a lovely little boutique hotel, and i got to see the room where he had spent his last night. and then i went for a stroll along the seashore. beirut looked fabulous. it had been rebuilt as part of the city have been rebuilt since the terrible civil war that are taken over 150,000 lives, over

15 years. and i walked along the river towards the spot where the u.s. embassy used to stand. it had been completely destroyed by the 2000-pound truck bomb, and beirut looked fabulous. it had seaside restaurants along the corniche pic you look like a very livable place but i was thinking to myself, oh, you know, i thought maybe we should think about spending a vacation here, or maybe even move your for a year or two but it would be a nice place to live and work. i get back to my hotel in the mayflower, two hours later, and i turned on the television and there was cnn reporting about a car bomb that i got off a mile away in beirut and dead killed eight people, including the chief of intelligence collecting

investigating the assassination of the prime minister put been killed in 2005. so i quickly open my laptop and router e-mail to susan saying don't worry, a bomb exploded a mile away from me. i'm fine. [laughter] she immediately called me on her cell phone and says, what bomb? [laughter] anybody, it was a sad reminder that beirut is still a last a very dangerous place, very troubled part of the world. it reminded me that the book that i was trying to write and finish at that point was a very relevant subject.

but having almost finished after speaking to mustafa zein, i had to rush back to lima, peru, and spent the next six was completely rewriting the book because what kind one had told me. which was a good thing. when the book finally came out, it was greeted with some really great reviews, and an official denial from the cia. [laughter] regarding the in the story in the book which was, you know, i actually to my surprise with mustafa's help and the help of some of my cia sources, and a lot of just playing detective work i managed to put together a really fairly iron cast story

about the beirut embassy bombings had occurred. it wasn't, you know, it was the first suicide truck bomb attack on the u.s. embassy and when it happened it was industry about who have done it. and over the years the presumption was that hezbollah had done it in fact hezbollah did really exist until 1985. but at the end of the book i revealed that it was actually an active state terrorism carried out by the islamic republic of iran in the form of an intelligence operation carried out by some of their iranian revolutionary guards officer stationed in the valley who had been sent there in the wake of the israeli invasion of lebanon in 1982. and i named the commander of the iranian revolutionary guard post in lebanon, and i named his

intelligence officer. and the surprising thing, the shocking thing that i learned in the end was that one of the masterminds of the truck bomb attack was this iranian intelligence officer who rose to became deputy defense minister in iran and then effected into the house and seven -- defected. at one point was debriefed here outside of washington in a cia safe house. and he is still alive and well and living may be in america, maybe in europe someplace. we are not quite sure, but the cia, when the book came out, issued a statement, a tweet saying that we categorically deny that we had anything to do with arranging and affection -- the defection. so the book ends on a sort of classic intelligence dilemma.

you are dealing with bad guys and you want to get information that they have, and sometimes even if they have killed eight cia officers, you end up giving them haven in this country. it's a shocking story to me, but also a classic intelligence story. this is, you know, this happens in this world. anyway, i hope you all get a chance to read "the good spy" and understand it will give you not only a lot of history about the middle east and the arab-israeli conflict, sadly, also sort of a window into this world of intelligence. and i want to stop now, and we have time for at least 10 minutes of questions i think. so fire away. [applause]

>> i've got a question. as a nation writer, i salute you for your work. fellow nation writer. thank you. one of the amazing things i thought about the book when i read it was president reagan's critic, criticism of israel during the invasion. and he was a president i always had a lot of contempt for, and it was surprising to me what he did at that time. and particularly in contrast to what has happened recently in gaza, and i consider the silence of the president i voted for. i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about mr. ames relationship with president reagan and how he sort of influence that critique speak with sure. that's a great question.

as i said, ames started out on the clandestine side -- site as a clandestine cia officer recruits agents in such. and he rose very high up inside the agency in that field on the covert side, but he got bored with it and frustrated with the business of recruiting agents. he was a very intellectual fellow. he was criticized in fact by his colleagues for being too intellectual. he read a lot of books on the middle east. he loved the history. he loved the language. he relieved learned the language. so at one point in his career he jumped at the chance to flip to the other side, to the analytical side. so by the time reagan became president in 1981, robert ames was chief of the whole analytical division for the middle east and south asia. and in that capacity he was a guide to brief the president on anything to do with the middle east.

and he would do so often in the oval office or up in camp david. and in the wake of the israeli invasion in 1982, where you recall the israelis under general sharon, ariel sharon, initially walked into southern lebanon and then suddenly pushed all the way to the gates of beirut and deceased the city. -- beseiged the city and attempted come eventually successfully expelled the plo from beirut. in the wake of that invasion, ronald reagan was being briefed by ames. and he took the opportunity to sort of persuade reagan and his 22nd of state, george schultz, to sign on to a peace plan. the first official american initiative to say well, here's

our notion of what should happen in a sort of final peace settlement. let's try to settle this. this conflict between israelis and the palestinians and the rest of the arab world. and it was called the reagan peace plan and initiative, unveiled by reagan himself in a speech on september 1, 1982. and ames was basically a ghost writer for it. and it was inching towards a two-state solution. so reagan had, the questioner suggested, and understanding that is festering problem was a threat to u.s. national security and that peace was in the interest of the united states. and he attempted to get the israelis to withdraw from lebanon and to honor the

commitments they have made in the camp david accord with regard to settlements in the west bank. but, you know, after ames was killed in 1983 just six months after the reagan peace initiative, ames was the only person that reagan knew personally who have died in the bombing, and he was devastated to you can see this from his diary notes. and then six months later with the marine barracks were another truck bomb rolled in and killed 241 u.s. servicemen, reagan gave up. he withdrew the troops. he lost interest in pushing his middle east peace plan, and everything began to fall apart in retrospect i believe.

>> i didn't think i was going to have a question but i do. where to start? so, 30 some years ago you sent me down to pick up some freedom of information act documents -- not from langley but somewhere in northern virginia. i don't remember where. >> steve was "nation" magazine intern working for me at the time, and so i stated i am an unsuccessful protége, kind words. [laughter] so i remember looking through these documents and coming across a report from 196 1963 or 1964 that was an internal memo that someone in the cia wrote to someone else in the cia about how the castro regime is going to implode of its own corruption and wait any day now, and they united states did need to do

anything, that the cuban government is going to just fall apart of its own accord. this was five or six years after the revolution. and i mentioned that now because i know you've done a lot of thinking over the years about intelligence and intelligence community, and i'm wondering in the post 2001 world, and thinking about the u.s. role in iraq and afghanistan and the way that the agency and intelligence world has changed since then, to what extent are we getting good intelligence and to what extent are people within the intelligence community passing disinformation to themselves to justify a point of view that they all leader -- already want to promote such as invading a country on the basis of weapons

of mass destruction that don't exist? >> okay. well, that's a difficult question. actually i'll answer it by telling you, giving you a quote, as far as i can paraphrase it, from one of my cia sources, who explained that when he was a young man in the clandestine services, he was, you know, mesmerized by all the secrets he had access to. all the privileged intelligence. it was, you know, it gave him a rush. and learning more and more secrets was, you know, it's fun to be on the inside. and you think you have special knowledge. but then he explained to me that, you know, over the years,

and he said that this is true of all intelligence officers, over the years they become a little more cynical and skeptical about this special knowledge. and they realize a lot of it is not so special. they think initially that, well, if i can just get the right, right the right kind of memo, get access to the policymaker in the right moment, and my special knowledge can persuade the policymaker, the politicians, to arrive at a better policy. but over the years they become very cynical and they suddenly realized that u.s. foreign policy is not fact-based. that, in fact, none of the secrets, none of the special knowledge they have makes any difference. the policymakers rarely listen,

and i think this is, this is not a self-serving sentiment. a lot of the people i interviewed expressed to me their enormous frustrations with the fact that they know u.s. policy and x, y or z is on the wrong road, but they have no ability to change it. and the cia in particular, from its founding, it was actually a liberal haven during the mccarthy era in the early '50s, when mccarthy was going after state department foreign service officers and destroying their careers. the cia was protected because it's a secret intelligence agency. they didn't allow senator mccarthy to question their men. and a lot of them were, had a good sense. in fact, i interviewed people who, for some of my previous

books about the bundy brothers who got us into the vietnam war. this it was actually often giving good intelligence about what a disaster it would be to turn this conflict in vietnam into a ground war, and we would end up doing the same thing the french did in the '50s. so the lesson i learned if anything from writing "the good spy" is that yes, there are secrets, but they are often wasted, and many of the secrets long in the pages -- belong in the pages of the washington post and "the new york times" and we would all be better off if we had fewer secrets and more knowledge available to the public. >> i found mustafa zein such an interesting character are you still in touch with him? what is he doing? is he going to write a book of his own?

[laughter] >> i am still in touch with mustafa, and he is a lovely man. he is in his mid '70s now, and he has written an unpublished personal memoir just for his own use and purposes. he, you know, at the end of my eight days, or more than that, he actually came to america at one point and we had more sessions. he finally get access to his unpublished memoir abou here bua don't think it's any intention of publishing it. this is a man actually i should make very clear who never accepted a dime of u.s. money. he never signed a contract to be an agent. he was never under orders, but he had befriended ames in beirut

in 1969. he was a successful lebanese businessman, and he had his own financial resources. but he had spent a senior year in high school as an exchange student in naperville, illinois, and had fallen in love with america and all things american and he just thought it was a damn shame that the u.s. government didn't understand the middle east and didn't understand the palestinian question in particular. and so he took upon himself -- he took it upon himself to try to bring these parties together. and he was the man who actually had known ali hassan salameh in his cairo days, even before he joined fatah and the plo and they were personal friends. so he was intermediary between ames and ali hassan salameh. and he did this simply because

he thought it was the right thing to do. so he was never, never an agent, although for 10 years he served acted as a virtual acts as agent as it's called, a man who introduces the cia clandestine officer to other sources. and even after ames' death, which devastated him, he did, he courageously went back to the middle east after the cia station chief was kidnapped in 1985, and he, in very dangerous circumstance, risked his own life and was almost killed in a car bomb attack, and to try to find a way to free the cia officer. he's an extraordinary character, you know, but he's actually rather depressed and pessimistic these days about the future of

the troubled neighborhood. [applause] >> thank you. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> and you're watching kai bird to talk about his most recent book, a good spy. this book is live coverage of the 14th annual national book

festival here in the washington convention center, not down on the mall as we used to be. we're inside, up on the third floor and you can see there's a good crowd in the history of berkeley pavilion. coming up next, nina khrushcheva was the granddaughter of nikita khrushchev. she will be talking about her book, it is called "the lost khrushchev: a journey into the gulag of the russian mind." that's in about 10 minutes or so. now joining us here on our satellite outside of history about of the room is ilyasah shabazz who has written a children's book, "malcolm little." who are your parents? >> my father, malcolm x, my mother -- my mother, dr. betty shabazz, two humanitarians. >> what do remember a bunch of other? >> i wrote in my first book, growing up x., my father coming home, big pearly white teeth, really tall, six for, a tall man

with great presence and always smiling. i remember the way he called my name with lots of authority that would stop in my tracks. just things like that, sharing cookies together. a beautiful doll that i had, a rocking chair. >> what you member of the day he was killed? >> fortunately i don't remember that. but when i was writing growing up x. i realize it did have an impact because when my uncle came to visit us, i was about four or five years old and a member and he was leaving that it was traumatizing but i just remember crying, you know, uncontrollably and so i knew that some of that must have been indicative of me missing my father. >> who was girl little? >> oh, my gosh. earl little, yes. girl little was, or is malcolm's

father. girl little was actually be president of the milwaukee branch of the movement and he was, he helped marcus garvey get out of jail back in the 1920s for the alleged to mail fraud. earl little was a pastor, an activist. he was a great preacher. use all these great things that instills specific values into his children. >> where did he live? how did he die? >> oh, gosh. well, they say he was killed by the black legion which was a splinter group of the kkk back in the 1920s during the great depression. and they put him on, you know, not the greatest situation that he was killed. >> and did your father witnessed the? gauger fathered remember that?

>> yes. my father to talk about it in his autobiography. they proceeded their father as is really indefensible person of the great protector, the great provider, the great, you know, strength of the family. he would take his son, malcolm, with him when he gets beaches, ma when he was speaking to the community about self-reliance about perseverance, about working hard, about the importance of education. >> what was malcolm little lifelike in omaha, nebraska? >> malcolm little -- malcolm. my father's childhood was exceptional. because he is so me siblings. much like my own having five sisters, it gives you the sense of, you know, pride, humor, tenacity, you know? it makes you a good friend, compassionate, all of these wonderful things that were

instilled in malcolm by both of his parents would enable him to go on in his adult life and become this person, malcolm x from one of the greatest legal strategist, one of the greatest humanitarians, just so many wonderful things because my father was so young. when the world learned about complex he was only 29. 28, 29 and is killed at the age of 39 and to admit such a significant contribution in such a short lifetime. in 12 years, it speaks volumes who he was. for me now as an adult, i reflect on that sense of loneliness, you know, that sense that he must have really felt having sacrificed his life, not asking for anything in return but the benefit of humanity so we can move forward for more egalitarian future.

>> you have administration in here. what is this? >> well, when my father, i think about four years old, his father, okay, so his father was an activist also. and he bought land, land at that time was reserved or whites only in omaha, nebraska. and so, you know, the stories, you are not allowed to leave your pics of the burned the house down but then they moved from wisconsin to nebraska to michigan. >> and who burned down the house of? >> the kkk. >> when did your father stop being malcolm little and become malcolm x? >> my father became malcolm x once he went to jail at 20, he went to jail at 20 and he was, before he came out of jail,

1952, so i guess he was about, i don't, however old he was, he went to -- 26, 27 years old, he became ask him -- malcolm x. he was financial spokesman for the muslims, nation of islam. >> this is a children's book. >> and focus on the value importance, the role of the mother, the role of a father. you see a young impressionable child. it could be any nationality. and the values. you know, the values of a mother is nurturing her children, stressing the importance of education, the love for learning. and the father being the provider, the strength. and just instilling these values of leadership, accountability, compassion, integrity, all the things that my father would go on to exhibit to the world in

his adult life. >> ilyasah shabazz, are you finding the generation today is too removed from your father's activism? >> you know, i travel the world and i speak to many different audiences, you know, young people, middle age, elders. and what i find is that there are many young people who are very much in tune with malcolm. they are very much, you know, very attracted to his legacy, you know, and then there are some who are not. and so i think it's just important for all of us who are conscious, more educated, that it's important that we educate the ones who are misinformed or, you know, who need guidance. >> there's some pretty magnificent illustrations in this book.

who did the demonstrations of? >> the illustrations were done by a g4. is absolutely just phenomenal. phenomenal. beautiful, beautiful, beautiful depictions of moments that were important to my father that played key roles in my father's life. >> "malcolm little: the boy who grew up to be malcolm x." here's the cover of the book. ilyasah shabazz, daughter of malcolm and eddie shoe bombs who is the author. and now live coverage from the national book festival continues up next, a presentation by nina khrushcheva, granddaughter of of nikita khrushchev. her book, "the lost khrushchev: a journey into the gulag of the russian mind." she is being introduced now. >> propaganda and then in the political process.

this study is that with national collective historic experience. she is professor at new school in new york. -- [inaudible] as most -- she's a good writer, articles appear regulate in the near times, "the wall street journal," the "newsweek" and many other publications. her book was published on the cnn website as a source of authoritative information on current political developments in russia. fortunately, or rather unfortunate because -- [inaudible] the publication of this book is timely. because of this conflict we are witnessing -- propaganda.

how our government justifies its action in ukraine -- [inaudible] and how typical russian when people tend to believe, is being criticized. this book explains why all that happen. and guides to russian people's minds which are still not free from any kind of invisible internal -- [inaudible] so please welcome to the stage with nina khrushcheva. [applause] >> thank you very much. the introduction is certainly very much better than much more than i deserve, but thank you. thank you, all of you, for being here. is an incredible honor. i was talking to somebody today and i said, i don't feel like a

writer at all, ever. i write trifles. i write small articles about what arnold schwarzenegger should become american ambassador to russia today. so the fact that i am treated seriously your is a great, great honor. i hope i will not disappoint you entirely. i want to start from signed right away that when i speak, when i wrote my book, and i speak today i do not speak of his on behalf of the ship family. i did not speak on behalf -- christian family. i don't speak on behalf of any group. i'm not channeling nikita khrushchev anyway possible. and this is very important because recently some members of my family said because of critical of putin, participate in the anti-russian campaign. i don't feel this way in america

and actually thought and russia until very recently we are in a free country so we can agree to disagree. but apparently we can't. and that's the subject of my book. it's the gulags of the minds in the gulags of the russian mind is that the state is more important than any individual. it unfortunately, it does until the day, and the point that i'm making is that we don't need barb wire to keep us in check. we will build it all on our own and that actually explains vladimir putin support, 80% of the population really feels that he's doing the right thing in ukraine. at the gulags of the mind. i would like to read a few lines from the beginning of my book. i actually, the reason i do is

because i myself am very fascinated that it happened to me. i guess if i read it out loud i may feel better because i still cannot believe it. so just bear with me for a couple of minutes. and i'm reading from prelude which is called prelude only in name. this is nina, the oldest daughter. i was introduced to an old balding man with glasses. the man greeted me with silence holding his gaze. granddaughter, he said. the kgb recently uncovered an account saying your grandfather was a nazi traitor. i cringed. a nazi traitor? at the time i knew little of him but what i did know, joseph stalin had ordered him to awarded him with two medals for bravery in battle and that

implied heroism, not treachery. all at once i realized who this man was. stalin's old powerful foreign minister, and once considered almost as ruthless and terrible as stalin. perhaps because more of the same inspired the infamous cocktails a makeshift bomb, i'd always imagined his voice to be gruff, sinister. instead, it was surprisingly subdued. though beneath it i detected something sharp and ominous like the point of a double-play. don't worry, he added, it's rubbish. everyone knows he died in a plane crash in 1943. if it was such he died, why mention it at all? growing up in the ussr i didn't have to read george orwell to know all about doublespeak.

so that was the beginning of my journey was many, many years ago, any decades ago, and that's how i was introduced to my birth grandfather, nikita khrushchev's son, and it was mentioned that it was an investigation the it was indeed because i grew up knowing that khrushchev's son was always hero. my birth grandfather was always a hero, but, in fact, as it turned out in recent years more and more accounts have come out to convince the public that he was a traitor to the nazis. he was a benedict arnold of the russian state, of the soviet state. and the reason is such an important story to me is that today we witness woman look at ukraine and we look at the russian propaganda, the

propaganda against kiev authorities, we hear a lot of this nazi rhetoric come well, that tf is just like the nazis about as we were told recently i vladimir putin, the siege of those cities in east ukraine just like the siege of leningrad during world war ii. ..