tv Book Discussion CSPAN November 9, 2014 2:00pm-3:07pm EST
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>> those in the audience had been with me for one of the very best book programs and i could imagine. the journalist and author was lucinda franks. the book under discussion was my father's secret war and the interlocutor was dan rather. tonight we have reassembled the same team and welcome lucinda franks and dan rather back. this time we mark the publication of her newest book "timeless" love, morganthau, and me" in 2007 and commenting about the more i spoke of the human story as well of the absorbing hold and the
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gradual regulation - - revelations. one must admit it would be a tricky enterprise to focus a professional reporters i of the most intimate spears of the lives of those closest to her. lucinda franks manages to do this with a gift for narrative of sub consciousness and the probable the motion to the man she loves and who loves her deeply who happens to be the former chairman of this museum whose name is above the door as you entered this morning my boss robert morganthau. [applause] >> i would confess i would
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read more and learn more about bob morganthau that i thought i would and i look forward to learning more about this deeply personal and compelling book. we are extremely pleased to welcome dan rather back to our stage as a correspondent and managing editor of cbs evening news he covered nearly every important story in the last third of the broader rigour and honesty to a generation of americans it is a to say dan rather spend more time in my living room than any other person except my own family. these days he is the anchor and managing editor of the cable tv channel access tva could think of no better
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person to be with and i hope you join me to welcome lucinda franks and dan rather. >> are you okay? >> i am perfect. >> we have a lot of goals this evening and to talk about her great new book but i would be remiss and you would agree if we don't pay our respects to the great robert morganthau is a great warrior into theaters but
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since then a great warrior for justice and other great district attorneys in the history of the country. mr. attorney we pay our respects to you. [applause] but this is lucinda at night. timeless it turns out to me it has been advertised as a love story that anybody recognizes it is much more than that. how to make a marriage work work, it is also about
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history of new york city is about terrorism that behind the scenes of what is like of the pain and post 9/11 era. having said that would you want "the reader" to take away from the book? >> guest: i think to meet at the end of the book was most important that bob and i stuck together we did not abandon each other because the month of arguments or a bad year to turn our noses the other way. we kept reinventing things.
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to come across a man who totally changes the view of each other because he sees me as when he first married me he would laugh at my jokes and he made bob feel like he was a young million-dollar person. and after frankie had left us, we met him in portugal week renewed each other. to find ways not to work it but reinvent what you have. >> host: what was the
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worst? >> guest: i think one of the worst days is when i could not convince bob that the cia had inadvertently been the implicit in 9/11. i had done a lot of research. i even found in my research a quotation from bob. that the cia and fbi has not cooperate with law-enforcement community and if anything led to the 1993 bombing it was them. so when i confronted him that i don't remember saying
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that. he did not like to look back. and with that intelligence agency that were their informants committing crimes of bombing and what ever. he finally did admit it that it along time for me to convince them the research i had done with the involvement of the intelligence. >> host: the discussing looking back.
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>> but after our first child was born joshua, i found a way to stay in the hospital one week because joshua had to stay in the hospital for one week because he had a little bit of jaundice. he would come in with a nice line and some doodads and we would have a feast. he would not want to take the baby because it was very
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little. but i said excuse me can you hold josh? i'd put him in his arms and then laughing and each other it was a magical time. >> host: but who are you? who is 89? >> guest: you tell me. [laughter] i guess what i have to come is a person with a life of her own, a profession with the life of success someone
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who likes to help people do the right things and man-to-man and his father before him was determined to do the right thing. despite the fact that was a radical hippie and he represented the establishment to be a part of the anti-war movement. we came together in a way we were caught by love there is nothing you can do. and i thought marrying a man 30 years my senior with five children, said to dogs, and in riverdale i was used to sleeping on church floors
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and bob morganthau could have put me in jail. >> host: and that was an understatement. how did you overcome that? >> guest: we did. it was very hard work on bob's part who had to walk a tightrope between his children, two of them were my age. and there is lots of other things that make it difficult. we have actually got along very well. and to get into the realm of
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the quasi enemy. but we all worked very hard. , the youngest daughter was 13 and i could never replace her mother, she died when she was nine but i tried to be there for her as helpful as they could and time creates many things. >> host: but it could have gone the other way. but if there is one critical thing that happened. >> guest: to bring us
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together? this is one small thing. the old house that job growth been a beautiful house on the apple orchard divided up between bob and his sister and his brother there is that division of the contents and the belongings is very complex. but bob was busy that day. he said go in my place. at first i was honored by then i thought here i am of little bit of a now loss
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still -- in the al to walk and looking at the father's desk so when i went there i was a surge of but not terribly except there was one thing of lap rug the old-fashioned for lap drug that he wore in the rumble seat and it belonged to bob's father and i happened to nobody, in his second son really loved that rug. so i bartered everything for their drug. when i brought back and gave it to bobby he was extremely touched. and said now i really know
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she is on our side. >> host: but did robert morganthau bring home his frustrations? or did he steal that off? >> guest: those. is hard to explain but when the cases were clear-cut but when bernard thought he was being attacked by a group of young african-americans and shot at them and paralyzed one, the city was divided.
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so bob was stumped at this because it was a very complicated case. so bob and i played out the rules of the victims. then we would switch and he was the victim and we would switch back and forth and exercise which really goes back to the estranged -- the trade to help him decide what the right thing to do was.
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and then he decided to indict him to shoot at these unarmed people. >> host: what do you think that people thought first as a misconception about your union? >> guest: i think in the beginning i did not realize this because i was radical, a war protester, a mile whole life and the least thing a wanted to do in the world was to have riches to have mail in serious life.
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that seemed to be counterintuitive it was the oxalate -- oxymoron because we were two different types of people some thought it is a fortune hunter. this is somebody and when i found out about this later i was furious because it was exactly the opposite. >> but the mayor had an intimate moment to be
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careful how to say this. [laughter] tell me you had a conversation led about any of my old friends? >> guest: we were playing around in bet. just playing. the phone rang and it was his private line and he immediately reached for it. how were you? no-no know it is not too early. [laughter] but then what i could hear is there was a so-called revolutionary who shot a guard and koch was
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recommending the prosecutor that he go for the maximum. he said we will do what is right to mr. meier. thank you very much. could buy. and i was afraid it was one of my friends so i said to bob who was this person? was he somebody i knew? a friend? and he said i don't know who your friends are. this was a new relationship. but maybe there were mitigating circumstances
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they view commit violence because of the capitalist hegemony. [laughter] but there is nobody that can tell you what to do. you will do what is right and he said nobody but you. [laughter] so really i was coming off the anti-war movement and i thought cookies was very cushaw. he knew i could not cook the a and he said i will cook a bagel. i said i will make cash browns and he laughed. and i just happened to have left over from my draft dodger boyfriend a little jar full of green stuff and he never asked what it was.
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maybe he thought it was tried rose mary but i thought i'd better throw that out because i didn't use it and he did not use it it was not a good thing to have in the district attorney's house. [laughter] >> host: t have understandable request? they appreciate you don't associate with these people did you have these conversations? [laughter] but i would not ride about anything he was involved with.
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but we also had the agreement to support each other but bob is of very messy affair person in wanted me to continue my successes. he like to see my a page nine and then your times. so i was supportive to brainstorm that it naturally worked out. but i wasn't aware of the concept parties although the governor was.
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>> host: now it comes time to write the book? >> we were sitting in a romantic restaurant and bob loves food. he was eating something he really loved, i think it was pork chops. [laughter] only because he remembers that. that i have to feel a subject for 32 years with a sense of irony and distance to write objectively.
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i did not expect this reaction. but the easing might be able to write a book about you and i? about you. he looked up and said he think anybody would read it? and i said i think so sweetheart. we could give it a try. so he probably would have let me write it without looking at it that one of my stance was he had to read every single draft more than once. with that ; the contents he got into it. how did you remember what
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happened? was said 20 years ago is an increase looking at the statue of apollo? the answer is i'd kept journals and i have an auditory memory. if i focus i can remember what people say so i can write things down. so he read and directed my a mistakes i show him a journal to say it happened this way. and he said okay. fair enough. but we had a happy experience.
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>> host: did he say this is true but you should not put it in the book? >> guest: there were a few times. [laughter] i did not put them in the book except for a few. [laughter] they were innocent. to talk about cases or secrets but things that everybody does. >> that not everybody writes about it. >> did you worry that there was too much information of the intimate life? so how did you balance that out? >> guest: i never worried
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about it because writing a book so like the old car that costs and costs then suddenly you just write. and then to take it out. that were so amusing and so interesting and only talked about that was totally innocent and not traffic at all and thought this is part of our marriage you cannot have a book about marriage without mentioning some of these items. >> what i held back that he
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would read a chapter and i would have to watch him at the end of the chapter and to look for a little muscle that may flinch with the batting his eyes then i knew. what don't you like? he said it is your memory. not mine. keyhole i said it is our memory what don't you like? then he would tell me. >> host: did you grandam veto power?
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about the united states of america. has to talk about in the book. >> guest: one of the reasons that bob and i have stayed together politically when we were on opposite sides of the fence is the culture did change that counterculture that extreme anti-war movement it was changes may be not as much as i would like and he left the office with 350.
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but go through any september without thinking about it had you been talking about it zero were discussed it or is it too far back? >> guest: we talk about it with the post-traumatic syndrome the people that were survivors did 9/11. to talk about ptsd from vietnam war i racked -- iraq's and of what you do not think of i think it is
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only a 30% of sufferers are soldiers coming back from the war but the rest are people like you and me who have serious problems in their life and have been closed off emotionally. with a higher functioning people and in a number of ways. >> i say this gently because i have been reprimanded because now it is posttraumatic stress disorder. >> politically correct.
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>> host: but more to the point is and what taught -- what touched you and bob personally? >> when bob came home that night, late, like 530 everybody else is coming home early in the day, a big cloud that keen from the explosions kind of covered around that center street. and stopped when you came in
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the door. to have the different reaction a different way to cope with 9/11 he would talk about all the acts of heroism that he had seen. he is glass half full and delays in optimist with the best out of everything but i was a little more circumspect. i started to do research on who was responsible for 9/11. and coming to the end coming to the ncaa that they had informants during the bombing and informing the informants.
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>> host: and then speaking with him who has ptsd but in the wake of 9/11 is kurt opinion. but bob had a very rough time in world war ii. when the first story was sunk, he was ruined in the water watching his men go down. not able to save more than one or two. he then went on another destroyer for kamikazes that
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peppered the destroyer to put a torpedoed in its. then surely after the war his father, his beloved father came down with hardened arteries and bob had to care for him and he wanted to. and then his much loved wife martha got cancer and had a terrible see each which bob was involved with her care. and then also there was a plane crash that his mentor and i adore -- idled judge patterson was killed and bob was supposed to be on that plane and was not. all of these shocks made him
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go in word. and this is what makes him a very successful man. but also but sometimes even hiding them from himself. but also to be a very tender and loving and generous man to other people. >> host: we will have a 15 minute question and answer session coming up soon. but let me find out what happened. let's talk about what you found out with the events of 9/11 that preceded that.
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>> began much earlier in afghanistan the guerrilla fighters that were helping those in afghanistan fight the russians without really knowing the people from saudi arabia and other arab countries was very anti-american and. they even called themselves al qaeda way back then. and the plan was as soon as they were finished with the russians a day would come to the united states and they had an open invitation from the united states because saudi arabia made as deal that if they gave all their
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terrorist to the united states to fight in afghanistan and it would bring them to the u.s. to make a citizen's and support them and what the ncaa didn't realize then all of the intelligence is that they were helping to build al qaeda. ever branches of wonder to people in mississippi or decatur and at some point they all come together highly financed by what they made in afghanistan from the intelligence agencies.
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they found in the house of the murder the famous rabbi from israel the police and the fbi put out the story this was a lone gunman but then these 14 boxes show the blueprints of the world trade center they take from one of the leaders of the al qaeda urging people to arm and get bombs to destroy america. >> host: and it is in the
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favorite stories was about one of his friends who was roughly his age the story that robert blake's is his birthday and some said to give them something special but they hired a one time playboy and go to the door and when the french open the door to say i am here to give you super sex and the friend answered i will have
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remarkable of the cover-up of the fbi put my question is why would they do such an amazingly stupid thing? even though there is no major attack do you think we are significantly safer now than we were? as we communicate with each other. >> but if i understand it is how is the fbi so stupid or corrupt as tune not identified the conspiracy?
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they told bob's office they did that have an arabic translator therefore they could not translate. however they would not give them to his office who was prosecuting the case so the investigation on bob's part or my part shows if the fbi or the cia has a number of informers keeping them apprised of what al qaeda was doing so that was the reason that the fbi and the cia wanted to keep the
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truce between that or the exaggeration from the media with television news? and i am not a politically savvy person. people have to know that. >> you are right on the many. but first of all, television used to be very reliable reliable, investigative with the major information gathering group in the country. television news in my opinion is now just recycled either terrible crime stories or shootings and
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iraq. they don't go into depth and very few investigative reporters so i think you have to judge by the people that are riding the stories the u.s. learned to recognize that you can trust like thomas friedman and delays completely trustworthy. and i just thank you have to go to the source to be your own doctor ordered judge for what is real and what is not
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>> host: it is easy to recognize by consumers have now morphed into packages from the worldwide news gathering organization who use the phrase boots on the ground but as an important distinction to know what is today and was yesterday. >> guest: let me just add something. if you turn to access tv tv, you will find some investigative reporting by the and which is amazing the
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[inaudible] -- was u.s. attorney. i was assigned to prosecute cases against the other ground. so i was one of the enemies. [laughter] but you and your friends, used to about -- this is before you matter. you start to bite you in your friends been on one side, he'd been on the other. my question is in your community, among your friends to you personally, were you aware of the work that bob was doing with regard to white-collar crime, securities fraud, organized crime, paper racketeering, official corruption, tax evasion. [laughter] what world the things that he did that were pioneering as u.s.
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attorney? but this is before he met me. my question was for sarah palin in your view during that period of time? >> absolutely not. i mean, the antiwar movement and cultural revolution really had no use for anybody over 30. all of that were architects of the vietnam war. when i married bob, when i was really dating bob, i was astounded by how he changed the system by working under the radar. sometimes over the radar when he stretched his elastic arm into international countries to stop money laundering and stop drugs, terrorists. what i found out if he had at a
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certain point refused the orders of ramsey clark who was the u.s. attorney paid to prosecute dodgers. and so, he didn't even do what we were accusing people like him of doing. so it was a very diluted generation although a very idealistic generation that did change things. i think when i found out that bob could work this way, it is what really made me change my views about the cultural revolution. >> i think we have time for one more questions. i see you there. yours will be the last question.
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>> thank you very much. to what degree did morgenthau's involvement for a long, long time, what effect did it have on you. you were involved in the role? >> yes, i identify very much with bob's passion to build this new com because his father tries to save as many jewish as he possibly occurred during world war ii. in a way, he was finishing what his father had started in my mind. he wanted people to remember always what happened and from
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that eventually to save jewish lives that would otherwise perish in another holocaust. this beloved feeling he had for his father really was the engine that drove him to the personal part of it and then of course, you know, his whole character was based on what have to be able to build this museum. we have to have a place where new yorkers can go, children can go and see what has happened and can never happen again. >> listen it, you've been wonderful. very generates here. what question have we not ask you that we should have asked you? >> i don't know. you've been pretty thorough.
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even an investigative reporter. >> well, the book is streamed to. the author is lucinda franks. it has been wonderful being with you they can. >> thank you so much. you are amazing. [applause] and thank you, all of you for coming. >> next on book tv, military forest history and someone talks about the first fund in 1942 none of the maritime unit. this program from the memorial in washington d.c. is just over half an
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