>> >> but survived of the political system. he has not said a word to meet. but he has spoken positively to me about it.

of the senator's career. c-span: this is what the book looks like. thank you for joining us. >> guest: think he very much. >>

[inaudible conversations] said an nec this is much too tall for me. thank you so much for coming this evening. please take the time now to turn off or silence your cellphone. if you don't then follows on facebook hand twitter and instagram. please take a minute to sign up for your e-mail newsletter. i promised we will not spaniel.

thank you for coming on behalf of the entire staff i am pleased to welcome new to talk about the book empire of lead to explore how the city was tainted from the outset from becoming the proud a citadel of republic that george washington envisioned within two centuries ago. here to talk about his background which is fascinating also the author to the guide to washington d.c. as well as a contributor to did down a - - sedan brown book and also has critics content for sites such as budget travel

we originally started this program over the summer of this is our second season and it is really fun to plan the events program to start from scratch for what you put on the calendar. i thought this is the of perfect book so i am so glad that j.d. dickey has come. please join me to welcome him. [applause] >> is the pleasure to be here i did not just come to bury this city but how to praise it.

it is interesting how "empire of mud" had its genesis that it did not fit into the conventional category of what you are supposed to talk about. started to read about dark chapters that a contemporary tourist would not want to read about that became "empire of mud". so to taking on a mental journey of what it is like to come from baltimore to washington d.c. so imagine that this is not masterpiece theatre but you are in the suffocating wooded box.

there is not a window for air. and legend there is a window and we're headed to the capital about the republic that got its independence 1783 with the treaty of paris and there has been much written about this. so eventually for what falls into disrepair but to see if you'll collapsing houses or abandoned buildings for those that have not been followed upon along with a few plantations.

which civil praised during their time and especially through north america fell the fourth thing you get out of the carriage to fall into the lead up to your knees. is you are coded in this at the capitol. some buildings are falling apart. but really it is an impressive. the roads are huge 160 feet wide they are deep enough you cannot cross them you have to take a carriage in various directions. and they are wet so the

creek comes from the north to make everything what and alongside is the washington city canal that is actually an open sewer. so it is nasty as well. this is the center of the space is an impressive there is disease outbreaks like malaria and yellow fever that our more prone to disease is around the equator rather than the capital of the united states of america. industry is lacking so how do we get here? how visit this great city ahead izmir contemptible

that is never realized that part of it is in the genesis of the city itself and the reason exist in the first place in 1783 there was a rebellion of troops of the pennsylvania militia that resulted in the removal of congress from the same building to another place. alexander hamilton put this into a threat of the federal government and demanded if the federal capital was to be created the congress must have exclusive authority which basically meant the people are subject to congress and could not vote. so this was realized in the constitution to give exclusive authority on this manner. the other residents act is

passed that gives the right and he did so 11 miles upstream end there and pierre charles l'enfant to head his survey of the map. the roads are laid out similar to imperial france and at the same time of and everything the you can imagine a modern lovely city would have. with this is never realized that it creates a pretty good defect. and la fonda is fired not soon after i got all the wrong people snorers. en then through 1800 to 18 '02 the city becomes the capital of the united states

and congress to organize the constituent parts of the city of the district over the next year it is five components the district of columbia which is led capital's washington city so basic basically everything south of florida avenue beyond that what was formerly maryland washington county and georgetown. un the virginia side of the river on alexandria county. there is local government and they cannot vote for national leaders but they can vote for the local leaders. but the problem is with the city starts developing it

turns out there are few stipulations that are not exactly friendly to local government and one is taxation so they have to tax everything else which is a small merchant or struggling homeowner. because of the lack of funding government is forced to raise the tax rate to the highest in the country which is one that only has 8,000 people. salon with struggling because washington's city is the great federal project of alexander hamilton. and others of their persuasion that once a strong imperial federal government at the center of the country.

in pierre long fund creates demand and eventually it develops slowly in the 1800 the government moves in but the senior, 1800 is in the famous election occurs in which thomas jefferson replaces john adams in the first republican also known as democratic and the party rules were than 60 years cannot have a happy opinion of washington city. it is denigrated because of the use of federal power with states' rights which states rights support at the times of the underfunding the city. is a direct political choice to under fund the capital of the united states for public and budgetary reasons of why there are so many problems

at the outset. because you have underfunding combined with a walled off enclave. so they are in another realm of the city. they have thrown barbershops, restaurants, ba rs and exist in their own area and all boarding house. the locals cannot change it because they cannot vote for those who rule them so it gets worse. fifth, so who stepped in to fill the void? the city that is struggling in so many ways, physically ways, physically economical ly and socially, so what we see as private interest developers to make some effort to affect economic

growth. initially property developers end of speculating on capitol hill which is the center rarity city is intended to be. but because of the greed of the original property owners a bubble develops. and some people like the burning made off -- bernie made off stepped in to make a handsome killing off people's interest that the historians are still having trouble sorting out where the 200 years later and has crippled development of what would be downtown capitol hill. along pennsylvania avenue to the low-lying drainage basin that we talked about earlier.

there is already a budding collection of criminals and the tone of the society is not pleasing in particular. see you have a scenario of private interests taking over causing problems in people are desperate to find economic salvation for the city so they find one in the form of building canals. this is probably one of the less well known aspects of the city that constitution avenue was once a washington city canal and doubled as the open sewer. the idea is that trade would be carried from georgetown along the southern banks of downtown then continuing south to where national stadium is roughly. but the problem is italy

draws 3 feet of water it is stagnant and prone to rodding carcasses. it is pretty nasty. , the government was not too heavily involved in that debacle but it decides to after the success of the erie canal is one of the great public works investments in the country thinking it could create new york city so it could tap into the trade of the great lakes to become an important financial center for the country. so people are very excited to connect washington d.c.. it is a great speculative gamble and you can actually

walk on the canal today. it runs 184 miles. in nearly bankrupted the city and caused public buildings to be sold to the dutch bankers in 1935. that the government took steps to be allowed a private corporation backed by the disciplines of the public entity. the by that time ruin had already affected the city. so the canals are not the answer either. so with people catering to congress as long as building of the ships of the navy yard and a small community of people around that.

there was no legitimate industry so given that there wasn't and the washington city became famous and notorious. at first january 1st, 1831 inaugural issue of the liberator said the capital is rotten with plague and it stinks of the nostrils of the world in there is of dollarspot that exist on earth not talking about cholera or yellow fever but this leave industry with the slave trade and options and all other attended business that goes with it. if you have seen the film 12 years of a slave you know, that his biography contains information the was kept in

washington city and he remarked upon the strange paradox the country built on liberty is on its way to a plantation in the south. he was kidnapped in his story is not unique similar to others that were shipped over directly from africa to alexandria which was one of the major slave trading ports in the united states along with new orleans. what we find in this era is slavery is fundamentally indicted into the economy. slave auctions being dragged through the streets and other aspects even people visiting can see advertisements of slaves

chained to the basement of where they're staying. the transnational phenomenon the dozen justice with the plantations but combines trading places like washington city with the need of cotton in england and as such deal the way to eradicate is through the civil war. so that is one of the illicit industries like prostitution that is rampant there is a lot of boardinghouses in many become brothels. so by the 1830's and all manner of brothels technically is a legal but not enforced and many crop up downtown and other places including pretty leaked ones mary anne hall is one of

them and has won conveniently at capitol hill. it is a place where you can dine on meet and enjoy a smoke but there are others that our lower rent and dangerous in dangerous parts of the town. and that is the center of downtown sova of pennsylvania avenue which is known later as hookers division or murder bay. where crime rather activities take place and also the center of the gambling world. it is conveniently located between the capitol and the white house. it is basically a bus line.

is a place for the illicit industry to grow up in the economic lifeline. in the absence of legitimate enterprise they prosper sodas crime and violence. washington city is one of the most violent cities at the time so if the esteemed gentleman should challenge your honor you with a challenge to a duel. to exchange of volley of gunfire then social relations could be

courteously restored and either have lost honor. and this is from the cavaliers society that is quite endemic to the city incomes and other forms of the working class may choose to do will with weapons like hatchets or pistols and the climate of violence is such that it is socially acceptable to do all manner of things we cannot imagine happening today. for example, in the 1830's which is the time of desperate mob violence in particular the washington city, houston at this point from tennessee, it comes to town and finds one of his enemies strolling in the streets and he beats him

viciously with a cane the man winds up in a hospital and nearly dies and for that houston pays a penalty of $500 because it is socially accepted to beat an inferior with your cane. canal in the 1850's there is a case of massachusetts senator didn't beating on the floor of the senate by preston brooks, he nearly dies and is exempt because of the civil war but in terms of action that was very much a market of a higher order on the lower order and such an action is difficult for washington city and this is not unusual and there is violence in all aspects of the culture from the blood sport like cockfighting to the climate of violence and riots that

breakout matter the initial cause the ultimate victim is african-americans who ultimately are attacked in their homes homes, churches, schools and a different societies. brothels and taverns of the african-american not attacked but others are in this is typical and another notorious legacy. so what we find legitimate business is feeling and growing up in the shadow of that violence the city has a difficult time to establish momentum so the population growth is rather slow. you have about 8000 people to 75,000 of very slow growth comes to a dramatic

change with the civil war in 1861 that the city doubles or triples with the arrival of the military. washington city is not remotely ready for a conflict of this kind. the infrastructure is now ready and there is nothing in the capital that makes it functional or admirable as a place to house many troops. but the border of the upper selfie is across the river. they are given back to virginia the puts the confederacy at the doorstep of the union and consequently abraham lincoln turns washington city into a police state. and has spies like lafayette

baker it as prisons including one across the street from the capital called the old capitol prison that used to be the site of the capital itself after was burned by their british. it has a number of spies housed in it and often because of the spies what you find is there is a huge military traffic so the troops are ferried into the town with livestock as well the washington monument is still not complete because the ground for military livestock and cattle so the mall that is the center of town comes home to rampages to cows and p.i.g.s. and other animals.

so you have a setting where the city is breaking down fundamentally hopefully to be rebuilt when you come in the '60s it is different from the '20s. a son like a few random buildings falling apart or people scattered here or there, instead you see a hive of activity with the hospital's that exist and former hotel sand catering to the soldiers who were coming back from the virginia battlefields and also military personnel better housed in various camps and others said a design for the support of military needs and a very dramatic social change

occurring that the old system that now is the capital of the abolition. not only is it a focal plane for the a ground railroad but it is a destination for contraband of the escaped slaves coming north to find freedom and they find it. they are not sent back. those setback for the exiles or former leaders of the city their cues to be spies that are kicked out or jailed. so during 1862 we have the first time anywhere perhaps the only time where

emancipation occurs with compensation to slaveholders. some think it is a raw deal to reward those dealers as a gift to hold him in property but it happened it wipes out most slavery in this city. and then if years later it will be in the rest of the country. the war alters the fabric of the city but also increases the trouble of just basic infrastructure of housing needs the crime rate explodes despite the rise of the metropolitan police and all manner of effective means to enforce law and order often they tangle with each other as the national spotlight the metropolitan

police and a few constable's leftover and they all have overlapping lines of authority in the city with so much crime some people describe it as worse than tombstone arizona. so this is what the residents are left with at the conclusion of the war. this is the point when anthony even calls it "empire of mud" during the civil war. have you get to this point? the worst possible point before washington city was to the modern era begins in the next 15 years the change starts to happen that african americans are finally given the right to vote. this occurs in the end of the war ended is important and controversial because

not only is a human right acknowledge but the republican party suddenly has whole new group of voters so federal power is in large pointing out that they are part of the new washington city and people are ready to take advantage and what does that is a former pipefitter. if you know, washington history shepard is the boss at the time. he is called the boss for a lot of reasons because he is successful to accrue power and those people and how to project from patronage to be a good east coast posses' intelligent by knowing what the city needs.

the men can read reports in their generated by the corps of engineers which also boring so much of what modern washington d.c. is is based on what they did in the 1860's and 1870's to imagine that this will the longer be a desperate place of the saudi roads but instead they bring st. crating and improving parks and preservation to an engine a better water supply on the western part of the mall and other public improvements. one of the members even has a report to remove the president from his house which is on space ground up

to meridian hill town near malcolm x park and he would resign if there. had never happened but it showed how farsighted their designs were and brilliant. one of the greatest was montgomery touche to be much more celebrated than he is but what he did within the course of 15 years was reengineer the design of the capital the washington aqueduct, the capital of some -- dome acted as quartermaster general of the union army, created arlington national cemetery and later is where the national buildings hovers of us.

can he went to europe on vacation you'll get plantings end landscaping and it impressed him and he came up with ideas that came up with a report and send it to congress. the tech the ideas to a heart inserted alexander shepard once he was granted total power in the '70s to execute the plans to improve the water supply in the parks and everything else. the district of columbia became a territory three to 74. during this time shepard was all-powerful from the vice

chair of public works that he could handle public patronage or other favors and then he was sexually governor of the territory. he was the right-hand man of ulysses s. grant. but he knew the political courage and it was shifting said he tried to accomplish as much says he could in a few short years and we imagine the city within the course of three years which is incredible. because in the former 70 years was not affected at all. unfortunately shepard was a bit of baroque he got the city government in debt to the tune of $20 million he left houses towering above the roadbed, he approves

certain parts of the city like dupont circle and others while ignoring other parts like capitol hill that continued to decline in poverty. he also awarded incredible contracts to his friends and associates did you can see the eisenhower office building which was a financial boondoggle if they would have friendly contracts with shepard's people. he was complicated but essential. if think the city is better off for him because at the end of his tenure, the city collapsed under the weight of its own debt of corruption and in 1874 the experiment ended in they

reverted to the district of columbia. people were trying to figure out what to do next. the next four years congress dithered about the appropriate plan for the national capital. it was on its way to improve and shepard three creation had to be fixed like the one pavers had to be replaced but it was a very good start followed up by four government bodies but by then the federal government had to figure out how to permanently installed a new regime what it did was controversial still to this day to disenfranchise the populations and now people could not vote for the local leaders either in the city was subject to the will of three city commissioners

tour appointed and one is from the core of engineers so they ruled the city to the '60s so nearly one century of rule from the active 1878 it is controversial because of the racial part they know the there were part of the voter base as african-americans and congress openly debated this city to give them the first right to vote should take away and it was controversial at the time and later ruled had to be restored and the first mayor of washington and took office elected 1974.

it was a dramatic change. at the time they created the template of what was to come in washington city. there were negative aspects the more positive is what l'enfant had intended from the beginning of a modern creation of the monument and the inevitable creation of the washington monument and if you stand on the monument to day overlooking to the west with ec is not water or flats or marshes the u.s. scene in the 1820s or breeding grounds for malaria or yellow fever but the creation of the gilded age

the post alexander shepard age of modern washington d.c.. then you see the memorials of the soldiers and dr. dr. martin luther king, jr.. it is impressive how far washington city has come and tell was finally forgotten when the city was abolished in 1871 and became washington d.c. or the district of columbia. that is why i am glad to be here today to present this to you. thank you so much. [applause] raise your hand if you have a question. >> i have always been confused washington city and washington d.c. why district of columbia?

>> that refers back to columbus as the european who discover the new world it was a popular name columbia river also is derived from that that is just the name they settled on but washington's city is a specific component is a unique governmental entity that existed but in fact, it is shorthand with some of the bills are really is just the dishy -- district of columbia and there hasn't been $0.1 since washington -- washington took power when a did years later.

>> [inaudible] >> interesting. there are so many interesting things i discovered the truly i opening date was the canals like the one for another hour because they think they're fascinating but the idea that the hopes were pinned on these channels and the cost huge amounts of money in this city nearly went bankrupt to foreign creditors is completely eye opening and one of the things the book brings to light that hasn't been covered in history books. >> your major thesis is without having lot and order or poverty or crime or violence to take over the

city now you look at the book and you know, about home rule, doesn't give you pause to the modern ways that the city runs? now there is the issue they voted for something to now we take that away white marijuana legalization. so does that give you ideas? >> definitely. responsive government is a deal as the fundamental aspect. after 1878 a more limited form there is no democracy at all.

and to have a completely functional city today you have to allow everyone to vote in there all kinds of means that could be executed but the fact the party would get two more senators although it doesn't seem likely today but they are the reasons the results of people to be disenfranchised but with the mechanics you to leave the federal building in some of the areas where people don't live as the district of columbia. that's what happened to virginia that was part of the district's. >> what role played and said development of the city after the civil war? win businesses were dependent upon the federal

government. >> of course, it grows to the massive size that we know it today then they begin to accrue with greater power but mining interests and railroad interests were well represented with their congressional favorites in some are round dupont circle k even the candidate that is unsuccessful he was one of the great sum things like diamond jim one of the great figures is possible to patronage during the gilded age lobbying really took off and you can see that with mark twain how he tarkington -- talk about the cost of a representative of how much it would be in his book the

gilded age. >> we were talking about your next book which is about another city you have written travel guides british interest come for cities where there is the quality you find in particular? >> read the washington d.c. again? i don't know if we need a sequel but more less it depends what your mind goes it is better not to think about it too much but if you go back to with fema does best to follow its. this book shows me because of all the research and the things i could uncover. also started to be a travel writer so that was part of it as well.

>> thank you so much. [applause] please let your chair and come up to get a book signed. [inaudible conversations]

>> [inaudible conversations] i.m. wreck the cursor the publisher of "harper's" magazine. many subscribers year? a few. i am delighted to welcome you to raise a series of collaborations between the culture and "harper's". a brand new probably independent bookstore in the heart of manhattan upper west side "harper's"

magazine is a listing continuously published monthly since 1850 a fiercely independent outlets of american literature reporting fiction and criticism and photography. as part owner we host to the work of cress over the eric. [applause] definitely get him a hand. as often as we can to bring emblazoning authors in front of a live audience. tonight we're fortunate to present an extraordinary book the senate intelligence committee report on torture from dianne feinstein expose day of the caa program in the wake of 9/11 of interrogating and torturing

detainee's in secret prisons around the globe. to keep with the theme that torture report is published by a company that epitomizes the importance of independent book publishers and who else would have converted this massive text into a book in such a short time? in an amazing feat of ingenuity we are guarded to its features like a contributor to "harper's" in international lawyer with expertise of human-rights scott rode the award winning expose day about the guantanamo suicide and has done follow-up reporting on

the story for "harper's" and will publish his review in our april issue coming out in march also author of the lords of secrecy that is just out and for sale and we'll have time for plenty of questions the when you want wait for someone to hand you a microphone. just be patient. before we start the so-called report is a good read, a narrative with an author's voice suspense with the the gruesome description irony and a frightening conclusion that there is being purchased by the general reader provided mitt i approached with tradition assuming it was a dry collection of facts that could easily be summarized

in a few pages. on the contrary to fully appreciate the considerable accomplishment and that of the principal writer, daniel jones the need to be viewed as literature. this is much more of a horror story in employees going wild trampling on victims' while on rule of law also to say unaccountable and tyrannical government beyond the reach of elected officials. it ought to give pause even the most fervent defenders of the practice but the cia. please buy the book and read it not just support the house and the senator but to educate yourself free from

newspapers and politicians with an ax to grind. for all their faults this report is a tribute to to what is left of the tattered constitution and beleaguered system of checks and balances. let's get to the conversation and we will start with mark. >> [applause] thanks for that extraordinary introduction. anybody who takes a commitment to go to the journalistic truce seriously if they're not a "harper's" subscriber they make a mistake there has been very few outlets in the post 9/11 n. era that cast a serious light on the foreign and domestic policy and you are

the foremost in that effort and i am so thrilled for those who might have turned to for years over and over to bring this injustice to light and it is a remarkable thing and i am looking forward to dieting into this report in the substance of it and i want to speak about how it is that millhouse came to publish this report and speak of the literary history of the chandra because it is a genre in some ways that are as interesting as this context. publishers have been publishing reports for decades in the warren

commission report was quickly turned into a book that became a best seller. the church committee became a book and the modern era of this report begins with the star report. it is the infamous document that we came by through dial-up connections but we cited in the local wal-mart and it is an interesting case there is a "wall street journal" article published before the report is released in there is an interview with the founder of public affairs press who says we will publish this report and stop what we're doing spending the next 72 hours putting this out and the publisher of pocket

books says we will not do it. we don't think we'll make this type of commitment than the same day the release goes out and says we're going to do this. so the appeal was too great. so there is a public affairs edition than there is the 9/11 commission report and the to modern analogs to this document. those were published by public affairs but what is the important distinction as those reports were published in collaboration with the publishing houses purchased. you can find this in the times article but the report

is held up for a couple of weeks to public affairs to typeset and distributed simultaneously with its release. . .

>> and also how significant this work was heard them before we do, my sense was reported, the story of this report publication contested difficult and anguished stories behind the reports release and i think that one can arguably say and this includes the documents within. let's start with this.

so what other presidents during the bush administration do we have for reports on the cia's activity? >> basically there was nothing, we have a special commission of inquiry appointed situations for intelligence and this was part of the commission. it led to the iraq war, but we have generally very little oversight actually being performed by either of the two congressional committees until we come to this. of course we here aggressive pushback from caa today, it is burden some, it is that the preaching plague unleashed upon them. and then practically go back to the beginning we discover that actually the cia invited this and it all goes back to the

destruction of what we were told was one tape of a waterboarding session by an unidentified cia agent that we subsequently discovered that way a very senior figure within. and it wasn't as one tape and it was 92 tapes, all of them. and this was reported on the front page of "the new york times" by mark vicente and got it got interest immediately from the oversight committee with a number of them saying that we could have missed something. including the evidence that could be destroyed. and there were some queries about what exactly had happened. michael hayden, then the director of the cia had a quick series of meetings with the chair and the ranking member,

telling them not to worry that there is redundant evidence of everything. so even if these tapes were in fact destroyed, we have contemporaneous written records and cables that cover everything so there's nothing that is really lost. and he said i don't expect you after having heard that these were destroyed, i don't expect you to take my word for it. i invite you to come over and read all of this evidence. so it starts with an invitation from the cia and the fact of this right now. and our staff went through the cables from various outposts and came back with a quick summary. and the summary was that it's very clear from what we read in the cables that the program, the

interrogation program, does not respond to what was briefed to the committee. there are different techniques that are being used which are much harsher and it is much larger in scope. for some it seems far more severe than anything that we were told about before. this presented with the leadership with a dilemma on the basis of this sort of sample probe being told that you are misled about this. what to do. and then the decision was taken which was at the outset almost unanimous, all but unanimous, to go ahead and commission a full in-depth review of all of the cia documentation from the beginning. in the scope of review was also a matter of some controversy from the outside. in fact you will hear prominent

leaders in the senate republicans saying that this report is no good because it doesn't deal with what was going on in the white house and other agencies of the government, who is only looking at the cia. some of the very same individuals that were making those comments are the people that insisted that that be so. they insisted that there be a review of what was going on inside the white house and other agencies, for obvious agencies they were afraid that the results could be politically embarrassing to the white house and other senior administration officials. so from there we get the program and it becomes a multi-year exercise that is really quite remarkable. we have any commercial litigators? and of course you know what you see going on is exactly what goes on in american commercial

litigation, with them saying, you know, we are entitled to do independent audits and reviews before we turned over, we cannot just do that. and we have have plenty of time to do that. we are going to put in is because we are dealing with the top-secret situations, we are putting all of these special cautions together, which are going to take years to put into place before you can even get down from starting the process every year. and amongst those things, we are not going to allow you to take these documents to the secure document rooms at the senate, no, you cannot do that you can only view them in a secure facility of the cia. and we are not going to allow you to house these documents or records on senate computers that is just not safe. we need to have them be on computers that the cia has created and maintained and we will turn him over to you for your use. and so these details become quite important later on as we will see.

then the cia well we need to do a complete review of all the documents before we let you see anything, the review is for relevance and privilege. so what privilege exists for them to withhold documents from the senate oversight committee none of them. but nevertheless we have to have a review for these privileges that do not exist. and we cannot have anyone on staff now who is really available to do this review. so we are going to hire contractors, super, super secret dash so secret that we cannot show it to the senate. and we are going to hire contractors that would otherwise not be able to see them to do the review for us -- not put aboard burden on us. and so there's many months before that can be done. so it develops on and on and this is a very conscious effort

to slow walk the entire process, to drag it out year after year after year. as we get down to the end of this are amazing twists and turns in battle over specific documents. one particular event occurred and it appears that the cia staff was working in preparing these documents for transition and they have also been commissioned by these then directors of the cia leon panetta, to prepare for him a summary of everything that they are getting to see. tell the director what it is that they're getting to see, they prepare this summary for the director leon panetta and buy a mistake apparently the summary winds up being loaded onto the senate computers and then they say, this is amazing because basically here are the notes and summaries done and they are trying exactly the same conclusions that we are talking

about the documents which is not surprising because we were just describing these documents. that is bottom line no actionable intelligence was ever collected from the use of these aggressive techniques and so that is an accurate summary of the internal codes. then we get a real catfight between cia and the senate staff over this report. with members saying that they must have stolen it there's no other way they could possibly have gotten this document and that's quite obvious how they got theirs. but the golden rule of the cia is that they never made mistakes or errors and that is excluded immediately from consideration. they break into the senate

computers to try to retrieve it at this point but the staff says that they are trying to cause vital documents to disappear. we are going to print out a copy of this document and transmit to this at the senate to hold it there so it won't finally disappear. and the report is being finalized at this point and it's quite clear what the conclusions are going to be. at this point the acting general counsel of the cia goes and decides he's going to go to war against the senate committee. this includes theft in the handling of classified documents. that's because they saw the report and mishandling because they couldn't understand why they transmitted it to the secure document room in the senate. and he decides that he's not only going to publicly and these complains that he is going to file a formal notification with the u.s. department of justice requesting that they commence a criminal investigation into the

senate staffers for doing this. so of course we have to note that this man who does all of these things whose name had not appeared in the press onto this time, robert eden jerk his name appears in the summary of the report more than 600 times. and it is in fact the single most common name that appears most frequently in the report. and why is that because at the core of the report are that the dealings between the cia legal staff in the u.s. department of justice where they are being asked to give what is called the golden shield and the letter protecting people that use torture techniques from future prosecution. the gentleman is the one who is passing information to what the techniques are and this

concludes that he misled the department of justice and lied repeatedly. so there is no one who is frantically trying to do this so much as mr. etenger. this this includes a report behind-the-scenes and these interesting things include a senate committee doing what it is charged to buy the constitution rules of the senate and the oversight and has every right to do and we see what i would say are considered frivolous objections by the cia constantly designed to obstruct. we see the senate staff giving and over and over again where they make these ridiculous objections. and it's like, okay, we will do things as you say we will do all of that. and so they are achieving great success than they are using

basically every tool available to them to threaten and intimidate staff and slowdown to try to stop the issuance of the report and in the end it amazing where it comes out. >> the next time you hear about this conflict it could be so much worse. >> you know, when we were putting it together, the day that this report came out there were a number of supplemental documents released. there were powerful speeches and john mccain made an extraordinary speech after this came out. there was also this notorious 167 page document written by the republican members of the senate and they wielded a number of objections that they really have

been privy to this entire time. one of their objections and i think that i'm not mischaracterizing so they said is how can you dash how can this report be accurate. it is just based upon documents. because that is important to keep in mind. we did not interview all of these various cia agents and interrogators and psychologists that were involved. so indeed what is interesting to my mind, one of the powerful things reading this book is that this book is perhaps the most extreme example of someone being hung by a noose that they themselves hung up. you are reading a devastating indictment based exclusively on material produced by the organization being indicted. so this is a powerful thing. so is there any merit to this objective? what exactly is the reason that

there is the purview of the committee that was limited? >> honestly it would be advantageous. and by the way they did interview a substantial number of people. they are a group of critical actors who were not interviewed and why. the answer is because they couldn't be interviewed in this includes the subject of a special prosecutor who has been appointed by the gentleman the last attorney general and had been extended by eric holder to deal a basically 100 cases of severe abuse involving the cia agents. and of course, if you've dealt

with the criminal justice process you know that your counsel, if you have a target of an investigation, they will tell you not to speak on the record anyway. so these people were not available to be interviewed and therefore they couldn't be interviewed. >> yeah, and i think that again one longs for a report that would include all of that. it's truly striking because there's a number of striking things that are in here with those that talk about this. one of the striking things is one sense of any competent organized effort you know behind this set of techniques vanishes whether quickly. if anything there is reading the first pages of the report nbc have deeply cobbled together this stuff is and how amateurish

and how dangerous it is. one of the kind of things to my mind, the key example of the amateurish and is is the two psychologists whose names occur again and again in the book. the pseudonyms, i don't remember their real names. >> mitchell and jessup. >> for the record. you know they are sort of part of this book. they are a remarkable duo. two people who really seem to have no business wielding any sort of authority or experience in investigations and certainly not in investigations of this high magnitude. and yet they become the driving agents in the early months and years of this entire process. can you tell us about that?

>> i think that is really coming back to the nitty-gritty here. the process of of this why are they into this, what impact and role do they have. these people were involved were certainly not at the top of the profession. exactly the contrary they were psychologists who are willing to do whatever the agency wanted them to do no questions asked. they decided to reverse this from a special training program for pilots in which american pilots dash and this has been going on for many decades, that includes resistant interrogation and torture techniques, trained to do this the north koreans chinese and the north vietnamese, and those specific techniques included in the training program. and of course, the geniuses in the cia say that means we can adopt the north korean north the

enemies and chinese communist torture techniques. >> you know, you really have to allow yourself to reckon with exactly what is happening here. this is decades of established practice. decades of preparing american troops were the worst possible consequences and this includes stigmatizing enemies that can perform yet it seems that the imaginative leap is as quick as the one that you have just mentioned. >> that is exactly right. i mean it is breathtaking, i think. and these two leading members of the psychological profession know the details here. and they do this with a contract 180 million-dollar contract to compensate them for their work. how much is paid ultimately?

>> i think 80 million was actually paid before it was terminated. and in addition to that they were also matched the cia engaged this, the leading law firm and this was a multi-million-dollar retainer that was paid that was sent to lobby on their behalf and congress, which by the way violates the basic prohibition on lobbying and has appeared in american legislation. >> you know, this is really dash i am a lay reader, but this is all stuff that kind of drawn from reading this report and i

think it speaks to a very intentional polity of this report on behalf of dianne feinstein and other members who actually drafted it. this is an extraordinarily convincing documentary then i want to talk a little bit about of how that works. so early on if there are characters in this book. this is certainly one of the major ones in the most haunting figures in this whole book. he seems to be in large part functioning at the torture that he suffered at the hands of cia agents. there are a number of individuals that i think that this report demystifies in

rather remarkable ways and i think that one of them and one that the book takes on directly is the sense of inevitability. this is too much to be left unaccounted for. that includes anything to produce it. so what immediately seems contradictory to this is there is a 47 day gap in interrogation in 2002. to be part of this, the fbi actually gets good intelligence and then the the cia comes in and they give very bad intelligence because they are torturing them. and then there's the gap of time is a gap of time that should haunt all of us.

it refutes the entire sort of underpinning of this. christina: when we think of that, when we review this in which every single case is reviewed meticulously, we did not find a bouquets and not one in which there is this sort of time pressure or recognition. to the contrary everything is perceived in the most leisurely possible way. usually with a gap of a month or more, i think that that shows you that the ticking bomb scenario is one that was fabricated to use to persuade public opinion that torture was okay but it had nothing to do what was going on. but beyond that the second thing you just mentioned is also really incredibly important that is that we see case after case where we have a

side-by-side comparison with the fbi techniques and these are being used by the cia. and the fbi actually have central base there's and it turns out to be reliable and then they turn it over to the cia and that is the end of the story many times you hear them say that we got actionable intelligence from this prisoner. and so the question of who's techniques work and whose didn't come about is hands down the fbi techniques work and the cia techniques do not.

and i think they work hard to do this. so why has this been since 2006? we discover that there is a cia internal review and assessment of the efficacy of the program. and that this review concludes that the program is not working. by the way, there are no documents that seem to survive this internal review. nothing, although it we know that there was a survey and attempts to have scientific reports prepared and somehow all this documentary including the leadership of the cia, let them to recommend the termination of the program which the national security council accepted, it all just disappears. >> i want to talk about the kind of larger political story here and one that you tell beautifully in your book.

because in my mind in the interest of continuing to talk about this book as a book, i think of two contemporary novelists when i think about this book. one of them his book is over there, the pale king is his novel. this is great bureaucracy of our time. we talk about what happens time and again, the phone calls, e-mails all of the e-mails between cia officials tried to link themselves with these techniques that they are describing in these bloodless terms are legal. ..

the other novelist and the last couple novels that makes me think of a resident of the same neighborhood. his last couple of novels especially certainly the leading edge is a novel that suggests that all the conspiracies that he has been telling you about for decades they are true and now you can't deny them and

while it sounds a little bit like a literary construct i think this book suggests that you should almost go ahead and believe every kind of considering -- conspiracy and this is an implicit topic in your book so i would love to hear little bit about that. >> was to start out by suggesting another way you can read this report. i agree, i think it is a brilliantly conceived and written summary. it reads very smoothly. i think it can be read as a report on the subject that describes a review of the black sites and enhanced interrogation techniques program challenging the cia about the efficacy of the program. but i think underneath that it has been tested in a different way and that is to look at what is the role of the intelligence

community generally and particularly the cia and our society today and are we arriving at something like a deep state in the united states? and i think it does an incredibly meticulous job of pulling apart the relationship between the cia and all these other aspects of washington and that's the white house, the department of justice, the department of state, the courts. also the press. i think one of the most amazing disclosures in this book are the way the cia manipulates and place with the press understanding very well exactly how the american press operates. and what you see at the end of the day within all of this is the cia and the national security apex -- i didn't even talk about the

department of defense and the department of defense is a whole other area but the cia a subject of perhaps dread or fear on the part of many other institutions of the government. people don't want to cross them. people are afraid of what they might do if they take a negative view to a particular political act or another particularly the legal institution. so their power certainly is perceived as being at the systems apex and the mummy go back and we test the specific point against what has happened we see individuals who make the most egregious and step aside for moral judgments just stupid decisions, wrong decisions arresting people who are completely innocent. a couple of cases torturing them

to death or the presence in fact with people who are if anything senior figures who should be ample or doing false analysis and sets law enforcement on a wild goose chase over and over again or making an error in judgment about allowing a double agents to enter an installation in afghanistan and a bomb killing seven cia agents or, and this is something i think which is increasingly well-documented, specific detailed information about 9/11 conspiratorial to are in the united states of not providing this information to the fbi a rather law enforcement authorities so that action could be taken. so was there an opportunity to

interdict 9/11? the answer is now very clear, yes there was in the intelligence was at hand and individuals at the cia decided to suppress that. why? because in this is where we can go back to sociologists who tell you secrets are power. they want that information. they wanted for their own programs. they want to share with law enforcement and by the way they lied to congress about it. but in all these cases and i cited just a few and they are dozens more which you can read about in my book, what is the consequence of this and the answer is no negative consequences at all. so no firings, no emotions, no penalties, no fines. in fact people who make these mistakes are viewed as the people who have chalk on their cleats to quote director michael hayden. they're people who are very aggressive out there and they are the people we want to talk

and they wind up at the top of the cia so the cia today is populated at the pinnacle with the people whose stories are recounted in this report. this is i think the topic of a really remarkable speech that was given by mark udall in his final speech in the senate in which he said we are not saying stop nuremberg tribunals but why are the people that did these things now running the cia? this doesn't make any sense at all. we should have some turnover in personnel and i think a large part of the really aggressive pushback at some of the cia is precisely that. it is to protect individuals who made gross errors who now run the cia. >> we are going to move to questions so if anybody has a question just make sure the gentleman with the microphone comes to you first. right over here.

>> hi. my name is wendy. i am wondering how do you know for sure that the cia has suspended torture is a technique in 2006? >> well the answer is that we can never know for sure that they suspended it. i think we know that in 2006 the decision was taken by the national security council with one negative vote and that was dick cheney to pull three of the most objectionable torture techniques out of the west. so i think three technics everybody agrees pretty much accepted dick cheney. but then the second day that barack obama was in power he issued an executive order that formally terminated all of these techniques ostensibly that there is no reason for a little bit of

concern. that concern has to do with some things that are going on in guantánamo including things that are described as health care procedures but don't really look that way. things that are covered by schedule n and the u.s. department of the army's interrogations manual so i think there is still some grounds for concern. but i think the really outrageous things described in this report appeared to be terminated. as a matter of policy so to say that they don't happen i think people out in the field who violate the rules all the time but the policy no longer permits them. >> thanks very much for the talk. you mentioned how the cia played the press in a report today was wondering if you could elaborate

on that a little more. >> yes well i would start with the conceptual side of things. people who covered the national security beat wanted to develop sources and they want to have confidential direct sources that they can use for their reporting and in fact developing those sources is key to establishing yourself in reporting. the cia fully understands that and uses it so the cia sought amongst the court reporters acting in this area who is a reliable partner for them? who will take their stories and report them the way that they want them to be reported? so i would just say it becomes clear in this report documents that they consciously go about picking certain reporters and delivering materials to them and there are some names that appear

in the report. and by the way go look on the net. he has put out a statement of defense saying that they report misunderstands but what he was doing when he tells the cia that he will lean over backwards to report things in their interest if they give them certain information. but in any event i would say it's very clear that there are a significant number of people who inform these confidential relations and take information and if we look at what the intelligence community is doing now in the last happy or roughly, there is a special order that was issued by general james clapper and national intelligence which is sometimes referred to as the clapper that law. this order says that the person who has access to secret information within the

intelligence community has a meeting with reporter, it could be someone you knew from high school and you are having lunch with that is enough to justify the opening of an investigation of an inquiry that could lead to your termination. so the intelligence service is becoming much more aggressive about this and why? that immediately after clapper was caught lying to congress caught red-handed. the instinctive reaction was i'm going to make it impossible for her anyone to prove i'm lying to congress in the future. we are going to go after anyone so who is excluded from this order? people who have a privileged relationship with the agency and are taking this information. the bottom line though here is we see time and again these materials were passed on to reporters who made no particular effort to verify the materials.

they were not accurate and they were reported inaccurately. it's difficult when you get classified information to try to verify it i would concede to that but i would say if you are reporter and you are getting leaked information from somebody inside the agency that fully backs up the agency's point of view and what the agency is doing, that's not a leak. sorry, that's not a leak. that's what we call implanted leak. you should be very skeptical of that and there's another aspect of this which i think is particularly worrisome. the other aspect is at the same time that these planted leaks are being put out the cia is going to courts where organizations are going in with foia actions requesting documents and saying we can't provide this information. it's extremely sensitive and highly classified. it cannot be doubled and by the

way reporters here take this file with the adulterated documents. can you play both sides of this game? i think in the view of official washington absolutely, that's the way the game is played but we should accept that. we really shouldn't accept that. >> how about over here. >> you characterize the uncomfortable relationship with the senate staffers in the cia fear-mongering. where are their senators they were four and what should the information have been like in all this? >> they are extremely constrained. ultimately their movement, i mean partly circumscribed by this very process, this very sort of set of stories about cia

so anytime they contradict we see how quickly the cia fights back. it's very difficult to speak of them in one lump sum because i think they are individual and different ways. i think a number of them i think -- was very aggressive in standing up for her staff and so were a number of others. now on the republican side i think there we have a few republican senators certainly senator mccain being very aggressive in standing up with the staff in a couple of others. but senator byrd who is now the chair was not so supportive of the professional staff at all. i think there were some republicans who were looking to try and find and build an alliance with the cia malefactors. we will cover and protect you and you are going to be our

friends which i think reflects a negative view of the cia then i have offered here frankly at the end of the day. but no i think we have differing attitudes. but in fact the staff is just an extension of the senators so what they do they do and they have the rights and privileges that the senators themselves have and that was established by mike gravelle when he read on the floor of the pentagon papers papers. one of his staffers. >> over here. >> thank you. my name is david. november 26, 2014 just recently i read an article in the new york daily news entitled hating from healers and it was about a clinic that was set up in the

bronx, i forget the name of the clinic for transgender people who are terrorized to get medical help and these doctors have set up this clinic just for them so it's a good development. the article did not say what they were terrorized up but i think if you were to find that clinic and ask those doctors with their patients are telling them you might get a lead on torture in new york city because i have experienced it. i take two medications and the side effects of them are that i am about 1% transgender so maybe the torture i have experienced is that but i have never had any indication why. >> we should be clear that this has nothing to do with anything

going on domestically in the united states. it's only overseas. >> yes, quick question. first of all thank you. why did you take on this project? >> basically we felt that this was a really essential document that we felt would not get lost would get insufficient notice if it were just sort is to and breathe as a pds and poorly formatted e-book. i think the crowd is a testament to the accuracy of that assumption. you now i am not a blind optimist but i do believe that a document in the book has a much longer lifespan than it does in

bookstores like this one can actually keep the book a life and part of the public conversation in public consciousness much much longer than even the best proprietary proprietary -- proprietor of the best pdf and certainly more than amazon.com which it's not in its interest to keep a healthy conversation around books active. so you know it was really that. we wanted to make sure that a document of the significance got the reception that documents of equal significance had received in the past. is there time for one more question? >> there is one back there. >> thanks so much for having the event. i agree at this time but this is important and you really wonder if the fact that when these

actions were carried out people knew they were wrong and they were looking for cover. i would also highlight the report covers the victims, the torture survivors and to give names and reactions to these horrible acts that they were subjected to and that subjected to and that is the real contribution. they have been kept invisible. two questions, one very technical in the book. in reading through the book it's amazing how many names are there for those of us who cover the subject that i've never seen before. do you have an index of all of the people on e-mails who are out there now touting i work for the government. do you have all those than an index in the back of the book? >> we don't in large part because of two constraints. first we wanted to move as quickly as because the dominant one we wanted it to look exactly like the document that was released by the senate intelligence committee. there's nothing extraneous in here and that certainly would

have been useful and i think had they been graced with a productive schedule that was a more accommodating we would have done that. >> in the second printing i think that's important because these names need to be known and scot-free the question is wayne now know they are committed and we knew that before but now it's in stark horrific detail. how does this move us forward on accountability? >> let me go back to your first question per minute and say that actually there's a lot of unredacted that is being done and you are going to see shortly some publications and in fact i think the french version of this report coming out shortly is going to have a large number of redaction's. we see when we discover these names they were pushing amongst other things to keep secret the names of cia personnel and also the identities of governments that were collaborating with them in the past. not too surprising that i would say in the overall order of things that could be legitimate

to some extent except that this is a historical program. it's long over. the fact that the government involvement has been disclosed in the countries that are involved poland and so forth the names are already well-known and it provides cover for people so i've seen on network television time and again people who are involved in these programs and and our network national security analyst is going to tell us about this. i think we have got to get beyond that but now coming to the accountability principle. i would say there are some very interesting things in this regard that has come out of the report. one of them was john durham's investigation which we talked about a little bit earlier. what was going on with this investigation? why was going on for such a long period of time and why after all of that did not result in charges being brought against anyone even though you have international law documents say

it's torture, does not discretion daree are mandatory so it's rather odd. i think one main thing that comes up when we cross information with this report with things that come out with wikileaks it presents the investigation and a very negative light. so it looks like there is no real investigation going on at certain stages. there is no attempt to investigate or to interview victims of any of these crimes and the investigation is being expanded not because there is any real attention bringing charges in the united states. it's going on because what we call dr. and a parliamentarian. that means they want to stop criminal investigations overseas in italy and spain and poland and germany and many other countries and of course we see on a wikileaks that american diplomats are running to the

justice ministries ministries of all these country saying don't look at this, shut down your investigation because john durham is investigating. actually he is not. that's the purpose of it. where it's going to go forward in this regard i would expect to see something in the united states sent sin but i think a number of countries overseas where they are important disclosures may well lead to prosecutions and poland certainly is one which was immediately unredacted by the polish newspapers and the disclosure of a substantial bribe to polish intelligence and the involvement of a number of political figures there. i think we may see a revival of some of the actions. there will be some follow-up but don't expect the war crimes tribunal to come to new york city. >> i am a clinical psychologist and i'm curious in what function

where the psychologist hired? >> i think this is a hugely important question. what's going on here and from what i see from everything here is that has a lot to do with the legal justification for torture. so to get the department of justice to issue these opinions they have to have medical professionals are health care professionals of some sort involved. it says pretty clearly they went to medical doctors who said i'm not touching this and the only people who are perfectly happy to touch whatever they wanted were the psychologist. so they went to the bottom of the barrel and the psychologist were willing to do it. i think this raises some very profound questions for the professional organization and i would say another thing that is here are the e-mails that have been viewed by the staff are not

quite covered in this report. they are the main document but it includes correspondence between cia office medical service in the heads of the apa american psychological association. they were supporting this entire censure to the end. now the apa repeatedly issued an official statement saying this was all nonsense. they lied. it's very clear now that they lied and the leadership of the apa now recognizes what's going on and has hired a chicago lawyer to conduct an independent investigation and we will see what comes out of that. i would say in terms of professional responsibility governance is a huge issue. [inaudible] >> no in effect what happens is the department of defense and the cia refuses to cooperate with any psychological review

boards so they can't get evidence or information and therefore every complaint that has been filed against them has failed. >> have the licenses of the psychologist been pulled? >> and the answer was no. >> i want to thank you all for coming. it was a very enlightening conversation. i hope we can do it again soon. maybe on something more cheerful. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> sure. [inaudible conversations]

>> really it was the impact of california regulators that an electric car was a viable consumer option. it caused them to set rules that were pumped into a much larger package air pollution related rules that essentially set out a timeline renovation and said by 1998 you present the cars that are sold in california have to be electric m. by 2310%. so i would say it didn't fail. i would say was postponed and one of the good things about this policy was there was a

built-in review. every couple of years they would come back and say is this working come is this not working and why is it not working is the technology ready. >> how did the automakers feel about the cars? >> i don't think they liked him very much in general. probably tesla like them but it's been an evolving relationship. at various times the relationship has been more or less fraud but in general the relationship is being characterized by a series of very cantankerous lawsuits. >> so what is the car requiring today? >> today you have a situation where seven states in addition to california have bought into zero-emission vehicle mandate which automakers if they are going to sell cars in california or other states they have to

sell a certain proportion of electric vehicles. the interesting thing that dumbo is they have overlaid the market which is anonymously efficient. it means rather than just saying every single automaker has to sell 2% electric cars 3% electric cars next year and not a maker can make a strategic decision whether it makes sense for them to build electric cars to sell or buy what are called pet credits which are credits awarded to automakers when they sell electric vehicles. they can buy them from another automaker. >> it changes. >> it depends on electric vehicles and sometimes it's really high. a couple of years ago the maxed out tesla model was producing people estimated $35,000 worth of pet credits. >> another which tesla in addition to making revenues from selling the cars were also

making revenues from selling credit. >> and they still are. in 2013 tesla made -- to be e.t. credits alone so it's a lot of money and it has a big impact on the business model. >> how many electric cars of the 120,000 that were sold last year what proportion were in california? >> allotted to look at california and the states that are following the mandate is almost all of them. it's hard to get good numbers on exactly where the cars are being sold. california put out an announcement in november of last year that it together with its partners had sold 250 thousand electric vehicles. that was when the electric vehicle market henke militantly sold about 250,000 electric vehicles so it's not all of them

them. jonathan horn is next on booktv. he recounts robert e. lee's decision to join the confederate army and being sought by both the north and south. it's about an hour. >> it's my pleasure to introduce jonathan horn. he is an author and former white house president sure -- presidential speechmaker who spent years writing his new robert daily biography, "the man who would not be washington" congress in january of this year. jonathan has appeared as a commentator on "msnbc"." his writing has appeared in "the new york times"" "the weekly standard" and other outlets. during his time at the white house jonathan served as a spee