your view on benghazi. [laughter] >> i will try to generally make a -- i talk about it a lot in the book, but i think there were failures and mistakes of leadership before, during and after. .. >> would be chomping at the bit to get in there into the fight to save americans. i've personally and many of us

probably have have had friends who have died doing that. to me, it goes against everything in the american ethos not to be doing that. there's a lot of unanswered questions, we're still getting information now that had to be pulled out through subpoena. we don't know where the president was, what hillary was doing. you know everything what they were doing during the bin laden raid, but you don't know any of this stuff, and then, of course, you have the cover-up, and it really goes in with my book for personal political gain. they wanted to show that libya was pacified because libya was their baby right? that was their intervention under the guise of the duty to protect, to stop gadhafi from killing his people. i would submit to you many more people were killed after they destabilized it. genocide genocide of christians. isis has a radio station -- a tv station in libya right now. it's a disaster. so before, during and after, tubs of failures -- tons of failures. and if hillary clinton decides to run i hope the american

people really seek the truth so thank you. thank you very much, i appreciate it. [applause] thank you n. >> you're watching booktv. carol booker who edited alice cupny gun -- dunnigan's autobiography and james mcgrath morris are next. they talk about the two pioneer african-american journalists and their impact. it's a little under an hour. [applause] >> thank you so much, larry, and thank you for acknowledging those feats which will make what these women did, ethel payne and alice dunnigan, even more remarkable. the black press in america has played an important role in p chronicling the black experience the american experience for africans in this

country before we were african-americans. going back as far as prince hall fred -- frederick douglass and, of course, benjamin banneker and the first spozzedly, the date sometimes is in controversy but it's been said that samuel cornish started the first black newspaper in 1827. so through american history, the trials and tribulations, the progress and the backlash, through lynching and segregation up until today we have the black press play a very important role. some of you might ask, and you should, but what about the women? those black women? well, we had ida b. wells barnett who, a journalist, once a teacher who then became person who recorded the lynchings in america. and she did travel internationally to talk about these issues. her newspaper was fire bombed. that's why she moves up north to

chicago where she began another career altogether. but never lost sight of the fact that the black press played such an important role. and, of course, there's daisy bates, the journalist in little rock arkansas, who had a newspaper there "the arkansas state press," but it had to go out of business in 1959. why? because daze is city bates was a civil -- daisy bates was a civil rights activist who stood up for those central high school students who were finally admitted, those nine black students, but it cost her her livelihood. so at this point we have a background in which these intrepid black women moved forward to tell the local community the news of the day. but what about the national field? what about the national and international news? so these two women, ethel payne and alice dunnigan, played an important role on the national stage of journalism. and we will begin with carol mccabe booker and alice

dunnigan. >> thank you, gloria and thank you all for coming out on another cold winter's night with a lot of ice on the ground. it's a really tribute to al his and earth -- alice and ethel two great women of the black press and also two very best friends, which is a lovely thing to know. when sonya ross of the associated press nominated alice dunnigan for induction into the black journalist hall of fame two years ago, she said that alice dunnigan had pauled the way for -- paved the way for every other black woman who ever covered the black house. well, i had met al disdunny -- alice cupny began years ago, but i never got to know her. and during the tribute they mentioned that she had written a book, "a black woman's experience: from the schoolhouse to the white house." and i had, i hadn't read it. so i decided to the go find it. and it was very difficult to

find. i finally read it in the main reading room of the library of congress. and i found that alice had done a lot more than just pave the way for other black women who covered the white house. and i thought not only was there a good read here -- it was long, it needed to be edited did you want me to go on or -- >> i think this is exceptional. [laughter] i thought this was my cue -- >> that was your cue. it was a very -- >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> no, i want you, i am on my toes with anticipation. [laughter] >> uncomfortable. [laughter] >> please, go on. >> go on? >> yes. we really want to know more about alice. tell us about a part of her early life, because we see these black women in washington d.c. many of you are not originally from washington. and so there are different paths hard taken -- paths that are

taken for all of us to arrive here, even our forefathers to arrive here foremothers. so in this instance we have alice cupny began -- not from washington, d.c., but from the the deep south. >> no. [laughter] >> how deep was it? >> this is an interesting question. i'm glad you asked. >> it was a cold and dark night. [laughter] >> i'm also glad you want to know about alice's early years, because when she wrote the book she asked us do not judge me by the huguets to which i -- by the heights to which i have risen and they were considerable, but by the depths from which i have come. by the heights she was talking about first black woman accredited to the house and senate press galleries. first black woman accredited to the white house, to to the supreme court, to the state department. and then within a year 1948, she's the first black woman to accompany a u.s. president on an official trip.

president truman's cross-country whistlestop tour 18 western states in 15 days. so how did she get there? good question. [laughter] no no it's important to know that it wasn't the deep south. i'll tell you why. she was born in 1906 in kentucky, rural kentucky. and they had jim crow laws just like the south, but there's an interesting little passage in her book where as a 14-year-old girl she sees her mother and grandmother very excited in 1920. election day. because this is the first national election after adoption of the 19th amendment, the women's suffrage amendment. and they are going to get to vote for the first time. so her mother sets out on the two-mile walk to russellville where everything is, the church the sunday school the high

school for girls the polls. her mother sets out early to get there before the doors even open so she doesn't have to wait in line. and alice maybe because she's 14 at the time she's much more concerned about her grandmother who dies the very same day while alice is alone taking care of her. alice doesn't mention the significance of this. but almost 50 years later, women like amelia boynton and annie lee cooper are going to get their heads bashed on the edmund pet discuss bridge when they -- pettis bridge when they try to vote because neither black men nor women could vote in the teach south. so that was the difference -- deep south. so that was the difference between the states that had slavery before the civil war but did not secede from the union. so there's just some slight differences in the way black people were treated although it was still pretty bad. and it was the repression the

oppression of segregation and the humiliation of it that drove al his in 1942 -- alice in 1943 to look for a way out. >> well, that was exciting. and i know people in kentucky are glad to know they're not in the deep south -- [laughter] so we have jamie, who's allowed me to call him jamie -- >> please. >> who is, jamie morris, who's going to now talk to us about the background of ethel payne. >> well ethel payne was born in south side chicago and she had a different experience, i think, than many south side kids, because the neighborhood she was born in, in 1911, is west englewood. and she described it as an eye hand in a sea of whiteness -- an island in a sea of whiteness. she didn't live on the side that was universally african-american, and one of the differences was she and her family could walk to better is services, could walk to white

libraries, copernicus elementary school. she suffered, i mean kids threw rocks at her, she didn't get to do the kind of writing she wanted to do as an aspiring journalist but nonetheless, she benefited from things that gave her an advantage later in life. and one of the things i think gave her an advantage is by having gone to lindbloom high school where i'm going to spend a day shortly, she was in some sense better prepared than kids her same age from a different part of south side and being bicultural, be you can use that express. in a sense that when she comes to washington which is a segregated city in which the press corps is lily white and the politicians are, you know refusing to speak to her just because she's a woman and skin color, she was much more prepared for that kind of cultural world that she was going to step into. so i think that part of her background's very important. the other part of her background and childhood is her dad was a pullman porter, and he died when she was only 14. but you remember that pullman porters played an important role in the african-american press

because getting the chicago defender in the south was a dangerous thing to do. the mail match, if you got it by mail, was going to report you. even though there were counties where it was illegal, that wasn't the issue. law wasn't the issue, it was the physical violence you could suffer from getting it. so i don't know whether her dad like other pullman porters actually carried the defender but they carried them south distributed them to barbershops so she was growing up in the sense in the shadow of the defender. she saw the power of the african-american community on south side chicago when it was excluded from social life in chicago, from economic life in chicago and created its own banks, its own cosmetic companies, its own funeral parlors and, of course, the chicago defender. and it created its economic might by the fact that segregation in the sense of "the chicago tribune" refusing to pay attention to the african-american community created an economic basis for the paper that would eventually

employ her. because be you wanted to have your -- if you wanted to have your kid's high school graduation announcement all those things the chicago tribune weren't paying attention to, and that's important because it created the economic bread and butter that made the defender so possible. so that's the world she grew up in. and she also faced like all african-american women at that time, every door that she wanted open was slammed in her face. for instance, in the year that she really begins to go looking for a professional john, seven out of -- job, seven out of ten african-american women employed in chicago are employed as domestics. no professional jobs are open at that point. and so she had -- i always like it because my father referred to me as a late bloomer. i was probably lazy. she was a late bloomer because every door was closed and remarkably it wasn't until she was 40 that the doors opened up with her original success in journalism that brought her to washington and to work with alice dunnigan. is that enough for the beginning part? >> i like it and i'm quite sure

that everyone here is on pins and needles waiting to see how they transition from this struggle into professional journalists. especially alice dunnigan as was pointed out dealing with racism and gender bias. >> and she's the first. >> yes, and she's the first. and not just bias from white males, but also from white women and black males. and so alice dunnigan figures out a way to transition. reading her book i see she had so many jobs. first as a teacher. and so how did she transition? >> well alice wanted to be a teacher from when she was a little girl because as jamie pointed out in chicago, it was probably a little bit worse in kentucky. you had two choices you either became a schoolteacher or you became a domestic, and you worked in white folks' kitchens. and she did not want to do that. she did it to work her way through school. she didn't want to do it for the rest of her life. so she worked like anything to

get her teaching certificate and to become a teacher. she's got a description of her first job as a teacher which is incredible. an 18-year-old, she walks into the school superintendent's office in todd county and presents him with a lust of things that that -- with a list of things that have to be fixed in this dilapidated school, one-room schoolhouse. it's the leaking roof, and it's the lack of window peaps and it's the dust coming up from the unfinished floor, and it's the coal dumped out in the yard where it just gets wet when it rains, and it's a whole list of things. oh, how about no school desks? they're sitting on church pews. so she's a very, she's a very determined and persistent person. she's not timid. she's not abrasive, gregarious outgoing. she's reserved. she's cautious rather than reckless. but she has her mind set on something, and she goes after

it. well by the time she's 36 years old, she's kind of disgusted, and she tries along with a relative who's a minister to organize a civic league because there's no unions, there's no urban league there's no naacp. so they get folks together like this on a sunday, and they start talking about well, how about if we agree on a minimum wage for cooks in white households below which everyone agrees they won't work? and how about for those black neighborhoods because the roads aren't paved. why don't we agitate to get the roads paveed and get some gas lines in there, and everybody seems to agree. but then they go home and they tell their white employers that alice and the minister are trying to turn them against their employers. alice almost loses her job.

that was a very demeaning experience where she's denied a coca-cola to wash down some aspirin for a migraine headache in a local drugstore. she's fed up. she can't take it anymore because complacency is not part of alice's character. and she finds a way out on a bulletin board in the post office. it's a recruitment notice for entry-level typing jobs in the federal government. wartime jobs. she applies. she hauls her own typewriter to the post office. she takes a test. she's nervous, the typewriter is crummy anyway, she plunks the typing -- flunks the typing part. she does so well on the written part of the test that the postmaster invites her to take the typing part over. she aces it. she gets a telegram gloria the day before thanksgiving, and it

tells her to the report for work in washington on monday morning. p sunday she gets on the train. and off she goes. she knows no one in washington d.c., she has nowhere to stay. but a teacher always told the students if you ever find yourself in that position, go to the ywca or the ymca. she does that. she comes to washington, she goes straight to the phyllis wheatley ywca which is still at 9th and massachusetts, still operating today. and they ask her for three references. well, she's got loads of references back home in kentucky, but she doesn't know anybody here in washington. so she's very creative, that's another one of alice's characteristics. she comes up with three of the most famous people she ever met when they'd pass through kentucky; civil rights leader mary mcleod bethune carter j.

woodson, founder of black history month -- [laughter] first week then month, and the exalted ruler of the elks, jason lee will soften. and it's p find. she -- wilson. she recognizes they would never know who she was the if asked, but nobody asked her. she knew the right people and she goes to work percent federal government for five years -- for the federal government for five years while freelancing for something called the associated negro press which was pounded in 1919 by claude barnett. now, back in kentucky while a schoolteacher, she had also freelanced for kentucky newspapers, five or six kentucky newspapers over the years. so she had some experience, and she got more experience as a freelancer. i'll end there. >> okay. [laughter] so when we move to -- you mentioned, jamie morris that ethel payne was working for the

defender -- or the defender played a role in her young life. how did she come to work for the defender, and how did she come to washington, d.c.? >> i'm struck by a parallel when i was reading -- and by way the new version is such a good improvement and the footnotes that you provided in her autobiography really make the book much more accessible to people, but the story of that notice struck me as having a parallel to ethel payne. when i told you she was denied all of these chances at a job in chicago, she answered a notice, and this was a service club hostess in japan. imagine leaving chicago and going halfway around the world. what was really cool is that she stopped in seattle, and she saw a crowd of people, and who was coming by, but truman. and, of course, who was in the cars behind? she didn't meet alice dunnigan then, but there was a moment in 1948 that in some ways presages what happens. so she goes to somewhere pan and being a writerly type she

gets interested in life in japan. in 1948 a lot of people were saying, well, the troops were desegregated. well truman had signed the executive order, but he had this general in japan who had no intention of desegregating the troops douglas mcarthur. a lot of the white soldiers preferred to come to her club and he were not barred and she got interested in covering what was going on particularly the relationship between african-american soldiers and japanese women. her publication was her diary. that's where -- no place to publish. and one of the things she observed was the birth of children that occurred in these relationships, and these children were shunned because of being mixed race. they were referred to as occupation babies brown babies and then they had some derogatory terms, and jet magazine booker magazine had this -- had the visual has this

extraordinary set of photographs of these children and being faulted by japanese -- taunted by japanese children because of their mixed race origins. so she was tracking all of this and also the whole notion of african-american soldiers having relationships with women of another race was an explosive thing back home. and this is not something mac arthur wanted discussed. so alex wilson who worked for the chicago defender came to japan to cover the korean war. the only way you could cover it was through central command in japan. he met partnership, and he convinced her -- she was quite willing, but she let him have parts of the diary with a traditional lead and paragraph and for a couple weeks ran back home about the fate of these orphaned babies and about the frat earnizing that was going on. this explosive story excited everybody in chicago but also excited mack arthur's folks. so they yanked her from the service club. they were going to put her away

in some little corner job, and in a sense send her packing with -- she wasn't in the military, but with the equivalent of a dishonorable discharge. just so happened that a rather talented lawyer was traveling to japan at this moment was african-americans were -- because african-americans were being court-martialed at an extraordinary rate because of the way the troops were being segregated. none of them were being relieved. and remember troops are 18 19-year-old kids none of whom expected to be shot at by a bunch of north koreans. so there were these really badly-run court-martials in which many of them were facing charges. thurgood marshall talented lawyer came to japan to defend them. he heard about the case, and ethel payne was released in a more honorable fashion. the chicago defender who a realized they'd got her into deep do do and secondly, recognized her talent, offered her a job. is so she came back to the united states in 1951 at the

pivotal moment when some of the early cases of brown v. board were trickling up through the system. she arrives back on the shores of the united states at a moment when the civil rights movement was about to explode. >> wonderful. and where was alice during this time period? she's older. she's struggling. i read in both your book withs they were both always struggling financially. >> yes. >> that there was this need for the information they were providing, but it was always difficult to make ends meet especially for alice. >> uh-huh. >> well the black newspapers never had much money and they weren't about to give much to a news service. so claude barnett with his associated negro press was always struggling to get them to pay their dues. it was of the last bill they'd want to pay and he'd still send them dispatches. so he didn't have very much money to pay alice. and, in fact, talk about gender bias, he hired her at a fraction of the salary that he had offered to two men that he tried

to recruit and who turned down the job. so she struggled forever. he was a sexist. but he was not unusual. he was not atypical. mademoiselle magazine did a survey of journalism schools at the time to see where their graduates went and who hired the females, and the answer universally came back with male editors said they'd hire a man over a woman if they could. so claude burnett was not much different. and when he did hire her, he had his idea of what were proper assignments. so that when she wanted to get a letter of recommendation so that she could be accredited to the capitol press galleries, he said we've been trying for years to get a man in there. of what makes you think that you, a woman can accomplish this feat? well, she had to argue back and forth before he finally sent a

letter of relation. and he -- of recommendation. and he cement it late so that -- sent it late so that after she struggled and she persisted and she got the rules changed so that news services were admitted and, therefore, blacks were admitted because blacks did not have daily papers except the atlanta daily world which did not have a presence in washington. so it was discrimination as a result of something not intentional no blacks, but nobody other than daily press. so she got the rule changed, and then she didn't get to be the first black admitted because the nnpa followed up and got louie latier admitted first. so she got in next. and every time she wanted to go on an assignment claude barnett would come up with somely dib louse -- jamie mentioned the train trip. claude barnett said women don't take trips like this. >> exactly. >> that was his attitude.

well, alice said i'm going with your consent. she had to have his consent because she had to have the credentials. but he wouldn't pay for it. >> uh-huh. >> and he asked four of the largest newspapers -- the defender the pittsburgh courier and two others if they would chip in to pay her way, and two of them said they weren't interested, and the defender and the pittsburgh courier said we'd rather sense our own men, is they sent their own men, and she scooped them left and right because they looked on it as more of a vacation, and she didn't. >> do you think that was her big moment as far as looking back at the times in which she was able to make a difference or at least be in the room? i think one -- as a person who covers the u.s. supreme court who writes for black newspapers and who looks at this issue of credentialing as very important because in order for a black newspaper to actually -- because most of them are weekly -- in order for reporters for black

newspapers to get those credentials, you have to have something, an establishment in washington. and so she relied on these men and they relied on her, but it seems like she was always trying to find that big story in spite of what they're doing or despite their undermining her sense of professionalism or maybe underlining -- undermining her sense of self as a reporter. from reading your book, it appears -- and about ethel payne as well -- that these women thought so much more of themselves than some people might have given them credit for, especially alice dunnigan. >> absolutely. they did rely on each other. she needed claude barnett because she needed to be working for someone to get those credentials. he needed her because she was awfully good. she worked harder than any man. she was ever where covering everything. finish -- everywhere covering everything. she used those credentials to bet into the supreme court to hear thurgood marshall argue civil rights cases.

she used the credentials to cover every single presidential news conference even when eisenhower ignored her snubbed her, put her aside for more than two years and refused to recognize her even though she was on her feet. one news conference 15 times. mr. president, mr. president. he ignored her as if she didn't even exist. >> well let's move over to ethel payne because she had a similar experience, jamie morris when -- because this is the white house press corps. and alice dunnigan is the first, ethel payne now comes into the white house press corps. what is her experience there? >> well, her experience is similar in the sense of being a woman and being african-american, she faced the same resistance not just from whites but from the first gentleman who was a member of the press corps. he was quite uncomfortable with these two women, particularly since they both wanted to ask tough questions, and he didn't intend to. and the credentialing was an excuse. i mean, the rules were set up so

weeklies couldn't be, you know and they could easily bend the rules. and because these two women were so tough and unwilling to accept a no, they changed the things. what i was so struck by is the sense of isolation they must have both felt. and they were both drawn to each other. when they are beginning to ask some of these questions of eisenhower, to me it's proof positive that who sits at the table makes an enormous difference. the white press had no interest in asking these questions. and i don't want to ascribe to them bad motives, but these issues weren't part of their lives, you know? when alice dunnigan or ethel payne wants to take a cab across washington to get to the white house to ask the leader of the free world a question that's a barrier because the cabs may not pick her up. she wants to go to the bathroom she wants to get a meal the house and senate were members of political folks who wouldn't talk to them. and the sense of isolation, i thought, was just enormous. and i just want to share one comment that ethel payne makes about when they're beginning to

confront the president with these questions. which, you know, a black woman standing up in a hall of white men, all of whom are going to turn around and look at you and you're going to ask eisenhower a question is a daunting task. alice and i put our heads together and decided to team up so that each week there would always be a question on some phase of civil rights. and when they did that a certain magic occurred that i don't think we appreciate which is by having asked questions at that national forum they forced the mainstream media -- ie, the white media -- to finally notice what was going on. because they couldn't escape reporting a question that was asked in that forum. so when ethel payne asks about why the howard university choir was barred from a lincoln day celebration or when alice dunnigan asked questions about housing in one case or ethel payne gets the president really ticked off and asks him a question about supporting

desegregation of interstate bus travel, the rest of the reporters had to cover that story. so what you do is you see alice dun began's reports or ethel payne's reports come out day one, the next day "the washington post," "the new york times," the l.a. thymes are all -- l.a. times are are all covering that story. so i talk to younger people this is proof that it really matters who gets to sit at the table. >> and i noticed in doing research for my book that the black press during this time would have an angle on the story that the white press didn't have. >> huge difference. >> so you would have -- even it would appear as though there were different facts altogether based on who was reporting the story. >> to me growing up as a white kid who watched this from a distance, what i was so struck by in writing this book and now sharing to white readers the history of the black press -- and this is true in alice's work as well as in ethel's work -- look at the adjectives the way they describe the legislative victories even though the '57

civil rights act is gutted and she reports on how johnson and kennedy are ripping the heart out of it. but the white press hails those acts as magnificent gifts being given passively to african-americans. the black press nails the story by understanding these were rights that belonged to them that we are taking, that we are winning. notice the kind of adjective -- kind of active verbs they're using. and the segregation the legacy of segregation is that white americans couldn't understand anger after those moments because they didn't understand how they were being cheated even this these bills. and the black press never failed to cover that story and these two women were on top of it all the time. don't you think? >> well if we could because alice, alice did a tremendous feat of journalism for a black woman. i say it was because she was a black woman that she was able to do these feats of journalism. in traveling on truman's train across the country. and then ethel then travels outside of the country.

and so she becomes a black woman who's on an international stage with her writing. but she seems to be taking the international aspects of the world, of the world news and she's relating to people at home. could you just talk about how ethel payne on the world stage? >> well, when she left washington after being frozen out from the president from asking questions, she went to the front line first of the domestic struggle for civil rights, and her coverage in montgomery is extraordinary. long before the white press showed up, she perceived this extraordinary change in the lineup that was taking place -- in the leadership that was taking place. i want to read one sentence and then address the international thing. this was a report on february 15th when the bus boy cot was underway long before mainstream media would show up in montgomery. and on the ground this is why i think she's such a remarkable observer.

it's easier to see this years later. she noticed how men of the cloth were the ones who were now taking over the leadership. listen to this language. the new leader in the south she says he's neither an naacp worker, nor a cio political action field worker. instead, the gladiator wears a reverse collar a flowing roan and carries a bible in his hand. this new local fearless and forthright moses who is leading the people out of the wilderness is the negro preacher. i wanted to share that with you because i wanted to show you how perspective she was as a journalist in seeing that. and the next step she takes is she decides the black freedom struggle in the united states is not merely a domestic issue, it's an international issue. we use terms like decolonialization. it was simply the right of self-rule. so in '57 she goes to the ban doone conference which scared the heck out of the united states because here were folks that were meeting without the ussr and without the usa -- >> and who were these people?

>> well, the headlines would say the darker folks of the world is how it was in the defender. these were yet-to-be nations in africa and asian nations meeting on their own without the approval of the two ruling powers. this was a story that brawght richard wright, earth this them payne, all kinds of folks to cover it. and she went to ghana with nixon in 1957 where ironically it took a trip to ghana for nixon to meet martin luther king. ethel said be you really want to see the freedom struggling, why don't you come south. of he invited martin luther king to come to washington. she ended up going to africa at least 13 times, around world several times. and her always was the connection between self-determination of other countries and self-determination here. and in one of the great moments in her life very shortly before her death, she went to south africa to interview nelson mandela before well after he'd been freed.

one of the joys of spending several years studying ethel payne is she had a wonderful sense of humor, and she has this photograph of her with nelson mandela, and he's in his bathrobe, and she says, well a lot of folks got to interview him, i'm the only one who did so while he was in his pjs. [laughter] >> this is another thing, gloria, that the two women had in common. alice loved to travel too. she went to haiti, she went to israel, she went to a number of countries. this is a part of the book that i cut because i felt it was more important to focus on her trajectory her climb inching along as he put it in the words of the all negro spirit. inching along from the life of a dirt farmer down in kentucky to the heights of the male-dominated profession and the most exclusive enclaves of the press here in washington. so poor alice. but if anybody ever wants to

know, the book is in the library of congress. it's also available -- >> the original. >> the original is available online $255-$330. it's a rare book. but it's -- i think i kept the best part. i've been told i've kept the most adventurous and most exciting part, the most meaningful part. especially gloria, you mentioned earlier gender bias. if you look at where women are today in a male-dominated profession journalism, you'll see that we have been inching along. we have not reached the point where we should be. let's just take the median income of men and women in journalism as recorded two years ago and reported by nieman reports in a cover story last summer. where are the women? they reported that women are not where you'd expect them to be. >> and on that note, i'd like to move to two things as we begin

to close, because we have to have time for questions and answers, and i'm quite sure you have a lot of questions for the panel. but i also wanted to ask why do you think with these great achievements these women have fallen into obscurity in some ways? >> i don't think there are many people from the '40s and early '50s who are remembered. julian bond mentioned the other day that his students don't even know some of them, who george wallace is, let alone henry wallace. i mean really. henry wallace was vice president of the united states under roosevelt. he was a cabinet member. he ran for president under the progressive party. i think if i walked out of this building today and asked 100 people who was henry wallace, they wouldn't have a clue. so why should they remember a black female journalist? how many black print journalists do you know? how many print journalists period can you name today? am i right? you remember lovely, wonderful

people who are on tv like one of my favorites maureen bunion. you remember some of the -- [laughter] yes, yes. and you remember some of the great columnists from "the washington post" like dorothy gilliam. you remember jacqueline trescott but you don't remember a lot of people whose bylines were there when they were writing for the print. for print. >> so i'm hoping as jamie morris takes us into the close of this phase of our program, to peek of ethel -- to speak of ethel partnership. because it was not that longal that people were actually giving ethel payne many awards, and she was someone who was feted around the country. and then to have people struggle as to who ethel payne was and her role that she played in journalism. but also how did you come to write about ethel payne? >> well i'd written several books about journalists and i

was hunting for another project and i made, you know, the classic go to google and make a list of 100 famous journalists, and i kept crossing them off, and ethel payne was on the list. and i figured oh, somebody's already doing the story it's just too good. think of me as a reporter in this case, this is a great story, i i really need to get on. so i then checked with archives, and two of the archives had never processed them meaning they'd never been opened, so i knew no one else was working on it. so i set off to do it. and i did, i wanted to accomplish zell things with the -- several things with the book and the third was a surprise. the first was i wanted to write a biography of ethel payne, an extraordinary woman that led a life that was just fascinating and would tell an important story. but the title of the book was "eye on the struggle" because what i also wanted to do was provide modern day readers with a view of the civil rights movement through her eyes rather than the eyes of some white

historian 60 years later. my view is not important, i wanted to channel why her understanding of how the '57 civil rights act was being gutted was so important. and the third thing that occurred is that as, you know, in journalism you've got that famous nut paragraph where you're giving information to folks who don't know something. what i learned is how unaware white society is of black the black press and how important the black press was. and i kept having to rewrite this. and my editors both of whom were african-american, kept saying don't forget a lot of young black people don't know story. so i just simply decided no one knew the story of how important the black press was. and so that became the unintentional third purpose of this book. and i think the reason why somebody like ethel payne or alice dunnigan is not remembered today is a cruel fact of it's a legacy of segregation. most decisions about history in many respects still rest in the

hands of powerful white folks. mark blunt the historian always refers to how history is written by the campfire of the victor or the victor's campfire. and so, you know the whole issue of a history of the black press has been a long struggle to get out because of the kinds of prejudices that still exist in publishing today. so i think that's part of the reason. >> thank you. and so that was wonderful, and we're going to the move to q&a. [applause] >> so raise your hand, and i'll come around with a microphone. raise your hand. right over here. >> good evening. i'm barbra reynolds, and i'm just so happy this has taken place. i thank you so much, james, for coming to see me and putting me

in this book. i am so grateful. [laughter] because she was my mentor. i would not have come to washington if she hadn't said this is where real journalists have to be. my question. i don't know of many african-americans who crossed over to do stories about whites. you crossed over to do -- both of you -- to do stories about african-americans. and i was wondering, did you run into cultural barriers? was it difficult to bridge the finish -- because nuances are so important, and if you miss the nuance, you can miss the nut. so what was your experience in crossing over to -- >> well, i have the short answer barbra, so let me go first and then jamie. i didn't want to write alice's story. i could have taken that book, and i could have written a biography, i could have cherry picked all the wonderful stories in it, and there's one after the

other in it, and somebody will someday. somebody will write a biography do a movie whatever, of alice dunnigan, and they'll use her book. but i wanted her to have a chance to be heard first. and that is why this is an autobiography. this is not me crossing over. i'm telling at the beginning because the people who read the book for the publishers said, well, you have to tell as an editor how you happened to do this and how you edited it. so how i happened to do it was i found it because she was inb ducted the same night as my husband into the hall of fame. i had known her, i wanted to read the book. of when i read it i said this is compelling, riveting fascinating, and i am so delighted that everybody who has read it since has agreed. and how i edited it, i decided to focus on the trajectory but not to change her words. this is alice dunnigan telling

you, as she put it, uninhibited, unembellished, unvarnished the raw facts. reads more hike a novel than an autobiography, she says, but that's the way service. that's the way it was. >> payne never wrote her autobiography, so we don't have that as an they were. you know i was really nervous starting on this project. this is a quip but with it means something about my approach. i thought to myself at one point why can't a white bald guy write a book about a black woman who became famous going after a white bald president? [laughter] and that's the laughing answer but there's a serious answer about this and actually i wrote a piece for the daily beast about my experience doing this. there was some really tough issues. there's a very important story about ethel payne and her hair.

and i'm not only follicly challenged but, you know, that's a big gap to traverse, to be writing about an african-american woman's hair in the 1950s. so i got advice from a lot of people. i had a lot of folks from all different colors and creeds read these sections to make sure i was handling them right. what i actually learned the most wasn't about her culture, it was more about mine. in that i realized how, frankly racist my language was. you know i identify the three black reporters in the press corps in a press conference, but i never think do i need to mention that the president's white? that i was brought up with this gender assumption. i'm old enough that my grammar teacher taught me that if gender is in question in the sentence you put in "him." if i don't mention race the reader is going to presume that that person's white. those kinds of confrontations was ethel's gift to me. i also decided that something interesting she refers to her

transition of giving up on objectivity as a reporter because she was part of the story, and instead adopting a notion of fairness. what i bring to the book has the same kinds of problems so insteaded of trying to be purely -- instead of trying to be purely objective i adopted her credo of fairness. and lastly, biography is not history. biography is very much like a portrait painting. so this book would be fundamentally different if an older or a younger or a white woman or a black woman or, you know, name your combination wrote it because we bring to our canvass different experiences. but i think my ultimate judge was not the reviews i've gotten of the book. i mean, they matter to me because, you know, once you're in the public it kind of is nice if somebody says the work's good. what mattered to me mostly was, was i fair to her? and my approach was probably different if i was a different person, but i hope that my

portrayal of her was fair. >> my name is sonya ross, i am chair of the national association of black journalists political reporting task force and a direct beneficiary of ethel payne and alice dunnigan. my question is, okay we know that both of these ladies had severe difficulty with their colleagues in the white house press corps. i'm curious to know what you've perceived their take to be of their interactions, relationship competitiveness whatever you call it with their black male colleagues. the reality is we know they struggled, but i'd like to hear a little bit more detail on what those struggles involved. was it just purely gender clash or was it who gets to determine

what the priority is for the race? and the way that they presented the facts? >> and, sonya, you deserve credit for starting this part of it anyway because it was, this is sonya who nominated alice dunnigan for the hall of fame which started my interest in it. so no, it was not purely gender. alice's biggest problem with another member of the white house press corps was political. louie latier was such a republican that ethel called him a water boy for the republican party. and he criticized the two women in a column, he said that they were hell bent on a competition to see who could ask the president the longest question. [laughter] actually, the president didn't know peens about civil -- beans

about civil rights or any issues going on in his own government. so in order to ask him a question, you had to lay it out so he could be -- or you wanted to lay are it out so the other members of the press, as jamie mentioned, would have to take notice. you had to tell what story was. you couldn't just say, mr. president, what do you think about those russian missiles is? okay he knew what you were talking about. he didn't know what you were talking about when you talked about discrimination against blacks in the view of engraving unless you said what the issue was. louie latier, by the way after these women were ignored and ethel just stopped going alice kept on going and jumping up all the time. finally, louie latier's nnpa insisted that he ask some questions about or civil rights. 1956 1957, you had the brown case, and you have the battle of little rock, and here's a black reporter for a black news

service not asking any civil rights questions. so what does louie latier do? he stands up, and he just about apologizes. he says, mr. president, i have been requested to ask this question. yes, twice he did that. and then he goes on with the question as if don't beat me for asking you this don't get mad at me. shame on him. >> i'm a press club member and as you said the rise of the black press started when there was a vacuum of this information in the white press. and thankfully we live in a different age and we have black stories in the general press, we have black reporters everywhere. so my question for you is how do you see the role of the black press now? is it still as important as it

used to be? what is its job now that we live in a somewhat different age? >> i would think -- >> i don't think either one of us should be the ones that you direct this to. i will tell you only that there is the still a role for the black press today. i know this because i live with a man who was called the dean of the black press, and i've heard him say over and over again in interviews recently, yes, there is a role for the black press and, yes, it is very necessary. it has changed, but there is a role. >> if you don't mind my -- [laughter] i am a member of nabj and i'm also, as i said before, someone who writes for the black press and there is definitely an ongoing role for the black press. and that role may change as far as the type of communication the internet, so we have the root, and we have other forms of

relaying the information. but there's still if you look at it, there's sometimes two sides to the story. and even today if you look at the facts, you have one set of facts or a particular item of in covering the u.s. supreme court. we don't have laws that have on their face any race-based issues, but we can see that there could be a disparate impact or a type of effect on the black community from a law of the supreme court or a case from the supreme court, a ruling that would have a deeper impact on the black community that's not being seen or viewed that way by other press that is picked up by the black press. so i still think there's a viable role, and i still think the black press is necessary, and i'm a very proud member who writes for other press but also writes for the black press, and i think it's great to have those two. and i don't see us having one press that can speak for all of these different viewpoint at this point.

we have other press for oh communities -- for other communities, and i think there's an ongoing need. >> well we've, we've used up the hour which is longer than we normally go here, so i want to thank our panelists. let's have a big round of applause. ms. . [applause] this has been a fascinating really a fascinating evening and i'm so proud that we were able to have this here at the national press club. and thank you for your service. each of you is presented with the coveted highly coveted i might add, national press club mug. >> oh, thank you. >> and now, the moment that many of you have been waiting more, you have a chance to get the authors to sign your books. so here's how we're going to do it if we could start the line here and go this way, be you'd bring your book up, turn it to the fly leaf, i believe it was marked when you purchased your book, and then you can come up and have these authors sign your books. thank you very much for coming to the national press club. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations]

>> you're watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv television for serious readers. >> here are some programs to watch this weekend on booktv. pulitzer prize-winning historian eric phoner discusses the underground railroad on "after words." hassan hassan on the rise and leadership of isis in the middle east. booktv tours the literary sites of columbus, georgia, and talks with local authors. plus barney frank remembers his political career, and this year's national book critics circle awards. for a complete schedule visit booktv.org. booktv, 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors. television for serious readers.

>> the role for which the government was brought together to be of service to its people particularly at the federal level in this country and others for the purposes of national security, has kind of been broken in the internet age. so we have, for example, organizations of the u.s. government, the army navy air force, marines, who are responsible for protecting our national borders. they know how to do that, they've been doing can it, you know, for centuries. what does that look like in cyberspace? nobody really knows. the systems of control, border guards, gate guns, customs, immigrations, air traffic control, you know, all of that stuff doesn't work on the internet. and so they're struggling to figure out what it looks like. the branches of government that would protect us both at the nation-state level from a national security perspective and then also at the domestic level from a law enforcement perspective are completely broken by the internet, and they have not figured out any good ways to respond. and i'll talk about sort of on the policing side.

if you had a bank robbery here in manhattan in times square okay, guy walks in, holds up a teller walks out with a bag of money, what do we know about that crime? this is the csi c-span edition here. what do we know about that crime? we know that the criminal was physically present in the city of new york. that means midtown south has jurisdiction. the fbi will be involved. we know that the victim was in new york city, the criminal was in new york city. there's co-jurisdiction there. we know that there may have been evidence left behind because of fingerprints, dna, photographs taken at the scene. those were the good old days. now the very same crime could be committed by somebody in el salvador or someplace halfway around the world. and we have very little evidential trail to follow up on. and even if we did -- and i experienced this myself when i was a police officer -- if i identified that a suspect when i was with the police department

if i identified that the suspect was coming from paris, for example, do you know how hard it is for a lock cop to get evidence out of paris? it relies upon mutual legal assistance treaties. i had to go ahead and fill out a form that went to my chief of detectives, went to the lieutenant office of the chief of police, l.a. county sheriff california department of justice, fbi, over to the state department who would serve it on the french ministry of foreign affairs who would give it to the french home office, minister of justice would give it to the parisian police. that whole process was a two-year process to find out who's the opener of an up address -- owner of an ip address was. does it take two years to change an ip address? no, it takes about two seconds. so the systems are fundamentally mismatched, and from a public policy/legal perspective, regulatory perspective, we've got nothing on the horizon to sort this out. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org.

>> author van hip talks about his views on how to effectively deal with terrorism today next on booktv television for serious readers. [applause] >> a little bit higher if that's all right. smiling faces. we love to see you here. the east room is a duplicate you know a replica of the white house. only one difference it has an opening to an expansion back there in the back in case it gets too crowded in here and that does happen occasionally. ..

wall of ice and i want to encourage you to pick up this book the we are introducing. i have traveled as i said all over the united states but there is one state in particular is that just can't get past. that has always stood out there it is way down south but among all the states those are the friendliest people in the whole country. there is no getting a round it. even when i was a student at

duke university we would go to south carolina to buy fireworks. they were always friendly to us. that might have changed nowadays but the important part is the people. the people were always hospitable in every way. you couldn't imagine more from the people. even those of the opposite political persuasion. they would welcome you, hoping to change your mind. mostly because the president on the corner over it there was the one that persuaded that nixons in the nineteenth century. and and the rest of it comes naturally. and introduced me, a whole new

spectrum of people traveling from spartanburg and green ville all the way across the state through colombia and the coast. up to myrtle beach, please is we visited when we reach students at duke. the whole stage is an amazing amalgam of thinking people. they are willing to listen. i am amazed when i see people showing up. the author's family, his wife, james two, three children, jackson, dray camille. you notice that we also enjoy those double names. all over the south they like two names for a given name. in our family that wasn't so. julian and tricia were just

julien and tricia. since we got to this point of needing somebody in other parts of the south i discovered a very important person who my friends, my former personal assistant in the 72 reelection campaign and her husband spike. and those folks gather you in and you have to do this or that or meet this or that and have to get acquainted with them. i almost became a politician, they did introduce me to this video and i tell you, van hipp has lifted me every time i go to south carolina, driving across the state in his fancy jaguar. van hipp is one of my closest

friends. i watch him on television every chance i get. you ought to get accustomed to doing that yourself. he is an important thing verbage he thinks before he speaks and when he does say something, pay attention extremely important. coming out with this book is extremely important for everybody in the country to be. the rest of the world, we are going to wake up we have to wake up. too important to ignore any more. van hipp, please come forward and tell us what your ideas are. [applause] >> thank you and you know what? we have got to get you back to south carolina. i know a great fireworks store i want to take you to, and get you those fireworks. talk about hospitality. i want to thank the nixon

library and the staff for the tremendous hospitality that you have shown me here tonight. and all that went in to doing this book lunch. appreciate it and my good friend edward nixon 11, i, i appreciate you being here. the few years after 9/11, i was asleep one night and left the tv on and all of a sudden they were showing the last interview president nixon gave before he passed away. one of the last questions was mr. president, as we approach the 21st century, what should americans be most concerned with? president nixon did not bat an eye. he said the rise of islamic fanaticism. i got a chill up my spine.

i should not have been surprised because president nixon in one of his last books, seize the moment wrote and i quote when he was talking about is longest fundamentalists, quote, they are motivated by a consuming hatred of the west and determination to reach for the superiority of islamic civilization by resuscitating the past. they seek to impose the sharia the code of law based on the koran that recognizes no separation of church and state. i could go on and on. richard nixon was one of the best foreign policy presidents this country ever had and he was a visionary. [applause] >> it is fitting and proper is that the launch of this book, the new terrorism had to fight

it and defeat it being held at the nixon library tonight. why a book about this? those of you who have known me for some time, i wrote a lot of articles and did some tv appearances about iran and north korea the real link between those two countries on a missile technology, nuclear programs. a good friend of mine who worked in the reagan administration, a lot of books in north korea, a lot of books on iran. what we need and what you can do is a book about the totality of the threats to america and what it is going to take to keep america safe. that is the project i have been working on the last several years and why i am here tonight. one of the things whenever you are dealing with terrorism, the world on fire the live in today, you can never take anything for granted. you can't expect the expected.

the story is told of thomas do we who back in 1948 was favored in all of the polls to defeat than president harry truman. on election day he was -- with a latest polls out predicting a do we win by a landslide proportions, thomas dewey went to his wife and gave her a blank check and said honey, i want you to go out today and by the most expensive lingerie that money can buy it because tonight, tonight you are going to bed with the president of the united states. you know what happened. she did. and the polls close early returns came in it did not look good for tom dooley and it only got worse. by midnight it was obvious truman had won the election. he went to is hotel suite, the new york waldorf-astoria and they're in bed with her new beautiful lingerie on just staring at him was his wife.

tom, she said, is harry coming of revere or am i going over there? [laughter and applause] >> you can never expect the expected. don't take anything for granted. make no mistake. make no mistake. the threat of radical islam is the challenge of our time. osama bin laden him from a prominent family. in the book what i do and want to talk about tonight it is important that we understand the history of radical islam. what motivates islamists and look at the half rats, the real threats this country from electromagnetic pulse threats, things we need to do to secure

our border, you name it. how can we do this to keep america safe and do it in such a way the we don't go broke in the process doing it. that is what i want to do tonight. it is important to understand like i said the history behind what motivates radical islamists. since the fifteenth century, islamic scholars have wanted a return to their version of what they call the good old days, the profit muhammed and the caliphate. their belief their belief, the islamic nation which spread its influence to the entire world's infidels would convert and live as second-class persons. or be eliminated. the caliphate ceased to exist with the model destruction of baghdad in 1258. isis today has declared a

caliphate, one third roughly of cn and one third of iraq. september 11, 1683, the ottoman turks were defeated at the gates of vienna. that is what they're trying to do. that is as much to them, that was accumulating defeat almost as much as the 1492, the spanish, when they drove the morse out. present-day situation what do we do? i think that with king abdallah the recent events present a unique opportunity for the united states. we now have six moderate arab countries willing to take the fight to radical islam. king hussein knew what he was doing two or three days before he died when he named abdallah the crown prince. he had been the commander of

special forces of jordan. he had the support of the jordanian military. his wife is palestinian and that is important to realize because 70% of the population of jordan were not jordanians, the palestinians. he was the one guy who could hold it together. met king abdallah when he commanded the special forces in washington d.c. and later i was invited to go to the palace. when you go to the palace and king hussein was still looking at the time. go to the palace and when you see king abdallah, there is a family tree on wall hanging out that begins with a profit muhammed and goes all the way to king hussein, you see his kids, king of the law and so forth and they are proud of that. it was put together and research by a british colonel in the 1930s. i remember sitting there and looking at this and i looked up

and saw the profit mohammad. i saw one of his kids, it came straight down to king hussein and king abdallah. you going generation or two and you see where mohammad's relatives are buried and i made the comment looks like this line over here has more of the prophet mohammed in him to which king abdallah's aids said you mustn't say these things in the palace. i took the cue pretty quickly. stepping up to the plate, the president of egypt, seeing what he was doing, we have six moderate arab countries stepping up to the plate and who better on behalf of moderate and reform muslims to take the fight to radical islam than direct descendant of the profit mohammed. to borrow a line from president nixon's book, this is opportunity to seize the moment

for the united states and show real leadership. we have a problem. the fbi director testified a couple of weeks ago that in 49 of the 50 states in the united states there are active files, investigations of people with potential connections to isis, open cases. it is not just enough to destroy isis militarily, not enough to destroy the man to defeat them. we have to delegitimized them so that they do not reconstitute themselves and have the ability to come back. the late general sammy davis was a great friend of mine, probably the best general we had when it came to psychological operations. there was a time when i actually

-- humanitarian christian organization out of seattle, washington that when the pakistan earthquake occurred they wanted to get supplies and shelters to the people. long story short, they called me, they wanted to donate the stuff. i spoke to general davis and he said we will get it over a year. two days later, you coming over to put those up. i am not going to give you the airlift. it was a great experience for me to work with general davis. to get there for that day's work, made a turn of the small

pakistani village all of a sudden they couldn't go any further, there were 100 people with signs and can'ts, it didn't look like a good situation. mt. redoubt to what is going on. and he got back in. he said they are doing demonstrations to thank america for what america is doing for them in this earthquake. i learned a lot 3 general davis. one thing is he was a fan of a network our state department has to compete against the middle east networks that spiel anti-american veteran. we need to do more to support the network which really reaches a lot of young people in that part of the world into western values and western ideals. the other thing that was interesting, a big fan of lead austin said watch out for lower

at austin. general austin is the commander of send calm --centcmom today. general austin wanted to leave a small residual force to make sure did not reconstitute. the president did not listen to general austin. now we have much bigger problem on our hands. the 9/11 commission said that 9/11 was a failure of imagination. we keep fighting the last war. we keep responding to the last terrorist attack. we have got to get ahead of the curve. isis is a cancer, spreading radical islam, the cia estimates isis as 31, 32,000 troops. when you talk to curtis.

the cancer is spreading. think outside the box. in my book i talk about one of the world's largest uranium reserves. what could iranian be used for to make nuclear weapons. in my book a talk about the need to work with france. the need to work with the french to get those uranium reserves out. that is in the book. two weeks ago guess what happened. boca raton, indirect affiliate of al qaeda. to copy isis tactics, began border attacks. we have to think outside the box to get ahead of this. what i would like to do is talk about these threats, things that we can do, talk about how we do it in such a way so we don't go

broke in the process. border security. is so important. the fbi director robert miller said that 59,000 people were apprehended coming to the united states from countries other than mexico. they included yemen, somalia, iran syria, and i could go on and on. 59,000 apprehended. my question, where are the ones we did not apprehend, where are they today and what are they doing in america. border security is so important. the department of homeland security. to detect people writing and

radioactive substances. they arrive 96% fossilize with the united states military has great technology with an intended central programs. and direct the pentagon toward customs and border patrol, in the hands of the customs and border patrols so we can have a better capability. there is great technology that has been developed, in the oil and gas industry combining some of these cutbacks and the tunnels are increasing in frequency. we saw the situation with plants. and the radical muslims are doing a cartoon of muhammed comedy remember a few years ago

the danish cartoonists kurt western guard called for the assassination, actually there was an imam who called for his assassination, who had been banned from france, who had been banned from canada, called for the assassination of a danish cartoonist. we call him -- do you know what the united states called him? in the back of a truck of a bmw coming across the mexican border. border security is so important to this country. we have got to know who is coming in here. the other thing we can improve the lot is port and harbour security. i remember several years ago report on television british intelligence had reported that they had indications, al qaeda had underwater iec devices from the north koreans.

what would you be doing with underwater i e d devices? it is all about inflicting harm on our economy. in flicking harm on our economy. 50,000 mines out there right now. i talk to -- have been doing research for the book. i talk to a friend of mine who commanded to minesweepers. i was shocked to see the we don't have much capability on the east coast of the united states or the gulf of mexico. i also talk about the need to use these underwater autonomous vehicles. to do periodic tests of the ku routes of our seabeds and the ports and harbors to look at underwater iecs.

cybersecurity, dirk is what i call the fifth dimension of warfare. we have air, land, sea space and now we have cyber. the added dimensions of warfare, artificial. i will tell you tonight the united states is the most and prepared for cyberwar than any threat facing this country. it is almost like death by a thousand hacks if you will. the told this is taking right now on financial institutions of america. increasing the tax on wall street and financial institutions getting out of hand. in the book i distinguish between different types of cyberattacks. the chinese, as they usually, it is more about espionage. they want to steal your ip. the islamists, the iranians it

is about sabotage. they want to take your system is down. how we deal with different types of cyberattacks depends on who's doing it. in order to deal with the threat. the russians, the chinese love to do it for a proxy. that has nothing to do with it. 90% of tax we place in two groups, what is called the other would group in beijing and the other is coming through shanghai. strong ties to the chinese military. they have no connection no connection of these organizations. i say great. you have no connection with them. take you at your word, we will declare both of these organizations as cyberterrorists and go after them since you have nothing to do with them. let me tell you that will get

you your attention. we have to fight what i call a preventive war instead of a pre-emptive war. the old international rules, pre-emptive for basically say, you could preempt an attack only when you had reached the point of deliberation where there was nothing else you could do. if we fold those rules it is over with, they already attacked you. they have gone in and wiped out your ip, they shutdown banks. my concern is if we think the 2008 financial -- almost financial collapse in this country was bad in 2008 i believe the cyberattack on the financial institutions is one of the most vulnerable threats we have to deal with. the iranians, we have got to be strong and say if you do this we are going to cut your optical

cables. we are going to mess with the transponders, you won't have the internet. he said the kinds of things we have got to do. one of the top cybersecurity experts we have in this country says that america needs between 20,030,000 cyber security experts to deal with the most dangerous cyberattacks in this country. we only have a thousand. we have got to have a recruitment campaign in this country. one thing i call for is national security scholarships for young people who are excelling in cybersecurity and computer science in college as a way to get what we need. i was on neil cavuto today and he asked about the electromagnetic pulse. threat to this country. it is the very real threat. there is strong indications and evidence the north koreans may

actually have all electromagnetic pulse warhead. that was pointed out by the u.s. nuclear strategy board. what is this? are you just trying to scare people? electromagnetic pulse threat countries like north korea who know that they can't defeat the united states in a conventional military campaign. the thing about electromagnetic pulse, it would detonate at a high altitude nuclear device and basically take out our grip. the reports, the electromagnetic -- they have a like a magnetic pulse commission established by congress, they said after one year of no grid we would lose the substantial amount of population of the united states. farmers can't grow enough food today without electricity for the american population. how do you do your financial transactions? how do you refrigerate food?

for people who don't think elektra magnetic pulse attack is much of a possibility, look at the propulsion laboratory in pasadena, california says that it is inevitable. the next 10 to 100 years that we will have another geomagnetic storm on the sun which would take down the grid. there are ways we can deal with this, something called a shield act that would make sure we have enough transformers and so forth in storage ever is to act as lightning rods. even something called a recovery transformer, they are portable, we can transport them. bottom line there is a way to be prepared so that we can get the grid backup in the event of an emergency. one of the things i talk about too in the book, aviation security. we are always finding the last war, all is responding to the

last threat. one of the biggest concerns i have today is a -- as far as securing our skies are concerned or with these maned portable air defense systems. remember those sting years we had in afghanistan years ago, three to 600 stinger missiles we can't account for today. the state department says between 1966 and today, there were 1 million portable air defense systems made. most of them they can account with governments. there are several thousand today they cannot account for that they believe are in terrorist hands. we need to have jamming mechanisms on civilian aircraft. one aircraft goes down the direct cost to the economy, $1 billion in direct costs estimated at $15 million. we have got to have this

technology on our planes. one of the great tools we need to use i firmly believe, in how we do intelligence open source intelligence. what is that? open source is just that. once you get on the internet read the paper, tv, there are 10,600 tv stations in the world. 10,600 tv stations. so much open source stuff out there, we are not taking full advantage of. before 9/11 there was an aspen brown commission to look at national security issues and they said 90% of the good intelligence flow we need to comes from the open source but the intelligence community pays the least amount of attention to it. the former director of the intelligence agency, said the same thing that we need a

situation in the intelligence community where we have more sherlock holmes and less james bond. 90% of the stuff we need we are not going out to get it and 10%, this kind of stuff the james bond stuff. i tested this. i talk about it in the book. i went to a university. when you go to google, google gives you the most proper search. the most popular research. i went to the university, they had search engines in other languages and guess what we found in farsi in 2012 found that iranians were on the ground with a missile test. it had not been reported anywhere in the united states. also looking japanese and found the news agency ain story verify. i can go on and on.

on fox news, went on line, bill hemmer said it is the first time we heard this in the united states. i am a public citizen. i was able to get that. we need to take advantage of open source. missile defense. missile defense ties in to so much of this. ronald reagan knew what he was doing. dr. edward teller who sold ronald reagan on the idea of missile defense knew what he was doing. so many of these threats today so many of these threats today we can deal with with a good missile defense system for this country. we do not have in the west coast here you have a fairly good missile defense capability. there is no land-based missile defense system on the east coast. in the near-term to make up for

that. if they had radar capability for interceptors. when i was doing research, to see the late dr. jim edwards. i went to seek him, energy security on the tight end. it was a picture of dr. edward teller. the guy who sold reagan on the idea of missile defense as governor of california, i said dr. edwards is that edward teller, the nobel physics -- physicists and glorious? oh yes. told me a story that has never been in print before until tonight. it is in the book. ronald reagan, read on the campaign of missile defense

america's strategic defense initiative as they called it then. reagan became president, dr. thomas couldn't get in to see him. david stockman, director of the office of management and budget was keeping him away from president reagan because it would cost too much money. dr. teller knew dr. edwards and began to complain to jim edwards so it was a series of various meetings, edwards came up with a plan. the department of energy, we keep the original letters that albert einstein wrote to president roosevelt proposing the manhattan project. i want you to write a letter to president reagan about the strategic defense initiative for america. i will get that letter albert einstein wrote to franklin roosevelt. we are going to go around david stockman and go to president reagan. the rest is history. i call him the unsung hero of missile defense. one key thing not want to talk

about before i talk about victory without bankruptcy is energy. this country has got to be 100% energy independence and be able to sustain it. the u.s. energy information agency tells us that between now and 2040 we are going to see 56% increase of energy consumption. 85% of that is going to come from developing countries. when we give details and facts on this in the book. every time we buy oil in the mideast even from a country we think is a pro u.s. country. you can rest ashore a portion, access petrodollars. and a focus on their own people.

energy is so important. [applause] and also talk about the nuclear issue. we are at point that if we are going to be 100 percentage independent today, we have to have 20% of our energy coming from nuclear. the problem is 1% of our nuclear reactors have been built in the last 20 years. if we build 100 nuclear reactors the nine 2030 that would be what -- enough to replace what we got. we have got to build nuclear reactors. if we don't, what we are going to see coming with worldwide energy demand that is coming and the pressure on energy prices, we have got to be 100% energy dependence and the private terrorists of excess dollars.

how to be paid for all this. i call it victory without bankruptcy. franklin roosevelt was president his first term. he kept the army budget by 51%. guess who the chief of staff in the united states was, not anyone other than douglas macarthur. macarthur got into a discussion with the president and said basically to the effect that i just hope when america loses the next war and the bayonet is in a young american troop and the enemy has his foot on his neck, i wanted to be roosevelt and not macarthur, he said that and realize what he had done and offered his resignation to the president. franklin roosevelt said don't be foolish. we talk about -- we have bought $585 billion budget. there are things we can do to be

more efficient so that we can pay for things that we really need to in the war on terror and to win. my feeling, my concern is we cut in all the wrong places. when we go to pre world war ii levels, that sends the wrong message to bad people. some of the things that we can change contracting in the military reports have shown between 2001-2008 major acquisition programs $300 billion because of the way contracting is with the cost plus contracts, they keep adding stuff to that. prospect of tight system where you know i have got to do it for this announce. contractors are incentivize to get it done and make a profit,

through the end of the cold war, the military has decrease 30%, three and four star admirals with all the bureaucracy. we have more admirals in the navy than we have ships. that is a way to save some money. read the part of the book i want to talk about. the national guard. i am glad chris hall is you tonight and will we are doing with the national guard education, the founding fathers got it right with the citizens older concept and we can equipped three or four reserve soldiers. if we don't properly equipped them, that is back in the active structure, will cost taxpayers billions and billions of dollars. we talk about how to of alleged

a coming arms race and ways we can do that. we talk about that in the book. the other thing i talk about is there is a great program what is is this. the unmanned aerial vehicle concept, doing a bunch of research and develop, they get the buy in from major commands so they know they will field them and they saved a ton of money in the surge in development costs and get things fielded. things like that that we can do to save a lot of money and you know what we got to do? we have got to engage small business. that is what the ingenuity and innovativeness is litter is an organization that deals with -- spending billions of dollars dealing with i e ds, to defeat these explosive devices. i can't tell you how many times

i would get an invitation urging small businesspeople to come to an industry day and you must have a secret to get in there. they might have got the innovativeness and ingenuity that we might need for the next terrorist attack. i could go on and on but we can have victory without bankruptcy. edward gibbons wrote in his spare taft on ancient athens. they wanted freedom and security, they wanted a comfortable life. they lost it all. security, comfort and freedom, when a determined not to get this for society to get to them when the freedom they wished for most is freedom from responsibility. then athens ceased to be free.

will history when they say the same for us? america is the last best hope of freedom for mankind and today we are dealing with the challenge of the 21st century and my hope is that america will once again have the same resolve we had following 9/11 to do whatever it takes to keep america safe. i want to thank you very much for being here. [applause] >> thank you, van hipp. van hipp is going to take some questions. we will do a couple but i want to let everyone know we have the new terrorism for sale in the museum store, he has agreed to stick around to autograph copies of the conclusion so please pick one up. first question from this gentleman here. >> i am curious.

it seems to me everybody from here as at gas card at any time someone put gas in there, we are funding terrorism against their own country. why do we buy oil from opec? we have enough reserves to sustain ourselves. >> i agree and and a shell as well. i am for renewables. for any form of energy made in america. >> let me get to our next one here. >> yes, sir. >> thank you. have you sent a copy of this to the white house? >> i will say this. what we are dealing with, radical islam is let

equivalence, would be akin to franklin roosevelt in world war ii calling nazi fascism german aggression. >> next question is from william who is 20 years old. >> thank you for speaking this evening. my question for you is beyond the scholarship to increase cybersecurity for young people, when i awoke at my culture, my friends, people my age have a very negative view of the military and especially the armed forces and i am wondering what are some ways you would think of increasing the public image of the military and attracting more advanced mines? i recently went to a comedy show that made a joke that the military recruits from the same pool that mcdonald's does. i don't think we can accurately represent the defense force of this country if we don't have the greatest minds defending us. >> two points. one, in the book i do say that

education is a national security issue and it is important in our high schools, i don't think we teach american history like wheat used to in our high schools. people need to understand what our forefathers went through to build this country and give us the freedom we have today. one thing is technology. technologies good. i have my iphone and all kinds of apps but guess what. as technology changes and increases that is good. and bad people have access to new technologies too. the problem is our government is so stovepipe and we have seen it, we can't respond quick enough to the threats. as if the threat, as technology increases, the threats are increasing exponentially. this is a chance for young people to help this country but again i think we have got to do more in our schools and in the

high schools, getting back to what this country is. instilling in young people better sense of history of what america is about. >> next question from the gentleman in the front row. >> i appreciate everything you have said. i really enjoyed it. there's just one area i take issue with and that is nuclear energy. the reason i would is any nuclear accident, the radiation lasts at least 40,000 years. there is the element of human error, natural disaster and terrorism. i don't think we can afford to go into nuclear energy. >> nuclear -- a lot of people -- it is also a renewable energy as well. one of the great things that has come out of the military in recent years and i put this in

is a lack of radiation capability for the united states. as far as the united states is concerned i have dealt with a lot of people in the national laboratory and places like that. the united states we have come along way as the nuclear industry and i will tell you if we don't deal with this issue if we don't deal with this issue right now and the nuclear regulatory commission do you for your license and you can get renewed another 20 years. if we don't have a commitment to nuclear energy and we think we have problem is now having to buy oil and stuff overseas come twenty-third, we are going to have other problems and the terrorists are going to get more american money. that is my concern. >> we will take one more question and move to the front for the book signing. >> in the beginning you talked-about border security and my question is there is so much

conversation where everyone is talking over one another with regard to immigration. my question is if we simply took the existing laws and adhered to them, how bad the problem be? >> it would be in a lot better shape. i agree with you. >> one more. >> aspects for developments, scientific, engineering and otherwise, one thing we have to get away from his fear of the new things. we talk about our fear of nuclear energy and trying to contend with what we had years ago at oak ridge with story him instead of uranium.

>> why stick to uranium we don't need the bombs to make as independent and use for ian. far more cheaper, the indians and chinese are doing it. we have to wake up. >> thank you very much. ♪♪ ♪ >> this is booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers. here is our prime-time lineup, at 7:00 eastern, a princeton university professor robert george talks about his book conscience and its enemies.

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look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for the authors in the near future on booktv. >> in 2004, i was at the marine corps and did my first war as an embedded reporter in iraq and came back and noticed immediately getting off the plane in california feeling very different, going to a bar and looking over -- my best friend took me to this bar near the airport, went to this club. looking out over the people i could tell everyone was drinking and talking and socializing and as if nothing had changed, i

remember there was no particular reason to feel angry or upset. i had changed. i remember oddly not being suddenly very bored and not interested with what was going on and i left, went out to the used atm at a liquor store and one interesting thing about san diego is all of the liquor stores are run by iraqis so i went in and the owner of the score was from baghdad. i end duhduhduduh up talking with him. i was not really fitting in and what do i do? i walk next door and there is an iraqi so we start talking about baghdad and he was looking for work and let's go over so i say this very strange feeling of apartments from my earliest days returning in 2004. i was also a angry about the poor as it had been prosecuted.

i had seen marines who explained gross mismanagement, poor leadership and completely irrational policies of the making process. they have lost men as a result of this. and no wm d and i was in iraq, returned in july and a few months later in november george w. bush was reelected so for me that was the difficult process to understand that americans in light of everything that happened all their lives that had been exposed in 2003-2004, difficult for me to accept that people in the face of knowledge, that information, turn and reelect the person that had put

us there in the first place. as i began researching, i began to develop symptoms of my own. there was some movie theater in 2009, in an action film there was and i eat the explosion that resembles one that i was in and it was shot from the point of view of where i would be, so the cinematic experience was overwhelming for me and i blacked out and when i regained full consciousness i was in the hallway of the cineplex and went back to the theater, and there was this difficulty and i asked my girlfriend what happened, she said there was an explosion in the movie and you ran out. i began to sense on a personal level that not all was right upstairs and i did not have full control of my memories. one marine i interviewed for this book told me having p t s d was like having memories gone wild, a take on their own life.

and at the personal level also a historical entity. a lot of marines, thought of p t s d as a cop out, a short cut to have and not more full, authentic, honest emotional engagement with your service and postwar service. we started looking into a and having these symptoms. what i discovered was the original people who fought for the pds the diagnosis in the 70s felt similarly, the founder of this group vietnam veterans against the war, the pds the diagnosis. the founder in his view there was no distinction to be made

between the politics of vietnam and our personal psychological struggle and out of that acknowledgment came the pds the diagnosis. >> this and other programs online at booktv.org. here's a look at upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. this weekend booktv is at the virginia festival of the booking charlottesville, va.. look for these programs in coming weekend from march 25th through the 29 the city of new orleans host the tennessee williams literary festival. on april 18th and nineteenth booktv will be live from the university of southern california for the 22 manuel los angeles times festival of books 1 university of southern california for the 22 manuel los angeles times festival of books and this year's publishing industry convention book expo america will be held from may 27th through the 2019 new york city. let us know about the fears and festivals happening in your area and we will be happy to add them to our list.

e-mail us at booktv@c-span.oail. >> here are some of our featured programs for this weekend on c-span network. .. >> including artifacts related to president lincoln's assassination. find our complete television schedule at c-span.org, and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching.