school. and then in october, one evening, we had dinner with two people who identified themselves as former nsa officials and after dinner we were driven somewhere northwest of washington it was pitch black to a house and as we approached the house, and as soon as the door opened the phone rang and one of the two men picked up the phone and then turned to my husband and said, i've got an errand to run. i would you come with me? leaving me behind with the second person. we went into the sunroom and he said to me, your husband is doing work of great importance to the united states government. we'd like to -- i'd like to tell you more about the nature of that work. but before i do, i need you to sign this document. i was recovering from pneumonia

but we didn't know how to cancel the appointment, so i was still feverish, but i'm the daughter of several lawyers and i know that i'm supposed to read fine print, only it was so fine and i just jumped all the page, but at that point the important point is i had no reason to distrust the united states government as quaint as that may sound -- >> host: this is 1955. >> guest: 1965. no reason, nor did i have any idea what he was going to say. so i signed and then i kind of -- catch words of this. he said the united states government has to support france in its war against the algerian revolutionaries, but it behooves us to get to know the revolutionary's future leaders and this is part of what he is doing itch didn't have a clue why the united states had to support france. i didn't know there were

algerian revolutionaries but the most important thing at that moment i retained is the word "behoove" every time i heard that word for the rest of my life the hair on the back of my head would stand up. so he explained that basically he was the deputy director of the cia covert action five, the man who had taken my husband out on a phony errand was robert kiley, the director of action 5. i don't have words to describe how stunning a revelation this was, and i didn't have any -- i didn't work for nsa, so i didn't have any responsibilities but my husband suddenly had a case officer, a code name, and reporting requirements. >> host: what was his code name? >> guest: his code name was -- his case officer's code name

who was mail, was aunt alice. his code name was -- i believe -- sinclair, from sinclair lewis, can't happen here. >> host: and he had to sign one of these oaths also. >> guest: he had undergone the same ritual a week or so before i was but they always did this -- they took the wives out to undergo the same rite to all because they worried about pillow talk. they didn't want to leave the wives uncovered as it were. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> each month, oklahoma representative tom cole releases a reading list. he is currently reading nixon

and mao by marge great mcmillan which looks at the diplomatic relationship between the united states and china. in the 1972 meeting between the leaders of the two countries. he recommends coke can i roberts' explore asia of the influence of women on the founding generation. next on the list is a biography of pioneering aviator amelia earhart by doris rich. and also the story of actress mary francis thompson who as a representative of the chickasaw nation provedor at state dinners for a president roosevelt and was named oklahoma's first state treasurer in 1987. next is this million more, managing martians, by donna shirley who spent 35 years as an arrow space engineer in which she led the team creating the sojourner mars rover, and finishing all the list is a look at the life of cleopatra. so see what another book

congressman coll has recommended, visit coal/house.gov. >> here's our primetime lineup. tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern the argument that's first amendment was created to protect the democratic process. not individual rights. at 7:30 princeton university's patricia kelly talk about how poor people in baltimore are created by the government. then at 8:00, the cargoment hat china is not overtaking the united states as the supreme global power. followed by author john ronson's take on public shaming at 9:00 p.m. eastern. on "after words" at 10:00, grow very nordquist discusses his critique of the internal revenue service. and we wrap up our primetime lineup at 11:00 with report putnam. he questions whether the idea of the american dream is head in his book "our kids.

"happens tonight on c-span2's book tv. >> could the development of these missiles have been prevented? there might have been opportunities. one suggest education is a proposal by stalin in 1952, offering to allow germany to be unified with free elections on condition that it not join a hostile military alliance, which was hardly an extreme condition in the light of the history of the preceding half century. stalin's proposal was taken seriously by the respected political commentator, james warberg, but apart from him it was ignored or ridiculed. actually recent scholarship has

just begun to take david view. a soviet scholar, takes the status of stalin's proposal to be an unresolved mystery. washington, he said wasted little effort and flatly rejecting moscow's initiative on grounds that were embarrassingly unconvincing leaving open the basic question was stalin genuinely ready to sacrifice the newly created german democratic republic, east germany, on the the altar of peace and security that could have been enormous. melvin leffler is one of the most respected cold war scholars that recently published a review of research in a released soviet archives. he observes that many scholars were surprised to discover quoting him, the head of the

secret police proposed the kremlin offered the west a deal on the unification and neutralization of germany, agreeing to sacrifice the east german communist regime to reduce east-west tensions, and improve internal political and economic conditions in russia, opportunities that were squandered in favor of securing german participation in nato. ...

this is about 45 minutes. [applause] >> thank you so much. [applause] thank you so much for that wonderful introduction. good afternoon. that was pretty weekend unacceptable. let's try that one more time good afternoon. >> good afternoon. i appreciate that introduction. i we will i we will shift